1. A Happy Hour's Command


DOWN in the Woods, July 2d, 1882.--If I do it at all I must delay no longer. Incongruous and
full of skips and jumps as is that huddle of diary-jottings, war-memoranda of 1862-65,
Nature-notes of 1877-81, with Western and Canadian observations afterwards, all bundled up
and tied by a big string, the resolution and indeed mandate comes to me this day, this hour,--
(and what a day! what an hour just passing! the luxury of riant grass and blowing breeze, with
all the shows of sun and sky and perfect temperature, never before so filling me body and soul)--
to go home, untie the bundle, reel out diary-scraps and memoranda, just as they are, large or
small, one after another, into print-pages, 1 and let the melange’s lackings and wants of con-
nection take care of themselves. It will illustrate one phase of humanity anyhow; how few of
life’s days and hours (and they not by relative value or proportion, but by chance) are ever
noted. Probably another point too, how we give long preparations for some object, planning and
delving and fashioning, and then, when the actual hour for doing arrives, find ourselves still
quite unprepared, and tumble the thing together, letting hurry and crudeness tell the story better
than fine work. At any rate I obey my happy hour’s command, which seems curiously imperative.
Maybe, if I don’t do anything else, I shall send out the most wayward, spontaneous, fragmentary
book ever printed.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 2. Answer to an Insisting Friend



YOU ask for items, details of my early life--of genealogy and parentage, particularly of the women
of my ancestry, and of its far back Netherlands stock on the maternal side--of the region where I
was born and raised, and my father and mother before me, and theirs before them--with a word about
Brooklyn and New York cities, the times I lived there as lad and young man. You say you want to
get at these details mainly as the go-befores and embryons of “Leaves of Grass.” Very good; you
shall have at least some specimens of them all. I have often thought of the meaning of such things--
that one can only encompass and complete matters of that kind by exploring behind, perhaps very far
behind, themselves directly, and so into their genesis, antecedents, and cumulative stages. Then as
luck would have it, I lately whiled away the tedium of a week’s half-sickness and confinement, by
collating these very items for another (yet unfulfill’d, probably abandon’d,) purpose; and if
you will be satisfied with them, authentic in date-occurrence and fact simply, and told my own way,
garrulous-like, here they are. I shall not hesitate to make extracts, for I catch at any thing to
save labor; but those will be the best versions of what I want to convey.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 3. Genealogy--Van Velsor and Whitman


THE LATER years of the last century found the Van Velsor family, my mother’s side, living on their
own farm at Cold Spring, Long Island, New York State, near the eastern edge of Queens county, about
a mile from the harbor. 1 My father’s side--probably the fifth generation from the first English
arrivals in New England--were at the same time farmers on their own land--(and a fine domain it was,
500 acres, all good soil, gently sloping east and south, about one-tenth woods, plenty of grand old
trees,) two or three miles off, at West Hills, Suffolk county. The Whitman name in the Eastern
States, and so branching West and South, starts undoubtedly from one John Whitman, born 1602, in
Old England, where he grew up, married, and his eldest son was born in 1629. He came over in the
“True Love” in 1640 to America, and lived in Weymouth, Mass., which place became the mother-hive
of the New-Englanders of the name: he died in 1692. His brother, Rev. Zechariah Whitman, also came
over in the “True Love,” either at that time or soon after, and lived at Milford, Conn. A son of
this Zechariah, named Joseph, migrated to Huntington, Long Island, and permanently settled there.
Savage’s “Genealogical Dictionary” (vol. iv, p. 524) gets the Whitman family establish’d at
Huntington, per this Joseph, before 1664. It is quite certain that from that beginning, and from
Joseph, the West Hill Whitmans, and all others in Suffolk county, have since radiated, myself among
the number. John and Zechariah both went to England and back again divers times; they had large
families, and several of their children were born in the old country. We hear of the father of
John and Zechariah, Abijah Whitman, who goes over into the 1500’s, but we know little about him,
except that he also was for some time in America. 1

These old pedigree-reminiscences come up to me vividly from a visit I made not long since (in my
63d year) to West Hills, and to the burial grounds of my ancestry, both sides. I extract from notes
of that visit, written there and then:



　　　　　　　　　　　　　4. The Old Whitman and Van Velsor Cemeteries


July 29, 1881.--AFTER more than forty years’ absence, (except a brief visit, to take my father there
once more, two years before he died,) went down Long Island on a week’s jaunt to the place where I
was born, thirty miles from New York city. Rode around the old familiar spots, viewing and pondering
and dwelling long upon them, everything coming back to me. Went to the old Whitman homestead on the
upland and took a view eastward, inclining south, over the broad and beautiful farm lands of my
grandfather (1780,) and my father. There was the new house (1810,) the big oak a hundred and fifty
or two hundred years old; there the well, the sloping kitchen-garden, and a little way off even the
well-kept remains of the dwelling of my great-grandfather (1750-60) still standing, with its mighty
timbers and low ceilings. Near by, a stately grove of tall, vigorous black-walnuts, beautiful, Apol-
lo-like, the sons or grandsons, no doubt, of black-walnuts during or before 1776. On the other side
of the road spread the famous apple orchard, over twenty acres, the trees planted by hands long mould-
ering in the grave (my uncle Jesse’s,) but quite many of them evidently capable of throwing out their
annual blossoms and fruit yet. 1

I now write these lines seated on an old grave (doubtless of a century since at least) on the burial
hill of the Whitmans of many generations. Fifty and more graves are quite plainly traceable, and as
many more decay’d out of all form--depress’d mounds, crumbled and broken stones, cover’d with moss--
the gray and sterile hill, the clumps of chestnuts outside, the silence, just varied by the soughing
wind. There is always the deepest eloquence of sermon or poem in any of these ancient graveyards of
which Long Island has so many; so what must this one have been to me? My whole family history, with
its succession of links, from the first settlement down to date, told here--three centuries concentrate
on this sterile acre. 2

The next day, July 30, I devoted to the maternal locality, and if possible was still more penetrated
and impress’d. I write this paragraph on the burial hill of the Van Velsors, near Cold Spring, the
most significant depository of the dead that could be imagin’d, without the slightest help from art,
but far ahead of it, soil sterile, a mostly bare plateau-flat of half an acre, the top of a hill, brush
and well grown trees and dense woods bordering all around, very primitive, secluded, no visitors, no
road (you cannot drive here, you have to bring the dead on foot, and follow on foot.) Two or three-
score graves quite plain; as many more almost rubb’d out. My grandfather Cornelius and my grandmother
Amy (Naomi) and numerous relatives nearer or remoter, on my mother’s side, lie buried here. The scene
as I stood or sat, the delicate and wild odor of the woods, a slightly drizzling rain, the emotional
atmosphere of the place, and the inferr’d reminiscences, were fitting accompaniments.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　5. The Maternal Homestead



I WENT down from this ancient grave place eighty or ninety rods to the site of the Van Velsor homestead,
where my mother was born (1795,) and where every spot had been familiar to me as a child and youth (1825-
40.) Then stood there a long rambling, dark-gray, shingle-sided house, with sheds, pens, a great barn,
and much open road-space. Now of all those not a vestige left; all had been pull’d down, erased, and
the plough and harrow pass’d over foundations, road-spaces and everything, for many summers; fenced in
at present, and grain and clover growing like any other fine fields. Only a big hole from the cellar,
with some little heaps of broken stone, green with grass and weeds, identified the place. Even the co-
pious old brook and spring seem’d to have mostly dwindled away. The whole scene, with what it arous'd,
memories of my young days there half a century ago, the vast kitchen and ample fireplace and the sit-
ting-room adjoining, the plain furniture, the meals, the house full of merry people, my grandmother
Amy's sweet old face in its Quaker cap, my grandfather “the Major,” jovial, red, stout, with sonorous
voice and characteristic physiognomy, with the actual sights themselves, made the most pronounc'd half-
day’s experience of my whole jaunt. 1

For there with all those wooded, hilly, healthy surroundings, my dearest mother, Louisa Van Velsor,
grew up--(her mother, Amy Williams, of the Friends’ or Quakers’ denomination--the Williams family,
seven sisters and one brother--the father and brother sailors, both of whom met their deaths at sea.)
The Van Velsor people were noted for fine horses, which the men bred and train’d from blooded stock.
My mother, as a young woman, was a dairy and daring rider. As to the head of the family himself, the
old race of the Netherlands, so deeply grafted on Manhattan island and in Kings and Queens counties,
never yielded a more mark’d and full Americanized specimen than Major Cornelius Van Velsor.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　6. Two Old Family Interiors



OF the domestic and inside life of the middle of Long Island, at and just before that time, here are
two samples:

　　　　“The Whitmans, at the beginning of the present century, lived in a long story-and-a-half
　　　　farm-house, hugely timber’d, which is still standing. A great smoke-canopied kitchen, with vast
　　　　hearth and chimney, form’d one end of the house. The existence of slavery in New York at that
　　　　time, and the possession by the family of some twelve or fifteen slaves, house and field servants,
　　　　gave things quite a patriarchal look. The very young darkies could be seen, a swarm of them,
　　　　toward sundown, in this kitchen, squatted in a circle on the floor, eating their supper of Indian
　　　　pudding and milk. In the house, and in food and furniture, all was rude, but substantial. No
　　　　carpets or stoves were known, and no coffee, and tea or sugar only for the women. Rousing wood
　　　　fires gave both warmth and light on winter nights. Pork, poultry, beef, and all the ordinary veg-
　　　　etables and grains were plentiful. Cider was the men’s common drink, and used at meals. The
　　　　clothes were mainly homespun. Journeys were made by both men and women on horseback. Both sexes
　　　　labor’d with their own hands--the men on the farm--the women in the house and around it. Books
　　　　were scarce. The annual copy of the almanac was a treat, and was pored over through the long
　　　　winter evenings. I must not forget to mention that both these families were near enough to the
　　　　sea to behold it from the high places, and to hear in still hours the roar of the surf; the
　　　　latter, after a storm, giving a peculiar sound at night Then all hands, male and female, went
　　　　down frequently on beach and bathing parties, and the men on practical expeditions for cutting
　　　　salt hay, and for clamming and fishing.”--John Burroughs’s NOTES.

　　　　 “The ancestors of Walt Whitman, on both the paternal and maternal sides, kept a good table,
　　　　sustain’d the hospitalities, decorums, and an excellent social reputation in the county, and
　　　　they were often of mark’d individuality. If space permitted, I should consider some of the
　　　　men worthy special description; and still more some of the women. His great-grandmother on the
　　　　paternal side, for instance, was a large swarthy woman, who lived to a very old age. She smoked to-
　　　　bacco, rode on horseback like a man, managed the most vicious horse, and, becoming a widow in later
　　　　life, went forth every day over her farm-lands, frequently in the saddle, directing the labor of her
　　　　slaves, with language in which, on exciting occasions, oaths were not spared. The two immediate
　　　　grandmothers were, in the best sense, superior women. The maternal one (Amy Williams before marriage)
　　　　was a Friend, or Quakeress, of sweet, sensible, character, housewifely proclivities, and deeply in-
　　　　tuitive and spiritual. The other, (Hannah Brush,) was an equally noble, perhaps stronger character,
　　　　lived to be very old, had quite a family of sons, was a natural lady, was in early life a school-
　　　　mistress, and had great solidity of mind. W. W. himself makes much of the women of his ancestry.”
　　　　--The same.

Out from these arrieres of persons and scenes, I was born May 31, 1819. And now to dwell awhile on
the locality itself--as the successive growth stages of my infancy, childhood, youth and manhood were
all pass’d on Long Island, which I sometimes feel as if I had incorporated. I roam’d, as boy and
man, and have lived in nearly all parts, from Brooklyn to Montauk point.



　　　　　　　　　7. Paumanok, and My Life on It as Child and Young Man



WORTH fully and particularly investigating indeed this Paumanok, (to give the spot its aboriginal
name, 1) stretching east through Kings, Queens and Suffolk counties, 120 miles altogether--on the
north Long Island sound, a beautiful, varied and picturesque series of inlets, “necks” and sea-
like expansions, for a hundred miles to Orient point. On the ocean side the great south bay dotted
with countless hummocks, mostly small, some quite large, occasionally long bars of sand out two hun-
dred rods to a mile-and-a-half from the shore. While now and then, as at Rockaway and far east along
the Hamptons, the beach makes right on the island, the sea dashing up without intervention. Several
light-houses on the shores east; a long history of wrecks tragedies, some even of late years. As a
youngster, I was in the atmosphere and traditions of many of these wrecks--of one or two almost an
observer. Off Hempstead beach for example, was the loss of the ship “Mexico” in 1840, (alluded to
in “the Sleepers” in L. of G.) And at Hampton, some years later, the destruction of the brig
“Elizabeth,” a fearful affair, in one of the worst winter gales, where Margaret Fuller went down,
with her husband and child. 1

Inside the outer bars or beach this south bay is everywhere comparatively shallow; of cold winters
all thick ice on the surface. As a boy I often went forth with a chum or two, on those frozen fields,
with hand-sled, axe and eel-spear, after messes of eels. We would cut holes in the ice, sometimes
striking quite an eel-bonanza, and filling our baskets with great, fat, sweet, white-meated fellows.
The scenes, the ice, drawing the hand-sled, cutting holes, spearing the eels, &c., were of course
just such fun as is dearest to boyhood. The shores of this bay, winter and summer, and my doings
there in early life, are woven all through L. of G. One sport I was very fond of was to go on a bay-
party in summer to gather sea-gull’s eggs. (The gulls lay two or three eggs, more than half the
size of hen’s eggs, right on the sand, and leave the sun’s heat to hatch them.) 2

The eastern end of Long Island, the Peconic bay region, I knew quite well too--sail’d more than once
around Shelter island, and down to Montauk--spent many an hour on Turtle hill by the old light-house,
on the extreme point, looking out over the ceaseless roll of the Atlantic. I used to like to go down
there and fraternize with the blue-fishers, or the annual squads of sea-bass takers. Sometimes,
along Montauk peninsula, (it is some 15 miles long, and good grazing,) met the strange, unkempt,
half-barbarous herdsmen, at that time living there entirely aloof from society or civilization, in
charge, on those rich pasturages, of vast droves of horses, kine or sheep, own’d by farmers of the
eastern towns. Sometimes, too, the few remaining Indians, or half-breeds, at that period left on
Montauk peninsula, but now I believe altogether extinct. 3

More in the middle of the island were the spreading Hempstead plains, then (1830-40) quite prairie-
like, open, uninhabited, rather sterile, cover’d with kill-calf and huckleberry bushes, yet plenty
of fair pasture for the cattle, mostly milch-cows, who fed there by hundreds, even thousands, and at
evening, (the plains too were own’d by the towns, and this was the use of them in common,) might
be seen taking their way home, branching off regularly in the right places. I have often been out
on the edges of these plains toward sundown, and can yet recall in fancy the interminable cow-proce-
ssions, and hear the music of the tin or copper bells clanking far or near, and breathe the cool of
the sweet and slightly aromatic evening air, and note the sunset. 4

Through the same region of the island, but further east, extended wide central tracts of pine and
scrub-oak, (charcoal was largely made here,) monotonous and sterile. But many a good day or half-day
did I have, wandering through those solitary cross-roads, inhaling the peculiar and wild aroma. Here,
and all along the island and its shores, I spent intervals many years, all seasons, sometimes riding,
sometimes boating, but generally afoot, (I was always then a good walker,) absorbing fields, shores,
marine incidents, characters, the bay-men, farmers, pilots--always had a plentiful acquaintance with
the latter, and with fishermen--went every summer on sailing trips--always liked the bare sea-beach,
south side, and have some of my happiest hours on it to this day. 5

As I write, the whole experience comes back to me after the lapse of forty and more years--the sooth-
ing rustle of the waves, and the saline smell--boyhood’s times, the clam-digging, barefoot, and with
trowsers roll’d up--hauling down the creek--the perfume of the sedge-meadows--the hay-boat, and the
chowder and fishing excursions;--or, of later years, little voyages down and out New York bay, in the
pilot boats. Those same later years, also, while living in Brooklyn, (1836-50) I went regularly
every week in the mild seasons down to Coney island, at that time a long, bare unfrequented shore,
which I had all to myself, and where I loved, after bathing, to race up and down the hard sand, and
declaim Homer or Shakspere to the surf and sea-gulls by the hour. But I am getting ahead too rapidly,
and must keep more in my traces.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　8. My First Reading--Lafayette



From 1824 to '28 our family lived in Brooklyn in Front, Cranberry and Johnson streets. In the latter
my father built a nice house for a home, and afterwards another in Tillary street. We occupied them,
one after the other, but they were mortgaged, and we lost them. I yet remember Lafayette's visit.
Most of these years I went to the public schools. It must have been about 1829 or '30 that I went
with my father and mother to hear Elias Hicks preach in a ball-room on Brooklyn heights. At about the
same time employ'd as a boy in an office, lawyers', father and two sons, Clarke's, Fulton Street, near
Orange. I had a nice desk and window-nook to myself; Edward C. kindly help'd me at my handwriting and
composition, and, (the signal event of my life up to that time,) subscribed for me to a big circulating
library. For a time I now revel'd in romance-reading of all kinds; first, the "Arabian Nights," all
the volumes, an amazing treat. Then, with sorties in very many other directions, took in Walter Scott's
novels, one after another, and his poetry, (and continue to enjoy novels and poetry to this day.)



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　9. Printing Office--Old Brooklyn



After about two years went to work in a weekly newspaper and printing office, to learn the trade. The
paper was the "Long Island Patriot," owned by S. E. Clements, who was also postmaster. An old printer
in the office, William Harts-horne, a revolutionary character, who had seen Washington, was a special
friend of mine, and I had many a talk with him about long past times. The apprentices, including myself,
boarded with his grand-daughter. I used occasionally to go out riding with the boss, who was very kind
to us boys; Sundays he took us all to a great old rough, fortress-looking stone church, on Joralemon
street, near where the Brooklyn city hall now is-- (at that time broad fields and country roads every-
where around.) Afterward I work'd on the "Long Island Star," Alden Spooner's paper. My father all
these years pursuing his trade as carpenter and builder, with varying fortune. There was a growing fa-
mily of children -- eight of us -- my brother Jesse the oldest, myself the second, my dear sisters Mary
and Hannah Louisa, my brothers Andrew, George, Thomas Jefferson, and then my youngest brother, Edward,
born 1835, and always badly crippled, as I am myself of late years.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　10. Growth--Health--Work



I develop'd (1833-4-5) into a healthy, strong youth (grew too fast, though, was nearly as big as a man
at 15 or 16.) Our family at this period moved back to the country, my dear mother very ill for a long
time, but recover'd. All these years I was down Long Island more or less every summer, now east, now
west, sometimes months at a stretch. At 16, 17, and so on, was fond of debating societies, and had an
active membership with them, off and on, in Brooklyn and one or two country towns on the island. A most
omnivorous novel-reader, these and later years, devour'd everything I could get. Fond of the theatre,
also, in New York, went whenever I could -- sometimes witnessing fine performances.

1836-7, work'd as compositor in printing offices in New York city. Then, when little more than eight-
een, and for a while afterwards, went to teaching country schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties,
Long Island, and "boarded round." (This latter I consider one of my best experiences and deepest les-
sons in human nature behind the scenes, and in the masses.) In '39, '40, I started and publish'd a week-
ly paper in my native town, Huntington. Then returning to New York city and Brooklyn, work'd on as prin-
ter and writer, mostly prose, but an occasional shy at "poetry."



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　11. My Passion for Ferries



Living in Brooklyn or New York city from this time forward, my life, then, and still more the follow-
ing years, was curiously identified with Fulton ferry, already becoming the greatest of its sort in the
world for general importance, volume, variety, rapidity, and picturesqueness. Almost daily, later, ('50
to '60,) I cross'd on the boats, often up in the pilot-houses where I could get a full sweep, absorbing
shows, accompaniments, surroundings. What oceanic currents, eddies, underneath -- the great tides of
humanity also, with ever-shifting movements. Indeed, I have always had a passion for ferries; to me
they afford inimitable, streaming, never-failing, living poems. The river and bay scenery, all about
New York island, any time of a fine day -- the hurrying, splashing sea-tides -- the changing panorama
of steamers, all sizes, often a string of big ones outward bound to distant ports -- the myriads of
white-sail'd schooners, sloops, skiffs, and the marvelously beautiful yachts -- the majestic sound
boats as they rounded the Battery and came along towards 5, afternoon, eastward bound -- the prospect
off towards Staten island, or down the Narrows, or the other way up the Hudson -- what refreshment of
spirit such sights and experiences gave me years ago (and many a time since.) My old pilot friends,
the Balsirs, Johnny Cole, Ira Smith, William White, and my young ferry friend, Tom Gere -- how well I
remember them all.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　12. Broadway Sights



Besides Fulton ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway -- that noted avenue of New
York's crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew
Jackson, Webster, Clay, Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker, Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, Bry-
ant, the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities
of the time. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of
those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers
street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case -- (I think it was a charge of libel
he had brought against some one.) I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with
him, (it must have been in 1845 or '6,) in his office, second story of a corner building, (Duane or Pearl
street.) He was editor and owner or part owner of "the Broadway Journal."

The visit was about a piece of mine he had publish'd. Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear'd well
in person, dress, &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter;
very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded. For another of my reminiscences, here on the
west side, just below Houston street, I once saw (it must have been about 1832, of a sharp, bright January
day) a bent, feeble but stout-built very old man, bearded, swathed in rich furs, with a great ermine cap
on his head, led and assisted, almost carried, down the steps of his high front stoop (a dozen friends
and servants, emulous, carefully holding, guiding him) and then lifted and tuck'd in a gorgeous sleigh,
envelop'd in other furs, for a ride. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. (You
needn't think all the best animals are brought up nowadays; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago
on Long Island, or south, or in New York city; folks look'd for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed
merely.) Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, stopp'd and gazed long at the spectacle of that
fur-swathed old man, surrounded by friends and servants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I
remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for ex-
tra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much attention, I can almost see now. It was John Jacob Astor.

The years 1846, '47, and there along, see me still in New York city, working as writer and printer, hav-
ing my usual good health, and a good time generally.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　13. Omnibus Jaunts and Drivers



One phase of those days must by no means go unrecorded -- namely, the Broadway omnibuses, with their
drivers. The vehicles still (I write this paragraph in 1881) give a portion of the character of Broadway --
the Fifth avenue, Madison avenue, and Twenty-third street lines yet running. But the flush days of the
old Broadway stages, characteristic and copious, are over. The Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original
Broadway, the Fourth avenue, the Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago, are all
gone. And the men specially identified with them, and giving vitality and meaning to them -- the drivers -- a
strange, natural, quick-eyed and wondrous race -- (not only Rabelais and Cervantes would have gloated upon
them, but Homer and Shakspere would) -- how well I remember them, and must here give a word about them.
How many hours, forenoons and afternoons -- how many exhilarating night-times I have had -- perhaps June
or July, in cooler air -- riding the whole length of Broadway, listening to some yarn, (and the most viv-
id yarns ever spun, and the rarest mimicry) -- or perhaps I declaiming some stormy passage from Julius
Caesar or Richard, (you could roar as loudly as you chose in that heavy, dense, uninterrupted street-bass.)
Yes, I knew all the drivers then, Broadway Jack, Dressmaker, Balky Bill, George Storms, Old Elephant, his
brother Young Elephant (who came afterward,) Tippy, Pop Rice, Big Frank, Yellow Joe, Pete Callahan, Patsy
Dee, and dozens more; for there were hundreds. They had immense qualities, largely animal -- eating, drink-
ing, women -- great personal pride, in their way -- perhaps a few slouches here and there, but I should
have trusted the general run of them, in their simple good-will and honor, under all circumstances. Not
only for comradeship, and sometimes affection -- great studies I found them also. (I suppose the critics
will laugh heartily, but the influence of those Broadway omnibus jaunts and drivers and declamations and
escapades undoubtedly enter'd into the gestation of "Leaves of Grass.")



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　14. Plays and Operas Too



And certain actors and singers, had a good deal to do with the business. All through these years, off and
on, I frequented the old Park, the Bowery, Broadway and Chatham-square theatres, and the Italian operas at
Chambers-street, Astor-place or the Battery -- many seasons was on the free list, writing for papers even
as quite a youth. The old Park theatre -- what names, reminiscences, the words bring back! Placide, Clarke,
Mrs. Vernon, Fisher, Clara F., Mrs. Wood, Mrs. Seguin, Ellen Tree, Hackett, the younger Kean, Macready,
Mrs. Richardson, Rice -- singers, tragedians, comedians. What perfect acting! Henry Placide in "Napoleon's
Old Guard" or "Grandfather Whitehead," -- or "the Provoked Husband" of Cibber, with Fanny Kemble as Lady
Townley -- or Sheridan Knowles in his own "Virginius" -- or inimitable Power in "Born to Good Luck." These,
and many more, the years of youth and onward. Fanny Kemble -- name to conjure up great mimic scenes withal
-- perhaps the greatest. I remember well her rendering of Bianca in "Fazio," and Marianna in "the Wife." No-
thing finer did ever stage exhibit -- the veterans of all nations said so, and my boyish heart and head felt it
in every minute cell. The lady was just matured, strong, better than merely beautiful, born from the foot-
lights, had had three years' practice in London and through the British towns, and then she came to give
America that young maturity and roseate power in all their noon, or rather forenoon, flush. It was my good
luck to see her nearly every night she play'd at the old Park -- certainly in all her principal characters.

I heard, these years, well render'd, all the Italian and other operas in vogue, "Sonnambula," "the Puri-
tans," "Der Freischutz," "Huguenots," "Fille d'Regiment," "Faust," "Etoile du Nord," "Poliuto," and others.
Verdi's "Ernani," "Rigoletto," and "Trovatore," with Donnizetti's "Lucia" or "Favorita" or "Lucrezia," and
Auber's "Massaniello," or Rossini's "William Tell" and "Gazza Ladra," were among my special enjoyments. I
heard Alboni every time she sang in New York and vicinity -- also Grisi, the tenor Mario, and the baritone
Badiali, the finest in the world.

This musical passion follow'd my theatrical one. As boy or young man I had seen, (reading them carefully
the day beforehand,) quite all Shakspere's acting dramas, play'd wonderfully well. Even yet I cannot con-
ceive anything finer than old Booth in "Richard Third," or "Lear," (I don't know which was best,) or Iago,
(or Pescara, or Sir Giles Overreach, to go outside of Shakspere) -- or Tom Hamblin in "Macbeth" -- or old
Clarke, either as the ghost in "Hamlet," or as Prospero in "the Tempest," with Mrs. Austin as Ariel, and
Peter Richings as Caliban. Then other dramas, and fine players in them, Forrest as Metamora or Damon or
Brutus -- John R. Scott as Tom Cringle or Rolla -- or Charlotte Cushman's Lady Gay Spanker in "London As-
surance." Then of some years later, at Castle Garden, Battery, I yet recall the splendid seasons of the Havana
musical troupe under Maretzek -- the fine band, the cool sea-breezes, the unsurpass'd vocalism -- Steffanone,
Bosio, Truffi, Marini in "Marino Faliero," "Don Pasquale," or "Favorita." No better playing or singing ever in
New York. It was here too I afterward heard Jenny Lind. (The Battery -- its past associations -- what tales
those old trees and walks and sea-walls could tell!)



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 15. Through Eight Years



In 1848, '49, I was occupied as editor of the "daily Eagle" newspaper, in Brooklyn. The latter year went
off on a leisurely journey and working expedition (my brother Jeff with me) through all the middle States,
and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Lived awhile in New Orleans, and work'd there on the editorial
staff of "daily Crescent" newspaper. After a time plodded back northward, up the Mississippi, and around
to, and by way of the great lakes, Michigan, Huron, and Erie, to Niagara falls and lower Canada, finally
returning through central New York and down the Hudson; traveling altogether probably 8000 miles this trip,
to and fro. '51, '53, occupied in house-building in Brooklyn. (For a little of the first part of that time
in printing a daily and weekly paper, "the Freeman.") '55, lost my dear father this year by death. Commenc-
ed putting "Leaves of Grass" to press for good, at the job printing office of my friends, the brothers Rome,
in Brooklyn, after many MS. doings and undoings -- (I had great trouble in leaving out the stock "poetical"
touches, but succeeded at last.) I am now (1856-'7) passing through my 37th year.



　　　　　　　　　　 16. Sources of Character--Results--1860



To sum up the foregoing from the outset (and, of course, far, far more unrecorded,) I estimate three lead-
ing sources and formative stamps to my own character, now solidified for good or bad, and its subsequent
literary and other outgrowth -- the maternal nativity-stock brought hither from far-away Netherlands, for
one, (doubtless the best) -- the subterranean tenacity and central bony structure (obstinacy, wilfulness)
which I get from my paternal English elements, for another -- and the combination of my Long Island birth-
spot, sea-shores, childhood's scenes, absorptions, with teeming Brooklyn and New York -- with, I suppose,
my experiences afterward in the secession outbreak, for the third. For, in 1862, startled by news that my
brother George, an officer in the 51st New York volunteers, had been seriously wounded (first Fredericks-
burg battle, December 13th,) I hurriedly went down to the field of war in Virginia. But I must go back a
little.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　 17. Opening of the Secession War



News of the attack on fort Sumter and the flag at Charleston harbor, S.C., was receiv'd in New York city
late at night (13th April, 1861,) and was immediately sent out in extras of the newspapers. I had been to
the opera in Fourteenth street that night, and after the performance was walking down Broadway toward
twelve o'clock, on my way to Brooklyn, when I heard in the distance the loud cries of the newsboys, who
came presently tearing and yelling up the street, rushing from side to side even more furiously than usual.
I bought an extra and cross'd to the Metropolitan hotel (Niblo's) where the great lamps were still bright-
ly blazing, and, with a crowd of others, who gather'd impromptu, read the news, which was evidently authen-
tic. For the benefit of some who had no papers, one of us read the telegram aloud, while all listen'd si-
lently and attentively. No remark was made by any of the crowd, which had increas'd to thirty or forty, but
all stood a minute or two, I remember, before they dispers'd. I can almost see them there now, under the
lamps at midnight again.



　　　　　　　　　　　　 18. National Uprising and Volunteering



I have said somewhere that the three Presidentiads preceding 1861 show'd how the weakness and wickedness of
rulers are just as eligible here in America under republican, as in Europe under dynastic influences. But
what can I say of that prompt and splendid wrestling with secession slavery, the arch-enemy personified,
the instant he unmistakably show'd his face? The volcanic upheaval of the nation, after that firing on the
flag at Charleston, proved for certain something which had been previously in great doubt, and at once
substantially settled the question of disunion. In my judgment it will remain as the grandest and most en-
couraging spectacle yet vouchsafed in any age, old or new, to political progress and democracy. It was not
for what came to the surface merely -- though that was important -- but what it indicated below, which was
of eternal importance. Down in the abysms of New World humanity there had form'd and harden'd a primal hard-
pan of national Union will, determin'd and in the majority, refusing to be tamper'd with or argued against,
confronting all emergencies, and capable at any time of bursting all surface bonds, and breaking out like
an earthquake. It is, indeed, the best lesson of the century, or of America, and it is a mighty privilege
to have been part of it. (Two great spectacles, immortal proofs of democracy, unequall'd in all the history
of the past, are furnish'd by the secession war -- one at the beginning, the other at its close. Those are,
the general, voluntary, arm'd upheaval, and the peaceful and harmonious disbanding of the armies in the
summer of 1865.)



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 19. Contemptuous Feeling



Even after the bombardment of Sumter, however, the gravity of the revolt, and the power and will of the
slave States for a strong and continued military resistance to national authority, were not at all realized
at the North, except by a few. Nine-tenths of the people of the free States look'd upon the rebellion, as
started in South Carolina, from a feeling one-half of contempt, and the other half composed of anger and
incredulity. It was not thought it would be join'd in by Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia. A great and
cautious national official predicted that it would blow over "in sixty days," and folks generally believ'd
the prediction. I remember talking about it on a Fulton ferry-boat with the Brooklyn mayor, who said he
only "hoped the Southern fire-eaters would commit some overt act of resistance, as they would then be at
once so effectually squelch'd, we would never hear of secession again -- but he was afraid they never would
have the pluck to really do anything." I remember, too, that a couple of companies of the Thirteenth Brook-
lyn, who rendezvou'd at the city armory, and started thence as thirty days' men, were all provided with
pieces of rope, conspicuously tied to their musket-barrels, with which to bring back each man a prisoner
from the audacious South, to be led in a noose, on our men's early and triumphant return!



　　　　　　　　　　　　　 20. Battle of Bull Run, July, 1861



All this sort of feeling was destin'd to be arrested and revers'd by a terrible shock -- the battle of
first Bull Run -- certainly, as we now know it, one of the most singular fights on record. (All battles,
and their results, are far more matters of accident than is generally thought; but this was throughout a
casualty, a chance. Each side supposed it had won, till the last moment. One had, in point of fact, just
the same right to be routed as the other. By a fiction, or series of fictions, the national forces at the
last moment exploded in a panic and fled from the field.) The defeated troops commenced pouring into Wash-
ington over the Long Bridge at daylight on Monday, 22d -- day drizzling all through with rain. The Saturday
and Sunday of the battle (20th, 21st,) had been parch'd and hot to an extreme -- the dust, the grime and
smoke, in layers, sweated in, follow'd by other layers again sweated in, absorb'd by those excited souls
-- their clothes all saturated with the clay-powder filling the air -- stirr'd up everywhere on the dry
roads and trodden fields by the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery, &c. -- all the men with this coat-
ing of murk and sweat and rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the Long Bridge -- a horrible march of
twenty miles, returning to Washington baffled, humiliated, panic-struck. Where are the vaunts, and the
proud boasts with which you went forth? Where are your banners, and your bands of music, and your ropes
to bring back your prisoners? Well, there isn't a band playing -- and there isn't a flag but clings a-
shamed and lank to its staff.

