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Passages from the American Notebooks, Volume 1
A horse was standing saddled near the door, but I did not see the rider. I knocked, and an elderly woman, of very pleasing and intelligent aspect, came at the summons, and gave me directions how to get to the south village through an orchard and "across lots," which would bring me into the road near the Quaker meeting-house, with gravestones round it. While she talked, a young woman came into the pantry from the kitchen, with a dirty little brat, whose squalls I had heard all along; the reason of his outcry being that his mother was washing him, – a very unusual process, if I may judge by his looks. I asked the old lady for some water, and she gave me, I think, the most delicious I ever tasted. These mountaineers ought certainly to be temperance people; for their mountain springs supply them with a liquor of which the cities and the low countries can have no conception. Pure, fresh, almost sparkling, exhilarating, – such water as Adam and Eve drank.
I passed the south village on a by-road, without entering it, and was taken up by the stage from Pittsfield a mile or two this side of it. Platt, the driver, a friend of mine, talked familiarly about many matters, intermixing his talk with remarks on his team and addresses to the beasts composing it, who were three mares, and a horse on the near wheel, – all bays. The horse he pronounced "a dreadful nice horse to go; but if he could shirk off the work upon the others, he would," – which unfairness Platt corrected by timely strokes of the whip whenever the horse's traces were not tightened. One of the mares wished to go faster, hearing another horse tramp behind her; "and nothing made her so mad," quoth Platt, "as to be held in when she wanted to go." The near leader started. "O the little devil," said he, "how skittish she is!" Another stumbled, and Platt bantered her thereupon. Then he told of foundering through snow-drifts in winter, and carrying the mail on his back – four miles from Bennington. And thus we jogged on, and got to "mine inn" just as the dinner-bell was ringing.
Pig-drover, with two hundred pigs. They are much more easily driven on rainy days than on fair ones. One of his pigs, a large one, particularly troublesome as to running off the road towards every object, and leading the drove. Thirteen miles about a day's journey, in the course of which the drover has to travel about thirty.
They have a dog, who runs to and fro indefatigably, barking at those who straggle on the flanks of the line of march, then scampering to the other side and barking there, and sometimes having quite an affair of barking and surly grunting with some refractory pig, who has found something to munch, and refuses to quit it. The pigs are fed on corn at their halts. The drove has some ultimate market, and individuals are peddled out on the march. Some die.
Merino sheep (which are much raised in Berkshire) are good for hardly anything to eat, – a fair-sized quarter dwindling down to almost nothing in the process of roasting.
The tavern-keeper in Stockbridge, an elderly bachelor, – a dusty, black-dressed, antiquated figure, with a white neckcloth setting off a dim, yellow complexion, looking like one of the old wax-figures of ministers in a corner of the New England Museum. He did not seem old, but like a middle-aged man, who had been preserved in some dark and cobwebby corner for a great while. He is asthmatic.
In Connecticut, and also sometimes in Berkshire, the villages are situated on the most elevated ground that can be found, so that they are visible for miles around. Litchfield is a remarkable instance, occupying a high plain, without the least shelter from the winds, and with almost as wide an expanse of view as from a mountain-top. The streets are very wide, – two or three hundred feet, at least, – with wide, green margins, and sometimes there is a wide green space between two road tracks. Nothing can be neater than the churches and houses. The graveyard is on the slope, and at the foot of a swell, filled with old and new gravestones, some of red freestone, some of gray granite, most of them of white marble, and one of cast-iron with an inscription of raised letters. There was one of the date of about 1776, on which was represented the third-length, has-relief portrait of a gentleman in a wig and other costume of that day; and as a framework about this portrait was wreathed a garland of vine-leaves and heavy clusters of grapes. The deceased should have been a jolly bottleman; but the epitaph indicated nothing of the kind.
In a remote part of the graveyard, – remote from the main body of dead people, – I noticed a humble, mossy stone, on which I traced out "To the memory of Julia Africa, servant of Rev." somebody. There were also the half-obliterated traces of other graves, without any monuments, in the vicinity of this one. Doubtless the slaves here mingled their dark clay with the earth.
