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Passages from the American Notebooks, Volume 1
What a misty disquisition I have scribbled! I would not read it over for sixpence.
May 29th. – Rejoice with me, for I am free from a load of coal which has been pressing upon my shoulders throughout all the hot weather. I am convinced that Christian's burden consisted of coal; and no wonder he felt so much relieved, when it fell off and rolled into the sepulchre. His load, however, at the utmost, could not have been more than a few bushels, whereas mine was exactly one hundred and thirty-five chaldrons and seven tubs.
May 30th. – … On board my salt-vessels and colliers there are many things happening, many pictures which, in future years, when I am again busy at the loom of fiction, I could weave in; but my fancy is rendered so torpid by my ungenial way of life that I cannot sketch off the scenes and portraits that interest me, and I am forced to trust them to my memory, with the hope of recalling them at some more favorable period. For these three or four days I have been observing a little Mediterranean boy from Malaga, not more than ten or eleven years old, but who is already a citizen of the world, and seems to be just as gay and contented on the deck of a Yankee coal-vessel as he could be while playing beside his mother's door. It is really touching to see how free and happy he is, – how the little fellow takes the whole wide world for his home, and all mankind for his family. He talks Spanish, – at least that is his native tongue; but he is also very intelligible in English, and perhaps he likewise has smatterings of the speech of other countries, whither the winds may have wafted this little sea-bird. He is a Catholic; and yesterday being Friday he caught some fish and fried them for his dinner in sweet-oil, and really they looked so delicate that I almost wished he would invite me to partake. Every once in a while he undresses himself and leaps overboard, plunging down beneath the waves as if the sea were as native to him as the earth. Then he runs up the rigging of the vessel as if he meant to fly away through the air. I must remember this little boy, and perhaps I may make something more beautiful of him than these rough and imperfect touches would promise.
June 11th. – … I could wish that the east-wind would blow every day from ten o'clock till five; for there is great refreshment in it to us poor mortals that toil beneath the sun. We must not think too unkindly even of the east-wind. It is not, perhaps, a wind to be loved, even in its benignest moods; but there are seasons when I delight to feel its breath upon my cheek, though it be never advisable to throw open my bosom and take it into my heart, as I would its gentle sisters of the south and west. To-day, if I had been on the wharves, the slight chill of an east-wind would have been a blessing, like the chill of death to a world-weary man.
… But this has been one of the idlest days that I ever spent in Boston… In the morning, soon after breakfast, I went to the Athenaeum gallery, and, during the hour or two that I stayed, not a single visitor came in. Some people were putting up paintings in one division of the room; but I had the other all to myself. There are two pictures there by our friend Sarah Clarke, – scenes in Kentucky.
From the picture-gallery I went to the reading-rooms of the Athenaeum, and there read the magazines till nearly twelve; thence to the Custom-House, and soon afterwards to dinner with Colonel Hall; then back to the Custom-House, but only for a little while. There was nothing in the world to do, and so at two o'clock I cane home and lay down, with the Faerie Queene in my hand.
August 21st. – Last night I slept like a child of five years old, and had no dreams at all, – unless just before it was time to rise, and I have forgotten what those dreams were. After I was fairly awake this morning, I felt very bright and airy, and was glad that I had been compelled to snatch two additional hours of existence from annihilation. The sun's disk was but half above the ocean's verge when I ascended the ship's side. These early morning hours are very lightsome and quiet. Almost the whole day I have been in the shade, reclining on a pile of sails, so that the life and spirit are not entirely worn out of me… The wind has been east this afternoon, – perhaps in the forenoon, too, – and I could not help feeling refreshed, when the gentle chill of its breath stole over my cheek. I would fain abominate the east-wind… but it persists in doing me kindly offices now and then. What a perverse wind it is! Its refreshment is but another mode of torment.