The sun rises, but shines not. The men appear, at first sparsely and shame-faced enough, then thicker,
in the streets of Washington -- appear in Pennsylvania avenue, and on the steps and basement entrances.
They come along in disorderly mobs, some in squads, stragglers, companies. Occasionally, a rare regiment,
in perfect order, with its officers (some gaps, dead, the true braves,) marching in silence, with lowering
faces, stern, weary to sinking, all black and dirty, but every man with his musket, and stepping alive;
but these are the exceptions. Sidewalks of Pennsylvania avenue, Fourteenth street, &c., crowded, jamm'd
with citizens, darkies, clerks, everybody, lookers-on; women in the windows, curious expressions from
faces, as those swarms of dirt-cover'd return'd soldiers there (will they never end?) move by; but no-
thing said, no comments; (half our lookers-on secesh of the most venomous kind -- they say nothing; but
the devil snickers in their faces.) During the forenoon Washington gets all over motley with these defea-
ted soldiers -- queer-looking objects, strange eyes and faces, drench'd (the steady rain drizzles on all
day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard, blister'd in the feet. Good people (but not over-many of them
either,) hurry up something for their grub. They put wash-kettles on the fire, for soup, for coffee.
They set tables on the side-walks -- wag-on-loads of bread are purchas'd, swiftly cut in stout chunks.
Here are two aged ladies, beautiful, the first in the city for culture and charm, they stand with store
of eating and drink at an improvis'd table of rough plank, and give food, and have the store replenish'd
from their house every half-hour all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active, silent, white-
hair'd, and give food, though the tears stream down their cheeks, almost without intermission, the whole
time. Amid the deep excitement, crowds and motion, and desperate eagerness, it seems strange to see many,
very many, of the soldiers sleeping -- in the midst of all, sleeping sound. They drop down anywhere, on
the steps of houses, up close by the basements or fences, on the sidewalk, aside on some vacant lot, and
deeply sleep. A poor seventeen or eighteen year old boy lies there, on the stoop of a grand house; he
sleeps so calmly, so profoundly. Some clutch their muskets firmly even in sleep. Some in squads; comrades,
brothers, close together -- and on them, as they lay, sulkily drips the rain.

As afternoon pass'd, and evening came, the streets, the bar-rooms, knots everywhere, listeners, question-
ers, terrible yarns, bugaboo, mask'd batteries, our regiment all cut up, &c. -- stories and story-tellers,
windy, bragging, vain centres of street-crowds. Resolution, manliness, seem to have abandon'd Washington.
The principal hotel, Willard's, is full of shoulder-straps -- thick, crush'd, creeping with shoulder-straps.
(I see them, and must have a word with them. There you are, shoulder-straps! -- but where are your companies?
where are your men? Incompetents! never tell me of chances of battle, of getting stray'd, and the like. I
think this is your work, this retreat, after all. Sneak, blow, put on airs there in Willard's sumptuous
parlors and bar-rooms, or anywhere -- no explanation shall save you. Bull Run is your work; had you been
half or one-tenth worthy your men, this would never have happen'd.)

Meantime, in Washington, among the great persons and their entourage, a mixture of awful consternation,
uncertainty, rage, shame, helplessness, and stupefying disappointment. The worst is not only imminent, but
already here. In a few hours -- perhaps before the next meal -- the secesh generbals, with their victorious
hordes, will be upon us. The dream of humanity, the vaunted Union we thought so strong, so impregnable --
lo! it seems already smash'd like a china plate. One bitter, bitter hour -- perhaps proud America will ne-
ver again know such an hour. She must pack and fly -- no time to spare. Those white palaces -- the dome-
crown'd capitol there on the hill, so stately over the trees -- shall they be left -- or destroy'd first?
For it is certain that the talk among certain of the magnates and officers and clerks and officials every-
where, for twenty-four hours in and around Washington after Bull Run, was loud and undisguised for yield-
ing out and out, and substituting the southern rule, and Lincoln promptly abdicating and departing. If the
secesh officers and forces had immediately follow'd, and by a bold Napoleonic movement had enter'd Washing-
ton the first day, (or even the second,) they could have had things their own way, and a powerful faction
north to back them. One of our returning colonels express'd in public that night, amid a swarm of officers
and gentlemen in a crowded room, the opinion that it was useless to fight, that the southerners had made
their title clear, and that the best course for the national government to pursue was to desist from any
further attempt at stopping them, and admit them again to the lead, on the best terms they were willing to
grant. Not a voice was rais'd against this judgment, amid that large crowd of officers and gentlemen. (The
fact is, the hour was one of the three or four of those crises we had then and afterward, during the fluc-
tuations of four years, when human eyes appear'd at least just as likely to see the last breath of the
Union as to see it continue.)



　　　　　　　　　　 21. The Stupor Passes--Something Else Begins



But the hour, the day, the night pass'd, and whatever returns, an hour, a day, a night like that can
never again return. The President, recovering himself, begins that very night -- sternly, rapidly sets
about the task of reorganizing his forces, and placing himself in positions for future and surer work.
If there were nothing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with, it is enough to send him
with his wreath to the memory of all future time, that he endured that hour, that day, bitterer than
gall -- indeed a crucifixion day -- that it did not conquer him -- that he unflinchingly stemm'd it,
and resolv'd to lift himself and the Union out of it.

Then the great New York papers at once appear'd, (commencing that evening, and following it up the
next morning, and incessantly through many days afterwards,) with leaders that rang out over the land
with the loudest, most reverberating ring of clearest bugles, full of encouragement, hope, inspiration,
unfaltering defiance. Those magnificent editorials! they never flagg'd for a fortnight. The "Herald"
commenced them -- I remember the articles well. The "Tribune" was equally cogent and inspiriting --
and the "Times," "Evening Post," and other principal papers, were not a whit behind. They came in good
time, for they were needed. For in the humiliation of Bull Run, the popular feeling north, from its
extreme of superciliousness, recoil'd to the depth of gloom and apprehension.

(Of all the days of the war, there are two especially I can never forget. Those were the day fol-
lowing the news, in New York and Brooklyn, of that first Bull Run defeat, and the day of Abraham Lin-
coln's death. I was home in Brooklyn on both occasions. The day of the murder we heard the news very
early in the morning. Mother prepared breakfast -- and other meals afterward -- as usual; but not a
mouthful was eaten all day by either of us. We each drank half a cup of coffee; that was all. Little was
said. We got every newspaper morning and evening, and the frequent extras of that period, and pass'd them
silently to each other.)



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 22. Down at the Front




FALMOUTH, VA., opposite Fredericksburgh, December 21, 1862. -- Begin my visits among the camp hos-
pitals in the army of the Potomac. Spend a good part of the day in a large brick mansion on the banks
of the Rappahannock, used as a hospital since the battle -- seems to have receiv'd only the worst
cases. Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap
of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, &c., a full load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie
near, each cover'd with its brown woolen blanket. In the door-yard, towards the river, are fresh
graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel-staves or broken boards, stuck in the
dirt. (Most of these bodies were subsequently taken up and transported north to their friends.) The
large mansion is quite crowded upstairs and down, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough,
but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in
their old clothes, unclean and bloody. Some of the wounded are rebel soldiers and officers, prisoners.
One, a Mississippian, a captain, hit badly in leg, I talk'd with some time; he ask'd me for papers,
which I gave him. (I saw him three months afterward in Washington, with his leg amputated, doing well.)
I went through the rooms, downstairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that
visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, &c. Also talk'd to three or four, who seem'd
most susceptible to it, and needing it.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　23. After First Fredericksburg




December 23 to 31. -- The results of the late battle are exhibited everywhere about here in thousands of
cases, (hundreds die every day,) in the camp, brigade, and division hospitals. These are merely tents, and
sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blankets are spread on layers of
pine or hemlock twigs, or small leaves. No cots; seldom even a mattress. It is pretty cold. The ground is
frozen hard, and there is occasional snow. I go around from one case to another. I do not see that I do much
good to these wounded and dying; but I cannot leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me con-
vulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate, stop with him and sit near him for hours, if he wishes
it.

Besides the hospitals, I also go occasionally on long tours through the camps, talking with the men, &c.
Sometimes at night among the groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes. These are curi-
ous shows, full of characters and groups. I soon get acquainted anywhere in camp, with officers or men, and
am always well used. Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best. As to rations, the army
here at present seems to be tolerably well supplied, and the men have enough, such as it is, mainly salt
pork and hard tack. Most of the regiments lodge in the flimsy little shelter-tents. A few have built them-
selves huts of logs and mud, with fire-places.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　24. Back to Washington



January, '63. -- Left camp at Falmouth, with some wounded, a few days since, and came here by Aquia creek
railroad, and so on government steamer up the Potomac. Many wounded were with us on the cars and boat. The
cars were just common platform ones. The railroad journey of ten or twelve miles was made mostly before sun-
rise. The soldiers guarding the road came out from their tents or shebangs of bushes with rumpled hair and
half-awake look. Those on duty were walking their posts, some on banks over us, others down far below the
level of the track. I saw large cavalry camps off the road. At Aquia creek landing were numbers of wounded
going north. While I waited some three hours, I went around among them. Several wanted word sent home to
parents, brothers, wives, &c., which I did for them, (by mail the next day from Washington.) On the boat I
had my hands full. One poor fellow died going up.

I am now remaining in and around Washington, daily visiting the hospitals. Am much in Patent-office, Eighth
street, H street, Armory-square, and others. Am now able to do a little good, having money, (as almoner of
others home,) and getting experience. To-day, Sunday afternoon and till nine in the evening, visited Camp-
bell hospital; attended specially to one case in ward 1, very sick with pleurisy and typhoid fever, young
man, farmer's son, D. F. Russell, company E, 60th New York, downhearted and feeble; a long time before he
would take any interest; wrote a letter home to his mother, in Malone, Franklin county, N. Y., at his re-
quest; gave him some fruit and one or two other gifts; envelop'd and directed his letter, &c. Then went
thoroughly through ward 6, observ'd every case in the ward, without, I think, missing one; gave perhaps
from twenty to thirty persons, each one some little gift, such as oranges, apples, sweet crackers, figs, &c.

Thursday, Jan. 21. -- Devoted the main part of the day to Armory-square hospital; went pretty thoroughly
through wards F, G, H, and I; some fifty cases in each ward. In ward F supplied the men throughout with
writing paper and stamp'd envelope each; distributed in small portions, to proper subjects, a large jar of
first-rate preserv'd berries, which had been donated to me by a lady -- her own cooking. Found several
cases I thought good subjects for small sums of money, which I furnish'd. (The wounded men often come up
broke, and it helps their spirits to have even the small sum I give them.) My paper and envelopes all
gone, but distributed a good lot of amusing reading matter; also, as I thought judicious, tobacco, oranges,
apples, &c. Interesting cases in ward I; Charles Miller, bed 19, company D, 53d Pennsylvania, is only
sixteen years of age, very bright, courageous boy, left leg amputated below the knee; next bed to him,
another young lad very sick; gave each appropriate gifts. In the bed above, also, amputation of the left
leg; gave him a little jar of raspberries; bed 1, this ward, gave a small sum; also to a soldier on
crutches, sitting on his bed near. . . . (I am more and more surprised at the very great proportion of
youngsters from fifteen to twenty-one in the army. I afterwards found a still greater proportion among
the southerners.)

Evening, same day, went to see D. F. R., before alluded to; found him remarkably changed for the better;
up and dress'd -- quite a triumph; he afterwards got well, and went back to his regiment. Distributed in
the wards a quantity of note-paper, and forty or fifty stamp'd envelopes, of which I had recruited my
stock, and the men were much in need.



　　　　　　　　　　　 25. Fifty Hours Left Wounded on the Field



Here is a case of a soldier I found among the crowded cots in the Patent-office. He likes to have some
one to talk to, and we will listen to him. He got badly hit in his leg and side at Fredericksburgh that
eventful Saturday, 13th of December. He lay the succeeding two days and nights helpless on the field,
between the city and those grim terraces of batteries; his company and regiment had been compell'd to
leave him to his fate. To make matters worse, it happen'd he lay with his head slightly down hill, and
could not help himself. At the end of some fifty hours he was brought off, with other wounded, under a
flag of truce. I ask him how the rebels treated him as he lay during those two days and nights within
reach of them -- whether they came to him -- whether they abused him? He answers that several of the
rebels, soldiers and others, came to him at one time and another. A couple of them, who were together,
spoke roughly and sarcastically, but nothing worse. One middle-aged man, however, who seem'd to be mo-
ving around the field, among the dead and wounded, for benevolent purposes, came to him in a way he
will never forget; treated our soldier kindly, bound up his wounds, cheer'd him, gave him a couple of
biscuits and a drink of whiskey and water; asked him if he could eat some beef. This good secesh, how-
ever, did not change our soldier's position, for it might have caused the blood to burst from the wounds,
clotted and stagnated. Our soldier is from Pennsylvania; has had a pretty severe time; the wounds proved
to be bad ones. But he retains a good heart, and is at present on the gain. (It is not uncommon for the
men to remain on the field this way, one, two, or even four or five days.)



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　26. Hospital Scenes and Persons




Letter Writing. -- When eligible, I encourage the men to write, and myself, when called upon, write all
sorts of letters for them, (including love letters, very tender ones.) Almost as I reel off these memor-
anda, I write for a new patient to his wife. M.de F., of the 17th Connecticut, company H, has just come
up (February 17th) from Windmill point, and is received in ward H, Armory-square. He is an intelligent
looking man, has a foreign accent, black-eyed and hair'd, a Hebraic appearance. Wants a telegraphic mes-
sage sent to his wife, New Canaan, Conn. I agree to send the message -- but to make things sure I also
sit down and write the wife a letter, and despatch it to the post-office immediately, as he fears she
will come on, and he does not wish her to, as he will surely get well.

Saturday, January 30th. -- Afternoon, visited Campbell hospital. Scene of cleaning up the ward, and
giving the men all clean clothes -- through the ward (6) the patients dressing or being dress'd -- the
naked upper half of the bodies -- the good-humor and fun -- the shirts, drawers, sheets of beds, &c.,
and the general fixing up for Sunday. Gave J.L. 50 cents.

Wednesday, February 4th. -- Visited Armory-square hospital, went pretty thoroughly through wards E and
D. Supplied paper and envelopes to all who wish'd -- as usual, found plenty of men who needed those art-
icles. Wrote letters. Saw and talk'd with two or three members of the Brooklyn 14th regt. A poor fellow
in ward D, with a fearful wound in a fearful condition, was having some loose splinters of bone taken
from the neighborhood of the wound. The operation was long, and one of great pain -- yet, after it was
well commenced, the soldier bore it in silence. He sat up, propp'd -- was much wasted -- had lain a long
time quiet in one position (not for days only but weeks,) a bloodless, brown-skinn'd face, with eyes
full of determination -- belong'd to a New York regiment. There was an unusual cluster of surgeons, med-
ical cadets, nurses, &c., around his bed -- I thought the whole thing was done with tenderness, and done
well. In one case, the wife sat by the side of her husband, his sickness typhoid fever, pretty bad. In
another, by the side of her son, a mother -- she told me she had seven children, and this was the young-
est. (A fine, kind, healthy, gentle mother, good-looking, not very old, with a cap on her head, and dress'd
like home -- what a charm it gave to the whole ward.) I liked the woman nurse in ward E -- I noticed how
she sat a long time by a poor fellow who just had, that morning, in addition to his other sickness, bad
hemorrhage -- she gently assisted him, reliev'd him of the blood, holding a cloth to his mouth, as he
coughed it up -- he was so weak he could only just turn his head over on the pillow.

One young New York man, with a bright, handsome face, had been lying several months from a most disa-
greeable wound, receiv'd at Bull Run. A bullet had shot him right through the bladder, hitting him front,
low in the belly, and coming out back. He had suffer'd much -- the water came out of the wound, by slow
but steady quantities, for many weeks -- so that he lay almost constantly in a sort of puddle -- and there
were other disagreeable circumstances. He was of good heart, however. At present comparatively comfortable,
had a bad throat, was delighted with a stick of horehound candy I gave him, with one or two other trifles.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　27. Patent-Office Hospital



February 23. -- I must not let the great hospital at the Patent-office pass away without some mention. A
few weeks ago the vast area of the second story of that noblest of Washington buildings was crowded close
with rows of sick, badly wounded and dying soldiers. They were placed in three very large apartments. I went
there many times. It was a strange, solemn, and, with all its features of suffering and death, a sort of
fascinating sight. I go sometimes at night to soothe and relieve particular cases. Two of the immense apar-
tments are fill'd with high and ponderous glass cases, crowded with models in miniature of every kind of
utensil, machine or invention, it ever enter'd into the mind of man to conceive; and with curiosities and
foreign presents. Between these cases are lateral openings, perhaps eight feet wide and quite deep, and in
these were placed the sick, besides a great long double row of them up and down through the middle of the
hall. Many of them were very bad cases, wounds and amputations. Then there was a gallery running above the
hall in which there were beds also. It was, indeed, a curious scene, especially at night when lit up. The
glass cases, the beds, the forms lying there, the gallery above, and the marble pavement under foot -- the
suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in various degrees -- occasionally, from some, the groan that could
not be repress'd -- sometimes a poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy eye, the nurse by his side,
the doctor also there, but no friend, no relative -- such were the sights but lately in the Patent-office.
(The wounded have since been removed from there, and it is now vacant again.)



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　28. The White House by Moonlight



February 24th. -- A spell of fine soft weather. I wander about a good deal, sometimes at night under the moon.
Tonight took a long look at the President's house. The white portico -- the palace-like, tall, round columns,
spotless as snow -- the walls also -- the tender and soft moonlight, flooding the pale marble, and making pe-
culiar faint languishing shades, not shadows -- everywhere a soft transparent hazy, thin, blue moon-lace, hang-
ing in the air -- the brilliant and extra-plentiful clusters of gas, on and around the facade, columns, portico,
&c. -- everything so white, so marbly pure and dazzling, yet soft -- the White House of future poems, and of
dreams and dramas, there in the soft and copious moon -- the gorgeous front, in the trees, under the lustrous
flooding moon, full of reality, full of illusion -- the forms of the trees, leafless, silent, in trunk and myr-
iad-angles of branches, under the stars and sky -- the White House of the land, and of beauty and night -- sen-
tries at the gates, and by the portico, silent, pacing there in blue overcoats -- stopping you not at all, but
eyeing you with sharp eyes, whichever way you move.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　29. An Army Hospital Ward



Let me specialize a visit I made to the collection of barrack-like one-story edifices, Campbell hospital,
out on the flats, at the end of the then horse railway route, on Seventh street. There is a long building
appropriated to each ward. Let us go into ward 6. It contains to-day, I should judge, eighty or a hundred
patients, half sick, half wounded. The edifice is nothing but boards, well whitewash'd inside, and the usual
slender-framed iron bedsteads, narrow and plain. You walk down the central passage, with a row on either
side, their feet towards you, and their heads to the wall. There are fires in large stoves, and the pre-
vailing white of the walls is reliev'd by some ornaments, stars, circles, &c., made of evergreens. The
view of the whole edifice and occupants can be taken at once, for there is no partition. You may hear
groans or other sounds of unendurable suffering from two or three of the cots, but in the main there is
quiet -- almost a painful absence of demonstration; but the pallid face, the dull'd eye, and the moisture
on the lip, are demonstration enough. Most of these sick or hurt are evidently young fellows from the
country, farmers' sons, and such like. Look at the fine large frames, the bright and broad countenances,
and the many yet lingering proofs of strong constitution and physique. Look at the patient and mute manner
of our American wounded as they lie in such a sad collection; representatives from all New England, and
from New York, and New Jersey, and Pennsylvania -- indeed from all the States and all the cities -- large-
ly from the west. Most of them are entirely without friends or acquaintances here -- no familiar face,
and hardly a word of judicious sympathy or cheer, through their sometimes long and tedious sickness, or
the pangs of aggravated wounds.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　30. A Connecticut Case



This young man in bed 25 is H. D. B., of the 27th Connecticut, company B. His folks live at Northford,
near New Haven. Though not more than twenty-one, or thereabouts, he has knock'd much around the world, on
sea and land, and has seen some fighting on both. When I first saw him he was very sick, with no appetite.
He declined offers of money -- said he did not need anything. As I was quite anxious to do something, he
confess'd that he had a hankering for a good home-made rice pudding -- thought he could relish it better
than anything. At this time his stomach was very weak. (The doctor, whom I consulted, said nourishment
would do him more good than anything; but things in the hospital, though better than usual, revolted him.)
I soon procured B. his rice-pudding. A Washington lady, (Mrs. O'C.), hearing his wish, made the pudding
herself, and I took it up to him the next day. He subsequently told me he lived upon it for three or four
days. This B. is a good sample of the American eastern young man -- the typical Yankee. I took a fancy to
him, and gave him a nice pipe, for a keepsake. He receiv'd afterwards a box of things from home, and no-
thing would do but I must take dinner with him, which I did, and a very good one it was.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　 　31.Two Brooklyn Boys



Here in this same ward are two young men from Brooklyn, members of the 51st New York. I had known both the
two as young lads at home, so they seem near to me. One of them, J. L., lies there with an amputated arm,
the stump healing pretty well. (I saw him lying on the ground at Fredericksburgh last December, all bloody,
just after the arm was taken off. He was very phlegmatic about it, munching away at a cracker in the re-
maining hand -- made no fuss.) He will recover, and thinks and talks yet of meeting the Johnny Rebs.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　32. A Secesh Brave



The grand soldiers are not comprised in those of one side, any more than the other. Here is a sample of
an unknown southerner, a lad of seventeen. At the War department, a few days ago, I witness'd a presenta-
tion of captured flags to the Secretary. Among others a soldier named Gant, of the 104th Ohio volunteers,
presented a rebel battle-flag, which one of the officers stated to me was borne to the mouth of our cannon
and planted there by a boy but seventeen years of age, who actually endeavor'd to stop the muzzle of the
gun with fence-rails. He was kill'd in the effort, and the flag-staff was sever'd by a shot from one of
our men.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　33. The Wounded from Chancellorsville



May, '63. -- As I write this, the wounded have begun to arrive from Hooker's command from bloody Chan-
cellorsville. I was down among the first arrivals. The men in charge told me the bad cases were yet to
come. If that is so I pity them, for these are bad enough. You ought to see the scene of the wounded ar-
riving at the landing here at the foot of Sixth street, at night. Two boat loads came about half-past
seven last night. A little after eight it rain'd a long and violent shower. The pale, helpless soldiers
had been debark'd, and lay around on the wharf and neighborhood anywhere. The rain was, probably, grate-
ful to them; at any rate they were exposed to it. The few torches light up the spectacle. All around --
on the wharf, on the ground, out on side places -- the men are lying on blankets, old quilts, &c., with
bloody rags bound round heads, arms, and legs. The attendants are few, and at night few outsiders also
-- only a few hard-work'd transportation men and drivers. (The wounded are getting to be common, and
people grow callous.) The men, whatever their condition, lie there, and patiently wait till their turn
comes to be taken up. Near by, the ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is
call'd to back up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make
little or no ado, whatever their sufferings. A few groans that cannot be suppress'd, and occasionally a
scream of pain as they lift a man into the ambulance. To-day, as I write, hundreds more are expected,
and to-morrow and the next day more, and so on for many days. Quite often they arrive at the rate of
1000 a day.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　34. A Night Battle, over a Week Since



May 12. -- There was part of the late battle at Chancellorsville, (second Fredericksburgh,) a little
over a week ago, Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday, under Gen. Joe Hooker, I would like to give just
a glimpse of -- (a moment's look in a terrible storm at sea -- of which a few suggestions are enough,
and full details impossible.) The fighting had been very hot during the day, and after an intermission
the latter part, was resumed at night, and kept up with furious energy till 3 o'clock in the morning.
That afternoon (Saturday) an attack sudden and strong by Stonewall Jackson had gain'd a great advantage
to the southern army, and broken our lines, entering us like a wedge, and leaving things in that posi-
tion at dark. But Hooker at 11 at night made a desperate push, drove the secesh forces back, restored
his original lines, and resumed his plans. This night scrimmage was very exciting, and afforded count-
less strange and fearful pictures. The fighting had been general both at Chancellorsville and northeast
at Fredericksburgh. (We heard of some poor fighting, episodes, skedaddling on our part. I think not of
it. I think of the fierce bravery, the general rule.) One corps, the 6th, Sedgewick's, fights four dash-
ing and bloody battles in thirty-six hours, retreating in great jeopardy, losing largely but maintaining
itself, fighting with the sternest desperation under all circumstances, getting over the Rappahannock
only by the skin of its teeth, yet getting over. It lost many, many brave men, yet it took vengeance,
ample vengeance.

But it was the tug of Saturday evening, and through the night and Sunday morning, I wanted to make a
special note of. It was largely in the woods, and quite a general engagement. The night was very plea-
sant, at times the moon shining out full and clear, all Nature so calm in itself, the early summer
grass so rich, and foliage of the trees -- yet there the battle raging, and many good fellows lying
helpless, with new accessions to them, and every minute amid the rattle of muskets and crash of cannon,
(for there was an artillery contest too,) the red life-blood oozing out from heads or trunks or limbs
upon that green and dew-cool grass. Patches of the woods take fire, and several of the wounded, unable
to move, are consumed -- quite large spaces are swept over, burning the dead also -- some of the men
have their hair and beards singed -- some, burns on their faces and hands -- others holes burnt in
their clothing. The flashes of fire from the cannon, the quick flaring flames and smoke, and the im-
mense roar -- the musketry so general, the light nearly bright enough for each side to see the other
-- the crashing, tramping of men -- the yelling -- close quarters -- we hear the secesh yells -- our
men cheer loudly back, especially if Hooker is in sight -- hand to hand conflicts, each side stands
up to it, brave, determin'd as demons, they often charge upon us -- a thousand deeds are done worth
to write newer greater poems on -- and still the woods on fire -- still many are not only scorch'd
-- too many, unable to move, are burn'd to death.

Then the camps of the wounded -- O heavens, what scene is this? -- is this indeed humanity -- these
butchers' shambles? There are several of them. There they lie, in the largest, in an open space in the
woods, from 200 to 300 poor fellows -- the groans and screams -- the odor of blood, mixed with the
fresh scent of the night, the grass, the trees -- that slaughter-house! O well is it their mothers,
their sisters cannot see them -- cannot conceive, and never conceiv'd, these things. One man is shot
by a shell, both in the arm and leg -- both are amputated -- there lie the rejected members. Some
have their legs blown off -- some bullets through the breast -- some indescribably horrid wounds in
the face or head, all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out -- some in the abdomen -- some mere boys
-- many rebels, badly hurt -- they take their regular turns with the rest, just the same as any --
the surgeons use them just the same. Such is the camp of the wounded -- such a fragment, a reflection
afar off of the bloody scene -- while over all the clear, large moon comes out at times softly, quiet-
ly shining. Amid the woods, that scene of flitting souls -- amid the crack and crash and yelling sounds
-- the impalpable perfume of the woods -- and yet the pungent, stifling smoke -- the radiance of the
moon, looking from heaven at intervals so placid -- the sky so heavenly -- the clear-obscure up there,
those buoyant upper oceans -- a few large placid stars beyond, coming silently and languidly out, and
then disappearing -- the melancholy, draperied night above, around. And there, upon the roads, the
fields, and in those woods, that contest, never one more desperate in any age or land -- both parties
now in force -- masses -- no fancy battle, no semi-play, but fierce and savage demons fighting there
-- courage and scorn of death the rule, exceptions almost none.

What history, I say, can ever give -- for who can know -- the mad, determin'd tussle of the armies, in
all their separate large and little squads -- as this -- each steep'd from crown to toe in desperate,
mortal purports? Who know the conflict, hand-to-hand -- the many conflicts in the dark, those shadowy-
tangled, flashing moonbeam'd woods -- the writhing groups and squads -- the cries, the din, the crack-
ing guns and pistols -- the distant cannon -- the cheers and calls and threats and awful music of the
oaths -- the indescribable mix -- the officers' orders, persuasions, encouragements -- the devils fully
rous'd in human hearts -- the strong shout, Charge, men, charge -- the flash of the naked sword, and
rolling flame and smoke? And still the broken, clear and clouded heaven -- and still again the moonlight
pouring silvery soft its radiant patches over all. Who paint the scene, the sudden partial panic of the
afternoon, at dusk? Who paint the irrepressible advance of the second division of the Third corps, under
Hooker himself, suddenly order'd up -- those rapid-filing phantoms through the woods? Who show what
moves there in the shadows, fluid and firm -- to save, (and it did save,) the army's name, perhaps the
nation? as there the veterans hold the field. (Brave Berry falls not yet -- but death has mark'd him --
soon he falls.)



　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　35. Unnamed Remains the Bravest Soldier



Of scenes like these, I say, who writes -- whoe'er can write the story? Of many a score -- aye, thousands,
north and south, of unwrit heroes, unknown heroisms, incredible, impromptu, first-class desperations --
who tells? No history ever -- no poem sings, no music sounds, those bravest men of all -- those deeds.
No formal general's report, nor book in the library, nor column in the paper, embalms the bravest, north
or south, east or west. Unnamed, unknown, remain, and still remain, the bravest soldiers. Our manliest --
our boys -- our hardy darlings; no picture gives them. Likely, the typic one of them (standing, no doubt,
for hundreds, thousands,) crawls aside to some bush-clump, or ferny tuft, on receiving his death-shot --
there sheltering a little while, soaking roots, grass and soil, with red blood -- the battle advances,
retreats, flits from the scene, sweeps by -- and there, haply with pain and suffering (yet less, far less,
than is supposed,) the last lethargy winds like a serpent round him -- the eyes glaze in death -- none
recks -- perhaps the burial-squads, in truce, a week afterwards, search not the secluded spot -- and
there, at last, the Bravest Soldier crumbles in mother earth, unburied and unknown.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　 　36. Some Specimen Cases



June 18th. -- In one of the hospitals I find Thomas Haley, company M, 4th New York cavalry -- a regular
Irish boy, a fine specimen of youthful physical manliness -- shot through the lungs -- inevitably dying
-- came over to this country from Ireland to enlist -- has not a single friend or acquaintance here --
is sleeping soundly at this moment, (but it is the sleep of death) -- has a bullet-hole straight through
the lung. I saw Tom when first brought here, three days since, and didn't suppose he could live twelve
hours -- (yet he looks well enough in the face to a casual observer.) He lies there with his frame ex-
posed above the waist, all naked, for coolness, a fine built man, the tan not yet bleach'd from his
cheeks and neck. It is useless to talk to him, as with his sad hurt, and the stimulants they give him,
and the utter strangeness of every object, face, furniture, &c., the poor fellow, even when awake, is
like some frighten'd, shy animal. Much of the time he sleeps, or half sleeps. (Sometimes I thought he
knew more than he show'd.) I often come and sit by him in perfect silence; he will breathe for ten min-
utes as softly and evenly as a young babe asleep. Poor youth, so handsome, athletic, with profuse beau-
tiful shining hair. One time as I sat looking at him while he lay asleep, he suddenly, without the least
start, awaken'd, open'd his eyes, gave me a long steady look, turning his face very slightly to gaze
easier -- one long, clear, silent look -- a slight sigh -- then turn'd back and went into his doze again.
Little he knew, poor death-stricken boy, the heart of the stranger that hover'd near.

W. H. E., Co. F., 2d N.J. -- His disease is pneumonia. He lay sick at the wretched hospital below Aquia
creek, for seven or eight days before brought here. He was detail'd from his regiment to go there and
help as nurse, but was soon taken down himself. Is an elderly, sallow-faced, rather gaunt, gray-hair'd
man, a widower, with children. He express'd a great desire for good, strong green tea. An excellent
lady, Mrs. W., of Washington, soon sent him a package; also a small sum of money. The doctor said give
him the tea at pleasure; it lay on the table by his side, and he used it every day. He slept a great
deal; could not talk much, as he grew deaf. Occupied bed 15, ward I, Armory. (The same lady above, Mrs.
W., sent the men a large package of tobacco.)

J. G. lies in bed 52, ward I; is of company B, 7th Pennsylvania. I gave him a small sum of money, some
tobacco, and envelopes. To a man adjoining also gave twenty-five cents; he flush'd in the face when I
offer'd it -- refused at first, but as I found he had not a cent, and was very fond of having the daily
papers to read, I prest it on him. He was evidently very grateful, but said little.

J. T. L., of company F., 9th New Hampshire, lies in bed 37, ward I. Is very fond of tobacco. I fur-
nish him some; also with a little money. Has gangrene of the feet; a pretty bad case; will surely have
to lose three toes. Is a regular specimen of an old-fashion'd, rude, hearty, New England countryman,
impressing me with his likeness to that celebrated singed cat, who was better than she look'd.