At Litchfield there is a doctor who undertakes to cure deformed people, – and humpbacked, lame, and otherwise defective folk go there. Besides these, there were many ladies and others boarding there, for the benefit of the air, I suppose.
At Canaan, Connecticut, before the tavern, there is a doorstep, two or three paces large in each of its dimensions; and on this is inscribed the date when the builder of the house came to the town, – namely, 1731. The house was built in 1751. Then follows the age and death of the patriarch (at over ninety) and his wife, and the births of, I think, eleven sons and daughters. It would seem as if they were buried underneath; and many people take that idea. It is odd to put a family record in a spot where it is sure to be trampled underfoot.
At Springfield, a blind man, who came in the stage, – elderly, – sitting in the reading-room, and, as soon as seated, feeling all around him with his cane, so as to find out his locality, and know where he may spit with safety! The cautious and scientific air with which he measures his distances. Then he sits still and silent a long while, – then inquires the hour, – then says, "I should like to go to bed." Nobody of the house being near, he receives no answer, and repeats impatiently, "I'll go to bed." One would suppose, that, conscious of his dependent condition, he would have learned a different sort of manner; but probably he has lived where he could command attention.
Two travellers, eating bread and cheese of their own in the bar-room at Stockbridge, and drinking water out of a tumbler borrowed from the landlord. Eating immensely, and, when satisfied, putting the relics in their trunk, and rubbing down the table.
Sample ears of various kinds of corn hanging over the looking-glass or in the bars of taverns. Four ears on a stalk (good ones) are considered a heavy harvest.
A withered, yellow, sodden, dead-alive looking woman, – an opium-eater. A deaf man, with a great fancy for conversation, so that his interlocutor is compelled to halloo and bawl over the rumbling of the coach, amid which he hears best. The sharp tones of a woman's voice appear to pierce his dull organs much better than a masculine voice. The impossibility of saying anything but commonplace matters to a deaf man, of expressing any delicacy of thought in a raised tone, of giving utterance to fine feelings in a bawl. This man's deafness seemed to have made his mind and feelings uncommonly coarse; for, after the opium-eater had renewed an old acquaintance with him, almost the first question he asked, in his raised voice, was, "Do you eat opium now?"
At Hartford, the keeper of a temperance hotel reading a Hebrew Bible in the bar by means of a lexicon and an English version.
A negro, respectably dressed, and well-mounted on horseback, travelling on his own hook, calling for oats, and drinking a glass of brandy-and-water at the bar, like any other Christian. A young man from Wisconsin said, "I wish I had a thousand such fellows in Alabama." It made a strange impression on me, – the negro was really so human! – and to talk of owning a thousand like him!
Left North Adams September 11th. Reached home September 24th, 1838.
October 24th. – View from a chamber of the Tremont of the brick edifice, opposite, on the other side of Beacon Street. At one of the lower windows, a woman at work; at one above, a lady hemming a ruff or some such ladylike thing. She is pretty, young, and married; for a little boy comes to her knees, and she parts his hair, and caresses him in a motherly way. A note on colored paper is brought her; and she reads it, and puts it in her bosom. At another window, at some depth within the apartment, a gentleman in a dressing-gown, reading, and rocking in an easy-chair, etc., etc., etc. A rainy day, and people passing with umbrellas disconsolately between the spectator and these various scenes of indoor occupation and comfort. With this sketch might be mingled and worked up some story that was going on within the chamber where the spectator was situated.
All the dead that had ever been drowned in a certain lake to arise.
The history of a small lake from the first, till it was drained.
An autumnal feature, – boys had swept together the fallen leaves from the elms along the street in one huge pile, and had made a hollow, nest-shaped, in this pile, in which three or four of them lay curled, like young birds.
A tombstone-maker, whom Miss B – y knew, used to cut cherubs on the top of the tombstones, and had the art of carving the cherubs' faces in the likeness of the deceased.
A child of Rev. E. P – was threatened with total blindness. A week after the father had been informed of this, the child died; and, in the mean while, his feelings had become so much the more interested in the child, from its threatened blindness, that it was infinitely harder to give it up. Had he not been aware of it till after the child's death, it would probably have been a consolation.
