THE WRITINGS OF 
 HENRY DAVID THOREAU 
 
 IN TEN VOLUMES 
 VOLUME IX 
 
 
 ^v 
 
 O> 
 
w 
 
 
EXCURSIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 HKNRY DAVID THOREAU 
 
 
 m 
 
 nOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFI.IN AND COMPANY 
 bc flrtjcrfibr prrtf, 
 
 M DCCC XCIV 
 
Lj^jLBbja*? 
 
 
 Copyright, 1863 and 18CG, 
 BY TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 
 Copyrigl^ 1893, 
 Br HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN A CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Rirtrtidf Prett, Cambridge, Mat*., U.S.A. 
 Ktoctrotyped *ud FrinUd by H. O. Hougbton & Con, F ny. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FACE 
 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE . 
 
 I 
 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 . 
 I. Concord to Montreal 
 
 II. Quebec and Montmorenci 
 
 49 
 
 III. St. Anne 
 
 IV. The Walla of Quebec 
 
 ,v of Quebec; and the River St. 
 
 105 
 
 1 "~ 
 
 NATURAL HIMTOKY OF MjUMACHOTBmf 
 A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 THK LANDLORD . 
 A WINTER WALK . 
 
 O*)>* 
 
 THE SUCCFJMION or FORKMT TREE*. 
 
 .WALKING 
 
 305 
 .AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 . STirt 
 WILD APPLKS 
 
 NlOHT AND MOONUOHT . 
 
 MAV DAY. 41 
 
 - 
 DAYH AM> NIOHTB IN COMX>RD 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 THE title given to this volume is the same 
 as that used in 1803 when, shortly after Tho- 
 reau s death, his sister collected for Messrs. 
 Ticknor & Fields a number of his fugitive 
 pieces and prefaced the volume with a biograph 
 ical sketch by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The 
 contents of the two volumes are with a few 
 exceptions the same, the chief differences being 
 that Mr. Emerson s sketch precedes the final 
 volume of the series, and A Yankee in Can 
 ada, formerly published in a volume with Anti- 
 Slavery and fteform Papers, is made here the 
 first in the series of Excursions. 
 
 Thoreau made this excursion with his friend 
 Ellery Channing, and sent his narrative to Mr. 
 Greeley, who wrote him regarding it, March 
 18, 1852, "I shall get you some money for the 
 articles you sent me, though not immediately. 
 As to your long account of a Canadian tour, 
 1 don t know. It looks unmanageable. Can t 
 you cut it into three or four, and omit all that 
 relates to time? The cities are cltwrilwd to 
 death, but 1 know you are at home with Nature, 
 
vin INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 and that die rarely and slowly changes. Break 
 this up, if you can, and I \vill try to have it 
 swallowed and digested." Thoreau appears to 
 have taken Greeley s advice, and the narrative 
 was divided into chapters. But after it had 
 been begun in Putnam s in January, 1853, 
 where it was entitled Excursion to Canada , 
 the author and the editor, who appears from the 
 following letter to have been Mr. G. W. Cur 
 tis, disagreed regarding the expediency of in 
 cluding certain passages, and Thoreau withdrew 
 all after the third chapter. The letter is as 
 follows: 
 
 NEW YORK, January 2, 1853. 
 
 FRIEND THOREAU. ... I am sorry you and 
 C. cannot agree so as to have your whole J/>S . 
 printed. It will be worth nothing elsewhere 
 after having partly appeared in Putnam s. I 
 think it is a mistake to conceal the authorship 
 of the several articles, making them all (so to 
 speak) editorial ; but (/that is done, don t you 
 see that the elimination of very flagrant heresies 
 (like your defiant Pantheism) becomes a neces 
 sity ? If you had withdrawn your MS. on ac 
 count of the abominable misprints in the first 
 number, your ground would have been far more 
 tenable. However, do what you will. Yours, 
 
 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
INTnODUCTORY NOTE ix 
 
 Natural History of Massachusetts was con 
 tributed to The Dial, July, 1842, nominally 
 as a review of a recent state report. A Walk 
 to Wachusett was printed in The Boston Mis- 
 cdlany, 1843. Mr. Sanborn, in his volume on 
 Thoreau, prints a very interesting letter written 
 by Margaret Fuller in 1841, in criticism of tf* 
 verses which stand near the beginning of the 
 paper offered at that time for publication in 
 The Dial. The Landlord was printed in The 
 Democratic Review for October, 1843. A Win 
 ter Walk appeared in The Dial in the same 
 month and year. Emerson in a letter to Tho 
 reau, September 8, 1843, says : "I mean to send 
 the Winter s Walk to the pri nter to-morrow for 
 The Dial. I had some hesitation about it, not 
 withstanding its faithful observation and its 
 fine sketches of the pickerel-fisher and of the 
 woodehopper, on account of mannerism, an old 
 charge of mine, as if, by attention, one could 
 get the trick of the rhetoric; for example, to 
 call a cold place sultry, a solitude public, a wil 
 derness domestic (a favorite word), and in the 
 woods to insult over cities, armies, etc. By 
 pretty free omissions, however, I have removed 
 my principal objections/ 1 The address, The 
 Succession of Forest Trees, was printed first 
 in The New York Weekly Tribune, October 6, 
 
x INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 1860, and was perhaps the latest of his writings 
 which Thoreau saw in print. 
 
 After his death the interest which had already 
 been growing was quickened by the successive 
 publication in The Atlantic Monthly in 18G2 
 of Autumnal Tints (October), Wild Apples 
 (November), and Night and Moonlight (Novem 
 ber, 18G3). The last named appeared just be 
 fore the publication of the volume Excursions 
 which collected the several pai>ers, but, as Chan- 
 ning remarks, though the contents of the volume 
 had all been printed before, and some had been 
 used also as lectures, they "are really descrip 
 tions drawn from his journals." 
 
 J\Iay Days has appeared before only in The 
 Atlantic for May, 1878. Days and Nights in 
 Concord was published in Scribner s Monthly , 
 September, 1878. The time of the year covered 
 by these last named extracts is that of August 
 and September, and falls for the most part be 
 tween the two volumes Summer and Autumn. 
 Other extracts from the journal occur in a 
 somewhat mosaic form in Thoreau^ the Poet 
 Naturalist, by W. Ellery dimming. 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 44 New England to by some affirmed to be an inland, bounded on the 
 north with the Hirer Canada (o called from Mon&ieur Cane)." 
 un* 
 
 And rtlll older, in Thomas Morton s " New English Canaan," published 
 In 1(3-2, it is aaid, on page 97, " From this Lake [Erocoiae] Northward* is 
 derived the faroou* River of Canada, o named, of Monaier de Cane, a 
 French Lord, who first planted a Colony of French in America." 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 CHAPTKR I 
 CONCORD TO MONTREAL 
 
 I FEAR that I have not got much to say about 
 Canada, not having seen much ; what I got by 
 going to Canada was a cold. I left Concord, 
 Massachusetts, Wednesday morning, September 
 25th, 1850, for Quebec. Fare, seven dollars 
 there and back ; distance from Boston, five hun 
 dred and ten miles; being obliged to leave Mon 
 treal on the return as soon as Friday, Octol>er 
 4th, or within ten days. I will not stop to tell 
 the reader the names of my fellow-travelers; 
 there were said to be fifteen hundred of them. 
 I wished only to be set down in Canada, and 
 take one honest walk there as I might in Con 
 cord woods of an afternoon. 
 
 The country was new to me beyond Fitehburg. 
 In Ashburnham and Afterward, as we were 
 whirled rapidly along, I noticed the woodbine 
 (ArnpelojmiH (jHinqitcfolia), its leaves now 
 changed, for the most part on dead trees, drap 
 ing them like a red scarf. It wan a little excit- 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 ing, suggesting bloodshed, or at least a military 
 life, like an epaulet or sash, as if it were dyed 
 with the blood of the trees whose wounds it was 
 inadequate to staneh. For now the bloody au 
 tumn was come, and an Indian warfare was 
 waged through the forest. These military trees 
 appeared very numerous, for our rapid progress 
 connected those that were even some miles 
 apart. Does the woodbine prefer the elm? 
 The first view of Monadnock was obtained five 
 or six miles this side of Fitzwilliam, but nearest 
 and best at Troy and beyond. Then there were 
 the Troy cuts and embankments. Keene Street 
 strikes the traveler favorably, it is so wide, 
 level, straight, and long. I have heard one of 
 my relatives, who was born and bred there, say 
 that you could see a chicken run across it a mile 
 off. I have also been told that when this town 
 was settled they laid out a street four rods wide, 
 but at a subsequent meeting of the proprietors 
 one rose and remarked, "We have plenty of 
 land, why not make the street eight rods wide? 
 and so they voted that it should be eight rods 
 wide, and the town is known far and near for 
 its handsome street. It was a cheap way of se 
 curing comfort, as well as fame, and I wish that 
 all new towns would take pattern from this. It 
 is best to lay our plans widely in youth, for then 
 land is cheap, and it is but too easy to contract 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 5 
 
 our views afterward. Youths so laid out, with 
 broad avenues and parks, that they may make 
 handsome and liWral old men! Show me a 
 youth whose mind is like some Washington city 
 of magnificent distances, prepared for the most 
 remotely successful and glorious life after all, 
 when those spaces shall be built over and the 
 idea of the founder be realized. I trust that 
 every New England boy will begin by laying 
 out a Keene Street through his head, eight rods 
 wide. I know one such Washington city of a 
 man, whose lots as yet are only surveyed and 
 staked out, and, except a cluster of shanties here 
 and there, only the Capitol stands there for all 
 structures, and any day you may see from afar 
 his princely idea borne coachwise along the 
 spacious but yet empty avenues. Keene is built 
 on a remarkably large and level interval, like 
 the bed of a lake, and the surrounding hills, 
 which are remote from its street, must afford 
 some good walks. The scenery of mountain 
 towns is commonly too much crowded. A town 
 which is built on a plain of some extent, with 
 an opt-ii linii/.on, and surrounded by hills at a 
 distance, att i.nl- the. best walks and views. 
 
 As we travel northwest up the country, sugar- 
 inaples, beeehos, birches, hemlocks, spruce, but 
 ternuts, and ash trees prevail more and more. 
 To the rapid traveler the number of elms in a 
 
6 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 town is the measure of its civility. One man 
 in the cars has a bottle full of some liquor. 
 The whole company smile whenever it is exhib 
 ited. I find no difficulty in containing myself. 
 The Westmoreland country looked attractive. 
 I heard a passenger giving the very obvious de 
 rivation of this name, West-more-land, as if it 
 were purely American, and he had made a dis 
 covery; but I thought of "my cousin Westmore 
 land " in England. Every one will remember 
 the approach to Bellows Falls, under a high cliff 
 which rises from the Connecticut. I was disap 
 pointed in the size of the river here; it appeared 
 shrunk to a mere mountain stream. The water 
 was evidently very low. The rivers which we 
 had crossed this forenoon possessed more of the 
 character of mountain streams than those in the 
 vicinity of Concord, and I was surprised to see 
 everywhere traces of recent freshets, which had 
 carried away bridges and injured the railroad, 
 though I had heard nothing of it. In Ludlow, 
 Mount Holly, and beyond, there is interesting 
 mountain scenery, not rugged and stupendous, 
 but such as you could easily ramble over, 
 long, narrow, mountain vales through which to 
 see the horizon. You are in the midst of the 
 Green Mountains. A few more elevated blue 
 peaks are seen from the neighborhood of Mount 
 Holly, perhaps Killington Peak is one. Some- 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 1 
 
 times, as on the Western Railroad, you arc 
 whirled over mountainous embankments, from 
 which the seared horses in the valleys appear 
 diminished to hounds. All the hills blush; I 
 think that autumn must be the l>est season to 
 journey over even the Green Mountains. You 
 frequently exclaim to yourself, what red maples! 
 The sugar-maple is not so red. You see some 
 of the latter with rosy spots or cheeks only, 
 blushing on one side like fruit, while all the rest 
 of the tree is green, proving either some partial 
 ity in the light or frosts, or some prematurity in 
 particular branches. Tall and slender ash- 
 trees, whose foliage is turned to a dark mulberry 
 color, are frequent. The butternut, which is a 
 remarkably spreading tree, is turned completely 
 yellow, thus proving its relation to the hicko 
 ries. I was also struck by the bright yellow 
 tints of the yellow birch. The sugar-maple is 
 remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of 
 these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their 
 branches stopping short at a uniform height, 
 four or five feet from the ground, like eaves, as 
 if they had lieen trimmed by art, so that you 
 could look under and through the whole grove 
 with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose cur 
 tain is raised. 
 
 As you approach Lake Champlain you begin 
 to see the New York mountains. The first view 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 of the Lake at Vergennes is impressive, but 
 rather from association than from any peculiar 
 ity in the scenery. It lies there so small (not 
 appearing in that proportion to the width of the 
 State that it does on the map), but beautifully 
 quiet, like a pie-ture of the Lake of Lucerne on 
 a music-box, where you trace the name of Lu 
 cerne among the foliage; far more ideal than 
 ever it looked on the map. It does not say, 
 Here I am, Lake Champlain," as the conductor 
 might for it, but having studied the geography 
 thirty years, you crossed over a hill one after 
 noon and beheld it. But it is only a glimpse 
 that you get here. At Burlington you rush to 
 a wharf and go on board a steamboat, two hun 
 dred and thirty-two miles from Boston. We 
 left Concord at twenty minutes before eight in 
 the morning, and were in Burlington about six 
 at night, but too late to see the lake. We got 
 our first fair view of the lake at dawn, just be 
 fore reaching Plattsburg, and saw blue ranges 
 of mountains on either hand, in New York and 
 in Vermont, the former especially grand. A 
 few white schooners, like gulls, were seen in the 
 distance, for it is not waste and solitary like a 
 lake in Tartary; but it was such a view as 
 leaves not much to be said; indeed, I have post 
 poned Lake Champlain to another day. 
 
 The oldest reference to these waters that I 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 11 
 
 have yet there a solid, red-faced, burly-looking 
 covery ai ian , a little pursy perhaps, who made 
 1585. Sfed of ourselves and our thin and ner- 
 and padiitrymen, a gnndfaiherly personage, 
 years befjn his great-eoat, who looked as if he 
 panying a stage proprietor, certainly a railroad 
 against and knew, or had a right to know, 
 in it as , e cars did start. Then there were two 
 ant, <e pale-faced, black-eyed, loquacious 
 Indians.n French gentlemen there, shrugging 
 from thudders ; pitted as if they had all had the 
 land, tljx. In the mean while some soldiers, 
 tinuingcg, belonging to the barracks near by, 
 the wej.rned out to be drilled. At every impor- 
 the ea m t in our route the soldiers showed them- 
 tbW ready for us ; though they were evidently 
 the sa raw recruits here, they manoeuvred far 
 They than our soldiers ; yet, as usual, I heard 
 I roqm Yankees talk as if they were no great 
 beaut,, aiu l they had seen the Acton Blues ma- 
 as I l re as well. The officers spoke sharply to 
 of otl an d appeared to be doing their part thor- 
 whal y. I heard one suddenly coming to the 
 Tl exclaim, i% Michael Donouy, take his 
 and J " though I could not see what the latter 
 of tl, r omitted to do. It was M Insured that 
 Donouy would have to suffer for that. 
 gome of our party discussing the jwssi- 
 Poiy O f their driving these troops off the Held 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 of the Lake at Vergennes is impress. 1 * 68 
 rather from association than from any jt- Heu, or 
 ity in the scenery. It lies there so sn where I 
 appearing in that proportion to the wid l( * moun - 
 State that it does on the map), but be. two na ~ 
 quiet, like a picture of the Lake of Lu > in the 
 a music-box, where you trace the name and M 
 cerne among the foliage; far more idej n inter 
 ever it looked on the map. It does i~ e(ls or 
 44 Here I am, Lake Champlain," as the cof^P 8 in 
 might for it, but having studied the g eo ression - 
 thirty years, you crossed over a hill one two or 
 noon and beheld it. But it is only a g York - 
 that you get here. At Burlington you i 8 * 118 * 
 a wharf and go on board a steamboat, tw. ul(lrecl 
 dred and thirty-two miles from Boston. v -f ur 
 left Concord at twenty minutes before ei/ at we 
 the morning, and were in Burlington abo lse of 
 at night, but too late to see the Lake. ^\ n - Iik 
 our first fair view of the lake at dawn, jV f the 
 fore reaching Plattsburg, and saw blue r: new 
 of mountains on either hand, in New Yorl/ the 
 in Vermont, the former especially grand l ^ s ^ 
 few white schooners, like gulls, were seen ir fc ^ e 
 distance, for it is not waste and solitary If 6 to 
 lake in Tartary; but it was such a vie^ ntle " 
 leaves not much to be said ; indeed, I have p ^ ou 
 poned Lake Champlain to another day. Ivss 
 The oldest reference to these waters thu see 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 11 
 
 here and there a solid, red-faced, burly-looking 
 Englishman, a little pursy perhaps, who made 
 us ashamed of ourselves and our thin and ner 
 vous countrymen, a grandfatherly personage, 
 at home in his great-coat, who looked as if he 
 might be a stage proprietor, certainly a railroad 
 director, and knew, or had a right to know, 
 when the cars did start. Then there were two 
 or three pale-faced, black-eyed, loquacious 
 Canadian French gentlemen there, shrugging 
 their shoulders ; pitted as if they had all had the 
 small-pox. In the mean while some soldiers, 
 red -coats, belonging to the barracks near by, 
 were turned out to be drilled. At every impor 
 tant point in our route the soldiers showed them 
 selves ready for us; though they were evidently 
 rather raw recruits here, they manoeuvred far 
 better than our soldiers ; yet, as usual, I heard 
 some Yankees talk as if they were no great 
 shakes, and they had seen the Acton Blues ma- 
 DGBUvre as well. The officers sj>oke sharply to 
 them, and appeared to be doing their part thor 
 oughly. I heard one suddenly coming to the 
 rear, exclaim, "Michael Donouy, take his 
 name ! " though I could not see what the latter 
 did or omitted to do. It was \\ Insured that 
 Michael Donouy would have to suffer fur that. 
 I heard some of our party discussing the jwssi- 
 iilityof their driving these troops off the field 
 
12 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 with their umbrellas. I thought that the Yankee, 
 though undisciplined, had this advantage at 
 least, that he especially is a man who, every 
 where and under all circumstances, is fully re 
 solved to better his condition essentially, and 
 therefore he could afford to be beaten at first ; 
 while the virtue of the Irishman, and to a great 
 extent the Englishman, consists in merely main 
 taining his ground or condition. The Canadians 
 here, a rather poor-looking race, clad in gray 
 homespun, which gave them the appearance of 
 being covered with dust, were riding about in 
 caleches and small one-horse carts called cha- 
 rettes. The Yankees assumed that all the riders 
 were racing, or at least exhibiting the paces of 
 their horses, and saluted them accordingly. We 
 saw but little of the village here, for nobody 
 could tell us when the cars would start ; that was 
 kept a profound secret, perhaps for political 
 reasons ; and therefore we were tied to our seats. 
 The inhabitants of St. John s and vicinity are 
 described by an English traveler as "singularly 
 unprepossessing," and before completing his pe- 
 riod he adds, "besides, they are generally very 
 much disaffected to the British crown." I sus 
 pect that that "besides " should have been a be 
 cause. 
 
 At length, about noon, the cars began to roll 
 towards La Prairie. The whole distance of tif- 
 
TO MONTREAL 13 
 
 teen miles was over a remarkably level country, 
 resembling a Western prairie, with the moun 
 tains about Chambly visible in the northeast. 
 This novel but monotonous scenery was exeit- 
 in-. At La Prairie we first took notice of the 
 tinned roofs, but above all of the St. Lawrence, 
 which looked like a lake ; in fact it is consider 
 ably expanded here; it was nine miles across 
 diagonally to Montreal. Mount Royal in the 
 rear of the city, and the island of St. Helen s 
 opposite to it, were now conspicuous. We 
 could also see the Sault St. Louis about five 
 miles up the river, and the Sault Norman still 
 farther eastward. The former are described 
 as the most considerable rapids in the St. Law 
 rence; but we could see merely a gleam of light 
 there as from a cobweb in the sun. Soon the 
 city of Montreal was discovered with its tin 
 roofs shining afar. Their reflections fell on the 
 eye like a clash of cymbals on the ear. Above 
 all the church of Notre Dame was conspicuous, 
 and anon the Bonsecours market-house, occupy 
 ing a commanding position on the quay, in the 
 rear of the shipping. This city makes the more 
 favorable impression from l>eing approached by 
 water, and also being built of stone, a gray 
 limestone found on the island. Here, after 
 traveling directly inland the whole breadth of 
 New England, we had struck upon a city s bar- 
 
14 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 bor, it made on me the impression of a sea 
 port, to which ships of six hundred tons can 
 ascend, and where vessels drawing fifteen feet 
 lie close to the wharf, five hundred and forty 
 miles from the Gulf; the St. Lawrence being 
 here two miles wide. There was a great crowd 
 assembled on the ferry-boat wharf and on the 
 quay to receive the Yankees, and flags of all 
 colors were streaming from the vessels to cele 
 brate their arrival. When the gun was fired, 
 the gentry hurrahed again and again, and then 
 the Canadian caleche-drivers, who were most 
 interested in the matter, and who, I perceived, 
 were separated from the former by a fence, hur 
 rahed their welcome; first the broadcloth, then 
 the homespun. 
 
 It was early in the afternoon when we stepped 
 ashore. With a single companion, I soon found 
 my way to the church of Notre Dame. I saw 
 that it was of great size and signified something. 
 It is said to be the largest ecclesiastical struc 
 ture in North America, and can seat ten thou 
 sand. It is two hundred and fifty-five and a 
 half feet long, and the groined ceiling is eighty 
 feet above your head. The Catholic are the 
 only churches which I have seen worth remem 
 bering, which are not almost wholly profane. 
 I do not speak only of the rich and splendid like 
 this, but of th humblest of them as well. Com- 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 15 
 
 ing from the hurrahing mob and the rattling 
 carriages, we pushed aside the listed door of 
 this church, and found ourselves instantly in 
 an atmosphere which might be sacred to thought 
 and religion, if one hud any. There sat one or 
 two women who had stolen a moment from UK? 
 concerns of the day, as they were passing; but, 
 if there had been fifty people there, it would 
 still have been the most solitary place imagina 
 ble. They did not look up at us, nor did one 
 regard another. We walked softly down the 
 broad aisle with our hats in our hands. Pres 
 ently came in a troop of Canadians, in their 
 homespun, who had come to the city in the boat 
 with us, and one and all kneeled down in the 
 aisle before the high altar to their devotions, 
 somewhat awkwardly, as cattle prepare to lie 
 down, and there we left them. As if you were 
 to catch some farmer s sons from Marlboro, 
 come to cattle-show, silently kneeling in Con- 
 r.ml iiir.-tin^-liousr snin.- \\Ydnrs.lay \ Would 
 there not soon be ;i mol. peeping in at the win 
 dows? It is true, th.se Roman Catholics, 
 priests and all, impress me as a people who have 
 fallen far behind the significance of their syra- 
 IK>!S. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church 
 and were trying to bethink himself. Neverthe 
 less, they are capable of reverence; but we 
 Yankees are a jK^ople in whom this sentiment 
 
16 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 has nearly died out, and in this respect we can 
 not l>ethink ourselves even as oxen. I did not 
 mind the pictures nor the candles, whether tal 
 low or tin. Those of the former which I looked 
 at appeared tawdry. It matters little to me 
 whether the pictures are by a neophyte of the 
 Algonquin or the Italian tribe. But I was im 
 pressed by the quiet, religious atmosphere of the 
 place. It was a great cave in the midst of a 
 city; and what were the altars and the tinsel 
 but the sparkling stalaetics, into which you en 
 tered in a moment, and where the still atmo 
 sphere and the sombre light disposed to serious 
 and profitable thought ? Such a cave at hand, 
 which you can enter any day, is worth a thou 
 sand of our churches which are open only Sun 
 days, hardly long enough for an airing, 
 and then filled with a bustling congregation, 
 a church where the priest is the least part, 
 where you do your own preaching, where the 
 universe preaches to you and can be heard. I 
 am not sure but this Catholic religion would be 
 an admirable one if the priest were quite 
 omitted. I think that I might go to church 
 myself sometimes some Monday, if I lived in a 
 city where there was such a one to go to. In 
 Concord, to be sure, we do not need such. 
 Our forests are such a church, far grander and 
 sacn-d. \\ . .Ian- n,,t leave our meeting- 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 17 
 
 houses open for fear they would be profaned. 
 Such a cave, such a shrine, in one of our groves, 
 for instance, how long would it l>e respected? 
 for what purposes would it be entered, by such 
 baboons as we are? I think of its value not 
 only to religion, but to philosophy and to poe 
 try; besides a reading-room, to have a thinking- 
 room in every city! Perchance the time will 
 come when every house even will have not only 
 its sleeping-rooms, and dining-room, ami talk 
 ing-room or parlor, but its thinking-room also, 
 and the architects will put it into their plans. 
 Let it be furnished and ornamented with what 
 ever conduces to serious and creative thought. 
 I should not object to the holy water, or any 
 other simple symbol, if it were consecrated by 
 the imagination of the worshipers. 
 
 I heard that some Yankees bet that the can 
 dles were not wax, but tin. A Euroi>ean as 
 sured them that they were wax; but, inquiring 
 of the sexton, he was surprised to learn that 
 they were tin filled with oil. The church was 
 too poor to afford wax. As for the Protestant 
 churches, here or elsewhere, they did not inter 
 est me, for it is only as caves that churches in 
 terest me at all, and in that respect they were 
 inferior. 
 
 Montreal makes the impression of a larger 
 city than you had expected to find, though you 
 
18 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 may have heard that it contains nearly sixty 
 thousand inhabitants. In the newer parts, it 
 appeared to be growing fast like a small New 
 York, and to be considerably Americanized. 
 The names of the squares reminded you of 
 Paris, the Champ de Mars, the Place 
 d Armes, and others, and you felt as if a 
 French revolution might break out any moment. 
 Glimpses of Mount Royal rising behind the 
 town, and the names of some streets in that di 
 rection, make one think of Edinburgh. That 
 hill sets off this city wonderfully. I inquired 
 at a principal bookstore for books published in 
 Montreal. They said that there were none but 
 school-books and the like ; they got their books 
 from the States. From time to time we met a 
 priest in the streets, for they are distinguished 
 by their dress, like the civil police. Like cler 
 gymen generally, witli or without the gown, they 
 made on us the impression of effeminacy. We 
 also met some Sisters of Charity, dressed in 
 black, with Shaker-shaped black bonnets and 
 crosses, and cadaverous faces, who looked as if 
 they hail almost cried their eyes out, their com 
 plexions parboiled with scalding tears; insulting 
 the daylight by their presence, having taken an 
 oath not to smile. By cadaverous I mean that 
 their faces were like the faces of those who have 
 been dead and buried for a year, and then un- 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 19 
 
 tombed, with the life s grief upon them, and 
 yet, for some unaccountable reason, the process 
 of decay arrested. 
 
 " Truth never fails her servant, sir, nor leave* him 
 With the day s shame upon him." 
 
 They waited demurely on the sidewalk while 
 a track laden with raisins was driven in at the 
 seminary of St. Sulpiee, never once lifting their 
 eyes from the ground. 
 
 The soldier here, as everywhere in Canada, 
 appeared to be put forward, and by his best 
 foot. They were in the proportion of the sol 
 diers to the laborers in an African ant-hill. 
 The inhabitants evidently rely on them in a 
 great measure for music and entertainment. 
 You would meet with them pacing back and 
 forth before some guard-house or passage-way, 
 guarding, regarding, and disregarding all kinds 
 of law by turns, apparently for the sake of the 
 discipline to themselves, and not because it was 
 important to exclude anylxxly from entering 
 that way. They reminded me of the men who 
 are paid for piling up bricks and then throwing 
 them down again. On every prominent ledge 
 you could see England s hands holding the Can- 
 atlas, and I judged by the redness of her 
 knuckles that she would soon have to let go. 
 In the rear of such a guard-house, in a large 
 graveled square or parade ground, called the 
 
20 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 Champ de Mars, we saw a large body of soldiers 
 being drilled, we being as yet the only specta 
 tors. But they did not api>ear to notice us any 
 more than the devotees in the church, but were 
 seemingly as indifferent to .fewness of spectators 
 as the phenomena of nature are, whatever they 
 might have been thinking under their helmets 
 of the Yankees that were to oome. Each man 
 wore white kid gloves. It was one of the most 
 interesting sights which I saw in Cana da. The 
 problem appeared to be how to smooth down all 
 individual protuberances or idiosyncrasies, and 
 make a thousand men move as one man, ani 
 mated by one central will; and there was some 
 approach to success. They obeyed the signals 
 of a commander who stood at a great distance, 
 wand in hand; and the precision, and prompt 
 ness, and harmony of their movements could not 
 easily have been matched. The harmony was 
 far more remarkable than that of any choir or 
 band, and obtained, no doubt, at a greater cost. 
 They made on me the impression, not of many 
 individuals, but of one vast centipede of a man, 
 good for all sorts of pulling down ; and why not 
 then for some kinds of building up? If men 
 could combine thus earnestly, and patiently, 
 and harmoniously to some really worthy end, 
 what might they not accomplish? They now 
 put their hands, and partially perchance their 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 21 
 
 heads together, and the result is that they are 
 the imperfect tools of an imperfect and tyranni 
 cal government. But if they eonld put their 
 hands and heads and hearts and all together, 
 such a cooperation and harmony would be the 
 very end and success for which government now 
 exists in vain, a government, as it were, not 
 only with tools, but stock to trade with. 
 
 I was obliged to frame some sentences that 
 sounded like French in order to deal with the 
 market-women, who, for the most part, cannot 
 speak English. According to the guide-book 
 the relative population of this city stands nearly 
 thus: two fifths are French Canadian; nearly 
 one fifth British Canadian; one and a half fifth 
 English, Irish, and Scotch; somewhat less than 
 one half fifth Germans, United States people, 
 and others. I saw nothing like pie for sale, 
 and no good cake to put in my bundle, such as 
 you can easily find in our towns, but plenty of 
 fair-looking apples, for which Montreal Island 
 is celebrated, and also pears, cheaper, and I 
 thought tatter than ours, and peaches, which, 
 though they were probably brought from the 
 South, were as cheap as they commonly are with 
 us. So imperative is the law of demand and 
 supply that, as 1 have been told, the market of 
 Montreal is sometimes supplied with green ap 
 ples from the State of New York some weeks 
 
22 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 even before they are ripe in the latter place. I 
 saw here the spruce wax which the Canadians 
 chew, done up in little silvered papers, a penny 
 a roll; also a small and shriveled fruit which 
 they called cerises mixed with many little stems 
 somewhat like raisins, but I soon returned what 
 I had bought, finding them rather insipid, only 
 putting a sample in my pocket. Since my re 
 turn, I find on comparison that it is the fruit of 
 the sweet viburnum ( Viburnum letitago), which 
 with us rarely holds on till it is ripe. 
 
 I stood on the deck of the steamer John 
 Munn, late in the afternoon, when the second 
 and third ferry-boats arrived from La Prairie, 
 bringing the remainder of the Yankees. I 
 never saw so many caleches, cabs, charettes, and 
 similar vehicles collected before, and doubt if 
 New York could easily furnish more. The 
 handsome and substantial stone quay, which 
 stretches a mile along the river-side, and pro 
 tects the street from the ice, was thronged with 
 the citizens who had turned out on foot and in 
 carriages to welcome or to behold the Yankees. 
 It was interesting to see the caleche drivers dash 
 up and down the slope of the quay with their 
 active little horses. They drive much faster 
 than in our cities. I have been told that some 
 of them come nine miles into the city every 
 morning and return every night, without chang- 
 
CONCORD TO MONTREAL 23 
 
 ing their horses during the day. In the midst 
 of the crowd of carts, I observed one deep one 
 loaded with sheep with their legs tied together, 
 and their bodies piled one upon another, as if 
 the driver had forgotten that they were sheep 
 and not yet mutton. A sight, I trust, peculiar 
 to Canada, though I fear that it is not. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 
 
 ABOUT six o clock we started for Quebec, one 
 hundred and eighty miles distant by the river; 
 gliding past Longueil and Boueherville on the 
 right, and Pointe aux Trembles, "so called 
 from having been originally covered with as 
 pens," and Bout de V Isle, or the end of the 
 island, on the left. I repeat these names not 
 merely for want of more substantial facts to 
 record, but because they sounded singularly 
 poetic to my ears. There certainly was no lie 
 in them. They suggested that some simple, 
 and, perchance, heroic human life might have 
 transpired there. There is all the poetry in the 
 world in a name. It is a poem which the mass 
 of men hear and read. What is poetry in the 
 common sense, but a string of such jingling 
 names? I want nothing better than a good 
 word. The name of a thing may easily be more 
 than the thing itself to me. Inexpressibly beau 
 tiful appears the recognition by man of the least 
 natural fact, and the allying his life to it. All 
 the world reiterating this slender truth, that as- 
 
QUEBEC AND MO.VTMORENCI 25 
 
 pens once grew there; ami the swift inference 
 is, that men were there to see them. And so it 
 would be with the names of our native and 
 neighboring villages, if we had not profaned 
 them. 
 
 The daylight now failed us, and we went be 
 low ; but I endeavored to console myself for be 
 ing obliged to make this voyage by night, by 
 thinking that I did not lose a great deal, the 
 shores being low and rather unattractive, and 
 that the river itself was much the more interest 
 ing object. I heard something in the night 
 about the boat being at William Henry, Three 
 Rivers, and in the Richelieu Rapids, but I was 
 still where I had been when I lost sight of 
 Pfjinte rt?/x Trembles. To hear a man who has 
 been waked up at midnight in the cabin of a 
 steamboat, inquiring, "Waiter, where are we 
 now?" is as if, at any moment of the earth s 
 revolution round the sun, or of the system round 
 its centre, one were to raise himself up and in 
 quire of one of the deck hands, "Where are we 
 now?" 
 
 I went on deck at daybreak, when we were 
 thirty or forty miles above Quebec. The banks 
 were now higher and more interesting. There 
 was an "uninterrupted succession of white 
 washed cottages," on each side of the river. 
 This is what every traveler tells. But it is not 
 
26 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 to be taken as an evidence of the populousness 
 of the country in general, hardly even of the 
 river banks. They have presented a similar 
 appearance for a hundred years. The Swedish 
 traveler and naturalist, Kahn, who descended 
 the river in 1749, says, "It could really be 
 called a village, beginning at Montreal and end 
 ing at Quebec, which is a distance of more than 
 one hundred and eighty miles; for the farm 
 houses are never above five arpents, and some 
 times but three asunder, a few places excep ted." 
 Even in 1684 Hontan said that the houses were 
 not more than a gunshot apart at most. Ere 
 long we passed Cape Rouge, eight miles above 
 Quebec, the mouth of the Chaudiere on the op 
 posite or south side; New Liverpool Cove with 
 its lumber rafts and some shipping; then Sillery 
 and Wolfe s Cove and the Heights of Abraham 
 on the north, with now a view of Cape Dia 
 mond, and the citadel in front. The approach 
 to Quebec was very imposing. It was about six 
 o clock in the morning when we arrived. There 
 is but a single street under the cliff on the south 
 side of the cape, which was made by blasting 
 the rocks and filling up the river. Three-story 
 houses did not rise more than one fifth or one 
 sixth the way up the nearly perpendicular rock, 
 whose summit is three hundred and forty-five 
 feet above the water. We saw, as we glided 
 
QUEREC AXD MONTMORENCI 27 
 
 past, the sign on the side of the precipice, part 
 way up, pointing to the spot where Montgomery 
 was killed in 1775. Formerly it was the custom 
 for those who went to Quebec for the first time 
 to be ducked, or else pay a fine. Not even the 
 Governor General escaped. But we were too 
 many to be ducked, even if the custom had not 
 been abolished. 1 
 
 Here we were, in the harbor of Quebec, still 
 three hundred and sixty miles from the mouth 
 of the St. Lawrence, in a basin two miles 
 across, where the greatest depth is twenty-eight 
 fathoms, and though the water is fresh, the tide 
 rises seventeen to twenty -four feet, - a harlwr 
 "large and deep enough," says a British trav 
 eler, "to hold the English navy." I may as 
 well state that, in 1844, the county of QuelxK* 
 contained about forty -five thousand inhabitants 
 (the city and suburbs having alnmt forty -three 
 thousand); about twenty -eight thousand being 
 Canadians of French origin; eight thousand 
 British; over seven thousand natives of Ireland; 
 
 > Hieroame Lalemant says in 1648, in lib relation, he bom* 
 Superior: "All those who come to New France know weU 
 enouph the mountain of Notre Dame, because the pilots and 
 aailor*, being arrived at that part of the Great Kivcr which u 
 opposite to those high mountain*, baptize ordinarily for por 
 
 the new jiiMliifl: ~ > f the ? do not turn Mide b> " IUe P T"J 
 the inundation of Urn baptism which one make* 
 
 fully on their head*." 
 
28 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 one thousand five hundred natives of England ; 
 the rest Scotch and others. Thirty-six thou 
 sand belong to the Church of Rome. 
 
 Separating ourselves from the crowd, we 
 walked up a narrow street, thence ascended by 
 some wooden steps, called the Break-neck 
 Stairs, into another steep, narrow, and zigzag 
 street, blasted through the rock, which last led 
 through a low, massive, stone portal, called Pres- 
 cott Gate, the principal thoroughfare into the 
 Upper Town. This passage was defended by 
 cannon, with a guard-house over it, a sentinel 
 at his post, and other soldiers at hand ready to 
 relieve him. I rubbed my eyes to be sure that 
 I was in the nineteenth century, and was not 
 entering one of those portals which sometimes 
 adorn the frontispieces of new editions of old 
 black-letter volumes. I thought it would be a 
 good place to read Froissart s Chronicles. It 
 was such a reminiscence of the Middle Ages 
 as Scott s novels. Men apparently dwelt there 
 for security! Peace be unto them! As if the 
 inhabitants of New York were to go over to 
 Castle William to live ! What a place it must 
 be to bring up children! Being safe through 
 the gate we naturally took the street which was 
 steepest, and after a few turns found ourselves 
 on the Durham Terrace, a wood, n platform on 
 the site of the old castle of St. Louis, still one 
 
QUEBEC AND MONTtfORENCI 29 
 
 hundred and fifteen feet Inflow the summit of 
 the citadel, overlooking the Lower Town, the 
 wharf where we had landed, the harlx>r, the 
 Isle of Orleans, and the river and surrounding 
 country to a great distance. It was literally a 
 splendid view. We could see six or seven 
 miles distant, in the northeast, an indentation 
 in the lofty shore of the northern channel, ap 
 parently on one side of the harbor, which marked 
 the mouth of the Montmorenci, whose celebrated 
 fall was only a few rods in the rear. 
 
 At a shoe-shop, whither we were directed for 
 this purpose, we got some of our American 
 money changed into English. I found that 
 American hard money would have answered as 
 well, excepting cents, which fell very fast before 
 their pennies, it taking two of the former to 
 make one of the latter, and often the penny, 
 which had cost us two cents, did us the service 
 of one cent only. Moreover, our robust cents 
 were compelled to meet on even terms a crew of 
 vile half-penny tokens, and bung-town coppers, 
 which had more brass in their composition, and 
 so perchance made their way in the world. 
 Wishing to get into the citadel, we were di 
 rected to the Jesuits Harraeks, a good part 
 of the public buildings here are barracks, to 
 get a pass of the Town Major. We did not 
 heed the sentries at the gate, nor did they us. 
 
30 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 and what under the sun they were placed there 
 for, unless to hinder a free circulation of the air, 
 was not apparent. There we saw soldiers eat 
 ing their breakfasts in their mess-room, from 
 bare wooden tables in camp fashion. We were 
 continually meeting with soldiers in the streets, 
 carrying funny little tin pails of all shapes, even 
 semicircular, as if made to pack conveniently. 
 I supposed that they contained their dinners, 
 so many slices of bread and butter to each, per 
 chance. Sometimes they were carrying some 
 kind of military chest on a sort of bier or hand- 
 barrow, with a springy, undulating, military 
 step, all passengers giving way to them, even 
 the charette drivers stopping for them to pass, 
 as if the battle were being lost from an inade 
 quate supply of powder. There was a regiment 
 of Highlanders, and, as I understood, of Royal 
 Irish, in the city; and by this time there was a 
 regiment of Yankees also. I had already ob 
 served, looking up even from the water, the 
 head and shoulders of some General Poniatow- 
 sky, with an enormous cocked hat and gun, 
 peering over the roof of a house, away up where 
 the chimney caps commonly are with us, as it 
 were a caricature of war and military awf ulness ; 
 but I had not gone far up St. Louis Street be 
 fore my riddle was solved, by the apparition of 
 a real live Highlander under a cocked hat, and 
 
QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 31 
 
 with his knees out, standing and marching sen 
 tinel on the ramparts, between St. Louis and 
 St. John s Gate. (It must be a holy war that 
 is waged there.) We stood elose by without 
 fear and looked at him. His legs were some 
 what tanned, and the hair had begun to grow 
 on them, as some of our wise men predict that 
 it will in such cases, but I did not think they 
 were remarkable in any respect. Notwithstand 
 ing all his warlike gear, when I inquired of him 
 the way to the Plains of Abraham, he could not 
 answer me without betraying some bashfulness 
 through his broad Scotch. Soon after, we 
 passed another of these creatures standing sen 
 try at the St. Louis Gate, who let us go by 
 without shooting us, or even demanding the 
 countersign. We then began to go througli the 
 gate, which was so thick and tunnel -like, as to 
 remind me of those lines in Claudian s Old 
 Man of Verona, about the getting out of the 
 gate being the greater part of a journey ; as 
 you might imagine yourself crawling through an 
 architectural vignette at the end of a black-let 
 ter volume. We were then reminded that we 
 had been in a fortress, from which we emerged 
 by numerous zigzags in a ditch-like road, going 
 a considerable distance to advance a few rtxls, 
 where they could have shot us two or thiw times 
 over, if their minds had been disused as their 
 
32 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 guns were. The greatest, or rather the most 
 prominent, part of this city was constructed 
 with the design to offer the deadest resistance 
 to leaden and iron missiles that might be cast 
 against it. But it is a remarkable meteorologi 
 cal and psychological fact, that it is rarely 
 known to rain lead with much violence, except 
 on places so constructed. Keeping on about a 
 mile we came to the Plains of Abraham, for 
 having got through with the Saints, we came 
 next to the Patriarchs. Here the Highland 
 regiment was being reviewed, while the band 
 stood on one side and played, me thinks it was 
 La Claire Fontaine, the national air of the 
 Canadian French. This is the site where a real 
 battle once took place, to commemorate which 
 they have had a sham fight here almost every 
 day since. The Highlanders manoeuvred very 
 well, and if the precision of their movements 
 waj less remarkable, they did not appear so 
 stiffly erect as the English or Royal Irish, but 
 had a more elastic and graceful gait, like a herd 
 of their own red deer, or as if accustomed to 
 stepping down the sides of mountains. But 
 they made a sad impression on the whole, for it 
 was obvious that all true manhood was in the 
 process of being drilled out of them. I have no 
 doubt that soldiers well drilled are, as a class, 
 peculiarly destitute of originality and indepen- 
 
QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCl 33 
 
 dence. The officers appeared like men dressed 
 above their condition. It is inipoettble to give 
 the soldier a good education, without making him 
 a deserter. His natural foe is the government 
 that drills him. What would any philanthro 
 pist, who felt an interest in these men s welfare, 
 naturally do, but first of all teach them BO to 
 respect themselves, that they could not l>e hired 
 for this work, whatever might l>e the conse 
 quences to this government or that; not drill 
 a few, but educate all. I observed one older 
 man among them, gray as a wharf -rat, and sup 
 ple as the Devil, marching lock -step with the 
 rest, who would have to pay for that elastic gait. 
 We returned to the citadel along the heights, 
 plucking such flowers as grew there. There 
 \va- an alum-lan.-.- of succory Mill in blossom, 
 broad - leaved golden - rod, buttercups, thorn - 
 bushes, Canada thistles, and ivy, on the very 
 summit of Cape Diamond. I also found the 
 bladder-campion in the neighl>orhood. We 
 there enjoyed an extensive view, which I will 
 deseril>e in another place. Our pass, which 
 Stated that all the rides were "to be strictly en 
 forced," as if they were determined to keep up 
 the semblance of reality to the last gasp, opened 
 to us the Dulhousie Gate, and we were con 
 ducted over the citadel by a bate-legged High 
 lander in cocked hat and full regimentals. He 
 
34 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 told us that he had been here about three years, 
 and had formerly been stationed at Gibraltar. 
 As if his regiment, having perchance been nes 
 tled auiid the rocks of Edinburgh Castle, must 
 flit from rock to rock thenceforth over the 
 earth s surface, like a bald eagle, or other bird 
 of prey, from eyrie to eyrie. As we were going 
 out, we met the Yankees coming in, in a body 
 headed by a red-coated officer called the com 
 mandant, and escorted by many citizens, both 
 English and French Canadian. I therefore im 
 mediately fell into the procession, and went 
 round the citadel again with more intelligent 
 guides, carrying, as before, all my effects with 
 me. Seeing that nobody walked with the red- 
 coated commandant, I attached myself to him, 
 and though I was not what is called well- 
 dressed, he did not know whether to repel me 
 or not, for I talked like one who was not aware 
 of any deficiency in that respect. Probably 
 there was not one among all the Yankees who 
 went to Canada this time, who was not more 
 splendidly dressed than I was. It would have 
 been a poor story if I had not enjoyed some dis 
 tinction. I had on my "bad-weather clothes," 
 like Olaf Trygesson the Northman, when he 
 went to the Thing in England, where, by the 
 way, he won his bride. As we stood by the 
 thirty-two-pounder on the summit of CajHj Dia- 
 
QUEBEC AND AfONTMORSJfCl 35 
 
 , which is tired three times a day, the com 
 mandant told me that it would carry to the Isle 
 of Orleans, four miles distant, and that no hos 
 tile vessel could come round the island. I now 
 saw the subterranean or, rather, "casemated 
 barracks " of the soldiers, which I had not no- 
 tieed before, though I might have walked over 
 them. They had very narrow windows, serving 
 as loop-holes for musketry, and small iron chim 
 neys rising above the ground. There we saw 
 the soldiers at home and in an undress, split 
 ting wood, I looked to see whether with 
 swords or axes, and in various ways endeav 
 oring to realize that their nation was now at 
 peace with this part of the world. A part of 
 each regiment, chiefly officers, are allowed to 
 marry. A grandfatherly, would-be witty Eng 
 lishman could give a Yankee whom he was pa 
 tronizing no rea.son for the bare knees of the 
 Highlanders, other than oddity. The rock 
 within the citadel is a little convex, so that 
 shells falling on it would roll toward the cir 
 cumference, where the barracks of the soldiers 
 and officers are; it has been proposed, there 
 fore, to make it slightly concave, so that they 
 may roll into the centre, where they would be 
 comparatively harmless; and it is estimated 
 that to do this would cost twenty thousand 
 pounds sterling. It may be well to remember 
 
36 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 this when I build my next house, and have the 
 roof * 4 all correct* for bombshells. 
 
 At mid-afternoon we made haste down Sault- 
 au-Matelot Street, towards the Falls of Mont- 
 morenci, about eight miles down the St. Law 
 rence, on the north side, leaving the further 
 examination of Quebec till our return. On our 
 way, we saw men in the streets sawing logs pit- 
 fashion, and afterward, with a common wood- 
 saw and horse, cutting the planks into squares 
 for paving the streets. This looked very shift 
 less, especially in a country abounding in water- 
 power, and reminded me that I was no longer 
 in Yankee land. I found, on inquiry, that the 
 excuse for this was, that labor was so cheap; 
 and I thought, with some pain, how cheap men 
 are here ! I have since learned that the English 
 traveler, Warburton, remarked, soon after land 
 ing at Quebec, that everything was cheap there 
 but men. That must be the difference between 
 going thither from New and from Old England. 
 I had already observed the dogs harnessed to 
 their little milk-carts, which contain a single 
 large can, lying asleep in the gutters regardless 
 of the horses, while they rested from their la 
 bors, at different stages of the ascent in the 
 Upper Town. I was surprised at the regular 
 and extensive use made of these animals for 
 drawing, not only milk, but groceries, woody 
 
QUEBEC AND MOXTMORENCI 37 
 
 etc. It reminded me that the dog commonly is 
 not put to any use. Cats catch mice; but dogs 
 only worry the cats. Kalm, a hundred years 
 go, saw sledges here for ladies to ride in, 
 drawn by a pair of dogs. He says, "A middle- 
 sized dog is sufficient to draw a single person, 
 when the roads are good;" and he was told by 
 old people, that horses were very scarce in their 
 youth, and almost all the land -carriage was then 
 effected by dogs. They made me think of the 
 Esquimaux, who, in fact, are the next people 
 on the north. Charlevoix says tliat the first 
 horses were introduced in 1665. 
 
 We crossed Dorchester Bridge, over the St. 
 Charles, the little river in which Cartier, the 
 discoverer of the St. Lawrence, put his ships, 
 and spent the winter of 1535, and found our 
 selves on an excellent macadamized road, called 
 Le Chernin de Bcaitport. We had left Concord 
 Wednesday morning, and we endeavored to 
 realize that now, Friday morning, we were tak 
 ing a walk in Canada, in the Seigniory of Beau- 
 ]>ort, a foreign country, which a few days l>efore 
 had seemed almost as far off as England and 
 France. Instead of rambling to Flint s Pond 
 or the Sudbury Meadows, we found ourselves, 
 after being a little detained in cars and steam 
 boats, after spending half a night at Burling 
 ton, and half a day at Montreal, taking ft 
 
38 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 walk down the bank of the St. Lawrence to the 
 Falls of Montmorenci, and elsewhere. Well, 
 I thought to myself, here I am in a foreign 
 country; let me have my eyes about me, and 
 take it all in. It already looked and felt a good 
 deal colder than it had in New England, as we 
 might have expected it would. I realized fully 
 that I was four degrees nearer the pole, and 
 shuddered at the thought; and I wondered if it 
 were possible that the peaches might not be all 
 gone when I returned. It was an atmosphere 
 that made me think of the fur-trade, which is so 
 interesting a department in Canada, for I had 
 for all head covering a thin palm-leaf hat with 
 out lining, that cost twenty-five cents, and over 
 my coat one of those unspeakably cheap, as well 
 as thin, brown linen sacks of the Oak Hall pat 
 tern, which every summer appear all over New 
 England, thick as the leaves upon the trees. It 
 was a thoroughly Yankee costume, which some 
 of my fellow-travelers wore in the cars to save 
 their coats a dusting. I wore mine, at first, 
 because it looked Ix tter than the coat it covered, 
 and last, because two coats were warmer than 
 one, though one was thin and dirty. I never 
 wear my best coat on a journey, though per 
 chance I could show a certificate to prove that 
 I have a more costly one, at least, at home, if 
 that were all that a gentleman required. It is 
 
QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 39 
 
 not wise for a traveler to go dressed. I should 
 no more think of it than of putting on a clean 
 dicky and blacking my shoes to go a-fishing; as 
 if you were going out to dine, when, in fact, the 
 genuine traveler is going out to work hard, and 
 fare harder, to eat a crust by the wayside 
 whenever he can get it. Honest traveling is 
 about as dirty work as yon can do, and a man 
 needs a pair of overalls for it. As for blacking 
 my shoes in such a case, I should as soon think 
 of blacking my face. I carry a piece of tallow 
 to preserve the leather and keep out the water ; 
 that s all; and many an officious shoeblack, 
 who carried off my shoes when I was slumber 
 ing, mistaking me for a gentleman, lias had oc 
 casion to repent it before he produced a gloss 
 on them. 
 
 My pack, in fact, was soon made, for I keep 
 a short list of those articles which, from fre 
 quent experience, I have found indispensable to 
 the foot-traveler; and, when I am about to start, 
 I have only to consult that, to be sure that no 
 thing is omitted, and, what is more important, 
 nothing superfluous inserted. Most of my fel 
 low-travelers carried carpet-bags, or valises. 
 Sometimes one had two or three ponderous yel 
 low valises in his clutch, at each hitch of the 
 can, as if we were going to have another rush 
 for seats; and when then was a rush in earnest, 
 
40 A YAXKEE IX CANADA 
 
 and there were not a few, I would see my man 
 in the crowd, with two or three affectionate 
 lusty fellows along each side of his arm, between 
 his shoulder and his valises, which last held them 
 tight to his back, like the nut on the end of a 
 screw. I could not help asking in my mind, 
 "\\ hat so great cause for showing Canada to 
 those valises, when perhaps your very nieces had 
 to stay at home for want of an escort? I should 
 have liked to be present when the custom-house 
 officer came aboard of him, and asked him to 
 declare upon his honor if he had anything but 
 wearing apparel in them. Even the elephant 
 carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The 
 perfection of traveling is to travel without bag 
 gage. After considerable reflection and expe 
 rience, I have concluded that the best bag for 
 the foot-traveler is made with a handkerchief, 
 or, if he study appearances, a piece of stiff 
 brown paper, well tied up, with a fresh piece 
 within to put outside when the first is torn. 
 That is good for both town and country, and 
 none will know but you are carrying home the 
 silk for a new gown for your wife, when it may 
 be a dirty shirt. A bundle which you can carry 
 literally under your arm, and which will shrink 
 and swell with its contents. I never found the 
 carpet-bag of equal capacity, which was not a 
 bundle of itself. We styled ourselves the 
 
QUEBEC AND MOSTMOREXC1 41 
 
 Knights of the Umbrella and the Bundle: for, 
 wherever we went, whether to Notre Dame or 
 Mount Royal or the Champ de Man, to the 
 Town Major s or the Bishop s Palace, to the 
 Citadel, with a bare-legged Highlander for our 
 escort, or to the Plains of Abraham, to dinner 
 or to bed, the umbrella and the bundle went 
 with us; for we wished to be ready to digress at 
 any moment. We made it our home nowhere 
 in particular, but everywhere where our um 
 brella and bundle were. It would have been an 
 amusing circumstance, if the Mayor of one of 
 thoao cities had politely asked us where we were 
 staving. We could only have answered, that 
 we were staying with his Honor for the time be- 
 ing. I was amused when, after our return, 
 some green ones inquired if we found it easy to 
 get fttfinaamiatT* 1 ; as if we went abroad to get 
 eeommodated, when we can get that at home. 
 
 We met with many charette*. bringing wood 
 and stone to the city. The most ordinary look 
 ing hones traveled faster than ours, or per 
 haps they were ordinary looking becaaaf, as I 
 am told, the faaadiiim do not use the curry 
 comb. Moreover, it is said that on the ap 
 proach of winter their horses acquire an in 
 creased quantity of hair, to ptoteet them from 
 the cold. If this be true, tome of our hones 
 would make you think winter were approaching. 
 
42 A YAXKEE IX CAXADA 
 
 even in midsummer. We soon began to see 
 women and girls at work in the fields, digging 
 potatoes alone, or bundling up the grain which 
 the men cut. They appeared in rude health, 
 with a great deal of color in their cheeks, and, 
 if their occupation had made them coarse, it 
 impressed me as better in its effects than mak 
 ing shirts at fourpence apiece, or doing nothing 
 at all, unless it be chewing slate pencils, with 
 still smaller results. They were much more 
 agreeable objects, with their great broad- 
 brimmed hats and flowing dresses, than the men 
 and boys. We afterwards saw them doing 
 various other kinds of work ; indeed, I thought 
 that we saw more women at work out of doors 
 than men. On our return, we observed in this 
 town a girl, with Indian boots nearly two feet 
 high, taking the harness off a dog. 
 
 The purity and transparency of the atmosphere 
 were wonderful. When we had been walking 
 an hour, we were surprised, on turning round, to 
 see how near the city, with its glittering tin roofs, 
 still looked. A village ten miles off did not ap 
 pear to be more than three or four. I was con 
 vinced that you could see objects distinctly there 
 much farther than here. It is true the villages 
 are of a dazzling white, but the dazzle is to be 
 referred, perhaps, to the transparency of the at 
 mosphere as much as to the whitewash. 
 
QUEBEC AND MOSTMORKNCI 43 
 
 We were now fairly in the village of Reim 
 port, though there was still but one road. The 
 houses stood close upon this, without any front 
 yards, and at an angle with it, as if they had 
 dropi>ed down, being set with more reference to 
 the road which the sun travels. It being about 
 sundown, and the Falls not far off, we Iwgan to 
 look round for a lodging, for we preferred to 
 put up at a private house, that we might see 
 more of the inhabitants. We inquired first at 
 the most promising looking houses, if, indeed, 
 any were promising. When we knocked, they 
 shouted some French word for come in, perhaps 
 entrez, and we asked for a lodging in English; 
 but we found, unexpectedly, that they spoke 
 French only. Then we went along and tried 
 another house, l>eing generally saluted by a rush 
 of two or three little curs, which readily distin 
 guished a foreigner, and which we were pre 
 pared now to hear bark in French. Our first 
 question would be, Parlez-cuu* Anylais? but 
 the invariable answer was, .Vow, monsieur ; 
 and we soon found that the inhabitants were ex 
 clusively French Canadians, and nobody spoke 
 English at all, any more than in France ; that, 
 in fact, we were in a foreign country, where the 
 inhabitants uttered not one familiar sound to 
 us. Then we tried by turns to talk French 
 with them, in which we succeeded sometimes 
 
44 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 pretty well, but for the most part pretty ill. 
 Pouvez-vous nous donner un Jit cette nuit ? we 
 would ask, and then they would answer with 
 French volubility, so that we could catch only a 
 word here and there. We could understand the 
 women and children generally better than the 
 men, and they us; and thus, after a while, we 
 would learn that they had no more beds than 
 they used. 
 
 So we were compelled to inquire Y a-t-il une 
 maison publique id ? (auberge we should have 
 said, perhaps, for they seemed never to have 
 heard of the other), and they answered at length 
 that there was no tavern, unless we could get 
 lodgings at the mill, le mouJin, which we had 
 passed; or they would direct us to a grocery, 
 and almost every house had a small grocery at 
 one end of it. We called on the public notary 
 or village lawyer, but he had no more beds nor 
 English than the rest. At one house there was 
 so good a misunderstanding at once established 
 through the politeness of all parties, that we 
 were encouraged to walk in and sit down, and 
 ask for a glass of water ; and having drank their 
 water, we thought it was as good as to have 
 tasted their salt. When our host and his wife 
 spoke of their poor accommodations, meaning 
 for themselves, we assured them that they were 
 good enough, for we thought that they were 
 
QUEBEC AND MOXTMORENCI 45 
 
 only apologizing for the j>oornes8 of the accom 
 modations they were alxnit to offer us, and we 
 did not discover our mistake till they took us up 
 a ladder into a loft, and showed to our eyes 
 what they had been laboring in vain to commu 
 nicate to our brains through our ears, that they 
 had but that one apartment with its few beds 
 for the whole family. We made our a-dienx 
 forthwith, and with gravity, perceiving the lit 
 eral signification of that word. We were finally 
 taken in at a sort of public-house, whose mas 
 ter worked for Patterson, the proprietor of the 
 extensive saw-mills driven by a portion of the 
 Montmorenei stolen from the fall, whose roar 
 we now heard. We here talked, or murdered, 
 French all the evening, with the master of the 
 house and his family, and probably had a more 
 amusing time than if we had completely under 
 stood one another. At length they showed us 
 to a bed in their best chaml>cr, very high to get 
 into, with a low wooden rail to it. It had no 
 cotton sheets, but coarse, home-made, dark-col 
 ored, linen ones. Afterward, we had to do with 
 sheets still coarser than these, and nearly the 
 color of our blankets. There was a large open 
 buffet loaded with crockery in one corner of the 
 room, as if to display their wealth to travelers, 
 and pictures of Scripture scenes, French, Ital 
 ian, and Spanish, hung around. Our hostess 
 
46 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 came back directly to inquire if we would have 
 brandy for breakfast. The next morning, when 
 I asked their names, she took down the temper 
 ance pledges of herself and husband, and chil 
 dren, which were hanging against the wall. 
 They were Jean Baptiste Binet, and his wife, 
 Genevieve Binet. Jean Baptiste is the so 
 briquet of the French Canadians. 
 
 After breakfast we proceeded to the fall, 
 which was within half a mile, and at this dis 
 tance its rustling sound, like the wind among 
 the leaves, filled all the air. We were disap 
 pointed to find that we were in some measure 
 shut out from the west side of the fall by the 
 private grounds and fences of Patterson, who 
 appropriates not only a part of the water for his 
 mill, but a still larger part of the prospect, so 
 that we were obliged to trespass. This gentle 
 man s mansion house and grounds were formerly 
 occupied by the Duke of Kent, father to Queen 
 Victoria. It appeared to me in bad taste for 
 an individual, though he were the father of 
 Queen Victoria, to obtrude himself with his 
 land titles, or at least his fences, on so remark 
 able a natural phenomenon, which should, in 
 every sense, belong to mankind. Some falls 
 should even be kept sacred from the intrusion of 
 mills and factories, as water privileges in an 
 other than the millwright s sense. This small 
 
QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI 47 
 
 river falls perpendicularly nearly two handled 
 ami fifty feet at one pitch. The St. Lawrence 
 falls only one hundred and sixty -four feet at 
 Niagara. It is a very simple and noble fall, 
 and leaves nothing to be desired ; but the most 
 that I could say of it would only have the force 
 of one other testimony to assure the reader that 
 it is there. We looked directly down on it 
 from the point of a projecting rock, and saw far 
 below us, on a low promontory, the grass kept 
 fresh and green by the perpetual drizzle, look 
 ing like moss. The rock is a kind of slate, in 
 the crevices of which grew ferns and golden- 
 rods. The prevailing trees on the shores were 
 spruce and arbor-vita^ the Litter very large 
 and now full of fruit, also aspens, alders, and 
 the mountain-ash with its berries. Every emi 
 grant who arrives in this country by way of the 
 St. Lawrence, as he opens a point of the Isle of 
 Orleans, sees the Montmorenci tumbling into the 
 Great River thus magnificently in a vast white 
 sheet, making its contribution with emphasis. 
 Robervars pilot, Jean Alphonse, saw this fall 
 thus, and described it, in 1542. It is a splen 
 did introduction to the scenery of Quebec. In 
 stead of an artificial fountain in its square, 
 QuelxM! has this magnificent natural waterfall, 
 to adorn one side of its harbor. Within the 
 mouth of the chasm below, which can be entered 
 
48 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 only at ebb tide, we had a grand view at once 
 of Quebec and of the fall. Kalin says that the 
 noise of the fall is sometimes heard at Quebec, 
 about eight miles distant, and is a sign of a 
 northeast wind. The side of this chasm, of soft 
 and crumbling slate too steep to climb, was 
 among the memorable features of the scene. In 
 the winter of 1829 the frozen spray of the fall, 
 descending on the ice of the St. Lawrence, made 
 a hill one hundred and twenty-six feet high. It 
 is an annual phenomenon which some think may 
 help explain the formation of glaciers. 
 
 In the vicinity of the fall we began to notice 
 what looked like our red-fruited thorn bushes, 
 grown to the size of ordinary apple-trees, very 
 common, and full of large red or yellow fruit, 
 which the inhabitants called pommettes^ but I 
 did not learn that they were put to any use. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 8T. ANNE 
 
 Bv the middle of the forenoon, though it was 
 a rainy day ? we were once more on our way 
 down the north hank of the St. Lawrence, in a 
 northeasterly direction, toward the Falls of St. 
 Anne, which are about thirty miles from Que 
 bec. The settled, more level, and fertile por 
 tion of Canada East may be described rudely as 
 a triangle, with its apex slanting toward the 
 northeast, about one hundred miles wide at its 
 base, and from two to three or even four hun 
 dred miles long, if you reckon its narrow north 
 eastern extremity ; it being the immediate valley 
 of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, rising 
 by a single or by successive terraces toward the 
 mountains on either hand. Though the words 
 Canada East on the map stretch over many riv 
 ers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the 
 actual ( anada, uhi.-h mi-lit lw the colon .1 [XH - 
 tion of the map, is but a little clearing on the 
 banks of the river, which one of those syllables 
 would more than cover. The banks of the St. 
 Lawrence art* rather low from Montreal to the 
 
50 .1 YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 Richelieu Rapids, about forty miles above Que 
 bec. Thence they rise gradually to Cape Dia 
 mond, or Quebec. Where we now were, eight 
 miles northeast of Quebec, the mountains which 
 form the northern side of this triangle were only 
 five or six miles distant from the river, gradu 
 ally departing farther and farther from it, on 
 the west, till they reach the Ottawa, and making 
 haste to meet it on the east, at Cape Tourmente, 
 now in plain sight about twenty miles distant. 
 So that we were traveling in a very narrow and 
 sharp triangle between the mountains and the 
 river, tilted up toward the mountains on the 
 north, never losing sight of our great fellow- 
 traveler on our right. According to Bouchette s 
 Topographical Description of the Canadas, we 
 were in the Seigniory of the Cote de Beaupre, 
 in the county of Montmorenci, and the district 
 of Quebec; in that part of Canada which was 
 the first to be settled, and where the face of the 
 country and the population have undergone the 
 least change from the beginning, where the in 
 fluence of the States and of Europe is least felt, 
 and the inhabitants see little or nothing of the 
 world over the walls of Quebec. This Seigniory 
 was granted in 163G, and is now the property 
 of the Seminary of Quebec. It is the most 
 mountainous one in the province. There are 
 some half a dozen parishes in it, each contain- 
 
ST. ANXE 51 
 
 a church, parsonage-house, grift-mill, and 
 several Raw-mills. We were now in the most 
 westerly parish, called Ange Gardien, or the 
 Guardian Angel, which is bounded on the west 
 by the Montmorenei. The north bank of the 
 St. Lawrence here is formed on a grand scale. 
 It slopes gently, either directly from the shore, 
 or from the edge of an interval, till, at the dis 
 tance of about a mile, it attains the height of 
 four or five hundred feet. The single road runs 
 along the side of the slope two or three hundred 
 feet above the river at first, ami from a quarter 
 of a mile to a mile distant from it, and affords 
 fine views of the north* channel, which is About 
 a mile wide, and of the beautiful Isle of Or 
 leans, about twenty miles long by five wide, 
 where grow the best apples and plums in the 
 Quel>ec District. 
 
 Though there was but this single road, it was 
 a continuous village for as far as we walked this 
 day and the next, or about thirty miles down 
 the river, the houses l>eing as near together all 
 the way as in the middle of one of our smallest 
 straggling country villages, and we could never 
 U-ll by their number when we were on the skirts 
 of a parish, for the road never ran through the 
 fields or woods. We were told that it was just 
 six miles from one parish church to another. I 
 thought that we saw every house in Ange Gar- 
 
52 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 (lien. Therefore, as it was a muddy day, we 
 never got out of the mud, nor out of the village, 
 unless we got over the fence ; then, indeed, if it 
 was on the north side, we were out of the civil 
 ized world. There were sometimes a few more 
 houses near the church, it is true, but we had 
 only to go a quarter of a mile from the road to 
 the top of the bank to find ourselves on the 
 verge of the uninhabited, and, for the most part, 
 unexplored wilderness stretching toward Hud 
 son s Bay. The farms accordingly were ex 
 tremely long and narrow, each having a frontage 
 on the river. Bouchette accounts for this pecu 
 liar manner of laying out a village by referring 
 to * 4 the social character of the Canadian peas 
 ant, who is singularly fond of neighborhood," 
 also to the advantage arising from a concentra 
 tion of strength in Indian tunes. Each farm, 
 calliHl terre, he says, is, in nine cases out of ten, 
 three arpents wide by thirty deep, that is, very 
 nearly thirty-five by three hundred and forty- 
 nine of our rods; sometimes one half arpent by 
 thirty, or one to sixty; sometimes, in fact, a 
 few yards by half a mile. Of course it costs 
 more for fences. A remarkable difference be 
 tween the Canadian and the New England char- 
 art .T apjx ars from the fact that, in 1745, the 
 French government were obliged to pass a law 
 forbidding the farmers or censitaires building 
 
ST. ANNE 53 
 
 on land less than one and a half arpents front 
 by thirty or forty deep, under a certain jfcnalfcjr, 
 in order to compel emigration, and bring the 
 seigneur s estates all under cultivation; and it 
 is thought that they have now loss reluctance to 
 leave the paternal roof than formerly, "remov 
 ing beyond the sight of the parish spire, or the 
 sound of the parish bell." But I find that in 
 the previous or seventeenth century, the com 
 plaint, often renewed, was of a totally opposite 
 character, namely, that the inhabitants dis 
 persed and exposed themselves to the Iroquois. 
 Accordingly, about 1664, the king was obliged 
 to order that "they should make no more clear 
 ings except one next to another, and that they 
 should reduce their parishes to the form of the 
 parishes in France as much as possible." The 
 Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a 
 roving spirit of adventure which carried them 
 further, in exposure to hardship and danger, 
 than ever the New England colonist went, and 
 led them, though not to clear and colonize the 
 wilderness, yet to range over it as coureura de 
 bois, or runners of the woods, or, as Hontan 
 prefers to call them, coiireurs de ritques, runners 
 of risks; to say nothing of their enterprising 
 priesthood; and Charlevoix thinks that if the 
 authorities had taken the right steps to prevent 
 the youth from ranging the woods (c/e caurtr 1r* 
 
54 A YANKEE JN CANADA 
 
 boi*) they would have had an excellent militia 
 to fightT the Indians and English. 
 
 The road in this clayey -look ing soil was ex 
 ceedingly muddy in consequence of the night s 
 rain. We met an old woman directing her dog, 
 which was harnessed to a little cart, to the least 
 muddy part of it. It was a beggarly sight. 
 Hut harnessed to the cart as he was, we heard 
 him barking after we had passed, though we 
 looked anywhere but to the cart to see where 
 the dog was that barked. The houses com 
 monly fronted the south, whatever angle they 
 might make with the road ; and frequently they 
 had no door nor cheerful window on the road 
 side. Half the time they stood fifteen to forty 
 rods from the road, and there was no very obvi 
 ous passage to them, so that you would suppose 
 that there must be another road running by 
 them. They were of stone, rather coarsely 
 mortared, but neatly whitewashed, almost in 
 variably one story high and long in proportion 
 to their height, with a shingled roof, the shin 
 gles being pointed, for ornament, at the eaves, 
 like the pickets of a fence, and also one row 
 halfway up the roof. The gables sometimes 
 projected a foot or two at the ridge-pole only. 
 Yet they were very humble and unpretending 
 dwellings. They commonly had the date of 
 their erection on them. The windows opened 
 
ST. ANNE 55 
 
 in tlu middle, like blinds, and were fivqiu-ntl\ 
 provided with solid shutters. Sometime*, \\h. n 
 we walked along the back side of a house whi-h 
 stood near the road, we observed stout stakes 
 leaning against it, by which the shutters, now 
 pushed half open, were fastened at night; within, 
 the houses were neatly ceiled with wood not 
 painted. The oven was commonly out of doors, 
 built of stone and mortar, frequently on a raised 
 platform of planks. The cellar was often on 
 the opposite side of the road, in front of or lie- 
 hind the houses, looking like an ice-house with 
 us, with a lattice door for summer. The very 
 few mechanics whom we met hail an old-Betty- 
 ish look, in their aprons and bonnets rougcx, 
 like fools caps. The men wore commonly the 
 same bonnet rouge, or red woolen or worsted 
 cap, or sometimes blue or gray, looking to us aa 
 if they had got up with their night-caps on, and, 
 in fact, I afterwards found that they had. 
 Their clothes were of the cloth of the country, 
 etoffe du pay*, gray or some other plain color. 
 The women looked stout, with gowns that stood 
 out stiffly, also, for the most part, apparently 
 of some home-made stuff. We also saw some 
 specimens of the more characteristic winter 
 dress of the Canadian, and I have since fre 
 quently detected him in New England by his 
 coarse gray homespun eajwte and picturesque 
 
66 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 rr<l sash, and his well-furred cap, made to pro 
 tect his ears against the severity of his climate. 
 
 It drizzled all day, so that the roads did not 
 improve. We began now to meet with wooden 
 crosses frequently, by the roadside, about a 
 dozen feet high, often old and toppling down, 
 sometimes standing in a square wooden plat 
 form, sometimes in a pile of stones, with a little 
 niche containing a picture of the Virgin and 
 Child, or of Christ alone, sometimes with a 
 string of beads, and covered with a piece of 
 glass to keep out the rain, with the words, pour 
 la vierye, or INRI, on them. Frequently, on 
 the cross-bar, there would be quite a collection 
 of symbolical knickknacks, looking like an 
 Italian s board; the representation in wood of 
 a hand, a hammer, spikes, pincers, a flask of 
 vinegar, a ladder, etc., the whole, perchance, 
 surmounted by a weathercock ; but I could not 
 look at an honest weathercock in this walk with 
 out mistrusting that there was some covert re 
 ference in it to St. Peter. From time to time 
 we passed a little one-story chapel-like building, 
 with a tin-roofed spire, a shrine, perhaps it 
 would be called, close to the pathside, with a 
 lattice door, through which we could see an al 
 tar, and pictures about the walls; equally open, 
 through rain and shine, though there was no 
 getting into it. At these places the inhabitants 
 
ST. AXKE 57 
 
 kneeled and perhaps breathed a fihort prayer. 
 We saw one school-house, in our walk, and lis 
 tened to the sounds which issued from it ; but it 
 ajijM-aiv.l UK - ;i plan 1 u li n the pFOCI 18, OOt ! 
 enlightening, but of obfuscating the mind was 
 going on, and I!M- pupilfl ceo LV< d onlj 10 mm ii 
 light as could penetrate the shadow of the Cath 
 olic Church. The churches were very pictur 
 esque, and their interior much more showy than 
 the dwelling-houses promised. They were of^ 
 stone, for it was ordered, in 1699, that that 
 should be their material. They had tinned 
 spires, and quaint ornaments. That of 1 Ange 
 Gardien had a dial on it, with the Middle Age 
 Roman numerals on its face, and some images 
 in niches on the outside. Probably its counter 
 part has existed in Normandy for a thousand 
 years. At the church of Chateau Richer, which 
 is the next parish to 1 Ange Gardien, we read, 
 looking over the wall, the inscriptions in the 
 adjacent churchyard, which began with, "7ci 
 git 9 or "7iVy>o*?," and one over a boy con 
 tained, "Priez pour ///." This answered as 
 well as Pere la Chaise. We knocked at the 
 door of the curd s house here, when a sleek, 
 friar-like personage, in his sacerdotal robe, ap 
 peared. To our Parlez-rous Anglais ? even he 
 answered, "A o/i, monsieur;" but at List we 
 made him understand wliat we wanted. It was 
 
58 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 to find the ruins of the old chateau. "Ah! 
 oui! oui!" he exclaimed, and, donning his 
 coat, hastened forth, and conducted us to a 
 small heap of rubbish which we had already 
 examined. He said that fifteen years before, 
 it was plus considerable. Seeing at that mo 
 ment three little red birds fly out of a crevice 
 in the ruins, up into an arbor-vita? tree which 
 grew out of them, I asked him their names, in 
 such French as I could muster, but he neither 
 understood me nor ornithology; he only inquired 
 where we had appris a parlcr Franqaix ; we 
 told him, dans les Etats-Unis ; and so we 
 bowed him into his house again. I was sur 
 prised to find a man wearing a black coat, and 
 with apparently no work to do, even in that part 
 of the world. 
 