Bed 3, ward E, Armory, has a great hankering for pickles, something pungent. After consulting the doc-
tor, I gave him a small bottle of horse-radish; also some apples; also a book. Some of the nurses are
excellent. The woman-nurse in this ward I like very much. (Mrs. Wright -- a year afterwards I found her
in Mansion house hospital, Alexandria -- she is a perfect nurse.)

In one bed a young man, Marcus Small, company K, 7th Maine -- sick with dysentery and typhoid fever --
pretty critical case -- I talk with him often -- he thinks he will die -- looks like it indeed. I write
a letter for him home to East Livermore, Maine -- I let him talk to me a little, but not much, advise
him to keep very quiet -- do most of the talking myself -- stay quite a while with him, as he holds on
to my hand -- talk to him in a cheering, but slow, low and measured manner -- talk about his furlough,
and going home as soon as he is able to travel.

Thomas Lindly, 1st Pennsylvania cavalry, shot very badly through the foot -- poor young man, he suffers
horribly, has to be constantly dosed with morphine, his face ashy and glazed, bright young eyes -- I
give him a large handsome apple, lay it in sight, tell him to have it roasted in the morning, as he gen-
erally feels easier then, and can eat a little breakfast. I write two letters for him.

Opposite, an old Quaker lady is sitting by the side of her son, Amer Moore, 2d U.S. artillery -- shot
in the head two weeks since, very low, quite rational -- from hips down paralyzed -- he will surely die.
I speak a very few words to him every day and evening -- he answers pleasantly -- wants nothing -- (he
told me soon after he came about his home affairs, his mother had been an invalid, and he fear'd to let
her know his condition.) He died soon after she came.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　 　37. My Preparations for Visits



In my visits to the hospitals I found it was in the simple matter of personal presence, and emanating
ordinary cheer and magnetism, that I succeeded and help'd more than by medical nursing, or delicacies,
or gifts of money, or anything else. During the war I possess'd the perfection of physical health. My
habit, when practicable, was to prepare for starting out on one of those daily or nightly tours of
from a couple to four or five hours, by fortifying myself with previous rest, the bath, clean clothes,
a good meal, and as cheerful an appearance as possible.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　 　38. Ambulance Processions



June 25, Sundown. -- As I sit writing this paragraph I see a train of about thirty huge four-horse
wagons, used as ambulances, fill'd with wounded, passing up Fourteenth street, on their way, probably,
to Columbian, Carver, and mount Pleasant hospitals. This is the way the men come in now, seldom in
small numbers, but almost always in these long, sad processions. Through the past winter, while our
army lay opposite Fredericksburgh, the like strings of ambulances were of frequent occurrence along
Seventh street, passing slowly up from the steamboat wharf, with loads from Aquia creek.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　39. Bad Wounds--The Young



The soldiers are nearly all young men, and far more American than is generally supposed -- I should
say nine-tenths are native-born. Among the arrivals from Chancellorsville I find a large proportion
of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois men. As usual, there are all sorts of wounds. Some of the men fear-
fully burnt from the explosions of artillery caissons. One ward has a long row of officers, some with
ugly hurts. Yesterday was perhaps worse than usual. Amputations are going on -- the attendants are
dressing wounds. As you pass by, you must be on your guard where you look. I saw the other day a gen-
tleman, a visitor apparently from curiosity, in one of the wards, stop and turn a moment to look at
an awful wound they were probing. He turn'd pale, and in a moment more he had fainted away and fallen
on the floor.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　40. The Most Inspiriting of All War’s Shows



June 29. -- Just before sundown this evening a very large cavalry force went by -- a fine sight. The
men evidently had seen service. First came a mounted band of sixteen bugles, drums and cymbals, play-
ing wild martial tunes -- made my heart jump. Then the principal officers, then company after company,
with their officers at their heads, making of course the main part of the cavalcade; then a long train
of men with led horses, lots of mounted negroes with special horses -- and a long string of baggage-
wagons, each drawn by four horses -- and then a motley rear guard. It was a pronouncedly warlike and
gay show; the sabres clank'd, the men look'd young and healthy and strong; the electric tramping of
so many horses on the hard road, and the gallant bearing, fine seat, and bright faced appearance of
a thousand and more handsome young American men, were so good to see. An hour later another troop went
by, smaller in numbers, perhaps three hundred men. They too look'd like serviceable men, campaigners
used to field and fight.

July 3. -- This forenoon, for more than an hour, again long strings of cavalry, several regiments,
very fine men and horses, four or five abreast. I saw them in Fourteenth street, coming in town from
north. Several hundred extra horses, some of the mares with colts, trotting along. (Appear'd to be a
number of prisoners too.) How inspiriting always the cavalry regiments. Our men are generally well
mounted, feel good, are young, gay on the saddle, their blankets in a roll behind them, their sabres
clanking at their sides. This noise and movement and the tramp of many horses' hoofs has a curious
effect upon one. The bugles play -- presently you hear them afar off, deaden'd, mix'd with other noi-
ses. Then just as they had all pass'd, a string of ambulances commenc'd from the other way, moving up
Fourteenth street north, slowly wending along, bearing a large lot of wounded to the hospitals.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　 　41. Battle of Gettysburg



July 4th. -- The weather to-day, upon the whole, is very fine, warm, but from a smart rain last night,
fresh enough, and no dust, which is a great relief for this city. I saw the parade about noon, Pennsy-
lvania avenue, from Fifteenth street down toward the capitol. There were three regiments of infantry,
(I suppose the ones doing patrol duty here,) two or three societies of Odd Fellows, a lot of children
in barouches, and a squad of policemen. (A useless imposition upon the soldiers -- they have work e-
nough on their backs without piling the like of this.) As I went down the Avenue, saw a big flaring
placard on the bulletin board of a newspaper office, announcing "Glorious Victory for the Union Army!"
Meade had fought Lee at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, yesterday and day before, and repuls'd him most sig-
nally, taken 3,000 prisoners, &c. (I afterwards saw Meade's despatch, very modest, and a sort of order
of the day from the President himself, quite religious, giving thanks to the Supreme, and calling on
the people to do the same.) I walk'd on to Armory hospital -- took along with me several bottles of
blackberry and cherry syrup, good and strong, but innocent. Went through several of the wards, an-
nounc'd to the soldiers the news from Meade, and gave them all a good drink of the syrups with ice
water, quite refreshing -- prepar'd it all myself, and serv'd it around. Meanwhile the Washington
bells are ringing their sundown peals for Fourth of July, and the usual fusilades of boys' pistols,
crackers, and guns.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　　 　42. A Cavalry Camp



I am writing this, nearly sundown, watching a cavalry company (acting Signal service,) just come in
through a shower, making their night's camp ready on some broad, vacant ground, a sort of hill, in
full view opposite my window. There are the men in their yellow-striped jackets. All are dismounted;
the freed horses stand with drooping heads and wet sides; they are to be led off presently in groups,
to water.

The little wall-tents and shelter tents spring up quickly. I see the fires already blazing, and pots
and kettles over them. Some among the men are driving in tent-poles, wielding their axes with strong,
slow blows. I see great huddles of horses, bundles of hay, groups of men (some with unbuckled sabres
yet on their sides,) a few officers, piles of wood, the flames of the fires, saddles, harness, &c.
The smoke streams upward, additional men arrive and dismount -- some drive in stakes, and tie their
horses to them; some go with buckets for water, some are chopping wood, and so on.

July 6th. -- A steady rain, dark and thick and warm. A train of six-mule wagons has just pass'd bear-
ing pontoons, great square-end flat-boats, and the heavy planking for overlaying them. We hear that
the Potomac above here is flooded, and are wondering whether Lee will be able to get back across
again, or whether Meade will indeed break him to pieces. The cavalry camp on the hill is a ceaseless
field of observation for me. This forenoon there stand the horses, tether'd together, dripping, steam-
ing, chewing their hay. The men emerge from their tents, dripping also. The fires are half quench'd.

July 10th. -- Still the camp opposite -- perhaps fifty or sixty tents. Some of the men are cleaning
their sabres (pleasant today,) some brushing boots, some laying off, reading, writing -- some cook-
ing, some sleeping. On long temporary cross-sticks back of the tents are cavalry accoutrements --
blankets and overcoats are hung out to air -- there are the squads of horses tether'd, feeding, con-
tinually stamping and whisking their tails to keep off flies. I sit long in my third story window
and look at the scene -- a hundred little things going on -- peculiar objects connected with the
camp that could not be described, any one of them justly, without much minute drawing and coloring
in words.


　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　 　43. A New York Soldier



This afternoon, July 22d, I have spent a long time with Oscar F. Wilber, company G, 154th New York, low
with chronic diarrhoea, and a bad wound also. He asked me to read him a chapter in the New Testament. I
complied, and ask'd him what I should read. He said, "Make your own choice." I open'd at the close of one
of the first books of the evangelists, and read the chapters describing the latter hours of Christ, and
the scenes at the crucifixion. The poor, wasted young man ask'd me to read the following chapter also,
how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble. It pleased him very much, yet the tears
were in his eyes. He ask'd me if I enjoy'd religion. I said, "Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you mean,
and yet, may-be, it is the same thing." He said, "It is my chief reliance." He talk'd of death, and said
he did not fear it. I said, "Why, Oscar, don't you think you will get well?" He said, "I may, but it is
not probable." He spoke calmly of his condition. The wound was very bad, it discharg'd much. Then the
diarrhoea had prostrated him, and I felt that he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very manly
and affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving he return'd fourfold. He gave me his mother's
address, Mrs. Sally D. Wilber, Alleghany post-office, Cattaraugus county, N. Y. I had several such inter-
views with him. He died a few days after the one just described.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　　 　44. Home-Made Music



August 8th. -- To-night, as I was trying to keep cool, sitting by a wounded soldier in Armory-square, I
was attracted by some pleasant singing in an adjoining ward. As my soldier was asleep, I left him, and
entering the ward where the music was, I walk'd half-way down and took a seat by the cot of a young Brook-
lyn friend, S. R., badly wounded in the hand at Chancellorsville, and who has suffer'd much, but at that
moment in the evening was wide awake and comparatively easy. He had turn'd over on his left side to get a
better view of the singers, but the mosquito-curtains of the adjoining cots obstructed the sight. I stept
round and loop'd them all up, so that he had a clear show, and then sat down again by him, and look'd and
listen'd. The principal singer was a young lady-nurse of one of the wards, accompanying on a melodeon, and
join'd by the lady-nurses of other wards. They sat there, making a charming group, with their handsome,
healthy faces, and standing up a little behind them were some ten or fifteen of the convalescent soldiers,
young men, nurses, &c., with books in their hands, singing. Of course it was not such a performance as the
great soloists at the New York opera house take a hand in, yet I am not sure but I receiv'd as much plea-
sure under the circumstances, sitting there, as I have had from the best Italian compositions, express'd
by world-famous performers. The men lying up and down the hospital, in their cots, (some badly wounded --
some never to rise thence,) the cots themselves, with their drapery of white curtains, and the shadows
down the lower and upper parts of the ward; then the silence of the men, and the attitudes they took --
the whole was a sight to look around upon again and again. And there sweetly rose those voices up to the
high, whitewash'd wooden roof, and pleasantly the roof sent it all back again. They sang very well, most-
ly quaint old songs and declamatory hymns, to fitting tunes. Here, for instance:

My days are swiftly gliding by, and I a pilgrim stranger,
Would not detain them as they fly, those hours of toil and danger;
For O we stand on Jordan's strand, our friends are passing over,
And just before, the shining shore we may almost discover.
We'll gird our loins my brethren dear, our distant home discerning,
Our absent Lord has left us word, let every lamp be burning,
For O we stand on Jordan's strand, our friends are passing over,
And just before, the shining shore we may almost discover.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　　 　45. Abraham Lincoln



August 12th. -- I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to or from his
lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during the hot season, but has quarters at a healthy
location some three miles north of the city, the Soldiers' home, a United States military establishment. I
saw him this morning about 8 1/2 coming in to business, riding on Vermont avenue, near L street. He always
has a company of twenty-five or thirty cavalry, with sabres drawn and held upright over their shoulders.
They say this guard was against his personal wish, but he let his counselors have their way. The party makes
no great show in uniform or horses. Mr. Lincoln on the saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy-going gray
horse, is dress'd in plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty, wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as or-
dinary in attire, &c., as the commonest man. A lieutenant, with yellow straps, rides at his left, and fol-
lowing behind, two by two, come the cavalry men, in their yellow-striped jackets. They are generally going
at a slow trot, as that is the pace set them by the one they wait upon. The sabres and accoutrements clank,
and the entirely unornamental cort ge as it trots towards Lafayette square arouses no sensation, only some
curious stranger stops and gazes. I see very plainly ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S dark brown face, with the deep-cut
lines, the eyes, always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we exchange
bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry always
accompany him, with drawn sabres. Often I notice as he goes out evenings -- and sometimes in the morning,
when he returns early -- he turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War,
on K street, and holds conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my window he does not alight,
but sits in his vehicle, and Mr. Stanton comes out to attend him. Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten
or twelve, accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony. Earlier in the summer I occasionally saw the Pres-
ident and his wife, toward the latter part of the afternoon, out in a barouche, on a pleasure ride through
the city. Mrs. Lincoln was dress'd in complete black, with a long crape veil. The equipage is of the plain-
est kind, only two horses, and they nothing extra. They pass'd me once very close, and I saw the President
in the face fully, as they were moving slowly, and his look, though abstracted, happen'd to be directed
steadily in my eye. He bow'd and smiled, but far beneath his smile I noticed well the expression I have al-
luded to. None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of
this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centur-
ies ago is needed.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　 　　　 　46. Heated Term



There has lately been much suffering here from heat; we have had it upon us now eleven days. I go around
with an umbrella and a fan. I saw two cases of sun-stroke yesterday, one in Pennsylvania avenue, and another
in Seventh street. The City railroad company loses some horses every day. Yet Washington is having a live-
lier August, and is probably putting in a more energetic and satisfactory summer, than ever before during
its existence. There is probably more human electricity, more population to make it, more business, more
light-heartedness, than ever before. The armies that swiftly circumambiated from Fredericksburgh -- march'd,
struggled, fought, had out their mighty clinch and hurl at Gettysburg -- wheel'd, circumambiated again, re-
turn'd to their ways, touching us not, either at their going or coming. And Washington feels that she has
pass'd the worst; perhaps feels that she is henceforth mistress. So here she sits with her surrounding hills
spotted with guns, and is conscious of a character and identity different from what it was five or six short
weeks ago, and very considerably pleasanter and prouder.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　　 　47. Soldiers and Talks



Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, you meet everywhere about the city, often superb-looking men, though invalids
dress'd in worn uniforms, and carrying canes or crutches. I often have talks with them, occasionally quite
long and interesting. One, for instance, will have been all through the peninsula under McClellan -- nar-
rates to me the fights, the marches, the strange, quick changes of that eventful campaign, and gives
glimpses of many things untold in any official reports or books or journals. These, indeed, are the things
that are genuine and precious. The man was there, has been out two years, has been through a dozen fights,
the superfluous flesh of talking is long work'd off him, and he gives me little but the hard meat and sinew.
I find it refreshing, these hardy, bright, intuitive, American young men, (experienc'd soldiers with all
their youth.) The vocal play and significance moves one more than books. Then there hangs something maje-
stic about a man who has borne his part in battles, especially if he is very quiet regarding it when you
desire him to unbosom. I am continually lost at the absence of blowing and blowers among these old-young
American militaires. I have found some man or other who has been in every battle since the war began, and
have talk'd with them about each one in every part of the United States, and many of the engagements on the
rivers and harbors too. I find men here from every State in the Union, without exception. (There are more
Southerners, especially border State men, in the Union army than is generally supposed.*) I now doubt whe-
ther one can get a fair idea of what this war practically is, or what genuine America is, and her character,
without some such experience as this I am having.



　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　48. Death of a Wisconsin Officer



Another characteristic scene of that dark and bloody 1863, from notes of my visit to Armory-square hospital,
one hot but pleasant summer day. In ward H we approach the cot of a young lieutenant of one of the Wisconsin
regiments. Tread the bare board floor lightly here, for the pain and panting of death are in this cot. I saw
the lieutenant when he was first brought here from Chancellorsville, and have been with him occasionally from
day to day and night to night. He had been getting along pretty well till night before last, when a sudden
hemorrhage that could not be stopt came upon him, and to-day it still continues at intervals. Notice that
water-pail by the side of the bed, with a quantity of blood and bloody pieces of muslin, nearly full; that
tells the story. The poor young man is struggling painfully for breath, his great dark eyes with a glaze al-
ready upon them, and the choking faint but audible in his throat. An attendant sits by him, and will not
leave him till the last; yet little or nothing can be done. He will die here in an hour or two, without the
presence of kith or kin. Meantime the ordinary chat and business of the ward a little way off goes on indif-
ferently. Some of the inmates are laughing and joking, others are playing checkers or cards, others are read-
ing, &c.

I have noticed through most of the hospitals that as long as there is any chance for a man, no matter how
bad he may be, the surgeon and nurses work hard, sometimes with curious tenacity, for his life, doing every-
thing, and keeping somebody by him to execute the doctor's orders, and minister to him every minute night
and day. See that screen there. As you advance through the dusk of early candle-light, a nurse will step
forth on tip-toe, and silently but imperiously forbid you to make any noise, or perhaps to come near at all.
Some soldier's life is flickering there, suspended between recovery and death. Perhaps at this moment the
exhausted frame has just fallen into a light sleep that a step might shake. You must retire. The neighbor-
ing patients must move in their stocking feet. I have been several times struck with such mark'd efforts
-- everything bent to save a life from the very grip of the destroyer. But when that grip is once firmly
fix'd, leaving no hope or chance at all, the surgeon abandons the patient. If it is a case where stimulus
is any relief, the nurse gives milk-punch or brandy, or whatever is wanted, ad libitum. There is no fuss
made. Not a bit of sentimentalism or whining have I seen about a single death-bed in hospital or on the
field, but generally impassive indifference. All is over, as far as any efforts can avail; it is useless
to expend emotions or labors. While there is a prospect they strive hard -- at least most surgeons do; but
death certain and evident, they yield the field.



　　　　　　　　　　 　　　 　　　　 　49. Hospitals Ensemble



Aug., Sep., and Oct., '63. -- I am in the habit of going to all, and to Fairfax seminary, Alexandria, and
over Long bridge to the great Convalescent camp. The journals publish a regular directory of them -- a long
list. As a specimen of almost any one of the larger of these hospitals, fancy to yourself a space of three
to twenty acres of ground, on which are group'd ten or twelve very large wooden barracks, with, perhaps, a
dozen or twenty, and sometimes more than that number, small buildings, capable altogether of accommodating
from five hundred to a thousand or fifteen hundred persons. Sometimes these wooden barracks or wards, each
of them perhaps from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet long, are rang'd in a straight row, evenly front-
ing the street; others are plann'd so as to form an immense V; and others again are ranged around a hollow
square. They make altogether a huge cluster, with the additional tents, extra wards for contagious diseases,
guard-houses, sutler's stores, chaplain's house; in the middle will probably be an edifice devoted to the
offices of the surgeon in charge and the ward surgeons, principal attaches, clerks, &c. The wards are either
letter'd alphabetically, ward G, ward K, or else numerically, 1, 2, 3, &c. Each has its ward surgeon and
corps of nurses. Of course, there is, in the aggregate, quite a muster of employes, and over all the surgeon
in charge. Here in Washington, when these army hospitals are all fill'd, (as they have been already several
times,) they contain a population more numerous in itself than the whole of the Washington of ten or fifteen
years ago. Within sight of the capitol, as I write, are some thirty or forty such collections, at times hold-
ing from fifty to seventy thousand men. Looking from any eminence and studying the topography in my rambles,
I use them as landmarks. Through the rich August verdure of the trees, see that white group of buildings off
yonder in the outskirts; then another cluster half a mile to the left of the first; then another a mile to
the right, and another a mile beyond, and still another between us and the first. Indeed, we can hardly look
in any direction but these clusters are dotting the landscape and environs. That little town, as you might
suppose it, off there on the brow of a hill, is indeed a town, but of wounds, sickness, and death. It is Fin-
ley hospital, northeast of the city, on Kendall green, as it used to be call'd. That other is Campbell hospi-
tal. Both are large establishments. I have known these two alone to have from two thousand to twenty five
hundred inmates. Then there is Carver hospital, larger still, a wall'd and military city regularly laid out,
and guarded by squads of sentries. Again, off east, Lincoln hospital, a still larger one; and half a mile
further Emory hospital. Still sweeping the eye around down the river toward Alexandria, we see, to the right,
the locality where the Convalescent camp stands, with its five, eight, or sometimes ten thousand inmates.
Even all these are but a portion. The Harewood, Mount Pleasant, Armory-square, Judiciary hospitals, are some
of the rest, and all large collections.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　 　50. A Silent Night Ramble



October 20th. -- To-night, after leaving the hospital at 10 o'clock, (I had been on self-imposed duty some
five hours, pretty closely confined,) I wander'd a long time around Washington. The night was sweet, very
clear, sufficiently cool, a voluptuous half-moon, slightly golden, the space near it of a transparent blue-
gray tinge. I walk'd up Pennsylvania avenue, and then to Seventh street, and a long while around the Patent-
office. Somehow it look'd rebukefully strong, majestic, there in the delicate moonlight. The sky, the planets,
the constellations all so bright, so calm, so expressively silent, so soothing, after those hospital scenes.
I wander'd to and fro till the moist moon set, long after midnight.



　　　　　　　　　　　　 　51. Spiritual Characters among the Soldiers



Every now and then, in hospital or camp, there are beings I meet -- specimens of unworldliness, disinterest-
edness, and animal purity and heroism -- perhaps some unconscious Indianian, or from Ohio or Tennessee -- on
whose birth the calmness of heaven seems to have descended, and whose gradual growing up, whatever the cir-
cumstances of work-life or change, or hardship, or small or no education that attended it, the power of a
strange spiritual sweetness, fibre and inward health, have also attended. Something veil'd and abstracted
is often a part of the manners of these beings. I have met them, I say, not seldom in the army, in camp, and
in the hospitals. The Western regiments contain many of them. They are often young men, obeying the events
and occasions about them, marching, soldiering, fighting, foraging, cooking, working on farms or at some
trade before the war -- unaware of their own nature, (as to that, who is aware of his own nature?) their
companions only understanding that they are different from the rest, more silent, "something odd about them,"
and apt to go off and meditate and muse in solitude.



　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　52. Cattle Droves about Washington



Among other sights are immense droves of cattle with their drivers, passing through the streets of the city.
Some of the men have a way of leading the cattle by a peculiar call, a wild, pensive hoot, quite musical, pro-
long'd, indescribable, sounding something between the cooing of a pigeon and the hoot of an owl. I like to
stand and look at the sight of one of these immense droves -- a little way off -- (as the dust is great.)
There are always men on horseback, cracking their whips and shouting -- the cattle low -- some obstinate ox
or steer attempts to escape -- then a lively scene -- the mounted men, always excellent riders and on good
horses, dash after the recusant, and wheel and turn -- a dozen mounted drovers, their great slouch'd, broad-
brim'd hats, very picturesque -- another dozen on foot -- everybody cover'd with dust -- long goads in their
hands -- an immense drove of perhaps 1000 cattle -- the shouting, hooting, movement, &c.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　 　53. Hospital Perplexity



To add to other troubles, amid the confusion of this great army of sick, it is almost impossible for a stranger
to find any friend or relative, unless he has the patient's specific address to start upon. Besides the direct-
ory printed in the newspapers here, there are one or two general directories of the hospitals kept at provost's
headquarters, but they are nothing like complete; they are never up to date, and, as things are, with the daily
streams of coming and going and changing, cannot be. I have known cases, for instance such as a farmer coming
here from northern New York to find a wounded brother, faithfully hunting round for a week, and then compell'd
to leave and go home without getting any trace of him. When he got home he found a letter from the brother giv-
ing the right address.



　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　 　54. Down at the Front



CULPEPPER, VA., Feb. '64. -- Here I am pretty well down toward the extreme front. Three or four days ago General
S., who is now in chief command, (I believe Meade is absent, sick,) moved a strong force southward from camp as if
intending business. They went to the Rapidan; there has since been some manoeuvring and a little fighting, but no-
thing of consequence. The telegraphic accounts given Monday morning last, make entirely too much of it, I should
say. What General S. intended we here know not, but we trust in that competent commander. We were somewhat excited,
(but not so very much either,) on Sunday, during the day and night, as orders were sent out to pack up and harness,
and be ready to evacuate, to fall back towards Washington. But I was very sleepy and went to bed. Some tremendous
shouts arousing me during the night, I went forth and found it was from the men above mention'd, who were return-
ing. I talk'd with some of the men; as usual I found them full of gayety, endurance, and many fine little outshows,
the signs of the most excellent good manliness of the world. It was a curious sight to see those shadowy columns
moving through the night. I stood unobserv'd in the darkness and watch'd them long. The mud was very deep. The men
had their usual burdens, overcoats, knapsacks, guns and blankets. Along and along they filed by me, with often a
laugh, a song, a cheerful word, but never once a murmur. It may have been odd, but I never before so realized the
majesty and reality of the American people en masse. It fell upon me like a great awe. The strong ranks moved nei-
ther fast nor slow. They had march'd seven or eight miles already through the slipping unctuous mud. The brave
First corps stopt here. The equally brave Third corps moved on to Brandy station. The famous Brooklyn 14th are
here, guarding the town. You see their red legs actively moving everywhere. Then they have a theatre of their own
here. They give musical performances, nearly everything done capitally. Of course the audience is a jam. It is
good sport to attend one of these entertainments of the 14th. I like to look around at the soldiers, and the gen-
eral collection in front of the curtain, more than the scene on the stage.



　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　55. Paying the Bounties



One of the things to note here now is the arrival of the paymaster with his strong box, and the payment of boun-
ties to veterans re-enlisting. Major H. is here today, with a small mountain of greenbacks, rejoicing the hearts
of the 2d division of the First corps. In the midst of a rickety shanty, behind a little table, sit the major and
clerk Eldridge, with the rolls before them, and much moneys. A re-enlisted man gets in cash about $200 down, (and
heavy instalments following, as the pay-days arrive, one after another.) The show of the men crowding around is
quite exhilarating; I like to stand and look. They feel elated, their pockets full, and the ensuing furlough, the
visit home. It is a scene of sparkling eyes and flush'd cheeks. The soldier has many gloomy and harsh experiences,
and this makes up for some of them. Major H. is order'd to pay first all the re-enlisted men of the First corps
their bounties and back pay, and then the rest. You hear the peculiar sound of the rustling of the new and crisp
greenbacks by the hour, through the nimble fingers of the major and my friend clerk E.



　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　56. Rumors, Changes, &c.



About the excitement of Sunday, and the orders to be ready to start, I have heard since that the said orders came
from some cautious minor commander, and that the high principalities knew not and thought not of any such move;
which is likely. The rumor and fear here intimated a long circuit by Lee, and flank attack on our right. But I
cast my eyes at the mud, which was then at its deepest and palmiest condition, and retired composedly to rest.
Still it is about time for Culpepper to have a change. Authorities have chased each other here like clouds in a
stormy sky. Before the first Bull Run this was the rendezvous and camp of instruction of the secession troops. I
am stopping at the house of a lady who has witness'd all the eventful changes of the war, along this route of
contending armies. She is a widow, with a family of young children, and lives here with her sister in a large
handsome house. A number of army officers board with them.



　　 　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　 　　　 　57. Virginia



Dilapidated, fenceless, and trodden with war as Virginia is, wherever I move across her surface, I find myself
rous'd to surprise and admiration. What capacity for products, improvements, human life, nourishment and expan-
sion. Everywhere that I have been in the Old Dominion, (the subtle mockery of that title now!) such thoughts
have fill'd me. The soil is yet far above the average of any of the northern States. And how full of breadth
the scenery, everywhere distant mountains, everywhere convenient rivers. Even yet prodigal in forest woods,
and surely eligible for all the fruits, orchards, and flowers. The skies and atmosphere most luscious, as I
feel certain, from more than a year's residence in the State, and movements hither and yon. I should say very
healthy, as a general thing. Then a rich and elastic quality, by night and by day. The sun rejoices in his
strength, dazzling and burning, and yet, to me, never unpleasantly weakening. It is not the panting tropical
heat, but invigorates. The north tempers it. The nights are often unsurpassable. Last evening (Feb. 8,) I saw
the first of the new moon, the outlined old moon clear along with it; the sky and air so clear, such transpa-
rent hues of color, it seem'd to me I had never really seen the new moon before. It was the thinnest cut cre-
scent possible. It hung delicate just above the sulky shadow of the Blue mountains. Ah, if it might prove an
omen and good prophecy for this unhappy State.



　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　　　 　58. Summer of 1864



I am back again in Washington, on my regular daily and nightly rounds. Of course there are many specialties.
Dotting a ward here and there are always cases of poor fellows, long-suffering under obstinate wounds, or weak
and dishearten'd from typhoid fever, or the like; mark'd cases, needing special and sympathetic nourishment.
These I sit down and either talk to, or silently cheer them up. They always like it hugely, (and so do I.)
Each case has its peculiarities, and needs some new adaptation. I have learnt to thus conform -- learnt a
good deal of hospital wisdom. Some of the poor young chaps, away from home for the first time in their lives,
hunger and thirst for affection; this is sometimes the only thing that will reach their condition. The men
like to have a pencil, and something to write in. I have given them cheap pocket-diaries, and almanacs for
1864, interleav'd with blank paper. For reading I generally have some old pictorial magazines or story papers
-- they are always acceptable. Also the morning or evening papers of the day. The best books I do not give,
but lend to read through the wards, and then take them to others, and so on; they are very punctual about re-
turning the books. In these wards, or on the field, as I thus continue to go round, I have come to adapt my-
self to each emergency, after its kind or call, however trivial, however solemn, every one justified and made
real under its circumstances -- not only visits and cheering talk and little gifts -- not only washing and
dressing wounds, (I have some cases where the patient is unwilling any one should do this but me) -- but pas-
sages from the Bible, expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doctrine, &c. (I think I see my
friends smiling at this confession, but I was never more in earnest in my life.) In camp and everywhere, I was
in the habit of reading or giving recitations to the men. They were very fond of it, and liked declamatory po-
etical pieces. We would gather in a large group by ourselves, after supper, and spend the time in such read-
ings, or in talking, and occasionally by an amusing game called the game of twenty questions.



　　　　　　　　　　　　 　59. A New Army Organization Fit for America



It is plain to me out of the events of the war, north and south, and out of all considerations, that the cur-
rent military theory, practice, rules and organization, (adopted from Europe from the feudal institutes, with,
of course, the "modern improvements," largely from the French,) though tacitly follow'd, and believ'd in by
the officers generally, are not at all consonant with the United States, nor our people, nor our days. What it
will be I know not -- but I know that as entire an abnegation of the present military system, and the naval
too, and a building up from radically different root-bases and centres appropriate to us, must eventually re-
sult, as that our political system has resulted and become establish'd, different from feudal Europe, and built
up on itself from original, perennial, democratic premises. We have undoubtedly in the United States the great-
est military power -- an exhaustless, intelligent, brave and reliable rank and file -- in the world, any land,
perhaps all lands. The problem is to organize this in the manner fully appropriate to it, to the principles of
the republic, and to get the best service out of it. In the present struggle, as already seen and review'd,
probably three-fourths of the losses, men, lives, &c., have been sheer superfluity, extravagance, waste.



　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　　　 　60. Death of a Hero



I wonder if I could ever convey to another -- to you, for instance, reader dear -- the tender and terrible
realities of such cases, (many, many happen'd,) as the one I am now going to mention. Stewart C. Glover, com-
pany E, 5th Wisconsin -- was wounded May 5, in one of those fierce tussles of the Wilderness -- died May 21
-- aged about 20. He was a small and beardless young man -- a splendid soldier -- in fact almost an ideal
American, of his age. He had serv'd nearly three years, and would have been entitled to his discharge in a
few days. He was in Hancock's corps. The fighting had about ceas'd for the day, and the general commanding
the brigade rode by and call'd for volunteers to bring in the wounded. Glover responded among the first --
went out gayly -- but while in the act of bearing in a wounded sergeant to our lines, was shot in the knee
by a rebel sharpshooter; consequence, amputation and death. He had resided with his father, John Glover, an
aged and feeble man, in Batavia, Genesee county, N. Y., but was at school in Wisconsin, after the war broke
out, and there enlisted -- soon took to soldier-life, liked it, was very manly, was belov'd by officers and
comrades. He kept a little diary, like so many of the soldiers. On the day of his death he wrote the follow-
ing in it, today the doctor says I must die -- all is over with me -- ah, so young to die. On another blank
leaf he pencill'd to his brother, dear brother Thomas, I have been brave but wicked -- pray for me.



　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　61. Hospital Scenes--Incidents



It is Sunday afternoon, middle of summer, hot and oppressive, and very silent through the ward. I am taking
care of a critical case, now lying in a half lethargy. Near where I sit is a suffering rebel, from the 8th
Louisiana; his name is Irving. He has been here a long time, badly wounded, and lately had his leg amputated;
it is not doing very well. Right opposite me is a sick soldier-boy, laid down with his clothes on, sleeping,
looking much wasted, his pallid face on his arm. I see by the yellow trimming on his jacket that he is a cav-
alry boy. I step softly over and find by his card that he is named William Cone, of the 1st Maine cavalry,
and his folks live in Skowhegan.