Singular character of a gentleman (H. H – , Esq.) living in retirement in Boston, – esteemed a man of nicest honor, and his seclusion attributed to wounded feelings on account of the failure of his firm in business. Yet it was discovered that this man had been the mover of intrigues by which men in business had been ruined, and their property absorbed, none knew how or by whom; love-affairs had been broken off, and much other mischief done; and for years he was not in the least suspected. He died suddenly, soon after suspicion fell upon him. Probably it was the love of management, of having an influence on affairs, that produced these phenomena.
Character of a man who, in himself and his external circumstances, shall be equally and totally false: his fortune resting on baseless credit, – his patriotism assumed, – his domestic affections, his honor and honesty, all a sham. His own misery in the midst of it, – it making the whole universe, heaven and earth alike, all unsubstantial mockery to him.
Dr. Johnson's penance in Uttoxeter Market. A man who does penance in what might appear to lookers-on the most glorious and triumphal circumstance of his life. Each circumstance of the career of an apparently successful man to be a penance and torture to him on account of some fundamental error in early life.
A person to catch fire-flies, and try to kindle his household fire with them. It would be symbolical of something.
Thanksgiving at the Worcester Lunatic Asylum. A ball and dance of the inmates in the evening, – a furious lunatic dancing with the principal's wife. Thanksgiving in an almshouse might make a better sketch.
The house on the eastern corner of North and Essex Streets [Salem], supposed to have been built about 1640, had, say sixty years later, a brick turret erected, wherein one of the ancestors of the present occupants used to practise alchemy. He was the operative of a scientific person in Boston, the director. There have been other alchemists of old in this town, – one who kept his fire burning seven weeks, and then lost the elixir by letting it go out.
An ancient wineglass (Miss Ingersol's), long-stalked, with a small, cup-like bowl, round which is wreathed a branch of grape-vine, with a rich cluster of grapes, and leaves spread out. There is also some kind of a bird flying. The whole is excellently cut or engraved.
In the Duke of Buckingham's comedy "The Chances," Don Frederic says of Don John (they are two noble Spanish gentlemen), "One bed contains us ever."
A person, while awake and in the business of life, to think highly of another, and place perfect confidence in him, but to be troubled with dreams in which this seeming friend appears to act the part of a most deadly enemy. Finally it is discovered that the dream-character is the true one. The explanation would be – the soul's instinctive perception.
Pandora's box for a child's story.
Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.
"A person to look back on a long life ill-spent, and to picture forth a beautiful life which he would live, if he could be permitted to begin his life over again. Finally to discover that he had only been dreaming of old age, – that he was really young, and could live such a life as he had pictured."
A newspaper, purporting to be published in a family, and satirizing the political and general world by advertisements, remarks on domestic affairs, – advertisement of a lady's lost thimble, etc.
L. H – . She was unwilling to die, because she had no friends to meet her in the other world. Her little son F. being very ill, on his recovery she confessed a feeling of disappointment, having supposed that he would have gone before, and welcomed her into heaven!
H. L. C – heard from a French Canadian a story of a young couple in Acadie. On their marriage day, all the men of the Province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a proclamation. When assembled, they were all seized and shipped off to be distributed through New England, – among them the new bridegroom. His bride set off in search of him, – wandered about New England all her lifetime, and at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom on his deathbed. The shock was so great that it killed her likewise.
January 4th, 1839. – When scattered clouds are resting on the bosoms of hills, it seems as if one might climb into the heavenly region, earth being so intermixed, with sky, and gradually transformed into it.
A stranger, dying, is buried; and after many years two strangers come in search of his grave, and open it.
The strange sensation of a person who feels himself an object of deep interest, and close observation, and various construction of all his actions, by another person.
Letters in the shape of figures of men, etc. At a distance, the words composed by the letters are alone distinguishable. Close at hand, the figures alone are seen, and not distinguished as letters. Thus things may have a positive, a relative, and a composite meaning, according to the point of view.
"Passing along the street, all muddy with puddles, and suddenly seeing the sky reflected in these puddles in such a way as quite to conceal the foulness of the street."
A young man in search of happiness, – to be personified by a figure whom he expects to meet in a crowd, and is to be recognized by certain signs. All these signs are given by a figure in various garbs and actions, but he does not recognize that this is the sought-for person till too late.