 The universal salutation from the inhabitants 
 whom we met was bon jour, at the same time 
 touching the hat; with bon jour, and touching 
 your hat, you may go smoothly through all 
 Canada East. A little boy, meeting us, would 
 remark, "Bon jour, monsieur ; le chemin est 
 mauvais," Good morning, sir; it is bad walk 
 ing. Sir Francis Head says that the immigrant 
 is forward to "appreciate the happiness of liv 
 ing in a land in which the old country s servile 
 custom of touching the hat does not exist," but 
 he was thinking of Canada West, of course. It 
 
57*. ANNS 59 
 
 would, indeed, be a serious Ixirc to be obliged 
 to touch your hat several times a day. A Yan- 
 k.-r has iint 1- isiire t <>r it. 
 
 We saw peas, and even beans, collected into 
 heaps in the fields. The former are an impor 
 tant crop li iv. and. I sup]>osc, a:-- not so much 
 infested by the weevil as with us. Tliere were 
 plenty of apples, very fair and sound, by the 
 roadside, but they were so small as to suggest 
 the origin of the apple, in the crab. Tliere was 
 also a small, red fruit which they called >;>//>, 
 and another, also red and very acid, \\li<r 
 name a little boy wrote for me, "pinbena." It 
 is probably the same with, or similar to, the 
 pcmbina of the voyageurs, a species of vibur 
 num, which, according to Kichardson, has given 
 its name to many of the rivers of Rupert s 
 Land. The forest trees were spruce, arbor-vita?, 
 firs, birches, beeches, two or three kinds of ma 
 ple, bass-wood, wild-cherry, aspens, etc., but 
 no pitch pines (Pi nun riyidtt}. I saw very few, 
 if any, trees which had been set out for shade 
 or ornament. The water was commonly run 
 ning streams or springs in the bank by the road 
 side, and was excellent. The parishes are com 
 monly separated by a stream, and frequently the 
 farms. I noticed that the fields were furrowed 
 or thrown into beds seven or eight feet wide to 
 dry the soil. 
 
60 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 At the Riviere du Sault a la Puce^ which, I 
 suppose, means the River of the Fall of the 
 Flea, was advertised in English, as the sports 
 men are English, "The best Snipe-shooting 
 grounds," over the door of a small public-house. 
 These words being English affected me as if I 
 had been absent now ten years from my coun 
 try, and for so long had not heard the sound of 
 my native language, and every one of them was 
 as interesting to me as if I had been a snipe- 
 shooter, and they had been snipes. The pru 
 nella, or self-heal, in the grass here, was an old 
 acquaintance. "We frequently saw the inhabi 
 tants washing, or cooking for their pigs, and in 
 one place hackling flax by the roadside. It was 
 pleasant to see these usually domestic operations 
 carried on out of doors, even in tliat cold coun- 
 
 try- 
 
 At twilight we reached a bridge over a little 
 river, the boundary between Chateau Richer 
 and St. Anne, le premier pont de St. Anne, and 
 at dark the church of La Bonne. St. Anne. 
 Formerly vessels from France, when they came 
 in sight of this church, gave "a general dis 
 charge of their artillery," as a sign of joy that 
 they had escaped all the dangers of the river. 
 Though all the while we had grand views of the 
 adjacent country far up and down the river, 
 and, for the most part, when we turned about, 
 
ST. ANNE 61 
 
 of Quebec in the horizon l>chind us, uncl we 
 never beheld it without new surprise ami admi 
 ration; yet, throughout our walk, the Great 
 River of Canada on our right hand was the 
 main feature in the landscape, and this expands 
 so rapidly below the Isle of Orleans, and creates 
 such a breadth of level horizon above its waters 
 in that direction, that, looking down the river 
 as we approached the extremity of that island, 
 the St. Lawrence seemed to be opening into the 
 ocean, though we were still alxmt three hundred 
 and twenty-five miles from what can be called 
 its mouth. 1 
 
 When we inquired here for a nuri&on publlque 
 we were directed apparently to that private 
 house where we were most likely to find enter 
 tainment. There were no guide-boards where 
 we walked, because there was but one road; 
 there were no shops nor signs, because there were 
 no artisans to speak of, and the pKple raised 
 their own provisions; and there were no taverns, 
 because there were no travelers. We here be 
 spoke lodging and breakfast. They had, as 
 
 1 Prom McCulloch a Geofrrnphieal Dictionary we learn that 
 " immediately beyond the Island of Orleans it is a mile broad ; 
 where the Sa^uenay joins it, eighteen miles ; at Point Peter, 
 upward of thirty ; at the Bay of Seven Inland*, seventy mile* ; 
 and at the Inland of Anticowti (about three hundred and fifty 
 miles from Quebec), it rolls a flood into UM ocean Marly one 
 hundred miles across." 
 
02 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 usual, a largo, old-fashioned, two-storied box- 
 stove in the middle of the room, out of which, 
 in due time, there was sure to be forthcoming 
 a supper, breakfast, or dinner. The lower half 
 held the fire, the upper the hot air, and as it 
 was a cool Canadian evening, this was a com 
 forting sight to us. Being four or five feet 
 high it warmed the whole person as you stood 
 by it. The stove was plainly a very important 
 article of furniture in Canada, and was not set 
 aside during the summer. Its size, and the re 
 spect which was paid to it, told of the severe 
 winters which it had seen and prevailed over. 
 The master of the house, in his long-pointed, 
 red woolen cap, had a thoroughly antique physi- 
 Ognonn -; I M-- "M Norman -tamp. !! mi-lit 
 have come over with Jacques Cartier. His was 
 the hardest French to understand of any we had 
 heard yet, for there was a great difference be 
 tween one speaker and another, and this man 
 talked with a pipe in his mouth beside, a kind 
 of tobacco French. I asked him what he called 
 his dog. He shouted Brock! (the name of 
 the breed). We like to hear the cat called min, 
 min! mini min! I inquired if we could 
 cross the river here to the Isle of Orleans, think 
 ing to return that way when we had been to the 
 falls. He answered, " S il ne fait pas un trop 
 grand vent," If there is not too much wind. 
 
ST. ANNE 
 
 -ni; ll Koats, or pinigurs, :m<l tl 
 \vavrs an- nt i-n t"" lii_;;i for I bl \\\. \ ! WH HI -. 
 as usual, something between a moccasin and a 
 boot, which he called bnttes fndiennes, Indian 
 boots, and had made himself. The tops were 
 of calf or sheep-skin, and the soles of cowhide 
 turned up like a moccasin. They were yellow 
 or reddish, the leather never having Wen tanned 
 nor colored. The women wore the same. He 
 told us that he had traveled ten leagues due 
 north into the bush, lie had been to the Falls 
 of St. Anne, and said that they were more beau 
 tiful, but not greater, than Montmorenci, plus 
 />m. metis non plus grand que Montonortnd. 
 As soon as we had retired, the family com 
 menced their devotions. A little boy officiated, 
 and for a long time we heard him muttering 
 over his prayers. 
 
 In the morning, after a breakfast of tea, ma- 
 ple-sugar, bread and butter, and what I suppose 
 is called potage (potatoes and meat boiled with 
 flour), the universal dish as we found, perhaps 
 the national one, I ran over to the Church of 
 La Bonne St. Anne, whose matin bell we had 
 heard, it being Sunday morning. Our book 
 said that this church had "long been an object 
 of interest, from the miraculous cures said to 
 have been wrought on visitors to the shrine. " 
 There was a profusion of gilding, and I counted 
 
64 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 more than twenty-five crutches suspended on the 
 walls, some for grown persons, some for chil 
 dren, which it was to be inferred so many sick 
 had been able to dispense with ; but they looked 
 as if they had been made to order by the car 
 penter who made the church. There were one 
 or two villagers at their devotions at that early 
 hour, who did not look up, but when they had 
 sat a long time with their little book before the 
 picture of one saint, went to another. Our 
 whole walk was through a thoroughly Catholic 
 country, and there was no trace of any other re 
 ligion. I doubt if there are any more simple 
 and unsophisticated Catholics anywhere. Em 
 ery de Caen, Champlain s contemporary, told 
 the Huguenot sailors that "Monseigneur the 
 Duke de Ventadour (Viceroy) did not wish that 
 they should sing psalms in the Great River." 
 
 On our way to the falls, we met the habitans 
 coming to the Church of La Bonne St. Anne, 
 walking or riding in charettes by families. I 
 remarked that they were universally of small 
 stature. The toll-man at the bridge over the 
 St. Anne was the first man we had chanced to 
 meet, since we left Quebec, who could speak a 
 word of English. How good French the inhab 
 itants of this part of Canada speak, I am not 
 competent to say; I only know that it is not 
 made impure by being mixed with English. I 
 
ST. ANNE 65 
 
 do not know why it should not be as good as is 
 spoken in Normandy. Charlevoix, who was 
 here a hundred years ago, observes, "The 
 French language is nowhere sjx>ken with greater 
 purity, there being no accent perceptible;" and 
 Potherie said "they had no dialect, which, in 
 deed, is generally lost in a colony." 
 
 The falls, which we were in search of, are 
 three miles up the St. Anne. "NVe followed for 
 a short distance a foot-path up the east bank of 
 this river, through handsome sugar-maple and 
 arbor-vita; groves. Having lost the path which 
 led to a house where we were to get further 
 directions, we dashed at once into the woods, 
 steering by guess and by compass, climbing di 
 rectly through woods a steep hill, or mountain, 
 five or six hundred feet high, which was, in 
 fact, only the bank of the St. Lawrence. Be 
 yond this we by good luck fell into another 
 path, and following this or a branch of it, at 
 our discretion, through a forest consisting of 
 large white pines, the first we had seen in our 
 walk, we at length heard the roar of falling 
 water, and came out at the head of the Falls of 
 St. Anne. We had descended into a ravine or 
 cleft in the mountain, whose walls rose still a 
 hundred feet above us, though we were near its 
 to]), and we now stood on a very rock) shore, 
 where the water had lately flowed a dozen feet 
 
G6 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 higher, as appeared by the stones and drift 
 wood, and large birches twisted and splintered 
 as a fanner twists a withe. Here the river, one 
 or two hundred feet wide, came flowing rapidly 
 over a rocky bed out of that interesting wilder 
 ness which stretches toward Hudson s Bay and 
 Davis s Straits. Ha-ha Bay, on the Saguenay, 
 was about one hundred miles north of where we 
 stood. Looking on the map, I find that the 
 first country on the north which bears a name is 
 that part of Rupert s Land called East Main. 
 This river, called after the holy Anne, flowing 
 from such a direction, here tumbled over a pre 
 cipice, at present by three channels, how far 
 down I do not know, but far enough for all our 
 purposes, and to as good a distance as if twice 
 as far. It matters little whether you call it 
 one, or two, or three hundred feet; at any rate, 
 it was a sufficient water-privilege for us. I 
 crossed the principal channel directly over the 
 verge of the fall, where it was contracted to 
 about fifteen feet in width, by a dead tree, which 
 had IKJCU dropped across and secured in a cleft 
 of the opposite rock, and a smaller one a few 
 feet higher, which served for a hand-rail. This 
 bridge was rotten as well as small and slippery, 
 being stripped of bark, and I was obliged to 
 seize a moment to pass when the falling water 
 did not surge over it, and mid-way, though at 
 
ST. ANNE 
 
 the expense of wet feet, I looked down probably 
 more than a hundred feet, into the mint and 
 foam below. This gave me the freedom of an 
 island of precipitous rock by which I descended 
 as by giant steps, the rock being composed of 
 large cubical masses, clothed with delicate close- 
 hugging lichens of various colors, kept fresh and 
 bright by the moisture, till I viewed the first 
 fall from the front, and looked down still deeper 
 to where the second and third channels fell into 
 a remarkably large circular basin worn in the 
 stone. The falling water seemed to jar the very 
 rocks, and the noise to be ever increasing. The 
 vista down stream was through a narrow and 
 deep cleft in the mountain, all white suds at the 
 bottom ; but a sudden angle in this gorge pre 
 vented my seeing through to the bottom of the 
 fall. Returning to the shore, I made my way 
 down stream through the forest to see how far 
 the fall extended, and how the river came out of 
 that adventure. It was to clamber along the 
 side of a precipitous mountain of loose mossy 
 rocks, covered with a damp primitive forest, 
 and terminating at the bottom in an abrupt 
 precipice over the stream. This was the east 
 side of the fall. At length, after a quarter of a 
 mile, I got down to still water, and, on looking 
 up through the winding gorge, I could just see 
 to the foot of the fall which 1 had l>efore exam- 
 
68 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 ined ; while from the opposite side of the stream, 
 here much contracted, rose a perpendicular 
 wall, I will not venture to say how many hun 
 dred feet, but only that it was the highest per 
 pendicular wall of bare rock that I ever saw. 
 In front of me tumbled in from the summit of 
 the cliff a tributary stream, making a beautiful 
 cascade, which was a remarkable fall in itself, 
 and there was a cleft in this precipice, appar 
 ently four or five feet wide, perfectly straight 
 up and down from top to bottom, which, from 
 its cavernous depth and darkness, appeared 
 merely as a black streak. This precipice is not 
 sloped, nor is the material soft and crumbling 
 slate as at Montmorenci, but it rises perpendic 
 ular, like the side of a mountain fortress, and is 
 cracked into vast cubical masses of gray and 
 black rock shining with moisture, as if it were 
 the min of an ancient wall built by Titans. 
 Birches, spruces, mountain-ashes with their 
 bright red berries, arbor-vitaes, white pines, 
 alders, etc., overhung this chasm on the very 
 verge of the cliff and in the crevices, and here 
 and there were buttresses of rock supporting 
 trees part way down, yet so as to enhance, not 
 injure, the effect of the bare rock. Take it al 
 together, it was a most wild and rugged and 
 stupendous chasm, so deep and narrow where a 
 river had worn itself a passage through a moun- 
 
ST. ANNE 69 
 
 tain of rtx k, and all around wa.s the compara- 
 ti\ Iv untrodden wilderness. 
 
 This was the limit of our walk down the St. 
 Lawrence. Karly in the afternoon we began to 
 retrace our steps, not being able to cross the 
 north channel and return by the Isle of Orleans, 
 on account of the trop grand rent, or too great 
 wind. Though the waves did run pretty hi^h, 
 it was evident that the inhabitants of Mont- 
 morenci County were no sailors, and made but 
 little use of the river. When we reached the 
 bridge, between St. Anne and Chateau Richer, 
 I ran back a little way to ask a man in the field 
 the name of the river which we were crossing, 
 but for a long time I could not make out what 
 he said, for lie was one of the more unintelligi 
 ble Jacques Cartier men. At last it flashed 
 upon me that it was La Riviere au Chien, or 
 the Dog River, which my eyes beheld, which 
 brought to my mind the life of the Canadian 
 voyageur and coureur de 601*9 a iN r e w--t. in 
 and wilder Arcadia, methinks, than the world 
 has ever seen; for the Greeks, with all their 
 wood and river gods, were not so qualified to 
 name the natural features of a country as the 
 ancestors of these French Canadians ; and if any 
 people had a right to substitute their own for 
 the Indian names, it was they. They have pre 
 ceded the pioneer on our own frontiers, and 
 
70 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 named t\w prairie for us. La Riviere au Chien 
 cannot, by any license of language, be translated 
 into Dog River, for that is not such a giving it 
 to the dogs, and recognizing their place in crea 
 tion, as the French implies. One of the tribu 
 taries of the St. Anne is named La Riviere de 
 Ja Roue ; and farther east are La Riviere de la 
 Illonddle and La RivCere de la Friponne. 
 Their very riviere meanders more than our river. 
 Yet the impression which this country made 
 on me was commonly different from this. To a 
 traveler from the Old World, Canada East may 
 appear like a new country, and its inhabitants 
 like colonists, but to me coming from New Eng 
 land, and l>eing a very green traveler withal, 
 notwithstanding what I have said about Hud 
 son s Bay, it appeared as old as Normandy 
 itself, and realized much that I had heard of 
 Europe and the Middle Ages. Even the names 
 of humble Canadian villages affected me as if 
 they had been those of the renowned cities of 
 autiijuity. To be told by a habitan, when I 
 asked the name of a village in sight, that it is 
 St. Fereole or *SY. Anne, the Guardian Anyel 
 or the 7/o/y Joneph x ; or of a mountain, that it 
 was Belanyc or >S7. Hyacinthe! As soon as 
 you leave the States, these saintly names begin. 
 St. John is the first town you stop at (fortu 
 nately we did not see it), and thenceforward, 
 
ST. ANNE 71 
 
 the names of the mountains, and streams, ami 
 villages reel, if I may so speak, with the intoxi 
 cation of poetry, Chtimbly* Longueil^ Pu\i<i> 
 aux Tremble*. Burtholomy^ etc., etc.; as if it 
 needed nly a little foreign accent, a few more 
 liquids and vowels perchance in the language, to 
 make us locate our ideals at onee. I began to 
 dream of Provence and the Trouhadours, and of 
 places and things which have no existence on the 
 earth. They veiled the Indian and the primi 
 tive forest, and the woods toward Hudson s 
 Buv were onlv as tin- forests of France and Ger 
 many. I could not at once bring myself to be 
 lieve that the inhabitants who pronounced dailv 
 those beautiful and, to me, significant names 
 l.-ail as prosaic lives as we of N M England, [fl 
 short, the Canada which I saw was not merely a 
 place for railroads to terminate in and for crim 
 inals to run to. 
 
 When I asked the man to whom I have re 
 ferred, if there were any falls on the Riviere an 
 Chien, for I saw that it came over the same 
 high bank with the Montmorenci and St. Anne, 
 he answered that there were. How far? I 
 inquired. Troia quatre* lieue. How hi-li 
 Je jtenne^ qvatre-rinyt-dir jrieds ; that is, ninety 
 feet. We turned aside to look at the falls of 
 the Itivierc du Sanlt a In Pure, lialf a mile 
 from the road, which l>efore we had passed in 
 
72 .4 YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 OUT haste and ignorance, and we pronounced 
 them as beautiful as any that we saw; yet they 
 seemed to make no account of them there, and, 
 when first we inquired the way to the falls, di 
 rected us to MoDtmorenci, seven miles distant. 
 It was evident that this was the country for wa 
 terfalls; that every stream that empties into the 
 St. Lawrence, for some hundreds of miles, must 
 have a great fall or cascade on it, and in its 
 passage through the mountains was, for a short 
 distance, a small Saguenay, with its upright 
 walls. This fall of La Puce, tlu least remark 
 able of the four which we visited in this vicinity, 
 we had never heard of till we came to Canada, 
 and yet, so far as I know, there is nothing of 
 the kind in New England to be compared with 
 it. Most travelers in Canada would not hear of 
 it, though they might go so near as to hear it. 
 Since my return I find that in the topographical 
 description of the country mention is made of 
 "two or three romantic falls " on this stream, 
 though we saw and heard of but this one. Ask 
 the inhabitants respecting any stream, if there 
 is a fall on it, and they will perchance tell you 
 of something as interesting as Bashpish or the 
 Catskill, which no traveler has ever seen, or if 
 they have not found it, you may possibly trace 
 up the stream and discover it yourself. Falls 
 there are a drug; and we became quite dissi- 
 
ST. ANNE 73 
 
 pated in respect to them. We had drank too 
 much of them. Beside these which I have re 
 ferred to, there are a thousand other falls on 
 the St. Lawrence and its tributaries which I 
 have not seen nor heard of; and al>ove all tln-rr 
 is one which I have heard of, called Niagara, so 
 that I think that this river must be the most 
 remarkable for its falls of any in the world. 
 
 At a house near the western boundary of 
 Chateau Richer, whose master was said to sj>eak 
 a very little English, having recently lived at 
 Queliec, we got lodging for the night. As usual, 
 we had to go down a lane to get round to the 
 south side of the house where the door was, 
 away from the road. For these Canadian 
 houses have no front door, properly speaking. 
 Every part is for the use of the occupant exclu 
 sively, and no part has reference to the traveler 
 or to travel. Every New England house, on 
 the contrary, has a front and principal door 
 opening to the great world, though it may IK? on 
 the cold side, for it stands on the highway of 
 nations, and the road which runs by it conies 
 from the Old World and goes to the far West; 
 but the Canadian s door opens into his back 
 yard and farm alone, and the road which runs 
 behind his house leads only from the church of 
 one saint to that of another. We found a large 
 family, hired men, wife and children, just eat- 
 
74 A } ANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 ing their supper. They prepared some for us 
 afterwards. The hired men were a merry crew 
 of short, black-eyed fellows, and the wife a thin- 
 faced, sharp-featured French Canadian woman. 
 Our host s English staggered us rather more 
 than any French we had heard yet ; indeed, we 
 found that even we spoke better French than he 
 did English, and we concluded that a less crime 
 would be committed on the whole if we spoke 
 French with him, and in no respect aided or 
 abetted his attempts to speak English. We 
 had a long and merry chat with the family this 
 Sunday evening in their spacious kitchen. 
 While my companion smoked a pipe and par- 
 lez-vous d with one party, I parleyed and ges 
 ticulated to another. The whole family was 
 enlisted, and I kept a little girl writing what 
 wa otherwise unintelligible. The geography 
 getting obscure, we called for chalk, and the 
 greasy oiled table-cloth having been wiped, - 
 for it needed no French, but only a sentence 
 from the universal language of looks on my 
 part, to indicate that it needed it, we drew 
 the St. Lawrence, with its parishes, thereon, 
 and thenceforward went on swimmingly, by 
 turns handling the chalk and committing to the 
 table-cloth what would otherwise have been left 
 in a limbo of unintelligibility. This was greatly 
 to the entertainment of all parties. I was 
 
sr. AXNE 75 
 
 amused to hear how much use they made of the 
 wortl oui in conversation with one another. Af 
 ter repeated single insertions of it, one would 
 suddenly throw back his head at the same time 
 with his chair, and exclaim rapidly, ** Oui. 9 oui! 
 oui! on* /"like a Yankee driving pigs. Our 
 host told us that the farms thereabouts were 
 generally two acres or three hundred and sixty 
 French feet wide, by one and a half leagues, (?) 
 or a little more than four and a half of our miles 
 deep. This use of the word (icre as long mea 
 sure arises from the fact that the French acre 
 or arpent, the arpent of Paris, makes a square 
 of ten perches, of eighteen feet each on a side, a 
 Paris foot being equal to 1.06575 English feet. 
 He said that the wood was cut off about one 
 mile from the river. The rest was "bush," and 
 beyond that the "Queen s bush." Old as the 
 country is, each landholder bounds on the prim 
 itive forest, and fuel bears no price. As I had 
 forgotten the French for tickle , they went out in 
 the evening to the barn and got one, and so 
 clenched the certainty of our understanding one 
 another. Then, wishing to learn if they used 
 the cradle, and not knowing any French word 
 for this instrument, I set up the knives and 
 forks on the blade of the sickle to represent 
 one; at which they all exclaimed that they knew 
 and had used it. When snell* were mentioned 
 
76 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 they went out in the dark and plucked some. 
 They were pretty good. They said they had 
 three kinds of plums growing wild, blue, 
 white, and red, the two former much alike and 
 the best. Also they asked me if I would have 
 dex poultries, some apples, and got me some. 
 They were exceedingly fair and glossy, and it 
 was evident that there was no worm in them; 
 but they were as hard almost as a stone, as if 
 the season was too short to mellow them. We 
 had seen no soft and yellow apples by the road 
 side. I declined eating one, much as I admired 
 it, observing that it would be good dans le 
 printemp^ in the spring. In the morning when 
 the mistress had set the eggs a-frving she 
 nodded to a thick-set, jolly -looking fellow, who 
 rolled up his sleeves, seized the long-handled 
 griddle, and commenced a series of revolutions 
 and evolutions with it, ever and anon tossing its 
 contents into the air, where they turned com 
 pletely topsy-turvy and came down t other side 
 up; and this he repeated till they were done. 
 That appeared to be his duty when eggs were 
 concerned. I did not chance to witness this 
 ]Mrformanre, but my companion did, and he 
 pronounced it a masterpiece in its way. This 
 man s farm, with the buildings, cost seven hun 
 dred pounds; some smaller ones, two hundred. 
 In 1827, Montmorenci County, to which the 
 
ST. A\XK 
 
 Isle of Orleans ha.s since Wn added, was nearly 
 as large as Massachusetts, being the eighth 
 county out of forty (in Lower Canada) in ex 
 tent; but by far the greater part still must con 
 tinue to be waste land, lying as it were under 
 the walls of Quebec. 
 
 I quote these old statistics, not merely because 
 of the difficulty of obtaining more recent ones, 
 but also because I saw there so little evidence of 
 any recent growth. There were in this county, 
 at the same date, five Roman Catholic churches, 
 and no others, five cures and five presbyteries, 
 two schools, two corn-mills, four saw-mills, one 
 earding-mill, no medical man, or notary or 
 lawyer, five shopkeepers, four taverns (we 
 saw no sign of any, though, after a little hesita 
 tion, we were sometimes directed to some undis 
 tinguished hut as such), thirty artisans, and live 
 river crafts, whose tonnage amounted to sixty- 
 nine tons! This, notwithstanding that it ha* a 
 frontage of more than thirty miles on the river, 
 and the population is almost wholly confined to 
 its banks. This describes nearly enough what 
 we saw. But double some of these figures, 
 which, however, its growth will not warrant, and 
 you have described a poverty which not even its 
 severity of climate and ruggedness of soil will 
 suffice to account for. The principal produc 
 tions were wheat, potatoes, oats, hay, i>eaa, fiax, 
 
78 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 maple-sugar, etc., etc. ; linen cloth, or etoffe du 
 /K/ys, flannel, and homespun, or petite etoffe. 
 
 In Lower Canada, according to Bouchette, 
 there are two tenures, the feudal and the 
 socagc. Tenanciers, censitaires, or holders of 
 land en roture pay a small annual rent to the 
 seigneurs, to which "is added some articles of 
 provision, such as a couple of fowls, or a goose, 
 or a bushel of wheat." "They are also bound 
 to grind their corn at the moidin banal, or 
 the lord s mill, where one fourteenth part of it 
 is taken for his use" as toll. He says that the 
 toll is one twelfth in the United States where 
 coin ixrtit ion exists. It is not permitted to ex 
 ceed one sixteenth in Massachusetts. But worse 
 than this monopolizing of mill rents is what are 
 called loch et rentes, or mutation fines, ac 
 cording to which the seigneur has "a right to a 
 twelfth part of the purchase-money of every es 
 tate within his seigniory that changes its owner 
 by sale." This is over and above the sum paid 
 to the seller. In such cases, moreover, "the 
 lord possesses the droit de rctrait, which is the 
 privilege of preemption at the highest bidden 
 price within forty days after the sale has taken 
 place, v a right which, however, is said to 
 be seldom exercised. "Lands held by Roman 
 Catholics are further subject to the payment to 
 their curates of one twenty -sixth part of all the 
 
ST. ANNE 79 
 
 grain produced upon them, and to occasional as- 
 >rim-iits for building and repairing churches," 
 etc., a tax to whieli they are not subject if the 
 proprietors change their faith; hut they are not 
 the less attached to their church in consequence. 
 There are, however, various modifications of the 
 feudal tenure. Under the socage tenure, which 
 is that of the townships or more recent settle 
 ments, English, Irish, Scotch, and others, and 
 generally of Canada West, the landholder is 
 wholly unshackled by such conditions as I have 
 quoted, and "is bound to no other obligations 
 than those of allegiance to the king and obedi 
 ence to the laws." Throughout Canada u a 
 freehold of forty shillings yearly value, or the 
 payment of ten pounds rent annually, is the 
 qualification for voters." In 1846 more than 
 one sixth of the whole population of Canada 
 East were qualified to vote for memWs of Par 
 liament, a greater proportion than enjoy a 
 similar privilege in the United States. 
 
 The imputation which we had seen the last 
 two days I mean the habitans of Montmo- 
 renci County -- appeared very inferior, intel 
 lectually and even physically, to that of New 
 England. In some respects they were incredi 
 bly filthy. It was evident that they had not 
 advanced since the settlement of the country, 
 tliat they were quite behind the age, and fairly 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 represented their ancestors in Normandy a thou- 
 saml years ago. Even in respect to the com 
 mon arts of life, they are not so far advanced as 
 a frontier town in the West three years old. 
 They have no money invested in railroad stock, 
 and probably never will have. If they have got 
 a French phrase for a railroad, it is as much as 
 you can expect of them. They are very far 
 from a revolution : have no quarrel with Church 
 or State, but their vice and their virtue is con 
 tent. As for annexation, they have never 
 dreamed of it; indeed, they have not a clear 
 idea what or where the States are. The Eng 
 lish government lias been remarkably liberal to 
 its Catholic subjects in Canada, permitting them 
 to wear their own fetters, both political and re 
 ligious, as far as was possible for subjects. 
 Their government is even too good for them. 
 Parliament passed "an act [in 1825] to provide 
 for the extinction of feudal and seigniorial rights 
 and burdens on lands in Lower Canada, and for 
 the gradual conversion of those tenures into the 
 tenure of free and common socage," etc. But 
 as late as 1831, at least, the design of the act was 
 likely to be frustrated, owing to the reluctance 
 of the seigniors and peasants. It has been ob 
 served by another that the French Canadians do 
 not extend nor j>erpetuate their influence. The 
 British, Irish, and other immigrants, who have 
 
ST. ANNE 81 
 
 settled the townships, are found to have imitated 
 the American settlers and not the French. 
 They reminded me in this of the Indians, whom 
 they were slow to displace, and to whose habits 
 of lifo they themselves more readily conformed 
 than the Indians to theirs. The Governor-Gen 
 eral Denouville remarked, in 1685, tluit some 
 had long thought that it was necessary to bring 
 the Indians near them in order to Frenchify 
 (/rfincjVr) them, but that they had even- rea 
 son to think themselves in an error; for those 
 who had come near them and were even col 
 lected in villages in the midst of the colony had 
 not become French, but the French who had 
 haunted them had become savages. Kalm said, 
 "Though many nations imitate the French cus 
 toms, yet I observed, on the contrary, that the 
 French in Canada, in many respects, follow the 
 customs of the Indians, with whom they con 
 verse every day. They make use of the tobacco- 
 pipes, shoes, garters, and girdles of the Indians. 
 They follow the Indian way of making war with 
 exactness; they mix the same things with to 
 bacco [he might have said that both French and 
 English learned the use itself of this weed of the 
 Indian]; they make use of the Indian bark- 
 boats, and row them in the Indian way; they 
 wrap square pieces of cloth round their feet 
 instead of stockings: and have adopted many 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 other Indian fashions.* Thus, while the de 
 scendants of the Pilgrims are teaching the Eng 
 lish to make pegged boots, the descendants of 
 the French in Canada are wearing the Indian 
 moccasin still. The French, to their credit be 
 it said, to a certain extent respected the Indians 
 as a separate and independent people, and spoko 
 of them and contrasted themselves with them as 
 the English have never done. They not only 
 went to war with them as allies, but they lived 
 at home with them as neighbors. In 1627 the 
 French king declared "that the descendants of 
 the French, settled in" New France, "and the 
 savages who should be brought to the knowledge 
 of the faith, and should make profession of it, 
 should be counted and reputed French born 
 (NatwreU Fran$oi&)\ and as such could emigrate 
 to France, when it seemed good to them, and 
 there acquire, will, inherit, etc-., etc., without 
 obtaining letters of naturalization." When the 
 English had possession of Quebec, in 1630, the 
 Indians, attempting to practice the same famil 
 iarity with them that they had with the French, 
 were driven out of their houses with blows; 
 which accident taught them a difference between 
 the two races, and attached them yet more to 
 the French. The impression made on me was 
 that the French Canadians were even sharing 
 the fate of the Indians, or at least gradually 
 
ST. AN\E 83 
 
 disappearing in what is called the Saxon cur 
 rent. 
 
 The English did not come to America from a 
 mere love of adventure, nor to truck with or 
 convert the savages, nor to hold offices under 
 the crown, as the French to a great extent did, 
 but to live in earnest and with freedom. The 
 latter overran a gr -at extent of country, telling 
 strong water, and collecting its furs, and con 
 verting its inhabitants, or at least baptizing 
 its dying infants (enfan* moribund *\ with 
 out improving it. First, went the coiireitr de 
 bois with the eau de vie ; then followed, if he 
 did not precede, the heroic missionary with the 
 eau d immortafite. It was freedom to hunt, 
 and tish, and convert, not to work, that they 
 sought. Hontan says that the coureurs de bois 
 lived like sailors ashore. In no part of the 
 seventeenth century could the French l>e said to 
 have had a foothold in Canada; they held only 
 by the fur of the wild animals which they were 
 exterminating. To enable the poor seigneurs to 
 get their living, it was permitted by a decree 
 passed in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, in 
 1685, **to all nobles and gentlemen settled in 
 Canada, to engage in commerce, without Wing 
 called to account or reputed to have done any 
 thing derogatory." Tin; reader can infer to 
 what extent they had engaged in agriculture, 
 
84 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 and how their farms must have shone by this 
 time. The New England youth, on the other 
 hand, were never conreurn de bois nor voyageurs, 
 but backwoodsmen and sailors rather. Of all 
 nations the English undoubtedly have proved 
 hitherto that they had the most business here. 
 
 Yet I am not sure but I have most sympathy 
 with that spirit of adventure which distinguished 
 the French and Spaniards of those days, and 
 made them especially the explorers of the 
 American Continent, which so early carried 
 the former to the Great Lakes and the Missis 
 sippi on the north, and the latter to the same 
 river on the south. It was long before our 
 frontiers reached their settlements in the West. 
 So far as inland discovery was concerned, the 
 adventurous spirit of the English was that of 
 sailors who land but for a day, and their enter 
 prise the enterprise of traders. 
 
 There was apparently a greater equality of 
 condition among the habitans of Montmorenci 
 County than in New England. They are an 
 almost exclusively agricultural, and so far in 
 dependent population, each family producing 
 nearly all the necessaries of life for itself. If 
 the Canadian wants energy, perchance he pos 
 sesses those virtues, social and others, which the 
 Yankee lacks, in which case he cannot be re- 
 gnrded as a poor man. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 
 
 AFTER spending the night at a fann-hou.se in 
 Chateau Richer, about a dozen miles northeast 
 of Quebec, we set out on our return to the city. 
 We stopped at the next house, a picturesque old 
 stone mill, ever the Chipre, for so the name 
 sounded, such as you will nowhere see in the 
 States, and asked the millers the age of the 
 mill. They went upstairs to call the master; 
 but the crabbed old miser asked why we wanted 
 to know, and would tell us only for some com 
 pensation. I wanted French to give him a 
 piece of my mind. I had got enough to talk on 
 a pinch, but not to quarrel, so I had to come 
 away, looking all I would have said. This was 
 the utmost incivility we met with in Canada. 
 In Beauport, within a few miles of Quebec, we 
 turned aside to look at a church which was just 
 being completed, a very large and handsome 
 edifice of stone, with a green bough stm-k in its 
 gable, of some significance to Catholics. The 
 comparative wealth of the Church in this coun 
 try was apparent ; for in this village we did not 
 
8G .1 YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 see one good house besides. They were all 
 humble cottages ; and yet this appeared to me a 
 more imposing structure than any church in 
 Boston. But I am no judge of these things. 
 
 Keentering Quebec through St. John s Gate, 
 we took a caleche in Market Square for the 
 Falls of the Chaudiere, about nine miles south 
 west of the city, for which we were to pay so 
 much, beside forty sous for tolls. The driver, 
 as usual, sj>oke French only. The number of 
 these vehicles is very great for so small a town. 
 They are like one of our chaises that has lost its 
 top, only stouter and longer in the body, with a 
 seat for the driver where the dasher is with us, 
 and broad leather ears on each side to protect 
 the riders from the wheel and keep children 
 from falling out. They had an easy jaunting 
 look, which, as our hours were numbered, per 
 suaded us to be riders. We met with them on 
 every road near Quebec these days, each with 
 its complement of two inquisitive-looking for 
 eigners and a Canadian driver, the former evi 
 dently enjoying their novel experience, for com 
 monly it is only the horse whose language you 
 do not understand; but they were one remove 
 further from him by the intervention of an 
 equally unintelligible driver. We crossed the 
 St. Lawrence to Point Levi in a French Cana 
 dian ferry-boat, which was inconvenient and 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 87 
 
 dirty, and managed with great noise and bu-:l. . 
 The current wn-* v-rv strong ami tmiiultu>u, 
 and the boat tossed enough to make some nick, 
 though it was only a mile across; yet the wind 
 was not to be compared with that of the day be 
 fore, and we saw that the Canadians had a good 
 excuse for not taking us over to the Isle of 
 Orleans in a pirogue, however shiftless they may 
 be for not having provided any other convey 
 ance. The route which we took to the Chau- 
 diere did not afford us those views of Quel>ec 
 which we had expected, and the country and in 
 habitants appeared less interesting to a traveler 
 than those we had seen. The Falls of the 
 Chaudiere are three miles from its mouth on the 
 south side of the St. Lawrence. Though they 
 were the largest which I saw in Canada, I was 
 not proportionately interested by them, proba 
 bly from satiety. I did not see any peculiar 
 propriety in the name Chattd&r&, or caldron. 
 I saw here the most brilliant rainbow that I 
 ever imagined. It w;is just across the stream 
 l>elow the precipice, formed on the mist which 
 this tremendous fall produced; and 1 stood on a 
 level with the key-stone of its arch. It was not 
 a few faint prismatic colors merely, but a full 
 semicircle, only four or five rods in diam t. r. 
 though as wide as usual, so intensely bright as 
 to pain the eye, and apparently as substantial 
 
A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 as an arch of stone. It changed its position 
 and colors as we moved, and was the brighter 
 because the sun shone so clearly and the mist 
 was so thick. Evidently a picture painted on 
 mist for the men and animals that came to the 
 falls to look at; but for what special purpose 
 beyond this, I know not. At the farthest point 
 in this ride, and when most inland, unexpectedly 
 at a turn in the road we descried the frowning 
 citadel of Quebec in the horizon, like the beak 
 of a bird of prey. We returned by the river 
 road under th bank, which is very high, abrupt, 
 and rocky. When we were opposite to Quebec, 
 I was surprised to see that in the Lower Town, 
 under the shadow of the rock, the lamps were 
 lit, twinkling not unlike crystals in a cavern, 
 while the citadel high above, and we, too, on 
 the south shore, were in broad daylight. As 
 we were too late for the ferry-boat that night, 
 we put up at a maixon de pension at Point 
 Levi. The usual two-story stove was here 
 placed against an opening in the partition 
 shaped like a fireplace, and so warmed several 
 rooms. We could not understand their French 
 here very well, but the potaye was just like 
 what we had hail Wore. There were many 
 small cliambers with doorways, but no doors. 
 The walls of our chamber, all around and over 
 head, were neatly ceiled, and the timbers cased 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEREC 89 
 
 with wood unpainted. The pillows were check 
 ered and tasseled, and the usual long-pointed 
 red woolen or worsted night-cap was placed on 
 each. I pulled mine out to see how it was 
 made. It was in the form of a double cone, one 
 end tucked into the other; just such, it ap 
 peared, as I saw men wearing all day in the 
 streets. Probably I should have put it on if 
 the cold had been then, as it is sometimes there, 
 thirty or forty degrees below zero. 
 
 When we landed at Quebec the next morning 
 a man lay on his back on the wharf, apparently 
 dying, in the midst of a crowd and directly in 
 the path of the horses, groaning, " O in a con 
 science!" I thought that he pronounced his 
 French more distinctly than any I heard, as if 
 the dying had already acquired the accents of a 
 universal language. Having secured the only 
 unengaged berths in the Lord Sydenham 
 steamer, which was to leave Queliee before sun 
 down, and being resolved, now that I had seen 
 somewhat of the country, to get an idea of tin- 
 city, I proceeded to walk round the Upper 
 Town, or fortified portion, which is two miles 
 and three quarters in circuit, alone, as near as 
 I could get to the cliff and the walls, like a rat 
 looking for a hole ; going round by the south 
 west, where there is but a single street between 
 the cliff and the water, and up the long wooden 
 
90 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 stairs, through the suburbs northward to the 
 King s Woodyard, which I thought must have 
 Iwen a long way from his fireplace, and under 
 the cliffs of the St. Charles, where the drains 
 issue under the walls, and the walls are loop- 
 holed for musketry ; so returning by Mountain 
 Street and Prescott Gate to the Upper Town. 
 Having found my way by an obscure passage 
 near the St. Louis Gate to the glacis on the 
 north of the citadel proper, I believe that I 
 was the only visitor then in the city who got in 
 there, I enjoyed a prospect nearly as good as 
 from within the citadel itself, which I had ex 
 plored some days before. As 1 walked on the 
 glacis I heard the sound of a bagpipe from the 
 soldiers dwellings in the rock, and was further 
 soothed and affected by the sight of a soldier s 
 cat walking up a elected plank into a high loop 
 hole, designed for mus-catry, as serene as Wis 
 dom herself, and with a gracefully waving mo 
 tion of her tail, as if her ways were ways of 
 pleasantness and all her paths were peace. 
 Scaling a slat fence, where a small force might 
 have checked me, I got out of the esplanade 
 into the Governor s Garden, and read the well- 
 known inscription on Wolfe and Montcalm s 
 monument, which for saying much in little, and 
 that to the purpose, undoubtedly deserved the 
 prize medal which it received: 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC IU 
 
 MORTEM . VIRTUS . COMMUNKM . 
 FAMAM . HISTORIA . 
 
 M< >M Ml.N MM. 1 ! I III 1 \- - 
 DEDIT. 
 
 Valor gave them one death, history one fame, 
 posterity one monument. The- Government 
 Garden has for nosegays, amid kitchen vegeta 
 bles, beside the common garden flowers, the 
 usual complement of cannon directed toward 
 some future and possible enemy. I then re 
 turned up St. Louis Street to the esplanade and 
 ramparts there, and went round the Upjwr 
 Town once more, though I was very tired, this 
 time on the inside of the wall; for I knew that 
 the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and liad 
 cost a great deal of money, and therefore I must 
 make the most of it. In fact, these are the only 
 remarkable walls we have in North America, 
 though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, 
 it is true. Moreover, I cannot say but I yielded 
 in some measure to the soldier instinct, and, 
 having but a short time to spare, thought it test 
 to examine the wall thoroughly, that 1 might l>e 
 the tetter prepared if I should ever te called 
 that way again in the service of my country. I 
 committed all the gates to memory, in their or 
 der, which did not cost me so much trouble as 
 it would have done at the hunt! red -gated city. 
 
92 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 there being only five ; nor were they so hard to 
 remember as those seven of Boeotian Thebes; 
 and, moreover, I thought that, if seven cham 
 pions were enough against the latter, one would 
 In? enough against Quebec, though he bore for 
 :dl armor and device only an umbrella and a 
 bundle. I took the nunneries as I went, for I 
 had learned to distinguish them by the blinds ; 
 and I observed also the foundling hospitals and 
 the convents, and whatever was attached to, or 
 in the vicinity of the walls. All the rest I 
 omitted, as naturally as one would the inside of 
 an inedible shell-fish. These were the only 
 pearls, and the wall the only mother-of-pearl 
 for me. Quebec is chiefly famous for the thick 
 ness of its parietal bones. The technical terms 
 of its conchology may stagger a beginner a lit 
 tle at first, such as banlieue, esplanade, glacis, 
 ravelin, cavalier, etc., etc., but with the aid of 
 a comprehensive dictionary you soon learn the 
 nature of your ground. I was surprised at the 
 extent of the artillery barracks, built so long 
 ago, Casernes Nourelles, they used to be 
 called, nearly six hundred feet in length by 
 forty in depth, where the sentries, like peripa 
 tetic philosophers, were so absorbed in thought 
 as not to notice me when I passed in and out at 
 the gates. Within are "small arms of every 
 description, sufficient for the equipment of 
 
THE WALLS OF Qt EREC 93 
 
 twenty thousand men, * so arranged as to give a 
 startling coup d ceil to strangers. I <li<l not 
 enter, not wishing to get a black eye ; for they 
 are said to be "in a state of complete repair 
 and readiness for immediate use/ Here, for a 
 short time, I lost sight of the wall, but I recov 
 ered it again on emerging from the barrack 
 yard. There I met with a Scotchman who ap 
 peared to have business with the wall, like my 
 self; and, being thus mutually drawn together 
 by a similarity of tastes, we had a little conver 
 sation sub maenibun* that is, by an angle of the 
 wall, which sheltered us. He lived about thirty 
 miles northwest of Quebec : had been nineteen 
 years in the country ; said he was disappointed 
 that he was not brought to America after all, 
 but found himself still under British rule and 
 where his own language was not spoken: that 
 many Scotch, Irish, and English were disap 
 pointed in like manner, and either went to the 
 States, or pushed up the river to Canada West, 
 nearer to the States, and where their language 
 was spoken. He talked of visiting the States 
 sometime; and, as he seemed ignorant of geo 
 graphy, I warned him that it was one thing to 
 visit the State of Massachusetts, and another to 
 visit the State of California. He said it was 
 colder there than usual at that season, and he 
 was lucky to have brought his thick togue, or 
 
94 A YANKEE IX CANADA 
 
 frock-coat, with him; thought it would snow, 
 and then be pleasant and warm. That is the 
 way we are always thinking. However, his 
 words were music to me in iny thin hat and 
 sack. 
 
 At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Par 
 liament House I counted twenty-four thirty - 
 two-poundera in a row, pointed over the harbor, 
 with their balls piled pyramid-wise between 
 them, there are said to be in all about one 
 hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec, 
 - all which were faithfully kept dusted by offi 
 cials, in accordance witli the motto, " In time of 
 peace prepare for war; " but I saw no prepara 
 tions for peace; she was plainly an uninvited 
 guest. 
 
 Having thus completed the circuit of this 
 fortress, both within and without, I went no 
 farther by the wall for fear that I should 
 become wall-eyed. However, I think that I 
 deserve to be made a member of the Royal 
 Sappers and Miners. 
 
 In short, I observed everywhere the most per 
 fect arrangements for keeping a wall in order, 
 not even permitting the lichens to grow on it, 
 which some think an ornament; but then I saw 
 no cultivation nor pasturing within it to pay for 
 the outlay, and cattle were strictly forbidden to 
 feed on the glacis under the severest penalties. 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 95 
 
 Where the dogs get their milk I don t know, 
 and I fear it is blowly at best. 
 
 The citadel of Quebec says, " I will live here, 
 and you shan t prevent me." To whieh you 
 return, that you have not the slightest objection : 
 live and let live. The Martello towers looked, 
 for all the world, exactly like abandoned wind 
 mills, which had not had a grist to grind these 
 hundred years. Indeed, the whole castle here 
 was a "folly," England s folly, and, in 
 more senses than one, a castle in the air. The 
 inhabitants and the government are gradually 
 waking up to a sense of this truth; for I heard 
 something said about their abandoning the wall 
 around the Upper Town, and confining the for 
 tifications to the citadel of forty acres. Of 
 course they will finally reduce their intrench - 
 ments to the circumference of their own brave 
 
 hearts. 
 
 The most modern fortifications have an air of 
 antiquity about them; they have the aspect of 
 ruins in better or worse repair from the day 
 they are built, because they are not really the 
 work of this age. The very place where the 
 soldier resides has a peculiar tendency to become 
 old and dilapidated, as the word barrack im 
 plies. I couple all fortifications in my mind 
 with the dismantled Spanish forts to be found 
 in so many parts of the world ; and if in any 
 
% A YANKEE I\ CANADA 
 
 place they are not actually dismantled, it is be 
 cause that there the intellect of the inhabitants 
 is dismantled. The commanding officer of an 
 
 O 
 
 old fort near Valdivia in South America, when 
 a traveler remarked to him that, with one dis 
 charge, his gun -carriages would certainly fall 
 to pieces, gravely replied, "No, I am sure, sir, 
 they would stand two." Perhaps the guns of 
 Quebec would stand three. Such structures 
 carry us back to the Middle Ages, the siege of 
 Jerusalem, and St. Jean d Acre, and the days 
 of the Bucaniera. In the armory of the citadel 
 they showed me a clumsy implement, long since 
 useless, which they called a Lombard gun. I 
 thought that their whole citadel was such a 
 Lombard gun, fit object for the museums of the 
 curious. Such works do not consist with the 
 development of the intellect. Huge stone 
 structures of all kinds, both in their erection 
 and by their influence when erected, rather op 
 press than liberate the mind. They are tombs 
 for the souls of men, as frequently for their 
 Ixxlies also. The sentinel with his musket be 
 side a man with his umbrella is spectral. There 
 is not sufficient reason for his existence. Does 
 my friend there, with a bullet resting on half an 
 ounce of powder, think that he needs that argu 
 ment in conversing with me? The fort was the 
 first institution that was founded here, and it is 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 97 
 
 amusing to read in Champlain how assiduously 
 they worked at it almost from the first day of 
 the settlement. The founders of the colony 
 thought this an excellent site for a wall, and 
 no doubt it was a lietter site, in some respect*, 
 for a wall than for a city, but it chanced that 
 a city got behind it. It chanced, too, that a 
 Lower Town got before it, and clung like an 
 oyster to the outside of the crags, as you may 
 see at low tide. It is as if you were to come to 
 a country village surrounded by palisades in the 
 old Indian fashion, interesting only as a relic 
 of antiquity and barbarism. A fortified town is 
 like a man cased in the heavy armor of an 
 tiquity, with a horse-load of broadswords and 
 small arms slung to him, endeavoring to go 
 about his business. Or is this an indispensable 
 machinery for the good government of the coun 
 try? The inhabitants of California succeed 
 pretty well, and are doing better and better 
 every day, without any such institution. What 
 use has this fortress served, to look at it even 
 from the soldiers point of view? At first the 
 French took care of it; yet Wolfe sailed by it 
 with impunity, and took the town of Quebec 
 without experiencing any hindrance at last from 
 its fortifications. They were only the bone for 
 which the parties fought. Then the English 
 began to take care of it. So of any fort in the 
 
98 A YAXKEE IN CA\ADA 
 
 world, that in Boston Harbor, for instance. 
 We shall at length hear that an enemy sailed 
 by it in the night, for it cannot sail itself, and 
 both it anil its inhabitants are always benighted. 
 How often we re;wl that the enemy occupied a 
 position which commanded the old, and so the 
 fort was evacuated. Have not the school-house 
 and the printing-press occupied a position which 
 commands such a fort as this? 
 
 However, this is a ruin kept in remarkably 
 good repair. There are some eight hundred or 
 thousand men there to exhibit it. One regi 
 ment goes bare-legged to increase the attraction. 
 If you wish to study the muscles of the leg 
 about the knee, repair to Quebec. This uni 
 versal exhibition in Canada of the tools and 
 sinews of war reminded me of the keeper of a 
 menagerie showing his animals claws. It was 
 
 O O 
 
 the English leopard showing his claws. Always 
 the royal something or other ; as at the menagerie, 
 the Royal Bengal Tiger. Silliman states that 
 "the cold is so intense in the winter nights, par 
 ticularly on Cape Diamond, that the sentinels 
 cannot stand it more than one hour, and are re 
 lieved at the expiration of that time;" "and 
 even, as it is said, at much shorter intervals, in 
 case of the most extreme cold." What a natu 
 ral or unnatural fool must that soldier be, to 
 say nothing of his government, who, when 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC W 
 
 quicksilver is freezing and blood is ceasing to 
 be quirk, will stand to have his fare frozen, 
 watching the walls of QwWc, though, so far as 
 they are concerned, both honest and dishonest 
 men all the world over have been in their Wds 
 nearly half a century, or at least for that 
 space travelers have visited Quebec only as they 
 would read history. I shall never again wake 
 up in a colder night than usual, but I shall 
 think how rapidly the sentinels are relieving 
 one another on the walls of Quebec, their quick 
 silver being all frozen, as if apprehensive that 
 some hostile Wolfe may even then be scaling 
 the Heights of Abraham, or some persevering 
 Arnold about to issue from the wilderness; 
 some Malay or Japanese, pe reliance, coming 
 round by the northwest coast, have chosen that 
 moment to assault the citadel! Why, I should 
 as soon expect to find the sentinels still relieving 
 one another on the walls of Nineveh, which have 
 so long been buried to the world. What a 
 troublesome thing a wall is ! I thought it was 
 to defend me, and not I it! Of course, if they 
 hail no wall, they would not need to have any 
 sentinels. 
 
 You might venture to advertise this farm as 
 well fenced with substantial stone walls (saying 
 nothing about the eight hundred Highlanders 
 and Royal Irish who are required to keep them 
 
100 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 from toppling ilown); stock and tools to go with 
 the land if desired. But it would not be wise 
 for the seller to exhibit his farm-book. 
 
 Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it 
 is, impress us as an older country than the 
 States, unless because her institutions are old? 
 All things appeared to contend there, as I have 
 implied, with a certain rust of antiquity, such 
 as forms on old armor and iron guns, the rust 
 of conventions and formalities. It is said that 
 the metallic roofs of Montreal and Quebec keep 
 sound and bright for forty years in some cases. 
 But if the rust was not on the tinned roofs and 
 spires, it was on the inhabitants and their insti 
 tutions. Yet the work of burnishing goes 
 briskly forward. I imagined that the govern 
 ment vessels at the wharves were laden with 
 rotten-stone and oxalic acid, that is what the 
 first ship from England in the spring comes 
 freighted with, and the hands of the colonial 
 legislature are cased in wash-leather. The 
 principal exports must be gunny bags, verdi 
 gris, and iron rust. Those who first built 
 this fort, coming from Old France with the 
 memory and tradition of feudal days and cus 
 toms weighing on them, were unquestionably 
 behind their age; and those who now inhabit 
 and repair it are behind their ancestors or pre 
 decessors. Those old chevaliers thought that 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 101 
 
 they could transplant the feudal system to 
 America. It has been set out, but it has not 
 thriven. Notwithstanding that Canada was set 
 tled first, and, unlike N. w Kngland. for a long 
 series of years enjoyed the fostering care of 
 the mother country; notwithstanding that, as 
 Charlevoix tells us, it had more of the ancient 
 noblftse among its early settlers than any >tli i r 
 of the French colonies, and perhaps than all 
 the others together, there are in both the 
 Canadas but 600,000 of French descent to-day, 
 alxHit half so many as the population of 
 Massachusetts. The whole population of both 
 Canadas is but about 1,700,000 Canadians, 
 KiiLilisli, Irish, Scotch, Indians, and all, put to 
 gether! Samuel Laing, in his essay on the 
 Northmen, to whom especially, rather than the 
 Saxons, he refers the energy and indeed the ex 
 cellence of the English character, observes that, 
 when they occupied Scandinavia, "each man 
 possessed his lot of land without reference to, 
 or acknowledgment of, any other man, with 
 out any local chief to whom his military service 
 or other quit-rent for his land was due, with 
 out tenure from, or duty or obligation to, any 
 superior, real or fictitious, except the general 
 sovereign. The individual settler held his land, 
 as his descendants in Norway still express it, by 
 the same right as the King held his crown. 
 
102 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 by utlal right, or adel, that is, noble right." 
 The French have occupied Canada, not udallij, 
 or by noble right, but feudally , or by ignoble 
 right. They are a nation of peasants. 
 
 It was evident that, both on account of the 
 feudal system and the aristocratic government, 
 a private man was not worth so much in Canada 
 as in the United States; and, if your wealth in 
 any measure consists in manliness, in original 
 ity, and independence, you had better stay here. 
 How could a peaceable, freethinking man live 
 neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New 
 Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, 
 probably a rebel, there, certainly if he were 
 already a rebel at home. I suspect that a poor 
 man who is not servile is a much rarer phenome 
 non there and in England than in the Northern 
 United States. An Englishman, methinks, 
 not to speak of other European nations, habit 
 ually regards himself merely as a constituent 
 part of the English nation ; he is a member of 
 the royal regiment of Englishmen, and is proud 
 of his company, as he has reason to be proud of 
 it. But an American one who has made a 
 tolerable use of his opportunities cares, com 
 paratively, little about such things, and is ad 
 vantageously nearer to the primitive and the 
 ultimate condition of man in these respects. It 
 is a government, that English one, like most 
 
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 103 
 
 other European ones, that cannot afford to 
 be forgotten, as you would naturally forget it; 
 under which one cannot l>e wholesomely neg 
 lected, and grow up a man and not an English 
 man merely, cannot be a i>oet even without 
 danger of being made poet-laureate! Give me 
 a country where it is the most natural thing in 
 the world for a government that does not under 
 stand you to let you alone. One would say that 
 a true Englishman could speculate only within 
 bounds. (It is true the Americans have proved 
 that they, in more than one sense, can specu 
 late without bounds.) He has to pay his re 
 spects to so many things, that, before he knows it, 
 he may have paid away all he is worth. AY hat 
 makes the United States government, on the 
 whole, more tolerable, I mean for us lucky 
 white men, is the fact that there is so much 
 less of government with us. Here it is only once 
 in a month or a year that a man needs remem- 
 l>er that institution ; and those who go to Con 
 gress can play the game of the Kilkenny cats 
 there without fatal consequences to those who 
 stay at home, their term is so short; but in 
 Canada you are reminded of the government 
 every day. It parades itself In-fore you. It is 
 not content to be the servant, but will l>e the 
 master; and every day it goes out to the Plains 
 of Abraham or to the Champ de Mars and ex- 
 
104 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 hibits itself ami its tools. Everywhere there 
 appeared an attempt to make and to preserve 
 trivial and otherwise transient distinctions. In 
 the streets of Montreal and Quebec you met not 
 only with soldiers in red, and shuffling priests 
 in unmistakable black and white, with Sisters 
 of Charity gone into mourning for their de 
 ceased relative, not to mention the nuns of 
 various orders depending on the fashion of a 
 tear, of whom you heard, but youths belong 
 ing to some seminary or other, wearing coats 
 edged with white, who looked as if their ex 
 panding hearts were already repressed with a 
 piece of tape. In short, the inhabitants of 
 Canada appeared to be suffering between two 
 fires, the soldiery and the priesthood. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SCENERY OF QUEBEC; AND THE RIVER 
 ST. LAWRENCE 
 
 ABOUT twelve o clock this day, being in the 
 Lower Town, I looked up at the signal-gun by 
 the flag-staff on Cape Diamond, and saw a sol 
 dier up in the heavens there making prepara 
 tions to fire it, both he and the gun in bold 
 relief against the sky. Soon after, being 
 warned by the boom of the gun to look up 
 again, there was only the cannon in the sky, 
 the smoke just blowing away from it, as if the 
 soldier, having touched it off, had concealed 
 himself for effect, leaving the sound to echo 
 grandly from shore to shore, and far up and 
 down the river. This answered the purpose of 
 a dinner-horn. 
 
 There are no such restaurateurs in QueW 
 or Montreal as there are in Boston. I hunted 
 an hour or two in vain in this town to find one, 
 till I lost my appetite. In one house, called a 
 restaurateur, where lunches were advertised, I 
 found only tables covered with bottles and 
 -la>srs innuiniTablc, containing "i i" 11 : ; / :i 
 
106 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 sample of every liquid that has been known 
 since the earth dried up after the flood, but no 
 scent of solid food did I perceive gross enough 
 to excite a hungry mouse. In short, I saw 
 nothing to tempt me there, but a large map of 
 Canada against the wall. In another place I 
 once more got as far as the bottles, and then 
 asked for a bill of fare; was told to walk up 
 stairs; had no bill of fare, nothing but fare. 
 "Have you any pies or puddings?" I inquired, 
 for I am obliged to keep my savageness in 
 check by a low diet. "No, sir; we ve nice 
 mutton-chop, roast beef, beef -steak, cutlets," 
 and so on. A burly Englishman, who was in 
 the midst of the siege of a piece of roast beef, 
 and of whom I have never had a front view to 
 this day, turned half round, with his mouth 
 half full, and remarked, "You ll find no pies 
 nor puddings in Quebec, sir; they don t make 
 any here." I found that it was even so, and 
 therefore bought some musty cake and some 
 fruit in the open market-place. This market 
 place by the water-side, where the old women 
 sat by their tables in the open air, amid a dense 
 crowd jabbering all languages, was the best 
 place in Quebec to observe the people ; and the 
 ferry-boats, continually coming and going with 
 their motley crews and cargoes, added much to 
 the entertainment. I also saw them getting 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WHENCE 107 
 
 water from the river, for Quel>ee is supplied 
 with water by cart and barrel. This city im 
 pressed me as wholly foreign and French, for 
 I scarcely heard the sound of the English lan 
 guage in the streets. More than three fifths of 
 the inhabitants are of French origin; and if 
 the traveler did not visit the fortiti* -atimis par 
 ticularly, he might not be reminded that the 
 English have any foothold here; and, in any 
 case, if he looked no farther than Quebec, they 
 would appear to have planted themselves in 
 Canada only as they have in Spain at (iibral- 
 tar; and he who plants upon a rock cannot 
 expect much increase. The novel sights and 
 sounds by the water-side made me think of such 
 ports as Boulogne, Dieppe, Rouen, and Havre 
 de Grace, which I have never seen ; but I have 
 no doubt that they present similar scenes. I 
 was much amused from first to last with the 
 sounds made by the charette and caleche driv 
 ers. It was that part of their foreign language 
 that you heard the most of, the French they 
 talked to their horses, and which they talked 
 the loudest. It was a more novel sound to me 
 than the French of conversation. The stiv-t> 
 resounded with the cries, u Qui done!" 
 " March?, tot ! " I suspect that many of our 
 horses which came from Canada would prick 
 up their ears at these sounds. Of the shop, I 
 
108 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 was most attracted by those where furs and In 
 dian works were sold, as containing articles of 
 genuine Canadian manufacture. I have been 
 told that two townsmen of mine, who were in 
 terested in horticulture, traveling once in Can 
 ada, and being in Quebec, thought it would be 
 a good opportunity to obtain seeds of the real 
 Canada crook-neck squash. So they went into 
 a shop where such things were advertised, and 
 inquired for the same. The shopkeeper hiul 
 the very thing they wanted. "But are you 
 sure," they asked, "that these are the genuine 
 Canada crook-neck?" "Oh, yes, gentlemen," 
 answered he, "they are a lot which I have re 
 ceived directly from Boston." I resolved that 
 my Canada crook-neck seeds should be such as 
 had grown in Canada. 
 
 Too much has not been said about the scenery 
 of Quebec. The fortifications of Cape Diamond 
 are omnipresent. They preside, they frown 
 over the river and surrounding country. You 
 travel ten, twenty, thirty miles up or down the 
 river s banks, you ramble fifteen miles amid the 
 hills on either side, and then, when you have 
 long since forgotten them, perchance slept on 
 them by the way, at a turn of the road or of 
 your body, there they are still, with their geo 
 metry against the sky. The child that is born 
 and brought up thirty miles distant, and has 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WREXCE 109 
 
 never traveled to the city, reads his country s 
 hUtiu-v. >vs the levrl liin-s vi the citadel amid 
 the cloud-huilt eitadels in the western horizon, 
 and is told that that is Quebec. No wonder if 
 Jacques Carrier s pilot exclaimed in Norman 
 French, Que bed "What a beakl" when 
 he saw this cape, as some suppose. Every 
 modern traveler involuntarily uses a similar ex 
 pression. Particularly it is said that its sud 
 den apparition on turning Point Levi makes a 
 memorable impression on him who arrives by 
 water. The view from Cape Diamond has been 
 compared by European travelers with the most 
 remarkable views of a similar kind in Europe, 
 such as from Edinburgh Castle, Gibraltar, 
 Ciutra, and others, and preferred by many. A 
 main peculiarity in this, compared with other 
 views which I have beheld, is that it is from the 
 ramparts of a fortified city, and not from a soli 
 tary and majestic river cape alone that this view 
 is obtained. I associate the beauty of Quebec 
 with the steel-like and flashing air, which may 
 IHJ peculiar to that season of the year, in which 
 the blue flowers of the succory and some late 
 golden-rods and buttercups on the summit of 
 Cape Diamond were almost my only compan 
 ions, the former bluer than the heavens they 
 faced. Yet even I yielded in some degree to 
 the influence of historical associations, and 
 
110 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 found it hard to attend to the geology of Cape 
 Diamond or the botany of the Plains of Abra 
 ham. I still remember the harbor far beneath 
 me, sparkling like silver in the sun, the an 
 swering highlands of Point Levi on the south 
 east, the frowning Cap Tourmente abruptly 
 bounding the seaward view far in the northeast, 
 the villages of Lorette and Charlesbourg on 
 the north, and further west the distant Val 
 Cartier, sparkling with white cottages, hardly 
 removed by distance through the clear air, 
 not to mention a few blue mountains along the 
 horizon in that direction. You look out from 
 the ramparts of the citadel beyond the frontiers 
 of civilization. Yonder small group of hills, 
 according to the guide-book, forms "the portal 
 of the wilds which are trodden only by the feet 
 of the Indian hunters as far as Hudson s Bay." 
 It is but a few years since Bouchette declared 
 that the country ten leagues north of the British 
 capital of North America was as little known as 
 the middle of Africa. Thus the citadel under 
 my feet, and all historical associations, were 
 swept away again by an influence from the wilds 
 and from nature, as if the beholder had read 
 her history, an influence which, like the 
 Great River itself, flowed from the Arctic fast 
 nesses and Western forests with irresistible tide 
 over all. 
 
QUEBEC AXD THE ST. LAWRENCE 111 
 
 The most interesting object in Canada to me 
 was the Kiver St. Lawrence, known far and 
 wide, and for centuries, as the Great River. 
 Carrier, its discoverer, sailed up it as far as 
 Montreal in 1535, nearly a century before 
 the coming of the Pilgrims ; and I have seen a 
 pretty accurate map of it so far, containing the 
 city of "Hochelaga" and the river "Saguenay," 
 in Ortelius s Theatrum Orbit Tcrrarum^ 
 printed at Antwerp in 1575, the first edition 
 having appeared in 1570, in which the fa- 
 uious cities of "Norumbega" and "Orsinora" 
 stand on the rough -blocked continent where 
 New England is to-day, and the fabulous but 
 unfortunate Isle of Demons, and Frislant, and 
 others, lie off and on in the unfrequented sea, 
 some of them prowling near what is now the 
 course of the Cunard steamers. In this ponder 
 ous folio of the "Ptolemy of his age," said to 
 be the first general atlas published after the 
 revival of the sciences in Europe, only one page 
 of which is devoted to the topography of the 
 Xovus Orlls, the St. Lawrence is the only 
 large river, whether drawn from fancy or from 
 observation, on the east side of North Amer 
 ica. It was famous in Europe before the other 
 rivers of North America were heard of, notwith 
 standing that the mouth of the Mississippi is 
 said to have been discovered first, and its stream 
 
112 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 was reached by Soto not long after; but the 
 St. Lawrence had attracted settlers to its cold 
 shores long before the Mississippi, or even the 
 Hudson, was known to the world. Schoolcraft 
 was misled by (iallatin into saying that Nar- 
 vaez discovered the Mississippi. De Vega does 
 not say so. The first explorers declared that 
 the summer in that country was as warm as 
 France, and they named one of the bays in the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence the Bay of Chaleur, or of 
 warmth; but they said nothing about the winter 
 being as cold as Greenland. In the manuscript 
 account of Carrier s second voyage, attributed 
 by some to that navigator himself, it is called 
 "the greatest river, without comparison, that is 
 known to have ever been seen." The savages 
 told him that it was the "chemin du Canada" 
 -the highway to Canada, "which goes so 
 far that no man had ever been to the end that 
 they had heard/ The Saguenay, one of its 
 tributaries, which the panorama has made 
 known to New England within three years, is 
 described by Cartier, in 1535, and still more 
 particularly by Jean Alphonse, in 1542, who 
 adds, "I think that this river comes from the 
 sea of Cathay, for in this place there issues a 
 strong current, and there runs there a terrible 
 tide." The early explorers saw many whales 
 and other sea-monsters far up the St. Law- 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWREXCE 113 
 
 rence. Champlain, in his map, represents a 
 whale spouting in the harbor of Quebec, three 
 hundred and sixty miles from what is called the 
 mouth of the river; and Charlevoix takes his 
 reader to the summit of Cape Diamond to see 
 the "porpoises, white as snow," sporting on the 
 surface of the harbor of Quebec. And Boucher 
 says in 1664, "from there (Tadoussac) to Mon 
 treal is found a great quantity of Mnranuins 
 Uancs." Several whales have been taken 
 pretty high up the river sinee I was there. P. 
 A. Gosse, in his "Canadian Naturalist," p. 171 
 (London, 1840), speaks of "the white dolphin 
 of the St. Lawrence (Delph imi* Canaden9i*\" 
 as considered different from those of the sea. 
 "The Natural History Society of Montreal of-, 
 fered a prize, a few years ago, for an essay on 
 the Cetacea of the St. Lawrence, which was, I 
 believe, handed in." In Champlain s day it was 
 commonly called "the Great River of Canada." 
 More than one nation has claimed it. In Ogil- 
 by s "America of 1670," in the map 3 r ort 
 Belfjii, it is called "De Groote Rivicr van Niew 
 Nederlandt." It bears different names in dif 
 ferent parts of its course, as it Hows through 
 what were formerly the territories of different 
 nations. From the Gulf to Lake Ontario it is 
 called at present the St. Lawrence : from Mon 
 treal to the same place it is frequently called 
 
114 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 the Cateraqui ; and higher up it is known suc 
 cessively as the Niagara, Detroit, St. Clair, St. 
 Mary s, and St. Louis rivers. Humboldt, 
 speaking of the Orinoco, says that this name is 
 unknown in the interior of the country; so like 
 wise the tribes that dwell about the sources of 
 the St. Lawrence have never heard the name 
 which it bears in the lower part of its course. 
 It rises near another father of waters, the 
 Mississippi, issuing from a remarkable spring 
 far up in the woods, called Lake Superior, fif 
 teen hundred miles in eircumference ; and sev 
 eral other springs there are thereabouts which 
 feed it. It makes such a noise in its tumbling 
 down at one place as is heard all round the 
 world. Bouchette, the Surveyor-General of 
 the Canadas, calls it "the most splendid river on 
 the globe; " says that it is two thousand statute 
 miles long (more recent geographers make it 
 four or five hundred miles longer); that at the 
 Kiviere du Sud it is eleven miles wide ; at the 
 Traverse, thirteen; at the Paps of Matane, 
 twenty-five; at the Seven Islands, seventy- 
 three; and at its mouth, from Cape Rosier to 
 the Mingan Settlements in Labrador, near one 
 hundred and five (?) miles wide. According to 
 Captain Bay field s recent chart it is about 
 ninety-six geographical miles wide at the latter 
 place, measuring at right angles with the stream. 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 11"> 
 
 It has much the largest estuary, regarding both 
 length uiul breadth, of any river on the gloliu. 
 Hiuiibolilt says that the river Plate, which has 
 the broadest estuary of the South American 
 rivers, is ninety-two geographical miles wide at 
 its mouth; also he found the Orinoco to be 
 more than three miles wide at live hundred and 
 sixty miles from its mouth ; but he does not tell 
 us that ships of six hundred tons can sail up it 
 so far, as they can up the St. Lawrence to Mon 
 treal, an equal distance. If he had described 
 a fleet of such ships at anchor in a city s jx)rt 
 so far inland, we should have got a very differ 
 ent idea of the Orinoco. Perhaps Charlevoix 
 describes the St. Lawrence truly as the most 
 navigable river in the world. Between Mon 
 treal and Quebec it averages about two miles 
 wide. The tide is felt as far up as Three Riv 
 ers, four hundred and thirty-two miles, which 
 is as far as from Boston to Washington. As 
 far up as Cap aux Oyes, sixty or seventy miles 
 below Quebec, Kaliu found a great part of the 
 plants near the shore to be marine, as glass- 
 wort (Salicornia), seaside pease (I isum man- 
 timum\ sea -milk wort (Glavx\ beach-grass 
 (Psamma arenarium\ seaside plantain (/Vr/w- 
 tatjo maritlma), the sea-rocket (fiunias cakilc)* 
 etc. 
 
 The geographer Guyot observes that the 
 
116 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 Marafton is three thousand miles long, and 
 gathers its waters from a surface of a million 
 and a half square miles; that the Mississippi 
 is also three thousand miles long, but its basin 
 covers only from eight to nine hundred thousand 
 square miles ; that the St. Lawrence is eighteen 
 hundred miles long, and its basin covers more 
 than a million square miles (Darby says five 
 hundred thousand); and speaking of the lakes, 
 he adds, * These vast fresh-water seas, together 
 with the St. Lawrence, cover a surface of nearly 
 one hundred thousand square miles, and it has 
 been calculated that they contain about one half 
 of all the fresh water on the surface of our 
 planet." But all these calculations are necessa 
 rily very rude and inaccurate. Its tributaries, 
 the Ottawa, St. Maurice, and Saguenay, are 
 great rivers themselves. The latter is said to 
 be more than one thousand (?) feet deep at its 
 mouth, while its cliffs rise perpendicularly an 
 equal distance above its surface. Pilots say 
 there are no soundings till one hundred and fifty 
 miles iij) the St. Lawrence. The greatest 
 sounding in the river, given on Bayfield s chart 
 of the gulf and river, is two hundred and twenty- 
 eight fathoms. McTaggart, an engineer, ob 
 serves that "the Ottawa is larger than all the 
 rivers in Great Britain, were they running in 
 one." The traveler Grey writes : " A dozen Dan- 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. LAWRENCE 117 
 
 ubes, Khines, Taguses, and Thameaea would l>e 
 imtliiiig to twenty miles of fresh water in 
 1m :idth [as where he hapi>ened to he], from ten 
 to forty fathoms in depth." And again: 
 u There is not perhaps in tlie whole extent of 
 this immense continent so fine an approach to 
 it as by the river St. Lawrence. In the South- 
 ern States you have, in general, :i level country 
 for many miles inland ; here you are introduced 
 at once into a majestic scenery, where every 
 thing is on a grand scale, mountains, woods, 
 lakes, rivers, precipices, waterfalls. * 
 
 We have not yet the data for a minute com 
 parison of the St. Lawrence with the South 
 American rivers; but it is obvious that, taking 
 it in connection with its lakes, its estuary, and 
 its falls, it easily bears off the palm from all 
 the rivers on the globe; for though, as BOH- 
 chette observes, it may not carry to the ocean a 
 greater volume of water than the Amazon and 
 Mississippi, its surface and cubic mass are far 
 greater than theirs. But, unfortunately, this 
 noble river is closed by ice from the beginning 
 of December to the middle of April. The arri 
 val of the first vessel from England when the 
 ice breaks up is, therefore, a great event, as 
 when the salmon, shad, and alewives come up a 
 river in the spring to relieve the famishing in- 
 hal hunts on its banks. Who can say what 
 
118 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 would have been the history of this continent if, 
 as has been suggested, this river had emptied 
 into the sea where New York stands! 
 