Ice Cream Treat. -- One hot day toward the middle of June, I gave the inmates of Carver hospital a general
ice cream treat, purchasing a large quantity, and, under convoy of the doctor or head nurse, going around
personally through the wards to see to its distribution.

An Incident. -- In one of the fights before Atlanta, a rebel soldier, of large size, evidently a young man,
was mortally wounded top of the head, so that the brains partially exuded. He lived three days, lying on his
back on the spot where he first dropt. He dug with his heel in the ground during that time a hole big enough
to put in a couple of ordinary knapsacks. He just lay there in the open air, and with little intermission
kept his heel going night and day. Some of our soldiers then moved him to a house, but he died in a few min-
utes.

Another. -- After the battles at Columbia, Tennessee, where we repuls'd about a score of vehement rebel
charges, they left a great many wounded on the ground, mostly within our range. Whenever any of these wound-
ed attempted to move away by any means, generally by crawling off, our men without exception brought them
down by a bullet. They let none crawl away, no matter what his condition.



　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　　　 　62. A Yankee Soldier



As I turn'd off the Avenue one cool October evening into Thirteenth street, a soldier with knapsack and
overcoat stood at the corner inquiring his way. I found he wanted to go part of the road in my direction,
so we walk'd on together. We soon fell into conversation. He was small and not very young, and a tough lit-
tle fellow, as I judged in the evening light, catching glimpses by the lamps we pass'd. His answers were
short, but clear. His name was Charles Carroll; he belong'd to one of the Massachusetts regiments, and was
born in or near Lynn. His parents were living, but were very old. There were four sons, and all had enlisted.
Two had died of starvation and misery in the prison at Andersonville, and one had been kill'd in the west.
He only was left. He was now going home, and by the way he talk'd I inferr'd that his time was nearly out.
He made great calculations on being with his parents to comfort them the rest of their days.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　 　　　　 　63. Union Prisoners South



Michael Stansbury, 48 years of age, a sea-faring man, a southerner by birth and raising, formerly captain
of U. S. light ship Long Shoal, station'd at Long Shoal point, Pamlico sound -- though a southerner, a firm
Union man -- was captur'd Feb. 17, 1863, and has been nearly two years in the Confederate prisons; was at
one time order'd releas'd by Governor Vance, but a rebel officer re-arrested him; then sent on to Richmond
for exchange -- but instead of being exchanged was sent down (as a southern citizen, not a soldier,) to Sal-
isbury, N. C., where he remain'd until lately, when he escap'd among the exchang'd by assuming the name of
a dead soldier, and coming up via Wilmington with the rest. Was about sixteen months in Salisbury. Subse-
quent to October, '64, there were about 11,000 Union prisoners in the stockade; about 100 of them southern
unionists, 200 U. S. deserters. During the past winter 1500 of the prisoners, to save their lives, join'd
the confederacy, on condition of being assign'd merely to guard duty. Out of the 11,000 not more than 2500
came out; 500 of these were pitiable, helpless wretches -- the rest were in a condition to travel. There
were often 60 dead bodies to be buried in the morning; the daily average would be about 40. The regular
food was a meal of corn, the cob and husk ground together, and sometimes once a week a ration of sorghum
molasses. A diminutive ration of meat might possibly come once a month, not oftener. In the stockade, con-
taining the 11,000 men, there was a partial show of tents, not enough for 2000. A large proportion of the
men lived in holes in the ground, in the utmost wretchedness. Some froze to death, others had their hands
and feet frozen. The rebel guards would occasionally, and on the least pretence, fire into the prison from
mere demonism and wantonness. All the horrors that can be named, starvation, lassitude, filth, vermin, des-
pair, swift loss of self-respect, idiocy, insanity, and frequent murder, were there. Stansbury has a wife
and child living in Newbern -- has written to them from here -- is in the U. S. light-house employ still
-- (had been home to Newbern to see his family, and on his return to the ship was captured in his boat.)
Has seen men brought there to Salisbury as hearty as you ever see in your life -- in a few weeks completely
dead gone, much of it from thinking on their condition -- hope all gone. Has himself a hard, sad, strangely
deaden'd kind of look, as of one chill'd for years in the cold and dark, where his good manly nature had no
room to exercise itself.



　　 　　　　　　　　　　 　 　　 　　　　 　64. Deserters



Oct. 24. -- Saw a large squad of our own deserters, (over 300) surrounded with a cordon of arm'd guards,
marching along Pennsylvania avenue. The most motley collection I ever saw, all sorts of rig, all sorts of
hats and caps, many fine-looking young fellows, some of them shame-faced, some sickly, most of them dirty,
shirts very dirty and long worn, &c. They tramp'd along without order, a huge huddling mass, not in ranks.
I saw some of the spectators laughing, but I felt like anything else but laughing. These deserters are far
more numerous than would be thought. Almost every day I see squads of them, sometimes two or three at a
time, with a small guard; sometimes ten or twelve, under a larger one. (I hear that desertions from the
army now in the field have often averaged 10,000 a month. One of the commonest sights in Washington is a
squad of deserters.)



　　　　　　　　　 　　 　 　65. A Glimpse of War’s Hell Scenes



In one of the late movements of our troops in the valley, (near Upperville, I think,) a strong force of
Moseby's mounted guerillas attack'd a train of wounded, and the guard of cavalry convoying them. The ambu-
lances contain'd about 60 wounded, quite a number of them officers of rank. The rebels were in strength,
and the capture of the train and its partial guard after a short snap was effectually accomplish'd. No
sooner had our men surrender'd, the rebels instantly commenced robbing the train and murdering their pri-
soners, even the wounded. Here is the scene or a sample of it, ten minutes after. Among the wounded offi-
cers in the ambulances were one, a lieutenant of regulars, and another of higher rank. These two were
dragg'd out on the ground on their backs, and were now surrounded by the guerillas, a demoniac crowd,
each member of which was stabbing them in different parts of their bodies. One of the officers had his
feet pinn'd firmly to the ground by bayonets stuck through them and thrust into the ground. These two of-
ficers, as afterwards found on examination, had receiv'd about twenty such thrusts, some of them through
the mouth, face, &c. The wounded had all been dragg'd (to give a better chance also for plunder,) out of
their wagons; some had been effectually dispatch'd, and their bodies were lying there lifeless and bloody.
Others, not yet dead, but horribly mutilated, were moaning or groaning. Of our men who surrender'd, most
had been thus maim'd or slaughter'd.

At this instant a force of our cavalry, who had been following the train at some interval, charged suddenly
upon the secesh captors, who proceeded at once to make the best escape they could. Most of them got away,
but we gobbled two officers and seventeen men, in the very acts just described. The sight was one which ad-
mitted of little discussion, as may be imagined. The seventeen captur'd men and two officers were put under
guard for the night, but it was decided there and then that they should die. The next morning the two offi-
cers were taken in the town, separate places, put in the centre of the street, and shot. The seventeen men
were taken to an open ground, a little one side. They were placed in a hollow square, half-encompass'd by
two of our cavalry regiments, one of which regiments had three days before found the bloody corpses of three
of their men hamstrung and hung up by the heels to limbs of trees by Moseby's guerillas, and the other had
not long before had twelve men, after surrendering, shot and then hung by the neck to limbs of trees, and
jeering inscriptions pinn'd to the breast of one of the corpses, who had been a sergeant. Those three, and
those twelve, had been found, I say, by these environing regiments. Now, with revolvers, they form'd the
grim cordon of the seventeen prisoners. The latter were placed in the midst of the hollow square, unfasten'd,
and the ironical remark made to them that they were now to be given "a chance for themselves." A few ran for
it. But what use? From every side the deadly pills came. In a few minutes the seventeen corpses strew'd the
hollow square. I was curious to know whether some of the Union soldiers, some few, (some one or two at least
of the youngsters,) did not abstain from shooting on the helpless men. Not one. There was no exultation,
very little said, almost nothing, yet every man there contributed his shot.

Multiply the above by scores, aye hundreds -- verify it in all the forms that different circumstances, indi-
viduals, places, could afford -- light it with every lurid passion, the wolf's, the lion's lapping thirst
for blood -- the passionate, boiling volcanoes of human revenge for comrades, brothers slain -- with the
light of burning farms, and heaps of smutting, smouldering black embers -- and in the human heart everywhere
black, worse embers -- and you have an inkling of this war.



　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　66. Gifts--Money--Discrimination



As a very large proportion of the wounded came up from the front without a cent of money in their pockets,
I soon discover'd that it was about the best thing I could do to raise their spirits, and show them that
somebody cared for them, and practically felt a fatherly or brotherly interest in them, to give them small
sums in such cases, using tact and discretion about it. I am regularly supplied with funds for this purpose
by good women and men in Boston, Salem, Providence, Brooklyn, and New York. I provide myself with a quan-
tity of bright new ten-cent and five-cent bills, and, when I think it incumbent, I give 25 or 30 cents, or
perhaps 50 cents, and occasionally a still larger sum to some particular case. As I have started this sub-
ject, I take opportunity to ventilate the financial question. My supplies, altogether voluntary, mostly
confidential, often seeming quite Providential, were numerous and varied. For instance, there were two
distant and wealthy ladies, sisters, who sent regularly, for two years, quite heavy sums, enjoining that
their names should be kept secret. The same delicacy was indeed a frequent condition. From several I had
carte blanche. Many were entire strangers. From these sources, during from two to three years, in the man-
ner described, in the hospitals, I bestowed, as almoner for others, many, many thousands of dollars. I
learn'd one thing conclusively -- that beneath all the ostensible greed and heartlessness of our times
there is no end to the generous benevolence of men and women in the United States, when once sure of their
object. Another thing became clear to me -- while cash is not amiss to bring up the rear, tact and magne-
tic sympathy and unction are, and ever will be, sovereign still.



　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　 　67. Items from My Note Books



Some of the half-eras'd, and not over-legible when made, memoranda of things wanted by one patient or ano-
ther, will convey quite a fair idea. D. S. G., bed 52, wants a good book; has a sore, weak throat; would
like some horehound candy; is from New Jersey, 28th regiment. C. H. L., 145th Pennsylvania, lies in bed 6,
with jaundice and erysipelas; also wounded; stomach easily nauseated; bring him some oranges, also a little
tart jelly; hearty, full-blooded young fellow -- (he got better in a few days, and is now home on a fur-
lough.) J. H. G., bed 24, wants an undershirt, drawers, and socks; has not had a change for quite a while;
is evidently a neat, clean boy from New England -- (I supplied him; also with a comb, tooth-brush, and some
soap and towels; I noticed afterward he was the cleanest of the whole ward.) Mrs. G., lady-nurse, ward F,
wants a bottle of brandy -- has two patients imperatively requiring stimulus -- low with wounds and exhaust-
ion. (I supplied her with a bottle of first-rate brandy from the Christian commission rooms.)



　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　 　68. A Case from Second Bull Run



Well, poor John Mahay is dead. He died yesterday. His was a painful and long-lingering case, (see p. 717
ante.) I have been with him at times for the past fifteen months. He belonged to company A, 101st New York,
and was shot through the lower region of the abdomen at second Bull Run, August, '62. One scene at his bed-
side will suffice for the agonies of nearly two years. The bladder had been perforated by a bullet going
entirely through him. Not long since I sat a good part of the morning by his bedside, ward E, Armory square.
The water ran out of his eyes from the intense pain, and the muscles of his face were distorted, but he ut-
ter'd nothing except a low groan now and then. Hot moist cloths were applied, and reliev'd him somewhat.
Poor Mahay, a mere boy in age, but old in misfortune. He never knew the love of parents, was placed in in-
fancy in one of the New York charitable institutions, and subsequently bound out to a tyrannical master in
Sullivan county, (the scars of whose cowhide and club remain'd yet on his back.) His wound here was a most
disagreeable one, for he was a gentle, cleanly, and affectionate boy. He found friends in his hospital life,
and, indeed, was a universal favorite. He had quite a funeral ceremony.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　69. Army Surgeons--Aid Deficiencies



I must bear my most emphatic testimony to the zeal, manliness, and professional spirit and capacity, gen-
erally prevailing among the surgeons, many of them young men, in the hospitals and the army. I will not say
much about the exceptions, for they are few; (but I have met some of those few, and very incompetent and
airish they were.) I never ceas'd to find the best men, and the hardest and most disinterested workers,
among the surgeons in the hospitals. They are full of genius, too. I have seen many hundreds of them and
this is my testimony. There are, however, serious deficiencies, wastes, sad want of system, in the commiss-
ions, contributions, and in all the voluntary, and a great part of the governmental nursing, edibles, med-
icines, stores, &c. (I do not say surgical attendance, because the surgeons cannot do more than human en-
durance permits.) Whatever puffing accounts there may be in the papers of the North, this is the actual
fact. No thorough previous preparation, no system, no foresight, no genius. Always plenty of stores, no
doubt, but never where they are needed, and never the proper application. Of all harrowing experiences,
none is greater than that of the days following a heavy battle. Scores, hundreds of the noblest men on
earth, uncomplaining, lie helpless, mangled, faint, alone, and so bleed to death, or die from exhaustion,
either actually untouch'd at all, or merely the laying of them down and leaving them, when there ought to
be means provided to save them.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　 　70. The Blue Everywhere



This city, its suburbs, the capitol, the front of the White House, the places of amusement, the Avenue,
and all the main streets, swarm with soldiers this winter, more than ever before. Some are out from the
hospitals, some from the neighboring camps, &c. One source or another, they pour plenteously, and make,
I should say, the mark'd feature in the human movement and costume-appearance of our national city. Their
blue pants and overcoats are everywhere. The clump of crutches is heard up the stairs of the paymasters'
offices, and there are characteristic groups around the doors of the same, often waiting long and wearily
in the cold. Toward the latter part of the afternoon, you see the furlough'd men, sometimes singly, some-
times in small squads, making their way to the Baltimore depot. At all times, except early in the morning,
the patrol detachments are moving around, especially during the earlier hours of evening, examining passes,
and arresting all soldiers without them. They do not question the one-legged, or men badly disabled or
maim'd, but all others are stopt. They also go around evenings through the auditoriums of the theatres,
and make officers and all show their passes, or other authority, for being there.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　 　71. A Model Hospital



Sunday, January 29th, 1865. -- Have been in Armory-square this afternoon. The wards are very comfortable,
new floors and plaster walls, and models of neatness. I am not sure but this is a model hospital after all,
in important respects. I found several sad cases of old lingering wounds. One Delaware soldier, William H.
Millis, from Bridgeville, whom I had been with after the battles of the Wilderness, last May, where he re-
ceiv'd a very bad wound in the chest, with another in the left arm, and whose case was serious (pneumonia
had set in) all last June and July, I now find well enough to do light duty. For three weeks at the time
mention'd he just hovered between life and death.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　 　 　72. Boys in the Army



As I walk'd home about sunset, I saw in Fourteenth street a very young soldier, thinly clad, standing near
the house I was about to enter. I stopt a moment in front of the door and call'd him to me. I knew that an
old Tennessee regiment, and also an Indiana regiment, were temporarily stopping in new barracks, near Four-
teenth street. This boy I found belonged to the Tennessee regiment. But I could hardly believe he carried a
musket. He was but 15 years old, yet had been twelve months a soldier, and had borne his part in several
battles, even historic ones. I ask'd him if he did not suffer from the cold, and if he had no overcoat. No,
he did not suffer from cold, and had no overcoat, but could draw one whenever he wish'd. His father was dead,
and his mother living in some part of East Tennessee; all the men were from that part of the country. The
next forenoon I saw the Tennessee and Indiana regiments marching down the Avenue. My boy was with the former,
stepping along with the rest. There were many other boys no older. I stood and watch'd them as they tramp'd
along with slow, strong, heavy, regular steps. There did not appear to be a man over 30 years of age, and a
large proportion were from 15 to perhaps 22 or 23. They had all the look of veterans, worn, stain'd, impas-
sive, and a certain unbent, lounging gait, carrying in addition to their regular arms and knapsacks, fre-
quently a frying-pan, broom, &c. They were all of pleasant physiognomy; no refinement, nor blanch'd with
intellect, but as my eye pick'd them, moving along, rank by rank, there did not seem to be a single repul-
sive, brutal or markedly stupid face among them.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　 　73. Burial of a Lady Nurse



Here is an incident just occurr'd in one of the hospitals. A lady named Miss or Mrs. Billings, who has long
been a practical friend of soldiers, and nurse in the army, and had become attached to it in a way that no
one can realize but him or her who has had experience, was taken sick, early this winter, linger'd some
time, and finally died in the hospital. It was her request that she should be buried among the soldiers,
and after the military method. This request was fully carried out. Her coffin was carried to the grave by
soldiers, with the usual escort, buried, and a salute fired over the grave. This was at Annapolis a few
days since.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　 　74. Female Nurses for Soldiers



There are many women in one position or another, among the hospitals, mostly as nurses here in Washington,
and among the military stations; quite a number of them young ladies acting as volunteers. They are a help
in certain ways, and deserve to be mention'd with respect. Then it remains to be distinctly said that few
or no young ladies, under the irresistible conventions of society, answer the practical requirements of
nurses for soldiers. Middle-aged or healthy and good condition'd elderly women, mothers of children, are
always best. Many of the wounded must be handled. A hundred things which cannot be gainsay'd, must occur
and must be done. The presence of a good middle-aged or elderly woman, the magnetic touch of hands, the
expressive features of the mother, the silent soothing of her presence, her words, her knowledge and priv-
ileges arrived at only through having had children, are precious and final qualifications. It is a natural
faculty that is required; it is not merely having a genteel young woman at a table in a ward. One of the
finest nurses I met was a red-faced illiterate old Irish woman; I have seen her take the poor wasted naked
boys so tenderly up in her arms. There are plenty of excellent clean old black women that would make tip-
top nurses.



　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　 　75. Southern Escapees



Feb. 23, '65. -- I saw a large procession of young men from the rebel army, (deserters they are call'd,
but the usual meaning of the word does not apply to them,) passing the Avenue to-day. There were nearly
200, come up yesterday by boat from James river. I stood and watch'd them as they shuffled along, in a
slow, tired, worn sort of way; a large proportion of light-hair'd, blonde, light gray-eyed young men among
them. Their costumes had a dirt-stain'd uniformity; most had been originally gray; some had articles of
our uniform, pants on one, vest or coat on another; I think they were mostly Georgia and North Carolina
boys. They excited little or no attention. As I stood quite close to them, several good looking enough
youths, (but O what a tale of misery their appearance told,) nodded or just spoke to me, without doubt
divining pity and fatherliness out of my face, for my heart was full enough of it. Several of the couples
trudg'd along with their arms about each other, some probably brothers, as if they were afraid they might
somehow get separated. They nearly all look'd what one might call simple, yet intelligent, too. Some had
pieces of old carpet, some blankets, and others old bags around their shoulders. Some of them here and
there had fine faces, still it was a procession of misery. The two hundred had with them about half a
dozen arm'd guards. Along this week I saw some such procession, more or less in numbers, every day, as
they were brought up by the boat. The government does what it can for them, and sends them north and west.

Feb. 27. -- Some three or four hundred more escapees from the confederate army came up on the boat. As
the day has been very pleasant indeed, (after a long spell of bad weather,) I have been wandering around
a good deal, without any other object than to be out-doors and enjoy it; have met these escaped men in all
directions. Their apparel is the same ragged, long-worn motley as before described. I talk'd with a number
of the men. Some are quite bright and stylish, for all their poor clothes -- walking with an air, wearing
their old head-coverings on one side, quite saucily. I find the old, unquestionable proofs, as all along
the past four years, of the unscrupulous tyranny exercised by the secession government in conscripting the
common people by absolute force everywhere, and paying no attention whatever to the men's time being up --
keeping them in military service just the same. One gigantic young fellow, a Georgian, at least six feet
three inches high, broad-sized in proportion, attired in the dirtiest, drab, well-smear'd rags, tied with
strings, his trousers at the knees all strips and streamers, was complacently standing eating some bread
and meat. He appear'd contented enough. Then a few minutes after I saw him slowly walking along. It was
plain he did not take anything to heart.

Feb. 28. -- As I pass'd the military headquarters of the city, not far from the President's house, I stopt
to interview some of the crowd of escapees who were lounging there. In appearance they were the same as pre-
viously mention'd. Two of them, one about 17, and the other perhaps 25 or '6, I talk'd with some time. They
were from North Carolina, born and rais'd there, and had folks there. The elder had been in the rebel ser-
vice four years. He was first conscripted for two years. He was then kept arbitrarily in the ranks. This is
the case with a large proportion of the secession army. There was nothing downcast in these young men's man-
ners; the younger had been soldiering about a year; he was conscripted; there were six brothers (all the
boys of the family) in the army, part of them as conscripts, part as volunteers; three had been kill'd; one
had escaped about four months ago, and now this one had got away; he was a pleasant and well-talking lad,
with the peculiar North Carolina idiom (not at all disagreeable to my ears.) He and the elder one were of
the same company, and escaped together -- and wish'd to remain together. They thought of getting transporta-
tion away to Missouri, and working there; but were not sure it was judicious. I advised them rather to go to
some of the directly northern States, and get farm work for the present. The younger had made six dollars on
the boat, with some tobacco he brought; he had three and a half left. The elder had nothing; I gave him a
trifle. Soon after, met John Wormley, 9th Alabama, a West Tennessee rais'd boy, parents both dead -- had the
look of one for a long time on short allowance -- said very little -- chew'd tobacco at a fearful rate, spit-
ting in proportion -- large clear dark-brown eyes, very fine -- didn't know what to make of me -- told me at
last he wanted much to get some clean underclothes, and a pair of decent pants. Didn't care about coat or hat
fixings. Wanted a chance to wash himself well, and put on the underclothes. I had the very great pleasure of
helping him to accomplish all those wholesome designs.

March 1st. -- Plenty more butternut or clay-color'd escapees every day. About 160 came in to-day, a large
portion South Carolinians. They generally take the oath of allegiance, and are sent north, west, or extreme
south-west if they wish. Several of them told me that the desertions in their army, of men going home, leave
or no leave, are far more numerous than their desertions to our side. I saw a very forlorn looking squad of
about a hundred, late this afternoon, on their way to the Baltimore depot.




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　76. The Capitol by Gas-Light




Tonight I have been wandering awhile in the capitol, which is all lit up. The illuminated rotunda looks fine.
I like to stand aside and look a long, long while, up at the dome; it comforts me somehow. The House and Sen-
ate were both in session till very late. I look'd in upon them, but only a few moments; they were hard at
work on tax and appropriation bills. I wander'd through the long and rich corridors and apartments under the
Senate; an old habit of mine, former winters, and now more satisfaction than ever. Not many persons down
there, occasionally a flitting figure in the distance.




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　 　　77. The Inauguration




March 4. -- The President very quietly rode down to the capitol in his own carriage, by himself, on a sharp
trot, about noon, either because he wish'd to be on hand to sign bills, or to get rid of marching in line with
the absurd procession, the muslin temple of liberty, and pasteboard monitor. I saw him on his return, at three
o'clock, after the performance was over. He was in his plain two-horse barouche, and look'd very much worn and
tired; the lines, indeed, of vast responsibilities, intricate questions, and demands of life and death, cut
deeper than ever upon his dark brown face; yet all the old goodness, tenderness, sadness, and canny shrewdness,
underneath the furrows. (I never see that man without feeling that he is one to become personally attach'd to,
for his combination of purest, heartiest tenderness, and native western form of manliness.) By his side sat
his little boy, of ten years. There were no soldiers, only a lot of civilians on horseback, with huge yellow
scarfs over their shoulders, riding around the carriage. (At the inauguration four years ago, he rode down
and back again surrounded by a dense mass of arm'd cavalrymen eight deep, with drawn sabres; and there were
sharpshooters station'd at every corner on the route.) I ought to make mention of the closing levee of Satur-
day night last. Never before was such a compact jam in front of the White House -- all the grounds fill'd,
and away out to the spacious sidewalks. I was there, as I took a notion to go -- was in the rush inside with
the crowd -- surged along the passage-ways, the blue and other rooms, and through the great east room. Crowds
of country people, some very funny. Fine music from the Marine band, off in a side place. I saw Mr. Lincoln,
drest all in black, with white kid gloves and a claw-hammer coat, receiving, as in duty bound, shaking hands,
looking very disconsolate, and as if he would give anything to be somewhere else.




　　　　　　　 　　78. Attitude of Foreign Governments During the War




Looking over my scraps, I find I wrote the following during 1864. The happening to our America, abroad as well
as at home, these years, is indeed most strange. The democratic republic has paid her to-day the terrible and
resplendent compliment of the united wish of all the nations of the world that her union should be broken, her
future cut off, and that she should be compell'd to descend to the level of kingdoms and empires ordinarily
great. There is certainly not one government in Europe but is now watching the war in this country, with the
ardent prayer that the United States may be effectually split, crippled, and dismember'd by it. There is not
one but would help toward that dismemberment, if it dared. I say such is the ardent wish to-day of England and
of France, as governments, and of all the nations of Europe, as governments. I think indeed it is to-day the
real, heartfelt wish of all the nations of the world, with the single exception of Mexico -- Mexico, the only
one to whom we have ever really done wrong, and now the only one who prays for us and for our triumph, with
genuine prayer. Is it not indeed strange? America, made up of all, cheerfully from the beginning opening her
arms to all, the result and justifier of all, of Britain, Germany, France and Spain -- all here -- the accept-
er, the friend, hope, last resource and general house of all -- she who has harm'd none, but been bounteous
to so many, to millions, the mother of strangers and exiles, all nations -- should now I say be paid this
dread compliment of general governmental fear and hatred. Are we indignant? alarm'd? Do we feel jeopardized?
No; help'd, braced, concentrated, rather. We are all too prone to wander from ourselves, to affect Europe,
and watch her frowns and smiles. We need this hot lesson of general hatred, and henceforth must never forget
it. Never again will we trust the moral sense nor abstract friendliness of a single government of the old
world.




　　　　　　　 　　79.The Weather--Does It Sympathize with These Times?




Whether the rains, the heat and cold, and what underlies them all, are affected with what affects man in
masses, and follow his play of passionate action, strain'd stronger than usual, and on a larger scale than
usual -- whether this, or no, it is certain that there is now, and has been for twenty months or more, on
this American continent north, many a remarkable, many an unprecedented expression of the subtile world of
air above us and around us. There, since this war, and the wide and deep national agitation, strange ana-
logies, different combinations, a different sunlight, or absence of it; different products even out of the
ground. After every great battle, a great storm. Even civic events the same. On Saturday last, a forenoon
like whirling demons, dark, with slanting rain, full of rage; and then the afternoon, so calm, so bathed
with flooding splendor from heaven's most excellent sun, with atmosphere of sweetness; so clear, it show'd
the stars, long, long before they were due. As the President came out on the capitol portico, a curious
little white cloud, the only one in that part of the sky, appear'd like a hovering bird, right over him.

Indeed, the heavens, the elements, all the meteorological influences, have run riot for weeks past. Such
caprices, abruptest alternation of frowns and beauty, I never knew. It is a common remark that (as last
summer was different in its spells of intense heat from any preceding it,) the winter just completed has
been without parallel. It has remain'd so down to the hour I am writing. Much of the daytime of the past
month was sulky, with leaden heaviness, fog, interstices of bitter cold, and some insane storms. But there
have been samples of another description. Nor earth nor sky ever knew spectacles of superber beauty than
some of the nights lately here. The western star, Venus, in the earlier hours of evening, has never been
so large, so clear; it seems as if it told something, as if it held rapport indulgent with humanity, with
us Americans. Five or six nights since, it hung close by the moon, then a little past its first quarter.
The star was wonderful, the moon like a young mother. The sky, dark blue, the transparent night, the plan-
ets, the moderate west wind, the elastic temperature, the miracle of that great star, and the young and
swelling moon swimming in the west, suffused the soul. Then I heard, slow and clear, the deliberate notes
of a bugle come up out of the silence, sounding so good through the night's mystery, no hurry, but firm
and faithful, floating along, rising, falling leisurely, with here and there a long-drawn note; the bugle,
well play'd, sounding tattoo, in one of the army hospitals near here, where the wounded (some of them per-
sonally so dear to me,) are lying in their cots, and many a sick boy come down to the war from Illinois,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the rest.




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　 　　80. Inauguration Ball




March 6. -- I have been up to look at the dance and supper-rooms, for the inauguration ball at the Patent
office; and I could not help thinking, what a different scene they presented to my view a while since,
fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war, brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and
Fredericksburgh. Tonight, beautiful women, perfumes, the violins' sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then
the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds
and blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for the crowd of the badly
hurt was great, and much for nurse to do, and much for surgeon.)




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　81. Scene at the Capitol




I must mention a strange scene at the capitol, the hall of Representatives, the morning of Saturday last,
(March 4th.) The day just dawn'd, but in half-darkness, everything dim, leaden, and soaking. In that dim
light, the members nervous from long drawn duty, exhausted, some asleep, and many half asleep. The gas-light,
mix'd with the dingy day-break, produced an unearthly effect. The poor little sleepy, stumbling pages, the
smell of the hall, the members with heads leaning on their desks, the sounds of the voices speaking, with
unusual intonations -- the general moral atmosphere also of the close of this important session -- the
strong hope that the war is approaching its close -- the tantalizing dread lest the hope may be a false one
-- the grandeur of the hall itself, with its effect of vast shadows up toward the panels and spaces over
the galleries -- all made a mark'd combination.

In the midst of this, with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, burst one of the most angry and crashing
storms of rain and hail ever heard. It beat like a deluge on the heavy glass roof of the hall, and the
wind literally howl'd and roar'd. For a moment, (and no wonder,) the nervous and sleeping Representatives
were thrown into confusion. The slumberers awaked with fear, some started for the doors, some look'd up
with blanch'd cheeks and lips to the roof, and the little pages began to cry; it was a scene. But it was
over almost as soon as the drowsied men were actually awake. They recover'd themselves; the storm raged
on, beating, dashing, and with loud noises at times. But the House went ahead with its business then, I
think, as calmly and with as much deliberation as at any time in its career. Perhaps the shock did it
good. (One is not without impression, after all, amid these members of Congress, of both the Houses, that
if the flat routine of their duties should ever be broken in upon by some great emergency involving real
danger, and calling for first-class personal qualities, those qualities would be found generally forth-
coming, and from men not now credited with them.)




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　 　　82. A Yankee Antique




March 27, 1865. -- Sergeant Calvin F. Harlowe, company C, 29th Massachusetts, 3d brigade, 1st division,
Ninth corps -- a mark'd sample of heroism and death, (some may say bravado, but I say heroism, of grandest,
oldest order) -- in the late attack by the rebel troops, and temporary capture by them, of fort Steadman,
at night. The fort was surprised at dead of night. Suddenly awaken'd from their sleep, and rushing from
their tents, Harlowe, with others, found himself in the hands of the secesh -- they demanded his surrender
-- he answer'd, Never while I live. (Of course it was useless. The others surrender'd; the odds were too
great.) Again he was ask'd to yield, this time by a rebel captain. Though surrounded, and quite calm, he
again refused, call'd sternly to his comrades to fight on, and himself attempted to do so. The rebel cap-
tain then shot him -- but at the same instant he shot the captain. Both fell together mortally wounded.
Harlowe died almost instantly. The rebels were driven out in a very short time. The body was buried next
day, but soon taken up and sent home, (Plymouth county, Mass.) Harlowe was only 22 years of age -- was a
tall, slim, dark-hair'd, blue-eyed young man -- had come out originally with the 29th; and that is the way
he met his death, after four years' campaign. He was in the Seven Days fight before Richmond, in second
Bull Run, Antietam, first Fredericksburgh, Vicksburgh, Jackson, Wilderness, and the campaigns following
-- was as good a soldier as ever wore the blue, and every old officer in the regiment will bear that test-
imony. Though so young, and in a common rank, he had a spirit as resolute and brave as any hero in the
books, ancient or modern -- It was too great to say the words "I surrender" -- and so he died. (When I
think of such things, knowing them well, all the vast and complicated events of the war, on which history
dwells and makes its volumes, fall aside, and for the moment at any rate I see nothing but young Calvin
Harlowe's figure in the night, disdaining to surrender.)




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　83. Wounds and Diseases




The war is over, but the hospitals are fuller than ever, from former and current cases. A large majority
of the wounds are in the arms and legs. But there is every kind of wound, in every part of the body. I
should say of the sick, from my observation, that the prevailing maladies are typhoid fever and the camp
fevers generally, diarrhoea, catarrhal affections and bronchitis, rheumatism and pneumonia. These forms
of sickness lead; all the rest follow. There are twice as many sick as there are wounded. The deaths range
from seven to ten per cent. of those under treatment.




　　　　　　　　　 　 　　　　84. Death of President Lincoln




April 16, '65. -- I find in my notes of the time, this passage on the death of Abraham Lincoln: He leaves
for America's history and biography, so far, not only its most dramatic reminiscence -- he leaves, in my
opinion, the greatest, best, most characteristic, artistic, moral personality. Not but that he had faults,
and show'd them in the Presidency; but honesty, goodness, shrewdness, conscience, and (a new virtue, un-
known to other lands, and hardly yet really known here, but the foundation and tie of all, as the future
will grandly develop,) UNIONISM, in its truest and amplest sense, form'd the hard-pan of his character.
These he seal'd with his life. The tragic splendor of his death, purging, illuminating all, throws round
his form, his head, an aureole that will remain and will grow brighter through time, while history lives,
and love of country lasts. By many has this Union been help'd; but if one name, one man, must be pick'd
out, he, most of all, is the conservator of it, to the future. He was assassinated -- but the Union is
not assassinated -- ca ira! One falls, and another falls. The soldier drops, sinks like a wave -- but the
ranks of the ocean eternally press on. Death does its work, obliterates a hundred, a thousand -- President,
general, captain, private -- but the Nation is immortal.