If cities were built by the sound of music, then some edifices would appear to be constructed by grave, solemn tones, – others to have danced forth to light, fantastic airs.
Familiar spirits, according to Lilly, used to be worn in rings, watches, sword-hilts. Thumb-rings were set with jewels of extraordinary size.
A very fanciful person, when dead, to have his burial in a cloud.
"A story there passeth of an Indian king that sent unto Alexander a fair woman, fed with aconite and other poisons, with this intent complexionally to destroy him!" – Sir T. Browne.
Dialogues of the unborn, like dialogues of the dead, – or between two young children.
A mortal symptom for a person being to lose his own aspect and to take the family lineaments, which were hidden deep in the healthful visage. Perhaps a seeker might thus recognize the man he had sought, after long intercourse with him unknowingly.
Some moderns to build a fire on Ararat with the remnants of the ark.
Two little boats of cork, with a magnet in one and steel in the other.
To have ice in one's blood.
To make a story of all strange and impossible things, – as the Salamander, the Phoenix.
The semblance of a human face to be formed on the side of a mountain, or in the fracture of a small stone, by a lusus naturae. The face is an object of curiosity for years or centuries, and by and by a boy is born, whose features gradually assume the aspect of that portrait. At some critical juncture, the resemblance is found to be perfect. A prophecy may be connected.
A person to be the death of his beloved in trying to raise her to more than mortal perfection; yet this should be a comfort to him for having aimed so highly and holily.
1840. – A man, unknown, conscious of temptation to secret crimes, puts up a note in church, desiring the prayers of the congregation for one so tempted.
Some most secret thing, valued and honored between lovers, to be hung up in public places, and made the subject of remark by the city, – remarks, sneers, and laughter.
To make a story out of a scarecrow, giving it odd attributes. From different points of view, it should appear to change, – now an old man, now an old woman, – a gunner, a farmer, or the Old Nick.
A ground-sparrow's nest in the slope of a bank, brought to view by mowing the grass, but still sheltered and comfortably hidden by a blackberry-vine trailing over it. At first, four brown-speckled eggs, – then two little bare young ones, which, on the slightest noise, lift their heads, and open wide mouths for food, – immediately dropping their heads, after a broad gape. The action looks as if they were making a most earnest, agonized petition. In another egg, as in a coffin, I could discern the quiet, death-like form of the little bird. The whole thing had something awful and mysterious in it.
A coroner's inquest on a murdered man, – the gathering of the jury to be described, and the characters of the members, – some with secret guilt upon their souls.
To represent a man as spending life and the intensest labor in the accomplishment of some mechanical trifle, – as in making a miniature coach to be drawn by fleas, or a dinner-service to be put into a cherry-stone.
A bonfire to be made of the gallows and of all symbols of evil.
The love of posterity is a consequence of the necessity of death. If a man were sure of living forever here, he would not care about his offspring.
The device of a sun-dial for a monument over a grave, with some suitable motto.
A man with the right perception of things, – a feeling within him of what is true and what is false. It might be symbolized by the talisman with which, in fairy tales, an adventurer was enabled to distinguish enchantments from realities.
A phantom of the old royal governors, or some such shadowy pageant, on the night of the evacuation of Boston by the British.
– taking my likeness, I said that such changes would come over my face that she would not know me when we met again in heaven. "See if I do not!" said she, smiling. There was the most peculiar and beautiful humor in the point itself, and in her manner, that can be imagined.
Little F. H – used to look into E – 's mouth to see where her smiles came from.
"There is no Measure for Measure to my affections. If the earth fails me, I can die, and go to GOD," said – .
Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love. This might be thought out at great length.
Boston, July 3d, 1839. – I do not mean to imply that I am unhappy or discontented, for this is not the case. My life only is a burden in the same way that it is to every toilsome man; and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only a night's sleep to remove it. But from henceforth forever I shall be entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall know how to sympathize with them, seeing that I likewise have risen at the dawn, and borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps homeward till eventide. Years hence, perhaps, the experience that my heart is acquiring now will flow out in truth and wisdom.