 After visiting the Museum and taking one 
 more look at the wall, I made haste to the Lord 
 Sydenham steamer, which at five o clock was to 
 leave for Montreal. I had already taken a seat 
 on deck, but finding that I had still an hour 
 and a half to spare, and remembering that large 
 map of Canada which I hail seen in the parlor 
 of the restaurateur in my search after pudding, 
 and realizing that I might never see the like out 
 of the country, I returned thither, asked liberty 
 to look at the map, rolled up the mahogany 
 table, put my handkerchief on it, stood on it, 
 and copied all I wanted before the maid came 
 in and said to me standing on the table, "Some 
 gentlemen want the room, sir;" and I retreated 
 without having broken the neck of a single bot 
 tle, or my own, very thankful and willing to 
 pay for all the solid food I had got. We were 
 soon abreast of Cap Rouge, eight miles above 
 Quebec, after we got underway. It was in this 
 place, then called "Fort du France RoyS that 
 the Sieur de Roberval with his company, hav 
 ing sent home two of his three ships, spent the 
 winter of 1542-43. It appears that they fared 
 in the following manner (I translate from the 
 original): "Each mess had only two loaves, 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WHENCE 119 
 
 weighing each a pound, and half a |x>und of 
 beef. They ato jH)rk for dinner, with half a 
 pound of butter, and beef for supper, with 
 about two hanclfuls of beans without butt- r. 
 Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays they ate 
 salted cod, and smnrtiiiirs givni, for diiim-r. 
 with butter; and porpoise and beans for supper. 
 MniiMriir Roberval administered good justice, 
 and punished each according to his offense. 
 One, named Michel Gaillon, was hung for 
 theft; John of Nantes was put in irons and im 
 prisoned for his fault; and others were likewise 
 put in irons; and many were whipped, both 
 men and women ; by which means they lived in 
 peace and tranquillity." In an account of a 
 voyage up this river, printed in the Jesuit Rela 
 tions in the year 1664, it is said: "It was an 
 interesting navigation for us in ascending the 
 river from Cap Tourmente to Quebec, to see on 
 this side and on that, for the space of eight 
 leagues, the farms and the houses of the com 
 pany, built by our French, all along these 
 shoivs. ( )n tli.- right, the eigni< riei of Bean- 
 port, of Notre Dame des Anges; and on the 
 left, this beautiful Isle of Orleans." The same 
 traveler names among the fruits of the country 
 observed at the Isles of Richelieu, at the head 
 of Lake St. Peter, "kinds (des e*peces) of little 
 apples or haws (semelle*), and of pears, which 
 only ripon with the frost." 
 
1*20 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 Night came on before we had passed the high 
 banks. We had come from Montreal to Que 
 bec in one night. The return voyage, against 
 the stream, takes but an hour longer. Jacques 
 Cartier, the first white man who is known to 
 have ascended this river, thus speaks of his 
 voyage from what is now Quebec to the foot of 
 Lake St. Peter, or about halfway to Montreal : 
 "From the said day, the 19th, even to the 28th 
 of the said month [September, 1535], we had 
 been navigating up the said river without losing 
 hour or day, during which time we had seen and 
 found as much country and lands as level as we 
 could desire, full of the most beautiful trees in 
 the world," which he goes on to describe. But 
 we merely slept and woke again to find that we 
 had passed through all that country which he 
 was eight days in sailing through. He must 
 have had a troubled sleep. We were not long 
 enough on the river to realize that it had length ; 
 we got only the impression of its breadth, as if 
 we had passed over a lake a mile or two in 
 breadth and several miles long, though we 
 might thus have slept through a European king 
 dom. Being at the head of Lake St. Peter, on 
 the above-mentioned 28th of September, dealing 
 with the natives, Cartier says: "We inquired 
 of them by signs if this was the route to Hoche- 
 laga [Montreal]; and they answered that it was, 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. LA WHENCE 121 
 
 and that there were yet three days journeys to 
 go there. * He finally arrived at Hochelaga on 
 the 2d of October. 
 
 When I went on deck at dawn we had al 
 ready passed through Lake St. Peter, and saw 
 islands ahead of us. Our boat advancing with 
 a strong and steady pulse over the calm surface, 
 we felt as if we were permitted to be awake in 
 the scenery of a dream. Many vivacious Loin- 
 hardy poplars itlmi^ the distant shores gave 
 them a novel and lively, though artificial, look, 
 and contrasted strangely with the slender and 
 graceful elms on both shores and islands. The 
 church of Varennes, fifteen miles from Mon 
 treal, was conspicuous at a great distance before 
 us, appearing to belong to, and rise out of, the 
 river; and now, and before, Mount Royal indi 
 cated where the city was. We arrived about 
 seven o clock, and set forth immediately to as 
 cend the mountain, two miles distant, going 
 across lots in spite of numerous signs threaten 
 ing the severest penalties to trespassers, past an 
 old building known as the Mac Tavish property, 
 Simon Mac Tavish, I 8upjx>se, whom Silli- 
 man refers to as "in a sense the founder of the 
 Northwestern Company." His tomb was be 
 hind in the woods, with a remarkably high wall 
 and higher monument. The family returned to 
 Europe. He could not have imagined how dead 
 
122 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 lie would be in a few years, and all the more 
 dead and forgotten for being buried under such 
 a mass of gloomy stone, where not even memory 
 could get at him without a crowbar. Ah ! poor 
 man, with that last end of his! However, he 
 may have been the worthiest of mortals for 
 aught that I know. From the mountain-top 
 we got a view of the whole city; the flat, fer 
 tile, extensive island; the noble sea of the St. 
 Lawrence swelling into lakes; the mountains 
 about St. Hyacinthe, and in Vermont and New 
 York ; and the mouth of the Ottawa in the west, 
 overlooking that St. Anne s where the voyageur 
 sings his "parting hymn," and bids adieu to 
 civilization, a name, thanks to Moore s 
 verses, the most suggestive of poetic associations 
 of any in Canada. We, too, climbed the hill 
 which Cartier, first of white men, ascended, and 
 named Mont - real (the 3d of October, O. S., 
 1535), and, like him, "we saw the said river as 
 far as we could see, grand, large, et spacieux, 
 going to the southwest," toward that land 
 whither Donnacona had told the discoverer that 
 he had been a month s journey from Canada, 
 where there grew "force Candle et Girofle," 
 much cinnamon and cloves, and where also, as 
 the natives told him, were three great lakes and 
 afterward tine mer douce, a sweet sea, de 
 laquelle n\*t ///> ntion avoir vv le bout, of which 
 
QUEBEC AND THE ST. L.\ WRKXCK 123 
 
 there is no mention to have seen the end. But 
 instead of an Indian town far in the interior of 
 a new world, with guides to show us where the 
 river came from, we found a splendid and hus 
 tling stone-built city of white men, and only a 
 few squalid Indians offered to sell us baskets at 
 the Lachine Railroad Depot, and Ilochelaga is, 
 perchance, but the fancy name of an engine 
 company or an eating-house. 
 
 We left Montreal Wednesday, the 2d of 
 October, late in the afternoon. In the La 
 Prairie cars the Yankees made themselves 
 merry, imitating the cries of the charette dri 
 vers to perfection, greatly to the amusement of 
 some French Canadian travelers, and they kept 
 it up all the way to Boston. I saw one person 
 on board the boat at St. John s, and one or two 
 more elsewhere in Canada, wearing homespun 
 gray great-coats, or cajM)tes, with conical and 
 comical hoods, which fell back between their 
 shoulders like small bags, ready to be turned up 
 over the head when occasion required, though a 
 hat usurped that place now. They looked as if 
 they would IKJ convenient and proper enough as 
 long as the coats were new and tidy, but would 
 soon come to have a beggarly and unsightly 
 look, akin to rags and dust-holes. We reached 
 Burlington early in the morning, where the 
 Yankees tried to pass off their Canada coppers, 
 
124 A YANKEE IN CANADA 
 
 but the news-boys knew better. Returning 
 through the Green Mountains, I was reminded 
 that I had not seen in Canada such brilliant 
 autumnal tints as I had previously seen in Ver 
 mont. Perhaps there was not yet so great and 
 sudden a contrast with the summer heats in the 
 former country as in these mountain valleys. 
 As we were passing through Ashburnham, by a 
 new white house which stood at some distance in 
 a field, one passenger exclaimed, so that all in 
 the car could hear him, " There, there s not so 
 good a house as that in all Canada! " I did not 
 much wonder at his remark, for there is a neat 
 ness, as well as evident prosperity, a certain 
 clastic easiness of circumstances, so to speak, 
 when not rich, about a New England house, as 
 if the proprietor could at least afford to make 
 repairs in the spring, which the Canadian 
 houses do not suggest. Though of stone, they 
 are no better constructed than a stone barn 
 would be with us ; the only building, except the 
 chateau, on which money and taste are ex 
 pended, being the church. In Canada an ordi 
 nary New England house would be mistaken for 
 the chateau, and while every village here con 
 tains at least several gentlemen or "squires," 
 there there is but one to a seigniory. 
 
 I got home this Thursday evening, having 
 sj)ent just one week in Canada and traveled 
 
QUEBEC AND TllK ST. LAWRKXCH 125 
 
 eleven hundred miles. The whole expense of 
 this journey, including two guide-books ami a 
 map, which cost one dollar twelve and a half 
 cents, was twelve dollars seventy-five eents. I 
 do not suppose that I have seen all British 
 America; that could not be done by a cheap 
 excursion, unless it were a cheap excursion to 
 the Icy Sea, as seen by Ilearne or Mackenzie, 
 and then, no doubt, some interesting features 
 would be omitted. I wished to go a little way 
 behind the word Canadense, of which natural 
 ists make such frequent use; and I should like 
 still right well to make a longer excursion on 
 foot through the wilder parts of Canada, which 
 perhaps might be called Itcr Canadense. 
 
NATfUAL HISTORY OF MASSACIirSKTTS 1 
 
 BOOKS of natural history make the most 
 cheerful winter reading. 1 read in Audulxm 
 with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers 
 the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida 
 keys, and their warm sea-breezes ; of the fence- 
 rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of 
 the rice-bird ; of the breaking up of winter in 
 Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the 
 forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of 
 health to these reminiscences of luxuriant na 
 ture. 
 
 Within the circuit of this plodding life, 
 
 There enU>r moments of an azure hue, 
 
 Untarnished fair as in the viol, t 
 
 Or anemone, when the spring strewn them 
 
 By tome meandering rivulet, which make 
 
 The best philosophy untrue that aims 
 
 But to console man for his grievance*. 
 
 1 have remembered when the winter came, 
 
 High in my chamber in the frosty nights. 
 
 When in the still light of the cheerful moon, 
 
 1 Report* on the FiA, Reptile*, and Bird*; the Herba 
 ceous Plants and Quadruped* ; the Intects Injurious to Vegeta 
 tion; and the Invertebrate Animal$ of Mauarhuitttt. Pub 
 lished agreeably to an Order of the Legislature, by the 
 Commiaaionera on the Zoological and Botanical Surrey of the 
 State. 
 
128 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 On every twig and rail and jutting spout, 
 
 The icy spears were adding to their length 
 
 Against the arrows of the coming sun, 
 
 How in the shimmering noon of summer past 
 
 Some unrecorded beam slanted across 
 
 The upland pastures where the Johns wort grew ; 
 
 Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind. 
 
 The bee s long smothered hum, on the blue Hag 
 
 Loitering amidst the mead ; or busy rill. 
 
 Which now through all its course itmdt still and dumb, 
 
 Ita own memorial, purling at its play 
 
 Along the slopes, and through the meadows next, 
 
 Until its youthful sound was hushed at last 
 
 In the staid current of the lowland stream ; 
 
 Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned, 
 
 And where the fieldfare followed in the rear, 
 
 When all the fields around lay bound and hoar 
 
 Beneath a thick integument of snow. 
 
 So by God s cheap economy made rich 
 
 To go upon my winter s task again. 
 
 I am singularly refreshed in winter when I 
 hear of service-berries, poke-weed, juniper. Is 
 not heaven made up of these cheap summer glo 
 ries? There is a singular health in those words, 
 Labrador and East Main, which no desponding 
 creed recognizes. How much more than Fed 
 eral are these States. If there were no other 
 vicissitudes than the seasons, our interest would 
 never tire. Much more is adoing than Con 
 gress wots of. What journal do the persim 
 mon and the buckeye keep, and the sharp- 
 shi nned hawk? What is transpiring from 
 summer to winter in the Carolinas, and the 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 129 
 
 Groat Pine Forest, and the Valley of the Mo 
 hawk? The merely ]M>litiral aspect of the land 
 is never very ( li i in^; men are degraded wln-n 
 considered as the members of a political organi 
 zation. On this side all lands present only the 
 symptoms of decay. I see but Hunker Hill and 
 Sing-Sing, the District of Columbia and Sulli 
 van s Island, with a few avenues connecting 
 them. Hut paltry are they all beside one blast 
 of the east or the south wind which blows over 
 them. 
 
 In society you will not find health, but in 
 nature. Uidess our feet at least stood in the 
 midst of nature, all our faces would be pale and 
 livid. Society is always diseased, and the best 
 is the most so. There is no scent in it so whole- 
 snin.- a> that >t tin- pines, DOT an\ fragrance BO 
 penetrating and restorative as the life-everlast 
 ing in high pastures. I would keep some book 
 of natural history always by me as a sort of 
 elixir, the reading of which should restore the 
 tone of the system. To the sick, indeed, nature 
 is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health. 
 To him who contemplates a trait of natural 
 beauty no harm nor disappointment can e<>m.-. 
 The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political 
 tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such 
 as shared the serenity of nature. Surely good 
 c..urau r(1 u ill i"t ^ :l - here on the Atlantic lxr- 
 
1 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 der, as long as we are flanked by the Fur Coun 
 tries. There is enough in that sound to cheer 
 one under any circumstances. The spruce, the 
 hemlock, and the pine will not countenance de 
 spair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and 
 churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs 
 l>y the Great Slave Lake, and that the Esqui 
 maux sledges are drawn by dogs, and in the 
 twilight of the northern night the hunter does 
 not give over to follow the seal and walrus on 
 the ice. They are of sick and diseased imagi 
 nations who would toll the world s knell so soon. 
 Cannot these sedentary sects do better than pre 
 pare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those 
 other busy living men? The practical faith of 
 all men belies the preacher s consolation. What 
 is any man s discourse to me, if I am not sensi 
 ble of something in it as steady and cheery as 
 the creak of crickets? In it the woods must be 
 relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I 
 am not constantly greeted and refreshed as by 
 the flux of sparkling streams. Surely joy is 
 the condition of life. Think of the young fry 
 that leap in ponds, the myriads of insects ush 
 ered into being on a summer evening, the inces 
 sant note of the hyla with which the woods ring 
 in the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly 
 carrying accident and change painted in a thou 
 sand lines upon its wings, or the brook minnow 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 131 
 
 stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of 
 whose sidles, worn bright by the attrition, is re 
 flected upon the bunk. 
 
 We fancy that this din of religion, literature, 
 atid philosophy, which is heard in pulpits, lyce- 
 ums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, 
 and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the 
 .arth - axle: l>ut it a man d I 1 KWUldly, li-- ^ill 
 forget it all between sunset and dawn. It is 
 the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cup 
 board, which the great pulse of nature vibrates 
 by and through each instant. When wo lift 
 our eyelids and open our ears, it disappears 
 with smoke and rattle like the cars on a rail 
 road. When I detect a beauty in any of the 
 recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene 
 and retired spirit in which it requires to be con 
 templated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life, 
 how silent and unambitious it is. The 
 l>eauty there is in mosses must be considered 
 from the holiest, quietest nook. What an ad 
 mirable training is science for the more active 
 warfare of life. Indeed, the unchallenged brav 
 ery, which these studies imply, is far more im 
 pressive than the trumpeted valor of the war 
 rior. I am pleased to learn that Thales was up 
 and stirring by night not unfrequently, as his 
 astronomical discoveries prove. Linna?us, set 
 ting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and 
 
132 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze 
 cap to keep off gnats," with as much compla 
 cency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the 
 Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the 
 man is admirable. His eye is to take in fish, 
 flower, and bird, quadruped and biped. Sci 
 ence is always brave; for to know is to know 
 good; doubt and danger quail before her eye. 
 What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she 
 calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a 
 pioneer for the array of arts that follow in her 
 train. But cowardice is unscientific; for there 
 cannot be a science of ignorance. There may 
 be a science of bravery, for that advances ; but 
 a retreat is rarely well conducted ; if it is, then 
 is it an orderly advance in the face of circum 
 stances. 
 
 But to draw a little nearer to our promised 
 topics. Entomology extends the limits of being 
 in a new direction, so that I walk in nature with 
 a sense of greater space and freedom. It sug 
 gests besides, that the universe is not rough- 
 hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will 
 bear the closest inspection ; she invites us to lay 
 our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an 
 insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; 
 every part is full of life. I explore, too, with 
 pleasure, the sources of the myriad sounds 
 whirh crowd the summer noon, and which seem 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 133 
 
 ti vt-ry _rr:in :in 
 made. Who does not remember the shrill roll- 
 call of the harvest fly? There were ears for 
 these sounds in Greece long ago, as Anacreon i 
 ode will show. 
 
 " We pronounce thee happy, Cicada, 
 For on the tops of the trees, 
 Prinking :i little dew, 
 Like any king thou ling nit, 
 For thine are they all, 
 Whatever thou seest in the field*, 
 And whatever the woods bear. 
 Thou art the friend of the husbandmen, 
 In no respect injuring any one ; 
 And thou art honored among men, 
 Sweet pn>ph-t f summer. 
 The Muses love thee, 
 And Phoebus himself love* thee, 
 And has given thee a shrill song ; 
 Age does not wrack thee, 
 Thou skillful, earthborn. song-loving, 
 I "nsu ffering, bloodless one ; 
 Almost thou art like the gods." 
 
 In the autumn days, the creaking of crickets 
 is heard at noon over all the land, and as in 
 summer they are heard chiefly at nightfall, so 
 then by their incessant chirp they usher in the 
 evening of the year. Nor can all the vanities 
 that vex the world alter one whit the measure 
 that night has chosen. Every pulse-lwat is in 
 exact time with the cricket s chant and the tick 
 ings of the death-watch in the wall. Alternate 
 with these if you can. 
 
134 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 About two hundred and eighty birds either 
 reside permanently in the State, or spend the 
 summer only, or make us a passing visit. 
 Those which spend the winter with us have ob 
 tained our warmest sympathy. The nut-hatch 
 and chickadee flitting in company through the 
 dells of the wood, the one harshly scolding at 
 the intruder, the other with a faint lisping note 
 enticing him on ; the jay screaming in the or 
 chard ; the crow cawing in unison with the storm ; 
 the partridge, like a russet link extended over 
 from autumn to spring, preserving unbroken the 
 chain of summers; the hawk with warrior-like 
 firmness abiding the blasts of winter; the robin 1 
 and lark lurking by warm springs in the woods; 
 the familiar snow-bird culling a few seeds in the 
 garden, or a few crumbs in the yard ; and occa 
 sionally the shrike, with heedless and unfrozen 
 melody bringing back summer again : 
 
 His steady sails he never furls 
 At any time o year, 
 And perching now on Winter s curls, 
 He whistles in his car. 
 
 1 A white robin and a white quail have occasionally beta 
 seen. It is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest 
 of a robin should be found on the ground ; but this bird seems 
 to be leas particular than most in the choice of a building spot 
 I have seen its nest placed nnder the thatched roof of a de 
 serted barn, and in one instance, where the adjacent country 
 was nearly destitute of trees, together with two of the phujbe, 
 npon the end of a board in tho loft of a saw-mill, but a f-w feet 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 1 > 
 
 As the spring advances, and the ice is melting 
 in the river, our earliest ami straggling visitors 
 make their appearance. Again does the old 
 Teian poet sing as well for New England as for 
 Greece, in the 
 
 RETURN OF SPRING 
 
 Behold, how Spring appearing, 
 The Grace* send forth rose* ; 
 Behold, how the wave of the Mft 
 IB made smooth by the calm ; 
 Behold, how the duck dives ; 
 Behold, how the crane travels ; 
 And Titan shines coastantly bright. 
 The shadows of the cloud* are moving ; 
 The works of man shine ; 
 The earth puts forth fruits ; 
 The fruit of the olive puts forth. 
 The cup of Bacchus L* crowned, 
 Along the leaves, along the branches. 
 The fruit, bending them down, flourishes. 
 
 The ducks alight at this season in the still 
 water, in company with the gulls, which do not 
 fail to improve an east wind to visit our mead 
 ows, and swim about by twos and threes, plum 
 ing themselves, and diving to peck at the root of 
 the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has 
 not loosened. The first flock of geese is seen 
 beating to north, in long harrows and waving 
 lines; the jingle of the song-sparrow salutes us 
 
 from the saw, which vibrated several inches with the motion of 
 the machinery. 
 
185 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 from the shrubs and fences; the plaintive note 
 of the lark comes clear and sweet from the 
 meadow; and the bluebird, like an azure ray, 
 glances past us in our walk. The fish-hawk, 
 too, is occasionally seen at this season sailing 
 majestically over the water, and lie who has once 
 observed it will not soon forget the majesty of 
 its flight. It sails the air like a ship of the line, 
 worthy to struggle with the elements, falling 
 back from time to time like a ship on its beam 
 ends, and holding its talons up as if ready for 
 the arrows, in the attitude of the national bird. 
 It is a great presence, as of the master of river 
 and forest. Its eye would not quail before the 
 owner of the soil, but make him feel like an in 
 truder on its domains. And then its retreat, 
 sailing so steadily away, is a kind of advance. I 
 have by me one of a pair of ospreys, which have 
 for some years fished in this vicinity, shot by a 
 neighboring pond, measuring more than two feet 
 in length, and six in the stretch of its wings. 
 Nuttall mentions that "The ancients, particu 
 larly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys taught 
 their young to gaze at the sun, and those who 
 were unable to do so were destroyed. Linnaeus 
 even believed, on ancient authority, that one of 
 the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while 
 the other was partly webbed, so that it could 
 swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 137 
 
 other." But that educated eye is now dim, and 
 those talons are nerveless. Its shrill scream 
 seems yet to linger in its tliro.it, and the roar of 
 the sea in its wings. There i.s the tyranny of Jove 
 in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers 
 of the head and neck. It reminds me of the 
 Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the 
 dullest to take flight over Parnassus. 
 
 The booming of the bittern, described by 
 Goldsmith and Nuttall, is frequently heard in 
 our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding 
 like a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty 
 morning in some distant farm -yard. The manner 
 iu which this sound is produced I have not seen 
 anywhere described. On one occasion, the bird 
 has been seen by one of my neighbors to thrust 
 its bill into the water, and suck up as much as it 
 could hold, then, raising its head, it pumped it 
 out airain with four or five heaves of the in-rk. 
 
 o 
 
 throwing it two or three feet, and making the 
 sound each time. 
 
 At length the summer s eternity is ushered in 
 by the cackle of the flicker among the oaks on 
 the hillside, and a new dynasty begins with calm 
 security. 
 
 In May and June the woodland quire is in full 
 tune, and given the immense spaces of hollow air, 
 and this curious human ear, one does not see how 
 the void could be better filled. 
 
188 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Each summer sound 
 la a summer round. 
 
 As the season advances, and those birds which 
 make us but a passing visit depart, the woods 
 become silent again, and but few feathers ruffle 
 the drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may 
 still find a response and expression for every 
 mood in the depths of the wood. 
 
 Sometimes I hear the veery s * clarion, 
 
 Or brazen trump of the impatient jay, 
 
 And in secluded woods the chickadee 
 
 Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise 
 
 Of heroes, and set forth the loveliness 
 
 Of virtue evermore. 
 
 The phrebe still sings in harmony with the 
 sultry weather by the brink of the pond, nor are 
 the desultory hours of noon in the midst of the 
 village without their minstrel. 
 
 Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays 
 
 The virvo rings the changes sweet, 
 
 During the trivial summer days, 
 
 Striving to lift our thoughts above the street. 
 
 With the autumn begins in some measure a 
 new spring. The plover is heard whistling high 
 
 1 Tills bin!, which is so well described by Nut tall, but is 
 apparently unknown by the author of the Report, Is one of the 
 most common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I 
 have heard the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call 
 it " yorricJL-," from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, 
 as it flits near the traveler through the underwood. The 
 t-owbird s egg is occasionally found in its nest, as mentioned 
 by Audubon. 
 
OF MASS A CllUSETTS 189 
 
 in the air over the dry pastures, the finches flit 
 from tree to tree, the bobolinks ami flickers fly in 
 flocks, and the goldfinch rides on the earliest 
 blast, like a winged hyla peeping amid the rustle 
 of the leaves. The crows, too, l>egin now to 
 congregate; you may stand and count them as 
 they fly low and straggling over the landscape, 
 singly or by twos and threes, at intervals of half 
 a mile, until a hundred have passed. 
 
 I have seen it suggested somewhere that the 
 crow was brought to this country by the white 
 man ; but I shall as soon believe that the white 
 man planted these pines and hemlocks. He is 
 no spaniel to follow our steps; but rather flits 
 about the clearings like the dusky spirit of the 
 Indian, reminding me oftener of Philip and 
 Powhatan, than of Winthrop and Smith. He 
 is a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight, 
 by just so lasting a tenure does superstition hold 
 the world ever; there is the rook in England, 
 and the crow in New England. 
 
 Thou dusky spirit of th wood, 
 
 Bird of an am i. nt hrood. 
 
 Flitting thy lonely way. 
 
 A meteor in the summer s day. 
 
 From wood to wood, from hill to hill, 
 
 Low over forest, field, and rill, 
 
 What wouldnt thou say ? 
 
 Why should.Ht thou haunt th> day f 
 
 What makes thy melancholy float f 
 
 What bravery iuapires thy throat, 
 
140 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 And bears thee up above the clouds, 
 Over desponding human crowds, 
 Which far below 
 Lay thy haunta low ? 
 
 The late walker or sailor, in the October 
 evenings, may hear the murmurings of the snipe, 
 circling over the meadows, the most spirit-like 
 sound in nature ; and still later in the autumn, 
 when the frosts have tinged the leaves, a solitary 
 loon pays a visit to our retired ponds, where he 
 may lurk undisturbed till the season of moult 
 ing is passed, making the woods ring with his 
 wild laughter. This bird, the Great Northern 
 Diver, well deserves its name; for when pur 
 sued with a boat, it will dive, and swim like 
 a fish under water, for sixty rods or more, as 
 fast as a boat can be paddled, and its pursuer, 
 if he would discover his game again, must put 
 his ear to the surface to hear where it comes 
 up. AVhen it comes to the surface, it throws 
 the water off with one shake of its wings, and 
 calmly swims about until again disturbed. 
 
 These are the sights and sounds which reach 
 our senses oftenest during the year. But some 
 times one hears a quite new note, which has for 
 background other Carolinas and Mexicos than 
 the books describe, and learns that his ornitho 
 logy has done him no service. 
 
 It appears from the Report that there are 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 141 
 
 about forty quadrupeds belonging to the State, 
 and among these one is glad to hear of a few 
 bears, wolves, lynxes, and wildcats. 
 
 When our river overflows its banks in the 
 spring, the wind from the meadows is la<l-n 
 with a strong scent of musk, and by its fresh 
 ness advertises me of an unexplored wildness. 
 Those backwoods are not far off then. I am 
 affected by the sight of the cabins of the musk- 
 rat, made of mud and grass, and raised three or 
 four feet along the river, as when I read of the 
 barrows of Asia. The musk-rat is the beaver 
 of the settled States. Their number has even 
 increased within a few years in this vicinity. 
 Among the rivers which empty into the Merri- 
 mack, the Concord is known to the boatmen as 
 a dead stream. The Indians are said to have 
 called it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its 
 current being much more sluggish and its 
 water more muddy than the rest, it abounds 
 more in fish and game of every kind. Accord 
 ing to the History of the town, "The fur-trade 
 was here once very important. As early as 
 1641, a company was formed in the colony, of 
 which Major Willard of Concord was superin 
 tendent, and had the exclusive right to trade 
 with the Indians in furs and other articles; and 
 for this right they were obliged to pay into the 
 public treasury one twentieth of all the furs 
 
142 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 they obtained." There are trappers in our 
 midst still, as well as on the streams of the far 
 West, who night and morning go the round of 
 their traps, without fear of the Indian. One 
 of these takes from one hundred and fifty to two 
 hundred musk-rats in a year, and even thirty- 
 six have been shot by one man in a day. Their 
 fur, which is not nearly as valuable as formerly, 
 is in good condition in the winter and spring 
 only ; and upon the breaking up of the ice, when 
 they are driven out of their holes by the water, 
 the greatest number is shot from boats, either 
 swimming or resting on their stools, or slight 
 supports of grass and reeds, by the side of the 
 stream. Though they exhibit considerable cun 
 ning at other times, they are easily taken in a 
 trap, which has only to be placed in their holes, 
 or wherever they frequent, without any bait 
 being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with 
 their musk. In the winter the hunter cuts holes 
 in the ice, and shoots them when they come to 
 the surface. Their burrows are usually in the 
 high banks of the river, with the entrance under 
 water, and rising within to above the level of 
 high water. Sometimes their nests, composed of 
 dried meadow-grass and flags, maybe discovered 
 where the bank is low and spongy, by the yield 
 ing of the ground under the feet. They have 
 from three to seven or eight young in the spring. 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 143 
 
 Frequently, in the morning or evening, a 
 long ripple is seen in the still water, where a 
 musk-rat is crossing the stream, with only its 
 nose above the surface, ami sometimes a green 
 bough in its mouth to build its house with. 
 When it finds itself observed, it will dive and 
 swim five or six rods under water, and at length 
 conceal itself in its hole, or the weeds. It will 
 remain under water for ten minutes at a time, 
 and on one occasion has been seen, when undis 
 turbed, to form an air-bubble under the ice, 
 which contracted and expanded as it breathed 
 at leisure. When it suspects danger on shore, 
 it will stand erect like a squirrel, and survey 
 its neighborhood for several minutes, without 
 
 moving. 
 
 In the fall, if a meadow intervene between 
 their burrows and the stream, they erect cabins 
 of mud and grass, three or four feet high, near 
 its edge. These are not their breeding-places, 
 though young are sometimes found in them in 
 late freshets, but rather their hunting-lodges, 
 to which they resort in the winter with their 
 food, and for shelter. Their food consists 
 chiefly of flags and fresh-water mussels, the 
 shells of the latter being left in large quantities 
 around their lodges in the spring. 
 
 The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin 
 of a musk-rat, with the legs and tail dangling, 
 
144 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 and the head caught under his girdle, for a 
 pouch, into which he puts his fishing tackle, and 
 essences to scent his traps with. 
 
 The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, 
 and marten have disappeared; the otter is 
 rarely if ever seen here at present; and the 
 mink is less common than formerly. 
 
 Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the 
 fox has obtained the widest and most familiar 
 reputation, from the time of Pilpay and ^sop 
 to the present day. His recent tracks still give 
 variety to a winter s walk. 1 tread in the steps 
 of the fox that has gone before me by some 
 hours, or which perhaps I have started, with 
 such a tiptoe of expectation as if I were on the 
 trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the 
 wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair. 
 I am curious to know what has determined its 
 graceful curvatures, and how surely they were 
 coincident with the fluctuations of some mind. 
 I know which way a mind wended, what horizon 
 it faced, by the setting of these tracks, and 
 whether it moved slowly or rapidly, by their 
 greater or less intervals and distinctness; for 
 the swiftest step leaves yet a lasting trace. 
 Sometimes you will see the trails of many to 
 gether, and where they have gamboled and gone 
 through a hundred evolutions, which testify to 
 :i singular listlessuess and leisure in nature. 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 145 
 
 When I see a fox run across the pond on the 
 snow, with the carelessness of freedom, or at 
 intervals trace his course in the sunshine along 
 the ridge of a hill, I give up to him sun and 
 earth as to their true proprietor. He does 
 not go in the sun, but it seems to follow him, 
 and there is a visible sympathy between him 
 and it. Sometimes, when the snow lies light, 
 and but five or six inches deep, you may give 
 chase and come up with one on foot. In such a 
 case he will show a remarkable presence of 
 mind, choosing only the safest direction, though 
 he may lose ground by it. Notwithstanding his 
 fright, he will take no step which is not beauti 
 ful. His pace is a sort of leopard canter, as if 
 he were in no wise impeded by the snow, but 
 were husbanding his strength all the while. 
 When the ground is uneven, the course is a ae 
 ries of graceful curves, conforming to the shape 
 of the surface. He runs as though there were 
 not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping 
 his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and 
 then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his 
 course. When he comes to a declivity, he will 
 put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down 
 it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so 
 softly that you woidd hardly hear it from any 
 nearness, and yet with such expression that it 
 would not be quite inaudible at any distance. 
 
140 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Of fishes, seventy-five genera and one hun 
 dred and seven species are described in the Re 
 port. The fisherman will be startled to learn 
 that there are but about a dozen kinds in the 
 ponds and streams of any inland town; and 
 almost nothing is known of their habits. Only 
 their names and residence make one love fishes. 
 I would know even the number of their fin-rays, 
 and how many scales compose the latoral line. 
 I am the wiser in respect to all knowledges, 
 and the better qualified for all fortunes," for 
 knowing that there is a minnow in the brook. 
 Methinks I have need even of his sympathy, 
 and to be his fellow in a degree. 
 
 I have experienced such simple delight in the 
 trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly, 
 as might have inspired the muse of Homer or 
 Shakespeare; and now, when I turn the pages 
 and ponder the plates of the Angler s Souvenir, 
 I am fain to exclaim, 
 
 " Can these things be, 
 And overcome us like a summer s cloud ? " 
 
 Next to nature, it seems as if man s actions 
 were the most natural, they so gently accord 
 with her. The small seines of flax stretched 
 across the shallow and transparent parts of our 
 river are no more intrusion than the cobweb in 
 the sun. I stay my boat in mid-current, and 
 look down in the sunny water to see the civil 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 147 
 
 meshes of his nets, and wonder how the bluster 
 ing people of the town could have done this 
 elvish work. The twine looks like a new river 
 weed, and is to the river as a beautiful memento 
 of man s presence in nature, discovered as si 
 lently and delicately as a footprint in the sand. 
 
 When the ice is covered with snow, I do not 
 suspect the wealth under my feet; that there 
 is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. 
 How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fath 
 oms below the loaded wain. The revolution of 
 the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to 
 them. At length the sun and wind brush aside 
 their curtain, and they see the heavens again. 
 
 Early in the spring, after the ice has melted, 
 is the time for spearing fish. Suddenly the 
 wind, shifts from northeast and east to west and 
 south, and every icicle, which has tinkled on 
 the meadow grass so long, trickles down its 
 stem, and seeks its level unerringly with a million 
 comrades. The steam curls up from every roof 
 and fence. 
 
 I see the ciril sun drying earth s tears, 
 Her tears of joy, which only faster flow. 
 
 In the brooks is heard the slight grating 
 sound of small cakes of ice, floating with vari 
 ous speed, full of content and promise, and 
 where the water gurgles under a natural bridge, 
 you may hear these hasty rafts hold convert*- 
 
NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 tion in an undertone. Every rill is a channel 
 for the juices of the meadow. In the ponds the 
 ice cracks with a merry and inspiriting din, and 
 down the larger streams is whirled grating 
 hoarsely, and crashing its way along, which 
 was so lately a highway for the woodman s team 
 and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the 
 skaters still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for 
 pickerel. Town committees anxiously inspect 
 the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye- 
 force to intercede with the ice and save the 
 treasury. 
 
 The river swelleth more and more, 
 Like some sweet influence stealing 1 o er 
 The passive town ; and for a while 
 Each tussock makes a tiny isle, 
 Where, on some friendly Ararat, 
 Resteth the weary water-rat 
 
 No ripple shows Musketaquid, 
 
 Her very current e en is hid, 
 
 As deepest souls do calmest rest, 
 
 When thoughts are swelling in the breast, 
 
 And she that in the summer s drought 
 
 Doth make a rippling and a rout, 
 
 Sleeps from Nahshawtuck to the Cliff, 
 
 Unruffled by a single skiff. 
 
 But by a thousand dLstant hills 
 
 The louder roar a thousand rills, 
 
 And many a spring which now is dumb, 
 
 And many a stream with smothered bum, 
 
 Doth swifter well and faster glide, 
 
 Though buried deep beneath the tide. 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS H9 
 
 Our village bows a rural V nice, 
 Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is ; 
 As lovely M the Bay of Naples 
 Yon placid core amid the maples ; 
 And in my neighbor s field of corn 
 I recognize the Golden Horn. 
 
 Here Nature taught from year to year, 
 When only red men came to hear, 
 Methinks twas in this school of art 
 Venice and Naples learned their part ; 
 But still their iiililliiai, to my mind, 
 Her young disciples leaves behind. 
 
 The fisherman now repairs and launches his 
 boat. The best time for spearing is at this 
 season, before the weeds have begun to grow, 
 and while the fishes lie in the shallow water, for 
 in summer they prefer the cool depths, and in 
 the autumn they are still more or less concealed 
 by the grass. The first requisite is fuel for 
 your crate; and for this purpose the roots of 
 the pitch-pine are commonly used, found under 
 decayed stumps, where the trees have been 
 felled eight or ten years. 
 
 With a crate, or jack, made of iron hoops, 
 to contain your fire, and attached to the IHIW of 
 your boat about three feet from the water, a 
 fish-spear with seven tines and fourteen feet 
 long, a large basket or barrow to carry your 
 fuel and bring back your fish, and a thick outer 
 garment, you are equipped for a cruisv. It 
 
150 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 should be a warm and still evening; and then, 
 with a fire crackling merrily at the prow, you 
 may launch forth like a cucullo into the night. 
 The dullest soul cannot go upon such an expe 
 dition without some of the spirit of adventure; 
 as if he had stolen the boat of Charon and gone 
 down the Styx on a midnight expedition into 
 the realms of Pluto. And much speculation 
 does this wandering star afford to the musing 
 night-walker, leading him on and on, jack-o - 
 lantern -like, over the meadows ; or, if he is wiser, 
 he amuses himself with imagining what of hu 
 man life, far in the silent night, is flitting moth- 
 like round its candle. The silent navigator 
 shoves his craft gently over the water, with a 
 smothered pride and sense of benefaction, as if 
 he were the phosphor, or light-bringer, to these 
 dusky realms, or some sister moon, blessing the 
 spaces with her light. The waters, for a rod or 
 two on either hand and several feet in depth, 
 are lit up with more than noonday distinctness, 
 and he enjoys the opportunity which so many 
 have desired, for the roofs of a city are indeed 
 raised, and he surveys the midnight economy of 
 the fishes. There they lie in every variety of 
 )M)sture ; some on their backs, with their white 
 bellies uppermost, some suspended in mid-water, 
 some sculling gently along with a dreamy mo 
 tion of the fins, and others quite active and wide 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 151 
 
 awake, a scene not unlike what the human 
 city would present. Occasionally lie will en 
 counter a turtlf >< -lei-ting tlu choicest morsels, 
 or a musk-rat resting on a tussock. He may 
 exercise his dexterity, if he sees fit, on the more 
 distant and active fish, or fork the nearer into 
 his boat, as potatoes out of a j>ot, or even take 
 the sound sleepers with his hands. But these 
 last accomplishments he will soon learn to dis 
 pense with, distinguishing the real object of his 
 pursuit, and find compensation in the beauty 
 and never-ending novelty of his position. The 
 pines growing down to the water s edge will 
 show newly as in the glare of a conflagration ; 
 and as he floats under the willows with his light, 
 the song-sparrow will often wake on her perch, 
 and sing that strain at midnight, which she had 
 meditated for the morning. And when he has 
 done, he may have to steer his way home 
 through the dark by the north star, and he will 
 feel himself some degrees nearer to it for hav 
 ing lost his way on the earth. 
 
 The fishes commonly taken in this way are 
 pickerel, suckers, perch, eels, pouts, breams, 
 and shiners, from thirty to sixty weight in a 
 night. Some are hard to be recognized in the 
 unnatural light, especially the perch, which, his 
 dark bands being exaggerated, acquires a fero 
 cious aspect. The number of these transverse 
 
152 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 bands, which the Report states to be seven, is, 
 however, very variable, for in some of our ponds 
 they have nine and ten even. 
 
 It appears that we have eight kinds of tor- x 
 toises, twelve snakes, but one of which is 
 venomous, nine frogs and toads, nine sala 
 manders, and one lizard, for our neighbors. 
 
 I am particularly attracted by the motions of 
 the serpent tribe. They make our hands and 
 feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the 
 fish seem very superfluous, as if nature had 
 only indulged her fancy in making them. The 
 black snake will dart into a bush when pursued, 
 and circle round and round with an easy and 
 graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs, 
 five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits 
 from bough to bough, or hang in festoons be 
 tween the forks. Elasticity and flexibleness in 
 the simpler forms of animal life are equivalent 
 to a complex system of limbs in the higher ; and 
 we have only to be as wise and wily as the ser 
 pent, to perform as difficult feats without the 
 vulgar assistance of hands and feet. 
 
 In May, the snapping turtle, Emysaurus ser- 
 pentina, is frequently taken on the meadows and 
 in the river. The fisherman, taking sight over 
 the calm surface, discovers its snout projecting 
 above the water, at the distance of many rods, 
 and easily secures his prey through its unwill- 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 153 
 
 to ilUturh tli.- \vat - - I imi -i !< <~ 
 tily away, for, gnulually drawing its head un 
 der, it remains resting on some limb or flump 
 of grass. Its eggs, whifh are buried at a dis 
 tance from the water, in some soft place, as 
 a pigeon-bed, are frequently devoured by the 
 skunk. It will catch fish by daylight, as a 
 toad catches flies, and is said to emit a transpar 
 ent fluid from its mouth to attract them. 
 
 Nature has taken more care than the fondest 
 parent for the education and refinement of her 
 children. Consider the silent influence which 
 flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the 
 meadow than the lady in the bower. When I 
 walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise 
 purveyor has been there before me; my most 
 delicate experience is typified there. I am 
 struck with the pleasing friendships and unani 
 mities of nature, as when the lichen on the trees 
 takes the form of their leaves. In the most 
 stupendous scenes you will see delicate and 
 fragile features, as slight wreaths of vapor, dew- 
 lines, feathery sprays, which suggest a high 
 refinement, a noble blood and breeding, as it 
 were. It is not hard to account for elves and 
 fairies; they represent this light grace, this 
 ethereal gentility. Bring a spray from the 
 wood, or a crystal from the brook, and place it 
 on your mantel, and your household ornaments 
 
154 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 will seem plebeian beside its nobler fashion and 
 bearing. It will wave superior there, as if 
 used to a more refined and polished circle. It 
 lias a sal ;: and a response to all \ our enthu 
 siasm and heroism. 
 
 In the winter, I stop short in the path to ad 
 mire how the trees grow up without forethought, 
 regardless of the time and circumstances. They 
 do not wait as man does, but now is the golden 
 age of the sapling. Earth, air, sun, and rain 
 are occasion enough; they were no better in 
 primeval centuries. The "winter of their dis 
 content" never comes. Witness the buds of 
 the native poplar standing gayly out to the frost 
 on the sides of its bare switches. They express 
 a naked confidence. With cheerful heart one 
 could be a sojourner in the wilderness, if he 
 were sure to find there the catkins of the willow 
 or the alder. When I read of them in the ac 
 counts of northern adventurers, by Baffin s Bay 
 or Mackenzie s River, I see how even there, too, 
 I could dwell. They are our little vegetable 
 redeemers. Methinks our virtue will hold out 
 till they come again. They are worthy to have 
 had a greater than Minerva or Ceres for their 
 inventor. Who was the benignant goddess that 
 bestowed them on mankind? 
 
 Nature is mythical and mystical always, and 
 works with the license and extravagance of gen- 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 155 
 
 ius. She has her luxurious and florid style at 
 well as art. Having a pilgrim s cup to make, 
 she gives to the whole, stem, bowl, handle, and 
 nose, some fautastie shape, as if it were to be 
 the car of some fabulous marine deity, a Nereua 
 or Triton. 
 
 In the winter, the botanist need not confine 
 himself to his books and herbarium, and give 
 over his out-door pursuits, but may study a new 
 department of vegetable physiology, what may 
 be called crystalline botany, then. The winter 
 of 1837 was unusually favorable for this. In 
 December of that year, the Genius of vegeta 
 tion seemed to hover by night over its summer 
 haunts with unusual persistency. Such a hoar- 
 frost as is very uncommon here or anywhere, 
 and whose full effects can never be witnessed 
 after sunrise, occurred several times. As I 
 went forth early on a still and frosty morning, 
 the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness 
 caught napping; on this side huddled together, 
 with their gray hairs streaming, in a woluded 
 valley which the sun had not penetrated; on 
 that, hurrying off in Indian file along some 
 water-course, while the shrubs and grasses, like 
 olves and fairies of the night, sought to hide 
 their diminished heads in the snow. The river, 
 viewed from the high bank, appeared of a yel 
 lowish green color, though all the laudarape was 
 
156 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 white. Every tree, shrub, and spire of grass, 
 that could raise its head above the snow, was 
 covered with a dense ice-foliage, answering, as 
 it were, leaf for leaf to its summer dress. Even 
 the fences had put forth leaves in the night. 
 The centre, diverging, and more minute fibres 
 were perfectly distinct, and the edges regularly 
 indented. These leaves were on the side of the 
 twig or stubble opposite to the sun, meeting it 
 for the most part at right angles, and there were 
 others standing out at all possible angles upon 
 these and upon one another, with no twig or 
 stubble supporting them. When the first rays 
 of the sun slanted over the scene, the grasses 
 seemed hung with innumerable jewels, which 
 jingled merrily as they were brushed by the foot 
 of the traveler, and reflected all the hues of the 
 rainbow, as he moved from side to side. It 
 struck me that these ghost leaves, and the green 
 ones whose forms they assume, were the crea 
 tures of but one law ; that in obedience to the 
 same law the vegetable juices swell gradually 
 into the perfect leaf, on the one hand, and the 
 crystalline particles troop to their standard in 
 the same order, on the other. As if the mate 
 rial were indifferent, but the law one and inva 
 riable, and every plant in the spring but pushed 
 up into and filled a permanent and eternal 
 mould, which, summer and winter forever, is 
 waiting to be filled. 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 157 
 
 This foliate structure is common to the coral 
 anil the plumage of birds and to how large a 
 part of animate and inanimate nature. The 
 same independence of law on matter is observa 
 ble in many other instances, as in the natural 
 rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor 
 has its counterpart in some vegetable. As, in 
 deed, all rhymes imply an eternal melody, in 
 dependent of any particular sense. 
 
 As confirmation of the fact, that vegetation 
 is but a kind of crystallization, every one may 
 observe how, upon the edge of the melting frost 
 on the window, the needle-shaped particles are 
 bundled together so as to resemble fields wav 
 ing with grain, or shocks rising here and there 
 from the stubble ; on one side the vegetation of 
 the torrid zone, high-towering palms and wide 
 spread banyans, such as are seen in pictures of 
 oriental scenery ; on the other, arctic pines stiff 
 frozen, with downcast branches. 
 
 Vegetation has been made the type of all 
 growth ; but as in crystals the law is more obvi 
 ous, their material being more simple, and for 
 the most part more transient and fleeting, would 
 it not be as philosophical as convenient to con 
 sider all growth, all filling up within the limits 
 of nature, but a crystallization more or less 
 rapid ? 
 
 On this occasion, in the side of the high bank 
 
158 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 of the river, wherever the water or other cause 
 had formed a cavity, its throat and outer edge, 
 like the entrance to a citadel, bristled with a 
 glistening ice-armor. In one place you might 
 see minute ostrich-feathers, which seemed the 
 waving plumes of the warriors filing into the 
 fortress; in another, the glancing, fan-shaped 
 banners of the Lilliputian host; and in another, 
 the needle-shaped particles collected into bun 
 dles, resembling the plumes of the pine, might 
 pass for a phalanx of spears. From the under 
 side of the ice in the brooks, where there was 
 a thicker ice below, depended a mass of crystal- 
 lization, four or five inches deep, in the form of 
 prisms, with their lower ends open, which, when 
 the ice was laid on its smooth side, resembled the 
 roofs and steeples of a Gothic city, or the vessels 
 of a crowded haven under a press of canvas. The 
 very mud in the road, where the ice had melted, 
 was crystallized with deep rectilinear fissures, 
 and the crystalline masses in the sides of the ruts 
 resembled exactly asbestos in the disposition of 
 their needles. Around the roots of the stubble 
 and flower-stalks, the frost was gathered into the 
 form of irregular conical shells, or fairy rings. 
 In some places the ice crystals were lying upon 
 granite rocks, directly over crystals of quartz, 
 the frost-work of a longer night, crystals of a 
 longer ]>eriod ; but, to some eye unprejudiced by 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 1 
 
 the short tertu of human lift*, inciting as fast as 
 the former. 
 
 In the Report on the Invertebrate Animals, 
 this singular fact is recorded, which teaches us 
 to put a new value on time and space: "The 
 distribution of the marine shells is well worthy 
 of notice as a geological fact. Cape Cod, the 
 1 14 lit ami of the Commonwealth, reaches out into 
 the ocean, some fifty or sixty miles. It is no 
 where many miles wide; but this narrow point 
 of land has hitherto proved a barrier to the mi 
 grations of many species of Mollusca. Several 
 genera and numerous species, which are sepa 
 rated by the intervention of only a few miles of 
 land, are effectually prevented from mingling 
 by the Cape, and do not pass from one side to 
 the other. ... Of the one hundred and ninety- 
 seven marine species, eighty-three do not pass 
 to the south shore, and fifty are not found on the 
 north shore of the Cape." 
 
 That common mussel, the Unio compht w// />-, 
 or more properly Jluv iatlli^ left in the spring by 
 the musk-rat upon rocks and stumps, api>ears 
 to have been an important article of food with 
 the Indians. In one place, where they are said 
 to have feasted, they are found in large quanti 
 ties, at an elevation of thirty feet above the 
 river, filling the soil to the depth of a foot, and 
 mingled with ashes and Indian remains. 
 
160 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 The works we have placed at the head of our 
 chapter, with as much license as the preacher 
 selects his text, are such as imply more labor than 
 enthusiasm. The State wanted complete cata 
 logues of its natural riches, with such additional 
 facts merely as would be directly useful. 
 
 The reports on Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, and 
 Invertebrate Animals, however, indicate labor 
 and research, and have a value independent of 
 the object of the legislature. 
 
 Those on Herbaceous Plants and Birds cannot 
 be of much value, as long as Bigelow and Nut- 
 tall are accessible. They serve but to indicate, 
 with more or less exactness, what specif 
 found in the State. We detect several errors 
 ourselves, and a more practiced eye would no 
 doubt expand the list. 
 
 The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and in 
 structive report than they have obtained. 
 
 These volumes deal much in measurements 
 and minute descriptions, not interesting to the 
 general reader, with only here and there a col 
 ored sentence to allure him, like those plants 
 growing in dark forests, which bear only leaves 
 without blossoms. But thp ground was compar 
 atively unbroken, and we will not complain of 
 the pioneer, if he raises no flowers with his first 
 crop. Let us not underrate the value of a fact ; 
 it will one day flower in a truth. It is aston- 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS 161 
 
 ishing how few facts of importance are added in 
 a century to the natural history of any animal. 
 The natural history of man himself is still being 
 gradually written. Men are knowing enough 
 after their fashion. Every countryman and 
 dairy-maid knows that the coats of the fourth 
 stomach of the calf will curdle milk, and what 
 particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious 
 diet. You cannot go into any field or wood, but 
 it will seem as if every stone had been turned, 
 and the bark on every tree ripped up. But, 
 after all, it is much easier to discover than to 
 see when the cover is off. It has been well said 
 that "the attitude of inspection is prone." Wis 
 dom does not inspect, but behold. We must look \ 
 a long time before we can see. Slow are the 
 beginnings of philosophy. He has something 
 demoniacal in him, who can discern a law or 
 couple two facts. We can imagine a time 
 when "Water runs down hill" may have been 
 taught in the schools. The true man of science 
 wilf know nature better by his finer organiza 
 tion; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better 
 than other men. His will be a deeper and finer 
 experience. We do not learn by inference and 
 deduction and the application of mathematics to 
 philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sym 
 pathy. It is with science as with ethics, - 
 cannot know truth by contrivance and method; 
 
l ; - NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 the Baconian is as false as any other, and with 
 all the helps of machinery and the arts, the 
 most scientific will still be the healthiest and 
 friendliest man, and possess a more perfect In 
 dian wisdom. 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 The imdPti of the pine 
 All to the west incline. 
 
 CONCORD, July 19, 1842. 
 
 SUMMER and winter our eyes had rested on 
 the dim outline of the mountains in our hori 
 zon, to which distance and indistinctness lent a 
 grandeur not their own, so that they served 
 equally to interpret all the allusions of poets 
 and travelers; whether with Homer, on a spring 
 morning, we sat down on the many-peaked 
 Olympus, or with Virgil and his compeers 
 roamed the Etrurian and Thessalian hills, or 
 with Humboldt measured the more modern 
 Andes and Teneriffe. Thus we spoke our mind 
 to them, standing on the Concord cliffs: - 
 
 With frontier strength ye stand your ground, 
 
 With grand content ye circle round, 
 
 Tumultuous silence for all sound, 
 
 Y distant nursery of rills, 
 
 Monadnock, and the Peterboro hills ; 
 
 Like some vast fleet, 
 
 Sailing through rain and sleet, 
 
 Through winter s cold and summtr i biifc 5 
 
 Still holding on, upon your high emprise, 
 
 Until ye End a shore amid the skies ; 
 
164 A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 Not skulking close to land. 
 
 With cargo contraband, 
 
 For they who sent a venture out by ye 
 
 Have set the sun to we 
 
 Their honesty. 
 
 Ships of the line, each one, 
 
 Ye to the westward run, 
 
 Always before the pale, 
 
 Under a press of sail, 
 
 With weight of metal all untold. 
 
 I seem to feel ye, in my firm seat here. 
 
 Immeasurable depth of hold, 
 
 And breadth of beam, and length of running gear. 
 
 Methinks ye take luxurious pleasure 
 
 In your novel western leisure ; 
 
 So cool your brows, and freshly blue, 
 
 As Time had nought for ye to do ; 
 
 For ye lie at your length, 
 
 An unappropriated strength, 
 
 Unhewn primeval timber, 
 
 For knees so stiff, for masts so limber ; 
 
 The stock of which new earths are made, 
 
 One day to be our western trade, 
 
 Fit for the stanchions of a world 
 
 Which through the seas of space is hurled. 
 
 While we enjoy a lingering ray, 
 
 Ye still o ertop the western day, 
 
 Reposing yonder, on God s croft, 
 
 Like solid stacks of hay. 
 
 Edged with silver, and with gold, 
 
 The clouds hang o er in danuisk fold, 
 
 And with such depth of amber light 
 
 The west is dight, 
 
 Where still a few rays slant, 
 
 That even heaven seems extravagant. 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 165 
 
 On the earth s edge mountain* and tree* 
 
 Stand aa they were on air graven, 
 
 Or a* the vessels in a haven 
 
 Await the morning breeze. 
 
 I fancy even 
 
 Through your defiles windeth the way to heaven ; 
 
 And yonder HI ill. in spite of history s page, 
 
 Linger the golden and the silver age ; 
 
 Upon the laboring gale 
 
 The news of future centuries is brought, 
 
 And of new dynasties of thought, 
 
 From your remotest vale. 
 
 But special I remember thee, 
 
 Wachusett, who like me 
 
 Standest alone without society. 
 
 Thy far blue eye, 
 
 A remnant of the sky, 
 
 Seen through the clearing or the gorge 
 
 Or from the windows on the forge, 
 
 Doth leaven all it passes by. 
 
 Nothing is true, 
 
 But stands tween me and yon, 
 
 Thou western pioneer, 
 
 Who know st not shame nor fear, 
 
 By venturous spirit driven, 
 
 ( nil.-r the eaves of heaven. 
 
 And can st expand thee there, 
 
 And breathe enough of air ? 
 
 Upholding heaven, holding down earth, 
 
 Thy pastime from thy birth, 
 
 Not steadied by the one, nor loaning on the other ; 
 
 May I approve myself thy worthy brother ! 
 
 At length, like Rasselas, and other inhabi 
 tants of happy valleys, we resolved to scale the 
 blue wall which Ixnmd the western hori/n. 
 
16G A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 though not without misgivings that thereafter 
 no visible fairyland would exist for us. But 
 we will not leap at once to our journey s end, 
 though near, but imitate Homer, who conducts 
 his reader over the plain, and along the re 
 sounding sea, though it be but to the tent of 
 Achilles. In the spaces of thought are the 
 reaches of land and water, where men go and 
 come. The landscape lies far and fair within, 
 and the deepest thinker is the farthest traveled. 
 At a cool and early hour on a pleasant morn 
 ing in July, my companion and I passed rapidly 
 through Acton and Stow, stopping to rest and 
 refresh us on the bank of a small stream, a tri 
 butary of the Assabet, in the latter town. As 
 we traversed the cool woods of Acton, with 
 stout staves in our hands, we were cheered by 
 the song of the red-eye, the thrushes, the 
 phoabe, and the cuckoo; and as we passed 
 through the open country, we inhaled the fresh 
 scent of every field, and all nature lay passive, 
 to be viewed and traveled. Every rail, every 
 farm-house, seen dimly in the twilight, every 
 tinkling sound told of peace and purity, and we 
 moved happily along the dank roads, enjoying 
 not such privacy as the day leaves when it with 
 draws, but such as it has not profaned. It was 
 solitude with light ; which is better than dark 
 ness. But anon, the sound of the mower s rifle 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 167 
 
 u is lirard in rli.- fteldft, ind this, too, 
 with the lowing of kine. 
 
 This part of our route lay through the coun 
 try of hops, which plant perhaps supplies the 
 want of the vine in American scenery, and may 
 remind the traveler of I tidy and the South of 
 France, whether he traverses the country when 
 the hop-fields, as then, present solid and regular 
 masses of verdure, hanging in graceful festoons 
 from i>ole to pole, the cool coverts where lurk 
 the gales which refresh the wayfarer; or in Sep- 
 teml>er, when the women and children, and the 
 neighbors from far and near, are gathered to 
 pick the hops into long troughs; or later still, 
 when the poles stand piled in vast pyramids in 
 the yards, or lie in heaps by the roadside. 
 
 The culture of the hop, with the processes of 
 picking, drying in the kiln, and packing for the 
 market, as well as the uses to which it is ap 
 plied, so analogous to the culture and uses of 
 the grape, may afford a theme for future poets. 
 
 The mower in the adjacent meadow could not 
 tell us the name of the brook on whose banks 
 we had rested, or whether it had any, but his 
 younger companion, perhaps his brother, knew 
 that it was Great Brook. Though they stood 
 very near together in the field, the tilings they 
 knew were very far apart; nor did they sus 
 pect each other s reserved knowledge, till the 
 
108 .1 WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 stranger came by. In Bolton, while we rested 
 on the rails of a cottage fence, the strains of 
 music which issued from within, probably in 
 compliment to us, sojourners, reminded us that 
 thus far men were fed by the accustomed plea 
 sures. So soon did we, wayfarers, begin to 
 learn that man s life is rounded with the same 
 few facts, the same simple relations everywhere, 
 and it is vain to travel to find it new. The 
 flowers grow more various ways than he. But 
 coming soon to higher land, which afforded a 
 prospect of the mountains, we thought we had 
 not traveled in vain, if it were only to hear a 
 truer and wilder pronunciation of their names 
 from the lips of the inhabitants ; not FPay-tatic, 
 JFay-chusett, but TFor-tatic, TPbr-chusett. It 
 made us ashamed of our tame and civil pronun 
 ciation, and we looked upon them as born and 
 bred farther west than we. Their tongues had 
 a more generous accent than ours, as if breath 
 was cheaper where they wagged. A country 
 man, who speaks but seldom, talks copiously, 
 as it were, as his wife sets cream and cheese 
 before you without stint. Before noon we hud 
 reached the highlands overlooking the valley of 
 Lancaster (affording the first fair and open 
 prospect into the west), and there, on the top of 
 a hill, in the shade of some oaks, near to where 
 a spring bubbled out from a leaden pipe, we 
 
A WALK TO WACHL SETT 
 
 rested during the heat of the day, reading 
 Virgil and enjoying the scenery. It was such 
 a place as one feels to be on the outside of the 
 earth; for from it we could, in some measure, 
 see the form and structure of the globe. There 
 lay Wachusett, the object of our journey, low 
 ering upon us with unchanged proportions, 
 though with a less ethereal aspect than had 
 greeted our morning gaze, while further north, 
 in successive order, slumbered its sister moun 
 tains along the horizon. 
 - We could get no further into the ^Eneid than 
 
 atque altie uurnia Romie, 
 
 and the wall of high Home, 
 
 before we were constrained to reflect by what 
 myriad tests a work of genius has to be tried ; 
 that Virgil, away in Rome, two thousand years 
 off, should have to unfold his meaning, the in 
 spiration of Italian vales, to the pilgrim on New 
 Hi inland hills. This life so raw and modem, 
 that so civil and ancient ; and yet we read Vir 
 gil, mainly to be reminded of the identity of 
 human nature in all ages, and, by the jMwt s 
 own account, we are both the children of a late 
 age, and live equally under the reign of Jupiter. 
 
 " He ahook honey from the leaves, and removed fire, 
 And stayi-d the wine, even-where flowing in river* ; 
 That lj>M Wan 1 1 by meditating, might invent various arta 
 By degree*, and Mek the blade of com in furrows, 
 And strike out hidden fire fruin the vein* of the Hint." 
 
170 A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 The old world stands serenely behind the 
 new, as one mountain yonder towers behind 
 another, more dim and distant. Rome imposes 
 her story still upon this late generation. The 
 very children in the school we had that morning 
 passed had gone through her wars, and recited 
 her alarms, ere they had heard of the wars of 
 neighboring Lancaster. The roving eye still 
 rests inevitably on her hills, and she still holds 
 up the skirts of the sky on that side, and makes 
 the past remote. 
 
 The lay of the land hereabouts is well worthy 
 the attention of the traveler. The hill on which 
 we were resting made part of an extensive 
 range, running from southwest to northeast, 
 across the country, and separating the waters of 
 the Nashua from those of the Concord, whose 
 banks we had left in the morning, and by bear 
 ing in mind this fact, we could easily determine 
 whither each brook was bound that crossed our 
 path. Parallel to this, and fifteen miles further 
 west, beyond the deep and broad valley in which 
 lie Groton, Shirley, Lancaster, and Boylston, 
 runs the Wachusett range, in the same general 
 direction. The descent into the valley on the 
 Nashua side is by far the most sudden ; and a 
 couple of miles brought us to the southern 
 branch of the Nashua, a shallow but rapid 
 stream, flowing between high and gravelly 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 171 
 
 banks. But we soon learned that there were 
 no gelidcv ralles into which we had descended, 
 and, missing the coolness of the morning air, 
 feared it had become the sun s turn to try his 
 jxnver upon us. 
 
 44 The sultry nun had gained the middle sky, 
 And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh," 
 
 and with melancholy pleasure we echoed the 
 melodious plaint of our fellow-traveler, Hassan, 
 in the desert, 
 
 44 Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day. 
 When first from Schiraz walls I bent ray way." 
 
 The air lay lifeless between the hills, as in a 
 seething caldron, with no leaf stirring, and in 
 stead of the fresh odor of grass and clover, with 
 which we had before been regaled, the dry scent 
 of every herb seemed merely medicinal. Yield 
 ing, therefore, to the heat, we strolled into the 
 woods, and along the course of a rivulet, on 
 whose banks we loitered, observing at our leisure 
 the products of these new fields. He who tra 
 verses the woodland paths, at this season, will 
 have occasion to remember the small, drooping, 
 l>ell-like flowers and slender red stem of the 
 dogsbane, and the coarser stem and berry of 
 the poke, which are both common in remoter 
 and wilder scenes; and if "the sun casts such a 
 reflecting heat from the sweet-fern" as makes 
 
17 2 A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 him faint, when he is climbing the bare hills, 
 as they complained who first penetrated into 
 these parts, the cool fragrance of the swamp 
 pink restores him again, when traversing the 
 valleys between. 
 
 As we went on our way late in the afternoon, 
 we refreshed ourselves by bathing our feet in 
 every rill that crossed the road, and anon, as 
 we were able to walk in the shadows of the 
 hills, recovered our morning elasticity. Passing 
 through Sterling, we reached the banks of the 
 Stillwater, in the western part of the town, at 
 evening, where is a small village collected. We 
 fancied that there was already a certain western 
 look about this place, a smell of pines and roar 
 of water, recently confined by dams, belying 
 its name, which were exceedingly grateful. 
 "When the first inroad has been made, a few 
 acres leveled, and a few houses erected, the 
 forest looks wilder than ever. Left to herself, 
 ^nature is always more or less civilized, and de 
 lights in a certain refinement; but where the 
 axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest, 
 the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which 
 she had concealed with green banks of verdure, 
 are exposed to sight. This village had, as yet, 
 no post-office, nor any settled name. In the 
 small villages which we entered, the villagers 
 gazed after us, with a complacent, almost com- 
 
A WALK TO WACIWSETT 173 
 
 passionate look, as if we were just making our 
 iltbut in the world at a late hour. "Neverthe 
 less," did they seem to say, "come and study 
 us, and learn men and manners." So is each 
 one s world but a clearing in the forest, so much 
 open and inclosed ground. The landlord had 
 not yet returned from the field with his men, 
 and the cows had yet to be milked. But we 
 remembered the inscription on the wall of the 
 Swedish inn, "You will find at Trolhate excel 
 lent bread, meat, and wine, provided you bring 
 them with you," and were contented. But I 
 must confess it did somewhat disturb our plea 
 sure, in this withdrawn spot, to have our own 
 village newspaper handed us by our host, as if 
 the greatest charm the country offered to the 
 traveler was the facility of communication with 
 the town. Let it recline on its own everlasting 
 hills, and not be looking out from their sum 
 mits for some petty Boston or New York in the 
 
 horizon. 
 
 At intervals we heard the murmuring of 
 water, and the slumberous breathing of crickets, 
 throughout the night; and left the inn the next 
 morning in the gray twilight, after it had been 
 hallowed by the night air, and when only the 
 innocent cows were stirring, with a kind of re 
 gret. It was only four miles to the base of the 
 mountain, and the scenery was already more 
 
174 .4 WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 picturesque. Our road lay along the course of 
 the Stillwater, which was brawling at the bot 
 tom of a deep ravine, filled with pines and 
 rocks, tumbling fresh from the mountains, so 
 soon, alas! to commence its career of useful 
 ness. At first, a cloud hung between us and 
 the summit, but it was soon blown away. As 
 we gathered the raspberries, which grew abun 
 dantly by the roadside, we fancied that that 
 action was consistent with a lofty prudence; as 
 if the traveler who ascends into a mountainous 
 region should fortify himself by eating of such 
 light ambrosial fruits as grow there, and drink 
 ing of the springs which gush out from the 
 mountain sides, as he gradually inhales the 
 subtler and purer atmosphere of those elevated 
 places, thus propitiating the mountain gods by 
 a sacrifice of their own fruits. The gross pro 
 ducts of the plains and valleys are for such as 
 dwell therein ; but it seemed to us that the juices 
 of this berry had relation to the thin air of the 
 mountain-tops. 
 
 In due time we began to ascend the moun 
 tain, passing, first, through a grand sugar-ma 
 ple wood, which bore the marks of the auger, 
 then a denser forest, which gradually became 
 dwarfed, till there were no trees whatever. We 
 at length pitched our tent on the summit. It is 
 but nineteen hundred feet above the village of 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 175 
 
 Princeton, and three thousand above the level 
 of the sea; but by this slight elevation it is in 
 finitely removed from the plain, and when we 
 reached it we felt a sense of remoteness, as if 
 we had traveled into distant regions, to Arabia 
 Petrsea, or the farthest east. A robin upon a 
 staff was the highest object in sight. Swallows 
 were flying about us, and the chewink and 
 cuckoo were heard near at hand. The summit 
 consists of a few acres, destitute of trees, cov 
 ered with bare rocks, interspersed with blue- 
 l>erry bushes, raspberries, gooseberries, straw 
 berries, moss, and a fine wiry grass. The 
 common yellow lily and dwarf -cornel grow 
 abundantly in the crevices of the rocks. This 
 clear space, which is gently rounded, is bounded 
 a few feet lower by a thick shrubbery of oaks, 
 with maples, aspens, beeches, cherries, and occa 
 sionally a mountain-ash intermingled, among 
 which we found the bright blue berries of the 
 Solomon s seal, and the fruit of the pyrola. 
 From the foundation of a wooden observatory, 
 which was formerly erected on the highest 
 point, forming a rude, hollow structure of stone, 
 a dozen feet in diameter, and five or six in 
 height, we could see Monadnock, in simple 
 grandeur, in the northwest, rising nearly a thou 
 sand feet higher, still the "far blue mountain," 
 though with an altered profile. The first day 
 
17t> A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 the weather was so hazy that it was in vain we 
 endeavored to unravel the obscurity. It was 
 like Booking into the sky again, and the patches 
 of forest here and there seemed to flit like 
 clouds over a lower heaven. As to voyagers of 
 an aerial Polynesia, the earth seemed like a 
 larger island in the ether; on every side, even 
 as low as we, the sky shutting down, like 
 an unfathomable deep, around it, a blue Pacific 
 island, where who knows what islanders inhabit ? 
 and as we sail near its shores we see the waving 
 of trees and hear the lowing of kine. 
 
 We read Virgil and Wordsworth in our tent, 
 with new pleasure there, while waiting for a 
 clearer atmosphere, nor did the weather prevent 
 our appreciating the simple truth and beauty of 
 Peter Bell: - 
 
 " And he had lain beside his asses, 
 On lofty Cheviot hills ; 
 
 14 And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales, 
 Among the rocks and winding scars, 
 Where deep and low the hamlets lie 
 Beneath their little patch of sky, 
 And little lot of stars." 
 
 Who knows but this hill may one day be a 
 Helvellyn, or even a Parnassus, and the Muses 
 haunt here, and other Homers frequent the 
 neighboring plains ? 
 
 Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head 
 Above the field, so late from nature won, 
 
 With patient brow reserved, as one who read 
 New annals in thi history of man. 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 177 
 
 The blueberries which the mountain afforded, 
 added to the milk we had brought, made our 
 frugal supper, while for entertainment the even 
 song of the wood-thrush rang along the ridge. 
 Our eyes rested on no painted ceiling nor car 
 peted hall, but on skies of nature s painting, 
 and hills and forests of her embroidery. Before 
 sunset, we rambled along the ridge to the north, 
 while a hawk soared still above us. It was a 
 place where gods might wander, so solemn and 
 solitary, and removed from all contagion with 
 the plain. As the evening came on, the haze 
 was condensed in vapor, and the landscape be 
 came more distinctly visible, and numerous 
 sheets of water were brought to light. 
 
 Et jam summa procul villarum cnlmina fumant, 
 Majoresque cadunt altis tie montibus umbra. 
 
 And now the tops of the villas smoke afar off, 
 
 And the shadows faD. longer from the high mountains. 
 
 As we stood on the stone tower while the sun 
 was setting, we saw the shades of night creep 
 gradually over the valleys of the east, and the 
 inhabitants went into their houses, and slnit 
 their doors, while the moon silently rose up, and 
 took possession of that part. And then the 
 same scene was repeated on the west side, as far 
 as the Connecticut and the Green Mountains, 
 and the sun s rays fell on us two alone, of all 
 New England men. 
 
178 A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 It was the night but one before the full of the 
 moon, so bright that we could see to read dis 
 tinctly by moonlight, and in the evening strolled 
 over the summit without danger. There was, 
 by chance, a fire blazing on Monadnock that 
 night, which lighted up the whole western hori 
 zon, and, by making us aware of a community 
 of mountains, made our position seem less soli 
 tary. But at length the wind drove us to the 
 shelter of our tent, and we closed its door for 
 the night, and fell asleep. 
 
 It was thrilling to hear the wind roar over 
 the rocks, at intervals when we waked, for it 
 had grown quite cold and windy. The night 
 was in its elements, simple even to majesty in 
 that bleak place, a bright moonlight and a 
 piercing wind. It was at no time darker than 
 twilight within the tent, and we could easily see 
 the moon through its transparent roof as we lay ; 
 for there was the moon still above us, with Jupi 
 ter and Saturn on either hand, looking down 
 on Wachusett, and it was a satisfaction to know 
 that they were our fellow-travelers still, as high 
 and out of our reach as our own destiny. Truly 
 the stars were given for a consolation to man. 
 We should not know but our life were fated to 
 be always groveling, but it is permitted to be 
 hold them, and surely they are deserving of a 
 fair destiny. We see laws which never fail, of 
 
.1 WALK TO WACHUSETT 179 
 
 whose failure we never conceived; and tlu-ir 
 lamps burn all the night, too, as well as all day, 
 so rich and lavish is that nature which can 
 afford this superfluity of liuht. 
 