　　　　　 85. Sherman's Army's Jubilation--Its Sudden Stoppage




WHEN Sherman's armies, (long after they left Atlanta,) were marching through South and North Carolina--after
leaving Savannah, the news of Lee's capitulation having been receiv'd--the men never mov'd a mile without
from some part of the line sending up continued, inspiriting shouts. At intervals all day long sounded out
the wild music of those peculiar army cries. They would be commenc'd by one regiment or brigade, immediate-
ly taken up by others, and at length whole corps and armies would join in these wild triumphant choruses.
It was one of the characteristic expressions of the western troops, and became a habit, serving as a relief
and outlet to the men--a vent for their feelings of victory, returning peace, &c. Morning, noon, and after-
noon, spontaneous, for occasion or without occasion, these huge, strange cries, differing from any other,
echoing through the open air for many a mile, expressing youth, joy, wildness, irrepressible strength, and
the ideas of advance and conquest, sounded along the swamps and uplands of the South, floating to the skies.
('There never were men that kept in better spirits in danger or defeat--what then could they do in victory?'
--said one of the 15th corps to me, afterwards.) This exuberance continued till the armies arrived at Raleigh.
There the news of the President's murder was receiv'd. Then no more shouts or yells, for a week. All the
marching was comparatively muffled. It was very significant--hardly a loud word or laugh in many of the regi-
ments. A hush and silence pervaded all.




　　　　　　　 　　　　　86. No Good Portrait of Lincoln




PROBABLY the reader has seen physiognomies (often old farmers, sea-captains, and such) that, ;behind their
homeliness, or even ugliness, held superior points so subtle, yet so palpable, making the real life of their
faces almost as impossible to depict as a wild perfume or fruit-taste, or a passionate tone of the living
voice--and such was Lincoln's face, the peculiar color, the lines of it, the eyes, mouth, expression. Of
technical beauty it had nothing--but to the eye of a great artist it furnished a rare study, a feast and
fascination. The current portraits are all failures--most of them caricatures.




　　　　　　　 　 　87. Releas'd Union Prisoners from South




THE RELEAS'D prisoners of war are now coming up from the southern prisons. I have seen a number of them.
The sight is worse than any sight of battle-fields, or any collection of wounded, even the bloodiest. There
was, (as a sample,) one large boat load, of several hundreds, brought about the 25th, to Annapolis; and out
of the whole number only three individuals were able to walk from the boat. The rest were carried ashore and
laid down in one place or another. Can those be men--those little livid brown, ash-streak'd, monkey-looking
dwarfs?--are they really not mummied, dwindled corpses? They lay there, most of them, quite still, but with a
horrible look in their eyes and skinny lips (often with not enough flesh on the lips to cover their teeth.)
Probably no more appalling sight was ever seen on this earth. (There are deeds, crimes, that may be forgiven;
but this is not among them. It steeps its perpetrators in blackest, escapeless, endless damnation. Over 50,000
have been compell'd to die the death of starvation--reader, did you ever try to realize what starvation actu-
ally is?--in those prisons--and in a land of plenty.) An indescribable meanness, tyranny, aggravating course of
insults, almost incredible--was evidently the rule of treatment through all the southern military prisons. The
dead there are not to be pitied as much as some of the living that come from there--if they can be call'd
living--many of them are mentally imbecile, and will never recuperate. 1




　　　　　　　　　 88. Death of a Pennsylvania Soldier




Frank H. Irwin, company E, 93d Pennsylvania--died May I, '65--My letter to his mother.--DEAR MADAM: No doubt
you and Frank's friends have heard the sad fact of his death in hospital here, through his uncle, or the
lady from Baltimore, who took his things. (I have not seen them, only heard of them visiting Frank.) I will
write you a few lines--as a casual friend that sat by his death-bed. Your son, corporal Frank H. Irwin, was
wounded near fort Fisher, Virginia, March 25th, 1865--the wound was in the left knee, pretty bad. He was sent
up to Washington, was receiv'd in ward C, Armory-square hospital, March 28th--the wound became worse, and on
the 4th of April the leg was amputated a little above the knee--the operation was perform'd by Dr. Bliss,
one of the best surgeons in the army--he did the whole operation himself--there was a good deal of bad matter
gather'd--the bullet was found in the knee. For a couple of weeks afterwards he was doing pretty well. I vi-
sited and sat by him frequently, as he was fond of having me. The last ten or twelve days of April I saw that
his case was critical. He previously had some fever, with cold spells. The last week in April he was much of
the time flighty--but always mild and gentle. He died first of May. The actual cause of death was py'aemia, (the
absorption of the matter in the system instead of its discharge.) Frank, as far as I saw, had everything req-
uisite in surgical treatment, nursing, &c. He had watches much of the time. He was so good and well-behaved
and affectionate, I myself liked him very much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him,
and soothing him, and he liked to have me--liked to put his arm out and lay his hand on my knee--would keep it
so a long while. Toward the last he was more restless and flighty at night--often fancied himself with his
regiment--by his talk sometimes seem'd as if his feelings were hurt by being blamed by his officers for some-
thing he was entirely innocent of--said, "I never in my life was thought capable of such a thing, and never
was.” At other times he would fancy himself talking as it seem'd to children or such like, his relatives I
suppose, and giving them good advice; would talk to them a long while. All the time he was out of his head
not one single bad word or idea escaped him. It was remark'd that many a man's conversation in his senses
was not half as good as Frank's delirium. He seem'd quite willing to die--he had become very weak and had
suffer'd a good deal, and was perfectly resign'd, poor boy. I do not know his past life, but I feel as if
it must have been good. At any rate what I saw of him here, under the most trying circumstances, with a pain-
ful wound, and among strangers, I can say that he behaved so brave, so composed, and so sweet and affectionate,
it could not be surpass'd. And now like many other noble and good men, after serving his country as a soldier,
he has yielded up his young life at the very outset in her service. Such things are gloomy--yet there is a text,
"God doeth all things well”--the meaning of which, after due time, appears to the soul. 1

I thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about your son, from one who was with him at the last,
might be worth while--for I loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to lose him. I am merely a
friend visiting the hospitals occasionally to cheer the wounded and sick.




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　89. The Armies Returning




May 7.--Sunday.--TO-DAY as I was walking a mile or two south of Alexandria, I fell in with several large squads
of the returning Western army, (Sherman's men as they call'd themselves) about a thousand in all, the largest
portion of them half sick, some convalescents, on their way to a hospital camp. These fragmentary excerpts, with
the unmistakable Western physiognomy and idioms, crawling along slowly--after a great campaign, blown this way,
as it were, out of their latitude--I mark'd with curiosity, and talk'd with off and on for over an hour. Here
and there was one very sick; but all were able to walk, except some of the last, who had given out, and were sea-
ted on the ground, faint and despondent. These I tried to cheer, told them the camp they were to reach was only
a little way further over the hill, and so got them up and started, accompanying some of the worst a little way,
and helping them, or putting them under the support of stronger comrades. 1

May 21.--Saw General Sheridan and his cavalry to-day; a strong, attractive sight; the men were mostly young, (a
few middle-aged,) superb-looking fellows, brown, spare, keen, with well-worn clothing, many with pieces of water-
proof cloth around their shoulders, hanging down. They dash'd along pretty fast, in wide close ranks, all spat-
ter'd with mud; no holiday soldiers; brigade after brigade. I could have watch'd for a week. Sheridan stood on
a balcony, under a big tree, coolly smoking a cigar. His looks and manner impress'd me favorably. 2

May 22.--Have been taking a walk along Pennsylvania avenue and Seventh street north. The city is full of soldiers,
running around loose. Officers everywhere, of all grades. All have the weather-beaten look of practical service.
It is a sight I never tire of. All the armies are now here (or portions of them,) for to-morrow's review. You see
them swarming like bees everywhere.




　　　　　　　　　 　　90. The Grand Review




FOR two days now the broad spaces of Pennsylvania avenue along to Treasury hill, and so by detour around to the
President's house, and so up to Georgetown, and across the aqueduct bridge, have been alive with a magnificent
sight, the returning armies. In their wide ranks stretching clear across the Avenue, I watch them march or ride
along, at a brisk pace, through two whole days--infantry, cavalry, artillery--some 200,000 men. Some days after-
wards one or two other corps; and then, still afterwards, a good part of Sherman's immense army, brought up
from Charleston, Savannah, &c.




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　91. Western Soldiers




May 26-7.--THE STREETS, the public buildings and grounds of Washington, still swarm with soldiers from Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, and all the Western States. I am continually meeting and talking with them. They
often speak to me first, and always show great sociability, and glad to have a good interchange of chat. These
Western soldiers are more slow in their movements, and in their intellectual quality also; have no extreme a-
lertness. They are larger in size, have a more serious physiognomy, are continually looking at you as they pass
in the street. They are largely animal, and handsomely so. During the war I have been at times with the Four-
teenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Corps. I always feel drawn toward the men, and like their personal
contact when we are crowded close together, as frequently these days in the street-cars. They all think the world
of General Sherman; call him ''old Bill,” or sometimes ''uncle Billy.”




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　92. A Soldier on Lincoln




May 28.--AS I sat by the beside of a sick Michigan soldier in hospital to-day, a convalescent from the
adjoining bed rose and came to me, and presently we began talking, He was a middle-aged man, belonged
to the 2d Virginia regiment, but lived in Racine, Ohio, and had a family there. He spoke of President
Lincoln, and said: “The war is over, and many are lost. And now we have lost the best, the fairest,
the truest man in America. Take him altogether, he was the best man this country ever produced. It was
quite a while I thought very different; but some time before the murder, that's the way I have seen
it.” There was deep earnestness in the soldier. (I found upon further talk he had known Mr. Lincoln
personally, and quite closely, years before.) He was a veteran; was now in the fifth year of his ser-
vice; was a cavalry man, and had been in a good deal of hard fighting. 1




　　　　　　　 93. Two Brothers, One South, One North




May 28-9.--I STAID tonight a long time by the bedside of a new patient, a young Baltimorean, aged about
19 years, W. S. P., (2d Maryland, southern,) very feeble, right leg amputated, can't sleep hardly at
all--has taken a great deal of morphine, which, as usual, is costing more than it comes to. Evidently
very intelligent and well bred--very affectionate--held on to my hand, and put it by his face, not willing
to let me leave. As I was lingering, soothing him in his pain, he says to me suddenly, “I hardly think
you know who I am--I don't wish to impose upon you--I am a rebel soldier.” I said I did not know that,
but it made no difference. Visiting him daily for about two weeks after that, while he lived, (death had
mark'd him, and he was quite alone,) I loved him much, always kiss'd him, and he did me. In an adjoining
ward I found his brother, an officer of rank, a Union soldier, a brave and religious man, (Col. Clifton K.
Prentiss, sixth Maryland infantry, Sixth corps, wounded in one of the engagements at Petersburgh, April
2--linger'd, suffer'd much, died in Brooklyn, Aug. 20, '65.) It was in the same battle both were hit.
One was a strong Unionist, the other Secesh; both fought on their respective sides, both badly wounded,
and both brought together here after a separation of four years. Each died for his cause.




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　94. Some Sad Cases Yet




May 31.--JAMES H. WILLIAMS, aged 21, 3d Virginia cavalry.--About as mark'd a case of a strong man brought
low by a complication of diseases, (laryngitis, fever, debility and diarrhoea,) as I have ever seen--has
superb physique, remains swarthy yet, and flushed and red with fever--is altogether flighty--flesh of his
great breast and arms tremulous, and pulse pounding away with treble quickness--lies a good deal of the
time in a partial sleep, but with low muttering and groans--a sleep in which there is no rest. Powerful
as he is, and so young, he will not be able to stand many more days of the strain and sapping heat of
yesterday and to-day. His throat is in a bad way, tongue and lips parch'd. When I ask him how he feels,
he is able just to articulate, “I feel pretty bad yet, old man,” and looks at me with his great bright
eyes. Father, John Williams, Millensport, Ohio. 1

June 9-10.--I have been sitting late to-night by the bedside of a wounded captain, a special friend of mine,
lying with a painful fracture of left leg in one of the hospitals, in a large ward partially vacant. The
lights were put out, all but a little candle, far from where I sat. The full moon shone in through the
windows, making long, slanting silvery patches on the floor. All was still, my friend too was silent, but
could not sleep; so I sat there by him, slowly wafting the fan, and occupied with the musings that arose
out of the scene, the long shadowy ward, the beautiful ghostly moonlight on the floor, the white beds, here
and there an occupant with huddled form, the bed-clothes thrown off. The hospitals have a number of cases
of sun-stroke and exhaustion by heat, from the late reviews. There are many such from the Sixth corps, from
the hot parade of day before yesterday. (Some of these shows cost the lives of scores of men.) 2

Sunday, Sep. 10.--Visited Douglas and Stanton hospitals. They are quite full. Many of the cases are bad ones,
lingering wounds, and old sickness. There is a more than usual look of despair on the countenances of many
of the men; hope has left them. I went through the wards, talking as usual. There are several here from the
confederate army whom I had seen in other hospitals, and they recognized me. Two were in a dying condition.




　　　　　　　　　 　95. Calhoun's Real Monument




IN one of the hospital tents for special cases, as I sat to-day tending a new amputation, I heard a couple
of neighboring soldiers talking to each other from their cots. One down with fever, but improving, had come
up belated from Charleston not long before. The other was what we now call an “old veteran,” (i. e., he
was a Connecticut youth, probably of less than the age of twenty-five years, the four last of which he had
spent in active service in the war in all parts of the country.) The two were chatting of one thing and ano-
ther. The fever soldier spoke of John C. Calhoun's monument, which he had seen, and was describing it. The
veteran said: “I have seen Calhoun's monument. That you saw is not the real monument. But I have seen it.
It is the desolated, ruined south; nearly the whole generation of young men between seventeen and thirty
destroyed or maim'd; all the old families used up--the rich impoverish'd, the plantations cover'd with weeds,
the slaves unloos'd and become the masters, and the name of southerner blacken'd with every shame--all
that is Calhoun's real monument.”




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　96. Hospitals Closing




October 3.--THERE are two army hospitals now remaining. I went to the largest of these (Douglas) and spent the
afternoon and evening. There are many sad cases, old wounds, incurable sickness, and some of the wounded from
the March and April battles before Richmond. Few realize how sharp and bloody those closing battles were. Our
men exposed themselves more than usual; press'd ahead without urging. Then the southerners fought with extra
desperation. Both sides knew that with the successful chasing of the rebel cabal from Richmond, and the occu-
pation of that city by the national troops, the game was up. The dead and wounded were unusually many. Of the
wounded the last lingering driblets have been brought to hospital here. I find many rebel wounded here, and
have been extra busy to-day 'tending to the worst cases of them with the rest. 1

Oct., Nov. and Dec., '65--Sundays.--Every Sunday of these months visited Harewood hospital out in the woods,
pleasant and recluse, some two and a half or three miles north of the capitol. The situation is healthy, with
broken ground, grassy slopes and patches of oak woods, the trees large and fine. It was one of the most exten-
sive of the hospitals, now reduced to four or five partially occupied wards, the numerous others being vacant.
In November, this became the last military hospital kept up by the government, all the others being closed.
Cases of the worst and most incurable wounds, obstinate illness, and of poor fellows who have no homes to go
to, are found here. 2

Dec. 10--Sunday.--Again spending a good part of the day at Harewood. I write this about an hour before sundown.
I have walk'd out for a few minutes to the edge of the woods to soothe myself with the hour and scene. It is
a glorious, warm, golden-sunny, still afternoon. The only noise is from a crowd of cawing crows, on some trees
three hundred yards distant. Clusters of gnats swimming and dancing in the air in all directions. The oak leaves
are thick under the bare trees, and give a strong and delicious perfume. Inside the wards everything is gloomy.
Death is there. As I enter'd, I was confronted by it the first thing; a corpse of a poor soldier, just dead, of
typhoid fever. The attendants had just straighten'd the limbs, put coppers on the eyes, and were laying it out. 3

The roads.--A great recreation, the past three years, has been in taking long walks out from Washington, five,
seven, perhaps ten miles and back; generally with my friend Peter Doyle, who is as fond of it as I am. Fine moon-
light nights, over the perfect military roads, hard and smooth--or Sundays--we had these delightful walks, never to
be forgotten. The roads connecting Washington and the numerous forts around the city, made one useful result, at
any rate, out of the war. 4




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　97. Typical Soldiers




EVEN the typical soldiers I have been personally intimate with,--it seems to me if I were to make a list of them
it would be like a city directory. Some few only have I mention'd in the foregoing pages--most are dead--a few yet
living. There is Reuben Farwell, of Michigan, (little ‘Mitch;'). Benton H. Wilson, color-bearer, 185th New York;
Wm. Stansberry; Manvill Winterstein, Ohio; Bethuel Smith; Capt. Simms, of 51st New York, (kill'd at Petersburgh
mine explosion,) Capt. Sam. Pooley and Lieut. Fred. McReady, same reg't. Also, same reg't., my brother, George
W. Whitman--in active service all through, four years, re-enlisting twice--was promoted, step by step, (several
times immediately after battles,) lieutenant, captain, major and lieut. colonel--was in the actions at Roanoke,
Newbern, 2d Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, Vicksburgh, Jackson, the bloody con-
flicts of the Wilderness, and at Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and afterwards around Petersburgh; at one of these
latter was taken prisoner, and pass'd four or five months in secesh military prisons, narrowly escaping with life,
from a severe fever, from starvation and half-nakedness in the winter. (What a history that 51st New York had! Went
out early--march'd, fought everywhere--was in storms at sea, nearly wreck'd--storm'd forts--tramp'd hither and yon
in Virginia, night and day, summer of '62--afterwards Kentucky and Mississippi--re-enlisted--was in all the engagements
and campaigns, as above.) I strengthen and comfort myself much with the certainty that the capacity for just such
regiments, (hundreds, thousands of them) is inexhaustible in the United States, and that there isn't a county nor
a township in the republic--nor a street in any city--but could turn out, and, on occasion, would turn out, lots of
just such typical soldiers, whenever wanted.




　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　98. “Convulsiveness”




AS I have look'd over the proof-sheets of the preceding pages, I have once or twice fear'd that my diary would
prove, at best, but a batch of convulsively written reminiscences. Well, be it so. They are but parts of the actual
distraction, heat, smoke and excitement of those times. The war itself, with the temper of society preceding it, can
indeed be best described by that very word convulsiveness.



　　　　　　　　　　 99. Three Years Summ'd Up




DURING those three years in hospital, camp or field, I made over six hundred visits or tours, and went, as I esti-
mate, counting all, among from eighty thousand to a hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit
and body in some degree, in time of need. These visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night; for with dear
or critical cases I generally watch'd all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch'd
there several nights in succession. Those three years I consider the greatest privilege and satisfaction, (with all
their feverish excitements and physical deprivations and lamentable sights,) and, of course, the most profound lesson
of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I comprehended all, whoever came in my way, northern or southern, and
slighted none. It arous'd and brought out and decided undream'd-of depths of emotion. It has given me my most fervent
views of the true ensemble and extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the
New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Ill-
inois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all the States, North and South, without exception. I
was with many from the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found, during those lurid years 1862?
63, far more Union southerners, especially Tennesseans, than is supposed. I was with many rebel officers and men among
our wounded, and gave them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I was among the army teamsters
considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the
contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what I could for them. 1




　　　　　　 　100. The Million Dead, Too, Summ'd Up




THE DEAD in this war--there they lie, strewing the fields and woods and valleys and battle-fields of the south--Virgin-
ia, the Peninsula--Malvern hill and Fair Oaks--the banks of the Chickahominy--the terraces of Fredericksburgh--Antietam
bridge--the grisly ravines of Manassas--the bloody promenade of the Wilderness--the varieties of the strayed dead, (the
estimate of the War department is 25,000 national soldiers kill'd in battle and never buried at all, 5,000 drown'd--
15,000 inhumed by strangers, or on the march in haste, in hitherto unfound localities--2,000 graves cover'd by sand
and mud by Mississippi freshets, 3,000 carried away by caving-in of banks, &c.,)--Gettysburgh, the West, Southwest--
Vicksburgh--Chattanooga--the trenches of Petersburgh--the numberless battles, camps, hospitals everywhere--the crop
reap'd by the mighty reapers, typhoid, dysentery, inflammations--and blackest and loathesomest of all, the dead and
living burial-pits, the prison-pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle-Isle, &c., (not Dante's pictured hell and all
its woes, its degradations, filthy torments, excell'd those prisons)--the dead, the dead, the dead--our dead--or South
or North, ours all, (all, all, all, finally dear to me)--or East or West--Atlantic coast or Mississippi valley--some-
where they crawl'd to die, alone, in bushes, low gullies, or on the sides of hills--(there, in secluded spots, their
skeletons, bleach'd bones, tufts of hair, buttons, fragments of clothing, are occasionally found yet)--our young men
once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us--the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend
from the dear friend--the clusters of camp graves, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and in Tennessee--the single graves left
in the woods or by the road-side, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated)--the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught
and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the upper Potomac, after the cavalry engagements, the pursuit of Lee, follow-
ing Gettysburgh)--some lie at the bottom of the sea--the general million, and the special cemeteries in almost all the
States--the infinite dead--(the land entire saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes' exhalation in Nature's
chemistry distill'd, and shall be so forever, in every future grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that
grows, and every breath we draw)--not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil--thousands, aye tens of thousands, of
Southerners, crumble to-day in Northern earth. 1

And everywhere among these countless graves--everywhere in the many soldier Cemeteries of the Nation, (there are now,
I believe, over seventy of them)--as at the time in the vast trenches, the depositories of slain, Northern and South-
ern, after the great battles--not only where the scathing trail passed those years, but radiating since in all the
peaceful quarters of the land--we see, and ages yet may see, on monuments and gravestones, singly or in masses, to
thousands or tens of thousands, the significant word UNKNOWN. 2

(In some of the cemeteries nearly all the dead are unknown. At Salisbury, N. C., for instance, the known are only 85,
while the unknown are 12,027, and 11,700 of these are buried in trenches. A national monument has been put up here,
by order of Congress, to mark the spot--but what visible, material monument can ever fittingly commemorate that spot?)




　　　　　　 101. The Real War Will Never Get in the Books




AND so good-bye to the war. I know not how it may have been, or may be, to others--to me the main interest I found,
(and still, on recollection, find,) in the rank and file of the armies, both sides, and in those specimens amid the
hospitals, and even the dead on the field. To me the points illustrating the latent personal character and eligibi-
lities of these States, in the two or three millions of American young and middle-aged men, North and South, embo-
died in those armies--and especially the one-third or one-fourth of their number, stricken by wounds or disease at
some time in the course of the contest--were of more significance even than the political interests involved. (As
so much of a race depends on how it faces death, and how it stands personal anguish and sickness. As, in the glints
of emotions under emergencies, and the indirect traits and asides in Plutarch, we get far profounder clues to the
antique world than all its more formal history.) 1

Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and in-
teriors, (not the official surface courteousness of the Generals, not the few great battles) of the Secession war;
and it is best they should not--the real war will never get in the books. In the mushy influences of current times,
too, the fervid atmosphere and typical events of those years are in danger of being totally forgotten. I have at
night watch'd by the side of a sick man in the hospital, one who could not live many hours. I have seen his eyes
flash and burn as he raised himself and recurr'd to the cruelties on his surrender'd brother, and mutilations of
the corpse afterward. (See, in the preceding pages, the incident at Upperville--the seventeen kill'd as in the
description, were left there on the ground. After they dropt dead, no one touch'd them--all were made sure of,
however. The carcasses were left for the citizens to bury or not, as they chose.) 2

Such was the war. It was not a quadrille in a ball-room. Its interior history will not only never be written--its
practicality, minutia of deeds and passions, will never be even suggested. The actual soldier of 1862?'65, North
and South, with all his ways, his incredible dauntlessness, habits, practices, tastes, language, his fierce friend-
ship, his appetite, rankness, his superb strength and animality, lawless gait, and a hundred unnamed lights and
shades of camp, I say, will never be written--perhaps must not and should not be. 3

The preceding notes may furnish a few stray glimpses into that life, and into those lurid interiors, never to
be fully convey'd to the future. The hospital part of the drama from '61 to'65, deserves indeed to be recor-
ded. Of that many-threaded drama, with its sudden and strange surprises, its confounding of prophecies, its mo-
ments of despair, the dread of foreign interference, the interminable campaigns, the bloody battles, the mighty
and cumbrous and green armies, the drafts and bounties--the immense money expenditure, like a heavy-pouring
constant rain--with, over the whole land, the last three years of the struggle, an unending, universal mourning-
wail of women, parents, orphans--the marrow of the tragedy concentrated in those Army Hospitals--(it seem'd
sometimes as if the whole interest of the land, North and South, was one vast central hospital, and all the rest
of the affair but flanges)--those forming the untold and unwritten history of the war--infinitely greater (like life's)
than the few scraps and distortions that are ever told or written. Think how much, and of importance, will be--
how much, civic and military, has already been--buried in the grave, in eternal darkness.




　　　　　　　　　　102. An Interregnum Paragraph




SEVERAL years now elapse before I resume my diary. I continued at Washington working in the Attorney-Gen-
eral's department through'66 and'67, and some time afterward. In February '73 I was stricken down by paraly-
sis, gave up my desk, and migrated to Camden, New Jersey, where I lived during'74 and'75, quite unwell--but
after that began to grow better; commenc'd going for weeks at a time, even for months, down in the country,
to a charmingly recluse and rural spot along Timber creek, twelve or thirteen miles from where it enters the
Delaware river. Domicil'd at the farm-house of my friends, the Staffords, near by, I lived half the time along
this creek and its adjacent fields and lanes. And it is to my life here that I, perhaps, owe partial recovery
(a sort of second wind, or semi-renewal of the lease of life) from the prostration of 1874-'75. If the notes
of that outdoor life could only prove as glowing to you, reader dear, as the experience itself was to me. Do-
ubtless in the course of the following, the fact of invalidism will crop out, (I call myself a half-Paralytic
these days, and reverently bless the Lord it is no worse,) between some of the lines--but I get my share of fun
and healthy hours, and shall try to indicate them. (The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low
down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.)




　　　　　　　　　　103. New Themes Entered Upon




1876,'77.--I FIND the woods in mid-May and early June my best places for composition. 1 Seated on logs or stumps
there, or resting on rails, nearly all the following memoranda have been jotted down. Wherever I go, indeed, win-
ter or summer, city or country, alone at home or traveling, I must take notes--(the ruling passion strong in age
and disablement, and even the approach of--but I must not say it yet.) Then underneath the following excerpta--
crossing the t's and dotting the i's of certain moderate movements of late years--I am fain to fancy the founda-
tions of quite a lesson learn'd. After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality,
love, and so on--have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear--what remains? Nature remains;
to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields,
the changes of seasons--the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night. We will begin from these convictions.
Literature flies so high and is so hotly spiced, that our notes may seem hardly more than breaths of common air,
or draughts of water to drink. But that is part of our lesson. 1

Dear, soothing, healthy, restoration-hours--after three confining years of paralysis--after the long strain of the
war, and its wounds and death. 2

Note 1. Without apology for the abrupt change of field and atmosphere--after what I have put in the preceding
fifty or sixty pages--temporary episodes, thank heaven!--I restore my book to the bracing and buoyant equilibrium
of concrete outdoor Nature, the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life.

Who knows, (I have it in my fancy, my ambition,) but the pages now ensuing may carry ray of sun, or smell of
grass or corn, or call of bird, or gleam of stars by night, or snow-flakes falling fresh and mystic, to denizen
of heated city house, or tired workman or workwoman?--or may-be in sick-room or prison--to serve as cooling breeze,
or Nature's aroma, to some fever'd mouth or latent pulse. [back]



　　　　　　　　　　104. Entering a Long Farm-Lane




AS every man has his hobby-liking, mine is for a real farm-lane fenced by old chestnut-rails gray-green with dabs
of moss and lichen, copious weeds and briers growing in spots athwart the heaps of stray-pick'd stones at the
fence bases--irregular paths worn between, and horse and cow tracks--all characteristic accompaniments marking and
scenting the neighborhood in their seasons--apple-tree blossoms in forward April--pigs, poultry, a field of August
buckwheat, and in another the long flapping tassels of maize--and so to the pond, the expansion of the creek, the
secluded-beautiful, with young and old trees, and such recesses and vistas!



　　　　　　　　　　 105. To the Spring and Brook




SO, still sauntering on, to the spring under the willows--musical as soft clinking glasses--pouring a sizeable
stream, thick as my neck, pure and clear, out from its vent where the bank arches over like a great brown shaggy
eyebrow or mouth-roof--gurgling, gurgling ceaselessly--meaning, saying something, of course (if one could only
translate it)--always gurgling there, the whole year through--never giving out--oceans of mint, blackberries in
summer--choice of light and shade--just the place for my July sun-baths and water-baths too--but mainly the inimi-
table soft sound-gurgles of it, as I sit there hot afternoons. How they and all grow into me, day after day--
everything in keeping--the wild, just-palpable perfume, and the dapple of leaf-shadows, and all the natural-med-
icinal, elemental-moral influences of the spot. 1

Babble on, O brook, with that utterance of thine! I too will express what I have gather'd in my days and pro-
gress, native, subterranean, past--and now thee. Spin and wind thy way--I with thee, a little while, at any rate.
As I haunt thee so often, season by season, thou knowest reckest not me, (yet why be so certain? who can tell?)--
but I will learn from thee, and dwell on thee--receive, copy, print from thee.




　　　　　　　　　　106. An Early Summer Reveille




AWAY then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long. Away, from curtain, carpet, sofa, book--from
"society"--from city house, street, and modern improvements and luxuries--away to the primitive winding, aforemen-
tioned wooded creek, with its untrimm'd bushes and turfy banks--away from ligatures, tight boots, buttons, and
the whole cast-iron civilize life--from entourage of artificial store, machine, studio, office, parlor--from tail-
ordom and fashion's clothes--from any clothes, perhaps, for the nonce, the summer heats advancing, there in those
watery, shaded solitudes. Away, thou soul, (let me pick thee out singly, reader dear, and talk in perfect freedom,
negligently, confidentially,) for one day and night at least, returning to the naked source-life of us all--to the
breast of the great silent savage all-acceptive Mother. Alas! how many of us are so sodden--how many have wander'd
so far away, that return is almost impossible. 1

But to my jottings, taking them as they come, from the heap, without particular selection. There is little consecu-
tiveness in dates. They run any time within nearly five or six years. Each was carelessly pencilled in the open air,
at the time and place. The printers will learn this to some vexation perhaps, as much of their copy is from those
hastily-written first notes.