August 27th. – I have been stationed all day at the end of Long Wharf, and I rather think that I had the most eligible situation of anybody in Boston. I was aware that it must be intensely hot in the midst of the city; but there was only a short space of uncomfortable heat in my region, half-way towards the centre of the harbor; and almost all the time there was a pure and delightful breeze, fluttering and palpitating, sometimes shyly kissing my brow, then dying away, and then rushing upon me in livelier sport, so that I was fain to settle my straw hat more tightly upon my head. Late in the afternoon, there was a sunny shower, which came down so like a benediction that it seemed ungrateful to take shelter in the cabin or to put up an umbrella. Then there was a rainbow, or a large segment of one, so exceedingly brilliant and of such long endurance that I almost fancied it was stained into the sky, and would continue there permanently. And there were clouds floating all about, – great clouds and small, of all glorious and lovely hues (save that imperial crimson which was revealed to our united gaze), – so glorious indeed, and so lovely, that I had a fantasy of heaven's being broken into fleecy fragments and dispersed through space, with its blest inhabitants dwelling blissfully upon those scattered islands.
February 7th, 1840. – What beautiful weather this is! – beautiful, at least, so far as sun, sky, and atmosphere are concerned, though a poor, wingless biped is sometimes constrained to wish that he could raise himself a little above the earth. How much mud and mire, how many pools of unclean water, how many slippery footsteps, and perchance heavy tumbles, might be avoided, if we could tread but six inches above the crust of this world. Physically we cannot do this; our bodies cannot; but it seems to me that our hearts and minds may keep themselves above moral mud-puddles and other discomforts of the soul's pathway.
February 11th. – I have been measuring coal all day, on board of a black little British schooner, in a dismal dock at the north end of the city. Most of the time I paced the deck to keep myself warm; for the wind (northeast, I believe) blew up through the dock, as if it had been the pipe of a pair of bellows. The vessel lying deep between two wharfs, there was no more delightful prospect, on the right hand and on the left, than the posts and timbers, half immersed in the water, and covered with ice, which the rising and falling of successive tides had left upon them, so that they looked like immense icicles. Across the water, however, not more than half a mile off, appeared the Bunker Hill Monument; and what interested me considerably more, a church-steeple, with the dial of a clock upon it, whereby I was enabled to measure the march of the weary hours. Sometimes I descended into the dirty little cabin of the schooner, and warmed myself by a red-hot stove, among biscuit-barrels, pots and kettles, sea-chests, and innumerable lumber of all sorts, – my olfactories, meanwhile, being greatly refreshed by the odor of a pipe, which the captain, or some one of his crew, was smoking. But at last came the sunset, with delicate clouds, and a purple light upon the islands; and I blessed it, because it was the signal of my release.
February 12th. – All day long again have I been engaged in a very black business, – as black as a coal; and, though my face and hands have undergone a thorough purification, I feel not altogether fit to hold communion with doves. Methinks my profession is somewhat akin to that of a chimney-sweeper; but the latter has the advantage over me, because, after climbing up through the darksome flue of the chimney, he emerges into the midst of the golden air, and sings out his melodies far over the heads of the whole tribe of weary earth-plodders. My toil to-day has been cold and dull enough; nevertheless, I was neither cold nor dull.
March 15th. – I pray that in one year more I may find some way of escaping from this unblest Custom-House; for it is a very grievous thraldom. I do detest all offices, – all, at least, that are held on a political tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have gained by my custom-house experience, – to know a politician. It is a knowledge which no previous thought or power of sympathy could have taught me, because the animal, or the machine rather, is not in nature.
March 23d. – I do think that it is the doom laid upon me, of murdering so many of the brightest hours of the day at the Custom-House, that makes such havoc with my wits, for here I am again trying to write worthily… yet with a sense as if all the noblest part of man had been left out of my composition, or had decayed out of it since my nature was given to my own keeping… Never comes any bird of Paradise into that dismal region. A salt or even a coal ship is ten million times preferable; for there the sky is above me, and the fresh breeze around me, and my thoughts, having hardly anything to do with my occupation, are as free as air.