 The morning twilight began as soon as the 
 moon had set, and we arose and kindled our 
 fire, whose blaze might have been seen for thirty 
 miles around. As the daylight increased, it 
 was remarkable how rapidly the wind went 
 tlown. There was no dew on the summit, but 
 coldness supplied its place. When the dawn 
 had reached its prime, we enjoyed the view of a 
 distinct horizon line, and could fancy ourselves 
 at sea, and the distant hills the waves in the 
 horizon, as seen from the deck of a vessel. 
 The cherry-birds flitted around us, the nuthatch 
 and flicker were heard among the bushes, the 
 titmouse perched within a few feet, and the song 
 of the wood-thrush again rang along the ridge. 
 At length we saw the sun rise up out of the sea, 
 and shine on Massachusetts ; and from this mo 
 ment the atmosphere grew more and more trans 
 parent till the time of our departure, and we 
 began to realize the extent of the view, and how 
 the earth, in some degree, answered to the hea* 
 vens in breadth, the white villages to the con- 
 stellations in the sky. There was little of the 
 sublimity and grandeur which talong to moun 
 tain scenery, but an immense landscape to pou- 
 
180 A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 der on a summer s day. We could see how 
 ample and roomy is nature. As far as the eye 
 could reach there was little life in the landscape ; 
 the few birds that flitted past did not crowd. 
 The travelers on the remote highways, which in 
 tersect the country on even- side, had no fellow- 
 travelers for miles, before or behind. On 
 every side, the eye ranged over successive circles 
 of towns, rising one above another, like the ter 
 races of a vineyard, till they were lost in the 
 horizon. Wachusett is, in fact, the observator} 
 of the State. There lay Massachusetts, spread 
 out before us in its length and breadth, like a 
 map. There was the level horizon, which told 
 of the sea on the east and south, the well-known 
 hills of New Hampshire on the north, and the 
 misty summits of the Hoosac and Green Moun 
 tains, first made visible to us the evening be 
 fore, blue and unsubstantial, like some bank of 
 clouds which the morning wind would dissipate, 
 on the northwest and west. These last distant 
 ranges on which the eye rests unwearied, com 
 mence with an abrupt bowlder in the north, 
 beyond the Connecticut, and travel southward, 
 with three or four peaks dimly seen. But Mo- 
 nadnock, rearing its masculine front in the north 
 west, is the grandest feature. As we beheld it, 
 we knew that it was the height of land between 
 the two rivers, on this side the valley of the 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 Merrimack, on that of the Connecticut, fluctuat 
 ing with their blue seas of air, these rival 
 vales, already teeming with Yankee men along 
 their respective streams, born to what destiny 
 who shall tell? Watatie and the neighboring 
 hills, in this State and in New Hampshire, are a 
 continuation of the same elevated range on wlm-h 
 we were standing. l;n thai New Hampshire 
 bluff, that promontory of a State, lowering 
 day and night on this our State of Massachusetts, 
 will longest haunt our dreams. 
 
 We could at length realize the place moun 
 tains occupy on the land, and how they come into 
 the general scheme of the universe. When first 
 we climb their summits and observe their lesser 
 irregularities, we do not give credit to the com 
 prehensive intelligence which shaped them ; but 
 when afterward we behold their outlines in the 
 horizon, we confess that the hand which moulded 
 their opposite slopes, making one to balance the 
 other, worked round a deep centre, and was privy 
 to the plan of the universe. So is the least part 
 of nature in its bearings referred to all space. 
 These lesser mountain ranges, as well as the Al- 
 leglianies, run from northeast to southwest, and 
 parallel with these mountain streams are the 
 more fluent rivers, answering to the general di 
 rection of the coast, the bank of the great ocean 
 stream itself. Even the clouds, with their thin 
 
182 .1 WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 bars, fall into the same direction by preference, 
 and such even is the course of the prevailing 
 winds, and the migration of men and birds. A 
 mountain-chain determines many things for the 
 statesman and philosopher. The improvements 
 of civilization rather creep along its sides than 
 cross its summit. How often is it a barrier to 
 prejudice and fanaticism? In passing over these 
 heights of land, through their thin atmosphere, 
 the follies of the plain are refined and purified ; 
 and as many species of plants do not scale their 
 summits, so many species of folly no doubt do 
 not cross the Alleghanies ; it is only the hardy 
 mountain-plant that creeps quite over the ridge, 
 and descends into the valley beyond. 
 
 We get a dim notion of the flight of birds, 
 especially of such as fly high in the air, by having 
 ascended a mountain. We can now see what 
 landmarks mountains are to their migrations; 
 how the Catskills and Highlands have hardly 
 sunk to them, when Wachusett and Monadnock 
 open a passage to the northeast ; how they are 
 guided, too, in their course by the rivers and 
 valleys ; and who knows but by the stars, as well 
 as the mountain ranges, and not by the petty 
 landmarks which we use. The bird whose eye 
 takes in the Green Mountains on the one side, 
 and the ocean on the other, need not be at a loss 
 to find its way. 
 
A WALK TO WACHUSETT 183 
 
 At noon we descended the mountain, and, 
 having returned to the almdes of men, turned our 
 faces to the east again ; measuring our progress, 
 from time to time, by the more ethereal hues 
 which the mountain assumed. Passing swiftly 
 through Stillwater and Sterling, as with a down 
 ward impetus, we found ourselves almost at 
 home again in the green meadows of Lancaster, 
 so like our own Concord, for both are watered 
 by two streams which unite near their centres, 
 and have many other features in common. There 
 is an unexpected refinement about this scenery ; 
 level prairies of great extent, interspersed with 
 elms and hop-fields and groves of trees, give it 
 almost a classic appearance. This, it will be 
 remembered, was the scene of Mrs. Rowland- 
 son s capture, and of other events in the Indian 
 wars, but from this July afternoon, and under 
 that mild exterior, those times seemed as remote 
 as the irruption of the Goths. They were the 
 dark age of New England. On beholding a 
 picture of a New England village as it then ap 
 peared, with a fair open prospect, and a light on 
 trees and river, as if it were broad noon, we find 
 we had not thought the sun shone in those days, 
 or that men lived in broad daylight then. We 
 do not imagine the sun shining on hill and valley 
 during Philip s war, nor on the war-path of 
 Paugus, or Standish, or Church, or Lovell, with 
 
184 ,1 WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 serene summer weather, but a dim twilight or 
 night did those events transpire in. They must 
 have fought in the shade of their own dusky 
 deeds. 
 
 At length, as we plodded along the dusty 
 roads, our thoughts became as dusty as they; 
 all thought indeed stopped, thinking broke 
 down, or proceeded only passively in a sort of 
 rhythmical cadence of the confused material of 
 thought, and we found ourselves mechanically 
 repeating some familiar measure which timed 
 with our tread; some verse of the Robin Hood 
 ballads, for instance, which one can recommend 
 to travel by : 
 
 ** Sweavens are swift, sayd lyttle John, 
 
 As the wind blows over the hill ; 
 For if it he never so loud this night, 
 To-morrow it may be still," 
 
 And so it went up hill and down till a stone 
 interrupted the line, when a new verse was 
 chosen : 
 
 " His shoote it was but loosely shot, 
 
 Yet flewe not the arrowe in vaine, 
 
 For it met one of the sheriffe s men, 
 
 And William-a-Trent was slaine." 
 
 There is, however, this consolation to the 
 most wayworn traveler, upon the dustiest road, 
 that the patli his feet describe is so perfectly 
 symbolical of human life, now climbing the 
 
A WALK TO \VACHUSETT 185 
 
 hills, now descending into the vales. From the 
 summits he beholds the heavens and the hori 
 zon, from the vales he looks up to the heights 
 again. He is treading his old lessons still, and 
 though he may be very weary and travel-worn, 
 it is yet sincere experience. 
 
 Leaving the Nashua, we changed our route a 
 little, and arrived at Stillriver Village, in the 
 western part of Harvard, just as the sun was 
 setting. From this place, which lies to the 
 northward, upon the western slope of the same 
 range of hills on which we had spent the n<xm 
 before, in the adjacent town, the prospect is 
 beautiful, and the grandeur of the mountain 
 outlines unsurpassed. There was such a repose 
 and quiet here at this hour, as if the very hill 
 sides were enjoying the scene, and as we passed 
 slowly along, looking back over the country we 
 had traversed, and listening to the evening song 
 of the robin, we could not help contrasting the 
 equanimity of nature with the bustle and impa 
 tience of man. His words and actions presume 
 always a crisis near at hand, but she is forever 
 silent and unpretending. 
 
 And now that we have returned to the desul 
 tory life of the plain, let us endeavor to iinjx>rt 
 a little of that mountain grandeur into it. ^ e 
 will remember within what walls we lie, and 
 understand that this level life too has its sum- 
 
180 A WALK TO WACHUSETT 
 
 mit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest 
 valleys have a tinge of blue ; that there is ele 
 vation in every hour, as no part of the earth is 
 so low that the heavens may not be seen from, 
 and we have only to stand on the summit of our 
 hour to command an uninterrupted horizon. 
 
 We rested that night at Harvard, and the 
 next morning, while one bent his steps to the 
 nearer village of Groton, the other took his sep 
 arate and solitary way to the peaceful meadows 
 of Concord; but let him not forget to record 
 the brave hospitality of a farmer and his wife, 
 who generously entertained him at their board, 
 though the poor wayfarer could only congratu 
 late the one on the continuance of hay weather, 
 and silently accept the kindness of the other. 
 Refreshed by this instance of generosity, no 
 less than by the substantial viands set before 
 him, he pushed forward with new vigor, and 
 reached the banks of the Concord before the sun 
 had climbed many degrees into the heavens. 
 
THE LANDLORD 
 
 UNDER the one word "house" are included 
 the school-house, the alms-house, the jail, the 
 tavern, the dwelling-house; and the meanest 
 she<l or cave in which men live contains the ele 
 ments of all these. But nowhere on the earth 
 stands the entire and perfect house. The Par 
 thenon, St. Peter s, the Gothic minster, the 
 palace, the hovel, are but imperfect executions 
 of an imperfect idea. Who would dwell in 
 them ? Perhaps to the eye of the gods the cot 
 tage is more holy than the Parthenon, for they 
 look down with no especial favor upon the 
 shrines formally dedicated to them, and that 
 should be the most sacred roof which shelters 
 most of humanity. Surely, then, the gods who 
 are most interested in the human race preside 
 over the Tavern, where especially men congre 
 gate. Methinks I see the thousand shrines 
 erected to Hospitality shining afar in all coun 
 tries, as well Mahometan and Jewish, as Chris 
 tian, khans and caravansaries and inns, whither 
 all pilgrims without distinction resort. 
 
 Likewise we look in vain, east or west over 
 
188 THE LANDLORD 
 
 the earth, to find the perfect man; but each 
 represents only some particular excellence. 
 The Landlord is a man of more open and gen 
 eral sympathies, who possesses a spirit of hos 
 pitality which is its own reward, and feeds and 
 shelters men from pure love of the creatures. 
 To be sure, this profession is as often filled by 
 imperfect characters, and such as have sought 
 it from unworthy motives, as any other, but so 
 much the more should we prize the true and 
 honest Landlord when we meet with him. 
 
 \Vho has not imagined to himself a country 
 inn, where the traveler shall really feel in, and 
 at home, and at his public-house, who was be 
 fore at his private house ; whose host is indeed 
 a host, and a lord of the land, a self-appointed 
 brother of his race ; called to his place, beside, 
 by all the winds of heaven and his good genius, 
 as truly as the preacher is called to preach; a 
 man of such universal sympathies, and so broad 
 and genial a human nature, that he would fain 
 sacrifice the tender but narrow ties of private 
 friendship, to a broad, sunshiny, fair-weather- 
 and-foul friendship for his race; who loves men, 
 not as a philosopher, with philanthropy, nor as 
 an overseer of the poor, with charity, but by a 
 necessity of his nature, as he loves dogs and 
 horses; and standing at his open door from 
 morning till night would fain see more and more 
 
THE LANDLORD 1 s - 1 
 
 of them come along the highway, and IB never 
 satiated. To him the sun and moon are but 
 travelers, the one by day and the other by night; 
 and they too patronize his house. To his im 
 agination all things travel save his sign-post 
 and himself; and though you may be his neigh 
 bor for years, he will show you only the civili 
 ties of the road. But on the other hand, while 
 nations and individuals are alike selfish and 
 exclusive, he loves all men equally; and if he 
 treats his nearest neighbor as a stranger, since 
 he has invited all nations to share his hospital 
 ity, the farthest traveled is in some measure 
 kindred to him who takes him into the bosom of 
 his family. 
 
 He keeps a house of entertainment at the sign 
 of the Black Horse or the Spread Eagle, and is 
 known far and wide, and his fame travels with 
 increasing radius every year. All the neigh 
 borhood is in his interest, and if the traveler 
 ask how far to a tavern, he receives some such 
 answer as this: "Well, sir, there s a house 
 alxnit three miles from here, where they haven t 
 taken down their sign yet; but it s only ten 
 miles to Slocum s, and that s a capital house, 
 l>oth for man and beast." At three miles he 
 passes a cheerless barrack, standing desolate 
 behind its sign-post, neither public nor private, 
 and lia- -limpses of a discontented couple who 
 
190 THE LANDLORD 
 
 have mistaken their calling. At ten miles see 
 where the Tavern stands, really an entertain 
 ing prospect, so public and inviting that only 
 the rain and snow do not enter. It is no gay 
 pavilion, made of bright stuffs, and furnished 
 with nuts and gingerbread, but as plain and sin 
 cere as a caravansary ; located in no Tarrytown, 
 where you receive only the civilities of com 
 merce, but far in the fields it exercises a primi 
 tive hospitality, amid the fresh scent of new 
 hay and raspberries, if it be summer time, and 
 the tinkling of cow-bells from invisible pas 
 tures ; for it is a land flowing with milk and 
 honey, and the newest milk courses in a broad, 
 deep stream across the premises. 
 
 In these retired places the tavern is first of 
 all a house, elsewhere, last of all, or never, 
 and warms and shelters its inhabitants. It is 
 as simple and sincere in its essentials as the 
 caves in which the first men dwelt, but it is also 
 as open and public. The traveler steps across 
 the threshold, and lo ! he too is master, for he 
 only can be called proprietor of the house here 
 who behaves with most propriety in it. The 
 Landlord stands clear back in nature, to niy 
 imagination, with his axe and spade felling 
 trees and raising potatoes with the vigor of a 
 pioneer; with Promethean energy making na 
 ture yield her increase to supply the wants of 
 
THE LANDLORD 191 
 
 so many ; and he is not so exhausted, nor of so 
 short a stride, but that he comes forward even 
 to the highway to this wide hospitality and pub 
 licity. Surely, he has solved some of the prob 
 lems of life. He comes in at his back door, 
 holding a log fresh cut for the hearth upon his 
 shoulder with one hand, while he greets the 
 newly arrived traveler with the other. 
 
 Here at length we have free range, as not in 
 palaces, nor cottages, nor temples, and intrude 
 nowhere. All the secrets of housekeeping are 
 exhibited to the eyes of men, above and below, 
 l>efore and behind. This is the necessary way 
 to live, men have confessed, in these days, and 
 shall he skulk and hide? And why should we 
 have any serious disgust at kitchens ? Perhaps 
 they are the holiest recess of the house. There 
 is the hearth, after all, and the settle, and 
 the fagots, and the kettle, and the crickets. 
 AVe have pleasant reminiscences of these. They 
 are the heart, the left ventricle, the very vital 
 part of the house. Here the real and sincere 
 life which we meet in the streets was actually 
 fed and sheltered. Here burns the taper that 
 cheers the lonely traveler by night, and from 
 this hearth ascend the smokes that populate the 
 valley to his eyes by day. On the whole, a 
 man may not be so little ashamed of any other 
 part of his house, for here is his sincerity and 
 
192 THE LANDLORD 
 
 earnest, at least. It may not be here that the 
 besoms are plied most, it is not here that they 
 need to be, for dust will not settle on the kitchen 
 floor more than in nature. 
 
 Hence it will not do for the Landlord to pos 
 sess too fine a nature. He must have health 
 above the common accidents of life, subject to 
 no modern fashionable diseases; but no taste, 
 rather a vast relish or appetite. His sentiments 
 on all subjects will be delivered as freely as the 
 wind blows; there is nothing private or indivi 
 dual in them, though still original, but they are 
 public, and of the hue of the heavens over his 
 house, a certain out-of-door obviousness and 
 transparency not to be disputed. What he 
 does, his manners are not to be complained of, 
 though abstractly offensive, for it is what man 
 does, and in him the race is exhibited. When 
 he eats, he is liver and bowels and the whole 
 digestive apparatus to the company, and so all 
 admit the thing is done. He must have no 
 idiosyncrasies, no particular bents or tendencies 
 to this or that, but a general, uniform, and 
 healthy development, such as his portly person 
 indicates, offering himself equally on all sides 
 to men. He is not one of your peaked and in 
 hospitable men of genius, with particular tastes, 
 but, as we said before, has one uniform relish, 
 and taste which never aspires higher than a 
 
THE LANDLORD 
 
 tavern-sign, or the cut of a weather-cock. The 
 man of genius, like a dog with a bone, or the 
 slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a patient 
 with the gravel, flits afar and retired, off the 
 road, hangs out no sign of refreshment for man 
 and beast, but says, by all possible hints and 
 signs, I wish to be alone, good-by, farewell. 
 But the Landlord can afford to live without 
 privacy. He entertains no private thought, he 
 cherishes no solitary hour, no Sabbath-day, but 
 thinks, enough to assert the dignity of reason, 
 and talks, and reads the newspaper. What 
 he does not tell to one traveler he tells to an 
 other. He never wants to be alone, but sleeps, 
 wakes, eats, drinks, sociably, still rememl>ering 
 his race. He walks abroad through the thoughts 
 of men, and the Iliad and Shakespeare are tame 
 to him, who hears the rude but homely incidents 
 of the road from every traveler. The mail 
 might drive through his brain in the midst of 
 his most lonely soliloquy, without disturbing 
 his equanimity, provided it brought plenty of 
 news and passengers. There can be no pro 
 fanity where there is no fane behind, and the 
 whole world may see quite round him. Per 
 chance his lines have fallen to him in dustier 
 places, and he has heroically sat down when* 
 two roads meet, or at the Four Corners or the 
 Five Points, and his life is sublimely trivial for 
 
194 THE LANDLORD 
 
 the good of men. The dust of travel blows 
 ever in his eyes, and they preserve their clear, 
 complacent look. The hourlies and half-hour- 
 lies, the dailies and weeklies, whirl on well-worn 
 tracks, round and round his house, as if it were 
 the goal in the stadium, and still he sits within 
 in unruffled serenity, with no show of retreat. 
 His neighbor dwells timidly behind a screen of 
 poplars and willows, and a fence with sheaves 
 of spears at regular intervals, or defended 
 against the tender palms of visitors by sharp 
 spikes, but the traveler s wheels rattle over 
 the door-step of the tavern, and he cracks his 
 whip in the entry. He is truly glad to see you, 
 and sincere as the bull s-eye over his door. 
 The traveler seeks to find, wherever he goes, 
 some one who will stand in this broad and cath 
 olic relation to him, who will be an inhabitant 
 of the land to him a stranger, and represent its 
 human nature, as the rock stands for its inani 
 mate nature ; and this is he. As his crib fur 
 nishes provender for the traveler s horse, and 
 his larder provisions for his appetite, so his con 
 versation furnishes the necessary aliment to his 
 spirits. He knows very well what a man wants, 
 for he is a man himself, and as it were the far 
 thest traveled, though he has never stirred from 
 his door. He understands his needs and des 
 tiny. He would be well fed and lodged, there 
 
THE LANDLORD 195 
 
 can IKJ no <lnul>t, and have the transient sym 
 pathy of a cheerful companion, and of a heart 
 which always prophesies fair weather. And 
 after all the greatest men, even, want much 
 more the sympathy which every honest f ll\v 
 can give, than that which the great only can 
 impart. If he is not the most upright, let us 
 allow him this praise, that he is the most down 
 right of men. He has a hand to shake and to 
 l>e shaken, and takes a sturdy and unquestion 
 able interest in you, as if he had assumed the 
 care of you, but if you will break your neck, he 
 will even give you the best advice as to the 
 method. 
 
 The great poets have not been ungrateful to 
 their landlords. Mine host of the Tabard Inn, 
 in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, was 
 an honor to his profession : 
 
 44 A seroely man our Hoste was, with alle, 
 For to han been a marshal in an halle. 
 A large man he was, with eyen stepe ; 
 A fairer burgeis was ther non in Oiepe : 
 Bold of his ftpeche, and wise, and well ytaught, 
 And of manhood him lacked righto naught. 
 Eke thereto was he right a mery man, 
 And after Houper plaien he began, 
 And spake of mirthe nmonp-s <>tli<T thin^- -. 
 Whan that we hadden made our reckoning^." 
 
 He is the true house-band, and centre of the 
 company, of greater fellowship and pnuti.al 
 
19G THE LANDLORD 
 
 social talent than any. He it is that proposes 
 that each shall tell a tale to while away the time 
 to Canterbury, and leads them himself, and 
 concludes with his own tale, 
 
 " Now, by my fader s soule that is ded, 
 But ye be mery, smiteth of my hed : 
 Hold up your hondes withouten more speche." 
 
 If we do not look up to the Landlord, we look 
 round for him on all emergencies, for he is a 
 man of infinite experience, who unites hands 
 with wit. He is a more public character than 
 a statesman, a publican, and not consequently 
 a sinner; and surely, he, if any, should be ex 
 empted from taxation and military duty. 
 
 Talking with our host is next best and in 
 structive to talking with one s self. It is a 
 more conscious soliloquy; as it were, to speak 
 generally, and try what we would say provided 
 we had an audience. He has indulgent and 
 open ears, and does not require petty and par 
 ticular statements. "Heigh-ho!" exclaims the 
 traveler. Them s my sentiments, thinks mine 
 host, and stands ready for what may come next, 
 expressing the purest sympathy by his de 
 meanor. "Hot as blazes!" says the other. 
 " 1 lard weather, sir, not much stirring nowa 
 days," says he. He is wiser than to contradict 
 his guest in any case; he lets him go on; he 
 lets him travel. 
 
THE LANDLORD 197 
 
 The latest sitter leaves him standing fur in 
 the night, prepared to live right on, while sun* 
 rise and set, and his "good-night" has as lri>k 
 a sound as his "good-morning;" and 
 est riser finds him tasting his liquors in tli 
 ere flies begin to buzz, with a countenance ti -h 
 as the morning star over the sanJed floor, 
 and not as one who had watched ali night for 
 travelers. And yet, if beds \ye the subject of 
 conversation, it will appear that no man has 
 been a sounder sleeper in his time. 
 
 Finally, as for his moral character, we do not 
 hesitate to say that he has no grain of vice ar 
 meanness in him, but represents just that degrt*e 
 of virtue which all men relish without being 
 nlili^ed to respect. He is a good man, as his 
 bitters are good, an unquestionable goodness. 
 Not what is called a good man, good to be 
 murdered, as a work of art in galleries and 
 museums, but a good fellow, that is, good to 
 l>e associated with. Who ever thought of the 
 religion of an inn-keeper, whether he was 
 joined to the Church, partook of the sacrament, 
 said his prayers, feared God, or the like? No 
 doubt he has had his experiences, has felt a 
 change, and is a firm believer in the persever 
 ance of the saints. In this last, we suspect, 
 does the peculiarity of his religion consist. But 
 he keeps an inn, and not a conscience. How 
 
198 THE LANDLORD 
 
 many fragrant charities and sincere social vir- 
 - ;ire implied in this daily offering of himself 
 tftu> public! He cherishes good-will to all, 
 es the wayfarer as good and honest ad- 
 direct him on his road as the priest. 
 * To conclude, the tavern will compare favor 
 ably with the church. The church is the place 
 where prayers and sermons are delivered, but. 
 the tavern is where they are to take effect, and 
 if the former are good, the latter cannot be 
 bad. 
 
A WINTER WALK 
 
 THE wind has gently murmured through the 
 Minds, or puffed with feathery softness against 
 the windows, and occasionally sighed like a 
 summer zephyr lifting the leaves along, the 
 livelong night. The meadow-inouse has slept 
 in his snug gallery in the soil, the owl has sat 
 in a hollow tree in the depth of the swamp, the 
 rabbit, the squirrel, and the fox have all been 
 housed. The watch-dog has lain quiet on the 
 hearth, and the cattle have stood silent in their 
 stalls. The earth itself has slept, as it were 
 its first, not its last sleep, save when some 
 street-sign or wood-house door has faintly 
 creaked upon its hinge, cheering forlorn nature 
 at her midnight work, the only sound awake 
 twixt Venus and Mars, advertising us of a 
 remote inward warmth, a divine cheer and fel 
 lowship, where gods are met together, but where 
 it is very bleak for men to stand. But while 
 the earth has slumlnred, all the air has been 
 jalive with feathery flakes descending, as if some 
 jiorthern Ceres reigned, showering her silvery 
 in ovrr all the fields. 
 
200 A WINTER WALK 
 
 We sleep, and at length awake to the still 
 reality of a winter morning. The snow lies 
 warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill: 
 the broadened gash and frosted panes admit a 
 dim and private light, which enhances the snug 
 cheer within. The stillness of the morning is 
 impressive. The floor creaks under our feet as 
 we move toward the window to look abroad 
 through some clear space over the fields. We 
 see the roofs stand under their snow burden. 
 From the eares and fences hang stalactites of 
 snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites cover 
 ing some concealed core. The trees and shrubs 
 rear white arms to the sky on every side; and 
 where were walls and fences, we see fantastic 
 forms stretching in frolic gambols across the 
 dusky landscape, as if nature had strewn her 
 fresh designs over the fields by night as models 
 for man s art. 
 
 Silently we unlatch the door, letting the drift 
 fall in, and step abroad to face the cutting air. 
 Already the stars have lost some of their 
 sparkle, and a dull, leaden mist skirts the hori 
 zon. A lurid brazen light in the east proclaims 
 the approach of day, while the western land 
 scape is dim and spectral still, and clothed in a 
 sombre Tartarian light, like the shadowy realms. 
 They are Infernal sounds only that you In -a 
 the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, 
 
A WINTER WALK -"1 
 
 chopping of wood, the lowing of kine, all seem 
 to come from Pluto s barn-yard and beyond the 
 Styx, not for any melancholy they suggest, 
 but their twilight bustle is too solemn and mys 
 terious for earth. The recent tracks of the fox 
 or otter, in the yard, remind us that each hour 
 of the night is crowded with events, and the 
 primeval nature is still working and making 
 tracks in the snow. Opening the gate, we tread 
 l.riskly along the lone country road, crunching 
 the dry and crisped snow under our feet, or 
 aroused by the sharp clear creak of the wood 
 sled, just starting for the distant market, from 
 the early farmer s door, where it has lain the 
 summer long, dreaming amid the chips and stub 
 ble; while far through the drifts and powdered 
 windows we see the farmer s early candle, like 
 a paled star, emitting a lonely beam, as if some 
 severe virtue were at its matins there. And one 
 by ojae the smokes begin to ascend from the 
 chimneys amid the trees and snows. 
 
 The alaffiam smoke carl* up from some deep dell, 
 
 The stiffened air exploring in the dawn, 
 
 And making slow acquaintance with the day 
 
 Delaying now upon it* heavenward course, 
 
 In wreathed loitering* dallying with itself, 
 
 With M uncertain purpose and slow dead 
 
 As its half -wakened master by the hearth, 
 
 Whoso mind still slumbering and alugginh thought* 
 
 Have not yet swept into the onward current 
 
 Of the new day ; and now it streams afar, 
 
-"- A WINTEIt WALK 
 
 The while the chopper goes with step direct, 
 And mind intent to swing the early axe. 
 
 First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad 
 llis early scout, his emissary, smoke, 
 The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof, 
 To feel the frosty air, inform the day ; 
 And while he crouches still beside the hearth, 
 Nor musters courage to unbar the door. 
 It has gone down the glen with the light wind, 
 And o er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath, 
 Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill, 
 And warmed the pinions of the early bird ; 
 And now, perclxance, high in the crispy air, 
 Has caught sight of the day o er the earth s edge, 
 And greets its master s eye at his low door, 
 A* some refulgent cloud in the upper sky. 
 
 We hear the sound of wood-chopping at the 
 farmers doors, far over the frozen earth, the 
 baying of the house-dog, and the distant clarion 
 of the cock, though the thin and frosty air 
 conveys only the finer particles of sound to our 
 ears, with short and sweet vibrations, as the 
 waves subside soonest on the purest and lightest 
 liquids, in which gross substances sink to the 
 bottom. They come clear and bell-like, and 
 from a greater distance in the horizon, as if 
 there were fewer impediments than in summer to 
 make them faint and ragged. The ground is 
 sonorous, like seasoned wood, and even the or 
 dinary rural sounds are melodious, and the jing 
 ling of the ice on the trees is sweet and liquid. 
 There is the least possible moisture in the at- 
 
.! WINTER WALK 203 
 
 moephere, all l)eing dried up, or congealed, and 
 it is of such extreme tenuity and elasticity that 
 it becomes a source of drli-ht. The withdrawn 
 and tense sky seems groined like the aisles of a 
 cathedral, and the jmlished air sparkles a if 
 there were crystals of ice floating in it. As 
 they who have resided in Greenland tell us 
 that when it freezes "the sea smokes like burn 
 ing turf-land, and a fog or mist arises, called 
 frost-smoke," which "cutting smoke frequently 
 raises blisters on the face and hands, and is very 
 jK rnicious to the health." But this pure sting 
 ing cold is an elixir to the lungs, and not so 
 much a frozen mist as a crystallized midsum 
 mer haze, refined and purified by cold. 
 
 The sun at length rises through the distant 
 woods, as if with the faint clashing swinging 
 sound of cymbals, melting the air with his beams, 
 and with such rapid steps the morning travels, 
 that already his rays are gilding the distant 
 western mountains. Meanwhile we step hastily 
 along through the jwwdery snow, warmed by an 
 inward heat, enjoying an Indian summer still, 
 in the increased glow of thought and feeling. 
 Probably if our lives were more conformed to 
 nature, we should not need to defend ourselves 
 against her heats and colds, but find her our 
 constant nurse and friend, as do plants and 
 quadrupeds. If our bodies were fed with pure 
 
204 A WINTER WALK 
 
 and simple elements, and not with a stimulating 
 and heating diet, they would afford no more 
 pasture for cold than a leafless twig, but thrive 
 like the trees, which find even winter genial to 
 their expansion. 
 
 \ The wonderful purity of nature at this season 
 is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump 
 and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead 
 leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean nap 
 kin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling 
 woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest 
 and bleakest places, the wannest charities still 
 maintain a footliold. A cold and searching 
 wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can 
 withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and ac 
 cordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and 
 bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we re 
 spect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan 
 toughness. All things beside seem to be called 
 in for shelter, and what stays out must be part 
 of the original frame of the universe, and of 
 such valor as God himself. It is invigorating 
 to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness 
 and purity are visible to the eye, and we would 
 fain stay out long and late, that the gales may 
 sigh through us, too, as through the leafless 
 trees, and fit us for the winter, as if we hoped 
 so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, 
 which will stead us in all seasons. 
 
A WINTER WALK 205 
 
 There is .1 slumbering subterranean fire in na 
 ture which never goes out, and which no coltl can 
 chill. It finally melts the great snow, and in 
 January or July is only buried under a thick* r 
 or thinner covering. In the coldest day it Huws 
 somewhere, and the snow melts around every 
 tree. This field of winter rye, which sprouted 
 late in the fall, and now speedily dissolves the 
 snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered. 
 "We feel warmed by it. In the winter, warmth 
 stands for all virtue, and we resort in thought to 
 a trickling rill, with its bare stones shining in 
 the sun, and to warm springs in the woods, with 
 as much eagerness as rabbits and robins. The 
 steam which rises from swamps and pools is as 
 dear and domestic as that of our own kettle. 
 What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a 
 winter s day, when the meadow mice come out 
 by the wall-sides, and the chickadee lisps in the 
 defiles of the wood? The warmth conies directly 
 from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, 
 as in summer; and when we feel his l>eams on 
 our backs as we are treading some snowy dell, 
 we are grateful as for a special kindness, and 
 bless the sun which has followed us into that by- 
 place. 
 
 This subterranean fire has its altar in each 
 man s breast ; for in the coldest day, and on the 
 bleakest hill, the traveler cherishes a warmer 
 
206 A WINTER WALK 
 
 fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled 
 on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the 
 complement of the seasons, and in winter, sum 
 mer is in his heart. There is the south. Thither 
 have all birds and insects migrated, and around 
 the warm springs in his breast are gathered the 
 robin and the lark. 
 
 At length, having reached the edge of the 
 woods, and shut out the gadding town, we enter 
 within their covert as we go under the roof of a 
 cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and 
 banked up with snow. They are glad and warm 
 still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in 
 summer. As we stand in the midst of the pines 
 in the flickering and checkered light which 
 straggles but little way into their maze, we won 
 der if the towns have ever heard their simple 
 story. - It seems to us that no traveler has ever 
 explored them, and notwithstanding the wonders 
 which science is elsewhere revealing every day, 
 who would not like to hear their annals ? Our 
 humble villages in the plain are their contribu 
 tion. We borrow from the forest the boards 
 which shelter and the sticks which warm us. 
 I low important is their evergreen to the winter, 
 that portion of the summer which does not fade, 
 the permanent year, the un withered grass. Thus 
 simply, and with little expense of altitude, is the 
 surface of the earth diversified. What would 
 
.! WINTER WALK 207 
 
 human life IK? without forests, those natural 
 t;itigs2 From the tops of mountains they appear 
 like smooth-shaven lawns, yet whither shall we 
 walk but in this tidier grass? 
 
 In this ghule covered with bushes of a year s 
 growth, see how the silvery dust lies on every 
 seared leaf and twig, deposited in such infinite 
 and luxurious forms as by their very variety 
 atone for the absence of color. Observe the 
 tiny tracks of mice around every stem, and the 
 triangular tracks of the rabbit. A pure elas 
 tic heaven hangs over all, as if the impurities 
 of the summer sky, refined and shrunk by the 
 chaste winter s cold, had been winnowed from 
 the heavens upon the earth. 
 
 Nature confountls her summer distinctions at 
 this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the 
 earth. The elements are less reserved and dis 
 tinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The 
 day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is I 
 an arctic summer. 
 
 How much more living is the life that is in 
 nature, the furred life which still survives the 
 stinging nights, and, from amidst fields and 
 woods covered with frost and snow, sees the sun 
 
 rise. 
 
 " The f oodle wild* 
 Pour forth their brown inhabitants. * 
 
 The gray squirrel and rabbit are brisk and play- 
 
208 A WINTER WALK 
 
 fill in the remote glens, even on the morning of 
 the cold Friday. Here is our Lapland and 
 Labrador, and for our Esquimaux and Knistcn- 
 aux, Dog-ribbed Indians, Novazemblaites, and 
 Spitzbergeners, are there not the ice-cutter and 
 wood -chopper, the fox, musk-rat, and mink? 
 
 Still, in the midst of the arctic day, we may 
 trace the summer to its retreats, and sympathize 
 with some contemporary life. Stretched over 
 the brooks, in the midst of the frost - bound 
 meadows, we may observe the submarine cot 
 tages of the caddice-wonns, the larvae of the 
 Plicipennes; their small cylindrical cases built 
 around themselves, composed of flags, sticks, 
 grass, and withered leaves, shells, and pebbles, 
 in form and color like the wrecks which strew 
 the l>ottom, now drifting along over the pebbly 
 bottom, now whirling in tiny eddies and dashing 
 down steep falls, or sweeping rapidly along with 
 the current, or else swaying to and fro at the 
 end of some grass - blade or root. Anon they 
 will leave their sunken habitations, and, crawling 
 up the stems of plants, or to the surface, like 
 gnats, as perfect insects henceforth, flutter over 
 the surface of the water, or sacrifice their short 
 lives in the flame of our candles at evening. 
 Down yonder little glen the shrubs are drooping 
 under their burden, and the red alder-berries 
 contrast with the white ground. Here are the 
 
A WINTER WALK -" 
 
 marks of a myriad feet which have already been 
 abroad. The sun rises as proudly over sueh 
 a glen as over the valley of the Seine or the 
 Tiber, and it seems the residence of a pure and 
 self-subsistent valor, sueh as they never wit 
 nessed; which never knew defeat nor fear. I lere 
 reign the simplicity and purity of a primitive 
 age, and a health and hope far remote from 
 towns and cities. Standing quite alone, far in 
 the forest, while the wind is shaking down snow 
 from the trees, and leaving the only human 
 tracks behind us, we find our reflections of a 
 richer variety than the life of cities. The chick 
 adee and nuthatch are more inspiring society 
 than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall 
 return to these last as to more vulgar compan 
 ions. In this lonely glen, with its brook drain 
 ing the slopes, its creased ice and crystals of all 
 hues, where the spruces and hemlocks stand up 
 on either side, and the rush and sere wild oats 
 in the rivulet itself, our lives are more serene 
 and worthy to contemplate. 
 
 As the day advances, the heat of the sun is 
 reflected by the hillsides, and we hear a faint 
 but sweet music, where flows the rill released 
 from its fetters, and the icicles are melting on 
 the trees; and the nuthatch and partridge are 
 heard and swn. The south wind melts the snow 
 at noon, and the bare ground appears with its 
 
210 A WINTER WALK 
 
 withered grass and leaves, and we are invigor 
 ated by the perfume which exhales from it, as 
 by the scent of strong meats. 
 
 Let us go into this deserted woodman s hut, 
 and see how he has passed the long winter nights 
 and the short and stormy days. For here man 
 has lived under this south hillside, and it seems 
 a civilized and public spot. We have such as 
 sociations as when the traveler stands by the 
 ruins of Palmyra or Hecatompolis. Singing 
 birds and flowers perchance have begun to ap 
 pear here, for flowers as well as weeds follow 
 in the footsteps of man. These hemlocks whis 
 pered over his head, these hickory logs were his 
 fuel, and these pitch-pine roots kindled his fire ; 
 yonder fuming rill in the hollow, whose thin and 
 airy vapor still ascends as busily as ever, though 
 he is far off now, was his well. These hemlock 
 boughs, and the straw upon this raised platform, 
 were his bed, and this broken dish held his 
 drink. But he has not been here this season, 
 for the phoebes built their nest upon this shelf 
 last summer. I find some embers left as if he 
 had but just gone out, where he baked his pot 
 of beans ; and while at evening he smoked his 
 pipe, whose stemless bowl lies in the ashes, 
 chatted with his only companion, if perchance 
 he had any, about the depth of the snow on the 
 morrow, already falling fast and thick without, 
 
A WINTER WALK 211 
 
 or disputed whether the last sound was the 
 screech of an owl, or the creak of a bough, or 
 imagination only; and through his broad chim 
 ney throat, in the late winter evening, ere he 
 stretched himself upon the straw, he looked up 
 to learn the progress of the storm, and, seeing 
 the bright stars of Cassiopeia s chair shining 
 brightly down upon him, fell contentedly asleep. 
 See how many traces from which we may 
 learn the chopper s history. From this stump 
 we may guess the sharpness of his ax, and from 
 the sloi>e of the stroke, on which side he stood, 
 and whether he cut down the tree without going 
 round it or changing hands; and, from the flex 
 ure of the splinters, we may know which way it 
 fell. This one chip contains inscribed on it the 
 whole history of the wood-chopper and of the 
 world. On this scrap of paper, which held his 
 sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of 
 his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what 
 interest we read the tattle of cities, of those 
 larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High 
 Streets and Broadways. The eaves are drip 
 ping on the south side of this simple roof, while 
 the titmouse lisps in the pine and the genial 
 warmth of the sun around the door is some 
 what kind and human. 
 
 After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not 
 deform the scene. Already the birds resort to 
 
-1- A WINTER WALK 
 
 it, to build their nests, and you may track to its 
 door the feet of many quadrupeds. Thus, for a 
 long time, nature overlooks the encroachment 
 and profanity of man. The wood still cheerfully 
 and unsuspiciously echoes the strokes of the axe 
 that fells it, and while they are few and seldom, 
 they enhance its wildness, and all the elements 
 strive to naturalize the sound. 
 
 Now our path begins to ascend gradually to 
 the top of this high hill, from whose precipitous 
 south side we can look over the broad country 
 of forest and field and river, to the distant 
 snowy mountains. See yonder thin column of 
 smoke curling up through the woods from some 
 invisible farmhouse; the standard raised over 
 some rural homestead. There must be a warmer 
 and more genial spot there below, as where we 
 detect the vapor from a spring forming a cloud 
 above the trees. What fine relations are estab 
 lished between the traveler who discovers this 
 airy column from some eminence in the forest 
 and him who sits below. Up goes the smoke as 
 silently and naturally as the vapor exhales from 
 the leaves, and as busy disposing itself in 
 wreaths as the housewife on the, hearth below. 
 It is a hieroglyphic of man s life, and suggests 
 more intimate and important things than the boil 
 ing of a pot. Where its fine column rises above 
 the forest, like an ensign, some human life has 
 
A WINTER WALK 213 
 
 planted itself, and such is the beginning of 
 Koine, the establishment of the arts, and the 
 foundation of empires, whether on the prairies of 
 America or the steppes of Asia. 
 
 And now we descend again, to the brink of 
 this woodland lake, which lies in a hollow of the 
 hills, as if it were their expressed juice, and 
 that of the leaves which are annually steeped in 
 it. Without outlet or inlet to the eye, it has still 
 its history, in the lapse of its waves, in the 
 rounded pebbles on its shore, and in the pines 
 which grow down to its brink. It has not been 
 idle, though sedentary, but, like Abu Musa, 
 teaches that "sitting still at home is the heavenly 
 way; the going out is the way of the world." 
 Yet in its evajx>ration it travels as far as any. 
 In summer it is the earth s liquid eye ; a mirror 
 in the breast of nature. The sins of the wood 
 are washed out in it. See how the woods form 
 an amphitheatre about it, and it is an arena for 
 all the genialneM of nature. All trees direct the 
 traveler to its brink, all paths seek it out, birds 
 fly to it, quadrujH ds flee to it, and the very 
 ground inclines toward it. It is nature s saloon, 
 where she has sat down to her toilet. Consider 
 her silent economy and tidiness ; how the sun 
 comes with his evaporation to sweep the dust 
 from its surface each morning, and a fresh sur 
 face is constantly welling up; and annually, 
 
214 A WINTER WALK 
 
 after whatever impurities have accumulated 
 herein, its liquid transparency appears again in 
 the spring. In summer a hushed music seems 
 to sweep across its surface. But now a plain 
 sheet of snow conceals it from our eyes, except 
 where the wind has swept the ice bare, and the 
 sere leaves are gliding from side to side, tacking 
 and veering on their tiny voyages. Here is one 
 just keeled up against a pebble on shore, a dry 
 beech - leaf, rocking still, as if it would start 
 again. A skillful engineer, methinks, might 
 project its course since it fell from the parent 
 stem. Here are all the elements for such a cal 
 culation. Its present position, the direction of 
 the wind, the level of the pond, and how much 
 more is given. In its scarred edges and veins is 
 its log rolled up. 
 
 We fancy ourselves in the interior of a larger 
 house. The surface of the pond is our deal 
 table or sanded floor, and the woods rise 
 abruptly from its edge, like the walls of a cot 
 tage. The lines set to catch pickerel through 
 the ice look like a larger culinary preparation, 
 and the men stand about on tho white ground 
 like pieces of forest furniture. The actions of 
 these men, at the distance of half a mile over 
 the ice and snow, impress us as when we read the 
 exploits of Alexander in history. They seem 
 not unworthy of the scenery, and as momentous 
 as the conquest of kingdoms. 
 
.1 WINTER WALK 2J5 
 
 Again we have wandered through the arches 
 of the wood, until from its skirts we hear the 
 distant booming of ice from yonder bay of the 
 river, as if it were moved by some other and 
 subtler tide than oceans know. To me it has a 
 strange sound of home, thrilling as the voice of 
 one s distant and noble kindred. A mild sum 
 mer sun shines over forest and lake, and though 
 there is but one green leaf for many roils, yet 
 nature enjoys a serene health. Every sound is 
 fraught with the same mysterious assurance of 
 health, as well now the creaking of the boughs 
 in January, as the soft sough of the wind in 
 July. 
 
 When Winter fringes every bough 
 
 With his fantastic wreath, 
 And puts the seal of silence now 
 
 Upon the leaves beneath ; 
 
 When ever}- stream in ita penthouse 
 
 Goes gnrgling on its way, 
 And in his gallery the mouse 
 
 Nibbleth the meadow hay ; 
 
 Mi-thinks ill. summer still is nigh) 
 
 And lurkrth underneath, 
 An that same meadow-mouse doth lie 
 
 Snug in that last year s heath. 
 
 And if perchance the chickadee 
 
 Lisp a faint note anon, 
 The snow is summer s canopy, 
 
 Which she herself put on. 
 
216 A WINTER WALK 
 
 Fair blossoms deck the cheerful trees, 
 
 And dazzling fruits depend, 
 The north wind sighs a summer breeze, 
 
 The nipping fronts to fend, 
 
 Bringing glad tidings unto me, 
 
 Tlir while I stand all ear, 
 Of a serene eternity, 
 
 Which need not winter fear. 
 
 Out on the silent pond straightway 
 
 The restless ice doth crack, 
 And pond sprites merry gambols play 
 
 Amid the deafening rack. 
 
 Eager I hasten to the vale, 
 
 As if I heard brave news, 
 How nature held high festival, 
 
 Which it were hard to lose. 
 
 I gambol with my neighbor ice, 
 
 And sympathizing quake, 
 As each new crack darts in a trice 
 
 Across tin _; : idsi inn Like. 
 
 One with the cricket in the ground, 
 
 And fagot on the hearth, 
 Resounds the rare domestic sound 
 
 Along the forest path. 
 
 Before night we will take a journey on skates 
 along the course of this meandering river, as 
 full of novelty to one who sits by the cottage 
 fire all the winter s day, as if it were over the 
 polar ice, with Captain Parry or Franklin ; fol 
 lowing the winding of the stream, now flowing 
 
A nv.Y //:/; WALK 217 
 
 amid hills, now spreading out into fair meadows, 
 and forming a myriad coves and bays where the 
 pine and hemlock overarch. The river flows in 
 the rear of the towns, and we see all things from 
 a new and wilder side. The fields and gardens 
 come down to it with a frankness, and freedom 
 from pretension, which they do not wear on the 
 highway. It is the outside and edge of the 
 earth. Our eyes are not offended by violent 
 contrasts. The last rail of the farmer s fence is 
 some swaying willow bough, which still pre 
 serves its freshness, and here at length all fences 
 stop, and we no longer cross any road. We 
 may go far up within the country now by the 
 most retired and level road, never climbing a 
 hill, but by broad levels ascending to the upland 
 meadows. It is a beautiful illustration of the 
 law of obedience, the flow of a river ; the path 
 for a sick man, a highway down which an acorn 
 cup may float secure with its freight. Its slight 
 occasional falls, whose precipices would not 
 diversify the landscape, are celebrated by mist 
 and spray, and attract the traveler from far and 
 near. From the remote interior, its current 
 conducts him by broad and easy steps, or by one 
 gentler inclined plane, to the sea. Thus by an 
 early and constant yielding to the inequalities of 
 the ground it secures itself the easiest passage. 
 No domain of nature is quite closed to man at 
 
218 .1 WINTER WALK 
 
 all tinu s, and now we draw near to the empire of 
 the fishes. Our feet glide swiftly over unfathomed 
 depths, where in summer our line tempted the 
 pout and perch, and where the stately piekerel 
 lurked in the long corridors formed by the bul 
 rushes. The deep, .impenetrable marsh, where 
 the heron waded, and bittern squatted, is made 
 ]>ervious to our swift shoes, as if a thousand rail 
 roads had been made into it. With one impulse 
 we are carried to the cabin of the musk - rat, 
 that earliest settler, and see him dart away under 
 the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to his hole 
 in the bank ; and we glide rapidly over meadows 
 where lately " the mower whet his scythe," 
 through beds of frozen cranberries mixed with 
 meadow grass. We skate near to where the 
 blackbird, the pewee, and the kingbird hung 
 their nests over the water, and the hornets 
 builded from the maple in the swamp. How 
 many gay warblers, following the sun, have radi 
 ated from this nest of silver-birch and thistle 
 down. On the swamp s outer edge was hung 
 the supcrinarine village, where no foot pene 
 trated. In this hollow tree the wood-duck reared 
 her brood, and slid away each day to forage in 
 yonder fen. 
 
 In winter, nature is a cabinet of curiosities, 
 full of dried specimens, in their natural order 
 and position. The meadows and forests are a 
 
.4 WINTER WALK 
 
 hortti* aiccu*. The leaves and granse* stand 
 perfectly pressed by the air without screw or 
 gum, and the birds nests are not hung cm an 
 artificial twig, but where they bnilded them. 
 We go about dry shod to inspect the summer s 
 wprk in the rank swamp, and see what a growth 
 have got the alders, the willows, and the maples; 
 testifying to how many warm suns, and fertiliz 
 ing dews and showers. See what strides their 
 boughs took in the luxuriant summer, and 
 anon these dormant buds will carry them on 
 ward and upward another span into the heavens. 
 Occasionally we wade through fields of snow, 
 under whose depths the river is lost for many 
 rods, to appear again to the right or left, where 
 we least expected ; still holding on its way un 
 derneath, with a faint, stertorous, rumbling 
 sound, as if, like the bear and marmot, it too 
 had hibernated, and we hail followed its faint 
 summer-trail to where it earthed itself in snow 
 and ice. At first we should have thought that 
 rivers would l>e empty and dry in midwinter, 
 or else frozen solid till the spring thawed them; 
 but their volume is not diminished even, for 
 only a superficial cold bridges their surfaces. 
 The thousand springs which feed the Likes and 
 streams are flowing still. The issues of a few 
 surface springs only are closed, and they go to 
 swell the deep reservoirs. Nature s wells are 
 
2 % 20 A WINTER WALK 
 
 l>elow the frost. The summer brooks are not 
 filled with snow-water, nor does the mower 
 quench his thirst with that alone. The streams 
 are swollen when the snow melts in the spring, 
 because nature s work has been delayed, the 
 water being turned into ice and snow, whose 
 particles are less smooth and round, and do not 
 find their level so soon. 
 
 Far over the ice, between the hemlock woods 
 and snow-clad hills, stands the pickerel fisher, 
 his lines set in some retired cove, like a Finlaa- 
 der, with his arms thrust into the pouches of his 
 dreadnought; with dull, snowy, fishy thoughts, 
 himself a finless fish, separated a few inches 
 from his race; dumb, erect, and made to be en 
 veloped in clouds and snows, like the pines on 
 shore. In these wild scenes, men stand about 
 in the scenery, or move deliberately and heav 
 ily, having sacrificed the sprightliness and vi 
 vacity of towns to the dumb sobriety of nature. 
 He does not make the scenery less wild, more 
 than the jays and musk-rats, but stands there as 
 a part of it, as the natives are represented in the 
 voyages of early navigators, at Nootka Sound, 
 and on the Northwest coast, with their furs about 
 them, before they were tempted to loquacity by 
 a scrap of iron. He belongs to the natural 
 family of man, and is planted deeper in nature 
 and has more root than the inhabitants of towns. 
 
A H7.Y //:# WALK 221 
 
 Go to him, ask what luck, and you will Irani 
 that he too is a worshiper of the unseen. Hear 
 with what sincere deference and waving gesture 
 in his tone he speaks of the lake pickerel, 
 which he has never seen, his primitive and ideal 
 race of pickerel. He is connected with the 
 shore still, as by a fish-line, and yet remembers 
 tho season \\li.-n h,- t>.>k li-h through I M-- 106 "ii 
 the pond, while the peas were up in his garden 
 at home. 
 
 But now, while we have loitered, the clouds 
 have gathered again, and a few straggling snow- 
 tlakrs are beginning to descend. Faster and 
 faster they fall, shutting out the distant objects 
 from sight. The snow falls on every wood and 
 field, and no crevice is forgotten; by the river 
 and the pond, on the hill and in the valley. 
 Quadrupeds are confined to their coverts and 
 the birds sit upon their ]>erches this peaceful 
 hour. There is not so much sound as in fair 
 weather, but silently and gradually every slope, 
 and the gray walls and fences, and the polished 
 ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried 
 before, are concealed, and the tracks of men and 
 beasts are lost. With so little effort does nature 
 reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men. 
 I lear how I lomer has described the same : " The 
 snow-flakes fall thick and fast on a winter s 
 day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls 
 
222 .1 WINTER WALK 
 
 iiK -i-ssant, covering the tops of the mountains, 
 and the hills, and the plains where the lotus-tree 
 grows, and the cultivated fields, and they are 
 falling by the inlets and shores of the foaming 
 sea, but are silently dissolved by the waves." 
 The snow levels all things, and infolds them 
 deeper in the bosom of nature, as, in the slow 
 summer, vegetation creeps up to the entablature 
 of the temple, and the turrets of the castle, and 
 helps her to prevail over art. 
 
 The surly night - wind rustles through the 
 wood, and warns us to retrace our steps, while 
 the sun goes down behind the thickening storm, 
 and birds seek their roosts, and cattle their 
 stalls. 
 
 " Drooping the lab rer ox 
 
 Stands covered o er with snow, and now demands 
 The fruit of all his toil." 
 
 Though winter is represented in the almanac 
 as an old man, facing the wind and sleet, and 
 drawing his cloak about him, we rather think 
 of him as a merry wood-chopper, and warm 
 blooded youth, as blithe as summer. The un 
 explored grandeur of the storm keeps up the 
 spirits of the traveler. It does not trifle with 
 us, but has a sweet earnestness. In winter we 
 lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm 
 and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose 
 windows and doors are half concealed, but from 
 
.-I WINTER WALK 223 
 
 whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. 
 The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of 
 comfort which the house affords, and in the 
 coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth 
 and see the sky through the chimney top, enjoy 
 ing the quiet and serene life that may be had in 
 a warm corner by the chimney side, or feeling 
 our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the 
 street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns 
 all the long afternoon. No doubt a skillful physi 
 cian could determine our health by observing 
 how these simple and natural sounds affected us. 
 We enjoy now, not an oriental, but a boreal 
 leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and 
 watch the shadow of motes in the sunbeams. 
 
 Sometimes our fate grows too homely and 
 familiarly serious ever to be cruel. Consider 
 how for three months the human destiny is 
 wrapped in furs. The good Hebrew Revelation 
 takes no cognizance of all this cheerful snow. 
 Is there no religion for the temperate and frigid 
 zones ? We know of no scripture which records 
 the pure benignity of the gods on a New England 
 winter night. Their praises have never been 
 sung, only their wrath deprecated. The best 
 scripture, after all, records but a meagre faith. 
 Its saints live reserved and austere. Let a 
 brave, devout man upend the year in the woods 
 of Maine or Labrador, and see if the Hebrew 
 
224 A WINTER WALK 
 
 Scriptures speak adequately to his condition and 
 experience, from the setting in of winter to the 
 breaking up of the ice. 
 
 Now commences the long winter evening 
 around the farmer s hearth, when the thoughts 
 of the indwellers travel far abroad, and men are 
 by nature and necessity charitable and liberal 
 to all creatures. Now is the happy resistance to 
 cold, when the farmer reaps his reward, and 
 thinks of his preparedness for winter, and, 
 through the glittering panes, sees with equa 
 nimity "the mansion of the northern bear," for 
 now the storm is over, - 
 
 " The full ethereal round, 
 Infinite worlds disclosing to the view, 
 Shines out intensely keen ; and all one cope 
 Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole." 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 1 
 
 EVERY man is entitled to come to Cattleshow, 
 even a transcendentalist ; and for my part I am 
 more interested in the men than in the cattle. I 
 wish to see once more those old familiar faces, 
 whose names I do not know, which for me repre 
 sent the Middlesex country, and come as near 
 being indigenous to the soil as a white man can ; 
 the men who are not above their business, whose 
 coats are not too black, whose shoes do not shine 
 very much, who never wear gloves to conceal 
 their hands. It is true, there are some queer 
 specimens of humanity attracted to our festival, 
 but all are welcome. I am pretty sure to meet 
 once more that weak-minded and whimsical fel 
 low, generally weak-bodied too, who prefers a 
 crooked stick for a cane; perfectly useless, you 
 would say, only bizarre, fit for a cabinet, like a 
 jwtrified snake. A ram s horn would IK? as con 
 venient, and is yet more curiously twisted. He 
 brings that much indulged bit of the country 
 with him, from some town s end or other, and 
 
 1 An ArldreM read to the Middlesex Agricultural Society in 
 Coooord, September, 1H4M). 
 
226 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 introduces it to Concord groves, as if he had 
 promised it so much sometime. So some, it 
 seems to me, elect their rulers for their crooked 
 ness. But I think that a straight stick makes 
 the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler. 
 Or why choose a man to do plain work who is 
 distinguished for his oddity? However, I do 
 not know but you will think that they have com 
 mitted this mistake who invited me to speak to 
 you to-day. 
 
 In my capacity of surveyor, I have often 
 talked with some of you, my employers, at your 
 dinner - tables, after having gone round and 
 round and behind your farming, and ascertained 
 exactly what its limits were. Moreover, taking 
 a surveyor s and a naturalist s liberty, I have 
 been in the habit of going across your lots much 
 oftener than is usual, as many of you, perhaps 
 to your sorrow, are aware. Yet many of you, 
 to my relief, have seemed not to be aware of it ; 
 and, when I came across you in some out-of-the- 
 way nook of your farms, have inquired, with an 
 air of surprise, if I were not lost, since you had 
 nrvT - !! me in that part .t the tn\\ M <>] county 
 before; when, if the truth were known, and it 
 had not been for Iwtraying my secret, I might 
 with more propriety have inquired if you were 
 not lost, since I had never seen you there before. 
 I have several times shown the proprietor the 
 shortest way out of his wood-lot. 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 227 
 
 Therefore, it would seem that 1 have some 
 title to speak to you to-day; and considering 
 what that title is, and the occasion that has 
 called us together, I need offer no apology if I 
 invite your attention, for the few moments that 
 are allotted me, to a purely scientific subject. 
 
 At those dinner - tables referred to, I have 
 often been asked, as many of you have been, if 
 I could tell how it happened, that when a pine 
 wood was cut down an oak one commonly sprang 
 up, and vice versa. To which I have answered, 
 and now answer, that I can tell, that it is no 
 mystery to me. As I am not aware that this 
 has been clearly shown by any one, I shall lay 
 the more stress on this point. Let me lead you 
 back into your wood-lots again. 
 
 When, hereabouts, a single forest tree or a 
 forest springs up naturally where none of its 
 kind grew before, I do not hesitate to say, 
 though in some quarters still it may sound para 
 doxical, that it came from a seed. Of the vari 
 ous ways by which trees are knwrn to IHJ propa 
 gated, by transplanting, cuttings, and the 
 ljk c< this is the only supposable one under 
 these circumstances. No such tree has ever 
 been known to spring from anything else. If 
 any one asserts that it sprang from something 
 else, or from nothing, the burden of proof lies 
 with him. 
 
228 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 It remains, then, only to show how the seed 
 is transported from where it grows to where it 
 is planted. This is done chiefly by the agency 
 of the wind, water, and animals. The lighter 
 seeds, as those of pines and maples, are trans 
 ported chiefly by wind and water; the heavier, 
 as acorns and nuts, by animals. 
 
 In all the pines, a very thin membrane, in 
 appearance much like an insect s wing, grows 
 over and around the seed, and independent of it, 
 while the latter is being developed within its 
 base. Indeed this is often perfectly developed, 
 though the seed is abortive ; nature being, you 
 would say, more sure to provide the means of 
 transporting the seed, than to provide the seed 
 to be transported. In other words, a beautiful 
 thin sack is woven around the seed, with a 
 handle to it such as the wind can take hold of, 
 and it is then committed to the wind, expressly 
 that it may transport the seed and extend the 
 range of the species; and this it does, as effec 
 tually as when seeds are sent by mail in a differ 
 ent kind of sack from the patent-office. There 
 is a patent-office at the seat of government of the 
 universe, whose managers are as much inter 
 ested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at 
 Washington can be, and their operations are in 
 finitely more extensive and regular. 
 
 There is then no necessity for supposing that 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 229 
 
 the pines have sprung up from nothing, and I 
 am aware that I am not at all peculiar in assert 
 ing that they come from seeds, though the nuxle 
 of their propagation by nature has l>cen but little 
 attended to. They are very extensively raised 
 from the seed in Europe, and are beginning to 
 be here. 
 
 When you cut down an oak wood, a pine wood 
 will not at once spring up there unless there are, 
 or have been quite recently, seed-bearing pines 
 near enough for the seeds to be blown from 
 them. But, adjacent to a forest of pines, if you 
 prevent other crops from growing there, you will 
 surely have an extension of your pine forest, pro- 
 vhled the soil is suitable. 
 
 As for the heavy seeds and nuts which are not 
 furnished with wings, the notion is still a very 
 common one that, when the trees which bear 
 these spring up where none of their kind were 
 noticed before, they have come from seeds or 
 other principles spontaneously generated there 
 in an unusual manner, or which have lain dor 
 mant in the soil for centuries, or perhaps been 
 called into activity by the heat of a burning. I 
 do not believe these assertions, and 1 will state 
 some of the ways in which, according to my ob 
 servation, sucli t u-e*its are planted and raised. 
 
 Every one of these seeds, too, will IMJ found to 
 lie winged or legged in another fashion. Sun-ly 
 
230 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 it is not wonderful that cherry-trees of all kinds 
 are widely dispersed, since their fruit is well 
 known to be the favorite food of various birds. 
 Many kinds are called bird-cherries, and they 
 appropriate many more kinds, which are not so 
 called. Eating cherries is a bird-like employ 
 ment, and unless we disperse the seeds occasion 
 ally, as they do, I shall think that the birds 
 have the best right to them. See how artfully 
 the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a 
 bird may be compelled to transport it in the 
 very midst of a tempting pericarp, so that the 
 creature that would devour this must commonly 
 take the stone also into its mouth or bill. If 
 you ever ate a cherry, and did not make two 
 bites of it, you must have perceived it right 
 in the centre of the luscious morsel, a large 
 earthy residuum left on the tongue. We thus 
 take into our mouths cherry stones as big as 
 peas, a dozen at once, for Nature can persuade 
 us to do almost anything when she would com 
 pass her ends. Some wild men and children in 
 stinctively swallow these, as the birds do when 
 in a hurry, it being the shortest way to get rid 
 of them. Thus, though these seeds are not pro 
 vided with vegetable wings, Nature has impelled 
 the thrush tril>e to take them into their bills and 
 fly away with them ; and they are winged in an 
 other sense, and more effectually than the seeds 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 231 
 
 of pines, for these are carried even against the 
 wind. The consequence is, that cherry-trees 
 grow not only here but there. The same is true 
 of a great many other seeds. 
 
 But to come to the observation which sug 
 gested these remarks. As I have said, 1 sus 
 pect that I can throw some light on the fact, 
 that when hereabouts a dense pine wood is cut 
 down, oaks and other hard woods may at once 
 take its place. I have got only to show that 
 the acorns and nuts, provided they are grown in 
 the neighborhood, are regularly planted in such 
 woods; for I assert that if an oak-tree has not 
 grown within ten miles, and man has not car 
 ried acorns thither, then an oak wood will not 
 spring up at once, when a pine wood is cut down. 
 
 Apparently, there were only pines there before. 
 They are cut off, and after a year or two you 
 see oaks and other hard woods springing up 
 there, with scarcely a pine amid them, and the 
 wonder commonly is, how the seed could have 
 lain in the ground so long without decaying. 
 But the truth is, that it has not lain in the 
 ground so long, but is regularly planted each 
 year by various quadrupeds and birds. 
 
 In this neighl>orhood, where oak and pines 
 are about equally dispersed, if you look through 
 the thickest pine wood, even the seemingly un 
 mixed pitch-pine ones, you will commonly detect 
 
232 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 many little oaks, birches, and other hard woods, 
 sprung from seeds carried into the thicket by 
 squirrels and other animals, and also blown 
 thither, but which are overshadowed and choked 
 by the pines. The denser the evergreen wood, 
 the more likely it is to be well planted with these 
 seeds, because the planters incline to resort with 
 their forage to the closest covert. They also 
 carry it into birch and other woods. This 
 planting is carried on annually, and the old 
 est seedlings annually die ; but when the pines 
 are cleared off, the oaks, having got just the 
 start they want, and now secured favorable con 
 ditions, immediately spring up to trees. 
 
 The shade of a dense pine wood is more un 
 favorable to the springing up of pines of the 
 same species than of oaks within it, though the 
 former may come up abundantly when the pines 
 are cut, if there chance to be sound seed in the 
 ground. 
 
 But when you cut off a lot of hard wood, very 
 often the little pines mixed with it have a similar 
 start, for the squirrels have carried off the nuts 
 to the pines, and not to the more open wood, 
 and they commonly make pretty clean work of 
 it; and moreover, if the wood was old, the 
 sprouts will be feeble or entirely fail; to say 
 nothing about the soil being, in a measure, ex 
 hausted for this kind of crop. 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOHEST TREES 233 
 
 If a pine wood is surrounded by a \vliit.- <>;ik 
 ono chiefly, white oaks may be expected to suc 
 ceed when the pines are cut. If it is surrounded 
 instead by an edging of shrub-oaks, then you 
 will probably have a dense shrub-oak thicket. 
 
 I have no time to go into details, but will 
 say, in a word, that while the wind is conveying 
 the seeds of pines into hard woods and open 
 lands, the squirrels and other animals are con 
 veying the seeds of oaks and walnuts into the 
 pine woods, and thus a rotation of crops is kept 
 up. 
 
 I affirmed this confidently many years ago, 
 and an occasional examination of dense pine 
 \vtniiU rnntiniii-tl nif in inv opinion. It lia- Ion- 
 been known to observers that squirrels bury nuts 
 in the ground, but I am not aware that any one 
 has thus accounted for the regular succession of 
 [ ..< . 
 
 On the 24th of September, in 1857, as I was 
 paddling down the Assabet, in this town, I saw 
 a red squirrel run along the bank under some 
 herbage, with something large in its mouth. It 
 stopped near the foot of a hemlock, within a 
 couple of rods of me, and, hastily pawing a hole 
 with its forefeet, dropped its booty into it, cov 
 ered it up, and retreated part way up the trunk 
 of the tree. As I approached the shore to ex 
 amine the deposit, the squirrel, descending part 
 
234 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 way, betrayed no little anxiety about its treasure, 
 and made two or three motions to recover it 
 before it finally retreated. Digging there, I 
 found two green pig-nuts joined together, with 
 the thick husks on, buried about an inch and a 
 half under the reddish soil of decayed hemlock 
 leaves, just the right depth to plant it. In 
 short, this squirrel was then engaged in accom 
 plishing two objects, to wit, laying up a store of 
 winter food for itself, and planting a hickory 
 wood for all creation. If the squirrel was killed, 
 or neglected its deposit, a hickory would spring 
 up. The nearest hickory-tree was twenty rods 
 distant. These nuts were there still just four 
 teen days later, but were gone when I looked 
 again, November 21st, or six weeks later still. 
 
 I have since examined more carefully several 
 dense woods, which are said to be, and are ap 
 parently, exclusively pine, and always with the 
 same result. For instance, I walked the same 
 day to a small, but very dense and handsome 
 white-pine grove, about fifteen rods square, in 
 the east part of this town. The trees are large 
 for Concord, being from ten to twenty inches in 
 diameter, and as exclusively pine as any wood 
 that I know. Indeed, I selected this wood 
 because I thought it the least likely to contain 
 anything else. It stands on an open plain or 
 pasture, except that it adjoins another small 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 235 
 
 pine wood, which has a few little oaks in it, on 
 the southeast side. Oil every other side, it was 
 at least thirty rods from the nearest woods. 
 Standing on the edge of this grove and looking 
 through it, for it is quite level and free from 
 underwood, for the most part bare, red-eari>eted 
 ground, you would have said that there was not 
 a hard-wood tree in it, young or old. Hut on 
 looking carefully along over its floor I discovered, 
 though it was not till my eye had got used to 
 the search, that, alternating with thin ferns, and 
 small blueberry bushes, there was, not merely 
 here and there, but as often as every five feet 
 and with a degree of regularity, a little oak, from 
 three to twelve inches high, and in one place I 
 found a green acorn dropped by the base of a 
 
 pine. 
 
 I confess I was surprised to find my theory so 
 perfectly proved in this case. One of the prin 
 cipal agents in this planting, the red squirrels, 
 were all the while curiously inspecting me, while 
 I was inspecting their plantation. Some of the 
 little oaks had been browsed by cows, which re 
 sorted to this wood for shade. 
 
 After seven or eight years, the hard woods 
 evidently find such a locality unfavorable to 
 their growth, the pines being allowed to stand. 
 As an evidence of this, I observed a diseased 
 red-maple twenty-five feet long, which had been 
 
286 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 recently prostrated, though it was still covered 
 with green leaves, the only maple in any posi 
 tion in the wood. 
 
 But although these oaks almost invariably die 
 if the pines are not cut down, it is probable that 
 they do better for a few years under their shel 
 ter than they would anywhere else. 
 
 The very extensive and thorough experiments 
 of the English have at length led them to adopt 
 a method of raising oaks almost precisely like 
 this, which somewhat earlier had been adopted 
 by nature and her squirrels here; they have sim 
 ply rediscovered the value of pines as nurses for 
 oaks. The English experimenters seem, early and 
 generally, to have found out the importance of 
 using trees of some kind as nurse-plants for the 
 young oaks. I quote from London what he 
 describes as "the ultimatum on the subject of 
 planting and sheltering oaks," "an abstract 
 of the practice adopted by the government offi 
 cers in the national forests " of England, pre 
 pared by Alexander Milne. 
 
 At first some oaks had been planted by them 
 selves, and others mixed with Scotch pines; 
 "but in all cases," says Mr. Milne, "where oaks 
 were planted actually among the pines and sur 
 rounded by them [though the soil might be in 
 ferior], the oaks were found to be much the 
 best." " For several years past, the plan pur- 
 
THE SUCCESSW\ OF FOREST TREES 237 
 
 sued lias been to plant the inclosures with Scotch 
 ]in-s only [a tree very similar to our j>it< h- 
 pine], ami when the pines have got to the h^ Jit 
 of five or six feet, then to put in good strong 
 oak plants of about four or five years* growth 
 among the pines, not cutting away any pines 
 at first, unless they happen to be so strong and 
 thick as to overshadow the oaks. In about two 
 years it becomes necessary to shred the branches 
 of the pines, to give light and air to the oaks, 
 and in alnnit two or three more years to begin 
 gradually to remove the pines altogether, tak 
 ing out a certain number each year, so that, at 
 the end of twenty or twenty-five years, not a 
 single Scotch pine shall be left; although, for 
 the first ten or twelve years, the plantation may 
 have appeared to contain nothing else but pine. 
 The advantage of this mode of planting has been 
 found to be that the pines dry and ameliorate 
 the soil, destroying the coarse grass and brambles 
 which frequently choke and injure oaks; and 
 that no mending over is necessary, as scarcely 
 an oak so planted is found to fail. 
 
 Thus much the English planters have discov 
 ered by patient experiment, and, for aught I 
 know, they have taken out a patent for it ; but 
 they appear not to have discovered that it was 
 discovered before, and that they are merely 
 adopting the method of Nature, which she long 
 
238 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 ago made patent to all. She is all the while 
 planting the oaks amid the pines without our 
 knowledge, and at last, instead of government 
 officers, we send a party of wood-choppers to cut 
 down the pines, and so rescue an oak forest, at 
 which we wonder as if it had dropped from the 
 skies. 
 
 As I walk amid hickories, even in August, I 
 hear the sound of green pig-nuts falling from 
 time to time, cut off by the chickaree over my 
 head. In the fall, I notice on the ground, either 
 within or in the neighborhood of oak woods, on 
 all sides of the town, stout oak twigs three or 
 four inches long, bearing half a dozen empty 
 acorn-cups, which twigs have been gnawed off by 
 squirrels, on both sides of the nuts, in order to 
 make them more portable. The jays scream 
 and the red squirrels scold while you are club 
 bing and shaking the chestnut-trees, for they are 
 there on the same errand, and two of a trade 
 never agree. I frequently see a red or gray 
 squirrel cast down a green chestnut-bur, as I am 
 going through the woods, and I used to think, 
 sometimes, that they were cast at me. In fact, 
 they are so busy about it, in the midst of the 
 chestnut season, that you cannot stand long in 
 the woods without hearing one fall. A sports 
 man told me that he had, the day before, that 
 was in the middle of October, seen a green 
 
THE SUCCESSIU\ OF 1-OREST TREES 2*9 
 
 chestnut-bur dropped on our groat river meadow, 
 fifty roils from the nearest wood, and much 
 further from the nearest chestnut-tree, and he 
 could not tell how it came there. Occasionally, 
 when chestnutting in midwinter, I find thirty or 
 forty nuts in a pile, left in its gallery, just under 
 the leaves, by the common wood -mouse (mm 
 Icucopus). 
 
 Hut especially, in the winter, the extent to 
 which this transportation and planting of nuts 
 is carried on is made apparent by the snow. In 
 almost every wood, you will see where the red 
 or gray squirrels have pawed down through the 
 snow in a hundred places, sometimes two feet 
 deep, and almost always directly to a nut or a 
 pine-cone, as directly as if they had started from 
 it and bored upward, which you and I could 
 not have done. It would be difficult for us to 
 find one before the snow falls. Commonly, no 
 doubt, they had deposited them there in the fall. 
 You wonder if they remember the localities, or 
 discover them by the scent. The red squirrel 
 commonly has its winter abode in the earth under 
 a thicket of evergreens, frequently under a small 
 clump of evergreens in the midst of a deciduous 
 wood. If there are any nut-trees, which still 
 retain their nuts, standing at a distance without 
 the wood, their paths often lead directly to and 
 from them. We therefore need not suppose 
 
240 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 an oak standing here and there in the wood in 
 order to seed it, but if a few stand within 
 twenty or thirty rods of it, it is sufficient. 
 
 I think that I may venture to say that every 
 white-pine cone that falls to the earth naturally 
 in this town, before opening and losing its seeds, 
 and almost every pitch-pine one that falls at all, 
 is cut off by a squirrel, and they begin to pluck 
 them long before they are ripe, so that when the 
 crop of white-pine cones is a small one, as it 
 commonly is, they cut off thus almost every one 
 of these before it fairly ripens. I think, more 
 over, that their design, if I may so speak, in 
 cutting them off green, is, partly, to prevent 
 their opening and losing their seeds, for these 
 are the ones for which they dig through the snow, 
 and the only white-pine cones which contain any 
 thing then. I have counted in one heap, within 
 a diameter of four feet, the cores of 239 pitch- 
 pine cones which had been cut off and stripped 
 by the red squirrel the previous winter. 
 
 The nuts thus left on the surface, or buried 
 just beneath it, are placed in the most favorable 
 circumstances for germinating. I have some 
 times wondered how those which merely fell on 
 the surface of the earth got planted ; but, by the 
 end of December, I find the chestnut of the same 
 year partially mixed with the mould, as it were, 
 under the decaying and mouldy leaves, where 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 241 
 
 there is all the moisture and manure they want, 
 for the nuts fall fast. In a plentiful year, a 
 large proportion of the nuts are thus covered 
 loosely an inch deep, and are, of course, some 
 what concealed from squirrels. One winter, 
 when the crop had been abundant, I got, with 
 the aid of a rake, many quarts of these nuts as 
 late as the tenth of January, and though some 
 bought at the store the same day were more than 
 half of them mouldy, I did not find a single 
 mouldy one among these which I picked from 
 under the wet and mouldy leaves, where they 
 had been snowed on once or twice. Nature 
 knows how to pack them best. They were still 
 plump and tender. Apparently, they do not 
 heat there, though wet. In the spring they 
 were all sprouting. 
 