　　　　　　　　　　107. Birds Migrating at Midnight




DID you ever chance to hear the midnight flight of birds passing through the air and darkness overhead, in countless
armies, changing their early or late summer habitat? It is something not to be forgotten. A friend called me up just
after 12 last night to mark the peculiar noise of unusually immense flocks migrating north (rather late this year.)
In the silence, shadow and delicious odor of the hour, (the natural perfume belonging to the night alone,) I thought
it rare music. You could hear the characteristic motion--once or twice "the rush of mighty wings," but oftener a
velvety rustle, long drawn out--sometimes quite near--with continual calls and chirps, and some song-notes. It all
lasted from 12 till after 2. Once in a while the species was plainly distinguishable; I could make out the bobolink,
tanager, Wilson's thrush, white-crown'd sparrow, and occasionally from high in the air came the notes of the plover.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　108. Bumble-Bees




MAY-MONTH--month of swarming, singing, mating birds--the bumble-bee month--month of the flowering lilac--(and
then my own birth-month.) As I jot this paragraph, I am out just after sunrise, and down towards the creek. The lights,
perfumes, melodies--the blue birds, grass birds and robins, in every direction--the noisy, vocal, natural concert.
For undertones, a neighboring wood-pecker tapping his tree, and the distant clarion of chanticleer. Then the fresh
earth smells--the colors, the delicate drabs and thin blues of the perspective. The bright green of the grass has
receiv'd an added tinge from the last two days' mildness and moisture. How the sun silently mounts in the broad
clear sky, on his day's journey! How the warm beams bathe all, and come streaming kissingly and almost hot on my
face.1

A while since the croaking of the pond-frogs and the first white of the dog-wood blossoms. Now the golden dandelions
in endless profusion, spotting the ground everywhere. The white cherry and pear-blows--the wild violets, with their
blue eyes looking up and saluting my feet, as I saunter the wood-edge--the rosy blush of budding apple-trees--the
light-clear emerald hue of the wheat-fields--the darker green of the rye--a warm elasticity pervading the air--the
cedar-bushes profusely deck'd with their little brown apples--the summer fully awakening--the convocation of black
birds, garrulous flocks of them, gathering on some tree, and making the hour and place noisy as I sit near. 2

Later.--Nature marches in procession, in sections, like the corps of an army. All have done much for me, and still
do. But for the last two days it has been the great wild bee, the humble-bee, or "bumble," as the children call
him. As I walk, or hobble, from the farm-house down to the creek, I traverse the before-mention'd lane, fenced by
old rails, with many splits, splinters, breaks, holes, &c., the choice habitat of those crooning, hairy insects.
Up and down and by and between these rails, they swarm and dart and fly in countless myriads. As I wend slowly a-
long, I am often accom-panied with a moving cloud of them. They play a leading part in my morning, midday or sunset
rambles, and often dominate the landscape in a way I never before thought of--fill the long lane, not by scores
or hundreds only, but by thou-sands. Large and vivacious and swift, with wonderful momentum and a loud swelling per-
petual hum, varied now and then by something almost like a shriek, they dart to and fro, in rapid flashes, chasing
each other, and (little things as they are,) conveying to me a new and pronounc'd sense of strength, beauty, vital-
ity and movement. Are they in their mating season? or what is the meaning of this plenitude, swiftness, eagerness,
display? As I walk'd, I thought I was follow'd by a particular swarm, but upon observation I saw that it was a ra-
pid succession of changing swarms, one after another. 3 As I write, I am seated under a big wild-cherry tree--
the warm day temper'd by partial clouds and a fresh breeze, neither too heavy nor light--and here I sit long and
long, envelop'd in the deep musical drone of these bees, flitting, balancing, darting to and fro about me by hun-
dreds--big fellows with light yellow jackets, great glistening swelling bodies, stumpy heads and gauzy wings--hum-
ming their perpetual rich mellow boom. (Is there not a hint in it for a musical composition, of which it should be
the back-ground? some bumble-bee symphony?) How it all nourishes, lulls me, in the way most needed; the open air,
the rye-fields, the apple orchards. The last two days have been faultless in sun, breeze, temperature and every-
thing; never two more perfect days, and I have enjoy'd them wonderfully. My health is somewhat better, and my
spirit at peace. (Yet the anniversary of the saddest loss and sorrow of my life is close at hand.) 4

Another jotting, another perfect day: forenoon, from 7 to 9, two hours envelop'd in sound of bumble-bees and bird-
music. Down in the apple-trees and in a neighboring cedar were three or four russet-back'd thrushes, each singing
his best, and roulading in ways I never heard surpass'd. Two hours I abandon myself to hearing them, and indolently
absorbing the scene. Almost every bird I notice has a special time in the year--sometimes limited to a few days--
when it sings its best; and now is the period of these russet-backs. Meanwhile, up and down the lane, the darting,
droning, musical bumble-bees. A great swarm again for my entourage as I return home, moving along with me as before. 5

As I write this, two or three weeks later, I am sitting near the brook under a tulip tree, 70 feet high, thick with
the fresh verdure of its young maturity--a beautiful object--every branch, every leaf perfect. From top to bottom,
seeking the sweet juice in the blossoms, it swarms with myriads of these wild bees, whose loud and steady humming
makes an undertone to the whole, and to my mood and the hour. All of which I will bring to a close by extracting
the following verses from Henry A. Beers's little volume:

"As I lay yonder in tall grass
A drunken bumble-bee went past
Delirious with honey toddy.
The golden sash about his body
Scarce kept it in his swollen belly
Distent with honeysuckle jelly.
Rose liquor and the sweet-pea wine
Had fill'd his soul with song divine;
Deep had he drunk the warm night through,
His hairy thighs were wet with dew.
Full many an antic he had play'd
While the world went round through sleep and shade.
Oft had he lit with thirsty lip
Some flower-cup's nectar'd sweets to sip,
When on smooth petals he would slip,
Or over tangled stamens trip,
And headlong in the pollen roll'd,
Crawl out quite dusted o'er with gold;
Or else his heavy feet would stumble
Against some bud, and down he'd tumble
Amongst the grass; there lie and grumble
In low, soft bass--poor maudlin bumble!" 6




　　　　　　　　　　　　　109. Cedar-Apples




AS I journey'd to-day in a light wagon ten or twelve miles through the country, nothing pleas'd me more, in
their homely beauty and novelty (I had either never seen the little things to such advantage, or had never no-
ticed them before) than that peculiar fruit, with its profuse clear-yellow dangles of inch-long silk or yarn,
in boundless profusion spotting the dark-green cedar bushes--contrasting well with their bronze tufts--the flossy
shreds covering the knobs all over, like a shock of wild hair on elfin pates. On my ramble afterward down by
the creek I pluck'd one from its bush, and shall keep it. These cedar-apples last only a little while however,
and soon crumble and fade.




　　　　　　　　　110. Summer Sights and Indolencies




June 10th.--AS I write, 5 1/2 P. M., here by the creek, nothing can exceed the quiet splendor and freshness a-
round me. We had a heavy shower, with brief thunder and lightning, in the middle of the day; and since, overhead,
one of those not uncommon yet indescribable skies (in quality, not details or forms) of limpid blue, with rolling
silver-fringed clouds, and a pure-dazzling sun. For underlay, trees in fulness of tender foliage--liquid, ready,
long-drawn notes of birds--based by the fretful mewing of a querulous cat-bird, and the pleasant chippering-shriek
of two kingfishers. I have been watching the latter the last half hour, on their regular evening frolic over and
in the stream; evidently a spree of the liveliest kind. They pursue each other, whirling and wheeling around, with
many a jocund downward dip, splashing the spray in jets of diamonds--and then off they swoop, with slanting wings
and graceful flight, sometimes so near me I can plainly see their dark-gray feather-bodies and milk-white necks.




　　　　111. Sundown Perfume--Quail-Notes--The Hermit-Thrush




June 19th, 4 to 6 1/2, P. M.--SITTING alone by the creek--solitude here, but the scene bright and vivid enough--the
sun shining, and quite a fresh wind blowing (some heavy showers last night,) the grass and trees looking their
best--the clare-obscure of different greens, shadows, half-shadows, and the dappling glimpses of the water, through
recesses--the wild flageolet-note of a quail near by--the just-heard fretting of some hylas down there in the pond--
crows cawing in the distance--a drove of young hogs rooting in soft ground near the oak under which I sit--some come
sniffing near me, and then scamper away, with grunts. And still the clear notes of the quail--the quiver of leaf-
shadows over the paper as I write--the sky aloft, with white clouds, and the sun well declining to the west--the
swift darting of many sand-swallows coming and going, their holes in a neighboring marl-bank--the odor of the cedar
oak, so palpable, as evening approaches--perfume, color, the bronze-and-gold of nearly ripen'd wheat--clover-fields,
with honey-scent--the well-up maize, with long and rustling leaves--the great patches of thriving potatoes, dusky
green, fleck'd all over with white blossoms--the old, warty, venerable oak above me--and ever, mix'd with the dual
notes of the quail, the soughing of the wind through some near-by pines. 1

As I rise for return, I linger long to a delicious song-epilogue (is it the hermit-thrush?) from some bushy re-
cess off there in the swamp, repeated leisurely and pensively over and over again. This, to the circle-gambols of
the swallows flying by dozens in concentric rings in the last rays of sunset, like flashes of some airy wheel.




　　　　　　　　　　112. A July Afternoon by the Pond




THE FERVENT heat, but so much more endurable in this pure air--the white and pink pond-blossoms, with great heart-
shaped leaves; the glassy waters of the creek, the banks, with dense bushery, and the picturesque beeches and
shade and turf; the tremulous, reedy call of some bird from recesses, breaking the warm, indolent, half-volup-
tuous silence; an occasional wasp, hornet, honey-bee or bumble (they hover near my hands or face, yet annoy me
not, nor I them, as they appear to examine, find nothing, and away they go)--the vast space of the sky overhead
so clear, and the buzzard up there sailing his slow whirl in majestic spirals and discs; just over the surface
of the pond, two large slate-color'd dragon-flies, with wings of lace, circling and darting and occasionally
balancing themselves quite still, their wings quivering all time, (are they not showing off for my amusement?)--
the pond itself, with the sword-shaped calamus; the water snakes--occasionally a flitting blackbird, with red
dabs on his shoulders, as he darts slantingly by--the sounds that bring out the solitude, warmth, light and
shade--the quawk of some pond duck--(the crickets and grasshoppers are mute in the noon heat, but I hear the
song of the first cicades;)--then at some distance the rattle and whirr of a reaping machine as the horses draw
it on a rapid walk through a rye field on the opposite side of the creek--(what was the yellow or light brown
bird, large as a young hen, with short neck and long-stretch'd legs I just saw, in flapping and awkward flight
over there through the trees?)--the prevailing delicate, yet palpable, spicy, grassy, clovery perfume to my nos-
trils; and over all, encircling all, to my sight and soul, and free space of the sky, transparent and blue--and
hovering there in the west, a mass of white-gray fleecy clouds the sailors call "shoals of mackerel"--the sky,
with silver swirls like locks of toss'd hair, spreading, expanding--a vast voiceless, formless simulacrum--yet
may-be the most real reality and formulator of everything--who knows?




　　　　　　　　　　　　　113. Locusts and Katydids




Aug. 22.--REEDY monotones of locust, or sounds of katydid--I hear the latter at night, and the other both day
and night. I thought the morning and evening warble of birds delightful; but I find I can listen to these
strange insects with just as much pleasure. A single locust is now heard near noon from a tree two hundred
feet off, as I write--a long whirring, continued, quite loud noise graded in distinct whirls, or swinging cir-
cles, increasing in strength and rapidity up to a certain point, and then a fluttering, quietly tapering fall.
Each strain is continued from one to two minutes. The locust-song is very appropriate to the scene--gushes, has
meaning, is masculine, is like some fine old wine, not sweet, but far better than sweet. 1

But the katydid--how shall I describe its piquant utterances? One sings from a willow-tree just outside my open
bedroom window, twenty yards distant; every clear night for a fortnight past has sooth'd me to sleep. I rode
through a piece of woods for a hundred rods the other evening, and heard the katydids by myriads--very curious
for once; but I like better my single neighbor on the tree. 2

Let me say more about the song of the locust, even to repetition; a long, chromatic, tremulous crescendo, like
a brass disk whirling round and round, emitting wave after wave of notes, beginning with a certain moderate
beat or measure, rapidly increasing in speed and emphasis, reaching a point of great energy and significance,
and then quickly and gracefully dropping down and out. Not the melody of the singing-bird--far from it; the com-
mon musician might think without melody, but surely having to the finer ear a harmony of its own; monotonous--but
what a swing there is in that brassy drone, round and round, cymbal-line--or like the whirling of brass quoits.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　114. The Lesson of a Tree




Sept. 1.--I SHOULD not take either the biggest or the most picturesque tree to illustrate it. Here is one of my
favorites now before me, a fine yellow poplar, quite straight, perhaps 90 feet high, and four thick at the butt.
How strong, vital, enduring! how dumbly eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the
human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so in-
nocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity
all weathers, this gusty-temper'd little whiffet, man, that runs indoors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or
rather half-way science) scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. But, if they don't,
they do as well as most speaking, writing, poetry, sermons--or rather they do a great deal better. I should say
indeed that those old dryad-reminiscences are quite as true as any, and profounder than most reminiscences we get.
("Cut this out," as the quack mediciners say, and keep by you.) Go and sit in a grove or woods, with one or more
of those voiceless companions, and read the foregoing, and think. 1

One lesson from affiliating a tree--perhaps the greatest moral lesson anyhow from earth, rocks, animals, is that
same lesson of inherency, of what is, without the least regard to what the looker on (the critic) supposes or says,
or whether he likes or dislikes. What worse--what more general malady pervades each and all of us, our literature,
education, attitude toward each other, (even toward ourselves,) than a morbid trouble about seems, (generally tem-
porarily seems too,) and no trouble at all, or hardly any, about the sane, slow-growing, perennial, real parts of
character, books, friendship, marriage--humanity's invisible foundations and hold-together? (As the all-basis, the
nerve, the great-sympathetic, the plenum within humanity, giving stamp to everything, is necessarily invisible.) 2

Aug. 4, 6 P. M.--Lights and shades and rare effects on tree-foliage and grass--transparent greens, grays, &c.,
all in sunset pomp and dazzle. The clear beams are now thrown in many new places, on the quilted, seam'd, bronze-
drab, lower tree-trunks, shadow'd except at this hour--now flooding their young and old columnar ruggedness with
strong light, unfolding to my sense new amazing features of silent, shaggy charm, the solid bark, the expression
of harmless impassiveness, with many a bulge and gnarl unreck'd before. In the revealings of such light, such ex-
ceptional hour, such mood, one does not wonder at the old story fables, (indeed, why fables?) of people falling
into love-sickness with trees, seiz'd extatic with the mystic realism of the resistless silent strength in them--
strength, which after all is perhaps the last, completest, highest beauty.

Trees I am familiar with here.


Oaks, (many kinds--one sturdy old fellow, vital, green, bushy, five feet thick at the butt, I sit under every
day.)
Cedars, plenty.
Tulip trees, (Liriodendron, is of the magnolia family--I have seen it in Michigan and southern Illinois, 140
feet high and 8 feet thick at the butt; 1 does not transplant well; best rais'd from seeds--the lumbermen call
it yellow poplar.)
Sycamores.
Gum-trees, both sweet and sour.
Beeches.
Black-walnuts.
Sassafras.
Willows.
Catalpas.
Persimmons.
Mountain-ash.
Hickories.
Maples, many kinds.
Locusts.
Birches.
Dogwood.
Pine.
the Elm.
Chestnut.
Linden.
Aspen.
Spruce.
Hornbeam.
Laurel.
Holly.
3




　　　　　　　　　　　　　115. Autumn Side-Bits




Sept.20.--UNDER an old black oak, glossy and green, exhaling aroma--amid a grove the Albic druids might have cho-
sen--envelop'd in the warmth and light of the noonday sun, and swarms of flitting insects--with the harsh cawing
of many crows a hundred rods away--here I sit in solitude, absorbing, enjoying all.The corn, stack'd in its cone-
shaped stacks, russet-color'd and sere--a large field spotted thick with scarlet-gold pumpkins--an adjoining one
of cabbages, showing well in their green and pearl, mottled by much light and shade--melon patches, with their
bulging ovals, and great silver-streak'd, ruffled, broad-edged leaves--and many an autumn sight and sound beside--
the distant scream of a flock of guinea-hens--and pour'd over all the September breeze, with pensive cadence
through the tree tops. 1

Another Day.--The ground in all directions strew'd with debris from a storm.Timber creek, as I slowly pace its
banks, has ebb'd low, and shows reaction from the turbulent swell of the late equinoctial. As I look around, I
take account of stock--weeds and shrubs, knolls, paths, occasional stumps, some with smooth'd tops, (several I
use as seats of rest, from place to place, and from one I am now jotting these lines,)--frequent wild-flowers,
little white, star-shaped things, or the cardinal red of the lobelia, or the cherry-ball seeds of the perennial
rose, or the many-threaded vines winding up and around trunks of trees. 2

Oct.1, 2 and 3.--Down every day in the solitude of the creek. A serene autumn sun and westerly breeze to-day
(3d) as I sit here, the water surface prettily moving in wind-ripples before me. On a stout old beech at the
edge, decayed and slanting, almost fallen to the stream, yet with life and leaves in its mossy limbs, a gray
squirrel, exploring, runs up and down, flirts his tail, leaps to the ground, sits on his haunches upright as
he sees me, (a Darwinian hint?) and then races up the tree again. 3

Oct.4.--Cloudy and coolish; signs of incipient winter. Yet pleasant here, the leaves thick-falling, the ground
brown with them already; rich coloring, yellows of all hues, pale and dark-green, shades from lightest to rich-
est red--all set in and toned down by the prevailing brown of the earth and gray of the sky. So, winter is coming;
and I yet in my sickness.I sit here amid all these fair sights and vital influences, and abandon myself to that
thought, with its wandering trains of speculation.




　　　　　　　　　116. The Sky--Days and Nights--Happiness




Oct.20.--A CLEAR, crispy day--dry and breezy air, full of oxygen. Out of the sane, silent, beauteous miracles
that envelope and fuse me--trees, water, grass, sunlight, and early frost--the one I am looking at most to-day
is the sky. It has that delicate, transparent blue, peculiar to autumn, and the only clouds are little or larger
white ones, giving their still and spiritual motion to the great concave. All through the earlier day (say from
7 to 11) it keeps a pure, yet vivid blue.But as noon approaches the color gets lighter, quite gray for two or
three hours--then still paler for a spell, till sun-down--which last I watch dazzling through the interstices of
a knoll of big trees--darts of fire and a gorgeous show of light-yellow, liver-color and red, with a vast silver
glaze askant on the water--the transparent shadows, shafts, sparkle, and vivid colors beyond all the paintings
ever made. 1

I don't know what or how, but it seems to me mostly owing to these skies, (every now and then I think, while
I have of course seen them every day of my life, I never really saw the skies before,) I have had this autumn
some wondrously contented hours--may I not say perfectly happy ones? As I've read, Byron just before his death
told a friend that he had known but three happy hours during his whole existence.Then there is the old German
legend of the king's bell, to the same point.While I was out there by the wood, that beautiful sunset through
the trees, I thought of Byron's and the bell story, and the notion started in me that I was having a happy hour.
(Though perhaps my best moments I never jot down; when they come I cannot afford to break the charm by inditing
memoranda.I just abandon myself to the mood, and let it float on, carrying me in its placid extasy.) 2

What is happiness, anyhow? Is this one of its hours, or the like of it?--so impalpable--a mere breath, an evane-
scent tinge? I am not sure--so let me give myself the benefit of the doubt. 3

Hast Thou, pellucid, in Thy azure depths, medicine for case like mine? (Ah, the physical shatter and troubled
spirit of me the last three years.) And dost Thou subtly mystically now drip it through the air invisibly upon
me? 4

Night of Oct.28.--The heavens unusually transparent--the stars out by myriads--the great path of the Milky Way,
with its branch, only seen of very clear nights--Jupiter, setting in the west, looks like a huge hap-hazard
splash, and has a little star for companion.

　　　　　　　Clothed in his white garments,
　　　　　　　Into the round and clear arena slowly entered the brahmin,
　　　　　　　Holding a little child by the hand,
　　　　　　　Like the moon with the planet Jupiter in a cloudless night-sky.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Old Hindu Poem.


Early in November.--At its farther end the lane already described opens into a broad grassy upland field of over
twenty acres, slightly sloping to the south. Here I am accustom'd to walk for sky views and effects, either
morning or sundown. To-day from this field my soul is calm'd and expanded beyond description the whole fore-
noon by the clear blue arching over all, cloudless, nothing particular, only sky and daylight.Their soothing
accompaniments, autumn leaves, the cool dry air, the faint aroma--crows cawing in the distance--two great buzzards
wheeling gracefully and slowly far up there--the occasional murmur of the wind, sometimes quite gently, then
threatening through the trees--a gang of farm-laborers loading corn-stalks in a field in sight, and the patient
horses waiting.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　117. Colors--A Contrast




SUCH a play of colors and lights, different seasons, different hours of the day--the lines of the far horizon where
the faint-tinged edge of the landscape loses itself in the sky. As I slowly hobble up the lane toward day-close,
an incomparable sunset shooting in molten sapphire and gold, shaft after shaft, through the ranks of the long-lea-
ved corn, between me and the west. 1

Another day.--The rich dark green of the tulip-trees and the oaks, the gray of the swamp-willows, the dull hues of
the sycamores and black-walnuts, the emerald of the cedars (after rain,) and the light yellow of the beeches.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　 118. November 8, '76




THE FORENOON leaden and cloudy, not cold or wet, but indicating both. As I hobble down here and sit by the si-
lent pond, how different from the excitement amid which, in the cities, millions of people are now waiting
news of yesterday’s Presidential election, or receiving and discussing the result--in this secluded place un-
cared-for, unknown.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　 119. Crows and Crows




Nov.14.--AS I sit here by the creek, resting after my walk, a warm languor bathes me from the sun.No sound but a
cawing of crows, and no motion but their black flying figures from overhead, reflected in the mirror of the pond
below.Indeed a principal feature of the scene to-day is these crows, their incessant cawing, far or near, and
their countless flocks and processions moving from place to place, and at times almost darkening the air with their
myriads.As I sit a moment writing this by the bank, I see the black, clear-cut reflection of them far below, fly-
ing through the watery looking-glass, by ones, twos, or long strings. All last night I heard the noises from their
great roost in a neighboring wood. 1




　　　　　　　　　　120. A Winter Day on the Sea-Beach




ONE bright December mid-day lately I spent down on the New Jersey sea-shore, reaching it by a little more than an
hour's railroad trip over the old Camden and Atlantic. I had started betimes, fortified by nice strong coffee and
a good breakfast (cook'd by the hands I love, my dear sister Lou's--how much better it makes the victuals taste,
and then assimilate, strengthen you, perhaps make the whole day comfortable afterwards.) Five or six miles at the
last, our track enter'd a broad region of salt grass meadows, intersected by lagoons, and cut up everywhere by
watery runs. The sedgy perfume, delightful to my nostrils, reminded me of "the mash” and south bay of my native
island.I could have journey'd contentedly till night through these flat and odorous sea-prairies. From half-past
11 till 2 I was nearly all the time along the beach, or in sight of the ocean, listening to its hoarse murmur, and
inhaling the bracing and welcome breezes. First, a rapid five-mile drive over the hard sand--our carriage wheels
hardly made dents in it.Then after dinner (as there were nearly two hours to spare) I walk'd off in another dir-
ection, (hardly met or saw a person,) and taking possession of what appear'd to have been the reception-room of an
old bathhouse range, had a broad expanse of view all to myself--quaint, refreshing, unimpeded--a dry area of sedge
and Indian grass immediately before and around me--space, simple, unornamented space. Distant vessels, and the far-
off, just visible trailing smoke of an inward bound steamer; more plainly, ships, brigs, schooners, in sight, most
of them with every sail set to the firm and steady wind. 1

The attractions, fascinations there are in sea and shore! How one dwells on their simplicity, even vacuity! What is
it in us, arous'd by those indirections and directions? That spread of waves and gray-white beach, salt, monoto-
nous, senseless--such an entire absence of art, books, talk, elegance--so indescribably comforting, even this winter
day--grim, yet so delicate-looking, so spiritual--striking emotional, impalpable depths, subtler than all the poems,
paintings, music, I have ever read, seen, heard. (Yet let me be fair, perhaps it is because I have read those poems
and heard that music.)




　　　　　　　　　　　　　 121. Sea-Shore Fancies


EVEN as a boy, I had the fancy, the wish, to write a piece, perhaps a poem, about the sea-shore--that suggesting,
dividing line, contact, junction, the solid marrying the liquid--that curious, lurking something, (as doubtless every
objective form finally becomes to the subjective spirit,) which means far more than its mere first sight, grand as
that is--blending the real and ideal, and each made portion of the other. Hours, days, in my Long Island youth and
early manhood, I haunted the shores of Rockaway or Coney island, or away east to the Hamptons or Montauk.Once,
at the latter place, (by the old lighthouse, nothing but sea-tossings in sight in every direction as far as the eye
could reach,) I remember well, I felt that I must one day write a book expressing this liquid, mystic theme.After-
ward, I recollect, how it came to me that instead of any special lyrical or epical or literary attempt, the sea-
shore should be an invisible influence, a pervading gauge and tally for me, in my composition. (Let me give a hint
here to young writers.I am not sure but I have unwittingly follow'd out the same rule with other powers besides
sea and shores--avoiding them, in the way of any dead set at poetizing them, as too big for formal handling--quite
satisfied if I could indirectly show that we have met and fused, even if only once, but enough--that we have really
absorb'd each other and understand each other.) 1

There is a dream, a picture, that for years at intervals, (sometimes quite long ones, but surely again, in time,)
has come noiselessly up before me, and I really believe, fiction as it is, has enter'd largely into my practical
life--certainly into my writings, and shaped and color'd them. It is nothing more or less than a stretch of inter-
minable white-brown sand, hard and smooth and broad, with the ocean perpetually, grandly, rolling in upon it, with
slow-measured sweep, with rustle and hiss and foam, and many a thump as of low bass drums. This scene, this picture,
I say, has risen before me at times for years. Sometimes I wake at night and can hear and see it plainly.




　　　　　　　　　　　 122. In Memory of Thomas Paine




Spoken at Lincoln Hall, Philadelphia, Sunday, Jan.28, '77, for 140th anniversary of T.P.'s birth-day.

SOME thirty-five years ago, in New York city, at Tammany hall, of which place I was then a frequenter, I happen'd
to become quite well acquainted with Thomas Paine's perhaps most intimate chum, and certainly his later years' very
frequent companion, a remarkably fine old man, Col.Fellows, who may yet be remember'd by some stray relics of that
period and spot.If you will allow me, I will first give a description of the Colonel himself. He was tall, of mil-
itary bearing, aged about 78 I should think, hair white as snow, clean-shaved on the face, dress'd very neatly, a
tail-coat of blue cloth with metal buttons, buff vest, pantaloons of drab color, and his neck, breast and wrists
showing the whitest of linen.Under all circumstances, fine manners; a good but not profuse talker, his wits still
fully about him, balanced and live and undimm'd as ever. He kept pretty fair health, though so old.For employ-
ment--for he was poor--he had a post as constable of some of the upper courts.I used to think him very picturesque
on the fringe of a crowd holding a tall staff, with his erect form, and his superb, bare, thickhair'd, closely-cropt
white head.The judges and young lawyers, with whom he was ever a favorite, and the subject of respect, used to call
him Aristides. It was the general opinion among them that if manly rectitude and the instincts of absolute justice
remain'd vital anywhere about New York City Hall, or Tammany, they were to be found in Col.Fellows.He liked young
men, and enjoy'd to leisurely talk with them over a social glass of toddy, after his day's work, (he on these occa-
sions never drank but one glass,) and it was at reiterated meetings of this kind in old Tammany's back parlor of
those days, that he told me much about Thomas Paine.At one of our interviews he gave me a minute account of Paine's
sickness and death.In short, from those talks, I was and am satisfied that my old friend, with his mark'd advantag-
es, had mentally, morally and emotionally gauged the author of "Common Sense,” and besides giving me a good por-
trait of his appearance and manners, had taken the true measure of his interior character. 1

Paine's practical demeanor, and much of his theoretical belief, was a mixture of the French and English schools of a
century ago, and the best of both. Like most old-fashion'd people, he drank a glass or two every day, but was no tip-
pler, nor intemperate, let alone being a drunkard.He lived simply and economically, but quite well--was always cheery
and courteous, perhaps occasionally a little blunt, having very positive opinions upon politics, religion, and so
forth.That he labor'd well and wisely for the States in the trying period of their parturition, and in the seeds of
their character, there seems to me no question. I dare not say how much of what our Union is owning and enjoying to
day--its independence--its ardent belief in, and substantial practice of, radical human rights--and the severance of
its government from all ecclesiastical and superstitious dominion--I dare not say how much of all this is owing to
Thomas Paine, but I am inclined to think a good portion of it decidedly is. 2

But I was not going either into an analysis or eulogium of the man.I wanted to carry you back a generation or two,
and give you by indirection a moment's glance--and also to ventilate a very earnest and I believe authentic opinion,
nay conviction, of that time, the fruit of the interviews I have mention'd, and of questioning and cross-questioning,
clench'd by my best information since, that Thomas Paine had a noble personality, as exhibited in presence, face, vo-
ice, dress, manner, and what may be call'd his atmosphere and magnetism, especially the later years of his life.I am
sure of it.Of the foul and foolish fictions yet told about the circumstances of his decease, the absolute fact is
that as he lived a good life, after its kind, he died calmly and philosophically, as became him.He served the embryo
Union with most precious service--a service that every man, woman and child in our thirty-eight States is to some ex-
tent receiving the benefit of to day--and I for one here cheerfully, reverently throw my pebble on the cairn of his
memory. As we all know, the season demands--or rather, will it ever be out of season?--that America learn to better
dwell on her choicest possession, the legacy of her good and faithful men--that she well preserve their fame, if un-
question'd--or, if need be, that she fail not to dissipate what clouds have intruded on that fame, and burnish it
newer, truer and brighter, continually.




　　　　　　　　　　　　123. A Two Hours' Ice-Sail




Feb.3, '77.--FROM 4 to 6 P.M.crossing the Delaware, (back again at my Camden home,) unable to make our landing,
through the ice; our boat stanch and strong and skilfully piloted, but old and sulky, and poorly minding her helm.
(Power, so important in poetry and war, is also first point of all in a winter steamboat, with long stretches of ice-
packs to tackle.) For over two hours we bump'd and beat about, the invisible ebb, sluggish but irresistible, often
carrying us long distances against our will. In the first tinge of dusk, as I look'd around, I thought there could
not be presented a more chilling, arctic, grim-extended, depressing scene. Everything was yet plainly visible; for
miles north and south, ice, ice, ice, mostly broken, but some big cakes, and no clear water in sight.The shores,
piers, surfaces, roofs, shipping, mantled with snow.A faint winter vapor hung a fitting accompaniment around and
over the endless whitish spread, and gave it just a tinge of steel and brown. 1

Feb.6.--As I cross home in the 6 P.M.boat again, the transparent shadows are filled everywhere with leisurely fal-
ling, slightly slanting, curiously sparse but very large, flakes of snow.On the shores, near and far, the glow of
just-lit gas-clusters at intervals.The ice, sometimes in hummocks, sometimes floating fields, through which our boat
goes crunching.The light permeated by that peculiar evening haze, right after sunset, which sometimes renders quite
distant objects so distinctly. 2




　　　　　　　　　　124. Spring Overtures--Recreations




Feb. 10.--THE FIRST chirping, almost singing, of a bird to-day. Then I noticed a couple of honey-bees spirting
and humming about the open window in the sun. 1

Feb. 11.--In the soft rose and pale gold of the declining light, this beautiful evening, I heard the first hum
and preparation of awakening spring--very faint--whether in the earth or roots, or starting of insects, I know
not--but it was audible, as I lean’d on a rail (I am down in my country quarters awhile,) and look’d long at
the western horizon. Turning to the east, Sirius, as the shadows deepen’d, came forth in dazzling splendor.
And great Orion; and a little to the north-east the big Dipper, standing on end. 2

Feb. 20.--A solitary and pleasant sundown hour at the pond, exercising arms, chest, my whole body, by a tough
oak sapling thick as my wrist, twelve feet high--pulling and pushing, inspiring the good air. After I wrestle
with the tree awhile, I can feel its young sap and virtue welling up out of the ground and tingling through
me from crown to toe, like health’s wine. Then for addition and variety I launch forth in my vocalism; shout
declamatory pieces, sentiments, sorrow, anger, &c., from the stock poets or plays--or inflate my lungs and
sing the wild tunes and refrains I heard of the blacks down south, or patriotic songs I learn’d in the army.
I make the echoes ring, I tell you! As the twilight fell, in a pause of these ebullitions, an owl somewhere
the other side of the creek sounded too-oo-oo-oo-oo, soft and pensive (and I fancied a little sarcastic)
repeated four or five times. Either to applaud the negro songs--or perhaps an ironical comment on the sorrow,
anger, or style of the stock poets.




　　　　　　　　　　 　125. One of the Human Kinks




HOW is it that in all the serenity and lonesomeness of solitude, away off here amid the hush of the forest, alone, or
as I have found in prairie wilds, or mountain stillness, one is never entirely without the instinct of looking around,
(I never am, and others tell me the same of themselves, confidentially,) for somebody to appear, or start up out of
the earth, or from behind some tree or rock? Is it a lingering, inherited remains of man's primitive wariness, from
the wild animals? or from his savage ancestry far back? It is not at all nervousness or fear.Seems as if something
unknown were possibly lurking in those bushes, or solitary places.Nay, it is quite certain there is--some vital un-
seen presence.




　　　　　　　　　　　　126. An Afternoon Scene




Feb. 22.--LAST night and to-day rainy and thick, till mid-afternoon, when the wind chopp'd round, the clouds swiftly
drew off like curtains, the clear appear'd, and with it the fairest, grandest, most wondrous rainbow I ever saw, all
complete, very vivid at its earth-ends, spreading vast effusions of illuminated haze, violet, yellow, drab-green, in
all directions overhead, through which the sun beam'd--an indescribable utterance of color and light, so gorgeous yet
so soft, such as I had never witness'd before.Then its continuance: a full hour pass'd before the last of those
earth-ends disappear'd. The sky behind was all spread in translucent blue, with many little white clouds and edges.
To these a sunset, filling, dominating the esthetic and soul senses, sumptuously, tenderly, full.I end this note by
the pond, just light enough to see, through the evening shadows, the western reflections in its water-mirror surface,
with inverted figures of trees.I hear now and then the flup of a pike leaping out, and rippling the water.