Nevertheless, you are not to fancy that the above paragraph gives a correct idea of my mental and spiritual state… It is only once in a while that the image and desire of a better and happier life makes me feel the iron of my chain; for, after all, a human spirit may find no insufficiency of food fit for it, even in the Custom-House. And, with such materials as these, I do think and feel and learn things that are worth knowing, and which I should not know unless I had learned them there, so that the present portion of my life shall not be quite left out of the sum of my real existence… It is good for me, on many accounts, that my life has had this passage in it. I know much more than I did a year ago. I have a stronger sense of power to act as a man among men. I have gained worldly wisdom, and wisdom also that is not altogether of this world. And, when I quit this earthly cavern where I am now buried, nothing will cling to me that ought to be left behind. Men will not perceive, I trust, by my look, or the tenor of my thoughts and feelings, that I have been a custom-house officer.
April 7th. – It appears to me to have been the most uncomfortable day that ever was inflicted on poor mortals… Besides the bleak, unkindly air, I have been plagued by two sets of coal-shovellers at the same time, and have been obliged to keep two separate tallies simultaneously. But I was conscious that all this was merely a vision and a fantasy, and that, in reality, I was not half frozen by the bitter blast, nor tormented by those grimy coal-beavers, but that I was basking quietly in the sunshine of eternity… Any sort of bodily and earthly torment may serve to make us sensible that we have a soul that is not within the jurisdiction of such shadowy demons, – it separates the immortal within us from the mortal. But the wind has blown my brains into such confusion that I cannot philosophize now.
April 19th. – … What a beautiful day was yesterday! My spirit rebelled against being confined in my darksome dungeon at the Custom-House. It seemed a sin, – a murder of the joyful young day, – a quenching of the sunshine. Nevertheless, there I was kept a prisoner till it was too late to fling myself on a gentle wind, and be blown away into the country… When I shall be again free, I will enjoy all things with the fresh simplicity of a child of five years old. I shall grow young again, made all over anew. I will go forth and stand in a summer shower, and all the worldly dust that has collected on me shall be washed away at once, and my heart will be like a bank of fresh flowers for the weary to rest upon..
6 P. M. – I went out to walk about an hour ago, and found it very pleasant, though there was a somewhat cool wind. I went round and across the Common, and stood on the highest point of it, where I could see miles and miles into the country. Blessed be God for this green tract, and the view which it affords, whereby we poor citizens may be put in mind, sometimes, that all his earth is not composed of blocks of brick houses, and of stone or wooden pavements. Blessed be God for the sky too, though the smoke of the city may somewhat change its aspect, – but still it is better than if each street were covered over with a roof. There were a good many people walking on the mall, – mechanics apparently, and shopkeepers' clerks, with their wives; and boys were rolling on the grass, and I would have liked to lie down and roll too.
April 30th. – … I arose this morning feeling more elastic than I have throughout the winter; for the breathing of the ocean air has wrought a very beneficial effect… What a beautiful, most beautiful afternoon this has been! It was a real happiness to live. If I had been merely a vegetable, – a hawthorn-bush, for instance, – I must have been happy in such an air and sunshine; but, having a mind and a soul… I enjoyed somewhat more than mere vegetable happiness… The footsteps of May can be traced upon the islands in the harbor, and I have been watching the tints of green upon them gradually deepening, till now they are almost as beautiful as they ever can be.
May 19th. – … Lights and shadows are continually flitting across my inward sky, and I know neither whence they come nor whither they go; nor do I inquire too closely into them. It is dangerous to look too minutely into such phenomena. It is apt to create a substance where at first there was a mere shadow… If at any time there should seem to be an expression unintelligible from one soul to another, it is best not to strive to interpret it in earthly language, but wait for the soul to make itself understood; and, were we to wait a thousand years, we need deem it no more time than we can spare… It is not that I have any love of mystery, but because I abhor it, and because I have often felt that words may be a thick and darksome veil of mystery between the soul and the truth which it seeks. Wretched were we, indeed, if we had no better means of communicating ourselves, no fairer garb in which to array our essential being, than these poor rags and tatters of Babel. Yet words are not without their use even for purposes of explanation, – but merely for explaining outward acts and all sorts of external things, leaving the soul's life and action to explain itself in its own way.