Salem, Oct. 4th. Union Street [Family Mansion] – … Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber, where I used to sit in days gone by… Here I have written many tales, many that have been burned to ashes, many that doubtless deserved the same fate. This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all, – at least, till I were in my grave. And sometimes it seemed as if I were already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled and benumbed. But oftener I was happy, – at least, as happy as I then knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of being. By and by, the world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called me forth, – not, indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather with a still, small voice, – and forth I went, but found nothing in the world that I thought preferable to my old solitude till now… And now I begin to understand why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by rude encounters with the multitude… But living in solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of my heart… I used to think I could imagine all passions, all feelings, and states of the heart and mind; but how little did I know!.. Indeed, we are but shadows; we are not endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is but the thinnest substance of a dream, – till the heart be touched. That touch creates us, – then we begin to be, – thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity..
When we shall be endowed with our spiritual bodies, I think that they will be so constituted that we may send thoughts and feelings any distance in no time at all, and transfuse them warm and fresh into the consciousness of those whom we love… But, after all, perhaps it is not wise to intermix fantastic ideas with the reality of affection. Let us content ourselves to be earthly creatures, and hold communion of spirit in such modes as are ordained to us..
I was not at the end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region, – my authority having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the captain and "gang" of shovellers aboard a coal-vessel. I would you could have beheld the awful sternness of my visage and demeanor in the execution of this momentous duty. Well, – I have conquered the rebels, and proclaimed an amnesty; so to-morrow I shall return to that paradise of measurers, the end of Long Wharf, – not to my former salt-ship, she being now discharged, but to another, which will probably employ me well-nigh a fortnight longer… Salt is white and pure, – there is something holy in salt..
I have observed that butterflies – very broad-winged and magnificent butterflies – frequently come on board of the salt-ship, where I am at work. What have these bright strangers to do on Long Wharf, where there are no flowers nor any green thing, – nothing but brick storehouses, stone piers, black ships, and the bustle of toilsome men, who neither look up to the blue sky, nor take note of these wandering gems of the air? I cannot account for them, unless they are the lovely fantasies of the mind.
November. – … How delightfully long the evenings are now! I do not get intolerably tired any longer; and my thoughts sometimes wander back to literature, and I have momentary impulses to write stories. But this will not be at present. The utmost that I can hope to do will be to portray some of the characteristics of the life which I am now living, and of the people with whom I am brought into contact, for future use… The days are cold now, the air eager and nipping, yet it suits my health amazingly. I feel as if I could run a hundred miles at a stretch, and jump over all the houses that happen to be in my way..
I have never had the good luck to profit much, or indeed any, by attending lectures, so that I think the ticket had better be bestowed on somebody who can listen to Mr. – more worthily. My evenings are very precious to me, and some of them are unavoidably thrown away in paying or receiving visits, or in writing letters of business, and therefore I prize the rest as if the sands of the hour-glass were gold or diamond dust.
I was invited to dine at Mr. Baucroft's yesterday with Miss Margaret Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do, for which I was very thankful.
Is not this a beautiful morning? The sun shines into my soul.
April, 1841. – … I have been busy all day, from early breakfast-time till late in the afternoon; and old Father Time has gone onward somewhat less heavily than is his wont when I am imprisoned within the walls of the Custom-House. It has been a brisk, breezy day, an effervescent atmosphere, and I have enjoyed it in all its freshness, – breathing air which had not been breathed in advance by the hundred thousand pairs of lungs which have common and indivisible property in the atmosphere of this great city. My breath had never belonged to anybody but me. It came fresh from the wilderness of ocean… It was exhilarating to see the vessels, how they bounded over the waves, while a sheet of foam broke out around them. I found a good deal of enjoyment, too, in the busy scene around me; for several vessels were disgorging themselves (what an unseemly figure is this, – "disgorge," quotha, as if the vessels were sick) on the wharf, and everybody seemed to be working with might and main. It pleased me to think that I also had a part to act in the material and tangible business of this life, and that a portion of all this industry could not have gone on without my presence. Nevertheless, I must not pride myself too much on my activity and utilitarianism. I shall, doubtless, soon bewail myself at being compelled to earn my bread by taking some little share in the toils of mortal men..
Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb! for I suppose he was dumb at the Creation, and must go round an entire circle in order to return to that blessed state.