　　　　　　　　　　　　127. The Gates Opening




April 6.--PALPABLE spring indeed, or the indications of it.I am sitting in bright sunshine, at the edge of the creek,
the surface just rippled by the wind.All is solitude, morning freshness, negligence.For companions my two kingfish-
ers sailing, winding, darting, dipping, sometimes capriciously separate, then flying together.I hear their guttural
twittering again and again; for awhile nothing but that peculiar sound. As noon approaches other birds warm up.The
reedy notes of the robin, and a musical passage of two parts, one a clear delicious gurgle, with several other birds
I cannot place. To which is join'd, (yes, I just hear it,) one low purr at intervals from some impatient hylas at
the pond-edge.The sibilant murmur of a pretty stiff breeze now and then through the trees.Then a poor little dead
leaf, long frost-bound, whirls from somewhere up aloft in one wild escaped freedom-spree in space and sunlight, and
then dashes down to the waters, which hold it closely and soon drown it out of sight. The bushes and trees are yet
bare, but the beeches have their wrinkled yellow leaves of last season's foliage largely left, frequent cedars and
pines yet green, and the grass not without proofs of coming fulness. And over all a wonderfully fine dome of clear
blue, the play of light coming and going, and great fleeces of white clouds swimming so silently. 1




　　　　　　　　　 128. The Common Earth, the Soil




THE SOIL, too--let others pen-and-ink the sea, the air, (as I sometimes try)--but now I feel to choose the common soil
for theme--naught else. The brown soil here, (just between winter-close and opening spring and vegetation)--the rain-
shower at night, and the fresh smell next morning--the red worms wriggling out of the ground--the dead leaves, the in-
cipient grass, and the latent life underneath--the effort to start something--already in shelter'd spots some little
flowers--the distant emerald show of winter wheat and the rye-fields--the yet naked trees, with clear interstices, gi-
ving prospects hidden in summer--the tough fallow and the plow-team, and the stout boy whistling to his horses for
encouragement--and there the dark fat earth in long slanting stripes upturn'd. 1




　　　　　　　　　　　129. Birds and Birds and Birds




A little later--bright weather.--AN UNUSUAL melodiousness, these days, (last of April and first of May) from the black-
birds; indeed all sorts of birds, darting, whistling, hopping or perch'd on trees. Never before have I seen, heard,
or been in the midst of, and got so flooded and saturated with them and their performances, as this current month.
Such oceans, such successions of them. Let me make a list of those I find here:

Black birds (plenty,)
Meadow-larks (plenty,)
Ring doves,
Cat-birds (plenty,)
Owls,
Cuckoos,
Woodpeckers,
Pond snipes (plenty,)
King-birds,
Cheewinks,
Crows (plenty,)
Quawks,
Wrens,
Ground robins,
Kingfishers,
Ravens,
Quails,
Gray snipes,
Turkey-buzzards,
Eagles,
Hen-hawks,
High-holes,
Yellow birds,
Herons,
Thrushes,
Tits,
Reed birds,
Woodpigeons.
1
Early came the
Blue birds,
Meadow lark,
Killdeer,
White-bellied swallow,
Plover,
Sandpiper,
Robin,
Wilson's thrush.
Woodcock,
Flicker.




　　　　　　　　　　　　130. Full-Starr'd Nights




May 21.--BACK in Camden.Again commencing one of those unusually transparent, full-starr'd, blue-black nights, as
if to show that however lush and pompous the day may be, there is something left in the not-day that can outvie it.
The rarest, finest sample of long-drawn-out clear-obscure, from sundown to 9 o'clock.I went down to the Delaware,
and cross'd and cross'd. Venus like blazing silver well up in the west. The large pale thin crescent of the new
moon, half an hour high, sinking languidly under a bar-sinister of cloud, and then emerging. Arcturus right over-
head.A faint fragrant sea-odor wafted up from the south. The gloaming, the temper'd coolness, with every feature
of the scene, indescribably soothing and tonic--one of those hours that give hints to the soul, impossible to put
in a statement.(Ah, where would be any food for spirituality without night and the stars?) The vacant spaciousness
of the air, and the veil'd blue of the heavens, seem'd miracles enough. 1

As the night advanc'd it changed its spirit and garments to ampler stateliness. I was almost conscious of a defi-
nite presence, Nature silently near. The great constellation of the Water-Serpent stretch'd its coils over more
than half the heavens.The Swan with outspread wings was flying down the Milky Way.The northern Crown, the Eagle,
Lyra, all up there in their places. From the whole dome shot down points of light, rapport with me, through the
clear blue-black. All the usual sense of motion, all animal life, seem'd discarded, seem'd a fiction; a curious
power, like the placid rest of Egyptian gods, took possession, none the less potent for being impalpable. Earlier
I had seen many bats, balancing in the luminous twilight, darting their black forms hither and yon over the river;
but now they altogether disappear'd.The evening star and the moon had gone. Alertness and peace lay calmly couch-
ing together through the fluid universal shadows. 2

Aug.26.--Bright has the day been, and my spirits an equal forzando. Then comes the night, different, inexpressibly
pensive, with its own tender and temper'd splendor. Venus lingers in the west with a voluptuous dazzle unshown hi-
therto this summer. Mars rises early, and the red sulky moon, two days past her full; Jupiter at night's meridian,
and the long curling-slanted Scorpion stretching full view in the south, Antares-neck'd. Mars walks the heavens
lord-paramount now; all through this month I go out after supper and watch for him; sometimes getting up at midnight
to take another look at his unparallel'd lustre.(I see lately an astronomer has made out through the new Washington
telescope that Mars has certainly one moon, perhaps two.) Pale and distant, but near in the heavens, Saturn precedes
him. 3




　　　　　　　　　　　131. Mulleins and Mulleins




LARGE, placid mulleins, as summer advances, velvety in texture, of a light greenish-drab color, growing everywhere
in the fields--at first earth's big rosettes in their broad-leav'd low clusterplants, eight, ten, twenty leaves to
a plant--plentiful on the fallow twenty-acre lot, at the end of the lane, and especially by the ridge-sides of the fen-
ces--then close to the ground, but soon springing up--leaves as broad as my hand, and the lower ones twice as long--so
fresh and dewy in the morning--stalks now four or five, even seven or eight feet high.The farmers, I find, think the
mullein a mean unworthy weed, but I have grown to a fondness for it. Every object has its lesson, enclosing the sug-
gestion of everything else--and lately I sometimes think all is concentrated for me in these hardy, yellow-flower'd
weeds. As I come down the lane early in the morning, I pause before their soft wool-like fleece and stem and broad
leaves glittering with countless diamonds. Annually for three summers now, they and I have silently return'd togeth-
er; at such long intervals I stand or sit among them, musing--and woven with the rest, of so many hours and moods of
partial rehabilitation--of my sane or sick spirit, here as near at peace as it can be.




　　　　　　　　　　 　　132. Distant Sounds




THE AXE of the wood-cutter, the measured thud of a single threshing-flail, the crowing of chanticleer in the barn-yard,
(with invariable responses from other barn-yards,) and the lowing of cattle--but most of all, or far or near, the wind--
through the high tree-tops, or through low bushes, laving one's face and hands so gently, this balmy-bright noon, the
coolest for a long time, (Sept.2)--I will not call it sighing, for to me it is always a firm, sane, cheery expression, though
a monotone, giving many varieties, or swift or slow, or dense or delicate. The wind in the patch of pine woods off
there--how sibilant. Or at sea, I can imagine it this moment, tossing the waves, with spirts of foam flying far, and
the free whistle, and the scent of the salt--and that vast paradox somehow with all its action and restlessness
conveying a sense of eternal rest. 1

Other adjuncts.--But the sun and moon here and these times. As never more wonderful by day, the gorgeous orb imperial,
so vast, so ardently, lovingly hot--so never a more glorious moon of nights, especially the last three or four. The great
planets too--Mars never before so flaming bright, so flashing-large, with slight yellow tinge, (the astronomers say--is
it true?--nearer to us than any time the past century)--and well up, lord Jupiter, (a little while since close by the
moon)--and in the west, after the sun sinks, voluptuous Venus, now languid and shorn of her beams, as if from some di-
vine excess.




　　　　　　　　　　　133. A Sun-Bath--Nakedness




Sunday, Aug.27.--ANOTHER day quite free from mark'd prostration and pain. It seems indeed as if peace and nutriment
from heaven subtly filter into me as I slowly hobble down these country lanes and across fields, in the good air--as I
sit here in solitude with Nature--open, voiceless, mystic, far removed, yet palpable, eloquent Nature. I merge myself
in the scene, in the perfect day. Hovering over the clear brook-water, I am sooth'd by its soft gurgle in one place,
and the hoarser murmurs of its three-foot fall in another. Come, ye disconsolate, in whom any latent eligibility is
left--come get the sure virtues of creek-shore, and wood and field. Two months (July and August, '77,) have I absorb'd
them, and they begin to make a new man of me. Every day, seclusion--every day at least two or three hours of freedom,
bathing, no talk, no bonds, no dress, no books, no manners. 1

Shall I tell you, reader, to what I attribute my already much-restored health? That I have been almost two years, off
and on, without drugs and medicines, and daily in the open air. Last summer I found a particularly secluded little dell
off one side by my creek, originally a large dug-out marl-pit, now abandon'd, fill'd with bushes, trees, grass, a group
of willows, a straggling bank, and a spring of delicious water running right through the middle of it, with two or three
little cascades. Here I retreated every hot day, and follow it up this summer.Here I realize the meaning of that old
fellow who said he was seldom less alone than when alone.Never before did I get so close to Nature; never before did
she come so close to me.By old habit, I pencill'd down from to time to time, almost automatically, moods, sights,
hours, tints and outlines, on the spot. Let me specially record the satisfaction of this current forenoon, so serene
and primitive, so conventionally exceptional, natural. 2

An hour or so after breakfast I wended my way down to the recesses of the aforesaid dell, which I and certain thrushes,
catbirds, &c., had all to ourselves. A light south-west wind was blowing through the tree-tops. It was just the place
and time for my Adamic air-bath and flesh-brushing from head to foot. So hanging clothes on a rail near by, keeping old
broadbrim straw on head and easy shoes on feet, haven't I had a good time the last two hours! First with the stiff-elas-
tic bristles rasping arms, breast, sides, till they turn'd scarlet--then partially bathing in the clear waters of the
running brook--taking everything very leisurely, with many rests and pauses--stepping about barefooted every few minutes
now and then in some neighboring black ooze, for unctuous mud-bath to my feet--a brief second and third rinsing in the
crystal running waters--rubbing with the fragrant towel--slow negligent promenades on the turf up and down in the sun,
varied with occasional rests, and further frictions of the bristle-brush--sometimes carrying my portable chair with me
from place to place, as my range is quite extensive here, nearly a hundred rods, feeling quite secure from intrusion,
(and that indeed I am not at all nervous about, if it accidentally happens.) 3

As I walk'd slowly over the grass, the sun shone out enough to show the shadow moving with me. Somehow I seem'd to
get identity with each and every thing around me, in its condition Nature was naked, and I was also.It was too lazy, soo-
thing, and joyous-equable to speculate about. Yet I might have thought somehow in this vein: Perhaps the inner never
lost rapport we hold with earth, light, air, trees, &c., is not to be realized through eyes and mind only, but through
the whole corporeal body, which I will not have blinded or bandaged any more than the eyes.Sweet, sane, still Naked-
ness in Nature!--ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once more! Is not nakedness then
indecent? No, not inherently.It is your thought, your sophistication, your fear, your respectability, that is indecent.
There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent. Perhaps
indeed he or she to whom the free exhilarating extasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and how many
thousands there are!) has not really known what purity is--nor what faith or art or health really is. (Probably the whole
curriculum of first-class philosophy, beauty, heroism, form, illustrated by the old Hellenic race--the highest height
and deepest depth known to civilization in those departments--came from their natural and religious idea of Nakedness.)

Many such hours, from time to time, the last two summers--I attribute my partial rehabilitation largely to them.Some
good people may think it a feeble or half-crack'd way of spending one's time and thinking.May-be it is.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　　134. The Oaks and I




Sept.5, '77.--I WRITE this, 11 A.M., shelter'd under a dense oak by the bank, where I have taken refuge from a sudden
rain.I came down here, (we had sulky drizzles all the morning, but an hour ago a lull,) for the before-mention'd daily
and simple exercise I am fond of--to pull on that young hickory sapling out there--to sway and yield to its tough-limber up-
right stem--haply to get into my old sinews some of its elastic fibre and clear sap.I stand on the turf and take these
health-pulls moderately and at intervals for nearly an hour, inhaling great draughts of fresh air. Wandering by the creek,
I have three or four naturally favorable spots where I rest--besides a chair I lug with me and use for more deliberate oc-
casions.At other spots convenient I have selected, besides the hickory just named, strong and limber boughs of beech or
holly, in easy-reaching distance, for my natural gymnasia, for arms, chest, trunk-muscles.I can soon feel the sap and si-
new rising through me, like mercury to heat.I hold on boughs or slender trees caressingly there in the sun and shade,
wrestle with their innocent stalwartness--and know the virtue thereof passes from them into me. (Or may-be we interchange--
may-be the trees are more aware of it all than I ever thought.) 1

But now pleasantly imprison'd here under the big oak--the rain dripping, and the sky cover'd with leaden clouds--nothing
but the pond on one side, and the other a spread of grass, spotted with the milky blossoms of the wild carrot--the sound of
an axe wielded at some distant wood-pile--yet in this dull scene, (as most folks would call it,) why am I so (almost) happy
here and alone? Why would any intrusion, even from people I like, spoil the charm? But am I alone? Doubtless there comes a
time--perhaps it has come to me--when one feels through his whole being, and pronouncedly the emotional part, that identity
between himself subjectively and Nature objectively which Schelling and Fichte are so fond of pressing. How it is I know
not, but I often realize a presence here--in clear moods I am certain of it, and neither chemistry nor reasoning nor esthe-
tics will give the least explanation. All the past two summers it has been strengthening and nourishing my sick body and
soul, as never before.Thanks, invisible physician, for thy silent delicious medicine, thy day and night, thy waters and
thy airs, the banks, the grass, the trees, and e'en the weeds!



　　　　　　　　　　　　　　135. A Quintette




WHILE I have been kept by the rain under the shelter of my great oak, (perfectly dry and comfortable, to the rattle of the
drops all around,) I have pencill'd off the mood of the hour in a little quintette, which I will give you:

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　At vacancy with Nature,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Acceptive and at ease,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Distilling the present hour,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Whatever, wherever it is,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And over the past, oblivion.

Can you get hold of it, reader dear? and how do you like it anyhow?




　　　　　　　　　　　136. The First Frost--Mems




WHERE I was stopping I saw the first palpable frost, on my sunrise walk, October 6; all over the yet-green spread a light
blue-gray veil, giving a new show to the entire landscape.I had but little time to notice it, for the sun rose cloudless
and mellow-warm, and as I returned along the lane it had turn'd to glittering patches of wet.As I walk I notice the burst-
ing pods of wild-cotton, (Indian hemp they call it here,) with flossy-silky contents, and dark red-brown seeds--a startled
rabbit--I pull a handful of the balsamic life-everlasting and stuff it down in my trowsers-pocket for scent. 1




　　　　　　　　　　137. Three Young Men's Deaths




December 20.--SOMEHOW I got thinking to-day of young men's deaths--not at all sadly or sentimentally, but gravely, realist-
ically, perhaps a little artistically.　Let me give the following three cases from budgets of personal memoranda, which I
have been turning over, alone in my room, and resuming and dwelling on, this rainy afternoon.Who is there to whom the theme
does not come home? Then I don't know how it may be to others, but to me not only is there nothing gloomy or depressing in
such cases--on the contrary, as reminiscences, I find them soothing, bracing, tonic. 1

ERASTUS HASKELL.--[I just transcribe verbatim from a letter written by myself in one of the army hospitals, 16 years ago,
during the secession war.] Washington, July 28, 1863.--Dear M.,--I am writing this in the hospital, sitting by the side of
a soldier, I do not expect to last many hours.His fate has been a hard one--he seems to be only about 19 or 20--Erastus Has-
kell, company K, 141st N.Y.--has been out about a year, and sick or half-sick more than half that time--has been down on the
peninsula--was detail'd to go in the band as fifer-boy.While sick, the surgeon told him to keep up with the rest--(probably
work'd and march'd too long.) He is a shy, and seems to me a very sensible boy--has fine manners--never complains--was sick
down on the peninsula in an old storehouse--typhoid fever.The first week this July was brought up here--journey very bad, no
accommodations, no nourishment, nothing but hard jolting, and exposure enough to make a well man sick; (these fearful journeys
do the job for many)--arrived here July 11th--a silent dark-skinn'd Spanish-looking Doctor F.here made light of his sick-
ness--said he would recover soon, &c.; but I thought very different, and told F.so repeatedly; (I came near quarreling with
him about it from the first)--but he laugh'd, and would not listen to me.About four days ago, I told Doctor he would in my
opinion lose the boy without doubt--but F.again laugh'd at me.The next day he changed his opinion--I brought the head sur-
geon of the post--he said the boy would probably die, but they would make a hard fight for him. 2

The last two days he has been lying panting for breath--a pitiful sight.　I have been with him some every day or night since he
arrived.　He suffers a great deal with the heat--says little or nothing--is flighty the last three days, at times--knows me al-
ways, however--calls me "Walter”--(sometimes calls the name over and over and over again, musingly, abstractedly, to himself.)
His father lives at Breesport, Chemung county, N.Y., is a mechanic with large family--is a steady, religious man; his mother
too is living.I have written to them, and shall write again to-day--Erastus has not receiv'd a word from home for months. 3

As I sit here writing to you, M., I wish you could see the whole scene.　This young man lies within reach of me, flat on his
back, his hands clasp'd across his breast, his thick black hair cut close; he is dozing, breathing hard, every breath a spasm--
it looks so cruel.　He is a noble youngster,--I consider him past all hope.Often there is no one with him for a long while.I
am here as much as possible. 4

WILLIAM ALCOTT, fireman.Camden, Nov., 1874.--Last Monday afternoon his widow, mother, relatives, mates of the fire department,
and his other friends, (I was one, only lately it is true, but our love grew fast and close, the days and nights of those eight
weeks by the chair of rapid decline, and the bed of death,) gather'd to the funeral of this young man, who had grown up, and
was well-known here.　With nothing special, perhaps, to record, I would give a word or two to his memory.　He seem'd to me not
an inappropriate specimen in character and elements, of that bulk of the average good American race that ebbs and flows peren-
nially beneath this scum of eructations on the surface.　Always very quiet in manner, neat in person and dress, good temper'd--
punctual and industrious at his work, till he could work no longer--he just lived his steady, square, unobtrusive life, in
its own humble sphere, doubtless unconscious of itself.　(Though I think there were currents of emotion and intellect undevel-
op'd beneath, far deeper than his acquaintances ever suspected--or than he himself ever did.) He was no talker.　His troubles,
when he had any, he kept to himself.　As there was nothing querulous about him in life, he made no complaints during his last
sickness.He was one of those persons that while his associates never thought of attributing any particular talent or grace
to him, yet all insensibly, really, liked Billy Alcott. 5

I, too, loved him.At last, after being with him quite a good deal--after hours and days of panting for breath, much of the
time unconscious, (for though the consumption that had been lurking in his system, once thoroughly started, made rapid pro-
gress, there was still great vitality in him, and indeed for four or five days he lay dying, before the close,) late on Wed-
nesday night, Nov.4th, where we surrounded his bed in silence, there came a lull--a longer drawn breath, a pause, a faint
sigh--another--a weaker breath, another sigh--a pause again and just a tremble--and the face of the poor wasted young man (he
was just 26,) fell gently over, in death, on my hand, on the pillow. 6

CHARLES CASWELL.--[I extract the following, verbatim, from a letter to me dated September 29, from my friend John Burroughs,
at Esopus-on-Hudson, New York State.] "S.was away when your picture came, attending his sick brother, Charles--who has since
died--an event that has sadden'd me much.Charlie was younger than S., and a most attractive young fellow.He work'd at my
father's, and had done so for two years.　He was about the best specimen of a young country farm-hand I ever knew.　You would
have loved him.　He was like one of your poems.　With his great strength, his blond hair, his cheerfulness and contentment, his
universal good will, and his silent manly ways, he was a youth hard to match.He was murder'd by an old doctor.He had typhoid
fever, and the old fool bled him twice.　He lived to wear out the fever, but had not strength to rally.He was out of his head
nearly all the time.In the morning, as he died in the afternoon, S.was standing over him, when Charlie put up his arms around
S.'s neck, and pull'd his face down and kiss'd him.　S.said he knew then the end was near.(S.stuck to him day and night to
the last.) When I was home in August, Charlie was cradling on the hill, and it was a picture to see him walk through the grain.
All work seem'd play to him.He had no vices, any more than Nature has, and was belov'd by all who knew him. 7

"I have written thus to you about him, for such young men belong to you; he was of your kind.　I wish you could have known him.
He had the sweetness of a child, and the strength and courage and readiness of a young Viking.His mother and father are poor;
they have a rough, hard farm.　His mother works in the field with her husband when the work presses.She has had twelve child-
ren.”




　　　　　　　　　　　　　138. February Days




February 7, 1878.--GLISTENING sun to-day, with slight haze, warm enough, and yet tart, as I sit here in the open air, down in
my country retreat, under an old cedar.For two hours I have been idly wandering around the woods and pond, lugging my chair,
picking out choice spots to sit awhile--then up and slowly on again. All is peace here.Of course, none of the summer noises or
vitality; to-day hardly even the winter ones. I amuse myself by exercising my voice in recitations, and in ringing the changes
on all the vocal and alphabetical sounds. Not even an echo; only the cawing of a solitary crow, flying at some distance. The
pond is one bright, flat spread, without a ripple--a vast Claude Lorraine glass, in which I study the sky, the light, the leaf-
less trees, and an occasional crow, with flapping wings, flying overhead. The brown fields have a few white patches of snow
left. 1

Feb.9.--After an hour's ramble, now retreating, resting, sitting close by the pond, in a warm nook, writing this, shelter'd
from the breeze, just before noon. The emotional aspects and influences of Nature! I, too, like the rest, feel these modern
tendencies (from all the prevailing intellections, literature and poems,) to turn everything to pathos, ennui, morbidity,
dissatisfaction, death. Yet how clear it is to me that those are not the born results, influences of Nature at all, but of
one's own distorted, sick or silly soul. Here, amid this wild, free scene, how healthy, how joyous, how clean and vigorous
and sweet! 2

Mid-afternoon.--One of my nooks is south of the barn, and here I am sitting now, on a log, still basking in the sun, shielded
from the wind.Near me are the cattle, feeding on corn-stalks. Occasionally a cow or the young bull (how handsome and bold he
is!) scratches and munches the far end of the log on which I sit.The fresh milky odor is quite perceptible, also the perfume
of hay from the barn. The perpetual rustle of dry corn-stalks, the low sough of the wind round the barn gables, the grunting
of pigs, the distant whistle of a locomotive, and occasional crowing of chanticleers, are the sounds. 3

Feb.19.--Cold and sharp last night--clear and not much wind--the full moon shining, and a fine spread of constellations and lit-
tle and big stars--Sirius very bright, rising early, preceded by many-orb'd Orion, glittering, vast, sworded, and chasing with
his dog.The earth hard frozen, and a stiff glare of ice over the pond. Attracted by the calm splendor of the night, I attempt-
ed a short walk, but was driven back by the cold.Too severe for me also at 9 o'clock, when I came out this morning, so I turn'd
back again.But now, near noon, I have walk'd down the lane, basking all the way in the sun (this farm has a pleasant southerly
exposure,) and here I am, seated under the lee of a bank, close by the water.There are blue-birds already flying about, and I
hear much chirping and twittering and two or three real songs, sustain'd quite awhile, in the mid-day brilliance and warmth.
(There! that is a true carol, coming out boldly and repeatedly, as if the singer meant it.) Then as the noon strengthens, the
reedy trill of the robin--to my ear the most cheering of bird-notes. At intervals, like bars and breaks (out of the low murmur
that in any scene, however quiet, is never entirely absent to a delicate ear,) the occasional crunch and cracking of the ice-
glare congeal'd over the creek, as it gives way to the sunbeams--sometimes with low sigh--sometimes with indignant, obstinate
tug and snort. 4

(Robert Burns says in one of his letters: “There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more--I do not know if I should call
it pleasure--but something which exalts me--something which enraptures me--than to walk in the shelter'd side of a wood in a
cloudy winter day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season of devo-
tion.” Some of his most characteristic poems were composed in such scenes and seasons.)




　　　　　　　　　　　　139. A Meadow Lark




March 16.--FINE, clear, dazzling morning, the sun an hour high, the air just tart enough. What a stamp in advance my whole day
receives from the song of that meadow lark perch'd on a fence-stake twenty rods distant! Two or three liquid-simple notes,
repeated at intervals, full of careless happiness and hope. With its peculiar shimmering-slow progress and rapid-noiseless
action of the wings, it flies on a ways, lights on another stake, and so on to another, shimmering and singing many minutes.




　　　　　　　　　　　　140. Sundown Lights




May 6, 5 P.M.--THIS is the hour for strange effects in light and shade--enough to make a colorist go delirious--long spokes
of molten silver sent horizontally through the trees (now in their brightest tenderest green,) each leaf and branch of endless
foliage a lit-up miracle, then lying all prone on the youthful-ripe, interminable grass, and giving the blades not only aggre-
gate but individual splendor, in ways unknown to any other hour. I have particular spots where I get these effects in their
perfection. One broad splash lies on the water, with many a rippling twinkle, offset by the rapidly deepening black-green murky-
transparent shadows behind, and at intervals all along the banks. These, with great shafts of horizontal fire thrown among the
trees and along the grass as the sun lowers, give effects more and more peculiar, more and more superb, unearthly, rich and
dazzling.




　　　　　　　　141. Thoughts Under an Oak--A Dream




June 2.--THIS is the fourth day of a dark northeast storm, wind and rain. Day before yesterday was my birthday. I have now en-
ter'd on my 60th year. Every day of the storm, protected by overshoes and a waterproof blanket, I regularly come down to the
pond, and ensconce myself under the lee of the great oak; I am here now writing these lines. The dark smoke-color'd clouds roll
in furious silence athwart the sky; the soft green leaves dangle all round me; the wind steadily keeps up its hoarse, soothing
music over my head--Nature's mighty whisper. Seated here in solitude I have been musing over my life--connecting events, dates,
as links of a chain, neither sadly nor cheerily, but somehow, to-day here under the oak, in the rain, in an unusually matter-
of-fact spirit. 1

But my great oak--sturdy, vital, green--five feet thick at the butt.I sit a great deal near or under him.Then the tulip tree
near by--the Apollo of the woods--tall and graceful, yet robust and sinewy, inimitable in hang of foliage and throwing-out of
limb; as if the beauteous, vital, leafy creature could walk, if it only would. (I had a sort of dream-trance the other day, in
which I saw my favorite trees step out and promenade up, down and around, very curiously--with a whisper from one, leaning down
as he pass'd me, We do all this on the present occasion, exceptionally, just for you.)




　　　　　　　　　　　142. Clover and Hay Perfume




July 3d, 4th, 5th.--CLEAR, hot, favorable weather--has been a good summer--the growth of clover and grass now generally mow'd.
The familiar delicious perfume fills the barns and lanes.As you go along you see the fields of grayish white slightly tinged
with yellow, the loosely stack'd grain, the slow-moving wagons passing, and farmers in the fields with stout boys pitching and
loading the sheaves.The corn is about beginning to tassel. All over the middle and southern states the spear-shaped battalia,
multitudinous, curving, flaunting--long, glossy, dark-green plumes for the great horseman, earth. I hear the cheery notes of my
old acquaintance Tommy quail; but too late for the whip-poor-will, (though I heard one solitary lingerer night before last.) I
watch the broad majestic flight of a turkey-buzzard, sometimes high up, sometimes low enough to see the lines of his form, even
his spread quills, in relief against the sky. Once or twice lately I have seen an eagle here at early candle-light flying low.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　143. An Unknown




June 15.--TO-DAY I noticed a new large bird, size of a nearly grown hen--a haughty, white-bodied dark-wing'd hawk--I suppose a
hawk from his bill and general look--only he had a clear, loud, quite musical, sort of bell-like call, which he repeated again
and a-gain, at intervals, from a lofty dead tree-top, overhanging the water. Sat there a long time, and I on the opposite bank
watching him. Then he darted down, skimming pretty close to the stream--rose slowly, a magnificent sight, and sail'd with steady
widespread wings, no flapping at all, up and down the pond two or three times, near me, in circles in clear sight, as if for my
delectation. Once he came quite close over my head; I saw plainly his hook'd bill and hard restless eyes.




　　　　　　　　　　 　　144. Bird-Whistling




HOW much music (wild, simple, savage, doubtless, but so tart-sweet,) there is in mere whistling. It is four-fifths of the utter-
ance of birds.There are all sorts and styles.For the last half-hour, now, while I have been sitting here, some feather'd fel-
low away off in the bushes has been repeating over and over again what I may call a kind of throbbing whistle.And now a bird
about the robin size has just appear'd, all mulberry red, flitting among the bushes--head, wings, body, deep red, not very
bright--no song, as I have heard. 4 o'clock: There is a real concert going on around me--a dozen different birds pitching in with
a will. There have been occasional rains, and the growths all show its vivifying influences. As I finish this, seated on a log
close by the pond-edge, much chirping and trilling in the distance, and a feather'd recluse in the woods near by is singing del-
iciously--not many notes, but full of music of almost human sympathy--continuing for a long, long while.




　　　　　　　　　　 　　145. Horse-Mint




Aug.22.--NOT a human being, and hardly the evidence of one, in sight.After my brief semi-daily bath, I sit here for a bit, the
brook musically brawling, to the chromatic tones of a fretful cat-bird somewhere off in the bushes. On my walk hither two hours
since, through fields and the old lane, I stopt to view, now the sky, now the mile-off woods on the hill, and now the apple or-
chards. What a contrast from New York's or Philadelphia's streets! Everywhere great patches of dingy-blossom'd horse-mint waft-
ing a spicy odor through the air, (especially evenings.) Everywhere the flowering boneset, and the rose-bloom of the wild bean.




　　　　　　　　　　 　　146. Three of Us




July 14.--MY two kingfishers still haunt the pond.In the bright sun and breeze and perfect temperature of to-day, noon, I am
sitting here by one of the gurgling brooks, dipping a French water-pen in the limpid crystal, and using it to write these lines,
again watching the feather'd twain, as they fly and sport athwart the water, so close, almost touching into its surface.　Indeed
there seem to be three of us.For nearly an hour I indolently look and join them while they dart and turn and take their airy
gambols, sometimes far up the creek disappearing for a few moments, and then surely returning again, and performing most of
their flight within sight of me, as if they knew I appreciated and absorb'd their vitality, spirituality, faithfulness, and the rapid,
vanishing, delicate lines of moving yet quiet electricity they draw for me across the spread of the grass, the trees, and the blue
sky.　While the brook babbles, babbles, and the shadows of the boughs dapple in the sunshine around me, and the cool west by-
nor'-west wind faintly soughs in the thick bushes and tree tops. 1

Among the objects of beauty and interest now beginning to appear quite plentifully in this secluded spot, I notice the humming-
bird, the dragon-fly with its wings of slate-color'd gauze, and many varieties of beautiful and plain butterflies, idly flapping
among the plants and wild posies.　The mullein has shot up out of its nest of broad leaves, to a tall stalk towering sometimes
five or six feet high, now studded with knobs of golden blossoms.The milk-weed, (I see a great gorgeous creature of gamboge and
black lighting on one as I write,) is in flower, with its delicate red fringe; and there are profuse clusters of a feathery blos-
som waving in the wind on taper stems.　I see lots of these and much else in every direction, as I saunter or sit.For the last
half hour a bird has persistently kept up a simple, sweet, melodious song, from the bushes.(I have a positive conviction that
some of these birds sing, and others fly and flirt about here, for my especial benefit.)




　　　　　　　　　　　　147.　Death of William Cullen Bryant




New York City.--CAME on from West Philadelphia, June 13, in the 2 P.M.train to Jersey city, and so across and to my friends, Mr.
and Mrs.J.H.J., and their large house, large family (and large hearts,) amid which I feel at home, at peace--away up on Fifth
avenue, near Eighty-sixth street, quiet, breezy, overlooking the dense woody fringe of the park--plenty of space and sky, birds
chirping, and air comparatively fresh and odorless. Two hours before starting, saw the announcement of William Cullen Bryant's
funeral, and felt a strong desire to attend.I had known Mr.Bryant over thirty years ago, and he had been markedly kind to me.
Off and on, along that time for years as they pass'd, we met and chatted together.I thought him very sociable in his way, and
a man to become attach'd to.We were both walkers, and when I work'd in Brooklyn he several times came over, middle of after-
noons, and we took rambles miles long, till dark, out towards Bedford or Flatbush, in company.On these occasions he gave me
clear accounts of scenes in Europe--the cities, looks, architecture, art, especially Italy--where he had travel'd a good deal.

June 14.--The Funeral.--And so the good, stainless, noble old citizen and poet lies in the closed coffin there--and this is his
funeral.A solemn, impressive, simple scene, to spirit and senses. The remarkable gathering of gray heads, celebrities--the
finely render'd anthem, and other music--the church, dim even now at approaching noon, in its light from the mellowstain'd
windows--the pronounc'd eulogy on the bard who loved Nature so fondly, and sung so well her shows and seasons--ending with
these appropriate well-known lines:


　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　I gazed upon the glorious sky,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And the green mountains round,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And thought that when I came to lie
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　At rest within the ground,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　'Twere pleasant that in flowery June,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　When brooks send up a joyous tune,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And groves a cheerful sound,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　The rich green mountain turf should break.