 Loudon says that "when the nut [of the 
 common walnut of Europe] is to be preserved 
 through the winter for the purjwse of planting 
 in the following spring, it should IK? laid in a rot- 
 heap, as soon as gathered, with the husk on, and 
 the heap should be turned over frequently in the 
 course of the winter." 
 
 Here, again, he is stealing Nature s "thun 
 der/ How can a poor mortal do otherwise? 
 for it is she that finds fingers to steal with, and 
 the treasure to be stolen. In the planting of 
 the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no 
 
242 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 more than follow Nature, though they may not 
 know it. Generally, both large and small ones 
 are most sure to germinate, and succeed best, 
 when only beaten into the earth with the back 
 of a spade, and then covered with leaves or 
 straw. These results to which planters have 
 arrived remind us of the experience of Kane and 
 his companions at the North, who, when learning 
 to live in that climate, were surprised to find 
 themselves steadily adopting the customs of the 
 natives, simply becoming Esquimaux. So, when 
 we experiment in planting forests, we find our 
 selves at last doing as Nature does. Would it 
 not be well to consult with Nature in the outset? 
 for she is the most extensive and experienced 
 planter of us all, not excepting the Dukes of 
 Athol. 
 
 In short, they who have not attended particu 
 larly to this subject are but little aware to what 
 an extent quadrupeds and birds are employed, 
 especially in the fall, in collecting, and so dis 
 seminating and planting the seeds of trees. It is 
 the almost constant employment of the squirrels 
 at that season, and you rarely meet with one that 
 has not a nut in its mouth, or is not just going 
 to get one. One squirrel-hunter of this town 
 told me that he knew of a walnut-tree which 
 bore particularly good nuts, but that on going to 
 gather them one fall, he found that he had been 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 243 
 
 anticipated by a family of a dozen red squirrels. 
 He took out of the tree, which was hollow, one 
 bushel and three peeks by measurement, with 
 out the husks, and they supplied him and his 
 family for the winter. It would be easy to mul 
 tiply instances of this kind. How commonly in 
 the fall you see the cheek-poaches of the striped 
 squirrel distended by a quantity of nuts! This 
 speeies gets its scientific name, Tamias, or the 
 steward, from its habit of storing up nuts and 
 other seeds. Look under a nut-tree a month 
 after the nuts have fallen, and see what propor 
 tion of sound nuts to the abortive ones and 
 shells you will find ordinarily. They have been 
 already eaten, or dispersed far and wide. The 
 ground looks like a platform before a grocery, 
 where the gossips of the village sit to crack nuts 
 and less savory jokes. You have come, you 
 would say, after the feast was over, and are pre 
 sented with the shells only. 
 
 Occasionally, when threading tho woods in the 
 fall, you will hear a sound as if some one had 
 broken a twig, and, looking up, see a jay pecking 
 at an acorn, or you will see a flock of them at 
 once about it, in the top of an oak, and hear 
 them break them off. They then fly to a suita 
 ble limb, and placing the acorn under one foot, 
 hammer away at it busily, making a sound liko 
 a woodpecker s tapping, looking round from time 
 
244 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 to time to see if any foe is approaching, and soon 
 reach the meat, and nibble at it, holding up their 
 heads to swallow, while they hold the remainder 
 very firmly with their claws. Nevertheless it 
 often drops to the ground before the bird has 
 done with it. I can confirm what William Bar- 
 tram wrote to Wilson, the ornithologist, that 
 "The jay is one of the most useful agents in the 
 economy of nature, for disseminating forest trees 
 and other nuciferous and hard-seeded vegetables 
 on which they feed. Their chief employment 
 during the autumnal season is foraging to supply 
 their winter stores. In performing this neces 
 sary duty they drop abundance of seed in their 
 flight over fields, hedges, and by fences, where 
 they alight to deposit them in the post-holes, 
 etc. It is remarkable what numbers of young 
 trees rise up in fields and pastures after a wet 
 winter and spring. These birds alone are 
 capable, in a few years time, to replant all 
 the cleared lands." 
 
 I have noticed that squirrels also frequently 
 drop their nuts in open land, which will still 
 further account for the oaks and walnuts which 
 spring up in pastures, for, depend on it, every 
 new tree comes from a seed. When I examine 
 the little oaks, one or two years old, in such 
 places, I invariably find the empty acorn from 
 which they sprung. 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 245 
 
 So far from the seed having lain dormant in 
 the soil since oaks grew there before, as many 
 believe, it is well known that it is difficult to 
 preserve the vitality of acorns long enough to 
 transport them to Europe; and it is recom 
 mended in London s "Arboretum, "as the safest 
 course, to sprout them in pots on the voyage. 
 The same authority states that "very few acorns 
 of any species will germinate after having been 
 kept a year," that beechmast "only retains its 
 vital properties one year," and the black-walnut 
 "seldom more than six months after it has 
 ripened." I have frequently found that in No- 
 vernier, almost every acorn left on the ground 
 Im.l sprouted or decayed. Wlut with Frost, 
 drouth, moisture, and worms, the greater part 
 are soon destroyed. Yet it is stated by one 
 botanical writer that "acorns that have lain 
 for centuries, on being ploughed up, have soon 
 vegetated." 
 
 Mr. George B. Emerson, in his valuable Re 
 port on the Trees and Shrubs of this State, says 
 of the pines: "The tenacity of life of the seeds 
 is remarkable. They will remain for many 
 years unchanged in the ground, protected by the 
 coolness and deep shade of the forest alxive 
 them. But when the forest is removed, and the 
 warmth of the sun admitted, they immediately 
 vegetate." Since he does not tell us on what 
 
246 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 observation his remark is founded, I must doubt 
 its truth. Besides, the experience of nursery 
 men makes it the more questionable. 
 
 The stories of wheat raised from seed buried 
 with an ancient Egyptian, and of raspberries 
 raised from seed found in the stomach of a man 
 in England, who is supposed to have died six 
 teen or seventeen hundred years ago, are gener-, 
 ally discredited, simply because the evidence is 
 not conclusive. 
 
 Several men of science, Dr. Carpenter among 
 them, have used the statement that beach-plums 
 sprang up in sand which was dug up forty miles 
 inland in Maine, to prove that the seed had lain 
 there a very long time, and some have inferred 
 that the coast has receded so far. But it seems 
 to me necessary to their argument to show, first, 
 that beach-plums grow only on a beach. They 
 are not uncommon here, which is about half that 
 distance from the shore; and I remember a 
 dense patch a few miles north of us, twenty-five 
 miles inland, from which the fruit was annually 
 carried to market. How much further inland 
 they grow, I know not. Dr. Charles T. Jackson 
 speaks of finding "beach-plums" (perhaps they 
 were this kind) more than one hundred miles 
 inland in Maine. 
 
 It chances that similar objections lie against 
 all the more notorious instances of the kind 011 
 record. 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOKKST TREES 247 
 
 Yet I am prepared to believe that some seeds, 
 especially small ones, may retain their vitality 
 for centuries under favorable circumstances. In 
 the spring of 1859, the old Hunt House, so 
 called, in this town, whose chimney bore the date 
 1703, wan taken down. This stood on land 
 which belonged to John Winthrop, the first 
 Governor of Massachusetts, and a part of the 
 house was evidently much older than the above 
 date, and belonged to the Winthrop family. 
 For many years I have ransacked this neigh 
 borhood for plants, and I consider myself famil 
 iar with its productions. Thinking of the seeds 
 which are said to be sometimes dug up at an 
 unusual depth in the earth, and thus to repro 
 duce long extinct plants, it occurred to me bust 
 fall that some new or rare plants might have 
 sprung up in the cellar of this house, which had 
 been covered from the light so long. Searching 
 there on the 22d of September, I found, among 
 other rank weeds, a species of nettle (Urtica 
 ?irei0 which I had not found before; dill, which 
 I had not seen growing spontaneously; the 
 Jerusalem oak (Chenopodium botrys\ which I 
 had seen wild in but one place; black night 
 shade (W<irti/m nigrum), which is quite rare 
 hereabouts, and common tobacco, which, though 
 it was often cultivated here in the last century, 
 has for fifty years been an unknown plant in this 
 
248 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 town, and a few months before this not even I 
 had heard that one man, in the north part of the 
 town, was cultivating a few plants for his own 
 use. I have no doubt that some or all of these 
 plants sprang from seeds which had long been 
 buried under or about that house, and that that 
 tobacco is an additional evidence that the plant 
 was formerly cultivated here. The cellar has 
 been filled up this year, and four of those plants, 
 including the tobacco, are now again extinct in 
 that locality. 
 
 It is true, I have shown that the animals con 
 sume a great part of the seeds of trees, and so, 
 at least, effectually prevent their becoming trees ; 
 but in all these cases, as I have said, the con 
 sumer is compelled to be at the same time the 
 disperser and planter, and this is the tax which 
 he pays to nature. I think it is Linnaeus who 
 says that while the swine is rooting for acorns 
 he is planting acorns. 
 
 Though I do not believe that a plant will 
 spring up where no seed has been, I have great 
 fait!) in a seed a, to me, equally mysterious 
 origin for it. Convince me that you have a seed 
 there, and I am prepared to expect wonders. I 
 shall even believe that the millennium is at hand, 
 and that the reign of justice is about to com 
 mence, when the Patent Office, or Government, 
 begins to distribute, and the people to plant, the 
 seeds of these things. 
 
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 249 
 
 In the spring of 1857 I planted six seeds 
 sent to me from the Patent Olliiv, and hilu-l.-.l, 
 I think, " Poitrine janne grossed large yellow 
 squash. Two came up, and one bore a squash 
 which weighed 123J pounds, the other bore four, 
 weighing together 186J pounds. Who woidd 
 have believed that there was 310 pounds of 
 poitrine janne grosse in that corner of my gar 
 den ? These seeds were the bait I used to catch 
 it, my ferrets which I sent into its burrow, my 
 brace of terriers which unearthed it. A little 
 mysterious hoeing and manuring was all the 
 abracadabra presto-change that I used, and lo! 
 true to the label, they found for me 310 pounds 
 of poitrine jaune grosse there, where it never 
 was known to be, nor was before. These talis- 
 men had perchance sprung from America at 
 first, and returned to it with unabated force. 
 The big squash took a premium at your fair that 
 fall, and I understood that the man who bought 
 it, intended to sell the seeds for ten cents a 
 piece. (Were they not cheap at that?) But I 
 have more hounds of the same breed. I learn 
 that one which I despatched to a distant town, 
 true to its instincts, ]x>ints to the large yellow 
 squash there, too, where no hound ever found it 
 before, as its ancestors did here and in France. 
 Other seeds I have which will find other things 
 iu that corner of my garden, in like faslii n. 
 
250 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES 
 
 almost any fruit you wish, every year for ages, 
 until the crop more than tills the whole garden. 
 You have but little more to do than throw up 
 your cap for entertainment these American 
 days. Perfect alchemists I keep who can trans 
 mute substances without end, and thus the corner 
 of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest. 
 Here you can dig, not gold, but the value which 
 gold merely represents ; and there is no Signor 
 Blitz about it. Yet farmers sons will stare by 
 the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his 
 throat, though he tells them it is all deception. 
 Surely, men love darkness rather than light. 
 
WALKING 
 
 I WISH to speak a word for Nature, for abso- 
 lute freedom and wildiiess, as contrasted with a 
 freedom and culture merely civil, to regard 
 man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of 
 Nature, rather than a member of society. I 
 wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may 
 make an emphatic one, for there are enough 
 champions of civilization : the minister and the 
 school -committee and every one of you will take 
 care of that. 
 
 I have met with but one or two persons in the 
 course of my life who understood the art of 
 Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a 
 genius, so to speak, for sauntering : which word 
 is beautifully derived "from idle people who 
 roved alxmt the country, in the Middle Ages, 
 and asked charity, under pretense of going ci la 
 Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the chil 
 dren exclaimed, "There goes a tSdinte-Tcrrer^ 9 
 a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never I 
 go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they 
 pretend, are indeed men* idlers and vagabonds; 
 
252 WALKING 
 
 I but they who do go there are saunterers in the 
 good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, 
 would derive the word from nans terre, without 
 land or a home, which, therefore, in the good 
 sense, will mean, having no particular home, but 
 equally at home everywhere. For this is the 
 secret of successful sauntering. He who sits 
 still in a house all the time may be the greatest 
 vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good 
 sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering 
 river, which is all the while sedulously seeking 
 the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the 
 first, which, indeed, is the most probable deriva- 
 tion. For every walk is a sort of crusade, 
 preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go 
 forth and reconquer this Holy Laud from the 
 hands of the Infidels. 
 
 It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, 
 even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no 
 persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our ex 
 peditions are but tours, and come round again 
 at evening to the old hearth-side from which we 
 set out. Half the walk is but retracing our 
 steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, 
 perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, 
 never to return, prepared to send back our 
 embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate 
 kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and 
 mother, and brother and sister, and wife and 
 
WALKING 253 
 
 chilil and friends, and never see them again, - 
 if you have paid your debts, and made your will, 
 and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, I; 
 then you are ready for a walk. 
 
 To come down to my own ex}>erience, my 
 companion and I, for I sometimes have a com 
 panion, take pleasure in 1 fancying ourselves 
 knights of a new, or rather an old, order, not 
 Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Kittnsor Ki.l i<, 
 but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable 
 class, I trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit 
 which once belonged to the Rider seems now to 
 reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, 
 the Walker, not the Knight, but Walker, 
 Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside 
 of Church and State and People. 
 
 We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts 
 practiced this noble art; though, to tell the truth, 
 at least, if their own assertions are to be re 
 ceived, most of my townsmen would fain walk 
 sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth 
 can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and in 
 dependence which are the capital in this pro- / 
 fession. It comes only by the grace of God. It 
 requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to 
 become a walker. You must be born into the 
 family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascttur, 
 nan ft. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can 
 remember and have d. M i il.ed to me some walks 
 
254 WALKING 
 
 which they took ten years ago, in which they 
 were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an 
 hour in the woods; but I know very well that 
 they have confined themselves to the highway 
 ever since, whatever pretensions they may make 
 to belong to this select class. No doubt they were 
 elevated for a moment as by the reminiscence 
 of a previous state of existence, when even they 
 were foresters and outlaws. 
 
 " When he came to grene wode, 
 
 In a mery niornynge, 
 There he herde the notes small 
 Of byrdea mery syngynge. 
 
 " It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn, 
 
 That I was last here ; 
 Me lyste a lytell for to shote 
 At the donne dere." 
 
 I think that I cannot preserve my health and 
 spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least, 
 i and it is commonly more than that, sann- v 
 tering through the woods and over the hills and 
 fields, absolutely free from all worldly engage 
 ments. You may safely say, A penny for your 
 thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When some 
 times I am reminded that the mechanics and 
 shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the 
 forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with 
 crossed legs, so many of them, as if the legs 
 were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk 
 
WALKING 255 
 
 , _ I think that they deserve some credit 
 for not having all committed suicide long ago* 
 
 I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single 
 day without acquiring some rust, and when 
 sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the 
 eleventh hour or four o clock in the afternoon, 
 too late to redeem the day, when the shades of 
 night were already beginning to be mingled with 
 the daylight, have felt as if I had committed 
 some sin to be atoned for, I confess that I am 
 astonished at the power of endurance, to say 
 nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neigh 
 bors who confine themselves to shops and offices 
 the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and 
 yean almost together, 1 know n>t ^:it manner 
 of stuff they are of, sitting there now at three 
 o clock in the afternoon, as if it were three 
 o clock in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of 
 the three-o clock-in-the-morning courage, but 
 it is nothing to the courage which can sit down 
 cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over 
 against one s self whom you have known all the 
 morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you 
 are lx>und by such strong ties of sympathy. I 
 wonder that alx>ut this time, or say between four 
 and five o clock in the afternoon, too late for the 
 morning papers and too early for the evening 
 ones, there is not a general explosion heanl up 
 and down the street, scattering a legion of an- 
 
256 WALKING 
 
 tiquated and house-bred notions and whims to 
 the four winds for an airing, and so the evil 
 cure itself. 
 
 How womankind, who are confined to the 
 house still more than men, stand it I do not 
 know ; but I have ground to suspect that most of 
 them do not stand it at all. When, early in a 
 summer afternoon, we have been shaking the 
 dust of the village from the skirts of our gar 
 ments, making haste past those houses with 
 purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have such 
 an air of repose about them, my companion 
 whispers that probably about these times their 
 occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that I 
 appreciate the beauty and the glory of architec 
 ture, which itself never turns in, but forever 
 stands out and erect, keeping watch over the 
 slumberers. 
 
 No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, 
 
 have a good deal to do with it. As a man grows 
 
 older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor 
 
 occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in 
 
 , his habits as the evening of life approaches, till 
 
 \ at last he comes forth only just before sundown, 
 
 and gets all the walk that he requires in half an 
 
 hour. 
 
 But the walking of which I speak has nothing 
 in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as 
 the sick take medicine at stated hours, as the 
 
U .ILKINO 257 
 
 swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself 
 the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you 
 would get exercise, go in search of the springs j 
 of life. Think of a man s swinging dumb-bells (I 
 for his health, when those springs are bubbling \j 
 up in far-off pastures unsought by him! 
 
 Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which 
 is said to be the only beast which ruminates when 
 walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth s 
 servant to show him her master s study, she 
 answered, "Here is his library, but his study is// 
 out of doors." 
 
 Living much out of doors, in the sun and 
 wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness 
 of character, will cause a thicker cuticle to 
 grow over some of the finer qualities of our 
 nature, as on the face and hands, OP as severe 
 manual labor robs the hands of some of their 
 delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on 
 the other hand, may produce a softness and 
 smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accom 
 panied by an increased sensibility to certain 
 impressions. Perhaps we should be more sus 
 ceptible to some influences important to our 
 intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had 
 shone and the wind blown on us a little less; 
 and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion 
 rightly the thick and thin skin. But raethinks 
 that is a scurf that will fall off fast enough, - 
 
258 WALKING 
 
 that the natural remedy is to be found in the 
 proportion which the night bears to the day, the 
 winter to the summer, thought to experience. 
 There will be so much the more air and sunshine 
 in our thoughts. The callous palms of the 
 laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self- 
 respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the 
 heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That 
 is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and 
 thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus 
 of experience. 
 
 When we walk, we naturally go to the lit -Ids 
 and woods: what would become of us, if we 
 walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some 
 sects of philosophers have felt the necessity of 
 importing the woods to themselves, since they 
 did not go to the woods. "They planted groves 
 and walks of Platanes," where they took subdia- 
 les ambuhitioncn in ]x>rticos open to the air. Of 
 course it is of no use to direct our steps to the 
 woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am 
 alarmed when it happens that I have walked a 
 mile into the woods bodily, without getting there 
 in spirit. In my afternoon walk 1 would fain 
 forget all my morning occupations and my obli 
 gations to society. But it sometimes happens 
 that I cannot easily shake off the village. The 
 thought of some work will run in my head and 
 1 am not where my body is, I am out of my 
 
WALKING 259 
 
 senses. In my walks I would fain return to 
 my senses. What business have I in the woods, 
 if I am thinking of something out of the woods? 
 I susj>ect myself, and cannot help a shudder, 
 when I find myself so implicated even in what 
 are called good works, for this may sometimes 
 happen. 
 
 My vicinity affords many good walks; and 
 though for so many years I have walked almost 
 every day, and sometimes for several days to 
 gether, I have not yet exhausted them. An 
 absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, 
 and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or 
 three hours walking will carry me to as strange 
 a country as I expect ever to see. A single 
 farm-house which I had not seen before is some 
 times as good as the dominions of the King of 
 Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony , 
 discoverable between the capabilities of the land- 
 scapr \\itliin a circle of ten miles radius, or the 
 limits of an afternoon walk, and the threescore 
 years and ten of human life. It will never be 
 come quite familiar to you. 
 
 Nowadays almost all man s improvements, so 
 called, as the building of houses, and the cutting 
 down of the forest and of all large trees, simply 
 deform the landscape, and make it more and 
 more tame and cheap. A people who would 
 begin by burning the fences and let the forest 
 
260 WALKING 
 
 stand! I saw the fences half consumed, their 
 ends lost in the middle of the prairie, and some 
 worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his 
 bounds, while heaven had taken place around 
 him, and he did not see the angels going to and 
 fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in 
 the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw 
 him standing in the middle of a boggy stygian 
 fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his 
 Ixmmls without a doubt, three little stones, 
 where a stake had been driven, and looking 
 nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was 
 
 \_his surveyor. 
 
 I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any 
 number of miles, commencing at my own door, 
 without going by any house, without crossing a 
 road except where the fox and the mink do: 
 first along by the river, and then the brook, and 
 then the meadow and the woodside. There are 
 square miles in my vicinity which have no in 
 habitant. From many a hill I can see civiliza 
 tion and the abodes of man afar. The farmers 
 and their works are scarcely more obvious than 
 
 ^woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his 
 affairs, church and state and school, trade and 
 commerce, and manufactures and agriculture, 
 even politics, the most alarming of them all, 
 I am pleased to see how little space they occupy 
 in the landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, 
 
WALKING 261 
 
 anil that still narrower highway yonder leads to 
 it. I sometimes direct the traveler thitln-r. If 
 you would go to the political world, follow the 
 great road, follow that market-man, keep his 
 dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight 
 to it ; for it, too, has its place merely, and does 
 not ocriipy all space. I pass from it as from 
 a bean-field into the forest, and it is forgotten. 
 In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion 
 of the earth s surface where a man does not 
 stand from one year s end to another, and there, 
 consequently, politics are not, for they are but 
 as the cigar-smoke of a man. 
 
 The village is the place to which the roads 
 tend, a sort of expansion of the highway, as a 
 lake of a river. It is the body of which roads 
 are the arms and legs, a trivial or quadrivial 
 places the thoroughfare and ordinary of travel- 
 OS. The word is from the Latin tr#/a, which 
 together with via, a way, or more anciently red 
 and vella, Varro derives from veAo, to carry, 
 I- MUlsc th.- vill:i U th,- j.la,-,. t. an-l from \vlii.-h 
 things are carried. They who got their living 
 by teaming were said veil ti turdm facere. Hence, 
 too, the Latin word t?i7w and our vile; also 
 rillain. This suggests what kind of degeneracy 
 villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by 
 the travel that goes by and over them, without 
 traveling themselves. 
 
2t)2 WALKING 
 
 Some do not walk at all ; others walk in the 
 highways; a few walk across lots. Roads are 
 made for horses and men of business. I do not 
 travel in them much, comparatively, because I 
 am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or 
 grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they 
 lead. I am a good horse to travel, but not 
 from choice a roadster. The landscape-painter 
 uses the figures of men to mark a road. He 
 would not make that use of my figure. I walk 
 out into a Nature such as the old prophets and 
 poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked 
 in. You may name it America, but it is not 
 America; neither Americus Vespucius, nor 
 Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of 
 it. There is a truer account of it in mythology 
 than in any history of America, so called, that 
 I have seen. 
 
 However, there are a few old roads that may 
 be trodden with profit, as if they led somewhere 
 now that they are nearly discontinued. There 
 is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not 
 go to Marlborough now, methinks, unless that 
 is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the 
 bolder to speak of it here, because I presume 
 that there are one or two such roads in every 
 town. 
 
\\ .\LKING 263 
 
 THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD. 
 
 Wbert they once dog for money, 
 
 Hut never found any ; 
 
 Where sometimes Martial Miles 
 
 Singly files, 
 
 And Elijah Wood, 
 
 I fear for no good : 
 
 No other man, 
 
 Save Elisha I>ugan, 
 
 O man of wild habits, 
 
 Partridges and rabbits, 
 
 Who hast no carep 
 
 Only to set ^...ires, 
 
 Who liv -c all alone, 
 
 Close *.* the bone, 
 
 A id where life is sweetest 
 
 Constantly eatest. 
 Wlien the spring stirs ray blood 
 With the instinct to travel 
 I can get enough gravel 
 On the Old Marlborough Road. 
 
 Nobody repairs it, 
 
 For nobody wears it ; 
 
 It is a living way, 
 
 As the Christians say. 
 Not many there be 
 
 Who enter therein. 
 Only the guesta of the 
 
 Irixhrnan Quin. 
 Wh.it is it, what is it. 
 
 Hut a direction out them, 
 And the bare possibility 
 Of going somewhere ? 
 
 tots* guide- boarda of stone, 
 
 But traveler* 
 
264 WALKING 
 
 Cenotaphs of the towns 
 
 Named on their crowns. 
 
 It is worth going to see 
 
 Where you might be. 
 
 What king 
 V l>id the tiling, 
 
 ^ I am still wondering ; 
 
 Set up how or when, 
 
 By what selectmen, 
 V Gourgaa or Lee, 
 
 Clark or Darby ? 
 * % They re a great endeavor 
 1 To be something forever; 
 
 1 , -ink tablets of stone, 
 
 Where a traveler might groan, 
 
 And in one sem en ce 
 
 Grave all that is Known ; 
 
 Which another might raid, 
 
 In his extreme need. 
 
 I know one or two 
 
 Lines that would do, 
 
 Literature that might stand 
 
 All over the land, 
 
 Which a man could remember 
 
 Till next December, 
 
 And read again in the Spring, 
 
 After the thawing. 
 If with fancy unfurled 
 
 You leave your abode, 
 You may go round the world 
 By the Old Marlborough Road. 
 
 At present, in this vicinity, the best part of 
 the land is not private property; the landscape 
 is not owned, and the walker enjoys compara 
 tive freedom. But possibly the day will come 
 
WALKING 265 
 
 when it will be partitioned off into so-called 
 pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a 
 narrow anil exclusive pleasure only, when 
 fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and 
 other engines invented to confine men to the 
 public road, and walking over the surface of 
 God s earth shall be construed to mean trespass 
 ing on some gnitleman s Lrn iimU. To enjoy a 
 thing exclusively is commonly to exclude your 
 self from the true enjoyment of it. Let us 
 improve our opportunities, then, before the evil 
 days come. 
 
 What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to 
 determine whither we will walk? I believe that 
 there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if 
 we uniM>nseiously~yieId to it, will direct us 
 aright? It fs not indifferent to^rs~Trhtc"h way 
 we walk. There is a right way; but we are 
 very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to 
 take the wrong one. We would fain take that 
 walk, never yet taken by us through this actual 
 world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path 
 which we love to travel in the interior and ideal 
 world ; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it dif 
 ficult to choose our direction, because it does 
 not yet exist distinctly in our idea. 
 
 When I go out of the house for a walk, un 
 certain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and 
 
260 WALKING 
 
 submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, 
 I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, 
 that I finally and inevitably settle southwest, 
 toward some particular wood or meadow or de 
 serted pasture or hill in that direction. My 
 needle is slow to settle, varies a few degrees, 
 and does not always point due southwest, it is 
 true, and it has good authority for this varia 
 tion, but it always settles between west and 
 south-southwest. The future lies that way to 
 me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and 
 richer on that side. The outline which would 
 bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a 
 parabola, or rather like one of those cometary 
 orbits which have been thought to be non-re 
 turning curves, in this case opening westward, 
 in which my house occupies the place of the 
 sun. I turn round and round irresolute some 
 times for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, 
 for a thousandth time, that I will walk into the 
 southwest or west. Eastward I go only by 
 force; but westward I go free. Thither no 
 business leads me. It is hard for me to believe 
 that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient 
 wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. 
 I am not excited by the prospect of a walk 
 thither ; but I believe that the forest which I see 
 in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly 
 toward the setting sun, and there are no towns 
 
u [LKING 
 
 b 
 
 nor cities in it of rnmi-li consequence t<> dUturl 
 me. Let me live where I will, on this side is 
 the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am 
 leaving the city more and more, and withdraw 
 ing into the wilderness. I should not lay so 
 much stress on this fact, if I did not believe that 
 something like this is the prevailing tendency of 
 my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, 
 and not toward Europe. And that way the na 
 tion is moving, and I may say that mankind pro 
 gress from east to west. Within a few years we 
 have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeast 
 ward migration, in the settlement of Australia ; 
 but this affects us as a retrograde movement, 
 and, judging from the moral and physical char 
 acter of the first generation of Australians, has 
 not yet proved a successful experiment. The 
 eastern Tartars think that there is nothing west 
 Iwyontl Thibet. "The world ends there," say 
 they; "beyond there is nothing but a shoreless 
 sea." It is unmitigated East where they live. 
 
 We go eastward to realize history and study 
 the works of art and literature, retracing the 
 steps of the race ; we go westward as into the 
 future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. 
 The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our pas 
 sage over which we have had an opportunity to 
 forget the Old World and its institutions. If 
 we do not succeed this time, there is perhaps one 
 
208 WALKING 
 
 more chance for the race left before it arrives on 
 the banks of the Styx ; and that is in the Lethe 
 of the Pacific, which is three times as wide. 
 
 I know not how significant it is, or how far it 
 is an evidence of singularity, that an individual 
 should thus consent in his pettiest walk with 
 the general movement of the race; but I know 
 that something akin to the migratory instinct in 
 birds and quadrupeds, which, in some in 
 stances, is known to have affected the squirrel 
 tribe, impelling them to a general and mysteri 
 ous movement, in which they were seen, say 
 some, crossing the broadest rivers, each on its 
 particular chip, with its tail raised for a sail, 
 and bridging narrower streams with their dead, 
 - that something like the furor which affects 
 the domestic cattle in the spring, and which is 
 referred to a worm in their tails, affects both 
 nations and individuals, either perennially or 
 from time to time. Not a flock of wild geese 
 cackles over our town, but it to some extent 
 unsettles the value of real estate here, and, if 
 I were a broker, I should probably take that 
 disturbance into account. 
 
 " Than longen folk to pon on pilgrimages, 
 And palnieres for to sken strange strondes." 
 
 Every sunset which I witness inspires me with 
 the desire to go to a West as distant and as fair 
 a tliat into which the sun goes down. He ap- 
 
WALKING 209 
 
 pens to migrate westward daily, and tempt us 
 to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer 
 whom the nations follow. We dream all night 
 of those mountain-ridges in the horizon, though 
 they may be of vapor only, which were last 
 gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and 
 the islands and gardens of the 1 lesperides, a sort 
 of terrestrial paradise, appear to have been the 
 Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mys 
 tery and poetry. Who has not seen in imagi 
 nation, when looking into the sunset sky, the 
 gardens of the I lesperides, and the foundation of 
 all those fables? 
 
 Columbus felt the westward tendency more 
 strongly than any before. He obeyed it, and 
 found a New World for Castile and Leon. The 
 herd of men in those days scented fresh pastures 
 from afar. 
 
 ** And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 
 And now was dropped into the western bay ; 
 At last A# rose, ami twitched his mantle blue ; 
 To-morrow to fresh woods and pasture** now." 
 
 Where on the globe can there be found an 
 area of equal extent with that occupied by the 
 bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and 
 varied in its productions, and at the same time 
 so habitable by the European, as this is? Mi- 
 chaux, who knew but part of them, says that 
 "the species of Large trees are much more nu- 
 
270 WALKING 
 
 merous in North America than in Europe ; in the 
 United States there are more than one hundred 
 and forty species that exceed thirty feet in 
 height ; in France there are but thirty that at 
 tain this size." Later botanists more than con 
 firm his observations. Ilumboldt came to Amer 
 ica to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical 
 vegetation, and he beheld it in its greatest per 
 fection in the primitive forests of the Amazon, 
 the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which 
 he has so eloquently described. The geogra 
 pher Guyot, himself a European, goes farther, 
 farther than I am ready to follow him ; yet 
 not when he says : " As the plant is made for 
 the animal, as the vegetable world is made for 
 the animal world, America is made for the man 
 of the Old World.-. . . The man of the Old 
 World sets out upon his way. Leaving the 
 highlands of Asia, he descends from station to 
 station towards Europe. Each of his steps is 
 marked by a new civilization superior to the 
 preceding, by a greater power of development. 
 Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore 
 of this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he 
 knows not, and turns upon his footprints for an 
 instant." When he has exhausted the rich soil 
 of Europe, and reinvigorated himself, "then 
 recommences his adventurous career westward as 
 in the earliest ages." So far Guyot. 
 
\\.ILKING 271 
 
 From this western impulse coming in contact 
 with the barrier of the Atlantic sprang the com 
 merce and enterprise of modern times. The 
 younger Michaux, in his "Travels West of the 
 Allcghanies in 1802, " says that the common in 
 quiry in the newly settled West was, ui From 
 what part of the world have you come? As if 
 these vast and fertile regions would naturally be 
 the place of meeting and common country of 
 all the inhabitants of the globe." 
 
 To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, 
 Ex Orient e lux ; ex Occidente FKUX. From the 
 Kast light ; from the West fruit. 
 
 Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a 
 Governor-General of Canada, tells us that "in 
 both the northern and southern hemispheres of 
 the New World, Nature has not only outlined 
 her works on a larger scale, but has painted tlje 
 whole picture with brighter and more costly 
 colors than she used in delineating and in beau 
 tifying the Old World. . . . The heavens of 
 America appear infinitely higher, the sky is 
 bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the 
 moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the 
 thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the 
 wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the moun 
 tains are higher, the rivers longer, the forests 
 bigger, the plains broader." This statement will 
 do at least to set against Buff on s account of 
 this part of the world and its productions. 
 
272 WALKING 
 
 Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies 
 fata, f/labra plantis Americanis: I know not 
 what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect 
 of American plants;" and I think that in this 
 country there are no, or at most very few, 
 Africaner bestice, African beasts, as the Romans 
 called them, and that in this respect also it is 
 peculiarly fitted for the habitation of man. We 
 are told that within three miles of the centre 
 of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of 
 the inhabitants are annually carried off by tigers ; 
 but the traveler can lie down in the woods at 
 night abuost anywhere in North America with 
 out fear of wild beasts. 
 
 These are encouraging testimonies. If the 
 moon looks larger here than in Europe, proba 
 bly the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of 
 America appear infinitely higher, and the stars 
 brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical 
 of the height to which the philosophy and poetry 
 and religion of her inhabitants may one day 
 soar. At length, perchance, the immaterial 
 heaven will appear as much higher to the Amer 
 ican mind, and the intimations that star it as 
 / much brighter. For I believe that climate does 
 thus react on man, as there is something in 
 the mountain-air that feeds the spirit and in 
 spires. Will not man grow to greater perfec 
 tion intellectually as well as physically under 
 
WALKING 273 
 
 these influences? Or is it unimportant how 
 many foggy days there are in his life ? I trust 
 that we shall be more imaginative, that our 
 thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and mom 
 ethereal, as our sky, our understanding more 
 comprehensive and broader, like our plains, - 
 our intellect generally on a grander scale, like 
 our thunder and lightning, our rivers and moun 
 tains and forests, and our hearts shall even 
 correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur 
 to our inland seas. Perchanee there will appear 
 to the traveler something, he knows not what, 
 of l(pta and glabra^ of joyous and serene, in our 
 very faces. Else to what end does the world go 
 on, and why was America discovered ? 
 To Americans I hardly need to say, 
 
 M Westward the star of empire takes its way." 
 
 As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think 
 that Adam in paradise was more favorably sit 
 uated on the whole than the backwoodsman in 
 this country. 
 
 Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not con 
 fined to New England ; though we may be es 
 tranged from the South, we sympathize with the 
 West. There is the home of the younger sons, 
 as among the Scandinavians they took to the MA 
 for their inheritance. It is too late to be study 
 ing Hebrew; it is more important to understand 
 even the slang of to-day. 
 
274 WALKING 
 
 Some months ago I went to see a panorama of 
 the Rhine. It was like a dream of the Middle 
 Ages. I floated down its historic stream in 
 something more than imagination, under bridges 
 built by the Romans, and repaired by later 
 heroes, past cities and castles whose very names 
 were music to my ears, and each of which was 
 the subject of a legend. There were Ehren- 
 breitstein and Kolandseck and Coblentz, which 
 I knew only in history. They were ruins that 
 interested me chiefly. There seemed to come 
 up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and 
 valleys a hushed music as of Crusaders depart 
 ing for the Holy Land. I floated along under 
 the spell of enchantment, as if I had been 
 transported to an heroic age, and breathed an 
 atmosphere of chivalry. 
 
 Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the 
 Mississippi, and as I worked my way up the 
 river in the light of to-day, and saw the steam 
 boats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed 
 on the fresh ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the In 
 dians moving west across the stream, and, as 
 before I had looked up the Moselle, now looked 
 up the Ohio and the Missouri and heard the 
 legends of Dubuque and of Wenona s Cliff, - 
 still thinking more of the future than of the past 
 or present, -- I saw that this was a Rhine 
 stream of a different kind ; that the foundations 
 
WALKING 275 
 
 of castles were yet to be laid, and the famous 
 bridges were yet to be thrown over the river; 
 and I felt that this was the Aerate age itself, 
 though we know it not, for the hero is commonly 
 the simplest and obscurest of men. 
 
 The West of which I speak is but another 
 name for the Wild; and what I have been pre 
 paring to say is, that in Wildness is the preser 
 vation of the World. Every tree sends its fibres 
 forth in search of the Wild. The cities import 
 it at any price. Men plough and sail for it. 
 From the forest and wilderness come the tonics 
 and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors 
 were savages. The story of Romulus and Re 
 mus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaning 
 less fable. The founders of every state which 
 | ias risen t> eminence have drawn tli -ir nourish 
 ment and vigor from a similar wild source. It 
 was because the children of the Empire were not 
 suckled by the wolf that they were conquered 
 and displaced by the children of the northern 
 forests who were. 
 
 I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, 
 and in the night in which the com grows. We 
 require an infusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor 
 vita? in our tea. There is a difference between 
 eating and drinking for strength and from mere 
 gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the 
 
276 WALKING 
 
 marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, 
 as a matter of course. Some of our Northern In 
 dians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, 
 as well as various other parts, including the 
 summits of the antlers, as long as they are soft. 
 And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march 
 on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually 
 goes to feed the fire. This is probably better 
 than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house pork to 
 make a man of. Give me a wildness whose 
 glance no civilization can endure, as if we 
 lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw. 
 
 There are some intervals which border the 
 strain of the wood-thrush, to which I would 
 migrate, wild lands where no settler has 
 squatted; to which, methinks, I am already 
 acclimated. 
 
 The African hunter Cummings tells us that 
 the skin of the eland, as well as that of most 
 other antelopes just killed, emits the most deli 
 cious perfume of trees and grass. I would have 
 every man so much like a wild antelope, so much 
 a part and parcel of Nature, that his very per 
 son should thus sweetly advertise our senses of 
 his presence, and remind us of those parts of 
 Nature which he most haunts. I feel no dispo 
 sition to be satirical, when the trapper s coat 
 emits the odor of musquash even ; it is a sweeter 
 scent to me than that whirh commonly exhales 
 
\\ALKINO 277 
 
 from the men-hunt s or the scholar s garment*. 
 When I go into their wardrobes and handle their 
 vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains 
 and flowery meads which they have frequented, 
 but of dusty merchants* exchanges and libraries 
 rather. 
 
 A tanned skin is something more than re- 
 B]XK*table, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than 
 white for a man, a denizen of the woods. 
 " The pale white man !" I do not wonder that 
 the African pitied him. Darwin the naturalist 
 says, "A white man bathing by the side of a 
 Tahitian was like a plant bleached by the gar- 
 driirr s art, compared with a fine, dark green 
 one, growing vigorously in the open fields." 
 
 Ben Jonson exclaims, - 
 
 44 How near to good is what is fair! " 
 
 So I would say, 
 
 I low near to good ia what is trilti ! 
 
 Life consists with wildness. The most alive is 
 the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its pres 
 ence refreshes him. One who pressed forward 
 incessantly and never rested from his lalxjrs, who 
 grew fast and made infinite demands on life, 
 would always find himself in a new country or 
 wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material 
 of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate 
 stems of primitive forest-trees. 
 
278 WALKING 
 
 Hope and the future for me are not in 
 lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and 
 cities, but in the impervious and quaking 
 swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my 
 partiality for some farm which I had contem 
 plated purchasing, I have frequently found that 
 I was attracted solely by a few square rods of 
 impermeable and unfathomable bog, a na 
 tural sink in one corner of it. That was the 
 jewel which dazzled me. I derive more of my 
 subsistence from the swamps which surround my 
 native town than from the cultivated gardens in 
 the village. There are no richer parterres to 
 my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andro- 
 meda (Cassandra calycuhita) which cover these 
 tender places on the earth s surface. Botany 
 cannot go farther than tell me the names of the 
 Khrubs which grow there, the high-blueberry, 
 panic-led andromeda, lamb-kill, azalea, and rho- 
 dora, all standing in the quaking sphagnum. 
 I often think that I should like to have my house 
 front on this mass of dull red bushes, omitting 
 other Hower plots and borders, transplanted 
 spruce and trim box, even graveled walks, to 
 have this fertile spot under my windows, not a 
 few imported barrow-fulls of soil only to cover 
 the sand which was thrown out in digging the 
 cellar. Why not put my house, my parlor, be 
 hind this plot, instead of behind that meagre 
 
WALKING 279 
 
 assemblage of curi-^itit -, that i>oor apology for 
 a Nature and Art, which I call my front yard? 
 It is an effort to clear up and make a decent 
 appearance when the carpenter and mason have 
 departed, though done as much for the passer-by 
 as the dweller within. The most tasteful front- 
 yard fence was never an agreeable object of study 
 to me ; the most elaborate ornaments, acorn-tops, 
 or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me. 
 Bring your sills up to the very edge of the 
 swamp, then (though it may not be the best 
 place for a dry cellar), so that there be no access 
 on that side to citizens. Front-yards are not 
 made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you 
 could go in the back way. 
 
 Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it 
 were proposed to me to dwell in the neighbor 
 hood of the most beautiful garden that ever hu 
 man art contrived, or else of a Dismal Swamp, I 
 should certainly decide for the swamp. How 
 vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, 
 for me ! 
 
 My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the 
 outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the 
 desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure 
 air and solitude compensate for want of moisture 
 and fertility. The traveler Burton says of it : 
 "Your morale improves; you become frank and 
 cordial, hospitable and single-minded. ... In 
 
WALKING 
 
 the desert, spirituous liquors excite only disgust. 
 There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal ex 
 istence." They who have been traveling long 
 on the steppes of Tartary say : " On reentering 
 cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and 
 turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated 
 us ; the air seemed to fail us, and we felt every 
 moment as if about to die of asphyxia." When 
 I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, 
 the thickest and most interminable and, to the 
 citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp 
 as a sacred place, --a sanctum sanctorum. 
 There is the strength, the marrow of Nature. 
 The wild-wood covers the virgin-mould, and 
 the same soil is good for men and for trees. A 
 man s health requires as many acres of meadow 
 to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck. 
 There are the strong meats on which he feeds. 
 A town is saved, not more by the righteous men 
 in it than by the woods and swamps that sur 
 round it. A township where one primitive for 
 est waves above while another primitive forest 
 rots below, such a town is fitted to raise not 
 only corn and potatoes, but poets and philoso 
 phers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew 
 Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of 
 such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating 
 , locusts and wild honey. 
 
 To preserve wild animals implies generally 
 
\v\LKINQ 281 
 
 the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or 
 resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years 
 ago they sold bark in our streets peeled from 
 our own woods. In the very as|>ect of those 
 primitive and rugged trees there was, methinks, 
 a tanning principle which hardened and consoli 
 dated the fibres of men s thoughts. Ah ! already 
 1 shudder for these comparatively degenerate 
 days of my native village, when you cannot col 
 lect a load of bark of good thickness, and we 
 no longer produce tar and turpentine. 
 
 The civilized nations Greece, Rome, Eng 
 land have been sustained by the primitive for 
 ests which anciently rotted where they stand. 
 They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. 
 Alas for human culture ! little is to be expected 
 of a nation, when the vegetable mould is ex 
 hausted, and it is compelled to make manure of 
 the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains 
 himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and 
 the philosopher comes down on his marrow 
 bones. 
 
 It is said to be the task of the American "to 
 work the virgin soil," and that "agriculture here 
 already assumes proportions unknown every 
 where else." I think that the farmer displaces 
 the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, 
 and so makes himself stronger and in some re 
 spects more natural. I was surveying for a man 
 
282 WALKING 
 
 the other day a single straight line one hundred 
 and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp, at 
 whose entrance might have been written the 
 words which Dante read over the entrance to the 
 infernal regions, "Leave all hope, ye that en 
 ter," that is, of ever getting out again; where 
 at one time I saw my employer actually up to 
 his neck and swimming for his life in his pro 
 perty, though it was still winter. He had an 
 other similar swamp which I could not survey at 
 all, because it was completely under water, and 
 nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, 
 which I did survey from a distance, he remarked 
 to me, true to his instincts, that he would not 
 part with it for any consideration, on account of 
 the mud which it contained. And that man 
 intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole 
 in the course of forty months, and so redeem it 
 by the magic of his spade. I refer to him only 
 as the type of a class. 
 
 The weajxms witli which we have gained our 
 most important victories, which should be 
 handed down as heirlooms from father to son, 
 are not the sword and the lance, but the bush 
 whack, the turf -cutter, the spade, and the bog- 
 hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, 
 and begrimed with the dust of many a hard- 
 fought field. The very winds blew the Indian s 
 corn-field into the meadow, and pointed out the 
 
\\\LKING 283 
 
 way which ho had not tho skill to follow. He 
 hud no hotter implement with which to intrench 
 himself in tho land than a clam-shell. But the 
 fanner is armed with plough and spade. 
 
 In literature it is only the wild that attracts 
 us. Dullness is hut another name f or tameness. 
 It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in 
 "Hamlet" and the "Iliad," in all the Scriptures 
 and Mythologies, not learned in the schools, that 
 delights us. As the wild duck is more swift 
 and beautifid than the tame, so is the wild - 
 the mallard thought, which mid fulling dews 
 wings its way ahove the fens. A truly good 
 book is something as natural, and as unexpect 
 edly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a 
 wild flower discovered on the prairies of the 
 West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a 
 light which makes the darkness visible, like the 
 lightning s flash, which perchance shatters the 
 temple of knowledge itself, and not a taper 
 lighted at the hearth-stone of the race, which 
 pules before the light of common thy. 
 
 English literature, from the days of the min 
 strels to the Lake Poets, Chaucer and Spenser 
 and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included, - 
 breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild 
 strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized 
 literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. Her 
 wilderness is a greenwood, her wild man a Robin 
 
284 WALKING 
 
 Hood. There is plenty of genial love of Nature, 
 but not so much of Nature herself. Her chron 
 icles inform us when her wild animals, but not 
 when the wild man in her, became extinct. 
 
 The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry 
 is another thing. The poet to-day, notwith 
 standing all the discoveries of science, and the 
 accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no 
 advantage over Homer. 
 
 Where is the literature which gives expres 
 sion to Nature? He would be a poet who could 
 impress the winds and streams into his service, 
 to speak for him; who nailed words to their 
 primitive senses, as fanners drive down stakes 
 in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who 
 derived his words as often as he used them, 
 transplanted them to his page with earth adher 
 ing to their roots; whose words were so true and 
 fresh and natural that they would appear to ex 
 pand like the buds at the approach of spring, 
 though they lay half-smothered between two 
 musty leaves in a library, aye, to bloom and 
 bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for 
 the faithful reader, in sympathy with surround 
 ing Nature. 
 
 I do not know of any poetry to quote which 
 adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild. 
 Approached from this side, the best poetry is 
 tame. I do not know where to find in any liter- 
 
WALKING - s 
 
 ature, ancient or modern, any account which 
 contents me of that Nature with which even I 
 am acquainted. You will perceive that I de 
 mand something which no Augustan nor Eliza- 
 
 bi than age, which no culture, in short, can give. | 
 
 Mythology comes nearer to it than anything. 
 1 low much more fertile a Nature, at least, has 
 Grecian mythology its root in than English 
 literature ! Mythology is the crop which the Old 
 World bore before its soil was exhausted, before 
 the fancy and imagination were affected with 
 blight; and which it still bears, wherever its 
 pristine vigor is unabated. All other literatures 
 endure only as the elms which overshadow our 
 houses; but this is like the great dragon-tree 
 of the Western Isles, as old as mankind, and, 
 whether that does or not, will endure as long; 
 for the decay of other literatures makes the soil 
 in which it thrives. 
 
 The West is preparing to add its fables to 
 those of the East. The valleys of the Gauges, 
 the Nile, and the Rhine having yielded their 
 crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of 
 the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. 
 Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. 
 Perchance, when, in the course of ages, Amer 
 ican liberty has become a fiction of the past, 
 as it is to some extent a fiction of the present, 
 - the poets of the world will be inspired by 
 American mythology. 
 
286 WALKING 
 
 The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not 
 the less true, though they may not recommend 
 themselves to the sense which is most common 
 among Englishmen and Americans to-day. It 
 is not every truth that recommends itself to the 
 common sense. Nature has a place for the wild 
 clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some ex 
 pressions of truth are reminiscent, others 
 merely .wHs/We, as the phrase is, others pro 
 phetic. Some forms of disease, even, may pro 
 phesy forms of health. The geologist has dis 
 covered that the figures of serpents, griffins, fly 
 ing dragons, and other fanciful embellishments 
 of heraldry, have their prototypes in the forms 
 of fossil species which were extinct before man 
 was created, and hence u indicate a faint and 
 shadowy knowledge of a previous state of organic 
 existence." The Hindoos dreamed that the 
 earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant 
 on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent ; and 
 though it may be an unimportant coincidence, 
 it will not be out of place here to state, that a 
 fossil tortoise lias lately been discovered in Asia 
 large enough to support an elephant. I confess 
 that I am partial to these wild fancies, which 
 transcend the order of time and development. 
 They are the sublimest recreation of the intel 
 lect. The partridge loves peas, but not those 
 that go with her into the pot. 
 
H ILK ING 287 
 
 In short, all good things are wild and free. 
 There is something in a strain of music, whether 
 produced by an instrument or by the human 
 voice, take the sound of a bugle in a summer 
 night, for instance, which by its wildness, to 
 speak without satire, reminds me of the cries 
 emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It 
 is so much of their wildness as I can under 
 stand. Give me for my friends and neighbors 
 wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the 
 savage is but a faint symbol of the awful ferity 
 with which good men and lovers meet. 
 
 I love even to see the domestic animals reassert 
 their native rights, any evidence that they 
 have not wholly Icfet their original wild habits 
 and vigor; as when my neighbor s cow breaks 
 out of her pasture early in the spring and boldly 
 swims the river, a cold, gray tide, twenty-five 
 or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. 
 It is the buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This 
 exploit confers some dignity on the herd in my 
 eyes, already dignified. The seeds of instinct 
 are preserved under the thick hides of cattle and 
 horses, like seeds in the bowels of the earth, an 
 indefinite period. 
 
 Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I 
 saw one day a herd of a dozen bullocks and cows 
 running about and frisking in unwieldy s}M>rt, 
 like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook 
 
288 WALKING 
 
 their heads, raised their tails, and rushed up and 
 down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as 
 well as by their activity, their relation to the 
 deer tribe. But, alas! a sudden loud H^oa/ 
 would have damped their ardor at once, reduced 
 them from venison to beef, and stiffened their 
 sides and sinews like the locomotive. Who but 
 the Evil One has cried, "Whoa! " to mankind? 
 Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, 
 is but a sort of locomotiveness ; they move a 
 side at a time, and man, by his machinery, is 
 meeting the horse and the ox half-way. What 
 ever part the whip has touched is thenceforth 
 palsied. Who would ever think of a side of any 
 of the supple cat tribe, as we speak of a side of 
 beef? 
 
 I rejoice that horses and steers have to be 
 broken before they can be made the slaves of 
 men, and that men themselves have some wild 
 oats still left to sow before they become submis 
 sive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men 
 are not equally fit subjects for civilization ; and 
 because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are 
 tame by inherited disposition, this is no reason 
 why the others should have their natures broken 
 that they may be reduced to the same level. 
 Men are in the main alike, but they were made 
 several in order that they might be various. If 
 a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly 
 
WALKING 289 
 
 or quite as well as another; if a high one, indi 
 vidual excellence is to be regarded. Any man 
 can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no 
 other man could serve so rare a use as the author 
 of this illustration did. Confucius says, "The 
 skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are 
 tanned, are as the skins of the dog and the sheep 
 tanned." But it is not the part of a true cul 
 ture to tame tigers, any more than it Is to make 
 sheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for 
 shoes is not the best use to which they can be 
 put. 
 
 When looking over a list of men s names in a 
 foreign language, as of military officers, or of 
 authors who have written on a particular subject, 
 I am reminded once more that there is nothing 
 in a name. The name Menschikoff, for instance, 
 has nothing in it to my ears more human than a 
 whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the 
 names of the Poles and Russians are to us, so 
 are ours to them. It is as if they had been 
 named by the child s rigmarole, lery wicry 
 ichcry van, t\ttle-td-tan. I see in my mind a 
 herd of wild creatures swarming over the earth, 
 and to each the herdsman has affixed some bar 
 barous sound in his own dialect. The names of 
 men are of course as cheap and meaningless as 
 BOM and Tray, the names of dogs. 
 
290 WALKING 
 
 Methinks it would be some advantage to 
 philosophy, if men were named merely in the 
 gross, as they are known. It would be neces 
 sary only to know the genus and perhaps the 
 race or variety, to know the individual. We 
 are not prepared to believe that every private 
 soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own, 
 - because we have not supposed that he had a 
 character of his own. 
 
 At present our only true names are nicknames. 
 I knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, 
 was called "Buster" by his playmates, and this 
 rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some 
 travelers tell us that an Indian had no name 
 given him at first, but earned it, and his name 
 was his fame; and among some tribes he ac 
 quired a new name with every new exploit. It 
 is pitiful when a man bears a name for conven 
 ience merely, who has earned neither name nor 
 fame. 
 
 I will not allow mere names to make distinc 
 tions for me, but still see men in herds for all 
 them. A familiar name cannot make a man less 
 strange to me. It may be given to a savage 
 who retains in secret his own wild title earned in 
 the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a 
 savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as 
 ours. I see that my neighbor, who bears the 
 familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it off 
 
\\.ILKING 291 
 
 with his jacket. It does not adhere to him 
 when asleep or in anger, or aroused by any pas 
 sion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced 
 by some of his kin at such a time his original 
 wild mime in some jaw-breaking or else melodi 
 ous tongue. 
 
 Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of 
 ours, Nature.jying alljiround, with such beauty, 
 and such affection foi^jieohildjyn, as the leo- 
 pard ; and yet we are so early weaned from her 
 breast to society, to that culture which is exclu 
 sively an iutvr;i"tifm of man on man^ a SOT ^ > f 
 breeding in and in, which produces at most a 
 merely English nobility, a civilization destined 
 to have a speedy limit. 
 
 In society, in the best institutions of men, it 
 is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we 
 should still be growing children, we are already 
 little men. Give me a culture which imports 
 much muck from the meadows, and deepens the 
 soil, not that which trusts to heating manures, 
 and improved implements and modes of culture 
 only ! 
 
 Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have 
 heard of would grow faster, both intellectually 
 and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very 
 late, he honestly slumbered a fool s allowance. 
 
 There may be Ml excess even of informing 
 
292 WALKING 
 
 light. Niepce, a Frenchman, discovered "ac 
 tinism," that power in the sun s rays which 
 produces a chemical effect ; that granite rocks, 
 and stone structures, and statues of metal, "are 
 all alike destructively acted upon during the 
 hours of sunshine, and, but for provisions of 
 Nature no less wonderful, woidd soon perish 
 under the delicate touch of the most subtile of 
 the agencies of the universe." But he observed 
 that "those bodies wydi underwent this change 
 during the daylight possessed the power of re 
 storing themselves to their original conditions 
 during the hours of night, when this excitement 
 was no longer influencing them." Hence it has 
 been inferred that " the hours of darkness are as 
 necessary to the inorganic creation as we know 
 night and sleep are to the organic kingdom. ^ 
 Not even does the moon shine every night, but 
 gives place to darkness. 
 
 I would not have every man nor every part of 
 a man cultivated, any more than I would have 
 every acre of earth cultivated : part will be til 
 lage, but the greater part will be meadow and 
 forest, not only serving an immediate use, but 
 preparing a mould against a distant future, by 
 the annual decay of the vegetation which it sup 
 ports. 
 
 There are other letters for the child to learn 
 than those which Cadmus invented. The Span- 
 
WALKING 293 
 
 iards have a <>,.,! t. mi to express this wild and 
 dusky knowledge, Gramdtica parda, tawny 
 grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from 
 that same leopard to which I have referred. 
 
 We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion 
 of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge 
 is power ; and the like. Methiuks there is equal 
 need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Know 
 ledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense : for 
 what is most of our toasted so-called knowledge 
 but a conceit that we know something, which 
 robs us of the advantage of our actual igno 
 rance? What we call knowledge is often our 
 positive ignorance ; ignorance our negative 
 knowledge. By long years of patient industry 
 and reading of the newspapers, for what are 
 the libraries of science but files of newspapers? 
 a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them 
 up in his memory, and then when in some spring 
 of his life he saunters abroad into the Great 
 Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass 
 like a horse and leaves all his harness behind in 
 the stable. I would say to the Society for the 
 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes, - 
 Go to grass. You have eaten hay long eimn-h. 
 The spring has come with its green crop. The 
 very cows are driven to their country pastures 
 before the end of May; though I have heard of 
 
294 WALKING 
 
 one unnatural farmer who kept his cow in the 
 barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So, 
 frequently, the Society for the Diffusion of Use 
 ful Knowledge treats its cattle. 
 
 A man s ignorance sometimes is not only use 
 ful, but beautiful, while his knowledge, so 
 called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides 
 being ugly. Which is the best man to deal 
 with, he who knows nothing about a subject, 
 and, what is extremely rare, knows that he 
 knows nothing, or he who really knows some 
 thing about it, but thinks that he knows all? 
 
 My dcsin- t .r kn<>\\ [edge is intermittent : Imt 
 my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres un 
 known to my feet is perennial and constant. 
 The highest that we can attain to is not Know 
 ledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do 
 not know that this higher knowledge amounts 
 to anything more definite than a novel and grand 
 surprise on a sudden revelation of the insuffi 
 ciency of all that we called Knowledge before, - 
 a discovery that there are more things in heaven 
 and earth than are dreamed of in our philoso 
 phy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the 
 sun. Man cannot know in any higher sense 
 than this, any more than he can look serenely 
 and with impunity in the face of the sun: O? r\ 
 vow, ov Kfivov VOTJO-CIS, " You will not perceive 
 that, as perceiving a particular thing," say the 
 Oracles. 
 
WALKING 295 
 
 There is something servile in the habit of 
 seeking after a law which we may obrv. \\ 
 may study the laws of matter at and for our 
 convenience, but a successful life knows no law. 
 It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of 
 a law which binds us where we did not know 
 b.-foiv that we were bound. Live free, child of 
 the mist, and with respect to knowledge we 
 an- all children of the mist. The man who takes 
 the liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by 
 virtue of his relation to the Law-maker. " That is 
 active duty," says the Vishnu Purana, "which 
 is not for our bondage ; that is knowledge which 
 is for our liberation : all other duty is good only 
 unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the 
 cleverness of an artist." 
 
 It is remarkable how few events or crises 
 there are in our histories; how little exercised 
 we have been in our minds; how few experi 
 ences we have had. I would fain be assured 
 that I am growing apace and rankly, though 
 my very growth disturb this dull equanimity, 
 though it be with struggle through long, dark, 
 mii-irv nights or seasons of gloom. It would bo 
 well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, 
 instead of this trivial comedy or farce. Dante, 
 Hun van, and others appear to have been exer 
 cised in their minds more tlian we: they were 
 
296 WALKING 
 
 subjected to a kind of culture such as our dis 
 trict schools and colleges do not contemplate. 
 Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his 
 name, had a good deal more to live for, aye, and 
 to die for, than they have commonly. 
 
 When, at rare intervals, some thought visits 
 one, as perchance he is walking on a railroad, 
 then indeed the cars go by without his hearing 
 them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our 
 life goes by and the cars return. 
 
 "Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen, 
 And bendest the thistles round Luira of storms, 
 Traveler of the windy glens, 
 Why hast tliou left my ear so soon ? " 
 
 While almost all men feel an attraction draw 
 ing them to society, few are attracted strongly 
 to Nature. In their reaction to Nature men 
 appear to me for the most part, notwithstand 
 ing their arts, lower than the animals. It is 
 not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of 
 the animals. How little appreciation of the 
 beauty of the landscape there is among us ! We 
 have to be told that the Greeks called the world 
 K 007x09, Beauty, or Order, but we do not see 
 clearly why they did so, and we esteem it at best 
 only a curious philological fact. 
 
 For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature 
 I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a 
 world into which I make occasional and tran- 
 
WALK! NO - ~ 
 
 sient forays only, and iny patriotism and alle 
 giance to the State into whose territories 1 seem 
 to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. Unto 
 a life which I call natural I would gladly fol 
 low even a will-o -the-wisp through bogs and 
 sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor firefly 
 has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a 
 personality so vast and universal that we have 
 never seen one of her features. The walker in 
 the familiar fields which stretch around my na 
 tive town sometimes finds himself in another 
 land than is described in their owners deeds, 
 as it were in some far-away field on the confines 
 of the actual Concord, where her jurisdiction 
 ceases, and the idea which the word Concord 
 >u_r4csts ceases to be suggested. These farms 
 which I have myself surveyed, these bounds 
 which I have set up, appear dimly still as 
 through a mist; but they have no chemistry 
 to fix them ; they fade from the surface of the 
 glass: :m<l th.- picture \\hi-h th-- i>;tiiit>-i- punted 
 stands out dimly from beneath. The world 
 with which we are commonly acquainted leaves 
 no trace, and it will have no anniversary. 
 
 I took a walk on Spaulding s Farm the other 
 afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up 
 the opposite side of a >tat ly pine wood. Its 
 golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood 
 as into some noble hall. 1 was impressed as if 
 
298 WALKING 
 
 some ancient and altogether admirable and shin 
 ing family had settled there in that part of the 
 land called Concord, unknown to me, --to 
 whom the sun was servant, who had not gone 
 into society in the village, who had not been 
 called on. I saw their park, their pleasure- 
 ground, beyond through the wood, in Spauld- 
 ing s cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished 
 them with gables as they grew. Their house 
 was not obvious to vision ; the trees grew through 
 it. I do not know whether I heard the sounds 
 of a suppressed hilarity or not. They seemed 
 to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons 
 and daughters. They are quite well. The 
 farmer s cart-path, which leads directly through 
 their hall, does not in the least put them out, as 
 the muddy bottom of a pool is sometimes seen 
 through the reflected skies. They never heard 
 of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their 
 neighbor, notwithstanding I heard him whis 
 tle as he drove his team through the house. 
 Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. 
 Their coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw 
 it painted on the pines and oaks. Their attics 
 were in the tops of the trees. They are of no 
 polities. There was no noise of labor. I did 
 not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. 
 Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and 
 hearing was done away, the finest imaginable 
 
WALKING 299 
 
 sweet musical hum, :is of a distant hive in 
 May, which perchance was the sound of their 
 thinking. They had no idle thoughts, and no 
 one without could see their work, for their in 
 dustry was not as in knots and excrescences em 
 bayed. 
 
 Hut I find it difficult to remember them. 
 They fade irrevocably out of my mind even now 
 while I speak, and endeavor to recall them and 
 recollect myself. It is only after a long and 
 serious effort to recollect my best thoughts that 
 I become again aware of their cohabitaney. If 
 it were not for such families as this, I think I 
 should move out of Concord. 
 
 We are accustomed to say in New England that 
 few and fewer pigeons visit us every year. Our 
 forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would 
 seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing 
 man from year to year, for the grove in our 
 minds is laid waste, sold to feed unnecessary 
 fires of ambition, or sent to mill, and there is 
 scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. They 
 no longer build nor breed with us. In some 
 more genial season, perchance, a faint shadow 
 flits across the landscape of the mind, cast by 
 the wings of some thought in its vernal or 
 autumnal migration, but, looking up, we are 
 unable to detect the substance of the thought it- 
 
300 WALKING 
 
 self. Our winged thoughts are turned to poul 
 try. They no longer sour, and they attain only 
 to a Shanghai and Cochin - China grandeur. 
 Those gra-a-ate thoughts, those gra-a-ate men 
 you hear of! 
 
 We hug the earth, how rarely we mount ! 
 Methinks we might elevate ourselves a little 
 more. We might climb a tree, at least. I 
 found my account in climbing a tree once. It 
 was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill ; and 
 though I got well pitched, I was well paid for 
 it, for I discovered new mountains in the hori 
 zon which I had never seen before, so much 
 more of the earth and the heavens. I might 
 have walked about the foot of the tree for three 
 score years an;l ten, and yet I certainly should 
 never have seen them. But, above all, I dis 
 covered around me, it was near the end of 
 June, on the ends of the topmost branches 
 only, a few minute and delicate red cone-like 
 blossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine 
 looking heavenward. I carried straightway to 
 the village the topmost spire, and showed it to 
 stranger jurymen who walked the streets, for 
 it was court-week, and to farmers and lum 
 ber-dealers and wood-choppers and hunters, and 
 not one had ever seen the like before, but they 
 wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of 
 
M ILKINO 301 
 
 ancient architects linMiing their works on the 
 top* of columns as perfectly as on the lower 
 ami more visible parts! Nature has from the 
 first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest 
 only toward the heavens, above men s heads and 
 unobserved by them. We see only the flowers 
 that are under our feet in the meadows. The 
 pines have developed their delicate blossoms on 
 the highest twigs of the wood every summer for 
 ages, as well over the heads of Nature s red 
 children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a 
 farmer or hunter in the land has ever seen them. 
 
 -~ 
 
 Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the 
 present. He is blessed over all mortals who 
 loses no moment of the passing life in remem 
 bering the past. Unless our philosophy hears 
 the cock crow in every barn-yard within our 
 horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly 
 reminds us that we are growing rusty and an 
 tique in our employments and habits of thought. 
 His philosophy comes down to a more recent 
 time than ours. There is something suggested 
 by it that is a newer testament, the gospel 
 according to this moment. He has not fallen 
 astern; he has got up early and kept up early, 
 and to be where he is is to be in season, in the 
 foremost rank of time. It is an expression of 
 the health and soundness of Nature, a brag for 
 
302 WALKING 
 
 all the world, healthiness as of a spring burst 
 forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate 
 . this last instant of time. Where he lives no 
 fugitive slave laws are passed. Who has not 
 betrayed his master many times since last he 
 heard that note? 
 
 The merit of this bird s strain is in its free 
 dom from all plaintiveness. The singer can 
 easily move us to tears or to laughter, but where 
 is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? 
 When, in doleful dumps, breaking the awful 
 stillness of our wooden sidewalk on a Sunday, 
 or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourn 
 ing, I hear a cockerel crow far or near, I think 
 to myself, "There is one of us well, at any 
 rate," and with a sudden gush return to my 
 senses. 
 
 We had a remarkable sunset one day last 
 November. I was walking in a meadow, the 
 source of a small brook, when the sun at last, 
 just before setting, after a cold gray day, 
 reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the 
 softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the 
 dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the 
 opposite horizon and on the leaves of the shrub- 
 oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched 
 long over the meadow eastward, as if we were 
 the only motes in its beams. It was such a 
 
\\ILKING 303 
 
 light as we could not have imagined a moment 
 l>efore, and the air also was so warm and serene 
 that nothing was wanting to make a paradise 
 of that meadow. When we reflected that this 
 was not a solitary phenomenon, never to hap 
 pen again, but that it would happen forever 
 and ever an infinite number of evenings, and 
 cheer and reassure the latest child that walked 
 there, it was more glorious still. 
 
 The sun sets on some retired meadow, where 
 no house is visible, with all the glory and splen 
 dor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as 
 it has never set before, where there is but a 
 solitary marsh-hawk to have his wings gilded 
 by it, or only a musquash looks out from his 
 cabin, and there is some little black-veined 
 brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning 
 to meander, winding slowly round a decaying 
 stump. We walked in so pure and bright a 
 light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so 
 softly and serenely bright, I thought I had 
 never bathed in such a golden flood, without a 
 ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of 
 every wood and rising ground gleamed like the 
 Itoundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs 
 seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home 
 at evening. 
 
 So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till 
 one day the sun shall shine more brightly than 
 
304 WALKING 
 
 ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our 
 minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives 
 with a great awakening light, as warm and 
 serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn. 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 EUROPEANS coming to America are surprised 
 by the brilliancy of our autumnal foliage. There 
 is no account of such a phenomenon in English 
 poetry, because the trees acquire but few bright 
 colors there. The most that Thomson says on 
 this subject in his " Autumn " is contained in the 
 lines, - 
 
 " But see the fadinp many-colored woods, 
 Shade deepening over shade, the country round 
 Imbrown ; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun, 
 Of every hue, from wan declining green to sooty dark ; " 
 
 and in the line in which he speaks of 
 
 " Autumn beaming o er the yellow woods." 
 
 The autumnal change of our woods has not 
 made a deep impression on our own literature 
 yet. Octolrcr has hardly tinged our pot try. 
 
 A great many, who have spent their lives in 
 cities, and have never chanced to come into the 
 country at this season, have never seen this, the 
 flower, or rather the ripe fruit, of the year. I 
 remember riding with one such citizen, who, 
 though a fortnight too late for the most brilliant 
 tints, was taken by surprise, and would not be- 
 
306 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 lieve that there had been any brighter. He 
 had never heard of this phenomenon before. 
 Not only many in our towns have never wit 
 nessed it, but it is scarcely remembered by the 
 majority from year to year. 
 
 Most appear to confound changed leaves with 
 withered ones, as if they were to confound ripe 
 apples with rotten ones. I think that the change 
 to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that 
 it has arrived at a late and perfect maturity, an 
 swering to the maturity of fruits. It is gener 
 ally the lowest and oldest leaves which change 
 first. But as the perfect winged and usually 
 bright-colored insect is short-lived, so the leaves 
 ripen but to fall. 
 
 Generally, every fruit, on ripening, and just 
 before it falls, when it commences a more inde 
 pendent and individual existence, requiring less 
 nourishment from any source, and that not so 
 much from the earth through its stem as from 
 the sun and air, acquires a bright tint. So do 
 leaves. The physiologist says it is "due to an 
 increased absorption of oxygen." That is the 
 scientific account of the matter, only a reasser- 
 tion of the fact. But I am more interested in 
 the rosy cheek than I am to know what particu 
 lar diet the maiden fed on. The very forest and 
 herbage, the pellicle of the earth, must acquire 
 a bright color, an evidence of its ripeness, as 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 307 
 
 if the globe itself were a fruit on its stem, with 
 ever a cheek toward the sun. 
 
 Flowers are but colored leaves, fruits but ripe 
 ones. The edible part of most fruits is, as the 
 physiologist says, "the parenchyma or fleshy 
 ti-ue of the leaf," of which they are formed. 
 
 Our appetites have commonly confined our 
 views of ripeness and its phenomena, color, 
 mellowness, and perf ectness, to the fruits which 
 we eat, and we are wont to forget that an im 
 mense harvest which we do not eat, hardly use 
 at all, is annually ripened by Nature. At our 
 annual Cattle Shows and Horticultural Exhibi 
 tions, we make, as we think, a great show of 
 fair fruits, destined, however, to a rather igno 
 ble end, fruits not valued for their beauty 
 chiefly. But round about and within our towns 
 there is annually another show of fruits, on an 
 infinitely grander scale, fruits which address our 
 taste for beauty alone. 
 
 October is the month for painted leaves. 
 Their rich glow now flashes round the world. 
 As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a 
 bright tint just before they fall, so the year near 
 its setting. October is its sunset sky; Novem 
 ber the later twilight. 
 
 I formerly thought that it would be worth the 
 while to get a specimen leaf from each chang 
 ing tree, shrub, and herbaceous plant, when it 
 
308 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 had acquired its brightest characteristic color, 
 in its transition from the green to the brown 
 state, outline it, and copy its color exactly, 
 with paint, in a book, which should be enti 
 tled, "October, or Autumnal Tints;" begin 
 ning with the earliest reddening, Woodbine and 
 the lake of radical leaves, and coming down 
 through the Maples, Hickories, and Sumachs, 
 and many beautifully freckled leaves less gen 
 erally known, to the latest Oaks and Aspens. 
 What a memento such a book would be! You 
 would need only to turn over its leaves to take 
 a ramble through the autumn woods whenever 
 you pleased. Or if I could preserve the leaves 
 themselves, unfaded, it would be better still. 
 I have made but little progress toward such a 
 book, but I have endeavored, instead, to describe 
 all these bright tints in the order in which they 
 present themselves. The following are some 
 extracts from my notes. 
 
 THE PURPLE GRASSES. 
 
 By the twentieth of August, everywhere in 
 woods and swamps we are reminded of the fall, 
 both by the richly spotted Sarsaparilla leaves 
 and Brakes, and the withering and blackened 
 Skunk-Cabbage and Hellebore, and, by the 
 riverside, the already blackening Pontederia. 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 309 
 
 Tin* I urpit (Ji />crtinacea)i 
 
 now in the height of its beauty. I remember 
 still when I first noticed this grass particularly. 
 Standing on a hillside near our river, I saw, 
 thirty or forty rods off, a strij)e of purple half 
 a dozen rods long, under the edge of a wood, 
 where the ground sloped toward a meadow. It 
 was as liiji - coloivd ;m>l inten <1 ing, ili..ii--h 
 not quite so bright, as the patches of Rhexia, 
 l-ing a darker purple, like a berry s stain 
 laid on elose and thick. On going to and ex 
 amining it, I found it to be a kind of grass 
 in bloom, hardly a foot high, with but few green 
 blades, and a fine spreading panicle of purple 
 flowers, a shallow, purplish mist trembling 
 around me. Close at hand it appeared but a 
 dull purple, and made little impression on the 
 eye; it was even difficult to detect; and if you 
 plucked a single plant, you were surprised to 
 find how thin it was, and how little color it had. 
 But viewed at a distance in a favorable light, 
 it was of a fine lively purple, flower-like, enrich 
 ing the earth. Such puny causes combine to 
 produce these decided effects. I was the more 
 surprised and charmed hcrau^* L, r ra-s is com 
 monly of a sober and humble color. 
 
 With its beautiful purple blush it reminds 
 me, and supplies the place, of the Rhexia, 
 which is now leaving off, and it is one of the most 
 
310 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 interesting phenomena of August. The finest 
 patches of it grow on waste strips or selvages of 
 land at the base of dry hills, just above the edge 
 of the meadows, where the greedy mower does 
 not deign to swing his scythe ; for this is a thin 
 and }K)or grass, beneath his notice. Or, it may 
 be, because it is so beautiful he does not know 
 that it exists ; for the same eye does not see this 
 and Timothy. He carefully gets the meadow 
 hay and the more nutritious grasses whicli grow 
 next to that, but he leaves this fine purple mist 
 for the walker s harvest, fodder for his fancy 
 stock. Higher up the hill, perchance, grow also 
 Blackberries, John s - Wort, and neglected, 
 withered, and wiry June-Grass. How fortunate 
 that it grows in such places, and not in the 
 midst of the rank grasses which are annually 
 cut! Nature thus keeps use and beauty distinct. 
 I know many such localities, where it does not 
 fail to present itself annually, and paint the 
 earth with its blush. It grows on the gentle 
 slopes, either in a continuous patch or in scat 
 tered and rounded tufts a foot in diameter, and 
 it lasts till it is killed by the first smart frosts. 
 
 In most plants the corolla or calyx is the 
 part which attains the highest color, and is the 
 most attractive ; in many it is the seed-vessel or 
 fruit; in others, as the Red Maple, the leaves; 
 and in others still it is the very culm itself 
 which is the principal flower or blooming part. 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 311 
 
 The last is especially the case with the Poke 
 or Garget (Phytolacca dccandra). Some which 
 stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their 
 purple stems now and early in September. They 
 are as interesting to me as most flowers, and 
 one of the most important fruits of our autumn. 
 Every part is flower (or fruit), such is its super 
 fluity of color, stem, branch, peduncle, pedi 
 cel, petiole, and even the at length yellowish 
 purple-veined leaves. Its cylindrical racemes of 
 lorries of various hues, from green to dark pur 
 ple, six or seven inches long, are gracefully 
 drooping on all sides, offering repasts to the 
 birds; and even the sepals from which the birds 
 have picked the berries are a brilliant lake-red, 
 with crimson flame-like reflections, equal to any 
 thing of the kind, all on fire with ripeness. 
 Hence the lacca^ from /crc, lake. There are at 
 the same time flower-buds, flowers, green berries, 
 dark purple or ripe ones, and these flower-like 
 sepals, all on the same plant. 
 
 We love to see any redness in the vegetation 
 of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. 
 This plant speaks to our blood. It asks a 
 bright sun on it to make it show to best advan 
 tage, and it must be seen at this season of the 
 year. On warm hillsides its stems are rij)e by 
 the twenty-third of August. At that date I 
 walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or 
 
312 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 seven feet high, on the side of one of our cliffs, 
 where they ripen early. Quite to the ground 
 they were a deep, brilliant purple, with a bloom 
 contrasting with the still clear green leaves. It 
 appears a rare triumph of Nature to have pro 
 duced and perfected such a plant, as if this were 
 enough for a summer. What a perfect matu 
 rity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a success 
 ful life concluded by a death not premature, 
 which is an ornament to Nature. What if we 
 were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, 
 glowing in the midst of our decay, like the 
 Poke! I confess that it excites me to behold 
 them. I cut one for a cane, for I would fain 
 handle and lean on it. I love to press the ber 
 ries between my fingers, and see their juice 
 staining my hand. To walk amid these upright, 
 branching casks of purple wine, which retain 
 and diffuse a sunset glow, tasting each one with 
 your eye, instead of counting the pipes on a 
 London dock, what a privilege! For Nature s 
 vintage is not confined to the vine. Our poets 
 have sung of wine, the product of a foreign 
 plant which commonly they never saw, as if our 
 own plants had no juice in them more than the 
 singers. Indeed, this has been called by some 
 the American Grape, and, though a native of 
 America, its juices are used in some foreign 
 countries to improve the color of the wine; so 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 313 
 
 that the poetaster may be celebrating the virtues 
 of the Poke without knowing it. Here are ber 
 ries enough to paint afresh the western sky, and 
 play the bacchanal with, if you will. And what 
 flutes its ensanguined stems would make, to be 
 used in sueh a dance! It is truly a royal plant. 
 I could spend the evening of the year musing 
 amid the Poke - string And pm-ham-i- :unid 
 these groves might arise at hist a new school of 
 philosophy or poetry. It lasts all through Sep 
 tember. 
 
 At the same time with this, or near the end 
 of August, a to me very interesting genus of 
 grasses, Andropogons, or Beard-Grasses, is in 
 its prime: Andropogonfurcatus, Forked Beard- 
 Grass, or call it Purple-Fingered Grass; An- 
 dropogon scoparius. Purple Wood-Grass; and 
 Andropogon (now called Sorghum) nutam, In 
 dian-Grass. The first is a very tall and slen- 
 der-culmed grass, three to seven feet high, with 
 four or five purple finger-like spikes raying up 
 ward from the top. The second is also quite, 
 B!< nder, growing in tufts two feet high by one 
 wide, with culms often somewhat curving, whirh. 
 as the spikes go out of bloom, have a whitish 
 fuzzy look. These two are prevailing grasses at 
 this season on dry and sandy fields and hillsides. 
 The culms of both, not to mention their pivtty 
 flowers, reflect a purple tinge, and help to de- 
 
314 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 clare the ripeness of the year. Perliaps I have 
 the more sympathy with them because they are 
 despised by the farmer, and occupy sterile and 
 neglected soil. They arc high-colored, like ripe 
 grapes, and express a maturity which the spring 
 did not suggest. Only the August sun could 
 have thus burnished these culms and leaves. 
 The farmer has long since done his upland hay 
 ing, and he will not condescend to bring his 
 scythe to where these slender wild grasses have 
 at length flowered thinly ; you often see spaces 
 of bare sand amid them. But I walk encour 
 aged between the tufts of Purple Wood-Grass 
 over the sandy fields, and along the edge of the 
 Shrub- Oaks, glad to recognize these simple con 
 temporaries. With thoughts cutting a broad 
 swathe I "get " them, with horse - raking 
 thoughts I gather them into windrows. The 
 fine-eared poet may hear the whetting of my 
 scythe. These two were almost the first grasses 
 that I learned to distinguish, for I had not 
 known by how many friends I was surrounded; 
 I had seen them simply as grasses standing. The 
 purple of their culms also excites me like that 
 of the Poke- Weed stems. 
 
 Think what refuge there is for one, before 
 August is over, from college commencements 
 and society that isolates ! I can skulk amid the 
 tufts of Purple Wood-Grass on the borders of 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 315 
 
 the "Great Fields." Wherever I walk these 
 afternoons, the Purple - Fingered Grass also 
 stands like a guide - board, and points my 
 thoughts to more poetic paths than they have 
 lately "traveled. 
 
 A man shall ]>erhaps rush hy and trample 
 down plants as high as his head, and cannot be 
 said to know that they exist, though he may 
 have cut many tons of them, littered his staU-s 
 with them, and fed them to his cattle for years. 
 Yet, if he ever favorably attends to them, he 
 may be overcome by their beauty. Each hum 
 blest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there 
 to express some thought or mood of ours ; and 
 yet how long it stands in vain ! I had walked 
 over those Great Fields so many Augusts, and 
 never yet distinctly recognized these purple com 
 panions that 1 had there. I had brushed against 
 tin-in and trodden on them, forsooth; and now, 
 at last, they, as it were, rose up and blessed me. 
 Heauty and true wealth are always thus eh. ;ip 
 and despised. Heaven might be defined as the 
 place which men avoid. Who can doubt that 
 these grasses, which the fanner says are of no 
 account to him, find some roni]>cnsation in your 
 appreciation of them? I may say that I never 
 saw them before; though, when I came to look 
 them face to face, there did come down to me 
 a purple gleam from previous years; and now, 
 
316 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 wherever I go, I see hardly anything else. It is 
 the reign and presidency of the Andropogons. 
 
 Almost the very sands confess the ripening 
 influence of the August sun, and methinks, to 
 gether with the slender grasses waving over 
 them, reflect a purple tinge. The inipurpled 
 sands ! Such is the consequence of all this sun 
 shine absorbed into the pores of plants and of 
 the earth. All sap or blood is now wine-colored. 
 At last we have not only the purple sea, but the 
 purple land. 
 
 The Chestnut Beard-Grass, Indian-Grass, or 
 Wood-Grass, growing here and there in waste 
 places, but more rare than the former (from two 
 to four or five feet high), is still handsomer and 
 of more vivid colors than its congeners, and 
 might well have caught the Indian s eye. It 
 has a long, narrow, one - sided, and slightly 
 nodding panicle of bright purple and yellow 
 flowers, like a banner raised above its reedy 
 leaves. These bright standards are now ad 
 vanced on the distant hillsides, not in large 
 armies, but in scattered troops or single file, 
 like the red men. They stand thus fair and 
 bright, representative of the race which they 
 are named after, but for the most part unob 
 served as they. The expression of this grass 
 haunted me for a week, after I first passed and 
 noticed it, like the glance of an eye. It stands 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 317 
 
 like an Indian chief taking a List look at his 
 favorite hunting-grounds. 
 
 THE RED MAPLE. 
 
 By the twenty-fifth of September, the Red 
 Maples generally are beginning to be ripe. 
 Some large ones have been conspicuously chang 
 ing for a week, and some single trees are now 
 very brilliant. I notice a small one, half a mile 
 off across a meadow, against the green wood- 
 side there, a far brighter red than the blossoms 
 of any tree in summer, and more conspicuous. 
 I have observed this tree for several autumns 
 invariably changing earlier than its fellows, just 
 as one tree ripens its fruit earlier than another. 
 It might serve to mark the season, perhaps. I 
 should be sorry, if it were cut down. I know 
 of two or three such trees in different parts of 
 our town, which might, perhaps, l>e propagated 
 from, as early ripeners or September trees, and 
 their seed be advertised in the market, as well 
 as that of radishes, if we cared as much aU iit 
 them. 
 
 At present these burning bushes stand clii tly 
 along the edge of the meadows, or I distinguish 
 them afar on the hillsides here and there. 
 Sometimes you will s many small ones in a 
 swamp turned quite crimson when all other 
 trees around are still perfectly green, and the 
 
318 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 former appear so much the brighter for it. 
 They take you by surprise, as you are going by 
 on one side, across the fields, thus early in the 
 season, as if it were some gay encampment of 
 the red men, or other foresters, of whose arrival 
 you had not heard. 
 
 Some single trees, wholly bright scarlet, seen 
 against others of their kind still freshly green, 
 or against evergreens, are more memorable than 
 whole groves will be by and by. How beauti 
 ful, when a whole tree is like one great scarlet 
 fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest 
 limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if 
 you look toward the sun! What more remnrk- 
 N. JWfcs^can there be in the landscape? 
 Viable for miles, too fair to be believed. If 
 such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would 
 be handed down by tradition to posterity, and 
 get into the mythology at last. 
 
 The whole tree thus ripening in advance of 
 its fellows attains a singular preeminence, and 
 sometimes maintains it for a week or two. I 
 am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its 
 scarlet standard for the regimenWf green-clad 
 foresters around, and I go half a mile out of my 
 way to examine it. A single tree becomes thus 
 the crowning beauty of some meadowy vafe,,and 
 the expression of the whole surrounding forest 
 is at once more spirited for it. 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 319 
 
 A small Keel Maple has grown, perchance, 
 far away at the head of some retired valley, a 
 mile from any road, unobserved. It has faith 
 fully discharged the duties of a Maple there, all 
 winter and summer, neglected none of its econ 
 omies, but added to its stature in the virtue 
 which belongs to a Maple, by a steady growth 
 fr so many months, m-ver having gom- gadding 
 abroad, and is nearer heaven than it was in the 
 spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap, 
 and afforded a shelter to the wandering bird, 
 has long since ripened its seeds and committed 
 them to the winds, and has the satisfaction of 
 knowing, perhaps, that a thousand little well- 
 Iwhav ed Maples are already settled in life some 
 where. It deserves well of Mapledom. Its 
 leaves have been asking it from time to time, 
 in a whisper, "When shall we redden?" And 
 now, in this month of September, this month 
 of traveling, when men are hastening to the sea 
 side, or the mountains, or the lakes, this modest 
 Maple, still without budging an inch, travels in 
 its reputation, runs up its scarlet flagon that 
 hillside, wjiiMi shows that it has finished its 
 summer s work before all other trees, and with 
 draws from the contest. At the eleventh hour 
 of trf year, the tree which no scrutiny coidd 
 have Detected here when it was most industrious 
 is thus, by the tint of its maturity, by its very 
 
320 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 blushes, revealed at last to the careless and dis 
 tant traveler, and leads his thoughts away from 
 the dusty road into those brave solitudes which 
 it inhabits. It flashes out conspicuous with all 
 the virtue and beauty of a Maple, Acer ru- 
 brum. We may now read its title, or rubric, 
 clear. Its virtues, not its sins, are as scarlet. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Red Maple is the most 
 intense scarlet of any of our trees, the Sugar- 
 Maple has been the most celebrated, and Mi- 
 chaux in his "Sylva" does not speak of the au 
 tumnal color of the former. About the second 
 of October, these trees, both large and small, 
 are most brilliant, though many are still green. 
 In "sprout-lands" they seem to vie with one 
 another, and ever some particular one in the 
 midst of the crowd will be of a peculiarly pure 
 scarlet, and by its more intense color attract 
 our eye even at a distance, and carry off the 
 palm. A large Red-Maple swamp, when at the 
 height of its change, is the most obviously bril 
 liant of all tangible things, where I dwell, so 
 abundant is this tree with us. It varies much 
 both in form and color. A great many are 
 merely yellow; more, scarlet; others, scarlet 
 deepening into crimson, more red than common. 
 Look at yonder swamp of Maples mixecLwith 
 Pines, at the base of a Pine-clad hill, a quarter 
 of a mile off, so that you get the full effect of 
 
\rrr\r\AL TIXTS 
 
 the bright colors, without detecting the imper 
 fections of the leaves, and see their yellow, scar 
 let, and crimson fires, of all tints, mingled and 
 contrasted with the green. Some Maples are 
 yet green, only yellow or crimson-tipped on the 
 edges of their flakes, like the edges of a Ha- 
 zel-Nut bur ; some are wholly brilliant scarlet, 
 raying out regularly and finely every way, 
 bilaterally, like the veins of a leaf; others, of 
 more irregidar form, when I turn my head 
 slightly, emptying out some of its earthiness 
 and concealing the trunk of the tree, seem to 
 rest heavily flake on flake, like yellow and scar 
 let clouds, wreath upon wreath, or like snow 
 drifts driving through the air, stratified by the 
 wind. It adds greatly to the beauty of such a 
 swamp at this season, that, even though there 
 may be no other trees interspersed, it is not seen 
 as a simple mass of color, but, different trees 
 In-ill^ of different colors and hues, the outline 
 of each crescent tree-top is distinct, and when; 
 one laps on to another. Yet a painter would 
 hardly venture to make them thus distinct a 
 quarter of a mile off. 
 
 As I go across a meadow directly toward a 
 low rising ground this bright afternoon, I see, 
 some, fifty rods off toward the sun, the top of a 
 Maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny 
 russet cnlge of the hill, a stripe apparently 
 
322 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 twenty rods long by ten feet deep, of the most 
 intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, 
 equal to any flowers or fruits, or any tints ever 
 painted. As I advance, lowering the edge of 
 the hill which makes the firm foreground or 
 lower frame of the picture, the depth of the 
 brilliant grove revealed steadily increases, sug 
 gesting that the whole of the inclosed valley i.s 
 filled with such color. One wonders that the 
 tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out 
 to see what the trees mean by their high colors 
 and exuberance of spirits, fearing that some 
 mischief is brewing. I do not see what the 
 Puritans did at this season, when the Maples 
 blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not 
 have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that 
 is what they built meeting-houses and fenced 
 them round with horse-sheds for. 
 
 THE ELM. 
 
 Now too, the first of October, or later, 
 the Elms are at the height of their autumnal 
 beauty, great brownish yellow masses, warm 
 from their September oven, hanging over the 
 highway. Their leaves are perfectly ripe. I 
 wonder if there is any answering ripeness in the 
 lives of the men who live beneath them. As I 
 look down our street, which is lined with them, 
 they remind me both by their form and color of 
 
AUTUMNAL TIXTS 323 
 
 
 
 yellowing sheaves of grain, as if the harvest ha<l 
 in 1 .-.1 come to the village itself, and we might 
 expect to find some maturity and jflnvor in the 
 thoughts of the villagers at last. Under those 
 bright rustling yellow piles just ready to fall on 
 the heads of the walkers, how can any crudity 
 or greenness of thought or act prevail? When 
 I stand where half a dozen large Elms droop 
 over a house, it is as if I stood within a ripe 
 pumpkin-rind, and I feel as mellow as if I were 
 the pulp, though I may be somewhat stringy 
 and seedy withal. What is the late greenness 
 of the English Elm, like a cucumber out of sea 
 son, which does not know when to have done, 
 compared with the early and golden maturity of 
 the American tree ? The street is the scene of a 
 great harvest-home. It would be worth the 
 while to set out these trees, if only for their au 
 tumnal value. Think of these great yellow 
 canopies or parasols held over our heads and 
 houses by the mile together, making the village 
 all one and compact, an ulmarium, which is 
 at the same time a nursery of men ! And then 
 how gently and unobserved they drop their bur 
 den and let in the sun when it is wanted, tip ir 
 leaves not heard when they fall on our roofs 
 and in our streets; and thus the village parasol 
 is shut up and put away! I see the market- 
 man driving into the village, and disappear- 
 
324 AUTUMNAL TL\TS 
 
 ing under its canopy of Elm-tops, with his crop, 
 as into a great granary or barn-yard. I am 
 tempted to go thither as to a husking of 
 thoughts, now dry and ripe, and ready to be 
 separated from their integuments ; but, alas ! I 
 foresee that it will be chiefly husks and little 
 thought, blasted pig-corn, fit only for cob-meal, 
 for, as you sow, so shall you reap. 
 
 FALLEN LEAVES. 
 
 By the sixth of October the leaves generally 
 begin to fall, in successive showers, after frost 
 or rain ; but the principal leaf-harvest, the acme 
 of the Fall, is commonly about the sixteenth. 
 Some morning at that date there is perhaps a 
 harder frost than we have seen, and ice formed 
 under the pump, and now, when the morning 
 wind rises, the leaves come down in denser 
 showers than ever. They suddenly form thick 
 beds or carpets on the ground, in this gentle air, 
 or even without wind, just the size and form of 
 the tree above. Some trees, as small Hickories, 
 appear to have dropped their leaves instanta 
 neously, as a soldier grounds arms at a signal ; 
 and those of the Hickory, being bright yellow 
 still, though withered, reflect a blaze of light 
 from the ground where they lie. Down they 
 have come on all sides, at the first earnest touch 
 of autumn s wand, making a sound like rain. 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 826 
 
 ( >i- el - it is after IM-MM and rainy weather 
 that w i imtiiv how great a fall of leaves tin n- 
 has been in the night, though it may not yet 
 be the touch that loosens the Rock-Maple leaf. 
 The streets are thickly strewn with the trophi -s 
 and fallen Elm-leaves make a dark brown pave 
 ment under our feet. After some remarkably 
 warm Indian-summer day or days, I perceive 
 that it is the unusual heat which, more than 
 anything, causes the leaves to fall, there having 
 been, perhaps, no frost nor rain for some time. 
 The intense heat suddenly ripens and wilts 
 them, just as it softens and ripens peaches and 
 othT fruits, and causes them to drop. 
 
 The leaves of late Red Maples, still bright, 
 strew the earth, often crimson -spotted on a yel 
 low ground, like some wild apples, though 
 they preserve these bright colors on the ground 
 but a day or two, especially if it rains. On 
 causeways I go by trees here and there all bare 
 and smoke-like, having lost their brilliant cloth 
 ing; but there it lies, nearly as bright as ever 
 on the ground on one side, and making m-arly 
 a- ; irular a ti^im- a> lately on the tree. I 
 wniild nither say that I first observe the trees 
 thus flat on the ground like a permanent mlnn-d 
 shadow, and they suggest to look for the boaji- 
 that l>ore them. A queen might be proud to 
 walk where these gallant trees have spread tln-ir 
 
826 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 bright cloaks in the imul. I see wagons roll 
 over them as a shadow or a reflection, and the 
 drivers heed them just as little as they did their 
 shadows before. 
 
 Birds -nests, in the Huckleberry and other 
 shrubs, and in trees, are already being filled 
 with the withered leaves. So many have fallen 
 in the woods that a squirrel cannot run after a 
 falling nut without being heard. Boys are rak 
 ing them in the streets, if only for the pleasure 
 of dealing with such clean crisp substances. 
 Some sweep the paths scrupulously neat, and 
 then stand to see the next breath strew them 
 with new trophies. The swamp-floor is thickly 
 covered, and the Lycopodium hicidulum looks 
 suddenly greener amid them. In dense woods 
 they half cover pools that are three or four rods 
 long. The other day I could hardly find a well- 
 known spring, and even suspected that it had 
 dried up, for it was completely concealed by 
 freshly fallen leaves; and when I swept them 
 aside and revealed it, it was like striking the 
 earth, with Aaron s rod, for a new spring. 
 Wet grounds about the edges of swamps look 
 dry with them. At one swamp, where I was 
 surveying, thinking to step on a leafy shore 
 from a rail, I got into the water more than a 
 foot deep. 
 
 When I go to the river the day after the 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 principal f:dl of l-a\. ^, the sixteenth, I find my 
 lx>at all covered, bottom and seats, with the 
 - of |H> ( i. M.-u \\ ill..\\ under ^ lii-li it U 
 moored, and I set sail with a cargo of them 
 rustling under my feet. If I empty it, it will 
 be full again to-morrow. I do not regard them 
 as litter, to be swept out, but accept them as 
 suitable straw or matting for the bottom of my 
 carriage. When I turn up into the mouth of 
 the Assabet, which is wooded, large fleets of 
 leaves are floating on its surface, as it were get 
 ting out to sea, with room to tack ; but next the 
 shore, a little farther up, they are thicker than 
 foam, quite concealing the water for a rod in 
 width, under and amid the Alders, Button- 
 Hushes, and Maples, still perfectly light and 
 dry, with fibre unrelaxed ; and at a rocky bend 
 where they are met and stopped by the morning 
 wind, they sometimes form a broad and <l< -n^.- 
 crescent quite across the river. When I turn 
 my prow that way, and the wave which it makes 
 strikes them, list what a pleasant rustling from 
 these dry substances getting on one anoth.r! 
 Often it is their undulation only which reveals 
 the water beneath them. Also every motion of 
 the wood-turtle on the shore is betrayed by tln-ir 
 rustling there. Or even in mid-channel, when 
 the wind rises, I hear them blown with a rus 
 tling sound. Higher up thty are slowly nm\ in^ 
 
328 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 round and round in some great eddy which the 
 river makes, as that at the "Leaning Hemlocks," 
 where the water is deep, and the current is 
 wearing into the bank. 
 
 Perchance, in the afternoon of such a day, 
 when the water is perfectly calm and full of re 
 flections, I paddle gently down the main stream, 
 and, turning up the Assabet, reach a quiet 
 cove, where I unexpectedly find myself sur 
 rounded by myriads of leaves, like fellow-voy 
 agers, which seem to have the same purpose, or 
 want of purpose, with myself. See this great 
 fleet of scattered leaf -boats which we paddle 
 amid, in this smooth river-bay, each one curled 
 up on every side by the sun s skill, each nerve 
 a stiff spruce-knee, like boats of hide, and of 
 all patterns, Charon s boat probably among the 
 rest, and some witli lofty prows and poops, like 
 the stately vessels of the ancients, scarcely mov 
 ing in the sluggish current, like the great 
 fleets, the dense Chinese cities of boats, with 
 which you mingle on entering some great mart, 
 some New York or Canton, which we are all 
 steadily approaching together. How gently 
 each has been deposited on the water ! No vio 
 lence has been used towards them yet, though, 
 perchance, palpitating hearts were present at 
 the launching. And painted ducks, too, the 
 splendid wood-duck among the rest, often come 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 829 
 
 to sail and float amid the painted leaves, - 
 barks of a nobler model still! 
 
 What wholesome herb-drinks are to be had 
 iD the swamps now! What strong medicinal, 
 but rich scents from the decaying leaves! The 
 rain falling on the freshly dried herbs and 
 leaves, and filling the pools and ditches into 
 which they have dropped thus clean and rigid, 
 will soon convert them into tea, green, black, 
 brown, and yellow teas, of all degrees of 
 strength, enough to set all Nature a -gossiping. 
 Whether we drink them or not, as yet, before 
 their strength is drawn, these leaves, dried on 
 great Nature s coppers, are of such various pure 
 and delicate tints as might make the fame of 
 Oriental teas. 
 
 How they are mixed up, of all species, Oak 
 and Maple and Chestnut and Birch! But Na 
 ture is not cluttered with them ; she is a perfect 
 husbandman; she stores them all. Consider 
 what a vast crop is thus annually shed on the 
 earth ! This, more than any mere grain or seed, 
 is the great harvest of the year. The trees are 
 now repaying the earth with interest what they 
 have taken from it. They are discounting. 
 They are alwut to add a leaf s thickness to the 
 depth of the soil. This is the beautiful way in 
 which Nature gets her muck, while I chaffer 
 with this man and that, who talks to me about 
 
330 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 sulphur and the cost of carting. We are all 
 the richer for their decay. I am more inter 
 ested in this crop than in the English grass 
 alone or in the corn. It prepares the virgin 
 mould for future cornfields and forests, on which 
 the earth fattens. It keeps our homestead in 
 good heart. 
 
 For beautiful variety no crop can be com 
 pared with this. Here is not merely the plain 
 yellow of the grains, but nearly all the colors 
 that we know, the brightest blue not excepted : 
 the early blushing Maple, the Poison-Sumach 
 blazing its sins as scarlet, the mulberry Ash, 
 the rich chrome yellow of the Poplars, the bril 
 liant red Huckleberry, with which the hills 
 backs are painted, like those of sheep. The 
 frost touches them, and, with the slightest 
 breath of returning day or jarring of earth s 
 axle, see in what showers they come floating 
 down ! The ground is all party-colored with 
 them. But they still live in the soil, whose 
 fertility and bulk they increase, and in the 
 forests that spring from it. They stoop to rise, 
 to mount higher in coining years, by subtle 
 chemistry, climbing by the sap in the trees, and 
 the sapling s first fruits thus shed, transmuted 
 at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after- 
 years, it has become the monarch of the forest. 
 
 It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 331 
 
 fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves. How l>eauti- 
 ftilly they go to their graves! how gently lay 
 themselves down and turn to mould! -- painted 
 of a thousand hues, and fit to make the beds of 
 us living. So they troop to their List resting- 
 place, light and frisky. They put on no weeds, 
 but merrily they go scami>ering over the earth, 
 selecting the spot, choosing a lot, ordering no 
 iron fence, whispering all through the woods 
 about it, some choosing the spot where the 
 bodies of men are mouldering beneath, and 
 meeting them half-way. How many flutterings 
 lx?fore they rest quietly in their graves! They 
 that soared so loftily, how contentedly they re 
 turn to dust again, and are laid low, resigned 
 to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and 
 afford nourishment to new generations of their 
 kind, as well as to flutter on high ! They teach 
 us how to die. One wonders if the time will 
 ever come when men, with their boasted faith 
 in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and 
 jig rjp^ w ith such an Indian-summer serenity 
 will shed their bodies, as they do their hair and 
 nails. 
 
 When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a 
 cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander 
 and muse over them in their graves. Here are 
 no lying nor vain epitaphs. What though you 
 own no lot at Mount Auburn? Your lot is 
 
332 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 surely cast somewhere in this vast cemetery, 
 which has been consecrated from of old. You 
 need attend no auction to secure a place. There 
 is room enough here. The Loose-strife shall 
 bloom and the Huckleberry-bird sing over your 
 bones. The woodman and hunter shall be your 
 sextons, and tin- children shall 1 n-;id upon tin- 
 borders as much as they will. Let us walk in 
 the cemetery of the leaves, this is your true 
 Greenwood Cemetery. 
 
 THE SUGAR-MAPLE. 
 
 But think not that the splendor of the year 
 is over ; for as one leaf does not make a sum 
 mer, neither does one falling leaf make an 
 autumn. The smallest Sugar-Maples in our 
 streets make a great show as early as the fifth 
 of October, more than any other trees there. 
 As 1 look up the Main Street, they appear like 
 painted screens standing before the houses; yet 
 many are green. But now, or generally by the 
 seventeenth of October, when almost all Red 
 Maples, and some White Maples, are bare, the 
 large Sugar-Maples also are in their glory, 
 glowing with yellow and red, and show unex 
 pectedly bright and delicate tints. They are 
 remarkable for the contrast they often afford of 
 deep blushing red on one half and green on the 
 other. They become at length dense masses of 
 
.\rrr\iXAL TINTS 333 
 
 rich yellow with a deep scarlet blush, or more 
 than blush, on the exposed surfaces. They are 
 the brightest trees now in the street. 
 
 The large ones on our Common are particu 
 larly beautiful. A delicate, but warmer than 
 golden yellow is now the prevailing color, with 
 scarlet cheeks. Yet, standing on the east side 
 of the Common just before sundown, when the 
 western light is transmitted through them, I see 
 that their yellow even, compared with the pale 
 lemon yellow of an Elm close by, amounts to a 
 scarlet, without noticing the bright scarlet por 
 tions. Generally, they are great regular oval 
 masses of yellow and scarlet. All the sunny 
 warmth of the season, the Indian-summer, seems 
 to be absorbed in their leaves. The lowest and 
 inmost leaves next the bole are, as usual, of the 
 most delicate yellow and green, like the com- 
 }>l. \ion of young men brought up in the house. 
 There is an auction on the Common to-day, but 
 its red flag is hard to be discerned amid this 
 blaze of color. 
 
 Little did the fathers of the town anticipate 
 this brilliant success, when they caused to be 
 ini]K>rted from farther in the country some 
 straight poles with their tops cut off, which they 
 called Sugar-Maples; and, as I remember, after 
 they were set out, a neighboring merchant s 
 cleik, by way of jest, planted beans about th- -in. 
 
334 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 Those which were then jestingly called bean 
 poles are to-day far the most beautiful objects 
 noticeable in our streets. They are worth all 
 and more than they have cost, though one of 
 the selectmen, while setting them out, took the 
 cold which occasioned his death, if only be 
 cause they have filled the open eyes of children 
 with their rich color unstintedly so many Octo- 
 l>ers. We will not ask them to yield us sugar 
 in the spring, while they afford us so fair a 
 prospect in the autumn. Wealth indoors may 
 be the inheritance of few, but it is equally dis 
 tributed on the Common. All children alike 
 can revel in this golden harvest. 
 
 Surely trees should be set in our streets with 
 a view to their October splendor; though I 
 doubt whether this is ever considered by the 
 "Tree Society." Do you not think it will make 
 some odds to these children that they were 
 brought up under the Maples? Hundreds of 
 eyes are steadily drinking in this color, and by 
 these teachers even the truants are caught and 
 educated the moment they step abroad. Indeed 
 neither the truant nor the studious is at present 
 taught color in the schools. These are instead 
 of the bright colors in apothecaries shops and 
 city windows. It is a pity that we have no 
 more lied Maples, and some Hickories, in our 
 streets as well. Our paiiit-box is very imper- 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 335 
 
 fectly filled. Instead of, or beside, supplying 
 such paint -1)0X68 as we do, we might supply 
 these natural colors to the young. Where else 
 will they study color under greater advantages? 
 What School of Design can vie with tin- 
 Think how much the eyes of painters of all 
 kinds, and of manufacturers of cloth and paper, 
 and paper-stainers, and countless others, are to 
 be educated by these autumnal colors. The 
 stationer s envelopes may be of very various 
 tints, yet not so various as those of the leaves 
 of a single tree. If you want a different shade 
 or tint of a particular color, you have only to 
 look farther within or without the tree or the 
 wood. These leaves are not many dipped in 
 one dye, as at the dye-house, but they are dyed 
 in light of infinitely various degrees of strength, 
 and left to set and dry there. 
 
 Shall the names of so many of our colors con 
 tinue to IM? derived from those of obscure for- 
 ri ^n 1-M-alitirs. as Naples yellow, Prussian l>lur, 
 raw Sienna, burnt Umber, Gamljoge? (surely 
 the Tyrian purple must have faded by this 
 time), or from comparatively trivial articles 
 of commerce, chocolate, lemon, coffee, cinna 
 mon, claret? (shall we compare our Hickory 
 to a lemon, or a lemon to a Hickory?) or 
 from ores and oxides which few ever see? 
 Shall we so often, when describing to our nrigh- 
 
33G AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 bore the color of something we have seen, refer 
 them, not to some natural object in our neigh 
 borhood, but perchance to a bit of earth fetched 
 from the other side of the planet, which possi 
 bly they may find at the apothecary s, but which 
 probably neither they nor we ever saw? Have 
 we not an earth under our feet, aye, and a sky 
 over our heads? Or is the last all ultramarine? 
 AVhat do we know of sapphire, amethyst, emer 
 ald, ruby, amber, and the like, most of us 
 who take these names in vain? Leave these 
 precious words to cabinet keepers, virtuosos, 
 and maids-of-honor, to the Nabobs, Begums, 
 and Chobdars of Hindostan, or wherever else. 
 I do not see why, since America and her autumn 
 woods have been discovered, our leaves should 
 not compete with the precious stones in giving 
 names to colors ; and, indeed, I believe that in 
 course of time the names of some of our trees 
 and shrubs, as well as flowers, will get into our 
 popular chromatic nomenclature. 
 
 Hut of much more importance than a know 
 ledge of the names and distinctions of color is 
 the joy and exhilaration which these colored 
 leaves excite. Already these brilliant trees 
 throughout the street, without any more variety, 
 are at least equal to an annual festival and holi 
 day, or a week of such. These are cheap and 
 innocent gala-days, celebrated by one and all 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS : .: . 7 
 
 without the aid of committees or marshals, such 
 a show as may safely be licensed, not attracting 
 gamblers or rum - sellers, not requiring any 
 special police to keep the peace. And poor 
 indeed must be that New - England village s 
 October which has not the Maple in its streets. 
 This Octol>er festival costs no powder, nor ring 
 ing of bells, but every tree is a living liberty- 
 pole on which a thousand bright flags are wav 
 ing. 
 
 No wonder that we must have our annual 
 Cattle-Show, and Fall Training, and perhaps 
 Cornwallis, our September Courts, and the 
 like. Nature herself holds her annual fair in 
 October, not only in the streets, but in every 
 hollow and on every hillside. When lately we 
 looked into" that Red- Maple swamp all ablaze, 
 where the trees were clothed in their vestures of 
 most dazzling tints, did it not suggest a thou 
 sand gypsies beneath, a race capable of wild 
 1 Ti.rht, or even the fabled fauns, satyrs, and 
 wood-nymphs come back to earth? Or was it 
 only :i congregation of wearied wood -choppers, 
 or of proprietors come to inspect their lots, that 
 we thought of? Or, earlier still, when we pad 
 dled on the river through that fine-grained Sep- 
 teinlwr air, did there not appear to be some 
 thing new going on under the sparkling surface 
 of the stream, a shaking of props, at leaftt, so 
 
883 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 that we made haste in order to be up in time ? 
 Did not the rows of yellowing Willows and 
 Button -Bushes on eaeh side seem like rows of 
 booths, under which, perhaps, some fluviatile 
 egg-pop equally yellow was effervescing? Did 
 not all these suggest that man s spirits should 
 rise as high as Nature s, should hang out 
 their flag, and the routine of his life be inter 
 rupted by an analogous expression of joy and 
 hilarity? 
 
 No annual training or muster of soldiery, no 
 celebration with its scarfs and banners, could 
 import into the town a hundredth part of the 
 annual splendor of our October. We have 
 only to set the trees, or let them stand, and 
 Nature will find the colored drapery, flags of 
 all her nations, some of whose private signals 
 hardly the botanist can read, while we walk 
 under the triumphal arches of the Elms. Leave 
 it to Nature to appoint the days, whether the 
 same as in neighboring States or not, and let 
 the clergy read her proclamations, if they can 
 understand them. Behold what a brilliant 
 drapery is her Woodbine flag! What puMi-- 
 spirited merchant, think you, has contributed 
 this part of the show? There is no handsomer 
 shingling and paint than this vine, at present 
 covering a whole side of some houses. I do 
 not believe that the Ivy never nere is comparable 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 339 
 
 to it. No wonder it has been extensively intro 
 duced into London. Let us have a good many 
 M:q.l.-- and H i.-Unri,-- and Scarlet Oaks* than, 
 I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of 
 1 muting in the gun-house be all the colors a vil- 
 lau-- .-tii di-j l:iy . A \ill;iu lfl QO1 OOmplet*, 
 unless it have these trees to mark the season in 
 it. They are important, like the town-dock* 
 A village that lias them not will not Ix? found 
 to work well. It has a screw loose, an essen 
 tial part is wanting. Let us have Willows for 
 spring, Elms for summer, Maples and Wal 
 nuts and Tupeloes for autumn, Evergreens for 
 winter, and Oaks for all seasons. What is a 
 gallery in a house to a gallery in the streets, 
 \\hirh every market-man rides through, whether 
 he will or not? Of course, there is not a pic 
 ture-gallery in the country which would be 
 worth so much to us as is the western view 
 at sunset under the Elms of our main street. 
 They are the frame to a picture which is daily 
 painted behind them. An avenue of Elms as 
 large as our largest and three miles long would 
 seem to lead to some admirable place, th"iiji 
 
 only C were at the end of it. 
 
 A village needs these innocent stimulants of 
 bright and cheering prospects to keep off melan 
 choly and superstition. Show me two villages, 
 one emlM)wered in trees and blazing with all the 
 
340 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 glories of October, the other a merely trivial 
 and treeless waste, or with only a single tree or 
 two for suicides, and I shall l>e sure that in the 
 latter will be found the most starved and bigoted 
 religionists and the most desperate drinkers. 
 Every wash-tub and milk-can and gravestone 
 will be exposed. The inhabitants will disappear 
 abruptly behind their barns and houses, like 
 desert Arabs amid their rocks, and I shall look 
 to see spears in their hands. They will be 
 ready to accept the most barren and forlorn 
 doctrine, as that the world is speedily coming 
 to an end, or has already got to it, or that they 
 themselves are turned wrong side outward. 
 They will perchance crack their dry joints at 
 one another and call it a spiritual communica 
 tion. 
 
 But to confine ourselves to the Maples. 
 What if we were to take half as much pains in 
 protecting them as we do in setting them out, 
 not stupidly tie our horses to our dahlia- 
 stems? 
 
 What meant the fathers by establishing this 
 
 perfectly living institution before the church, 
 
 this institution which needs no repairing nor 
 
 repainting, which is continually enlarged and 
 
 repaired by its growth? Surely they 
 
 " Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 Themselves from God they could not free ; 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 341 
 
 Th*j planted better than they knew ; 
 The conaciouB trt to beauty jrrew." 
 
 Verily these Maples are cheap preachers, 
 permanently settled, which preach their half- 
 century, and century, aye, and century-aud-a- 
 half sermons, with constantly increasing unction 
 and influence, ministering to many generations 
 of men ; and the least we can do is to supply 
 them with suitable colleagues as they grow in 
 firm. 
 
 THE SCARLET OAK. 
 
 Belonging to a genus which is remarkable 
 for the beautiful form of its leaves, I suspect 
 that some Scarlet-Oak leaves surpass those of 
 all other Oaks in the rich and wild beauty of 
 their outlines. I judge from an acquaintance 
 with twelve species, and from drawings which I 
 have - ii "t" maiiv >i hers. 
 
 Stand under this tree and see how finely its 
 l.-avrs are cut gainst the sky, as it were, 
 only a few sharp points extending from a mid 
 rib. They look like double, treble, or quadru 
 ple crosses. Tliey |M far more eih.-r.-al than 
 
 the less deeply scalloped Oak-leaves. They 
 bave so little leaf} / mi firma that they appear 
 in- It ing away in the light, and scarcely obstruct 
 our view. The leaves of very young plants are, 
 like those of full-grown Oaks of other sjHicies, 
 more entire, simple, and lumpish in their out- 
 
342 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 lines, but these, raised high on old trees, have 
 solved the leafy problem. Lifted higher and 
 higher, and sublimated more and more, putting 
 off some earthiness and cultivating more inti 
 macy with the light each year, they have at 
 length the least possible amount of earthy mat 
 ter, and the greatest spread and grasp of skyey 
 influences. There they dance, arm in arm with 
 the light, tripping it on fantastic points, fit 
 partners in those aerial halls. So intimately 
 mingled are they with it, that, what with their 
 slenderness and their glossy surfaces, you can 
 hardly tell at last what in the dance is leaf and 
 what is light. And when no zephyr stirs, they 
 are at most but a rich tracery to the forest-win 
 dows. 
 
 I am again struck with their beauty, when, a 
 month later, they thickly strew the ground in 
 the woods, piled one upon another under my 
 feet. They are then brown above, but purple 
 beneath. With their narrow lobes and their 
 bold deep scallops reaching almost to the mid 
 dle, they suggest that the material must be 
 cheap, or else there has been a lavish expense 
 in their creation, as if so much had been cut 
 out. Or else they seem to us the remnants of 
 the stuff out of which leaves have been cut with 
 a die. Indeed, when they lie thus one upon 
 another, they remind me of a pile of scrap-tin. 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 343 
 
 Or bring one home, and study it closely at 
 your leisure, by the fireside. It is a type, not 
 from any Oxford font, not in the Basque nor 
 the arrow-headed character, not found on the 
 Kosetta Stone, but destined to be copied in 
 sculpture one day, if they ever get to whittling 
 stone here. What a wild and pleasing outline, 
 a combination of graceful curves and angles! 
 The eye rests with equal delight on what is not 
 leaf and on what is leaf, on the broad, free, 
 open sinuses, and on the long, sharp, bristle- 
 ]M)inted lobes. A simple oval outline would in 
 clude it all, if you connected the points of the 
 leaf; but how much richer is it than that, with 
 its half dozen deep scallops, in which the eye 
 and thought of the beholder are embayed ! If 
 I were a drawing-master, I would set my pupils 
 to copying these leaves, that they might learn 
 to draw firmly and gracefully. 
 
 Regarded as water, it is like a pond with half 
 a dozen broad rounded promontories extending 
 nearly to its middle, half from each side, while 
 its watery bays extend far inland, like sharp 
 friths, at each of whose heads several fine 
 streams empty in, almost a leafy archipelago. 
 
 Hut it oftcner suggests land, and, as Diony- 
 sius and Pliny compared the form of the Morea 
 to that of the leaf of the Oriental Plane-tree, 
 so this leaf remind^ me of some fair wild i-lund 
 
344 AUTUMXAL TINTS 
 
 in the ocean, whose extensive coast, alternate 
 rounded bays with smooth strands, and sharp- 
 pointed rocky capes, mark it as fitted for the 
 habitation of man, and destined to become a 
 centre of civilization at last. To the sailor s 
 eye, it is a much-indented shore. Is it not, in 
 fact, a shore to the aerial ocean, on which the 
 windy surf beats? At sight of this leaf we are 
 all mariners, if not vikings, buccaneers, and 
 filibusters. Both our love of repose and our 
 spirit of adventure are addressed. In our most 
 casual glance, perchance, we think that if we 
 succeed in doubling those sharp capes we shall 
 find deep, smooth, and secure havens in the 
 ample bays. How different from the White- 
 Oak leaf, with its rounded headlands, on which 
 no lighthouse need be placed ! That is an Eng 
 land, with its long civil history, that may be 
 read. This is some still unsettled New-found 
 Island or Celebes. Shall we go and be rajahs 
 there? 
 
 By the twenty-sixth of October the large 
 Scarlet Oaks are in their prime, when other 
 Oaks are usually withered. They have been 
 kindling their fires for a week past, and now 
 generally burst into a blaze. This alone of onr 
 indigenous 1 deciduous trees (excepting the Dog 
 wood, of which I do not know half a dozen, and 
 they are but large bushes) is now in its glory. 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 345 
 
 Tlu? two Aspens and the Sugar-Maple come 
 nearest to it in date, but they have lost the 
 greater part of their leaves. Of evergreens, 
 only the Pitch-Pine is still commonly bright. 
 
 Hut it requires a particular alertness, if not 
 devotion to these phenomena, to appreciate the 
 wide-spread, but late and unexpected glory of 
 the Scarlet Oaks. I do not speak here of the 
 small trees and shrubs, which are commonly 
 observed, and which are now withered, but of 
 the large trees. Most go in and shut their 
 doors, thinking that bleak and colorless Novem 
 ber has already come, when some of the most 
 brilliant and memorable colors are not yet lit. 
 
 This very perfect and vigorous one, about 
 forty feet high, standing in an open pasture, 
 which was quite glossy green on the twelfth, is 
 now, the twenty-sixth, completely changed to 
 bright dark scarlet, every leaf, between you 
 and the sun, as if it had been dipped into a 
 scarlet dye. The whole tree is much like a 
 heart in form, as well as color. Was not this 
 worth waiting for? Little did you think, ten 
 days ago, that that cold green tree would as 
 sume such color a^ tin-;. Its leaves arc still 
 lirmly attached, while those of other trees are 
 falling around it. It seems to say, "I am 
 the last to blush, but I blush deeper than any 
 of ye. I bring up the rear in iny red coat. 
 
346 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 We Scarlet ones, alone of Oaks, have not given 
 up the fight." 
 
 The sap is now, and even far into November, 
 frequently flowing fast in these trees, as in 
 Maples in the spring ; and apparently their 
 bright tints, now that most other Oaks an* 
 withered, are connected with this phenomenon. 
 They are full of life. It has a pleasantly astrin 
 gent, acorn-like taste, this strong Oak-wine, as 
 I find on tapping them with my knife. 
 
 Looking across this woodland valley, a quar 
 ter of a mile wide, how rich those Scarlet Oaks 
 embosomed in Pines, their bright red branches 
 intimately intermingled with them! They have 
 their full effect there. The Pine-boughs are 
 the green calyx to their red petals. Or, as we 
 go along a road in the woods, the sun striking 
 endwise through it, and lighting up the red 
 tents of the Oaks, which on each side are min 
 gled with the liquid green of the Pines, makes 
 a very gorgeous scene. Indeed, without the 
 evergreens for contrast, the autumnal tints 
 would lose much of their effect. 
 
 The Scarlet Oak asks a clear sky and the 
 brightness of late October days. These bring 
 out its colors. If the sun goes into a cloud they 
 become comparatively indistinct. As I sit on 
 a cliff in the southwest part of our town, the 
 sun is now getting low, and the woods in Liu- 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 347 
 
 coin, south and east of me, are lit up by its 
 more level rays ; and in the Scarlet Oaks, scat 
 tered so equally over the forest, there is brought 
 out a more brilliant redness than 1 had believed 
 was in them. Every tree of this species which 
 is visible in those directions, even to the hori 
 zon, now stands out distinctly red. Some great 
 ones lift their red backs high above the woods, 
 in the next town, like huge roses with a myriad 
 of tine petals; and some more slender ones, in a 
 small grove of White Pines on Pine Hill in the 
 east, on the very verge of the horizon, alter 
 nating with the Pines on the edge of the grove, 
 and shouldering them with their red coats, look 
 like soldiers in red amid hunters in green. 
 This time it is Lincoln green, too. Till the 
 sun got low, I did not believe that there were 
 so many red coats in the forest army. Theirs 
 is an intense burning red, which would lose 
 x nif of its strength, mcthinks, with every step 
 you might take toward them; for the shade tliat 
 lurks amid their foliage does not report itself at 
 this distance, and they are unanimously red. 
 The focus of their reflected color is in the atmo 
 sphere far on this side. Every such tree be- 
 in"* a nucleus of red, as it were, where, with 
 the declining sun, that color grows and glows. 
 It is partly borrowed fire, gathering stnu-tli 
 from the sun on its way to your eye. It has 
 
348 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 only some comparatively dull red leaves for a 
 rallying-poirili or kindling-stuff, to start it, and 
 it becomes an intense scarlet or red mist, or 
 fire, which finds fuel for itself in the very atmo 
 sphere. So vivacious is redness. The very 
 rails reflect a rosy light at this hour and season. 
 You see a redder tree than exists. 
 
 If you wish to count the Scarlet Oaks, do it 
 now. In a clear day stand thus on a hill-top 
 in the woods, when the sun is an hour high, 
 and every one within range of your vision, ex 
 cepting in the west, will be revealed. You 
 might live to the age of Methuselah and never 
 find a tithe of them, otherwise. Yet sometimes 
 even in a dark day I have thought them as 
 bright as I ever saw them. Looking westward, 
 their colors are lost in a blaze of light; but in 
 other directions the whole forest is a flower-gar 
 den, in which these Lite roses burn, alternating 
 with green, while the so-called "gardeners," 
 walking here and there, perchance, beneath, 
 witli spade and water-pot, see only a few little 
 asters amid withered leaves. 
 
 These are my China-asters, my late garden- 
 flowers. It costs me nothing for a gardener. 
 The falling leaves, all over the forest, are pro 
 tecting the roots of my plants. Only look at 
 what is to be seen, and you will have garden 
 enough, without deepening the soil in your 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 349 
 
 yard. Wo have only to elevate our view a lit 
 tle, to see the whole forest as a garden. The 
 blossoming of the Scarlet Oak, the forest- 
 flower, surpassing all in splendor (at least since 
 the Maple)! I do not know but they interest 
 me more than the Maples, they are so wil 1\ 
 and equally dispersed throughout the forest; 
 they are so hardy, a nobler tree on the whole ; 
 our chief November flower, abiding the ap 
 proach of winter with us, imparting warmth to 
 early November prospects. It is remarkable 
 that the latest bright color that is general 
 should be this deep, dark scarlet and red, the 
 intensest of colors. The ripest fruit of the 
 year; like the cheek of a hard, glossy, red ap 
 ple, from the cold Isle of Orleans, which will 
 not be mellow for eating till next spring! 
 When I rise to a hill-top, a thousand of these 
 great Oak roses, distributed on every side, as 
 far as the horizon ! I admire them four or five 
 miles off! This my unfailing prosj)ect for a 
 fortnight past! This late forest-flower sur 
 passes all that spring or summer could do. 
 
 Their colors were but rare and dainty sj k- 
 
 comparatively (created for the near-sighted, 
 who walk amid the humblest herbs and uii lT- 
 woods), and made no impression on a distant 
 eye. Now it is an extended forest or a moun 
 tain-side, through or along which we journey 
 
350 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 from clay to day, that bursts into bloom. Com 
 paratively, our gardening is on a petty scale, 
 the gardener still nursing a few asters amid 
 dead weeds, ignorant of the gigantic asters and 
 roses which, as it were, overshadow him, and 
 ask for none of his care. It is like a little red 
 paint ground on a saucer, and held up against 
 the sunset sky. Why not take more elevated 
 and broader views, walk in the great garden, 
 not skulk in a little "debauched" nook of it? 
 consider the beauty of the forest, and not 
 merely of a few impounded herbs ? 
 
 Let your walks now be a little more adven 
 turous; ascend the hills. If, about the last of 
 October, you ascend any hill in the outskirts of 
 our town, and probably of yours, and look over 
 the forest, you may see well, what I have 
 endeavored to describe. All this you surely 
 will see, and much more, if you are prepared to 
 see it, if you look for it. Otherwise, regular 
 and universal as this phenomenon is, whether 
 you stand on the hill-top or in the hollow, you 
 will think for threescore years and ten that all 
 the wood is, at this season, sere and brown. 
 Objects are concealed from our view, not so 
 much because they are out of the course of our 
 visual ray as because we do not bring our minds 
 and eyes to bear on them ; for there is no power 
 to see in the eye itself, any more than in any 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 351 
 
 other jelly. We do not realize how far and 
 widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to 
 look. The greater part of the phenomena of 
 Nature are for this reason concealed from us all 
 our lives. The gardener sees only the gar 
 dener s garden. Here, too, as in political econ 
 omy, the supply answers to the demand. Na 
 ture does not cast pearls before swine. There 
 is just as much beauty visible to us in the land 
 scape as we are prepared to appreciate, not 
 a grain more. The actual objects which one 
 man will see from a particular hill-top are just 
 as different from those which another will see 
 as the beholders are different. The Scarlet Oak 
 must, in a sense, be in your eye when you go 
 forth. We cannot see anything until we are 
 possessed with the idea of it, take it into our 
 heads, and then we can hardly see anything 
 else. In my botanical rambles I find that, first, 
 the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my 
 thoughts, though it may seem very foreign to 
 this locality, no nearer than Hudson s Bay, 
 and for some weeks orMiionths I go thinking 
 of it, and expecting \t\ unconsciously, and at 
 length I surely see it. This is the history of 
 my finding a score or more of rare plants, which 
 1 could name. A man sees only what concerns 
 him. A botanist absorbed in the study of 
 grasses does not distinguish the grandest Pas- 
 
352 AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 ture Oaks. He, as it were, tramples down 
 Oaks unwittingly in his walk, or at most sees 
 only their shadows. I have found that it re 
 quired a different intention of the eye, in the 
 same locality, to see different plants, even 
 when they were closely allied, as Juncacecc and 
 
 GraminecB : when I was looking for the former, 
 I did not see the latter in the midst of them. 
 How much more, then, it requires different in 
 tentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to 
 different departments of knowledge! How dif 
 ferently the poet and the naturalist look at 
 objects ! 
 
 Take a New-England selectman, and set him 
 on the highest of our hills, and tell him to look, 
 
 sharpening his sight to the utmost, and put 
 ting on the glasses that suit him best (aye, using 
 a spy -glass, if he likes), and make a full 
 report. What, probably, will he spy? what 
 will he select to look at? Of course, he will 
 see a Brocken spectre of himself. He will see 
 several nieeting-houscs, at least, and, perhaps, 
 that somebody ought to be assessed higher than 
 he is, since he has so handsome a wood-lot. 
 Now take Julius Caesar, or Emanuel Swedeu- 
 borg, or a Fiji Islander, and set him up there. 
 Or suppose all together, and let them compare 
 notes afterward. Will it appear that they have 
 enjoyed the same prospect? What they will 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 168 
 
 see will IH as different as Rome was from Hea 
 ven or Hell, or the last from the Fiji Islands. 
 For aught we know, as strange a man as any of 
 these is always at our elbow. 
 
 Why, it takes a sharp-shooter to bring down 
 even such trivial game as snip s and wood-cocks; 
 he must take very particular aim, and know what 
 he is aiming at. He would stand a very small 
 chance, if he fired at random into the sky, being 
 told that snipes were flying there. And so is 
 it with him that shoots at beauty; though he 
 wait till the sky falls, he will not bag any, if 
 he does not already know its seasons and haunts, 
 and the color of its wing, if he has not 
 dreamed of it, so that he can anticipate it; 
 then, indeed, he flushes it at every step, shoots 
 double and on the wing, with both barrels, even 
 in cornfields. The sportsman trains himself, 
 dresses and watches unweariedly, and loads and 
 primes for his particular game. He prays for 
 it, and offers sacrifices, and so he gets it. Af 
 ter due and long preparation, schooling his eye 
 and hand, dreaming awake and asleep, with gun 
 and paddle and l>oat, he goes out after meadow- 
 heus, which most of his townsmen never saw 
 nor dreamed of, and paddles for miles against a 
 bead-wind, and wades in water up to his knees, 
 l>eing out all day without his dinner, and there 
 fore he gets them. He had them half-way into 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 
 
 his bag when he started, and has only to shove 
 them down. The true sportsman can shoot you 
 almost any of his game from his windows: what 
 else has he windows or eyes for? It conies and 
 ]>erehes at last on the barrel of his gun ; but the 
 rest of the world never see it with the feathers 
 on. The geese fly exactly under his zenith, 
 and honk when they get there, and he will keep 
 himself supplied by firing up his chimney ; 
 twenty musquash have the refusal of each one 
 of his traps before it is empty. If he lives, 
 and his game-spirit increases, heaven and earth 
 shall fail him sooner than game; and when he 
 dies, he will go to more extensive and, per 
 chance, happier hunting-grounds. The fisher 
 man, too, dreams of fish; sees a bobbing cork 
 in his dreams, till he can almost catch them in 
 his sink-spout. I knew a girl who, being sent 
 to pick huckleberries, picked wild gooseberries 
 by the quart, where no one else knew that there 
 were any, because she was accustomed to pick 
 them up country where she came from. The 
 astronomer knows where to go star-gathering, 
 and sees one clearly in his mind before any have 
 seen it with a glass. The hen scratches and 
 finds her food right under where she stands; 
 but such is not the way with the hawk. 
 
 These bright leaves which I have mentioned 
 
AUTUMNAL TINTS 355 
 
 are not the exception, but the rule; for I be 
 lieve that all leaves, even grasses and mosses, 
 acquire brighter colors just before their fall. 
 When you come to observe faithfully the 
 changes of each humblest plant, you find that 
 each has, sooner or later, its peculiar autumnal 
 tint ; and if you undertake to make a complete 
 list of the bright tints, it will be nearly as long 
 as a catalogue of the plants in your vicinity. 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE-TREE 
 
 IT is remarkable how closely the history of 
 the apple-tree is connected with that of man. 
 The geologist tells us that the order of the 
 Rosacea>i which includes the Apple, also the 
 true Grasses, and the Labiate, or Mints, were 
 introduced only a short time previous to the 
 appearance of man on the globe. 
 
 It appears that apples made a part of the 
 food of that unknown primitive people whose 
 traces have lately been found at the bottom of 
 the Swiss lakes, supposed to be older than the 
 foundation of Rome, so old that they had no 
 metallic implements. An entire black and 
 shriveled Crab- Apple has been recovered from 
 their stores. 
 
 Tacitus says of the ancient Germans, that 
 they satisfied their hunger with wild apples 
 (ayrcstia poma), among other things. 
 
 Niebuhr observes that "the words for a 
 house, a field, a plough, ploughing, wine, oil, 
 milk, sheep,, apples, and others relating to agri 
 culture and the gentler way of life, agree in 
 
WILD APPLES :;".T 
 
 Latin and Greek, while the Latin words for all 
 objects pertaining to war or the chase are ut 
 terly alien from the Greek." Thus the apple- 
 tree may be considered a symbol of peace no 
 less than the olive. 
 
 The apple was early so important, and gener 
 ally distributed, that its name traced to its root 
 in many languages signifies fruit in general. 
 Mi/Aw, in Greek, moans an apple, also the 
 fruit of other trees, also a sheep and any cat t If, 
 and finally riches in general. 
 
 The apple-tree has been celebrated by the 
 Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians. 
 Some have thought that the first human pair 
 were tempted by its fruit. Goddesses are 
 taM. d to have con tended for it, dragons were 
 set to watch it, and heroes were employed to 
 pluck it. 
 
 The tree is mentioned in at least three places 
 in the Old Testament, and its fruit in two or 
 three more. Solomon sings, "As the ap|l-- 
 tree among the trees of the wood, so is my be 
 loved among the sons." And again, "Stay 
 me with flagons, comfort me with apples." 
 The noblest part of man s noblest feature is 
 named from this fruit, "the apple of the eye." 
 
 The apple-tree is also mentioned by Homer 
 and Herodotus. Ulysses saw in the glorious 
 garden of Alcinoiis "pears and ])omegranate > 8, 
 
358 WILD APPLES 
 
 and apple-trees bearing beautiful fruit" (K<U 
 M Mat dyXaoKapTroi). And according to Homer, 
 apples were among the fruits which Tantalus 
 could not pluck, the wind ever blowing their 
 boughs away from him. Theophrastus knew 
 and described the apple-tree as a botanist. 
 
 According to the Prose Edda, "Iduna keeps 
 in a box the apples which the gods, when they 
 feel old age approaching, have only to taste of 
 to become young again. It is in this manner 
 that they will be kept in renovated youth until 
 Ragnarok " (or the destruction of the gods). 
 
 I learn from Loudou that "the ancient 
 Welsh bards were rewarded for excelling in 
 song by the token of the apple-spray;" and 
 "in the Highlands of Scotland the apple-tree 
 is the badge of the clan Lamont." 
 
 The apple-tree (Pyru mains) belongs chiefly 
 to the northern temperate zone. London says 
 that "it grows spontaneously in every part of 
 Europe except the frigid zone, and throughout 
 Western Asia, China, and Japan." We have 
 also two or three varieties of the apple indige 
 nous in North America. The cultivated apple- 
 tree was first introduced into this country by the 
 earliest settlers, and is thought to do as well or 
 better here than anywhere else. Probably some 
 of the varieties which are now cultivated were 
 first introduced into Britain by the Romans. 
 
WILD APPLES 359 
 
 Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophras- 
 tus, says, "Of trees there are some which are 
 altogether wild (sylrestres), some more civilized 
 (M rbnn lores)." Theophrastus includes the apple 
 among the last; and, indeed, it is in this sense 
 the most civilized of all trees. It is as harmless 
 as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, and as val- 
 u:il>l as tl.M-ks and herds. It has been longer 
 cultivated than any other, and so is more hu 
 manized ; and who knows but, like the dog, it 
 will at length l>e no longer traceable to its wild 
 original? It migrates with man, like the dog 
 and horse and cow: first, perchance, from 
 Greece to Italy, thence to England, thence to 
 America; and our Western emigrant is still 
 marching steadily toward the setting sun with 
 the seeds of the apple in his pocket, or perhaps 
 a few young trees strapped to his load. At 
 least a million apple-trees are thus set farther 
 westward this year than any cultivated ones 
 grew last year. Consider how the Blossom- 
 Week, like the Sabbath, is thus annually 
 sjiri ii lin^ over the prairies; for when man mi 
 grates, he carries with him not only his birds, 
 jua<lrupeds, insects, vegetables, and his very 
 sward, but his orchard also. 
 
 The leaves and tender twigs are an agreeable 
 food to many <lim -tic animals, as the cow, 
 horse, sheep, and goat; and the fruit i- 
 
360 WILD APPLES 
 
 after by the first, as well as by the hog. Thus 
 there appears to have existed a natural alliance 
 between these animals and this tree from the 
 first. "The fruit of the Crab in the forests of 
 France" is said to be u a great resource for the 
 wild boar." 
 
 Not only the Indian, but many indigenous 
 insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the 
 apple-tree to these shores. The tent-caterpillar 
 saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was 
 formed, and it has since shared her affections 
 with the wild cherry ; and the canker-worm also 
 in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it. 
 As it grew apace, the blue-bird, robin, cherry- 
 bird, king -bird, and many more came with 
 haste and built their nests and warbled in its 
 boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and mul 
 tiplied more than ever. It was an era in the 
 history of their race. The downy woodpecker 
 found such a savory morsel under its bark that 
 he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree, 
 before he left it, a thing which he had never 
 done before, to my knowledge. It did not take 
 the partridge long to find out how sweet its 
 buds were, and every winter eve she flew, and 
 still flies, from the wood, to pluck them, much 
 to the farmer s sorrow. The rabbit, too, was 
 not slow to learn the taste of its twigs and bark ; 
 and when the fruit was ripe, the squirrel half 
 
WILD APPLES 361 
 
 rolled, half carried it to his hole; and even the 
 musquash crept up the hank from the brook at 
 evening, and greedily devoured it, until he had 
 worn a path in the grass there; and when it 
 was frozen and thawed, the crow and the jay 
 were glad to taste it occasionally. The owl 
 crept into the first apple-tree that Iteeame hol 
 low, and fairly hooted with delight, finding it 
 just the place for him; so, settling down into 
 it, he has remained there ever since. 
 
 My theme being the Wild Apple, I will 
 mnvly glance at some of the seasons in the an 
 nual growth of the cultivated apple, and pass 
 on to my special province. 
 
 The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most 
 Iwautiful of any tree s, so copious and so de- 
 lii-inis to both sight and scent. The walker 
 is frequently tempted to turn and linger near 
 some more than usually handsome one, whose 
 blossoms are two thirds expanded. How supe 
 rior it is in these respects to the pear, whose 
 blossoms are neither colored nor fragrant ! 
 
 Ry the middle of July, green apples are so 
 large as to remind us of coddling, and of the 
 autumn. The sward is commonly strewed with 
 little ones which fall still-horn, as it were, 
 Nature thus thinning them for us. The Roman 
 writer Palladium said, "If apples are i 
 to fall Ixjfon* their time, a *tn placed in 
 
302 }\ ILD APPLES 
 
 split root will retain them." Some such notion, 
 still surviving, may account for some of the 
 stones which we see placed, to be overgrown, in 
 the forks of trees. They have a saying in Suf 
 folk, England, 
 
 "At Michaelmas time, or a little before, 
 Half an apple goes to the core." 
 
 Early apples begin to be ripe about the first 
 of August; but I think that none of them are 
 so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth 
 more to scent your handkerchief with than any 
 perfume which they sell in the shops. The fra 
 grance of some fruits is not to be forgotten, 
 along with that of flowers. Some gnarly apple 
 which I pick up in the road reminds me by its 
 fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona, carry 
 ing me forward to those days when they will be 
 collected in golden and ruddy heaps in the or 
 chards and about the cider-mills. 
 
 A week or two later, as you are going by or 
 chards or gardens, especially in the evenings, 
 you pass through a little region possessed by 
 the fragrance of ripe apples, and thus enjoy 
 them without price, and without robbing any 
 body. 
 
 There is thus about all natural products a 
 certain volatile and ethereal quality which rep 
 resents their highest value, and which cannot be 
 vulgarized, or bought and sold. No mortal has 
 
WILD APPLES 363 
 
 ever enjoyed the perfect flavor of any fruit, and 
 only the godlike among men begin to taste its 
 ambrosial qualities. For net-tar and ambrosia 
 are only those fine flavors of every eartlily fruit 
 which our coarse palates fail to perceive, -just 
 as we occupy the heaven of the gods without 
 knowing it. When I see a particularly mean 
 man carrying a load of fair and fragrant early 
 apples to market, I seem to see a contest going 
 on between him and his horse, on the one side, 
 and the apples on the other, and, to my mind, 
 the apples always gain it. Pliny says that 
 apples are the heaviest of all things, and that 
 the oxen begin to sweat at the mere sight of a 
 load of them. Our driver begins to lose his 
 load the moment he tries to transport them to 
 where they do not belong, that is, to any but 
 the most beautiful. Though he gets out from 
 time to time, and feels of them, and thinks they 
 are all there, I see the stream of their evanes 
 cent and celestial qualities going to heaven from 
 his cart, while the pulp and skin and core only 
 are going to market. They are not apples, but 
 pomace. Are not these still Iduna s apples, 
 the taste of which keeps the gods forever 
 young? and think you that they will let Loki 
 or Thjassi carry them off to Jbtunlieim, while 
 they grow wrinkled and gray? No, for Rag- 
 narbk, or the destruction of the gods, is not yet. 
 
3G4 WILD APPLES 
 
 There is another thinning of the fruit, com 
 monly near the end of August or in September, 
 when the ground is strewn with windfalls ; and 
 this happens especially when high winds occur 
 after rain. In some orchards you may see fully 
 three quarters of the whole crop on the ground, 
 lying in a circular form beneath the trees, yet 
 hard and green, or, if it is a hillside, rolled 
 far down the hill. However, it is an ill wind 
 that blows nobody any good. All the country 
 over, people are busy pic-king up the windfalls, 
 and this w ill make them cheap for early apple- 
 pics. 
 
 In October, the leaves falling, the apples are 
 more distinct on the trees. I saw one year in 
 a neighboring town some trees fuller of fruit 
 than I remember to have ever seen before, small 
 yellow apples hanging over the road. The 
 branches were gracefully drooping with their 
 weight, like a barberry-bush, so that the whole 
 tree acquired a new character. Even the top 
 most branches, instead of standing erect, spread 
 and drooj>ed in all directions ; and there were 
 so many poles supporting the lower ones that 
 they looked like pictures of banian-trees. As 
 an old English manuscript says, "The mo ap- 
 pelen the tree bereth the more sche boweth to 
 the folk." 
 
 Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits. 
 
l/ / LES 305 
 
 Let the most beautiful or the swiftest have it. 
 That should l>e the "going" price of apples. 
 
 Between the 5th and 20th of October I see 
 the barrels lie under the trees. And perhaps 
 I talk with one who is selecting some choice 
 barrels to fultill an order. He turns a specked 
 one over many times before he leaves it out. If 
 I were to tell what is passing in my mind, I 
 should say that every one was specked which 
 he had handled ; for he rubs off all the bloom, 
 and those fugacious ethereal qualities leave it. 
 Cool evenings prompt the farmers to make haste, 
 and at length I see only the ladders here and 
 there left leaning against the trees. 
 
 It would be well, if we accepted these gifts 
 with more joy and gratitude, and did not think 
 it enough simply to put a fresh load of compost 
 about the tree. Some old English customs are 
 suggestive at least. I find them described 
 chirtiy in Brand s "Popular Antiquities." It 
 appears that "on Christmas Eve the farmers 
 and their men in Devonshire take a large lx>wl 
 of cider, with a toast in it, and carrying it in 
 state to the orchard, they salute the apple-trees 
 with much ceremony, in order to make them 
 bear well the next season." This salutation 
 consists in " throwing some of the cider alxmt 
 the roots of the tree, placing bits of the toast on 
 the branches," and then, "encircling one of the 
 
3GG WILD APPLES 
 
 best bearing trees in the orchard, they drink 
 the following toast three several times: 
 
 4 Here s to thee, old apple-tree, 
 
 Whence thou raayst bud, and whence thon raayst blow, 
 And whence thou niayst bear apples enow ! 
 
 Hats-full! caps-full! 
 
 Bushel, bushel, sacks-full ! 
 
 And my pockets full, too ! Hurra ! " 
 
 Also what was called "apple-howling" used 
 to be practiced in various counties of England 
 on New Year s Eve. A troop of boys visited 
 the different orchards, and, encircling the ap 
 ple-trees, repeated the following words: 
 
 "Stand fast, root ! bear well, top ! 
 Pray God send us a good howling 1 crop : 
 Every twig, apples big ; 
 Every bow. apples enow ! " 
 
 "They then shout in chorus, one of the boys 
 accompanying them on a cow s horn. During 
 this ceremony they rap the trees with their 
 sticks." This is called "wassailing" the trees, 
 and is thought by some to be "a relic of the 
 heathen sacrifice to Pomona." 
 llerrick sings, 
 
 " Wassail e the trees that they may beare 
 You many a plum and many a peare ; 
 For more or less fruits they will In inj, r 
 As you so give them wassailing." 
 
 Our poets have as yet a better right to sing 
 of cider than of wine ; but it behooves them to 
 
WILD APPLES 367 
 
 sing better than English Phillips did, else they 
 will do no credit to their Muse. 
 
 THE WILD APPLE. 
 
 So much for the more civilized apple-trees 
 (urbaniores, as Pliny calls them). I love better 
 to go through the old orchards of ungraftcd ap 
 ple-trees, at whatever season of the year, so 
 irregularly planted: sometimes two trees stand 
 ing close together; and the rows so devious that 
 you would think that they not only had grown 
 \vhile the owner wa^ sir. -ping, but had been set 
 out by him in a somuambulic state. The rows 
 of grafted fruit will never tempt me to wander 
 amid them like these. But I now, alas, speak 
 rather from memory than from any recent ex 
 perience, such ravages have been made! 
 
 Some soils, like a rocky tract called the Eas- 
 terbrooks Country in my neighborhood, are so 
 suited to the apple, that it will grow faster in 
 tin-in without any care, or if only the ground is 
 broken up once a year, than it will in many 
 plan s \vitli any amount of care. The owners 
 of this tract allow that the soil is excellent for 
 fruit, but they say that it is so rocky that they 
 have not patience to plough it, and that, to- 
 ^vther with the distance, is the reason why it is 
 not cultivated. Tln-r.- aiv. m* \\vn- iv- -nth, 
 extensive orchards there standing without or- 
 
3G8 WILD APPLES 
 
 der. Nay, they spring up wild and bear well 
 there in the midst of pines, birches, maples, 
 and oaks. I am often surprised to see rising 
 amid these trees the rounded tops of apple-trees 
 glowing with red or yellow fruit, in harmony 
 with the autumnal tints of the forest. 
 
 Going up the side of a cliff about the first of 
 November, I saw a vigorous young apple-tree, 
 which, planted by birds or cows, had shot up 
 amid the rocks and open woods there, and had 
 now much fruit on it, uninjured by the frosts, 
 when all cultivated apples were gathered. It 
 was a rank wild growth, with many green leaves 
 on it still, and made an impression of thorni- 
 ness. The fruit was hard and green, but looked 
 as if it would be palatable in the winter. Some 
 was dangling on the twigs, but more half bur 
 ied in the wet leaves under the tree, or rolled 
 far down the hill amid the rocks. The owner 
 knows nothing of it. The day was not observed 
 when it first blossomed, nor when it first bore 
 fruit, unless by the chickadee. There was no 
 dancing on the green beneath it in its honor, 
 and now there is no hand to pluck its fruit, - 
 which is only gnawed by squirrels, as I per 
 ceive. It has done double duty, not only 
 borne this crop, but each twig has grown a foot 
 into the air. And this is swc/i fruit! bigger 
 than many berries, we must admit, and carried 
 
WILD APPLES 369 
 
 home will be sound and palatable next spring. 
 What care I for Iduna s apples so long as I 
 can get these? 
 
 When I go by this shrub thus late and hardy, 
 and see its dangling fruit, I respect the tree, 
 and I am grateful for Nature s bounty, even 
 though I cannot eat it. Here on this rugged 
 and wooily hillside has grown an apple - tree, 
 not planted by man, no relic of a former or 
 chard, but a natural growth, like the pines and 
 oaks. Most fruits which we prize and use de 
 pend entirely on our care. Corn and grain, 
 ;> >tatu s, peaches, melons, <! .. <1> ]"-n<l alto 
 gether on our planting; but the apple emulates 
 man s independence and enterprise. It is not 
 simply carried, as I have said, but, like him, to 
 some extent, it has migrated to this New World, 
 and is even, here and there, making its way 
 amid tin- aboriginal trees; just as the ox and 
 dog and horse sometimes run wild and main 
 tain themselves. 
 
 Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, grow 
 ing in the most unfavorable position, suggests 
 such thoughts as these, it is so noble a fruit. 
 
 THE CRAB. 
 
 Nevertheless, ot/r wild apple is wild only 
 like myself, perchance, who belong not to the 
 al>original race here, but have strayed into the 
 
370 WILD APPLES 
 
 woods from the cultivated stock. Wilder still, 
 as I have said, there grows elsewhere in this 
 country a native and aboriginal Crab-Apple, 
 M<i1u& coronaria, "whose nature has not yet 
 been modified by cultivation." It is found 
 from Western New York to Minnesota, and 
 southward. Michuux says that its ordinary 
 height "is fifteen or eighteen feet, but it is 
 sometimes found twenty-five or thirty feet 
 high," and that the large ones "exactly resem 
 ble the common apple-tree." "The flowers are 
 white mingled with rose color, and are collected 
 in corymbs." They are remarkable for their 
 delicious odor. The fruit, according to him, is 
 about an inch and a half in diameter, and is in 
 tensely acid. Yet they make fine sweetmeats 
 and also cider of them. He concludes that "if, 
 on being cultivated, it does not yield new and 
 palatable varieties, it will at least be celebrated 
 for the beauty of its flowers, and for the sweet 
 ness of its perfume." 
 
 I never saw the Crab- Apple till May, 1861. 
 I had heard of it through Michaux, but more 
 modern botanists, so far as I know, have not 
 treated it as of any peculiar ini])nrtance. Thus 
 it was a half -fabulous tree to me. I contem 
 plated a pilgrimage to the "Glades," a portion 
 of Pennsylvania where it was said to grow to 
 perfection. I thought of sending to a nursery 
 
WILD APPLES 371 
 
 for it, but doubted if they h;ul it, or would dis 
 tinguish it from European varieties. At last I 
 had occasion to go to Minnesota, and on enter 
 ing Michigan I began to notice from the cars a 
 tree with handsome rose-colored flowers. At 
 first I thought it some variety of thorn; but it 
 was not long before the truth flashed on me, 
 that this was my long-sought Crab- Apple. It 
 was the prevailing flowering shrub or tree to be 
 seen from the cars at that season of the year, 
 about the middle of May. But the cars never 
 stopjxjd before one, and so I was launched on 
 the bosom of the Mississippi without having 
 touched one, experiencing the fate of Tantalus. I, 
 On arriving at St. Anthony s Falls, I was sorry 
 to be told that I was too far north for the Crab- 
 Apple. Nevertheless I succeeded in finding it 
 about eight miles west of the Falls ; touched it 
 and smelled it, and secured a lingering corymb 
 of flowers for my herbarium. This must have 
 been near its northern limit. 
 
 HOW THE WILD APPLE GROWS. 
 
 But though these are indigenous, like the 
 Indians, I doubt whether they are any hardier 
 than those backwoodsmen among the apple- 
 trees, which, though descended from cultivated 
 stocks, plant themselves in distant fields and 
 forests, where the soil is favorable to tlinn. 1 
 
372 WILD APPLES 
 
 know of no trees which have more difficulties to 
 contend with, and which more sturdily resist 
 their foes. These are the ones whose story we 
 have to tell. It oftentimes reads thus: 
 
 Near the beginning of May, we notice little 
 thickets of apple-trees just springing up in the 
 pastures where cattle have been, as the rocky 
 ones of our Easterbrooks Country, or the top 
 of Nobscot Hill, in Sudbury; One or two of. 
 these perhaps survive the drought and other ac 
 cidents, their very birthplace defending them 
 against the encroaching grass and some other 
 dangers, at first. 
 
 In two years time t had thus 
 Beached the level of the rocks, 
 
 Admired the stretching world, 
 Nor feared the wandering flocks. 
 
 But at this tender age 
 
 Its sufferings began : 
 There came a browsing ox 
 
 And cut it down a span. 
 
 This time, perhaps, the ox does not notice it 
 amid the grass; but the next year, when it has 
 grown more stout, he recognizes it for a fellow- 
 emigrant from the old country, the flavor of 
 whose leaves and twigs he well knows; and 
 though at first he pauses to welcome it, and ex 
 press his surprise, and gets for answer, "The 
 same cause that brought you here brought me," 
 
WILD APPLES 373 
 
 he ncvertli -l.^N limwscs it :i^:iin, reflecting, it 
 may be, that he has some title to it. 
 
 Thus cut down annually, it does not despair; 
 but, patting forth two short twigs for every one* 
 cut off, it spreads out low along the ground in 
 the hollows or between the rocks, growing more 
 stout and scrubby, until it forms, not a tree as 
 yet, but a little pyramidal, stiff, twiggy mass, 
 almost as solid and impenetrable as a rock. 
 Some of the densest and most impenetrable 
 clumps of bushes that I have ever seen, as well 
 on account of the closeness and stubbornness of 
 their branches as of their thorns, have been 
 these wild-apple scrubs. They are more like 
 the scrubby fir and black spruce on which you 
 stand, and sometimes walk, on the tops of 
 mountains, where cold is the demon they con 
 tend with, than anything else. No wonder they 
 are prompted to grow thorns at last, to defend 
 themselves against such foes. In their thorni- 
 ness, however, there is no malice, only some 
 malic acid. 
 
 The rocky pastures of the tract I have re 
 ferred to, for they maintain their ground best 
 in a rocky field, are thickly sprinkled with 
 these little tufts, reminding you often of some 
 rigid gray mosses or lichens, and you see thou 
 sands of little trees just springing up between 
 them, with the seed still attached to them. 
 
374 WILD APPLES 
 
 Being regularly clipped all around each year 
 by the cows, as a hedge with shears, they are 
 often of a perfect conical or pyramidal form, 
 from one to four feet high, and more or less 
 sharp, as if trimmed by the gardener s art. In 
 the pastures on Nobscot Hill and its spurs, 
 they make fine dark shadows when the sun is 
 low. They are also an excellent covert from 
 hawks for many small birds that roost and build 
 in them. Whole flocks perch in them at night, 
 and I have seen three robins nests in one which 
 was six feet in diameter. 
 
 No doubt many of these are already old trees, 
 if you reckon from the day they were planted, 
 but infants still when you consider their de 
 velopment and the long life before them. I 
 counted the annual rings of some which were 
 just one foot high, and as wide as high, and 
 found that they were about twelve years old, 
 but quite sound and thrifty ! They were so low 
 that they were unnoticed by the walker, while 
 many of their contemporaries from the nurseries 
 were already bearing considerable crops. But 
 what you gain in time is perhaps in this case, 
 too, lost in power, that is, in the vigor of the 
 tree. This is their pyramidal state. 
 
 The cows continue to browse them thus for 
 twenty years or more, keeping them down and 
 compelling them to spread, until at last they 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 ;t ,v so l.r.Ki.l tli;il tlh V become tli.-ir OWD fence, 
 when some interior shoot, which their foes can 
 not reach, darts upward with joy: for it has not 
 forgotten its high calling, and bears its OWH 
 peculiar fruit in triumph. 
 
 Such are the tactics by which it finally 
 defeats its bovine foes. Now, if you have 
 watched the progress of a particular shrub, you 
 will see that it is no longer a simple pyramid or 
 cone, but that out of its aj>ex there rises a sprig 
 or two, growing more lustily perchance than an 
 orchard-tree, since the plant now devotes the 
 whole of its repressed energy to these upright 
 parts. In a short time these become a small 
 tree, an inverted pyramid resting on the apex 
 of the other, so that the whole has now the form 
 of a vast hour-glass. The spreading bottom, 
 having served its purpose, finally disappears, 
 and the generous tree permits the now harmless 
 cows to come in and stand in its shade, and rub 
 against and redden its trunk, which has grown 
 in spite of them, and even to taste a part of its 
 fruit, and so disperse the seed. 
 
 Thus the cows create their own shade and 
 food; and the tree, its hour-glass being in 
 verted, lives a second life, as it were. 
 
 It is an important question with some nowa 
 days, whether you should trim young apple- 
 trees as high as your nose or as high as your 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 eyes. The ox trims them up as high as he can 
 reach, and that is about the right height, 1 think. 
 
 In spite of wandering kine, and other adverse 
 circumstances, that despised shrub, valued only 
 by small birds as a covert and shelter from 
 hawks, has its blossom-week at last, and in 
 course of time its harvest, sincere, though small. 
 
 By the end of some October, when its leaves 
 have fallen, I frequently see such a central 
 sprig, whose progress I have watched, when I 
 thought it had forgotten its destiny, as I had, 
 bearing its first crop of small green or yellow or 
 rosy fruit, which the cows cannot get at over 
 the bushy and thorny hedge which surrounds it, 
 and I make haste to taste the new and unde- 
 scribed variety. We have all heard of the 
 numerous varieties of fruit invented by Van 
 Mous and Knight. This is the system of Van 
 Cow, and she has invented far more and more 
 memorable varieties than both of them. 
 
 Through what hardships it may attain to bear 
 a sweet fruit ! Though somewhat small, it may 
 prove equal, if not superior, in flavor to that 
 which has grown in a garden, will perchance 
 be all the sweeter and more palatable for the 
 very difficulties it has had to contend with. 
 Who knows but this chance wild fruit, planted 
 by a cow or a bird on some remote and rocky 
 hillside, where it is as yet unobserved by man, 
 
WILD AWLES 377 
 
 may be the choicest of all its kind, and foreign 
 potentates shall hear of it, and royal s<x*i -ti -> 
 seek to propagate it, though the virtues of the 
 perhaps truly crabbed owner of the soil may 
 never be heard of, at least, beyond the limits 
 of his village? It was thus the Porter and the 
 lilt Id win grew. 
 
 Every wild-apple shrub excites our expecta 
 tion thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, 
 perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson 
 to man ! So are human beings, referred to the 
 highest standard, the celestial fruit which they 
 suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate ; 
 and only the most persistent and strongest gen 
 ius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender 
 scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit 
 on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philoso 
 phers and statesmen thus spring up in the 
 country pastures, and outlast the hosts of un 
 original men. 
 
 Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. 
 The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the 
 I lesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred - 
 headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is 
 an Herculean labor to pluck them. 
 
 This is one, and the most remarkable way in 
 which the wild apple is propagated; but com 
 monly it springs up at wide intervals in woods 
 and swamps, and by the sides of roads, as the 
 
378 WILD APPLES 
 
 soil may suit it, and grows with comparative 
 rapidity. Those which grow in dense woods 
 are very tall and slender. I frequently pluck 
 from these trees a perfectly mild and tamed 
 fruit. As Palladius says, " Et injussu conster- 
 nltur itbere mall: " And the ground is strewn 
 with the fruit of an unbidden apple-tree. 
 
 It is an old notion that, if these wild trees 
 do not bear a valuable fruit of their own, they 
 are the best stocks by which to transmit to pos 
 terity the most highly prized qualities of others. 
 However, I am not in search of stocks, but the 
 wild fruit itself, whose fierce gust has suffered 
 no " integration." It is not my 
 
 " highest plot 
 To plant the Bergaraot 
 
 THE FRUIT, AND ITS FLAVOR. 
 
 The time for wild apples is the last of Octo 
 ber and the first of November. They then get 
 to be palatable, for they ripen late, and they 
 are still perhaps as beautiful as ever. I make 
 a great account of these fruits, which the farm 
 ers do not think it worth the while to gather, 
 wild flavors of the Muse, vivacious and inspirit 
 ing. The farmer thinks that he has better in 
 his barrels, but he is mistaken, unless he has a 
 walker s appetite and imagination, neither of 
 which can he have. 
 
WILD APPLES 379 
 
 Such as grow quite wild, and an* left out till 
 the first of November, I presume tliat the owner 
 does not mean to gather. They belong to chil 
 dren as wild as themselves, to certain active 
 boys that I know, to the wild -eyed woman of 
 the fields, to whom nothing comes amiss, who 
 gleans after all the world, and, moreover, to us 
 walkers. We have met with them, and they 
 are ours. These rights, long enough insisted 
 upon, have come to be an institution in some 
 old countries, where they have learned how to 
 live. I hear that "the custom of grippling, 
 which may he called apple-gleaning, is, or was 
 formerly, practiced in Herefordshire. It con 
 sists in leaving a few apples, which are called 
 the gripples, on every tree, after the general 
 gathering, for the boys, who go with climbing- 
 poles and bags to collect them." 
 
 As for those I speak of, I pluck them as a 
 wild fruit, native to this quarter of the earth, 
 fruit of old trees that have been dying ever 
 since I was a l>oy and are not yet dead, fre 
 quented only by the woodi>ecker and the squir 
 rel, deserted now by the owner, who has not 
 faith enough to look under their boughs. From 
 the appearance of the tree-top, at a little dis 
 tance, you would expect nothing but lichens to 
 drop from it, but your faith is rewarded by 
 finding the ground strewn with spirited fruit, 
 
380 WILD APPLES 
 
 some of it, perhaps, collected at squirrel- 
 holes, with the marks of their teeth by which 
 they carried them, some containing a cricket 
 or two silently feeding within, and some, espe 
 cially in damp days, a shell-less snail. The very 
 sticks and stones lodged in the tree-top might 
 have convinced you of the savoriness of the fruit 
 which has been so eagerly sought after in past 
 years. 
 
 I have seen no account of these among the 
 u Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America," though 
 they are more memorable to my taste than the 
 grafted kinds; more racy and wild American 
 flavors do they possess when October and No 
 vember, when December and January, and per 
 haps February and March even, have assuaged 
 them somewhat. An old farmer in my neigh 
 borhood, who always selects the right word, 
 says that "they have a kind of bow-arrow tang." 
 Apples for grafting appear to have been se 
 lected commonly, not so much for their spirited 
 flavor, as for their mildness, their size, and 
 bearing qualities, not so much for their 
 beauty, as for their fairness and soundness. 
 Indeed, I have no faith in the selected lists of 
 pomological gentlemen. Their " Favorites" 
 and "None-suches" and u Seek-no-farthers," 
 when I have fruited them, commonly turn out 
 very tame and forgettable. They are eaten with 
 
WILD APPLES >1 
 
 comparatively little zest, and have no real tang 
 nor smnck to them. 
 
 What if some of these wildings are acrid and 
 puckery, genuine verjuice, do they not still he- 
 long to the Pomacece, which are uniformly in 
 nocent and kind to our race? I still begrudge 
 them to the cider-mill. Perhaps they are not 
 fairly ripe yet. 
 
 No wonder that these small and high-colored 
 apples are thought to make the best cider. 
 London quotes from the " Herefordshire Re 
 port," that "apples of a small size are always, 
 if equal in quality, to be preferred to those of 
 a larger size, in order that the rind and kernel 
 may bear the greatest proportion to the pulp, 
 which affords the weakest and most watery 
 juice." And he says that, "to prove this, Dr. 
 Symonds, of Hereford, about the year 1800, 
 made one hogshead of cider entirely from the 
 rinds and cores of apples, and another from the 
 pulp only, when the first was found of extraor 
 dinary strength and flavor, while the latter was 
 sweet and insipid." 
 
 Evelyn says that the "Red-strake" was the 
 favorite eider-apple in his day; and he quotes 
 one Dr. Newburg as saying, "In Jersey t is a 
 general observation, as I hear, that the more of 
 red any apple has in its rind, the more proper 
 it is for this use. Pale-faced apples they ex- 
 
382 WILD APPLES 
 
 elude as much as may be from their cider- vat." 
 This opinion still prevails. 
 
 All apples are good in November. Those 
 which the farmer leaves out as unsalable and 
 unpalatable to those who frequent the markets 
 are choicest fruit to the walker. But it is re 
 markable that the wild apple, which I praise as 
 so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields or 
 woods, being brought into the house, has fre 
 quently a harsh and crabbed taste. The Saun- 
 terer s Apple not even the saunterer can eat in 
 the house. The palate rejects it there, as it 
 does haw3 and acorns, and demands a tamed 
 one; for there you miss the November air, 
 which is the sauce it is to be eaten with. Ac 
 cordingly, when Tityrus, seeing the lengthening 
 shadows, invites Melibceus to go home and pass 
 the night with him, he promises him mild ap 
 ples and soft chestnuts, mitia poma, cantanea* 
 molles. I frequently pluck wild apples of so 
 rich and spicy a flavor that I wonder all or- 
 chardists do not get a scion from that tree, and 
 I fail not to bring home my pockets full. But 
 ]>erchance, when I take one out of my desk and 
 taste it in my chamber, I find it unexpectedly 
 crude, sour enough to set a squirrel s teeth 
 on edge and make a jay scream. 
 
 These apples have hung in the wind and frost 
 and rain till they have absorbed the qualities of 
 
WILD APPLES 888 
 
 the weather or season, and thus are highly sea 
 soned, and they pierce and stiny and permeate 
 us with their .spirit. They must l>e eaten in 
 .XT/MO//, accordingly, that is, out-of-doors. 
 
 To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of 
 these October fruits, it is necessary that you be 
 breathing the sharp October or November air. 
 The out-door air and exercise which the walker 
 gets give a different tone to his palate, and he 
 craves a fruit which the sedentary would call 
 harsh and crabbed. They must be eaten in the 
 fields, when your system is all aglow with ex 
 ercise, when the frosty weather nips your fin 
 gers, the wind rattles the bare boughs or rustles 
 the few remaining leaves, and the jay is heard 
 screaming around. What is sour in the house 
 a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these 
 apples might be labeled, u To be eaten in the 
 wind. 1 
 
 Of course no flavors are thrown away ; they 
 are intended for the taste that is up to them. 
 Some apples have two distinct flavors, and per 
 haps one half of them must be eaten in the 
 house, the ntlier out-doors. One Peter Whit 
 ney wrote from Northborongh in 1782, for the 
 Proceedings of the lioston Academy, describing 
 an apple-tree in that town "producing fruit of 
 opposite qualities, part of the same apple Wing 
 frequently sour and the other sweet; " also some 
 
384 WILD APPLES 
 
 all sour, and others all sweet, and this diversity 
 on all parts of the tree. 
 
 There is a wild apple on Nawshawtuck Hill 
 in my town which has to me a peculiarly pleas 
 ant bitter tang, not perceived till it is three 
 quarters tasted. It remains on the tongue. 
 As you eat it, it smells exactly like a squash- 
 bug. It is a sort of triumph to eat and relish it. 
 
 1 hear that the fruit of a kind of plum-tree in 
 Provence is " called Prunes siba relies, because 
 it is impossible to whistle after having eaten 
 them, from their sourness." But perhaps they 
 were only eaten in the house and in summer, 
 and if tried out-of-doors in a stinging atmos 
 phere, who knows but you could whistle an oc 
 tave higher and clearer? 
 
 In the fields only are the sours and bitters of 
 Nature appreciated; just as the wood-chopper 
 eats his meal in a sunny glade, in the middle of 
 a winter day, with content, basks in a sunny 
 ray there, and dreams of summer in a degree of 
 cold which, experienced in a chamber, would 
 make a student miserable. They who are at 
 work abroad are not cold, but rather it is they 
 who sit shivering in houses. As with tempera 
 tures, so with flavors ; as with cold and heat, so 
 with sour and sweet. This natural raciuess, 
 the sours and bitters which the diseased palate 
 refuses, are the true condiments. 
 
WILD APPLES 385 
 
 Let your eondiim-nts be in the condition of 
 your senses. To appreciate the flavor of these 
 wild apples requires vigorous and healthy 
 senses, papillte firm and erect on the tongue 
 and palate, not easily flattened and tamed. 
 
 From my experience with wild apples, I can 
 understand that there may be reason for a sav 
 age s preferring many kinds of food which the 
 civilized man rejects. The former has the pal 
 ate of an out-door man. It takes a savage or 
 wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit. 
 
 What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes 
 to relish the apple of life, the apple of the 
 world, then! 
 
 " Nor is it every apple I desire, 
 
 Nor that which pleases every palate belt; 
 T is not the lasting Deuxan I require, 
 
 Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request, 
 Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife, 
 Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife : 
 No. no! }>riiitf mi- :tn upplr frmn the tree of life." 
 
 So there is one thought for the field, another 
 for the house. I would have my thoughts, like 
 wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will 
 not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in 
 the house. 
 
 THEIR BEAUTY. 
 
 Almost all wild apples are handsome. They 
 cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to 
 look at. The gnarliest will have some redeem- 
 
386 WILD APPLES 
 
 ing traits even to the eye. You will discover 
 some evening redness dashed or sprinkled on 
 some protuberance or in some cavity. It is 
 rare that the summer lets an apple go without 
 streaking or spotting it on some part of its 
 sphere. It will have some red stains, com 
 memorating the mornings and evenings it has 
 witnessed; some dark and rusty blotches, in 
 memory of the clouds and foggy, mildewy days 
 that have passed over it; and a spacious field 
 of green reflecting the general face of Nature, 
 -green even as the fields; or a yellow ground, 
 which implies a milder flavor, yellow as the 
 harvest, or russet as the hills. 
 
 Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair, 
 apples not of Discord, but of Concord! "1 t 
 not so rare but that the homeliest may have a 
 share. Painted by the frosts, some a uniform 
 clear bright yellow, or red, or crimson, as if 
 their spheres had regularly revolved, and en 
 joyed the influence of the sun on all sides alike, 
 
 some with the faintest pink blush imaginable, 
 
 some brindled with deep red streaks like a 
 cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays 
 running regularly from the stem-dimple to the 
 blossom-end, like meridional lines, on a straw- 
 colored ground, some touched with a greenish 
 rust, like a fine lichen, here and there, with 
 crimson blotches or eyes more or less confluent 
 
WILD AWLES 387 
 
 and fiery when wet, and others gnarly, and 
 freckled or i>eppered all over on the stem side 
 with fine crimson sjwts on a white ground, as if 
 accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him 
 who paints the autumn leaves. Others, again, 
 are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beau 
 tiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat, 
 apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening 
 sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea 
 shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid 
 the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, 
 in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet 
 grass, and not when they have wilted and faded 
 in the house. 
 
 THE NAMING OF THEM. 
 
 It would l>e a pleasant pastime to find suita 
 ble names for the hundred varieties which go to 
 a single heap at the cider-mill. Would it not 
 tax a man s invention, no one to be named 
 after a man, and all in the linyua vernacula ? 
 Who shall stand godfather at the christening of 
 the wild apples? It would -exhaust the Latin 
 and Greek languages, if they were used, and 
 make the //////*// >/// ///// tia^. We should 
 have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the 
 rainbow and tin- autumn woods and the wild 
 flowers, and the woodpecker and the purple 
 finch and the squirrel and the jay and the but- 
 
388 WILD APPLES 
 
 terfly, the November traveler and the truant 
 boy, to our aid. 
 
 In 1836 there were in the garden of the Lon 
 don Horticultural Society more than fourteen 
 hundred distinct sorts. But here are species 
 which they have not in their catalogue, not to 
 mention the varieties which our Crab might 
 yield to cultivation. 
 
 Let us enumerate a few of these. I find my 
 self compelled, after all, to give the Latin 
 names of some for the benefit of those who live 
 where English is not spoken, for they are 
 likely to have a world-wide reputation. 
 
 There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (Mahis 
 syhaticd) ; the Blue-Jay Apple ; the Apple 
 which grows in Dells in the "Woods (syhestri- 
 vallis), also in Hollows in Pastures (campcstri- 
 vallis) ; the Apple that grows in an old Cellar- 
 Hole (Mains ccUari*) ; the Meadow- Apple; the 
 Partridge - Apple ; the Truant s Apple (cessa- 
 torifi), which no boy will ever go by without 
 knocking off some, however late it may be ; the 
 Sauuterer s Apple, you must lose yourself 
 before you can find the way to that; the Beauty 
 of the Air (Decus Aeris); December-Eating; 
 the Frozen-Thawed (gelato-soluta\ good only 
 in that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the 
 same with the Mu&ketaquidensis ; the Assabet 
 Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New 
 
WILD APPLES ;> s 
 
 England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green 
 Apple (M<tlu .* r/riW/V), this has many syno 
 nyms: in an imperfect state, it is the Cholera 
 morbifent a tit dyscnterlfera^ puerulis dilectis- 
 sima ; the Apple which Atalanta stopped to 
 pick up; the I ledge- Apple {Mai us Sepium); 
 the Slug-Apple (Jimacea) ; the Railroad-Apple, 
 which perhaps came from a core thrown out of 
 the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in 
 our Youth; our Particular Apple, not to be 
 found in any catalogue, Pedestriwn Sola 
 tium ; also the Apple where hangs the Forgot 
 ten Scythe; Iduna s Apples, and the Apples 
 which Loki found in the Wood; and a great 
 many more 1 have on my list, too numerous to 
 mention, all of them good. As Bodaeus ex 
 claims, referring to the cultivated kinds, and 
 adapting Virgil to his case, so I, adapting Bo- 
 
 " Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, 
 An iron voice, could I describe all the forms 
 And reckon up all the names of these wild apiAet" 
 
 THE LAST GLEANING. 
 
 By the middle of November the wild apples 
 have lost some of their brilliancy, and have 
 rlii.-tiy fallen. A great part are decayed on the 
 ground, and the sound ours an- mniv palatable 
 than U fore. The note of the chickadee s.>un<N 
 
390 WILD APPLES 
 
 now more distinct, as you wander amid the old 
 trees, and the autumnal dandelion is half closed 
 and tearful. But still, if you are a skillful 
 gleaner, you may get many a pocketful even 
 of grafted fruit, long after apples are supj>osed 
 to be gone out-of-doors. I know a Blue-Pear- 
 inain tree, growing within the edge of a swam]), 
 almost as good as wild. You would not sup- 
 ]K>se that there was any fruit left there, on the 
 first survey, but you must look according to sys 
 tem. Those which lie exposed -are quite brown 
 and rotten now, or perchance a few still show 
 one blooming cheek here and there amid the 
 wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced 
 eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the 
 huckleberry-bushes and the withered sedge, and 
 in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of 
 leaves, and pry under the fallen and decaying 
 ferns, which, with apple and alder leaves, 
 thickly strew the ground. For I know that 
 they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since 
 and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself, 
 a proper kind of packing. From these lurk 
 ing-places, anywhere within the circumference 
 of the tree, I draw forth the fruit, all wet and 
 glossy, may be nibbled by rabbits and hollowed 
 out by crickets, and perhaps with a leaf or two 
 cemented to it (as Curzon an old manuscript 
 from a monastery s mouldy cellar), but still 
 
WILD APPLES 391 
 
 with a rich bloom on it, and at least as ripe and 
 well kept, if not better than those in barrels, 
 more crisp and lively than they. If these re 
 sources fail to yield anything, I have learned to 
 look between the bases of the suckers which 
 spring thickly from some horizontal limb, for 
 now and then one lodges there, or in the very 
 midst of an alder-clump, where they are covered 
 by leaves, safe from cows which may have 
 smellcd them out. If I am sharp-set, for I do 
 not refuse the Blue-Pearmain, I fill my pockets 
 on each side ; and as I retrace my steps in the 
 frosty eve, being perhaps four or five miles 
 from home, I eat one first from this side, and 
 then from that, to keep my balance. 
 
 I learn from Topsell s Gesner, whose author 
 ity appears to be Albertus, that the following 
 is the way in which the hedgehog collects and 
 carries home his apples. He says, "His 
 meat is apples, worms, or grapes: when he find- 
 eth apples or grapes on the earth, he rolleth 
 himself upon them, until he have filled all his 
 prickles, and then carrieth them home to his 
 den, never bearing above one in his mouth; 
 and if it fortune that one of them fall off by 
 the way, he likewise shaketh off all the residue, 
 and wallrtweth upon them afresh, until they be 
 all settled upon his back again. So, forth he 
 I;M -tli, making a noise like a cart-wheel ; and if 
 
392 WILD APPLES 
 
 he have any young ones in his nest, they pull 
 off his load wherewithal he is loaded, eating 
 thereof what they please, and laying up the 
 residue for the time to come." 
 
 THE "FROZEN-THAWED" APPLE. 
 
 Toward the end of November, though some 
 of the sound ones are yet more mellow and per 
 haps more edible, they have generally, like the 
 leaves, lost their beauty, and are beginning to 
 freeze. It is finger-cold, and prudent farmers 
 get in their barreled apples, and bring you the 
 apples and cider which they have engaged ; for 
 it is time to put them into the cellar. Perhaps 
 a few on the ground show their red cheeks al>ove 
 the early snow, and occasionally some even pre 
 serve their color and soundness under the snow 
 throughout the winter. But generally at the 
 beginning of the winter they freeze hard, and 
 soon, though undecayed, acquire the color of a 
 baked apple. 
 
 Before the end of December, generally, they 
 experience their first thawing. Those which a 
 month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite un 
 palatable to the civilized taste, such at least as 
 were frozen while sound, let a warmer sun come 
 to thaw them, for they are extremely sensitive 
 to its rays, are found to be filled with a rich 
 sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I 
 
WILD APPLES 393 
 
 know of, ami with which I am tatter acquainted 
 than with wine. All apples are good in this 
 state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Oth 
 ers, which have more substance, are a sweet 
 and luscious food, in my opinion of more 
 worth than the pineapples which are imported 
 from the West Indies. Those which lately 
 even I tasted only to repent of it, for I am 
 semi-civilized, which the farmer willingly left 
 on the tree, I am now glad to find have the prop 
 erty of hanging on like the leaves of the young 
 oaks. It is a way to keep cider sweet without 
 boiling. Let the frost come to freeze them 
 first, solid as stones, and then the rain or a 
 warm winter day to thaw them, and they will 
 seem to have borrowed a flavor from heaven 
 through the medium of the air in which they 
 hang. Or perchance you find, when you get 
 home, that those which rattled in your pocket 
 have thawed, and the ice is turned to cider. 
 But after the third or fourth freezing and thaw 
 ing they will not be found so good. 
 
 What are the imported half -ripe fruits of the 
 torrid South, to this fruit matured by the cold 
 of the frigid North? These are those crabbed 
 
 ~~* 
 
 apples with which I cheated my companion, and 
 kept a smooth face that 1 might tempt him to 
 eat. Now we both greedily fill our pockets 
 with them, bending to drink the cup and save 
 
394 WILD APPLES 
 
 our lappets from the overflowing juice, and 
 grow more social with their wine. Was there 
 one that hung so high and sheltered by the tan 
 gled branches that our sticks could not dislodge 
 it? 
 
 It is a fruit never carried to market, that I 
 a 111 aware of, quite distinct from the apple of 
 the markets, as from dried apple and cider, 
 and it is not every winter that produces it in 
 perfection. 
 
 The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. 
 It is a fruit which will probably become ex 
 tinct in New England. You may still wander 
 through old orchards of native fruit of great 
 extent, which for the most part went to the 
 cider-mill, now all gone to decay. I have heard 
 of an orchard in a distant town, on the side of 
 a hill, where the apples rolled down and lay 
 four feet deep against a wall on the lower side, 
 and this the owner cut down for fear they should 
 be made into cider. Since the temperance re 
 form and the general introduction of grafted 
 fruit, no native apple-trees, such as I see every 
 where in deserted pastures, and where the woods 
 have grown up around them, are set out. 1 
 fear that he who walks over these fields a cen 
 tury hence will not know the pleasure of knock 
 ing off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are 
 
WILD AWLES - "> 
 
 many pleasure* which ho will not know! Not 
 withstanding the prevalence of the Baldwin 
 and the Porter, I doubt if so extensive orchards 
 are set out to-day in my town as there were a 
 century ago, when those vast straggling cil< r- 
 orchards were planted, when men l>oth ate and 
 drank apples, when the pomace-heap was the 
 only nursery, and trees cost nothing but the 
 trouble of setting them out. Men could afford 
 then to stick a tree by every wall-side and let 
 it take its chance. I see nobody planting trees 
 to-day in such out of the way places, along the 
 lonely roads and lanes, and at the bottom of 
 dells in the wood. Now that they have grafted 
 trees, and pay a price for them, they collect 
 them into a plat by their houses, and fence 
 them in, and the end of it all will be that we 
 shall be compelled to look for our apples in a 
 barrel. 
 
 This is "The word of the Lord that came to 
 Joel the son of Pethuel. 
 
 "Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, Jill ye 
 inhabitants of the land! Hath this been in 
 your days, or even in the days of your fa 
 thers? . . . 
 
 "That which the palmerworm hath left hath 
 the locust eaten; and that which the locust 
 hath left hath the cankerworm eaten ; and that 
 which the cankerworm hath left hath the cater 
 pillar eaten. 
 
396 WILD APPLES 
 
 " Awake, ye drunkards, and weep ! and howl, 
 all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new 
 wine ! for it is cut off from your mouth. 
 
 "For a nation is come up upon my land, 
 strong, and without number, whose teeth are 
 the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth 
 of a great lion. 
 
 " He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my 
 fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast 
 it away; the branches thereof are made 
 white. . . . 
 
 "Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen! howl, 
 O ye vinedressers ! . . . 
 
 "The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree lan- 
 guisheth; the pomegranate -tree, the palm-tree 
 also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of 
 the field, are withered : because joy is withered 
 away from the sous of men." 
 
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 CHANCING to take a memorable walk by 
 moonlight some years ago, I resolved to take 
 more such walks, and make acquaintance with 
 another side of nature : I have done so. 
 
 According to Pliny, there is a stone in Ara 
 bia called Selenites, "wherein is a white, which 
 increases and decreases with the moon." My 
 journal for the last year or two has been seleni 
 tic in this sense. 
 
 Is not the midnight like Central Africa to 
 most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it, 
 to penetrate to the shores of its lake Tchad, 
 and discover the source of its Nile, perchance 
 the Mountains of the Moon? Who knows what 
 fertility and beauty, moral and natural, are 
 there to be found? In the Mountains of the 
 Moon, in the Central Africa of the night, there 
 is where all Niles -have their hidden heads. 
 The expeditions up the Nile as yet extend but 
 to the Cataracts, or perchance to the mouth of 
 the White Nile; but it is the Black Nile that 
 concerns ua. 
 
 I shall be a benefactor if I conquer some 
 
398 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 realms from the night, if I report to the gazettes 
 anything transpiring about us at that season 
 worthy of their attention, if I can show men 
 that there is some beauty awake while they are 
 asleep, if I add to the domains of poetry. 
 
 Tsight is certainly more novel and less pro 
 fane than day. I soon discovered that I was 
 acquainted only with its complexion, and as for 
 the moon, I had seen her only as it were 
 through a crevice in a shutter, occasionally. 
 Why not walk a little way in her light? 
 
 Suppose you attend to the suggestions which 
 the moon makes for one month, commonly in 
 vain, will it not be very different from any 
 thing in literature or religion? But why not 
 study this Sanskrit? What if one moon has 
 come and gone with its world of poetry, its 
 weird teachings, its oracular suggestions, so 
 divine a creature freighted with hints for me, 
 and I have not used her? One moon gone by 
 unnoticed ? 
 
 I think it was Dr. Chalmers who said, criti 
 cising Coleridge, that for his part he wanted 
 ideas which he could see all round, and not such 
 as he must look at away up in the heavens. 
 Such a man, one would say, would never look 
 at the moon, because she never turns her other 
 side to us. The light which comes from ideas 
 which have their orbit as distant from the earth, 
 
N1UHT AND MOONLIGHT 399 
 
 and which is no less cheering and enlightening 
 to the benighted traveler than that of the moon 
 ami stars, is naturally reproached or nicknamed 
 as moonshine by such. They are moonshine, 
 are they? Well, then do your night-traveling 
 when there is no moon to light you ; but I will 
 be thankful for the light that reaches me from 
 the star of least magnitude. Stars are lesser or 
 greater only as they appear to us so. I will 
 be thankful that I see so much as one side of a 
 celestial idea, one side of the rainbow, and 
 the sunset sky. 
 
 Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as 
 if they knew its qualities very well, and despised 
 them; as owls might talk of sunshine. None 
 of your sunshine, but this word commonly 
 means merely something which they do not un 
 derstand, which they are abed and asleep to, 
 however much it may be worth their while to 
 be up and awake to it. 
 
 It must be allowed that the light of the moon, 
 sufficient though it is for the pensive walker, 
 and not disproportionate to the inner light we 
 have, is very inferior in quality and intensity to 
 that of the sun. But the moon is not to be 
 judged alone by the quantity of light she sends 
 to us, but also by her influence on the earth and 
 its inhabitants. "The moon gravitates toward 
 the earth, and the earth reciprocally toward the 
 
400 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 moon." The ]x>et who walks by moonlight is 
 conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be 
 referred to lunar influence. 1 will endeavor to 
 separate the tide in my thoughts from the cur 
 rent distractions of the day. I would warn my 
 hearers that they must not try my thoughts bv 
 a daylight standard, but endeavor to realize 
 that I speak out of the night. All depends on 
 your point of view. In Drake s " Collection of 
 Voyages," Wafer says of some Albinoes among 
 the Indians of Darien, "They are quite white, 
 but their whiteness is like that of a horse, quite 
 different from the fair or pale European, as 
 they have not the least tincture of a blush or 
 sanguine complexion. . . . Their eyebrows are 
 milk-white, as is likewise the hair of their heads, 
 which is very fine. . . . They seldom go abroad 
 in the daytime, the sun being disagreeable to 
 them, and causing their eyes, which are weak 
 and poring, to water, especially if it shines 
 towards them, yet they see very well by moon 
 light, from which we call them moon-eyed." 
 
 Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight 
 walks, methinks, is there "the least tincture of 
 a blush or sanguine complexion," but we are 
 intellectually and morally Albinoes, children 
 of Endymion, such is the effect of conversing 
 much with the moon. 
 
 I complain of Arctic voyagers that they do 
 
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 401 
 
 not enough remind us of the constant peculiar 
 dreariness of the scenery, and the perpetual twi 
 light of tne Arctic night. So he whose theme 
 is moonlight, though he may find it difficult, 
 must, as it were, illustrate it with the light of 
 the moon alone. 
 
 Many men walk by day ; few walk by night. 
 It is a very different season. Take a July 
 night, for instance. About ten o clock, 
 when man is asleep, and day fairly forgotten, 
 
 the beauty of moonlight is seen over lonely 
 pastures when* cattle are silently feeding. On 
 all sides novelties present themselves. Instead 
 of the sun there are the moon and stars, instead 
 of the wood-thrush there is the whip-poor-will, 
 
 instead of butterflies in the meadows, fire 
 flies, winged sparks of fire! who would have 
 believed it? What kind of cool deliberate life 
 dwells in those dewy abodes associated with a 
 spark of fire? So man has fire in his eyes, or 
 blood, or brain. Instead of singing birds, the 
 half-throttled note of a cuckoo flying over, the 
 croaking of frogs, and the intcnser dream of 
 crickets. But above all, the wonderful trump 
 of the bullfrog, ringing from Maine to Geor 
 gia. The potato- vines stand upright, the com 
 grows apace, the bushes loom, the grain-fit 1.1s 
 an- IKMIM. 11. >-. ( )n our open river terraces once 
 cultivated by the Indian, they appear to occupy 
 
402 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 the ground like an army, their heads nodding 
 in the breeze. Small trees and shrubs are seen 
 in the midst overwhelmed as by an inundation. 
 The shadows of rocks and trees, and shrubs and 
 hills, are more conspicuous than the objects 
 themselves. The slightest irregularities in the 
 ground are revealed by the shadows, and what 
 the feet find comparatively smooth appears 
 rough and diversified in consequence. For the 
 same reason the whole landscape is more varie 
 gated and picturesque than by day. The small 
 est recesses in the rocks are dim and cavernous ; 
 the ferns in the wood appear* of tropical size. 
 The sweet fern and indigo in overgrown wood- 
 paths wet you with dew up to your middle. 
 The leaves of the shrub-oak are shining as if a 
 
 O 
 
 liquid were flowing over them. The pools seen 
 through the trees are as full of light as the sky. 
 "The light of the day takes refuge in their bos 
 oms," as the Purana says of the ocean. All 
 white objects are more remarkable than by day. 
 A distant cliff looks like a phosphorescent space 
 on a hillside. The woods are heavy and dark. 
 Nature slumbers. You see the moonlight re 
 flected from particular stumps in the recesses of 
 the forest, as if she selected what to shine on. 
 These small fractions of her light remind one of 
 the plant called moon-seed, as if the moon 
 were sowing it in such places. 
 
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 403 
 
 
 
 In the night the eyes are partly closed or re 
 tire into the head. Other senses take the lead. 
 The walker is guided as well by the sense of 
 smell. Every plant and field and forest emits 
 its odor now, swamp-pink in the meadow and 
 tansy in the road ; and there is the peculiar dry 
 scent of corn which has begun to show its tas 
 sels. The senses both of hearing and smelling 
 are more alert. We hear the tinkling of rills 
 which we never detected before. From time to 
 time, high up on the sides of hills, you pass 
 through a stratum of warm air. A blast which 
 has come up from the sidtry plains of noon. It 
 tells of the day, of sunny noon-tide hours and 
 banks, of the laborer wiping his brow and the 
 bee humming amid flowers. It is an air in 
 which work has been done, which men have 
 breathed. It circulates about from woodside 
 to hillside like a dog that has lost its master, 
 now that the sun is gone. The rocks retain all 
 night the warmth of the sun which they have 
 absorbed. And so does the sand. If you dig 
 a few inches into it you find a warm bed. You 
 lie on your back on a rock in a pasture on the 
 top of some bare hill at midnight, and sjwculate 
 on the height of the starry canopy. The stars 
 are the jewels of the night, and perchance sur 
 pass anything which day has to show. A com 
 panion with whom I was sailing one very windy 
 
404 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 but bright moonlight night, when the stars were 
 few and faint, thought that a man could get 
 along with them, though he was considerably 
 reduced in his circumstances, that they were 
 a kind of bread and cheese that never failed. 
 
 No wonder that there have been astrologers, 
 that some have conceived that they were per 
 sonally related to particular stars. Dubartas, 
 as translated by Sylvester, says he 11 
 
 " not believe that the great architect 
 With all these fires the heavenly arches decked 
 Only for show, and with these glistering shields, 
 T* awake poor shepherds, watching in the fields." 
 He 11 " not believe that the least flower which pranks 
 Our garden borders, or our common banks, 
 And the least stone, that in her warming lap 
 Onr mother earth doth covetously wrap, 
 Hath some peculiar virtue of its own, 
 And that the glorious stars of heav n have none." 
 
 And Sir Walter Raleigh well says, "The 
 stars are instruments of far greater use than 
 to give an obscure light, and for men to gaze 
 on after sunset;" and he quotes Plotinus as 
 affirming that they "are significant, but not 
 efficient; " and also Augustine as saying, " Deus 
 reyit inferior a corpora per superiora:" God 
 rules the Indies below by those above. But 
 best of all is this which another writer has ex 
 pressed: "Sapiens adjuvabil opus astrorum 
 quemadmodum agricola terrce naturam : " a 
 
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 405 
 
 wist* man assist* th the work of the stars as the 
 husbandman hclprth the nature of the soil. 
 
 It does not concern men who are asleep in 
 their beds, but it is very important to the trav 
 eler, whether the moon shines brightly or is 
 obscured. It is not easy to realize the serene 
 joy of all the earth, when she commences to 
 shine unobstructedly, unless you have often 
 been abroad alone in moonlight nights. She 
 seems to be waging continual war with the 
 clouds in your behalf. Yet we fancy the clouds 
 to l>e her foes also. She comes on magnifying 
 her dangers by her light, revealing, displaying 
 them in all their hugeness and blackness, then 
 suddenly casts them behind into the light con 
 cealed, and goes her way triumphant through a 
 small space of clear sky. 
 
 In short, the moon traversing, or appearing 
 to traverse, the small clouds which lie in her 
 way, now obscured by them, now easily dissi 
 pating and shining through them, makes the 
 drama of the moonlight night to all watchers 
 and night-travelers. Sailors sjwak of it as the 
 moon eating up the clouds. The traveler all 
 alone, the moon all alone, except for his sympa 
 thy, overcoming with incessant victory whole 
 squadrons of elouds al>ove the forests and lakes 
 and hills. \Vhen she is obscured he so sympa 
 thizes with her that he could whip a dog for 
 
40G NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 her relief, as Indians do. When she enters on 
 a clear field of great extent in the heavens, and 
 shines iinobstructedly, he is glad. And when 
 she has fought her way through all the squad 
 ron of her foes, and rides majestic in a clear 
 sky unscathed, and there are no more any ob 
 structions in her path, he cheerfully and con 
 fidently pursues his way, and rejoices in his 
 heart, and the cricket also seems to express joy 
 in its song. 
 
 How insupportable would be the days, if the 
 night with its dews and darkness did not come 
 to restore the drooping world. As the shades 
 begin to gather around us, our primeval in 
 stincts are aroused, and we steal forth from 
 our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in 
 search of those silent and brooding thoughts 
 which are the natural prey of the intellect. 
 
 Riehter says that "the earth is every day 
 overspread with the veil of night for the same 
 reason as the cages of birds are darkened, viz. : 
 that we may the more readily apprehend the 
 higher harmonies of thought in the hush and 
 (juiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns 
 into smoke and mist stand about us in the night 
 as light and flames; even as the column which 
 fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in the 
 daytime appears a pillar of cloud, but by night 
 a pillar of fire." 
 
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT l"7 
 
 Tliere are nights in this climate of such serene 
 Mild majrstir hrauty, >> iiu-dirinal and frrtili/- 
 ing to the spirit, that methinks a sensitive na 
 ture would not devote them to oblivion, and 
 ]>erhaps there is no man hut would l>e better 
 and wiser for spending them out - of - doors, 
 though he should sleep all the next day to pay 
 for it; should sleep an Endymion sleep, as the 
 ancients expressed it, nights which warrant 
 the Grecian epithet ambrosial, when, as in the 
 land of Beulah, the atmosphere is charged with 
 dewy fragrance, and with music, and we take 
 our repose and have our dreams awake, when 
 the moon, not secondary to the sun, 
 
 " gives us his blaze again, 
 Void of its flame, and .sheds a softer day. 
 Now through the passing duud she TW*T to stoop, 
 Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime." 
 
 Diana still limits in the New England sky. 
 
 " In Heaven queen she is among the spheres. 
 
 She, mistress-like, makes all thing* to be pure. 
 Eternity in her oft change she bean ; 
 She Beauty is ; by her the fair endure. 
 
 " Time wean her not ; she doth his chariot guide ; 
 
 Mortality below her orb is placed ; 
 By her the virtues of the stars down nli<! ; 
 By her is Virtue s perfect image cast" 
 
 The Hindoos compare the moon to a saintly 
 being who has reached the last stage of bodily 
 existence. 
 
408 NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 Great restorer of antiquity, great enchanter. 
 In a mild night when the harvest or hunter s 
 moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our 
 village, whatever architect they may have had 
 by day, acknowledge only a master. The vil 
 lage street is then as wild as the forest. New 
 and old things are confounded. I know not 
 whether I am sitting on the ruins of a wall, or 
 on the material which is to compose a new one. 
 Nature is an instructed and impartial teacher, 
 spreading no crude opinions, and flattering 
 none ; she will be neither radical nor conserva 
 tive. Consider the moonlight, so civil, yet so 
 savage ! 
 
 The light is more proportionate to our know 
 ledge than that of day. It is no more dusky 
 in ordinary nights than our mind s habitual at 
 mosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our 
 most illuminated moments are. 
 
 Iu such a night let me abroad remain 
 Till morning breaks, and all s confused again." 
 
 Of what significance the light of day, if it is 
 not the reflection of an inward dawn? to what 
 purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the 
 morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is 
 merely garish and glaring. 
 
 When Ossian in his address to the sun ex 
 claims, - 
 
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 409 
 
 " Where hat darkness it* dwelling ? 
 When- in the cavornouH home of the stars, 
 When thou quickly followest their st-jw, 
 Pursuing them lik hunter in the tky, 
 Thou climbing the lofty hills, 
 They descending on barren mountains ? " 
 
 who does not in his thought accompany the 
 stars to their "cavernous home," "descending" 
 with them "on barren mountains"? 
 
 Nevertheless, even by night the sky is blue 
 and not black, for we see through the shadow of 
 the earth into the distant atmosphere of day, 
 where the sunbeams are reveling. 
 
MAY DAYS 
 
 MAY 1, 1841. Life in gardens and parlors 
 is unpalatable to ine. It wants rudeness and 
 necessity to give it relish. I would at least 
 strike ray spade into the earth with as good-will 
 as the woodpecker his bill into a tree. 
 
 May 1, 1851. K haled would have his weary 
 soldiers vigilant still. Apprehending a mid 
 night sally from the enemy, u Let no man 
 sleep," said he; "we shall have rest enough 
 after death." 
 
 May 1, 1852. Five A. M. To Cliffs. A 
 smart frost in the night. The ploughed ground 
 and platforms white with it. I hear the little 
 forked-tailed chipping-sparrow (Fringitta so- 
 ciaUx) shaking out his rapid "tchi-tchi-tchi-tchi- 
 tchi-tchi," a little jingle from the oak behind 
 the depot. I hear the note of that plump bird 
 with a dark streaked breast, that runs and hides 
 in the grass, whose note sounds so like a crick 
 et s in the grass. I used to hear it when I 
 walked by moonlight last summer. I hear it 
 now from deep in the sod, for there is hardly 
 grass yet. The bird keeps so low you do not 
 see it. You do not suspect how many there are 
 
MAY DAYS 411 
 
 till their heads appear. The word nerinyo re 
 minds me of its note, as if it were produced by 
 some kind of tine metallie spring. It is an 
 earth sound. 
 
 It is a moist, lowering morning for the May 
 ers. The sun now shines under a cloud in the 
 horizon, and his still yellow light falls on the 
 western fields as sometimes on the eastern after 
 a shower in a summer afternoon. Nuttall says 
 the note of the chipping-sparrow is "given from 
 time to time in the night, like the reverie of a 
 dream." Have I not heard it when spearing? 
 Found the first violet which would open to-day, 
 V. saylttata var. ovatu, or cucullata? for 
 the leaves are not toothed at base nor arrow- 
 shaj)ed as in the first, yet they are hairy, and, I 
 should say, petiole-margined; still, like the lat 
 ter, they are rolled in at base, and the scape is 
 four-angled. . . . The woods have a damp smell 
 this morning. I hear a robin amid them. Yet 
 there are fewer singers to be heard than on a 
 very pleasant morning some weeks ago. The 
 low early blueberry (June Wry) is well budded. 
 The grass ground low ground, at least - 
 wears a good green tinge ; there are no leaves 
 on the woods; the river is high over the 
 meadows. There is a thin, gauze-like veil over 
 the village (I am on Fairhaven Hill), probably 
 formed of the smokes. As yet we have had no 
 
412 MAY DAYS 
 
 morning fogs, to my knowledge. I hear the 
 first to- wee finch; he says, " to- wee-to-wee ; " 
 and another, much farther off than I supposed 
 when I went in search of him, says, "whip your 
 ohr-r-r-r-r-r," with a metallic ring. I hear the 
 first cat-bird, also, mewing, and the wood- 
 thrush, which still thrills me, a sound to be 
 heard in a new country from one side of a clear 
 ing. I heard a black and white creeper just 
 now, "wicher-wicher-wicher-wich." I am on 
 the Cliff. It is about six. The flicker cackles. 
 I hear a woodpecker tapping. The tinkle of 
 the huckleberry bird comes up from the shrub- 
 oak plain. He commonly lives away from the 
 habitations of men, in retired bushy fields and 
 sprout lands. We have thus flowers and the 
 song of birds before the woods leave out, like 
 ]>oetry. When leaving the woods I heard the 
 hooting of an owl, which sounded very much 
 like a clown calling to his team. Saw two large 
 woodpeckers on an oak. I am tempted to say 
 that they were other and larger than the flicker; 
 but I have been deceived in him before. . . . 
 
 The little peeping frogs which I got last night 
 resemble the description of the Ilylodcs Picker- 
 inyiii and in some respects the j^eping hyla; 
 but they are probably the former, though every 
 way considerably smaller. Mine are about 
 three fourths of" an inch long as they sit, seven 
 
MAY DAYS 413 
 
 eighths if stretched; four-fingered and five-toed, 
 with small tubercles on the ends of them. 
 Si -me difference in their color. One is like a 
 pale oak leaf at this season, streaked with 
 l>ro\vn. Two others more ashy. Two have 
 crosses on back, of dark brown, with transverse 
 bands on the legs. I keep them in a tumbler. 
 They peep at twilight and evening; occasionally 
 at other times. One that got out in the evening 
 on to the carpet was found soon after, by his 
 j>eeping, on the piano. They easily ascend the 
 glass of the window. Jump eighteen inches or 
 more. When they peep, the loose, wrinkled 
 skin of the throat is swelled up into a globular 
 bubble, very large and transparent, and quite 
 round, except on the throat side, behind which 
 their little heads are lost, mere protuberances 
 on the side of this sphere. The peeping wholly 
 absorbs them, their mouths being shut, or ap 
 parently so. Will sit half a day on the side of 
 a smooth tumbler. Made that trilling note in 
 the house. Remain many hours at the bottom 
 of the water in the tumbler, or sit as long on 
 the leaves al>ove. A pulse in the throat always, 
 except in one for an hour or two, apparently 
 asleep. They change their color to a darker or 
 lighter shade, chameleon -like. 
 
 May 1, 1863. To Cliffs. The oak leaves 
 on th- plain arc fallen. The colors are now 
 
414 MAY DAYS 
 
 light l>lue above (where is my cyanometer? 
 Saussure invented one, and Humboldt used it 
 in his travels); the landscape russet and green 
 ish, spotted with fawn-colored ploughed knds, 
 with green pine and gray or reddish oak woods 
 intermixed, and dark blue or slate-colored water 
 here and there. It is greenest in the meadows 
 and where water has lately stood, and a strong, 
 invigorating scent comes up from the fresh 
 meadows. It is like the greenness of an apple 
 faintly or dimly appearing through the russet. 
 
 May 1, 1854. Early starlight by river-side. 
 The water smooth and broad. I hear the loud 
 and incessant cackling of probably the pigeon 
 woodpecker, what some time since I thought to 
 be a different kind. Thousands of robins are 
 filling the air with their trills, mingling with 
 the peeping of hylodes and ringing of frogs; 
 and now the snipes have just begun their win 
 nowing sounds and squeaks. 
 
 May 1, 1855. P. M. By boat with S 
 to Conantum a-maying. 
 
 The myrtle bird is one of the commonest and 
 tamest birds now. It catches insects like a 
 ]>ewee, darting off from its perch and returning 
 to it, and sings something like "a-chill chill, 
 chill chill, chill chill, a-twear, twill twill twee/* 
 or it may be all tw (not loud, a little like the 
 FrincjUla hiemalis, or more like the pine war- 
 
.v.-ir DAYS ii.". 
 
 bier), rapid, and more and more intense a* it 
 advances. There is an unaccountable sweetness 
 as of flowers in the air. A true May day, 
 raw and drizzling in the morning. The grackle 
 still. What various brilliant and evanescent 
 colors on the surface of this agitated water, 
 now, as we are crossing Willow Bay, looking 
 toward the half-concealed sun over the foam- 
 spotted flood ! It reminds me of the sea. . . . 
 
 Went to G - s for the hawk of yesterday. 
 It was nailed to the barn in terrorem, and as a 
 trophy. He gave it to me, with an egg. He 
 called it the female, and probably was right, it 
 waa BO ];(!_;.. II,. tried in rain to shool tli.- 
 male, which I saw circling about just out of 
 gunshot, and screaming, while he robbed the 
 nest. He climbed the tree when I was there 
 yesterday p. M., and found two young, which 
 he thought not more than a fortnight old, with 
 only down, at least no feathers, and one addled 
 e gg a l- so three or four white-bellied or deer 
 mice (JUus /et/ro//t/*), a perch and a sucker, and 
 a gray rabbit s skin. I think they must have 
 found the fish dead. They were now stale. I 
 found the remains of a partridge under the tree. 
 G - had seen squirrels, etc., in other nests. 
 
 May 1, 1857. Two p. M. First notice the 
 ring of tin* toad as I am crossing tin- common in 
 front of the m. -ting-house. There is a cool 
 
416 MAY DAYS 
 
 and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first 
 toad leaks into the general stream of sound un 
 noticed by most, as the mill brook empties into 
 the river, and the voyager cannot tell if he is 
 above or below its mouth. The bell was ring 
 ing for town meeting, and every one heard it, 
 but none heard this older and more universal 
 bell, rung by more native Americans all the 
 land over. It is a sound from amid the waves 
 of the aerial sea, that breaks on our ears with 
 the surf of the air, a sound that is almost 
 breathed with the wind, taken into the lungs 
 instead of being heard by the ears. It comes 
 from far over and through the troughs of the 
 aerial sea, like a petrel ; and who can guess by 
 what pool the singer sits ? whether behind the 
 meeting-house sheds, or over the burying- 
 ground hill, or by the river-side. A new reign 
 has commenced. Bufo the first has ascended 
 his throne, the surface of the earth, marshaled 
 into office by the south wind. Bufo, the double- 
 chinned, inflates his throat. Attend to his mes 
 sage. Take off your great coats, swains, and 
 prepare for the summer campaign. Hop a few 
 paces farther toward your goals. The measures 
 which I shall advocate are warmth, moisture, 
 and low-flying insects. . . . 
 
 It is foolish for a man to accumulate material 
 wealth chiefly, houses and lands. Our stock in 
 
MAY DAYS 417 
 
 life, our real estate, is that amount of thought 
 which we have hacl, which we have thought out. 
 The ground we have thus created is forever pas 
 turage for our thoughts. I fall back on to vis 
 ions which I have had. What else adds to my 
 possessions, and makes me rich in all lands? If 
 you have ever done any work with those finest 
 tools, the Imagination and Fancy and Reason, 
 it is a new creation, independent of the world, 
 and a possession forever. You have laid up 
 something against a rainy day. You have, to 
 that extent, cleared the wilderness. 
 
 May 1, 1859. We accuse savages of wor 
 shiping only the bad spirit or devil. Though 
 they may distinguish both a good and a bad, 
 they regard only that one which they fear, wor 
 ship the devil only. We too are savages in 
 this, doing precisely the same thing. This oc 
 curred to me yesterday, as I sat in the woods 
 admiring the lxauty of the blue butterfly. We 
 are not chiefly interested in birds and insects, 
 for example, as they are ornamental to the r:utli 
 and cheering to man, but we spare the lives of 
 the former only on condition that they eat more 
 grubs than they do cherries, and the only ac 
 count of the insects which the State encourages 
 is of the insects injurious to vegetation. We 
 too admit both a good and bad spirit, but we 
 worship chiefly the bad spirit whom we fear. 
 
418 MAY DAYS 
 
 We do not think first of the good, but of the 
 harm things will do us. The catechism says 
 that the chief end of man is to glorify God and 
 enjoy him forever, which of course is applicable 
 mainly to God as seen in his works. Yet the 
 only account of the beautiful insects, butterflies, 
 etc., which God has made and set before us, 
 which the State ever thinks of spending any 
 money on is the account of those which are in 
 jurious to vegetation ! This is the way we 
 glorify God and enjoy him forever. . . . 
 
 We have attended to the evil, and said no 
 thing about the good. This is looking a gift 
 horse in the mouth, with a vengeance. Chil 
 dren are attracted by the beauty of butterflies, 
 but their parents and legislators deem it an idle 
 pursuit. The parents remind one of the devil, 
 but the children of God. Though God may 
 have pronounced his work good, we ask, Is it 
 not poisonous? 
 
 Science is inhuman. Things seen with a 
 microscope begin to be insignificant. So de 
 scribed, they are monstrous, as if they should 
 be magnified a thousand diameters. Suppose 
 I should see and describe men and horses and 
 trees and birds as if they were a thousand times 
 larger than they are. With our prying instru 
 ments we disturb the harmony and balance of 
 nature. 
 
AMI DAYS 419 
 
 May 2, 1862. Reptiles must not be omit 
 ted, especially frogs. Their croaking is the 
 most earthy sound now, a rustling of the scurf 
 of the earth, not to be overlooked in the awak 
 ening of the year. . . . 
 
 The commonplaces of one age or nation make 
 the poetry of another. . . . 
 
 The handsome, blood-red, lacquered marks on 
 the edge and under the edge of the painted tor 
 toise s -li.-ll. liUr tli.- mark- on ;i waiter, concen 
 tric. Few colors like it in nature. This tor 
 toise, too, like the guttata, painted on thin 
 parts of the shell, and on legs and tail in this 
 style, but on throat bright yellow stripes. 
 Sternum dull yellowish or buff. It hisses like 
 the spotted tortoise. Is the male the larger and 
 flatter, with depressed sternum ? There is some 
 regularity in the guttata s spots, generally a 
 straight row on back. Some of the spots are 
 orange sometimes on the head. . . . 
 
 If you would obtain insight, avoid anat 
 omy,, . . . 
 
 May 2, 1855. The anemone is well named, 
 for see now the nemorosa amid the fallen brush 
 and leaves, trembling in the wind, so fragile. 
 
 May 2, 1859. A peetweet and its mate. 
 The river seems really inhabited when the peet 
 weet is back. This bird does not return to our 
 stream until the weather is decidedly pleasant 
 
420 MAY DAYS 
 
 and warm. He is perched on the accustomed 
 rock. His note peoples the river like the prat 
 tle of children once more in the yard of a house 
 that has stood empty. . . . 
 
 I am surprised by the tender yellowish green 
 of the aspen leaves, just expanded suddenly, 
 even like a fire, seen in the sun against the dark 
 brown twigs of the wood, though these leaflets 
 are yet but thinly dispersed. It is very enliv 
 ening. 
 
 I feel no desire to go to California or Pike s 
 Peak, but I often think at night, with inexpres 
 sible satisfaction and yearning, of the arrow- 
 headiferous sands of Concord. I have often 
 spent whole afternoons, especially in the spring, 
 pacing back and forth over a sandy field, look 
 ing for these relics of a race. This is the gold 
 which our sands yield. The soil of that rocky 
 spot of Simon Brown s land is quite ash-colored 
 (now that the sod is turned up) from Indian 
 fires, with numerous pieces of coal in it. There 
 is a great deal of this ash-colored soil in the 
 country. We do literally plough up the hearths 
 of a people, and plant in their ashes. The 
 ashes of their fires colors much of our soil. 
 
 May 2, 1860. I observed on the 29th that 
 the clams had not only been moving much, fur 
 rowing the sandy bottom near the shore, but 
 generally, or almost invariably, had moved 
 
MAY .DAYS 1-1 
 
 toward the middle of the river. Perhaps it had 
 something to do with the low stage of the water. 
 I saw one making his way, or perhaps it had 
 rested sinee morning, over that sawdust bar 
 just below Turtle Bar, toward the river, the 
 surface of the bar Wing an inch or two hi-lh-r 
 than the water. Probably the water falling left 
 it thus on moist land. 
 
 A erowd of men seems to generate vermin 
 even of the human kind. In great towns tlu-rc 
 is degradation undreamed of elsewhere, gam 
 blers, dog-killers, rag-pickers. Some live by 
 robbing or by luck. There was the Concord 
 muster of last September. I see still a well- 
 dressed man carefully and methodically search 
 ing for money on the muster field far off across 
 the river. I turn my glass ujwm him and notice 
 how he proceeds. (I saw them searching in the 
 fall till the snow came.) He walks, regularly 
 and slowly, back and forth over the ground 
 where the soldiers had their tents, still marked 
 by the straw, with his head prone, and picking 
 in the straw with a stick, now and then turning 
 back or aside to examine ^>m.-tlnn^ more closely. 
 He is dressed, methinks, l>etter than the aver 
 age man whom you meet in the street*. How 
 can he pay for his board thus? He dreams of 
 finding a few copjHrs, or perchance half a dime, 
 which have fallen from the soldiers )*.. -K- t-,. 
 
422 MAY^DAYS 
 
 and no doubt he will find something of the kind, 
 having dreamed of it. Having knocked, this 
 door Will be opened to him. 
 
 May 3, 1841. We are all pilots of the most 
 intricate Bahama channels. Beauty may be the 
 sky overhead, but duty is the water underneath. 
 When I see a man with serene countenance in 
 garden or parlor, it looks like a great inward 
 leisure that he enjoys, but in reality he sails on 
 no summer s sea. This steady sailing comes of 
 a heavy hand on the tiller. We do not attend 
 to larks and bluebirds so leisurely but that con 
 science is as erect as the attitude of the listener. 
 The man of principle gets never a holiday. 
 Our true character underlies all our words and 
 actions, as the granite underlies the other strata. 
 Its steady pidse does not cease for any deed of 
 ours, as the sap is still ascending in the stalk 
 of the fairest flower. 
 
 May 3, 1852. Five A. M. To Cliffs. A 
 great brassy moon going down in the west. . . . 
 Looking from the Cliff, now about six A. M., 
 the landscape is as if seen in a mirage, the Cliff 
 being in shadow, and that in the cool sunlight. 
 The earth and water smell fresh and new, and 
 the latter is marked by a few smooth streaks. 
 The atmosphere suits the grayish-brown land 
 scape, the still, ashy maple swamps, and now 
 
MAY DAYS 423 
 
 nearly bare shrub oaks. The white pine, left 
 here and there over the sprout land, is never 
 moiv bountiful than with the morning light, be 
 fore the water is rippled and the morning song 
 of the birds is quenched. 
 
 Hear the first brown thrasher, two of them. 
 They drown all the rest. He says, "cherrmvit, 
 cherruwit, go ahead, go ahead, give it to him, 
 give it to him," etc. Plenty of birds in the 
 woods this morning. The huckleberry birds 
 and the chickadees are as numerous, if not as 
 loud, as any. The flicker taps a dead tree 
 somewhat as one uses a knocker on a door in 
 the village street. In his note he begins low, 
 rising higher and higher. 
 
 Anursnack looks green three miles off. This 
 is an important epoch, when the distant bare 
 hills begin to show green or verdurous to the 
 eye. The earth wears a new aspect. Not 
 tawny or russet now, but green are such bare 
 hills. Some of the notes, the trills of the lark 
 sitting amid the tussocks and stubble, are like 
 the notes of my seringo bird. May these birds 
 that live so low in the grass be called the 
 cricket birds ? and does their song resemble that 
 of the cricket, an earth song? 
 
 Evening. The moon is full. The air is 
 filled with a certain luminous, liquid white 
 You can see the moonlight, as it were 
 
424 MAY DAYS 
 
 reflected from the atmosphere, which some 
 might mistake for a haze, a glow of mellow 
 light, somewhat like the light I saw in the af 
 ternoon sky some weeks ago, as if the air were 
 a very thin but transparent liquid, not dry as 
 in winter, nor gross as in summer. The sky 
 has depth, and not merely distance. Going 
 through the depot field, I hear the dream frog 
 at a distance. The little peeping frogs make a 
 background of sound in the horizon, which you 
 do not hear unless you attend. The former is 
 a trembling note, some higher, some lower, 
 along the edge of the earth, an all-pervading 
 sound. Nearer, it is a blubbering or rather 
 bubbling sound, such as children, who stand 
 nearer to nature, can and do often make. . . . 
 The little peeper prefers a pool on the edge of 
 a wood, which mostly dries up at midsummer, 
 whose shore is covered with leaves, and where 
 there are twigs in the water, as where choppers 
 have worked. Theirs is a clear, sharp, ear- 
 piereing peep, not shrill, sometimes a squeak 
 from one whose pipe is out of order. . . . They 
 have much the greatest apparatus for peeping 
 of any frogs that I know. ... I go along the 
 side of Fairhaven Hill. The clock strikes dis 
 tinctly, showing the wind is easterly. There is 
 a grand, rich, musical echo trembling in the air 
 long after the clock has ceased to strike, like a 
 
MAY DAYS 4 2f> 
 
 vast organ, tilling the air with a trembling 
 music, like a flower of sound. Nature adopts 
 it. The water is so calm, the woods and single 
 ,,,,., :uv .l.iiilil,.,! U tli.- rchVi-tion, :m<l in tlii- 
 light you cannot divide them as you walk along 
 the river. See the spearer s lights, one north 
 east, one southwest, toward Sudhury, beyond 
 Lee s Bridge, scarlet-colored fires. From 
 the hill, the river is a broad blue stream exactly 
 the color of the heavens which it reflects. Sit 
 on the Cliff with comfort in great-coat. All 
 the tawny and russet earth (for no green is seen 
 upon the ground at this hour) sending only this 
 faint, multitudinous sound (of frogs) to heaven. 
 The vast, wild earth. The first whip-poor-will 
 startles me; I hear three. Summer is coining 
 apace. Within three or four days the birds 
 have come so fast I can hardly keep the run of 
 them, much faster than the flowers. 
 
 Sunday, May 3, 1857. A remarkably warm 
 and pleasant morning. A. M. To battle ground 
 by river. I heard the ring of toads at six 
 A. M. The flood on the meadows, still high, 
 is quite smooth, and many are out this still and 
 suddenly very warm morning, pushing about 
 in boats. Now, thinks many a one, is the 
 time to paddle or push gently far up or down 
 the river, along the still, warm meadow s edge, 
 and j>erhaps we may see some large turtles, or 
 
420 MAY DAYS 
 
 musk-rats, or otter, or rare fish or fowl. It 
 will be a grand forenoon for a cruise, to ex 
 plore these meadow shores and inundated maple 
 swamps which we have never explored. Now 
 we shall be recompensed for the week s confine 
 ment in shop or garden. We will spend our 
 Sabbath exploring these smooth, warm vernal 
 waters. Up or down shall we go, to Fair- 
 haven Bay and the Sudbury meadows, or to 
 Ball s Hill and Carlisle Bridge? Along the 
 meadow s edge, lined with willows and alders 
 and maples ; underneath the catkins of the early 
 willow, and brushing those of the sweet-gale with 
 our prow; where the sloping pasture and the 
 ploughed ground submerged are fast drinking 
 up the flood, what fair isles, what remote coast, 
 shall we explore? what San Salvador or Bay of 
 All Saints arrive at? All are tempted forth, 
 like files into the sun. All isles seem Fortunate 
 and blessed to-day, all capes are of Good Hope. 
 The same sun and calm that tempt the turtles 
 out tempt the voyagers. It is an opportunity 
 to explore their own natures, to float along their 
 own shores. The woodpecker cackles and the 
 crow blackbird utters his jarring chatter from 
 the oaks and maples. All well men and women 
 who are not restrained by superstitious custom 
 come abroad this morning, by land or water, 
 and such as have boats launch them and put 
 
MAY DAYS 427 
 
 forth in search of adventure. Others, less free 
 or it may be less fortunate, take their station 
 on bridges, watching the rush of waters through 
 them and the motions of the departing voyagers, 
 and listening to the note of blackbirds from over 
 the smooth water. Perhaps they see a swimming 
 snake or a musk-rat dive, airing and sunning 
 themselves there till the first bell rings. Up 
 and down the town men and boys that are un 
 der subjection are polishing their shoes and 
 brushing their go-to-meeting clothes. 
 
 I sympathize not to-day with those who go to 
 church in newest clothes, and sit quietly in 
 straight -backed pews. I sympathize rather 
 with the boy who has none to look after him, 
 who borrows a boat and paddle, and in common 
 clothes sets out to explore these temporary ver 
 nal lakes. I meet one paddling along under a 
 sunny bank, with bare feet and his pants rolled 
 up above his knees, ready to leap into the water 
 at a moment s warning. Better for him to 
 read Robinson Crusoe than Baxter s Saints 1 
 
 Rest. . . . 
 
 The pine-warbler is perhaps the commonest 
 bird heard now from the wood sides. It seems 
 left to it almost alone to fill the empty aisles. 
 
 May 4, 1852. This excitement about Kos- 
 suth is not interesting to me, it is so super! i.-ial. 
 
MAY DAYS 
 
 Men are making speeches to him all over 
 the country, but each expresses only the thought 
 or the want of thought of the multitude. No 
 man stands on truth. They are merely banded 
 together as usual, one leaning on another, and 
 all together on nothing, as the Hindoos made 
 the world rest on an elephant, and the elephant 
 on a tortoise, and had nothing to put under the 
 tortoise. You can pass your hand under the 
 largest mob, a nation in revolution even, and 
 however solid a bulk they may make, like a hail 
 cloud in the atmosphere, you may not meet so 
 much as a cobweb of support. They may not 
 rest, even by a point, on eternal foundations. 
 Hut an individual standing on truth you cannot 
 pass your hand under, for his foundations reach 
 to the centre of the universe. So superficial 
 these men and their doings. It is life on a leaf, 
 or a chip, which has nothing but air or water 
 beneath. I love to see a man with a tap-root, 
 though it make him difficult to transplant. It 
 is unimportant what these men do. Let them 
 try forever, they can effect nothing. Of what 
 significance are the things you can forget? 
 
 May 4, 1853. Cattle are going up country. 
 Hear the "tull-lull" of the white-throated spar- 
 row. 
 
 Eight A. M. To Walden and Cliffs. The 
 sound of the oven-bird. . The woods and 
 
MAY DAYS 429 
 
 fields next the Cliffs now ring with the silver 
 jin^lf of the field sparrow, the medley of the 
 brown thrasher, the honest qui rire of the ehe- 
 wink, or his jingle from the top of a low copse 
 tree, while his mate scratches in the dry leaves 
 beneath. The black and white creeper is hop 
 ping along the oak boughs, head downward, 
 pausing from time to time to utter its note, like 
 a fine, delicate saw sharpening, and ever and 
 anon rises, clear over all, the smooth rich mel 
 ody of the wood-thnish. Could that have been 
 a jay? I think it was some large, uncommon 
 woodpecker that uttered that very loud, strange, 
 cackling note. The dry woods have the smell 
 of fragrant everlasting. I am surprised by the 
 cool drops which now at ten o clock fall from 
 the flowers of the amelunehier, while other 
 plants are dry, as if these had attracted more 
 moisture. The white pines have started. The 
 indigo bird and its mate, dark throat, light be 
 neath, white spot on wings which is not de- 
 serilxd, a hoarse note and rapid, the first two 
 or three syllables "twe, twe, twee," the last 
 being dwelt ujwn, or "twe, twe, twe, tweee," 
 or as if there were an r in it, "tre," etc., not 
 musical. . . . 
 
 It is stated in the "Life of Humliolclt " that he 
 proved "that the expression, The ocean reflects 
 the sky, was a purely poetical, not a scientiti- 
 
430 MAY DAYS 
 
 cally correct one, as the sea is often blue when 
 the sky is almost totally covered with light, 
 white clouds." He used Saussure s cyanometer 
 even to measure the color of the sea. This 
 might probably be used to measure the intensity 
 of blue flowers, like lupines, at a distance. 
 
 May 4, 1855. A robin sings, when I in the 
 house cannot distinguish the earliest dawning 
 from the full moonlight. His song first adver 
 tises me of the daybreak when I thought it was 
 night, as I lay looking out into the full moon 
 light. I heard a robin begin his strain, and 
 yielded the point to him, believing that he was 
 better acquainted with the signs of day than I. 
 
 May 4, 1858. P. M. By boat to Holdcn 
 swamp. To go among the willows now and 
 hear the bees hum is equal to going some hun 
 dreds of miles southward toward summer. 
 
 Go into Holden swamp to hear warblers. 
 See a little blue butterfly (or moth) (saw one 
 yesterday) fluttering about on the dry brown 
 leaves in a warm place by the swamp side, mak 
 ing a pleasant contrast. From time to time 
 have seen the large Vanessa antlopa resting on 
 the black willows, like a leaf still adhering. 
 As I sit by the swamp side this warm summery 
 afternoon I hear the crows cawing hoarsely, and 
 from time to time see one flying toward the top 
 of a tall white pine. At length I distinguish a 
 
.v.-ir DAYS 431 
 
 hen -hawk perched on the top. The crow re- 
 JK utrdly stoops toward him, now from this side, 
 now from that, passing near his head each time, 
 but he pays not the least attention to it. 
 
 I hear the u veer-e, ver-e, ver-e" of the 
 creeper continually in the swamp. It is the 
 prevailing note there, and methought I heard a 
 redstart s note, but oftener than the last the 
 tweezer or screeper note of the party-colored 
 warbler, bluish al>ove, throat and breast yellow 
 or orange, white on wings, and neck above yel 
 lowish, going restlessly over the trees (maples, 
 etc.) by the swamp, in creeper fashion; and as 
 you may hear at the same time the true creeper s 
 note without seeing it, you might think this 
 bird uttered the creeper s note also. 
 
 The redwings, though here and there in 
 flocks, are apparently beginning to build. I 
 infer this from their shyness and alarm in the 
 bushes along the river, and their richer solitary 
 warbling. 
 
 May 4, 1859. p. M. To Lee s Cliff on foot. 
 . . . Crossing the first Conantum field 1 per 
 ceive a peculiar fragrance in the air (not the 
 meadow fragrance), like that of vernal flowers 
 or of expanding buds. The ground is covered 
 with the mouse-ear in full bloom, and it may 
 be that in part. It is a temperate southwest 
 , a i il thU i- a seen! <>t \\ill..\\. (fk>WBH 
 
432 MAY DAYS 
 
 and leaflets), bluets, violets, shad-bush, mouse- 
 ear, etc., combined, or perhaps the last chiefly. 
 At any rate, it is very perceptible. The air is 
 more genial, laden with the fragrance of spring 
 flowers. I, sailing on the spring ocean, getting 
 in from my winter voyage, begin to smell the 
 land. Such a scent perceived by a mariner 
 would be very exciting. I not only smell the 
 land breeze, but I perceive in it the fragrance 
 of spring flowers. I come out expecting to see 
 the redstart or the party-colored warbler, and 
 as soon as I get within a dozen rods of the IIol- 
 den wood I hear the screeper note of the tweezer 
 bird, that is, the party-colored warbler, which 
 also I see, but not distinctly. Two or three are 
 flitting from tree-top to tree-top about the 
 swamp there, and you have only to sit still on 
 one side and wait for them to come round. 
 The water has what you may call a summer rip 
 ple and sparkle on it; that is, the ripple does 
 not suggest coldness in the breeze that raises it. 
 It is a hazy day; the air is made hazy, you 
 might fancy, with a myriad expanding buds. 
 After crossing the arrow-head fields, we see a 
 woodchuck run along and climb to the top of a 
 wall and sit erect there, our first. It is al 
 most exactly the color of the ground, the wall, 
 and the bare brown twigs altogether. When 
 in the Miles swamp field we see two, one chas- 
 
MAY DAYS 433 
 
 ing the other, coming very fast down the lilac- 
 field hill, straight toward us, while we squat 
 still in the middle of the field. The foremost 
 is a small gray or slaty-colored one ; the other, 
 two or three times as heavy, and a warm tawny, 
 decidedly yellowish in the sun, a very large and 
 fat one, pursuing the first. . . . Suddenly the 
 foremost, when thirty or forty rods off, per 
 ceives us, and tries, as it were, to sink into the 
 earth, and finally gets behind a low tuft of grass 
 and peeps out. Also the other (which at first 
 appears to fondle the earth, inclining his cheek 
 to it and dragging his body a little along it) 
 tries to hide himself, and at length gets behind 
 an apple-tree and peeps out on one side in an 
 amusing manner. This makes three that we 
 see. They are clumsy runners, with their short 
 legs and heavy bodies, run with an undula 
 ting or wabbling motion, jerking up their hind 
 quarters. They can run pretty fast, however. 
 Their tails were dark-tipped. They are low 
 when the animal is running. 
 
 Looking up through this soft and warm south 
 west wind I notice the conspicuous shadow of 
 mid-Conantnm Cliff, now at three P. M., and 
 elsewhere the shade of a few apple-trees, trunks 
 and boughs. Through this warm and ha/y 
 air the sheeny surface of the hill, now con 
 siderably greened, looks soft as velvet, and 
 
434 MAY DAYS 
 
 June is suggested to my mind. It is remark 
 able that shadow should only be noticed now 
 when decidedly warm weather comes, though 
 before the leaves have expanded, that is, when 
 it begins to be grateful to our senses. The 
 shadow of the Cliff is like a dark pupil on the 
 side of the hill. The first shadow is as notice 
 able and memorable as a flower. I observe 
 annually the first shadow of this cliff, when we 
 begin to pass from sunshine into shade for 
 our refreshment; when we look on shade with 
 yearning, as on a friend. That cliff and its 
 shade suggest dark eyes and eyelashes, and 
 overhanging brows. Few things are more sug 
 gestive of heat than this first shade, though 
 now we see only the tracery of tree boughs on 
 the greening grass and the sandy street. This 
 I notice at the same time with the first humble- 
 bee; when the Rana palustris purrs in the 
 meadow generally; when the white willow and 
 the aspen display their tender green, full of yel 
 low light; when the party-colored warbler is 
 first heard over the swamp; the woodchuck, 
 who loves warmth, is out on the hill-sides in 
 numbers; the jingle of the chipbird and the 
 song of the thrasher are heard incessantly; the 
 first cricket is heard in a warm, rocky place; 
 and that scent of vernal flowers is in the air. 
 This is an intenser expression of that same 
 
MAY DAYS 435 
 
 influence or aspect of nature which I began to 
 perceive ten days ago, the same Lie/eruny. 
 
 These days we begin to think in earnest of 
 bathing in the river and to sit at an open win 
 dow. Life out-of-doors begins. 
 
 It would require a good deal of time and pa 
 tience to study the habits of woodchucks, they 
 are so shy and watchful. They hear the least 
 sound of a footstep on the ground, and are 
 quick to see also. One should go clad in a suit 
 somewhat like their own, the warp of tawny 
 and the woof of green, and then with painted 
 or well-tanned face he might lie out on a sunny 
 bank till they appeared. 
 
 We hear a thrasher sing for half an hour 
 steadily, a very rich singer, and heard one 
 fourth of a mile off very distinctly. This is 
 first heard commonly at planting time. He 
 sings as if conscious of his power. 
 
 May 4, 1860. r. M. To Great Meadows by 
 boat. . . . Walking over the river meadows 
 to examine the pools and see how much dried 
 up they are, I notice, as usual, the track of the 
 musquash, some five inches wide always, and 
 always exactly in the lowest part of the muddy 
 hollows connecting one pool with another, wind 
 ing as they wind, as if loath to raise itself alx>ve 
 the lowest mud. At first he swam there, and 
 now as the water goes down he follows it stead- 
 
436 MAY DAYS 
 
 ily, and at length travels on the bare mud, but 
 as low and close to the water as he can get. 
 Thus he first traces the channel of the future 
 brook and river, and deepens it by dragging his 
 belly along it. He lays out and engineers its 
 road. As our roads are said to follow the 
 track of the cow, so rivers in another period 
 follow the trail of the musquash. They are 
 perfect rats to look at, and swim fast against 
 the stream. When I am walking on a high 
 bank, I often see one swimming along within 
 half a dozen rods, and land openly, as if regard 
 less of us. Probably, being under water at 
 first, he did not notice us. 
 
 Looking across the peninsula toward Ball s 
 Hill, I am struck by the bright blue of the 
 river (a deeper blue than the sky) contrasting 
 with the fresh yellow-green of the meadow (that 
 is, of coarse sedges just starting), and between 
 them a darker or greener green, next the edge 
 of the river, especially where that small sand 
 bar island is, the green of that early rank river- 
 grass. This is the first painting or coloring in 
 the meadows. These several colors are, as it 
 were, daubed on, as on china-ware, or as dis 
 tinct and simple as in a child s painting. I was 
 struck by the amount and variety of color after 
 so much brown. 
 
 As I stood there I heard a thumping sound, 
 
MAY DAYS 437 
 
 which I referred to P , three fourths of a 
 
 mile off over the meadow. But it was a pigeon 
 woodpecker excavating its nest inside a maple 
 within a rod of me. Though I had just landed 
 and made a noise with my boat, he was too 
 busy to hear me, but now he hears my tread, 
 and I see him put out his head and then with 
 draw it warily, and keep still while I stay there. 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 [The time of year is August and September.] 
 
 I DO not remember any page which will tell 
 me how to spend this afternoon. I do not so 
 much want to know how to economize time as 
 how to spend it; by what means to grow rich. 
 How to extract its honey from the flower of the 
 world that is my every -day business. I am 
 as busy as a bee about it. Do I not impreg 
 nate and intermix the flowers, produce rarer 
 and finer varieties, by transferring my eyes 
 from one to another? It is with flowers I 
 would deal. The art of spending a day! If 
 it is possible that we may be addressed, it be 
 hooves us to be attentive. So by the dawning 
 or radiance of beauty are we advertised where 
 are the honey and the fruit of thought, of dis 
 course and of action. The discoveries which 
 we make abroad are special and particular; 
 those which we make at home are general and 
 significant. My profession is to be always on 
 the alert, to find God in nature, to know his 
 lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the 
 operas in nature. Shall I not have words as 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 431) 
 
 fresh as my thought? Shall I use any other 
 mail s word? A genuine thought or feeling 
 can find expression for itself if it have to invent 
 hieroglyphics. It has the universe for tpye- 
 metal. 
 
 Since I perambulated the "bounds of the 
 town," I find that I have in some degree con 
 fined myself (my vision and my walks). On 
 whatever side I look off, I am reminded of the 
 mean and narrow-minded men whom I have 
 lately met there. What can be uglier than a 
 country occupied by groveling, coarse, and low 
 lived men? no scenery can redeem it. Hor 
 nets, hyenas, and baboons are not so great a 
 curse to a country as men of a similar character. 
 It is a charmed circle which I have drawn about 
 my abode, having walked, not with God, but 
 the devil. I am too well aware when I have 
 crossed this line. . . . 
 
 The Price-Farm road is one of those ever- 
 IiiMing roads which the sun 1 lights to shine 
 along in an August afternoon, playing truant; 
 which seem to stretch themselves with terrene 
 jest as the weary traveler travels them on ; where 
 there are three white sandy furrows (lira>\ 
 two for the wheels and one between them for 
 the horse, with endless green grass honlrrs !>- 
 tween, and room on each side for blueberries 
 and birches; where the walls indulge in freaks, 
 
440 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 not always parallel to the ruts, and golden -rod 
 yellows all the path, which some elms began to 
 border and shade over, but left off in despair, 
 it was so long ; from no point of which can you 
 be said to be at any definite distance from a 
 town. . . . 
 
 Old Cato says well, Patrem famUias ven- 
 dacem, non emacem esse oportet. These Latin 
 terminations express, better than any English I 
 know, the greediness, as it were, and tenacity 
 of purpose with which the husbandman and 
 householder is required to be a seller and not a 
 buyer. With mastiff-like tenacity these lipped 
 words collect in the sense, with a certain greed. 
 Here comes a laborer from his dinner, to resume 
 his work at clearing out a ditch, notwithstand 
 ing the rain, remembering, as Cato says, Per 
 ferias potuissefostas veteres tergeri. One would 
 think I were come to see if the steward of my 
 farm had done his duty. 
 
 The prevailing conspicuous flowers at present 
 [August 21] are the early golden-rods, tansy, 
 the life-everlastings, fleabane (though not for 
 its flower), yarrow (rather dry), hard -hack 
 and meadow - sweet (both getting dry), also 
 Mayweed, purple eupatorium, clethra, rhexia, 
 thoroughwort, Polygahi sanguinea, prunella 
 and dogsbane (getting stale), touch-me-not (less 
 observed), Canada snapdragon by roadsides, 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 441 
 
 purple gerardia, horsemint, veronica, marsh 
 speedwell, tall crowfoot (still iu flower), also 
 the epilohium and cow-wheat. 
 
 Half an hour before sunset I was at Tupelo 
 cliff, when, looking up from my botanizing (I 
 had I wen examining the Rttnunculus jH(fonni, 
 Conium maculatum, Shim hitifolhim^ and the 
 obtuse Gtilium on the muddy shore), I saw the 
 seal of evening on the river. There was a 
 quiet beauty on the landscape at that hour 
 which my senses were prepared to appreciate. 
 AVhen I have walked all day in vain under the 
 torrid sun, and the world has been all trivial, 
 as well field and wood as highway, then at eve 
 the sun goes down westward, and the dews be 
 gin to purify the air and make it transparent, 
 and the lakes and rivers acquire a glassy still 
 ness, reflecting the skies, the reflex of the day. 
 Thus, long after feeding, the diviner faculties 
 
 begin to be fed, to feel their oats, their nntri- 
 
 
 
 ment, and are not oppressed by the body s load. 
 Every sound is music now. How rich, like what 
 we like to read of South American primitive 
 forests, is the scenery of this river; what luxu 
 riance of weeds, what depths of mud, along its 
 sides! These old ante-historic, geologic, ante 
 diluvian rocks, which only primitive wading- 
 birds still lingering among us are worthy to 
 tread! The season which we seem to live in 
 
442 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 anticipation of is arrived. With what sober 
 joy I stand to let the water drip, and feel my 
 fresh vigor, who have been bathing in the same 
 tub which the muskrat uses, such a medicinal 
 bath as only nature furnishes! A fish leaps, 
 and the dimple he makes is observed now. 
 Methinks that for a great part of the time, as 
 much as is possible, I walk as one possessing 
 the advantages of human culture, fresh from 
 the society of men, but turned loose into the 
 woods, the only man in nature, walking and 
 meditating to a great extent, as if man and his 
 customs and institutions were not. The cat 
 bird or the jay is sure of your whole ear now; 
 each noise is like a stain on pure glass. 
 
 The rivers now, these great blue subterra 
 nean heavens reflecting the supernal skies and 
 red-tinged clouds what unanimity between the 
 water and the sky, one only a little denser 
 element than the other, the grossest part of 
 heaven ! Think of a mirror on so large a scale ! 
 Standing on distant hills you see the heavens 
 reflected, the evening sky, in some low lake or 
 river in the valley, as perfectly as in any mirror 
 that could be. Does it not prove how intimate 
 heaven is with earth ? We commonly sacrifice 
 to supper this serene and sacred hour. Our 
 customs turn the hour of sunset to a trivial 
 time, as to the meeting of two roads, one com- 
 
DAYS AXD NIGHTS IN CONCORD 443 
 
 ing from the noon, the other loading to the 
 night. It might be well if our repasts were 
 taken out-of-doors, in view of the sunset and the 
 rising stars; if there were two persons whose 
 pulses beat together; if men cared for the 
 cosmon or beauty of the world; if men were 
 social in a rare or high sense; if they associated 
 on rare or high levels ; if we took with our tea 
 a draught of the dew-freighted, transparent 
 evening air; if with our bread and butter we 
 took a slice of the red western sky; if the 
 smoking, steaming urn was the vapor on a 
 thousand lakes and rivers and meads. The air 
 of the valleys at this hour is the distilled essence 
 of all thos fragrances which during the day 
 have IMJCII tilling and have been dispersed in the 
 atmosphere, the fine fragrances, perchance, 
 which have floated in the upper atmospheres, 
 now settled to these low vales. I talked of 
 buying Conantum once, but for want of money 
 we did not come to terms. Hut I have farmed 
 it, in my own fashion, every year since. 
 
 I find three or four ordinary laborers to-day 
 putting up the necessary out-door fixtures for a 
 magnetic, telegraph. They cany along a bas 
 ket of simple implements, like traveling tinkers; 
 and with a little rude soldering and twisting 
 and straightening of wire, the work is done, 
 as if you might set your hired man with the 
 
444 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 poorest head and hands, with the greatest lati 
 tude of ignorance and bungling, to this work. 
 All great inventions stoop thus low to succeed, 
 for the understanding is but little above the 
 feet. They preserve so low a tone, they are 
 simple almost to coarseness and commonplace- 
 ness. Some one had told them what he wanted, 
 and sent them forth with a coil of wire to make 
 a magnetic telegraph. It seems not so wonder 
 ful an invention as a common cart or plough. 
 
 The buckwheat already cut [September 4] 
 lies in red piles in the field. In the Marlboro 
 road I saw a purple streak like a stain on the 
 red pine leaves and sand under my feet, which 
 I was surprised to find was made by a dense 
 mass of purple fleas, like snow-fleas. And now 
 we leave the road and go through the woods and 
 swamps toward Boon s Pond, crossing two or 
 three roads, and by Potter s house in Stow, 
 still on the east side of the river. Beyond Pot 
 ter s, we struck into the extensive wooded plain, 
 where the ponds are found in Stow, Sudbury, 
 and Marlboro ; part of it is called Boon s 
 Plain. Boon is said to have lived on or under 
 Bailey s Hill, at the west of the pond, and was 
 killed by the Indians, between Boon s and 
 AVhite s pond, as he was driving his ox-cart. 
 The oxen ran off to the Marlboro garrison- 
 house ; his remains have been searched for. 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 445 
 
 There were two hen-hawks that soared and cir 
 cled for our entertainment when we were in the 
 woods on this plain, crossing each other s orbits 
 from time to time, alternating like the squirrels 
 in their cylinder, till, alarmed by our imitation 
 of a hawk s shrill cry, they gradually inflated 
 themselves, made themselves more aerial, and 
 rose higher and higher into the heavens, and 
 were at length lost to sight; yet all the while 
 earnestly looking, scanning the surface of the 
 earth for a stray mouse or rabbit. AVe saw a 
 mass of sunflowers in a farmer s patch; such 
 is the destiny of this large coarse flower, the 
 farmers gather it like pumpkins. We noticed 
 a potato-field yellow with wild radish. Knight s 
 new dam has so raised the Assabet as to make 
 a permanent freshet, as it were, the fluviatile 
 trees standing dead for fish-hawk perches, and 
 the water stagnant for weeds to grow in. You 
 have only to dam up a running stream to give 
 it the aspect of a dead stream, and in some 
 degree restore its primitive wild appearance. 
 Tracts are thus made inaccessible to man and 
 at the same ^time more fertile, the last gasp 
 of wildness before it yields to the civilization 
 of the factory ; to cheer the eyes of the factory 
 ]>eople and educate them, a little wilderness 
 almve the factory. 
 
 As I looked back up the stream, I saw the 
 
446 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 ripples sparkling in the sun, reminding me of 
 the sparkling icy fleets which I saw last winter; 
 and I thought how one corresponded to the 
 other, ice waves to water ones ; the erect ice 
 flakes were the waves stereotyped. It was the 
 same sight, the same reflection of the sun 
 sparkling from a myriad slanting surfaces; at 
 a distance, a rippled water surface or a crys 
 tallized frozen one. We climbed the high hills 
 on the west side of the river, in the east and 
 southeast part of Stow. I observed that the 
 walnut-trees conformed in their branches to the 
 slope of the hill, being just as high from the 
 ground on the upper side as the lower. I saw 
 what I thought a small red dog in the road, 
 which cantered along over the bridge, and then 
 turned into the woods; this decided me, this 
 turning into the woods, that it was a fox, the 
 dog of the woods. A few oaks stand in the 
 pastures, still great ornaments. I do not see 
 any young ones springing up to supply their 
 places, and will there be any a hundred years 
 hence? We are a young people and have not 
 learned by experience the consequences of cut 
 ting off the forest. I love to see the yellow 
 knots and their lengthened stain on the dry, 
 unpainted pitch-pine boards on barns and other 
 buildings, as the Dugan house. The inde 
 structible yellow fat, it fats my eyes to see it, 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 447 
 
 worthy for art to imitate, telling of branches in 
 the forest once. 
 
 From Strawl>erry Hill we caught the first, 
 and hut a very slight, glimpse of Nagog Pond, 
 hy standing on the wall. That is enough to 
 relate of a hill, methinks, that its elevation 
 gives you the first sight of some distant lake. 
 The horizon is remarkably blue with mist; look 
 ing from this hill over Acton, successive valleys 
 filled with this mist appear, and are divided by 
 darker lines of wooded hills. The shadows of 
 the elms are deepened, as if the whole atmos 
 phere were permeated by floods of ether, that 
 give a velvet softness to the whole landscape; 
 the hills float in it; a blue veil is drawn over 
 the earth. Anursnack Hill had an exceedingly 
 rich, empurpled look, telling of the juice of the 
 wild grape and poke -berries. Noticed^ a large 
 field of sunflowers for hens, in full bloom at 
 Temple s, now at six P. M. facing the 
 east. The larches in the front yards have 
 turned red; their fall has come; the Roman 
 wormwood (Ambroxia ortemisicBfolia) is l>egin- 
 ning to yellow-green my shoes, intermingled 
 with the blue-curls in the sand of grain-fields. 
 Perchance some poet likened this yellow dust 
 to the ambrosia of the gods. 
 
 Do not the songs of birds and the fireflies go 
 with the grass, whose greenness is the best 
 
448 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 symptom and evidence of the earth s health or 
 youth? Perhaps a history of the year would be 
 a history of the grass, or of a leaf, regarding 
 the grass-blades as leaves. Plants soon cease 
 to grow for the year, unless they may have a 
 fall growth, which is a kind of second spring. 
 In the feelings of the man, too, the year is 
 already past, and he looks forward to the 
 coming winter. It is a season of withering; 
 of dust and heat; a season of small fruits and 
 trivial experiences. But there is an aftermath, 
 and some spring flowers bloom again. May 
 my life be not destitute of its Indian Summer ! 
 I hear the locust still ; some farmers are sowing 
 their winter rye; I see the fields smoothly 
 rolled. I see others ploughing steep, rocky, 
 and bushy fields for rolling. How beautiful the 
 sprout-land! When you look down on it, the 
 light green of the maples shaded off with the 
 darker red, enlivening the scene yet more. 
 Surely this earth is fit to be inhabited, and 
 many enterprises may be undertaken with hope, 
 where so many young plants are pushing up. 
 Shall man then despair? Is he not a sprout- 
 land, too, after never so many searings and 
 witherings? If you witness growth and luxu 
 riance, it is all the same as if you grew luxuri 
 antly. The woodbine is red on the rocks. The 
 poke is a very rich and striking plant, cardinal 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 449 
 
 in its rank, as in its color. The downy seeds 
 of the groundsel are taking their flight; the 
 calyx has dismissed them and quite curled back, 
 having done its part. 
 
 When I got into Lincoln Road [September 
 11] I perceived a singular sweet scent in the air; 
 but, though I sinelled everything around, I 
 could not detect it. It was one of the sweet 
 scents which go to make up the autumn, which 
 fed and dilated my sense of smell. I felt the 
 better for it. Methinks that I possess the sense 
 of smell in greater perfection than usual. How 
 autumnal is the scent of wild grapes, now by 
 the roadside! The cross-leaved polygala emits 
 its fragrance as at will; you must not hold it 
 too near, but on all sides and at all distances. 
 The pendulous, drooping barberries are pretty 
 well reddened. I am glad when the berries 
 look fair and plump. 
 
 Windy autumnal weather is very exciting 
 and bracing, clear and cold after a rain. The 
 winds roars loudly in the woods, the ground is 
 strewn with leaves, especially under the applr- 
 trees. The surface of the river reflecting the 
 sun is dazzlingly bright; the outlines of the 
 hills are remarkably distinct and firm, their 
 surfaces bare and hard, not clothed with a thick 
 air. I notice one red maple, far brighter than 
 the blossom of any tree in summer. What can 
 
450 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 be handsomer for a picture than our river scen 
 ery now? First, this smoothly shorn meadow 
 on the west side of the stream, looking from the 
 first Conantum cliff, with all the swaths dis 
 tinct, sprinkled with apple-trees casting heavy 
 shadows black as ink [9 A. M.], such as can be 
 seen only in this clear air, this strong light, 
 one cow wandering restlessly about in it and 
 lowing; then the blue river, scarcely darker 
 than, and not to be distinguished from, the sky, 
 its waves driven southward (or up the stream), 
 by the wind, making it appear to flow that way, 
 bordered by willows and button-bushes; then 
 the narrow meadow beyond, with varied lights 
 and shades from its waving grass, each grass- 
 blade bending south before the wintry blast, as 
 if looking for aid in that direction; then the 
 hill, rising sixty feet to a terrace-like plain cov 
 ered with shrub-oaks, maples, and other trees, 
 each variously tinted, clad all in a livery of gay 
 colors, every bush a feather in its cap; and 
 further in the rear the wood-crowned rlii N, 
 some two hundred feet high, whose gray rocks 
 project here and there from amid the bushes, 
 with an orchard on the slope, and the distant 
 Lincoln Hills in the horizon. What honest, 
 homely, earth-loving houses they used to live 
 in, so low you can put your hands on the eaves 
 behind ! the broad chimney, built for comfort, 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 451 
 
 no alto or basso relievo ! The air is of crystal 
 purity, both air and water so transparent, 
 the fisherman tries in vain to deceive the fish 
 with his baits. Waldeu plainly can never be 
 spoiled by the wood-chopper; for, do what you 
 will to the shore, there will still remain this 
 crystal well. The intense brilliancy of the red, 
 ripe maples, scattered here and there in the 
 midst of the green oaks and hickories on its 
 hilly shores, is quite charming. Alternating 
 witli yellow birches and poplars and green oaks, 
 they remind one of a line of soldiers, red-coats 
 and riflemen in green, mixed together. 
 
 From Ball s Hill [September 26], the mead 
 ows, now smoothly shorn, have a quite impos 
 ing appearance, so spacious and level. There 
 is a shadow on the sides of the hills surrounding 
 (it is a cloudy day), and where the meadow 
 meets them it is darkest. Now the sun in the 
 west is coming out, and lights up the river a 
 mile off so that it shines with a white light, like 
 a burnished silver mirror. The }K>plar-tree on 
 Miss Kipley s hill seems quite important to the 
 scene. The patches of sunlight on the meadow 
 look lividly yellow, as if flames were traversing 
 it. It is a day for fishermen. The farmers are 
 gathering in their corn. The climbing hemp- 
 weed (Mikama seandens) and the button-bushes 
 and the pickerel-weed are sere and flat with 
 
452 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 frost. We fell into the path printed by the 
 feet of the calves. The note of the yellow-ham 
 mer is heard from the edges of the fields. 
 
 Sitting by the spruce swamp in Conant s 
 woods, I am reminded that this is a perfect day 
 to visit the swamp, with its damp, inistling, 
 mildewy air, so solemnly still. There are the 
 spectre-like black spruces hanging with usnea 
 lichens, and in the rear rise the dark green 
 pines and oaks on the hillside, touched here 
 and there with livelier tints where a maple or 
 birch may shine, this luxuriant vegetation 
 standing heavy, dark, sombre, like mould in a 
 cellar. . . . 
 
 Has one moon gone by unnoticed? It is 
 peculiarly favorable to reflection, a cold and 
 dewy light in which the vapors of the day are 
 condensed, and though the air is obscured by 
 darkness it is more clear. Lunacy must be a 
 cold excitement, not such insanity as a torrid 
 sun on the brain would produce. But the moon 
 is not to be judged alone by the quantity of 
 light she sends us, but also by her influence on 
 the thoughts. No thinker can afford to over 
 look her influence any more than the astronomer 
 can. Has not the poet his spring-tides and his 
 neap-tides, in which the ocean within him over 
 flows its shores and bathes the dry land, the 
 former sometimes combining with the winds of 
 
DA YS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 453 
 
 heaven to produce those memorable high tides 
 which leave their mark forages, when all Broad 
 Street is submerged and incaleidable damage 
 done the common shipping of the mind? I 
 come out into the moonlit night where men are 
 not, as if into a scenery, anciently deserted by 
 men; the life of men is like a dream. It is 
 three thousand years since night has had ]ws- 
 session. Go forth and hear the crickets chirp 
 at midnight. Hear if their dynasty is not an 
 ancient one and well founded. I feel the anti 
 quity of the night ; she merely repossesses her 
 self of her realms, as if her dynasty were unin 
 terrupted, or she had underlaid the day. No 
 sounds but the steady creaking of crickets, and 
 the occasional crowing of cocks. I go by the 
 farmer s houses and barns, standing there in 
 the dim light under the trees, as if they lay at 
 an immense distance, or under a veil. The 
 fanner and his oxen are all asleep, not even a 
 watch -dog is awake. The human slumlxjrsjX 
 there is less of man in the world. To appreci 
 ate the moonlight, you must stand in the shade 
 and see where a few rods or a few feet distant 
 it falls in between the trees. It is a "milder 
 day," made for some inhabitants whom you do 
 not see. I am obliged to sleep enough the next 
 night to make up for it (after being out) 
 Kndi/mioni* tomnuni dormirf to sleep an 
 Endymion s sleep, as the ancients expressed it. 
 
454 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 The fog on the lowlands (on the Corner Road) 
 is never still. It now advances and envelops 
 me as I stand to write these words before sun 
 rise, then clears away with ever noiseless step. 
 It covers the meadows like a web, I hear the 
 clock strike three. The light of Orion s belt 
 seems to show traces of the blue day through 
 which it came to us. The sky at least is lighter 
 on that side than in the west, even about the 
 moon. Even by night the sky is blue and not 
 black, for we see through the veil of night into 
 the distant atmosphere. I see to the plains of 
 the sun where the sunbeams are reveling. The 
 crickets song by the causeway is not so loud at 
 this hour as at evening, and the moon is get 
 ting low. I hear a wagon cross on one of the 
 bridges leading into the town. 1 smell the ripe 
 apples many rods off l>eyond the bridge. Will 
 not my townsmen consider me a benefactor if I 
 conquer some realms from the night, if I can 
 show them that there is some beauty awake 
 while they are asleep ; if I add to the domains 
 of poetry ; if I report to the gazettes anything 
 transpiring in our midst worthy of man s atten 
 tion ? I will say nothing here to the disparage 
 ment of Day, for he is not here to defend him 
 self. 
 
 I hear the farmer harnessing his horse and 
 starting for the distant market, but no man 
 
DAI S AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 455 
 
 harnesses himself and starts for worthier enter 
 prises. One cock-crow tells the whole story of 
 the fanner s life. I see the little glow-worms 
 deep in the grass by the brooksidc. The moon 
 shines dim and red, a solitary whip-poor-will 
 sings, the clock strikes four, a few dogs bark, 
 a few more wagons start for market, their faint 
 rattling is heard in the distance. I hear my 
 owl without a name, the murmur of the slow 
 approaching freight-train as far off perchance 
 as Waltham, and one early bird. The round 
 red moon is disappearing in the west. I detect 
 a whiteness in the east. Some dark, massive 
 clouds have come over from the west within 
 the hour, as if attracted by the approaching 
 sun, and have arranged themselves raywise 
 across the eastern portal as if to bar his coming. 
 They have moved, suddenly and almost unob- 
 servedly, quite across the sky (which before was 
 clear) from west to east. No trumpet was heard 
 which marshaled and advanced the dark masses 
 of the west s forces thus rapidly against the 
 coming day. Column after column the mighty 
 west sent forth across the sky while men slept, 
 but all in vain. 
 
 The eastern horizon is now grown dun-col 
 ored, showing where the advanced guard of the 
 night are already skirmishing with the vanguard 
 of the sun, a lurid light tinging the atmos- 
 
456 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 phere there, while a dark -columned cloud 
 hangs imminent over the broad portal un 
 touched by the glare. Some bird flies over, 
 making a noise like the barking of a puppy (it 
 was a cuckoo). It is yet so dark that I have 
 dropped my pencil and cannot find it. The 
 sound of the cars is like that of a rushing wind; 
 they come on slowly ; I thought at first a morn 
 ing wind was rising. 
 
 The whip-poor-wills now begin to sing in ear 
 nest, about half an hour before sunrise, as if 
 making haste to improve the short time that is 
 left them. As far as my observation goes they 
 sing for several hours in the early part of the 
 night, are silent commonly at midnight, 
 though you may meet them sitting on a rock or 
 flitting silent about, then sing again at just 
 before sunrise. It grows more and more red in 
 the east (a fine-grained red under the overhang 
 ing cloud), and lighter too, and the threatening 
 clouds are falling off to southward of the sun s 
 passage, shrunken and defeated, leaving his 
 path comparatively clear. The increased light 
 shows more distinctly the river and the fog. 
 The light now (five o clock) reveals a thin film 
 of vapor like a gossamer veil cast over the lower 
 hills beneath the cliffs, and stretching to the 
 river, thicker in the ravines, thinnest on the 
 even slopes. The distant meadows to the north 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 457 
 
 beyond Conant s grove, full of fog, appear like 
 a vast lake, out of which rise Anursnaek and 
 Ponkawtasset like wooded islands. And all 
 the farms and houses of Concord are at the 
 bottom of that sea. So I forget them, and 
 my thought sails triumphantly over them. I 
 thought of nothing but the surface of a lake, a 
 summer sea over which to sail ; no more would 
 the voyager on the Dead Sea who had not the 
 Testament think of Sodom and Gomorrah and 
 cities of the plain. I only wished to get off to 
 one of the low isles I saw in the midst of the 
 sea (it may have been the top of Ilolbrook s 
 elm) and spend the whole summer day there. 
 Meanwhile the redness in the east had dimin 
 ished and was less deep. And next the red 
 was become a sort of yellowish or fawn -colored 
 light, and the sun now set fire to the edges of 
 the broken cloud which had hung over the hori 
 zon, and they glowed like burning turf. 
 
 It is remarkable that animals are often obvi 
 ously, manifestly related to the plants which 
 they feed upon or live among, as caterpillars, 
 butterflies, tree-toads, partridges, chewinks. I 
 noticed a yellow spider on a golden-rod, as 
 if every condition might have its expression in 
 some form of animated lxing. I have seen the 
 small mulleins in the fields for a day or two as 
 big as a ninepence; rattlesnake grass is ripe; a 
 
458 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 stalk of purple eupatorium, eight feet, eight 
 inches high, with a large convex corymb (hem 
 ispherical) of many stories, fourteen inches 
 wide, and the width of the plant, from tip of 
 leaf to tip of leaf, two feet, the diameter of its 
 stalk one inch at the ground. Is not disease 
 the rule of existence? There is not a lily-pad 
 floating in the river but has been riddled by 
 insects. Almost every tree and shrub has its 
 gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament, 
 and "hardly to be distinguished from its fruit. 
 If misery loves company, misery has company 
 enough. Now at midsummer find me a perfect 
 leaf or fruit. The difference is not great be 
 tween some fruits in which the wonn is always 
 present and those gall- fruits which were pro 
 duced by the insect. The prunella leaves have 
 turned a delicate claret or lake color by the 
 roadside [September 1]. I am interested in 
 these revolutions as much as in those of king 
 doms. Is there not tragedy enough in the au 
 tumn? The pines are dead and leaning red 
 against the shore of Walden Pond (which is 
 going down at last), as if the ice had heaved 
 them over. Thus by its rising it keeps an open 
 shore. I found the succory on the railroad. 
 May not this and the tree primrose, and other 
 plants, be distributed from Boston on the rays 
 of the railroads? The feathery-tailed fruit of 
 
DAYS AND NIUHTS IN CONCORD 459 
 
 the fertile flowers of the clematis are conspicu 
 ous now. The shorn meadows looked of a liv 
 ing green as we came home at eve, even greener 
 than in spring. This reminds me of the 
 "fenwn cord urn," the aftermath, " sic dimenta 
 tie prati**" the second mowing of the meadow, 
 in Cato. I now begin to pick wild apples. 
 
 I walk often in drizzly weather, for then the 
 small weeds (especially if they stand on bare 
 ground), covered with rain-drops like beads, 
 appear more beautiful than ever, the hyperi- 
 cums, for instance. They are equally beauti 
 ful when covered with dew, fresh and adorned, 
 almost spirited away in a robe of dew-drops. 
 The air is filled with mist, yet a transparent 
 mist, a principle in it which you might call fla 
 vor, which ripens fruits. This haziness seems 
 to confine and concentrate the sunlight, as if 
 you lived in a halo, it is August. Some 
 farmers have taguii to thresh and to winnow 
 their oats. Not only the prunella turns lake, 
 but the Hypericum viryinicum in the hollows by 
 the roadside, a handsome blush, a part of the 
 autumnal tints. Kij>e leaves acquire red blood. 
 Ked colors touch our blood and excite us as well 
 as cows and geese. We brushed against the 
 Polygonum arruaturn, with its spikes of red 
 dish white flowers, a slender and tender plant 
 which loves the middle of dry and sandy, not 
 
4CO DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 much traveled roads, to find that the very 
 stones bloom, that there are flowers we rudely 
 brush against which only the microscope re 
 veals. The dense fog came into my chamber 
 early, freighted with light, and woke me. It 
 was one of those thick fogs which last well 
 into the day. The farmers simple enterprises! 
 They improve this season, which is the dryest, 
 their haying being done, and their harvest not 
 begun, to do these jobs, burn brush, build 
 walls, dig ditches, cut turf, also topping corn 
 and digging potatoes. Sometimes I smell these 
 smokes several miles off, and, by their odor, 
 know it is not a burning building, but withered 
 leaves and the rubbish of the woods and 
 swamps. Methinks the scent is a more oracu 
 lar and trustworthy inquisition than the eye. 
 When I criticise my own writing I go to the 
 scent, as it were. It reveals what is concealed 
 from the other senses. By it I detect earthi- 
 ness. 
 
 The jays scream on the right and left as we 
 go by, flitting and screaming from pine to pine. 
 I hear no lark sing at evening as in the spring, 
 only a few distressed notes from the robin. 
 I saw a pigeon - place on George Hey wood s 
 cleared lot, with the six dead trees set up for 
 the pigeons to alight on, and the brush -house 
 close by to conceal the man. I was rather 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 4G1 
 
 startled to find such a thing going now in Con 
 cord. The pigeons on the trees looked like 
 fabulous birds, with their long tails and their 
 pointed breasts. I could hardly believe they 
 were alive and not some wooden birds used for 
 decoys, they sat so still, and even when they 
 moved their necks I thought it was the effect 
 of art. I scare up the great bittern in the 
 meadow by the I ley wood brook near the ivy. 
 He rises buoyantly as he flies against the wind, 
 and sweeps south over the willow, surveying. 
 I see ducks or teal flying silent, swift, and 
 straight, the wild creatures! The partridge 
 and the rabbit, they still are sure to thrive like 
 true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions 
 occur. If the forest is cut off, many bushes 
 spring up which afford them concealment. In 
 these cooler, windier, crystal days the note of 
 the jay sounds a little more native. 
 
 I found on the shores of the pond that sin 
 gular willow-herb in blossom, though its petals 
 were gone. It grows up two feet from a large 
 woody horizontal root, and drops over to the 
 sand again, meeting which, it puts a myriad 
 rootlets from the side of its stem, fastens itself 
 and curves upward again to the air, thus span 
 ning or looping itself along. The bark, just 
 above the ground, thickens into a singidar cel 
 lular or sjxmgy substance, which at length ap- 
 
4G2 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 
 
 pears to crack nearer the earth, giving that part 
 of the plant a winged or somewhat four-sided 
 appearance. The caducous polygala is faded 
 in cool places almost white ; knot-grass or door- 
 grass (Polygonum aviculare) is still in bloom. 
 I saw the lamhkill in flower (a few fresh blos 
 soms), beautiful bright flowers, as of a new 
 spring with it, while the seed-vessels, appar 
 ently of this year, hung diy below. The ripen 
 ing grapes begin to fill the air with their fra 
 grance. 
 
 I hear the red-wing blackbirds and meadow- 
 lurks again by the river-side [October 5], as if it 
 were a new spring. They appear to have come 
 to bid farewell. The birds seem to depart at 
 the coming of the frost, which kills the vegeta 
 tion and directly or indirectly the insects on 
 which they feed. As we sailed up the river, 
 there was a pretty good-sized pickerel poised 
 directly over the sandy bottom close to the 
 shore, and motionless as a shadow. It is won 
 derful how they resist the slight current, and 
 remain thus stationary for hours. He no doubt 
 saw us plainly on the bridge, in the sunny 
 water, his whole form distinct and his shadow, 
 motionless as the steel-trap which does not 
 spring till the fox s foot has touched it. In this 
 drought you see the nests of the bream on the 
 dry shore. The prinos berries are quite red, 
 
DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD 4G3 
 
 the dog-wood by the Corner Road has lost every 
 leaf, its branches of dry greenish berries hang 
 ing straight down from the bare stout twigs, as 
 if their peduncles were broken. It has assumed 
 its winter aspect, a Mithridatic look. The 
 black birch is straw-colored, the witch-hazel is 
 now in bloom. The little conical burs of the 
 agrimony stick to my clothes; the pale lobelia 
 still blooms freshly, and the rough hawk-weed 
 holds up its globes of yellowish fuzzy seeds, as 
 well as the panicled. The reclining sun, falling 
 on the willows and on the water, produces a 
 rare soft light I do not often see, a greenish 
 yellow. The milk- weed seeds are in the air; I 
 see one in the river which a minnow occasionally 
 jostles. The butternuts have shed nearly all 
 their leaves, and their nuts are seen black 
 against the sky. The white-ash has got its 
 autumnal mulberry hue. It contrasts strangely 
 with the other shade-trees on the village street. 
 It is with leaves as with fruits, and woods, 
 and animals, and men, when they are mature 
 their different characters appear. The elms axe 
 generally of a dirt) or brownish yellow now. 
 Some of the white pines have reached the acme 
 of their fall; the same is the state of the pitch- 
 pines. The shrub-oaks are almost uniformly 
 of a deep red. 
 
 The reach of the river between I led ford and 
 
4G4 DAYS AND NIGHTS IN CONCOKD 
 
 Carlisle, seen from a distance, lias a singularly 
 ethereal, celestial, or elysian look. It is of a 
 light sky blue, alternating with smoother white 
 streaks, where the surface reflects the light 
 differently, like a milk-pan full of the milk of 
 Valhalla, partially skimmed; more gloriously 
 and heavenly fair and pure than the sky itself. 
 \Ve have names for the rivers of Hell, but none 
 for the rivers of Heaven, unless the milky way 
 may be one. It is such a smooth and shining 
 blue, like a panoply of sky-blue plates. 
 
 Some men, methinks, have found only their 
 hands and feet. At least, I have seen some 
 who appeared never to have found their heads, 
 but used them only instinctively. What shall 
 we say of those timid folks who carry the prin 
 ciple of thinking nothing, and doing nothing, 
 and being nothing, to such an extreme? As 
 if in the absence of thought, that vast yearn 
 ing of their natures for something to fill the 
 vacuum made the least traditionary expression 
 and shadow of a thought to be clung to with in 
 stinctive tenacity. They atone for their pro 
 ducing nothing by a brutish respect for some 
 thing. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ac**, an, M long mea*nr, 75. 
 A.-tou (M.*a.). 166. +T. 
 AfriOMture, t be taak of A iue ricana, 
 
 281-283. 
 
 AkTiin..iiy. t ).-, 463. 
 Alphniw, Jean, and Pall* of Moot- 
 
 morrnri, 47 ; quoted, 112, 
 AmiTira, superioritie* of, 2rt9-27. r . 
 American, money in Quebec, 9; 
 
 t !. . and government, l r - . 
 Anacreon. quoted, 133, 135. 
 
 A 1 1 1 1 ii i itoai or 
 317. 
 
 AMBone, the, 419. 
 
 Ann Gardieu Pariah, 51 ; church 
 of, 57. 
 
 Ani{l.T Souvenir, the, 146. 
 
 Animal*, related to plant* on which 
 they feed, 4. 7. 
 
 Anunmack, 423 ; Hill, 447. 457. 
 
 Apple, history of t he tree, 356-367 ; 
 t M 1 1.1, 3<77-3G9 ; the crab-, - 
 371 ; growth of the wild, 371-378 ; 
 map Dil by cattle, 372-370; the 
 fruit and flavor of the. 37K-3ST, ; 
 beauty of the. MB Ml; naming 
 of the, 397-389 ; laat gleaning of 
 
 T)., .- . . t:.- ,--:. . t!,VA.-l. 
 
 9K-9M; dying out of the wttd, 
 
 Arrow-headlferous sand* of Con- 
 
 , . , 
 Aahburnham (Ma*a.). 3 ; with a bet- 
 
 ter houM than any in Canada, 
 
 124. 
 Aah-tree*, 7. 
 
 . 
 
 44 J 
 
 A i .-.. 
 134, note ; 13*. note. 
 
 Autumn foUag*. brightae- of, 
 308 ; weather and Undrmpe, 
 4A2 ; the tragedy of. 4.V*. 
 
 Am MXAL Turn, 3U&-356. 
 
 Biiley Hill, 444. 
 
 B.11-; Hill. 42f,.43f., 451. 
 
 Bart ram, William, quoted, 244. 
 
 15 it l,i nk feet in brook*, 172; at sun 
 
 set. 442. 
 
 Rayfleld a chart. Captain, 114, 116. 
 inland, 24C>. 
 
 Andropogon* or, 
 
 313 
 Beanport (Qe.), and le Chemin dt, 
 
 37; getting lodginga in, 43-44 .; 
 
 church in, id ; Seigniory of. 1 \:>. 
 Ileaupre, Seigniory of the C6t- de, 
 
 Bedford (Mam.), 4rt3. 
 
 "IW-hold, how spring appearing," 
 
 135. 
 
 BeHpwFalU(Vt.). f,. 
 i;ir.-h, yellow, 7 ; bUck, 4G3. 
 Bird* and mounUun*, 182. 
 Bittern, 1 nnr" t "g Of the, 137 ; the 
 
 great, 401. 
 151u.-UTri.--s and milk, supper of, 
 
 177; 411. 
 
 151u.-l.inl, the, 136. 
 Ii.. I... link, the, 139. 
 
 1-..1, . , . - :. 
 
 Books on natural hiatory, readiug, 
 
 127-129. 
 Boon * Pond, 444. 
 
 : 
 
 lirtia (MM.X 3. x, .0. 
 
 i .,.:.: 
 Bourhenrille(Que.),24. 
 Bouchette, Topographical Dearrlp- 
 
 tion of the Canadaa, quoted, .Vi, 
 
 52,78, 79, 110, 114, 117. 
 Bout de Tide, 24. 
 i ,.- . M, 
 Brand . Puf kl AaMj^Mll quoted, 
 
 Brmvm of tctoooa, tlM, 131, 132. 
 
 i; ,,. ,-. ;;; 
 Burlington (Vt.), 8, 123. 
 
466 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Burton, Sir Richard Francis, 279, 
 
 280. 
 Butterfly, beauty of the, 417,418; 
 
 a blue, 431). 
 Butternut-tree, 7, 463. 
 
 Cabs, Montreal, 22 ; Quebec. 86. 
 
 Caddice-worm*, 908. 
 
 Caen, Emery de, quoted, 64. 
 
 Caleche, the (see Cabs), 86. 
 
 Canada, apparently older than the 
 United States, 100; population 
 of, 101 ; the French in, a nation 
 of peasants, 102. 
 
 Canada East, 49. 
 
 Canadense, Iter, and the word, 125. 
 
 Canadian, French, 11 ; horses, 41 ; 
 women, 42 ; atmosphere, 42 ; love 
 of neighborhood, 52, 53 ; houses, 
 54, 73; clothes, 55; salutations, 
 58 ; vegetables and trees, 59 ; 
 boots, 63 ; tenures, 78, 79. 
 
 Cap aux Oyt s, 115. 
 
 Cane, a straight and twisted, 225, 
 226. 
 
 Cape Diamond, 26, 50; signal-gun 
 on, 105 ; the view from, 109. 
 
 Cape Rouge, 26, 118. 
 
 Cape Boder, 114. 
 
 Cape Tourmeiite, 50, 110, 119. 
 
 Carlisle (Mass.), 464. 
 
 Carlisle Bridge, 426. 
 
 Cartier, Jacques, 9; and the St. 
 Lawrence, 111, 112; quoted, 120, 
 121 ; 122. 
 
 Catbird, the, 412. 
 
 Cato Major, quoted, 440. 
 
 Cattle show, men at, 225. 
 
 (Vim-tery of fallen leaves, 331. 
 
 Chaleur, the Bay of, 112. 
 
 Chalmers, Dr., in criticism of Cole 
 ridge, 398. 
 
 Chambly (Que.), 13. 
 
 Cham jiliiin, Samuel, quoted, 9; 
 whales in map of, 9, 113. 
 
 Charlesbourg (Que.), 110. 
 
 Charlevoix, quoted, 65, 113. 
 
 Chateau Richer, church of, 57 ; CO ; 
 lodgings at, 73, 85. 
 
 Chau.-iT, Geoffrey, quoted, li>5, 196. 
 
 Cl,.i...li, n- River, the, 26; Falls of 
 the, 86, 87. 
 
 Cheap men, 36. 
 
 Cherry-stones, transported by bird*, 
 230. 
 
 Chewink, the, 429. 
 
 CM.-kadee, the, 134, 423. 
 
 C hien, La Riviere au, G9. 
 
 Chipping-Kparrow, the fork-tailed, 
 410,411. 
 
 Churches, Catholic and ProteaUnt, 
 
 15-17 ; roadside, 57. 
 Claire Fontaine, IM, 32. 
 Clams, moving, 42O. 
 Clothe*, bad-weather, 34 ; Canadian, 
 
 55. 
 
 Clouds, the moon and, 406. 
 Colors, names and joy of, 335-337 ; 
 
 in a May landscape, 436. 
 Conant s woods, 452. 
 Conantum, 414, 431, 433, 443. 
 Concord (Mass.), 3, 6, 8 ; History of, 
 
 quoted, 141 ; 163, 183, 186, 420, 
 
 l Concord River, the, 141, 170. 
 
 Connecticut River, 6, 177, 180, 181. 
 
 Conrtur* de boit, and de ritquet, 
 \ 63. 
 
 Creeper, the, 412, 429, 431. 
 
 Crickets, the creaking of, 133. 
 
 Crook-neck squash nodi, Quebec, 
 LO& 
 
 Crosses, roadside, 56. 
 
 Crow, the, 134 ; not imported from 
 Europe, 139; 430. 
 
 Cry-talline botany, 156,1Mb 
 
 Culm, bloom in the, 310. 
 
 Cyanometer, a, 414, 430. 
 
 Darby, William, quoted, 116. 
 
 Daybreak, 454-457. 
 
 DATS AND NIGHTS IN CONCORD, 438- 
 
 464. 
 
 Dogs in harness, 36, 37. 
 Dog-wood, 463. 
 !>.. : .-..! . ; _ . 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis, quoted, 400. 
 Dubartas, quoted, translation of 
 
 Sylvester, 404. 
 Ducks, 136. 
 
 " Each summer sound," verse, 138. 
 K.i>t Main, Labrador and, health in 
 
 the words, 128. 
 
 Easterbrooks Country, the. 367, 372. 
 Edda, the Prose, quoted, 35*. 
 Eggs, a master in cooking, 76. 
 Elm, the, 322, 323, 338, 339, 463. 
 I Emerson, George B., quoted, 245. 
 Ki.nliMi and French in the New 
 
 World, 83, 84. 
 
 Entomology, the study of, 132, 133. 
 Evelyn, John, quoted, 381. 
 Everlasting, fragrant, 429. 
 Er Oriente Lux ; er Occidtnte Frur, 
 ! 271. 
 1 Experiences, the paucity of men s, 
 
 !S, 296. 
 
 ! Eye*, the sight of different men s, 
 350-354. 
 
INDEX 
 
 4(>7 
 
 it Hill. 411. 424. 
 Fallen Leave*. X 4-388. 
 Fall*, a drug --I. 7*2. 
 Finch, the, 13l ; the to- wee, 412. 
 Fish. *|MriiiK. 17. H 
 Planer, the pickerel, , 221. 
 .;. 
 
 Report, 144i. 
 FUh-hawk. the, 1Mb 
 rg(MMft.k,S. 
 
 If.wk. the, 134 ; and n** and eggm, 
 415. 
 
 Flicker, the, 137. 412, 423. 
 
 I . . \ . i 
 
 Fog, 454, 4flO. 
 
 Foreign country, quickly in a, 38. 
 
 i . . 
 
 Fortification*, ancient and modern, 
 
 Foi. the, 144 ; mistaken for a dog, 
 
 446. 
 
 French, difficult ie. in talking, 43-45, 
 
 67; strange, 62; pure, 66; in the 
 
 .-,-;. 
 
 in Canada, 101, 102; the, .poken 
 
 ; 
 Frog., Piping, 412, 413, 414, 424, 
 
 FrotlaVrt, good place to read, 28. 
 
 i 
 
 FruiU at the l*le. of Richelieu, 19. 
 Fur Countries, inpiriug iu-i^UU>r- 
 hood of the, 130. 
 
 Garget, Poke or, 311-313. 
 
 (;re<M>, ttr.t flock of, 13. .. 
 
 Ouier, Konrad von, quoted, 391. 
 
 (toldflnch, the, 130. 
 
 Ooaw, P. A., " Canadian !! 
 
 tot," 113. 
 
 Oorernment. too much, 102. 
 Gnaa, a year 1 * hutory of the, 448. 
 
 
 
 
 .. . 
 Grvt KIVIT. the, or 8t, Lawrence, 
 
 in. Ill 
 
 Green Mountains, the, f.. 7. 124, 177, 
 180. 
 
 traveler, quoted. 116, 117. 
 
 ::.. -v. ,-.: 
 
 . ,. 
 . , 
 
 Gun, a rignal, 106. 
 Ony4, Arnold, 11&; quoted, 116, 
 370. 
 
 Harvard (MAM.). 185, 1M 
 
 r Fraiu-u, quoted, 58, 271. 
 
 . 
 
 ,k. the, 431,445. 
 Herrick, Kobi-rt, 306. 
 Hickory, the, 324. 
 H.KhUu ider* inyueJie,-, 3-32, 33, 34, 
 
 - Hi. steady .ail. In never furla," 
 
 134. 
 
 Hoar-fro.t, 155, 156. 
 H.N-|,i-lKa, 14, 120. 121, 123. 
 
 ii .,;., 
 
 H . j . : 
 
 Houaac Mountains, 180. 
 
 Hop, culture of the, 167. 
 
 Horaea, Canadian, 41. 
 
 //ortm hccuj, nature in winter a, 
 
 218, 219. 
 House, the perfect, 187. 
 
 in. i >:.. *. 73; American 
 
 compared with Canadian, 124. 
 Hii.-kleU.rry bird, the, 412, 423. 
 H.mi| M .ldt, Alex. Ton, 114, 115, 
 
 429. 
 
 Hunt House, the old, 247. 
 H) pericum, the, 459. 
 
 "I the civil nun drying earth*. 
 
 tear*," verne, 147. 
 Ice, the booming of, 215. 
 Ice formation, in a river-bank. I .".7. 
 
 : - 
 Ignorance, Society for the Diffusion 
 
 of f~ 
 Imitations of Charrtte driven, Yan 
 
 kee, 123. 
 " In two year. time H had thus," 
 
 . . 
 
 Indian Summer, the, of life, 448. 
 Indigo bird, the. 429. 
 Indoora, living, 254-25G. 
 Inn. inscription on wall of Swedish, 
 
 173. 
 Invertebrate Aninnl, Mas*. Re- 
 
 i 
 
 Jay, the, 134, 243. 344, 429, 400. 
 
 ted, 119. 
 JeauiU Barracks, the, In Quebec, 
 
 : i ; . 
 Jonaon. Ben, quoted. 277. 
 Joaaelyn, John, quoted, 1. 
 
 Kalm. Bwisll.h traveler, 
 .1;, 37. 4M, Ml ; oo 
 Quebec, ll.V 
 
468 
 
 IXDEX 
 
 Keene (N. H.) Street, 4; heads 
 
 like, 5. 
 
 Kent, the Duke of, property of, 4G. 
 Khaled, quote*!, 410. 
 KilliiiKtoii Peak, 6. 
 Knot-grass, 462. 
 Knowledge, the slow growth of, 1C1 ; I 
 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful, ] 
 
 293 ; true, 294. 
 Kosauth, the excitement about, 427, 
 
 428. 
 
 Labrador and East Main, health in 
 
 the words, 128. 
 
 Lachine Railroad Depot, the, 123. 
 Lake, a woodland, iu winter, 213, 
 
 214. 
 
 Lake Champlain, 7-9. 
 Lake Bt. Peter, 119, 121. 
 Lalemant, Hierosine, quoted, 27. 
 LambkiH, the, 402. 
 Lancaster (Mass.), 168, 170, 183. 
 LANDLORD, THK, 187-198. 
 Lan.llor.l, qualities of the, 188-198. 
 La Prairie (Que.), 12, 13, 22, 123. 
 Lark, the, 134, 136. 
 Lead, rain of, 32. 
 Leaves, Fallen, 324-332; Scarlet 
 
 Oak, 341-344. 
 Lin.., h, (Mass.), 346, 347; Road, 
 
 the, 449. 
 
 Linna iis, quoted, 272. 
 Longueil (Que.), 24. 
 Lord Sydenham steamer, the, 89, 
 
 118. 
 
 Lorette (Que.), 110. 
 London. .I.,lin ri.iu.lius, quoted, 241, 
 
 381. 
 
 Ludlow (Vt.), 6. 
 
 McCulloch s Geographical Diction 
 
 ary, quoted, 61. 
 M.-Taggart, John, quoted, 116. 
 MacTavihh, Simon, 121. 
 Map, drawing, on kitrhen table, 74 ; 
 
 of Canada, inspecting a, 118. 
 Maple, the red and sugar, 7 ; the 
 
 Red, 317-322, 325 ; the Sugar, 320, 
 
 332-341. 
 
 Matane, Paps of, 114. 
 Maranon, the river, 116. 
 Marlborough (Mass.), 262 ; rod, 
 
 the, 444. 
 
 M.:,lo -lark*, 402. 
 Mi-rriiuark River, the. 1-1. 
 Mirhaux, Andre, quoted, 2C9. 
 Mirhaux, Francois Andn 4 , quoted, 
 
 271 ; 320. 370. 
 
 Mi.liiiKht.i-xpl.irinuthe, 397. 
 Milk-weed MM*, 403. 
 
 Miller, a crabbed, 85. 
 
 Milne, Alexander, quoted, 236, 237. 
 
 Minu.ui Hfttlemeuts, the, iu Labra 
 dor, 114. 
 
 MiMiisMppi, discovery of the, 111, 
 112; extent of the, 116; a pano 
 rama of the, 274. 
 
 Monadnock, 4, 175, 178, 180. 
 
 Montcalm, Wolfe and, monument 
 to, 90, 91. 
 
 Montmorenci County, 76, 77; the 
 hal. ituns of, 79-84. 
 
 M.mtn.orenci, Falls of, 36, 46-48. 
 
 MoHtr.-al (Que.), 10, 13; described, 
 17-19; the mixed population of, 
 21 ; from Quebec to, 120 ; and its 
 surroundings, beautiful view of, 
 122 ; the name of, 122. 
 
 M...-M.KSHT, NIGHT AND, 397-409. 
 
 Moonlight, reading by, 178; 423, 
 424 ; influence of, 452. 
 
 Moonshine, 3U9. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 122. 
 
 Morning, winter, early, 200-203; 
 landscape, early, 422. 
 
 Morton, Thomas, 1. 
 
 Mount Holly (Vt.), 6. 
 
 Mount Bofll (Mnntn-al), 13. 
 
 Mountain*, the useof, 181, 182: and 
 1-lain, influence of the, 185, 180. 
 
 Mouse-ear, the, 431. 
 
 Musketaquid, Prairie, or Concord 
 River, 141. 
 
 Musk-rat, the, 141-144. 
 
 Musquash, track of the, 435. 
 
 Mussel, the, 159. 
 
 Myrtle bird, the, 414. 
 
 Nagog Pond, 447. 
 
 Names, poetry in, 24; of place, 
 
 French, 70, 71 ; men s, 289-291 ; 
 
 of colors, 335, 330. 
 Nashua River, the, 170, 185. 
 NATURAL HISTOBT or MAMACHU- . 
 
 KETT8, 127-162. 
 
 Natural history, reading books of, 
 127, 129. 
 
 Nature, health to be found in, 129; 
 man s work the most natural, 
 compared with that of, 146; the 
 hand of, upon her children, 153 ; 
 ,lil!,-rent methods of work, 154 ; 
 the civilized look of, 172; the 
 winter purity of. 204; a hortut 
 gicnu in, 218, 219; men s rela- / 
 tion to, 2% ; finding God in, 438. V 
 
 Nawnhawtuck Hill, 384. 
 
 N.-\\ Liv<T|iool Cove, 26. 
 
 New things to be seen near home, 
 
INDEX 
 
 4G9 
 
 N 
 
 Nlebohr, Bartbold Oeorg, quoted, 
 Jowph Nlrfphorv, quoted, 
 
 <xo MOOXUORT. 3DT Mfc 
 Night, on Wachuaett, 179; the 
 
 MUM In the, 408 ; out of door., 
 
 : . - J 
 
 Ndtecot Hill, 372, 374. 
 N ubg*,lll. 
 Not unconcerned Wachuaett rear. 
 
 hi* head," verae, 170. 
 Notre DM* (Montreal), 13 ; a vi.it 
 
 to, 14-17. 
 Notre Dame dM InjM, Seigniory 
 
 of, 119. 
 
 Nurve-planta, 236. 
 Xut-ltat.-h, tlu-, 134. 
 NutUll, Thomaa, quoted, 136, 137, I 
 
 138, note, 411. 
 
 Oak, succeeding pin**, and viee \ 
 rerw, 227, 22l, 231 ; The Scarlet, 
 341-330; leave*, Scarlet, 341-344. 
 
 Ogilby, America of ir.7u, t uoted, 
 11.: 
 
 "Old Marlborough Road, The, 
 verse, 263. 
 
 Orinoco, the river, 115. 
 
 Orleans, I*le of, 51, 61. 
 
 " .:. i i. 111. 
 
 Ort.-liu*. Theatrum Orbu Terra 
 
 rum. 111. 
 
 Otsian, quoted, 408. 
 Ottawa River, the, 60, 116, 122. 
 Out, the repeated, 75. 
 
 Palladius, quoted. 361, 378. 
 
 Partridge, the, 461. 
 
 Patent office, seeds aent by the, 
 
 248,249. 
 
 Peetweet, the, 419. 
 Ponobecot Indians, use of Musk-rat 
 
 akin* by. 143. 
 Perch, the, 151. 
 I hilip . War, King, 183. 
 r . . . : 
 
 1, amntionlea.4tt. 
 i . . . . - . : 
 
 I " 
 
 I 
 
 rtnUnn. the, 59. 
 
 Pluf, oak urreedinff, and riff 
 . 227, 229, 2-tl . famil> . -. 
 297-299 ; white and pitrh, 4&. 
 PbM-OOM. Gripped by iirreU. 240. 
 Pte.warbler. the, 427 
 Plain and mounUin, life of the, IV,. 
 1- 
 
 Planta on OHM DlMMB , Quebec, 
 33 ; and auimaU which IMA OB 
 
 toM river, 115. 
 PlatUburg(N.Y.),8. 
 
 1 .. .i^nnea, 2Otf. 
 
 : : . , the Klder, quoted, 359. 
 
 Plover, the, 138. 
 
 I .nut l>-vi, by ferry to, 86 ; a night 
 
 at, 88; 11". 
 
 i . - : ;.v. 
 
 Poke or Garget, the, 311-313, 448. 
 PoJygala, the, 462. 
 Polygonuni arruatmn, 459. 
 1 vmmrttt*, 48. 
 Ponkawtaaet, 457. 
 1 otherie, <inotHl, f>5. 
 Prairie River, Mhketa.|uid or, 141. 
 Price Farm road, the, 439. 
 Princeton (Haw.), 175. 
 Priuoa berriea, the, 4G2. 
 Parana, the, quoted, 4<>2. 
 Purple GraaMs, The, 3O8-317. 
 
 Quail, a white, 134, note. 
 
 Quebec (Que.), 3, 24, 25 ; approach 
 to, 26; harbor and population of, 
 97 ; medurvalijtm of, 28, 31 ; the 
 citadel, 33-36; 95-100; fine view 
 of, 61 ; reMit-riiiK, through St. 
 John * Gate, 6 ; lighU In the 
 lower town, ss ; Unding ajraia at, 
 89; walk round the Upper Town, 
 89-94 ; the walln and gat, 91,9-2; 
 artillery barracka, 92; mounted 
 gui.H. 4; retaurtura, 105, 106; 
 .Miery of, 108-110; origin of 
 word, 109 ; departure from, 118. 
 
 Rabbit, the, 461. 
 
 Rainbow in Fall* of the Chaudiere, 
 
 87. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, Quoted, 404. 
 Redwing blarkbirds 462. 
 Redwing., 431. 
 
 Report., Man*., of alight value, 160. 
 K-turii of Spriug, venw, 135. 
 Kh.-xi , 
 
 Richelieu, lalea of, 119. 
 i. . . - . i i: ver, : I 
 
 \. . . : . : > 
 River, the How of a, 217. 
 River-batik, ice fonuaUona in a. 157, 
 
 158. 
 Rivere of Hell and Heaven, nam 
 
 for, 
 
 Riviere du 8ud, the. 114. 
 Riviera more 
 
 River, 70. 
 
470 
 
 IXDEX 
 
 Roberval, Sieurde, 118, 119. 
 Robin, the, 134 ; a white, 134, note ; 
 
 414, 430. 
 Robin Hood Ballads, quoted, 1M, 
 
 254. 
 
 Rock-Maple, the, 325. 
 Rouse s Point (N. Y.), 9. 
 Rowlaudsou, Mrs., 183. 
 
 St. Anne, the Falls of, 49 ; Church 
 of La Bonne, 60; lodgings in vil 
 lage of, 01-03; interior of the 
 church of La Bonne, 03, 64 ; Falls 
 of, described, 65-69. 
 
 St. Charles River, the, ST. 
 
 St. Helen s Island (Montreal), 13. 
 
 St. John s (Que.), 10-12. 
 
 St. John s River, 10. 
 
 St. Lawrence River, 13, 14 ; cottages 
 along the, 25, 26 ; banks of the, 
 above Quebec, 49, 50 ; breadth of. 
 61 ; or Great River, 111-118; old 
 maps of, 111, 114 ; compared \\itli 
 oth.-r rivers, 111, 114-117. 
 
 St. Maurice River, 116. 
 
 Saguenay River, 112, 116. 
 
 Salutations, Canadian, 58. 
 
 Sault a la Puce, Riviere du, 60, 
 
 Sault Norman, 13. 
 
 Sault St. Louis, 13. 
 
 Saunter, derivation of the word, 
 251, 252. 
 
 Scarlet Oak, The, 341-350. 
 
 Scent, aut uii.n, 449 ; more trust 
 worthy than six lit, 400. 
 
 School-house, a Canadian, 57. 
 
 Science, the bravery of, 131, 132. 
 
 Scotchman dissatisfied with Canada, 
 
 S.ri( tures, Hebrew, inadequacy of, 
 regarding winter, 1:23, 224. 
 
 Sea-plants near Quebec, 115. 
 
 BtOfli the traiibportation of, by 
 wind, 228 ; by birds, 229-231 ; by 
 squirrels, 233-244 ; the vitality of, 
 245-248. 
 
 Se.-ii,^, individual, 350-354. 
 
 S.-l.-mtes,a07. 
 
 Seven Islands, the, 114. 
 
 ShadowK, the routing of, in spring, 
 433,434. 
 
 Sheep, a load of, 23. 
 
 Shirley (Mas*.), 170. 
 
 Sl.rul>-oak8, 463. 
 
 Sign-language, 75, 76. 
 
 Sill.-ry (Que.), 26. 
 
 Silliman, 15.-nj.iimn, quoted, 121. 
 
 Skating, 216. 
 
 Smoke, winter morning, 201 ; Men 
 
 from a hilltop, 212; the smell of, 
 
 vX). 
 
 Snake, the, 152. 
 Snipc-Minotiug grounds, CO. 
 Snow, 221, 222; not recognized in 
 
 Hebrew Scriptures, 223. 
 Snow-bird, the, 134. - 
 Society, health not to be found in, 
 
 129. 
 Si l.lier*, English, in Canada, 11, 
 
 19-21 ; in Quebec, 29-33, 98JW. 
 Solomon, quoted, 357. 
 " Sometimes I hear the veery s 
 
 clarion," verse, 138. 
 Song-sparrow, the, 135. 
 Sounds, winter morning, 200, 202. 
 Sorel River, 9, 10. 
 Sparrow, the white-throated, 488; 
 
 the field, 429. 
 Spaulding s Farm, 297. 
 Spearing fish, U J l. .l. 
 Speech, country, 108. 
 Spending a day, the art of, 438. 
 Spirit, worshiping a bad, 417, 418. 
 Spring, on the Concord River, 147- 
 
 149. 
 
 Squash, the large yellow, 249. 
 Squirrel, a red, burying in 
 
 234 ; with nuts under M 
 
 pine-cones stripped by the, 240; 
 
 with filled cheek-pouches, 243. 
 Stars, the, 403-405. 
 St. -ding (Mass.), 172, 183. 
 Stillriver Village (Mass.), 185. 
 Stillwater (Mass.), 184. 
 Stillwati-r, tin-. 17 J, 174. 
 ST..M i Mass.), 100,444,446. 
 Strawberry Hill, 447. 
 Succession of Forest Trees, The, 
 
 as aw. 
 
 Sudbury (Mass.), 372, 42.1, 4 JO, 444. 
 
 Sugar-Maple, The, 332-341. 
 
 Sunday, keeping, 427. 
 
 Sunflowers, 447. 
 
 Sunrise, 456, 457. 
 
 Sunset, a remarkable, 302-304 ; on 
 
 the river, 441. 
 Supper, an interruption of sunsets, 
 
 442, 443. 
 Swamp, a day to visit the, 452. 
 
 Tamias, the steward squirrel, 243. 
 Tavern, the gods interest in the, 
 
 187 ; compared with the chun-h, 
 
 the, 198. 
 T. -1. -ur.iph, workers on the, 443, 
 
 444. 
 
 Tenures, Canadian, 78. 
 " The needles of the pine," verse, 
 
 163. 
 
INDEX 
 
 471 
 
 "The nv*r Bwelletb more *nd 
 
 MTO." verse, 148. 
 The luggih noke rurls up f roiu 
 
 one deep dell." verse, 201. 
 tv_^_.__-. ... ( 3801 
 
 . 
 
 Thorvau. H.-nA David. 1-aves Con- 
 
 cord for Canada, 25th S.-ptember, 
 
 1850, 3; traveling outfit of, 3H- 
 
 ;..r Montreal 
 
 on return trip, 118; leaves Mon 
 treal (or H >ton. 123; total ex- 
 pence of Canada excursion, 125; 
 walk from Conrord to Wachuaett 
 and back. 163-186 ; observation of 
 a red squirrel, 233, 234 ; experi- 
 ence with government OOjaootv 
 seed, 249. 
 
 Thou diwky spirit of the wood," 
 Terse, 139. 
 
 Thought, the absence of, 464. 
 
 r, the brown. 423. 429, 435. 
 
 Three Riven (Que.), 25, 115. 
 
 Three-oM.K k i-our-m--, :J.V>. 
 
 Toad, ring of the, 415, 41ti, 425. 
 
 TMlOhii, colors on a, 419. 
 
 Tl Of |ll 1 1, 142. 
 
 . 111. 
 
 1 ,. . . .-.: - H 
 
 Trees, Canadian, 59 ; the MffOS- 
 tions of, 154 ; the iiatur.il pl.uit- 
 ing of, 2-27-248 ; a town s need of, 
 334, 337-341 ; for season*, 339. 
 
 Tree-tops, things seen and found on, 
 300,301. 
 
 Troy (N. H.), 4. 
 
 Tupelo Cliff, 441. 
 
 Turtle, the snapping, 182. 
 
 " Upon th lofty Elm-tree sprays," 
 Terse, 138. 
 
 Val Carter (Que.), 110. 
 Vanessa antiopa, 430. 
 Varannea, the church of, 121. 
 Veer, the, 138. 
 
 the type of all growth, 
 
 Verennea (Vt.), 8. 
 
 Vermin generated by men, 421. 
 
 , . 
 
 . : t-.. . :. ,. : il 
 Violet, the first, 411. 
 Virgil, reading, 1(9, 176. 
 
 Warhtuett, a view of, 160 ; range, 
 m-eut of, 174; birds 
 on summit of, 175; 
 178; an observatory, 
 
 v, , losjflfi ,42! 
 Pond. 45s*. 
 
 Walls, Quebec and oth.T, 91. 
 
 WALK TO WACHOSVTT. A, 163-186. 
 
 v. .--.:. r l.-r . 
 
 WALK MO. 251-304. 
 
 Walk*, not on beaten patlis, 262; 
 ::,. dir.--tu.ii , :. - 
 tiiroua, 350; by night, 401; in 
 drizzly weather, 459. 
 
 Waltham( Mass.), 455. 
 
 Warblers, 430, 431, 432. 
 
 Watatic, 168, 181. 
 
 " We pronounce thee happy, Ci 
 cads, verse, 133. 
 
 Wealth, true, 416, 417. 
 
 Went, walking towards the, 266- 
 269 ; general tendency towards 
 the, 269-275 
 
 Wiitraon*land, etymology of, 6. 
 
 Whalea in the St. Lawrence, 112, 
 113. 
 
 " When Winter fringes every 
 
 bough," verse, 215. 
 i " Where they once dug for money," 
 
 verse, 2" 3. 
 
 ; Whip-poor-will, the fir*t, 425 ; sing- 
 nu- 1-fore sunrii*, 455, 466. 
 
 White-ash, the, 4C5. 
 
 White s Pond. 444. 
 
 Whitney, Peter, quoted, 383. 
 
 " Whoa," the crying of, to man 
 kind, 288. 
 
 WILD APPLKS, 356-908. 
 
 WildneM, the neresnity of, 275-289 ; 
 in literature, 283-286 ; in doinea- 
 
 i tic animals, 287 289. 
 
 William Henry (Que.), 25. 
 
 Willow, <;..M.-II, leaves, 327. 
 
 Willow Bay, 415. 
 
 Willow-lM-fli, the, 461. 
 
 Wurm WALK. A, 199-224. 
 
 Wint.-r. warmth in, 205; the woods 
 in. jiH i. 2O7 ; nature a hortut tic- 
 nu in, 218, 219 ; as represented in 
 the almanac, 222 ; iiniored in He 
 brew Revelation, 
 224. 
 v. 
 
 With frontier strength ye 
 your ground." verne. 163. 
 
 , tlie circuit of this plodding 
 life," 127. 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 Wood-chopper, writer to be 
 seuted as a, IB, 
 
472 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Woodehucke, 432, 433, 435. I Woods in winter, the, 20C, 207 
 
 ..iu, hut aiid work of a, 210- Wordsworth, reading, IT. 
 
 212. 
 
 Woodpecker, the, 412, 429: 
 
 pigeon, 414, 437. 
 Wood-thrush, the, 429. 
 
 t:.- 
 
 Wormwood, the Roman, 447. 
 
 TAnB IN CANADA, A, 1-125. 
 " Yorrick," the, 138, uote. 
 
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