　　　　　　　　　　 148. Jaunt up the Hudson




June 20th.--ON the “Mary Powell,” enjoy'd everything beyond precedent. The delicious tender summer day, just warm enough--the
constantly changing but ever beautiful panorama on both sides of the river--(went up near a hundred miles)--the high straight walls
of the stony Palisades--beautiful Yonkers, and beautiful Irvington--the never-ending hills, mostly in rounded lines, swathed with
verdure,--the distant turns, like great shoulders in blue veils--the frequent gray and brown of the tall-rising rocks--the river
itself, now narrowing, now expanding--the white sails of the many sloops, yachts, &c., some near, some in the distance--the rapid
succession of handsome villages and cities, (our boat is a swift traveler, and makes few stops)--the Race--picturesque West Point,
and indeed all along--the costly and often turreted mansions forever showing in some cheery light color, through the woods--make
up the scene.



　　　　　　　　　 149. Happiness and Raspberries




June 21.--HERE I am, on the west bank of the Hudson, 80 miles north of New York, near Esopus, at the handsome, roomy, honey-
suckle-and-rose-embower'd cottage of John Burroughs.The place, the perfect June days and nights, (leaning toward crisp and cool,)
the hospitality of J.and Mrs.B., the air, the fruit, (especially my favorite dish, currants and raspberries, mixed, sugar'd, fresh and ripe
from the bushes--I pick 'em myself)--the room I occupy at night, the perfect bed, the window giving an ample view of the Hudson
and the opposite shores, so wonderful toward sunset, and the rolling music of the RR.trains, far over there--the peaceful rest--the
early Venus-heralded dawn--the noiseless splash of sunrise, the light and warmth indescribably glorious, in which, (soon as the sun
is well up,) I have a capital rubbing and rasping with the flesh-brush--with an extra scour on the back by Al.J., who is here with us
--all inspiriting my invalid frame with new life, for the day.Then, after some whiffs of morning air, the delicious coffee of Mrs.B.,
with the cream, strawberries, and many substantials, for breakfast. 1




　　　　　　　　　 150. A Specimen Tramp Family




June 22.--THIS afternoon we went out (J. B., Al. and I) on quite a drive around the country. The scenery, the perpetual stone
fences, (some venerable old fellows, dark-spotted with lichens)--the many fine locust-trees--the runs of brawling water, often
over descents of rock--these, and lots else. It is lucky the roads are first-rate here, (as they are,) for it is up or down hill
everywhere, and sometimes steep enough. B. has a tip-top horse, strong, young, and both gentle and fast. There is a great deal
of waste land and hills on the river edge of Ulster county, with a wonderful luxuriance of wild flowers and bushes--and it seems
to me I never saw more vitality of trees--eloquent hemlocks, plenty of locusts and fine maples, and the balm of Gilead, giving
out aroma. In the fields and along the road-sides unusual crops of the tall-stemm'd wild daisy, white as milk and yellow as gold.

We pass'd quite a number of tramps, singly or in couples--one squad, a family in a rickety one-horse wagon, with some baskets
evidently their work and trade--the man seated on a low board, in front, driving--the gauntish woman by his side, with a baby well
bundled in her arms, its little red feet and lower legs sticking out right towards us as we pass'd--and in the wagon behind, we
saw two (or three) crouching little children. It was a queer, taking, rather sad picture. If I had been alone and on foot, I
should have stopp'd and held confab. But on our return nearly two hours afterward, we found them a ways further along the same
road, in a lonesome open spot, haul'd aside, unhitch'd, and evidently going to camp for the night. The freed horse was not far
off, quietly cropping the grass. The man was busy at the wagon, the boy had gather'd some dry wood, and was making a fire--and
as we went a little further we met the woman afoot. I could not see her face, in its great sun-bonnet, but somehow her figure and
gait told misery, terror, destitution. She had the rag-bundled, half-starv'd infant still in her arms, and in her hands held two
or three baskets, which she had evidently taken to the next house for sale. A little barefoot five-year old girl-child, with fine
eyes, trotted behind her, clutching her gown. We stopp'd, asking about the baskets, which we bought. As we paid the money, she
kept her face hidden in the recesses of her bonnet. Then as we started, and stopp'd again, Al., (whose sympathies were evidently
arous'd,) went back to the camping group to get another basket. He caught a look of her face, and talk'd with her a little.
Eyes, voice and manner were those of a corpse, animated by electricity. She was quite young--the man she was traveling with, mid-
dle-aged. Poor woman--what story was it, out of her fortunes, to account for that inexpressibly scared way, those glassy eyes, and
that hollow voice?




　　　　　　　　　 151. Manhattan from the Bay




June 25.--RETURNED to New York last night. Out to-day on the waters for a sail in the wide bay, southeast of Staten island--a rough,
tossing ride, and a free sight--the long stretch of Sandy Hook, the highlands of Navesink, and the many vessels outward and inward
bound. We came up through the midst of all, in the full sun. I especially enjoy'd the last hour or two. A moderate sea-breeze had
set in; yet over the city, and the waters adjacent, was a thin haze, concealing nothing, only adding to the beauty. From my point
of view, as I write amid the soft breeze, with a sea-temperature, surely nothing on earth of its kind can go beyond this show. To
the left the North river with its far vista--nearer, three or four war-ships, anchor'd peacefully--the Jersey side, the banks of
Weehawken, the Palisades, and the gradually receding blue, lost in the distance--to the right the East river--the mast-hemm'd
shores--the grand obelisk-like towers of the bridge, one on either side, in haze, yet plainly defin'd, giant brothers twain, throw-
ing free graceful interlinking loops high across the tumbled tumultuous current below--(the tide is just changing to its ebb)--the
broad water-spread everywhere crowded--no, not crowded, but thick as stars in the sky--with all sorts and sizes of sail and steam
vessels, plying ferry-boats, arriving and departing coasters, great ocean Dons, iron-black, modern, magnificent in size and power,
fill'd with their incalculable value of human life and precious merchandise--with here and there, above all, those daring, careen-
ing things of grace and wonder, those white and shaded swift-darting fish-birds, (I wonder if shore or sea elsewhere can outvie
them,) ever with their slanting spars, and fierce, pure, hawk-like beauty and motion--first-class New York sloop or schooner yachts,
sailing, this fine day, the free sea in a good wind. And rising out of the midst, tall-topt, ship-hemm'd, modern, American, yet
strangely oriental, V-shaped Manhattan, with its compact mass, its spires, its cloud-touching edifices group'd at the centre--the
green of the trees, and all the white, brown and gray of the architecture well blended, as I see it, under a miracle of limpid sky,
delicious light of heaven above, and June haze on the surface below. 1




　　　　　　　　　 152. Human and Heroic New York




THE GENERAL subjective view of New York and Brooklyn--(will not the time hasten when the two shall be municipally united in one,
and named Manhattan?)--what I may call the human interior and exterior of these great seething oceanic populations, as I get it in
this visit, is to me best of all. After an absence of many years, (I went away at the outbreak of the secession war, and have never
been back to stay since,) again I resume with curiosity the crowds, the streets I knew so well, Broadway, the ferries, the west side
of the city, democratic Bowery--human appearances and manners as seen in all these, and along the wharves, and in the perpetual travel
of the horse-cars, or the crowded excursion steamers, or in Wall and Nassau streets by day--in the places of amusement at night--bubb-
ling and whirling and moving like its own environment of waters--endless humanity in all phases--Brooklyn also--taken in for the last
three weeks. No need to specify minutely--enough to say that (making all allowances for the shadows and side-streaks of a million-
headed-city) the brief total of the impressions, the human qualities, of these vast cities, is to me comforting, even heroic, beyond
statement. Alertness, generally fine physique, clear eyes that look straight at you, a singular combination of reticence and self-pos-
session, with good nature and friendliness--a prevailing range of according manners, taste and intellect, surely beyond any elsewhere
upon earth--and a palpable outcropping of that personal comradeship I look forward to as the subtlest, strongest future hold of this
many-item'd Union--are not only constantly visible here in these mighty channels of men, but they form the rule and average. To-day,
I should say--defiant of cynics and pessimists, and with a full knowledge of all their exceptions--an appreciative and perceptive study
of the current humanity of New York gives the directest proof yet of successful Democracy, and of the solution of that paradox, the
eligibility of the free and fully developed individual with the paramount aggregate. In old age, lame and sick, pondering for years
on many a doubt and danger for this republic of ours--fully aware of all that can be said on the other side--I find in this visit to
New York, and the daily contact and rapport with its myriad people, on the scale of the oceans and tides, the best, most effective
medicine my soul has yet partaken--the grandest physical habitat and surroundings of land and water the globe affords--namely, Manhat-
tan island and Brooklyn, which the future shall join in one city--city of superb democracy, amid superb surroundings. 1




　　　　　　　　 　　 153. Hours for the Soul




July 22d, 1878.--LIVING down in the country again. A wonderful conjunction of all that goes to make those sometime miracle-hours aft-
er sunset--so near and yet so far. Perfect, or nearly perfect days, I notice, are not so very uncommon; but the combinations that make
perfect nights are few, even in a life time. We have one of those perfections to-night. Sunset left things pretty clear; the larger
stars were visible soon as the shades allow'd. A while after 8, three or four great black clouds suddenly rose, seemingly from dif-
ferent points, and sweeping with broad swirls of wind but no thunder, underspread the orbs from view everywhere, and indicated a vi-
olent heat-storm. But without storm, clouds, blackness and all, sped and vanish'd as suddenly as they had risen; and from a little
after 9 till 11 the atmosphere and the whole show above were in that state of exceptional clearness and glory just alluded to. In
the northwest turned the Great Dipper with its pointers round the Cynosure. A little south of east the constellation of the Scorpion
was fully up, with red Antares glowing in its neck; while dominating, majestic Jupiter swam, an hour and a half risen, in the east--
(no moon till after 11.) A large part of the sky seem'd just laid in great splashes of phosphorus. You could look deeper in, farther
through, than usual; the orbs thick as heads of wheat in a field. Not that there was any special brilliancy either--nothing near as
sharp as I have seen of keen winter nights, but a curious general luminousness throughout to sight, sense, and soul. The latter had
much to do with it. (I am convinced there are hours of Nature, especially of the atmosphere, mornings and evenings, address'd to the
soul. Night transcends, for that purpose, what the proudest day can do.) Now, indeed, if never before, the heavens declared the glory
of God. It was to the full the sky of the Bible, of Arabia, of the prophets, and of the oldest poems. There, in abstraction and still-
ness, (I had gone off by myself to absorb the scene, to have the spell unbroken,) the copiousness, the removedness, vitality, loose-
clear-crowdedness, of that stellar concave spreading overhead, softly absorb'd into me, rising so free, interminably high, stretch-
ing east, west, north, south--and I, though but a point in the centre below, embodying all. 1

As if for the first time, indeed, creation noiselessly sank into and through me its placid and untellable lesson, beyond--O, so infin-
itely beyond!--anything from art, books, sermons, or from science, old or new. The spirit's hour--religion's hour--the visible sugges-
tion of God in space and time--now once definitely indicated, if never again. The untold pointed at--the heavens all paved with it. The
Milky Way, as if some superhuman symphony, some ode of universal vagueness, disdaining syllable and sound--a flashing glance of Deity,
address'd to the soul. All silently--the indescribable night and stars--far off and silently. 2

THE DAWN.--July 23.--This morning, between one and two hours before sunrise, a spectacle wrought on the same background, yet of
quite different beauty and meaning. The moon well up in the heavens, and past her half, is shining brightly--the air and sky of that cyni-
cal-clear, Minerva-like quality, virgin cool--not the weight of sentiment or mystery, or passion's ecstasy indefinable--not the reli-
gious sense, the varied All, distill'd and sublimated into one, of the night just described. Every star now clear-cut, showing for
just what it is, there in the colorless ether. The character of the heralded morning, ineffably sweet and fresh and limpid, but for
the esthetic sense alone, and for purity without sentiment. I have itemized the night--but dare I attempt the cloudless dawn? (What
subtle tie is this between one's soul and the break of day? Alike, and yet no two nights or morning shows ever exactly alike.) Pre-
ceded by an immense star, almost unearthly in its effusion of white splendor, with two or three long unequal spoke-rays of diamond
radiance, shedding down through the fresh morning air below--an hour of this, and then the sunrise. 3

THE EAST.--What a subject for a poem! Indeed, where else a more pregnant, more splendid one? Where one more idealistic-real, more
subtle, more sensuous-delicate? The East, answering all lands, all ages, peoples; touching all senses, here, immediate, now--and yet so
indescribably far off--such retrospect! The East--long-stretching--so losing itself--the orient, the gardens of Asia, the womb of
history and song--forth-issuing all those strange, dim cavalcades--

　　　　　　　Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
　　　　　　　Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
　　　　　　　With sunburnt visage, intense soul and glittering eyes.

Always the East--old, how incalculably old! And yet here the same--ours yet, fresh as a rose, to every morning, every life, to-day--
and always will be. 5

Sept. 17.--Another presentation--same theme--just before sunrise again, (a favorite hour with me.) The clear gray sky, a faint glow
in the dull liver-color of the east, the cool fresh odor and the moisture--the cattle and horses off there grazing in the fields--
the star Venus again, two hours high. For sounds, the chirping of crickets in the grass, the clarion of chanticleer, and the distant
cawing of an early crow. Quietly over the dense fringe of cedars and pines rises that dazzling, red, transparent disk of flame,
and the low sheets of white vapor roll and roll into dissolution. 6

THE MOON.--May 18.--I went to bed early last night, but found myself waked shortly after 12, and, turning awhile sleepless and men-
tally feverish, I rose, dress'd myself, sallied forth and walk'd down the lane. The full moon, some three or four hours up--a
sprinkle of light and less-light clouds just lazily moving--Jupiter an hour high in the east, and here and there throughout the
heavens a random star appearing and disappearing. So, beautifully veil'd and varied--the air, with that early-summer perfume, not
at all damp or raw--at times Luna languidly emerging in richest brightness for minutes, and then partially envelop'd again. Far
off a whip-poor-will plied his notes incessantly. It was that silent time between 1 and 3. 7

The rare nocturnal scene, how soon it sooth'd and pacified me! Is there not something about the moon, some relation or reminder,
which no poem or literature has yet caught? (In very old and primitive ballads I have come across lines or asides that suggest
it.) After a while the clouds mostly clear'd, and as the moon swam on, she carried, shimmering and shifting, delicate color-ef-
fects of pellucid green and tawny vapor. Let me conclude this part with an extract, (some writer in the “Tribune,” May 16,
1878:)

　　　　No one ever gets tired of the moon. Goddess that she is by dower of her eternal beauty, she is a true woman by her tact--
　　　　knows the charm of being seldom seen, of coming by surprise and staying but a little while; never wears the same dress two
　　　　nights running, nor all night the same way; commends herself to the matter-of-fact people by her usefulness, and makes her
　　　　uselessness adored by poets, artists, and all lovers in all lands; lends herself to every symbolism and to every emblem; is Diana's
　　　　bow and Venus's mirror and Mary's throne; is a sickle, a scarf, an eyebrow, his face or her face, as look'd at by her or by him; is
　　　　the madman's hell, the poet's heaven, the baby's toy, the philosopher's study; and while her admirers follow her footsteps,
　　　　and hang on her lovely looks, she knows how to keep her woman's secret--her other side--unguess'd and unguessable.

Furthermore.--February 19, 1880.--Just before 10 P. M. cold and entirely clear again, the show overhead, bearing southwest, of won-
derful and crowded magnificence. The moon in her third quarter--the clusters of the Hyades and Pleiades, with the planet Mars be-
tween--in full crossing sprawl in the sky the great Egyptian X, (Sirius, Procyon, and the main stars in the constellations of the
Ship, the Dove, and of Orion;) just north of east Bootes, and in his knee Arcturus, an hour high, mounting the heaven, ambitiously
large and sparkling, as if he meant to challenge with Sirius the stellar supremacy. 9

With the sentiment of the stars and moon such nights I get all the free margins and indefiniteness of music or poetry, fused in
geometry's utmost exactness. 10




　　　　　　　　　 154. Straw-Color'd and Other Psyches




Aug. 4.--A PRETTY sight! Where I sit in the shade--a warm day, the sun shining from cloudless skies, the forenoon well advanc'd
--I look over a ten-acre field of luxuriant clover-hay, (the second crop)--the livid-ripe red blossoms and dabs of August brown
thickly spotting the prevailing dark-green. Over all flutter myriads of light-yellow butterflies, mostly skimming along the surface,
dipping and oscillating, giving a curious animation to the scene. The beautiful, spiritual insect! straw-color'd Psyches! Occas-
ionally one of them leaves his mates, and mounts, perhaps spirally, perhaps in a straight line in the air, fluttering up, up,
till literally out of sight. In the lane as I came along just now I noticed one spot, ten feet square or so, where more than a
hundred had collected, holding a revel, a gyration-dance, or butterfly good time, winding and circling, down and across, but
always keeping within the limits. The little creatures have come out all of a sudden the last few days, and are now very plen-
tiful. As I sit outdoors, or walk, I hardly look around without somewhere seeing two (always two) fluttering through the air
in amorous dalliance. Then their inimitable color, their fragility, peculiar motion--and that strange, frequent way of one lea-
ving the crowd and mounting up, up in the free ether, and apparently never returning. As I look over the field, these yellow-
wings everywhere mildly sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the wild carrot gracefully bending on their tall and taper stems--
while for sounds, the distant guttural screech of a flock of guinea-hens comes shrilly yet somehow musically to my ears. And
now a faint growl of heat-thunder in the north--and ever the low rising and falling wind-purr from the tops of the maples and
willows. 1

Aug. 20.--Butterflies and butterflies, (taking the place of the bumble-bees of three months since, who have quite disappe-
ar'd,) continue to flit to and fro, all sorts, white, yellow, brown purple--now and then some gorgeous fellow flashing lazily
by on wings like artists' palettes dabb'd with every color. Over the breast of the pond I notice many white ones, crossing,
pursuing their idle capricious flight. Near where I sit grows a tall-stemm'd weed topt with a profusion of rich scarlet blos-
soms, on which the snowy insects alight and dally, sometimes four or five of them at a time. By-and-by a humming-bird visits
the same, and I watch him coming and going, daintily balancing and shimmering about. These white butterflies give new beauti-
ful contrasts to the pure greens of the August foliage, (we have had some copious rains lately,) and over the glistening
bronze of the pond-surface. You can tame even such insects; I have one big and handsome moth down here, knows and comes to
me, likes me to hold him up on my extended hand. 2

Another Day, later.--A grand twelve-acre field of ripe cabbages with their prevailing hue of malachite green, and floating-
flying over and among them in all directions myriads of these same white butterflies. As I came up the lane to-day I saw
a living globe of the same, two to three feet in diameter, many scores cluster'd together and rolling along in the air, ad-
hering to their ball-shape, six or eight feet above the ground. 3




　　　　　　　　　　 　　155. A Night Remembrance




Aug. 25, 9-10 A. M.--I SIT by the edge of the pond, everything quiet, the broad polish'd surface spread before me--the blue
of the heavens and the white clouds return'd from it--and flitting across, now and then, the reflection of some flying bird.
Last night I was down here with a friend till after midnight; everything a miracle of splendor--the glory of the stars, and
the completely rounded moon--the passing clouds, silver and luminous-tawny--now and then masses of vapory illuminated scud
--and silently by my side my dear friend. The shades of the trees, and patches of moonlight on the grass--the softly blowing
breeze, and just-palpable odor of the neighboring ripening corn--the indolent and spiritual night, inexpressibly rich, tender, sug-
gestive--something altogether to filter through one's soul, and nourish and feed and soothe the memory long afterwards.




　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　156. Wild Flowers




THIS has been and is yet a great season for wild flowers; oceans of them line the roads through the woods, border the edges
of the water-runlets, grow all along the old fences, and are scatter'd in profusion over the fields. An eight-petal'd blossom of
gold-yellow clear and bright, with a brown tuft in the middle, nearly as large as a silver half-dollar, is very common; yester-
day on a long drive I noticed it thickly lining the borders of the brooks everywhere. Then there is a beautiful weed cover'd
with blue flowers, (the blue of the old Chinese teacups treasur'd by our grand-aunts,) I am continually stopping to admire--
a little larger than a dime, and very plentiful. White, however, is the prevailing color. The wild carrot I have spoken of; also
the fragrant life-everlasting. But there are all hues and beauties, especially on the frequent tracts of half-open scrub-oak
and dwarf-cedar hereabout--wild asters of all colors. Notwithstanding the frost-touch the hardy little chaps maintain them-
selves in all their bloom. The tree-leaves, too, some of them are beginning to turn yellow or drab or dull green. The deep
wine-color of the sumachs and gum-trees is already visible, and the straw-color of the dog-wood and beech. Let me give the
names of some of these perennial blossoms and friendly weeds I have made acquaintance with hereabout one season or an-
other in my walks:

wild azalea,
dandelions,
wild honeysuckle,
yarrow,
wild roses,
coreopsis,
golden rod,
wild pea,
larkspur,
woodbine,
early crocus,
elderberry,
sweet flag, (great patches of it,)
poke-weed,
creeper, trumpet-flower,
sun-flower,
scented marjoram,
chamomile,
snakeroot,
violets,
Solomon's seal,
clematis,
sweet balm,
bloodroot,
mint, (great plenty,)
swamp magnolia,
wild geranium,
milk-weed,
wild heliotrope,
wild daisy, (plenty,)
burdock,
wild chrysanthemum.




　　　　　　　　　 　　157. A Civility Too Long Neglected




THE FOREGOING reminds me of something. As the individualities I would mainly portray have certainly been slighted by folks
who make pictures, volumes, poems, out of them--as a faint testimonial of my own gratitude for many hours of peace and com-
fort in half-sickness, (and not by any means sure but they will somehow get wind of the compliment,) I hereby dedicate the
last half of these Specimen Days to the

bees,
water-snakes,
black-birds,
crows,
dragon-flies,
millers,
pond-turtles,
mosquitoes,
mulleins, tansy, peppermint,
butterflies,
moths (great and little, some splendid fellows,)
wasps and hornets,

cat birds (and all other birds,)
glow-worms, (swarming millions of them indescribably strange and beautiful at night over the pond and creek,)
cedars,

tulip-trees (and all other trees,)

and to the spots and memories of those days, and of the creek.




　　　　　　 　　 　　158. Delaware River--Days and Nights




April 5, 1879.--WITH the return of spring to the skies, airs, waters of the Delaware, depart the sea-gulls. I never tire of
watching their broad and easy flight, in spirals, or as they oscillate with slow unflapping wings, or look down with curved
beak, or dipping to the water after food. The crows, plenty enough all through the winter, also vanish'd with the ice. Not
one of them now to be seen. The steamboats have again come forth--bustling up, handsome, freshly painted, for summer work--
the Columbia, the Edwin Forrest, (the Republic not yet out,) the Reybold, the Nelly White, the Twilight, the Ariel, the War-
ner, the Perry, the Taggart, the Jersey Blue--even the hulky old Trenton--not forgetting those saucy little bull-pups of the
current, the steamtugs. 1

But let me bunch and catalogue the affair--the river itself, all the way from the sea--cape Island on one side and Henlopen
light on the other--up the broad bay north, and so to Philadelphia, and on further to Trenton;--the sights I am most familiar
with, (as I live a good part of the time in Camden, I view matters from that outlook)--the great arrogant, black, full-fre-
ighted ocean steamers, inward or outward bound--the ample width here between the two cities, intersected by Windmill island--
an occasional man-of-war, sometimes a foreigner, at anchor, with her guns and port-holes, and the boats, and the brown-fac-
ed sailors, and the regular oar-strokes, and the gay crowds of “visiting day”--the frequent large and handsome three-mast-
ed schooners, (a favorite style of marine build, hereabout of late years,) some of them new and very jaunty, with their
white-gray sails and yellow pine spars--the sloops dashing along in a fair wind--(I see one now, coming up, under broad can-
vas, her gaff-topsail shining in the sun, high and picturesque--what a thing of beauty amid the sky and waters!)--the crowded
wharf-slips along the city--the flags of different nationalities, the sturdy English cross on its ground of blood, the French
tricolor, the banner of the great North German empire, and the Italian and the Spanish colors--sometimes, of an afternoon,
the whole scene enliven'd by a fleet of yachts, in a half calm, lazily returning from a race down at Gloucester;--the neat,
rakish, revenue steamer “Hamilton” in mid-stream, with her perpendicular stripes flaunting aft--and, turning the eyes north,
the long ribands of fleecy-white steam, or dingy-black smoke, stretching far, fan-shaped, slanting diagonally across from
the Kensington or Richmond shores, in the west-by-south-west wind.




　　　　　　 　159. Scenes on Ferry and River--Last Winter's Nights




THEN the Camden ferry. What exhilaration, change, people, business, by day. What soothing, silent, wondrous hours, at night,
crossing on the boat, most all to myself--pacing the deck, alone, forward or aft. What communion with the waters, the air, the
exquisite chiaroscuro--the sky and stars, that speak no word, nothing to the intellect, yet so eloquent, so communicative to
the soul. And the ferry men--little they know how much they have been to me, day and night--how many spells of listlessness,
ennui, debility, they and their hardy ways have dispell'd. And the pilots--captains Hand, Walton, and Giberson by day, and
captain Olive at night; Eugene Crosby, with his strong young arm so often supporting, circling, convoying me over the gaps of
the bridge, through impediments, safely aboard. Indeed all my ferry friends--captain Frazee the superintendent, Lindell, His-
key, Fred Rauch, Price, Watson, and a dozen more. And the ferry itself, with its queer scenes--sometimes children suddenly
born in the waiting-houses (an actual fact--and more than once)--sometimes a masquerade party, going over at night, with a
band of music, dancing and whirling like mad on the broad deck, in their fantastic dresses: sometimes the astronomer, Mr.
Whitall, (who posts me up in points about the stars by a living lesson there and then, and answering every question)--some-
times a prolific family groups, eight, nine, ten, even twelve! (Yesterday, as I cross'd, a mother, father, and eight child-
ren, waiting in the ferry-house, bound westward somewhere.) 1

I have mention'd the crows. I always watch them from the boats. They play quite a part in the winter scenes on the river, by
day. Their black splatches are seen in relief against the snow and ice everywhere at that season--sometimes flying and flap-
ping--sometimes on little or larger cakes, sailing up or down the stream. One day the river was mostly clear--only a single
long ridge of broken ice making a narrow stripe by itself, running along down the current for over a mile; quite rapidly. On
this white stripe the crows were congregated, hundreds of them--a funny procession--("half mourning” was the comment of
some one.)

Then the reception room, for passengers waiting--life illustrated thoroughly. Take a March picture I jotted there two or
three weeks since. Afternoon, about 3 1/2 o'clock, it begins to snow. There has been a matinee performance at the theater--
from 4 1/4 to 5 comes a stream of homeward bound ladies. I never knew the spacious room to present a gayer, more lively
scene--handsome, well-drest Jersey women and girls, scores of them, streaming in for nearly an hour--the bright eyes and
glowing faces, coming in from the air--a sprinkling of snow on bonnets or dresses as they enter--the five or ten minutes'
waiting--the chatting and laughing--(women can have capital times among themselves, with plenty of wit, lunches, jovial
abandon)--Lizzie, the pleasant-manner'd waiting-room woman--for sound, the bell-taps and steam-signals of the departing
boats with their rhythmic break and undertone--the domestic pictures, mothers with bevie of daughters, (a charming sight)--
children, countrymen--the railroad men in their blue clothes and caps--all the various characters of city and country
represented or suggested. Then outside some belated passenger frantically running, jumping after the boat. Towards six
o'clock the human stream gradually thickening--now a pressure of vehicles, drays, piled railroad crates--now a drove of
cattle, making quite an excitement, the drovers with heavy sticks, belaboring the steaming sides of the frighten'd brutes.
Inside the reception room, business bargains, flirting, love-making, eclaircissements, proposals--pleasant, sober-faced
Phil coming in with his burden of afternoon papers--or Jo, or Charley (who jump'd in the dock last week, and saved a
stout lady from drowning,) to replenish the stove, after clearing it with long crow-bar poker.

Besides all this “comedy human,” the river affords nutriment of a higher order. Here are some of my memoranda of the
past winter, just as pencill'd down on the spot.

A January Night.--Fine trips across the wide Delaware to-night. Tide pretty high, and a strong ebb. River, a little af-
ter 8, full of ice, mostly broken, but some large cakes making our strong-timber'd steamboat hum and quiver as she
strikes them. In the clear moonlight they spread, strange, unearthly, silvery, faintly glistening, as far as I can see.
Bumping, trembling, sometimes hissing like a thousand snakes, the tide-procession, as we wend with or through it, af-
fording a grand undertone, in keeping with the scene. Overhead, the splendor indescribable; yet something haughty, al-
most supercilious, in the night. Never did I realize more latent sentiment, almost passion, in those silent intermina-
ble stars up there. One can understand, such a night, why, from the days of the Pharaohs or Job, the dome of heaven,
sprinkled with planets, has supplied the subtlest, deepest criticism on human pride, glory, ambition.

Another Winter Night.--I don't know anything more filling than to be on the wide firm deck of a powerful boat, a clear,
cool, extra-moonlight night, crushing proudly and resistlessly through this thick, marbly, glistening ice. The whole
river is now spread with it--some immense cakes. There is such weirdness about the scene--partly the quality of the
light, with its tinge of blue, the lunar twilight--only the large stars holding their own in the radiance of the moon.
Temperature sharp, comfortable for motion, dry, full of oxygen. But the sense of power--the steady, scornful, imperious
urge of our strong new engine, as she ploughs her way through the big and little cakes. 6

Another.--For two hours I cross'd and recross'd, merely for pleasure--for a still excitement. Both sky and river went
through several changes. The first for awhile held two vast fan-shaped echelons of light clouds, through which the moon
waded, now radiating, carrying with her an aureole of tawny transparent brown, and now flooding the whole vast with
clear vapory light-green, through which, as through an illuminated veil, she moved with measur'd womanly motion. Then,
another trip, the heavens would be absolutely clear, and Luna in all her effulgence. The big Dipper in the north, with
the double star in the handle much plainer than common. Then the sheeny track of light in the water, dancing and ri-
ppling. Such transformations; such pictures and poems, inimitable.

Another.--I am studying the stars, under advantages, as I cross to-night. (It is late in February, and again extra
clear.) High toward the west, the Pleiades, tremulous with delicate sparkle, in the soft heavens. Aldebaran, leading
the V-shaped Hyades--and overhead Capella and her kids. Most majestic of all, in full display in the high south, Orion,
vast-spread, roomy, chief histrion of the stage, with his shiny yellow rosette on his shoulder, and his three Kings--
and a little to the east, Sirius, calmly arrogant, most wondrous single star. Going late ashore, (I couldn't give up
the beauty and soothingness of the night,) as I staid around, or slowly wander'd, I heard the echoing calls of the
railroad men in the West Jersey depot yard, shifting and switching trains, engines, &c.; amid the general silence o-
therways, and something in the acoustic quality of the air, musical, emotional effects, never thought of before. I
linger'd long and long, listening to them.

Night of March 18, '79.--One of the calm, pleasantly cool, exquisitely clear and cloudless, early spring nights--the
atmosphere again that rare vitreous blue-black, welcom'd by astronomers. Just at 8, evening, the scene overhead of
certainly solemnest beauty, never surpass'd. Venus nearly down in the west, of a size and lustre as if trying to out-
show herself, before departing. Teeming, maternal orb--I take you again to myself. I am reminded of that spring pre-
ceding Abraham Lincoln's murder, when I, restlessly haunting the Potomac banks, around Washington city, watch'd you,
off there, aloof, moody as myself:

　　　　　　　　　As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
　　　　　　　　　As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
　　　　　　　　　As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night,
　　　　　　　　　As you droop from the sky low down, as if to my side,
　　 　　　　　　　　　(while the other stars all look'd on,)
　　　　　　　　　As we wander'd together the solemn night.

With departing Venus, large to the last, and shining even to the edge of the horizon, the vast dome presents at this
moment, such a spectacle! Mercury was visible just after sunset--a rare sight. Arcturus is now risen, just north of
east. In calm glory all the stars of Orion hold the place of honor, in meridian, to the south--with the Dog-star a
little to the left. And now, just rising, Spica, late, low, and slightly veil'd. Castor, Regulus and the rest, all
shining unusually clear, (no Mars or Jupiter or moon till morning.) On the edges of the river, many lamps twinkling--
with two or three huge chimneys, a couple of miles up, belching forth molten, steady flames, volcano-like, illumina-
ting all around--and sometimes an electric or calcium, its Dante-Inferno gleams, in far shafts, terrible, ghastly-
powerful. Of later May nights, crossing, I like to watch the fishermen's little buoy-lights--so pretty, so dreamy--
like corpse candles--undulating delicate and lonesome on the surface of the shadowy waters, floating with the cur-
rent.




　　　　　　　 　　160. The First Spring Day on Chestnut Street




WINTER relaxing its hold, has already allow'd us a foretaste of spring. As I write, yesterday afternoon's softness and
brightness, (after the morning fog, which gave it a better setting, by contrast,) show'd Chestnut street--say between Broad
and Fourth--to more advantage in its various asides, and all its stores, and gay-dress'd crowds generally, than for three
months past. I took a walk there between one and two. Doubtless, there were plenty of hard-up folks along the pavements, but
nine-tenths of the myriad-moving human panorama to all appearance seem'd flush, well-fed, and fully-provided. At all events
it was good to be on Chestnut street yesterday. The peddlers on the sidewalk--(“sleeve-buttons, three for five cents”)--the
handsome little fellow with canary-bird whistles--the cane men, toy men, toothpick men--the old woman squatted in a heap on
the cold stone flags, with her basket of matches, pins and tape--the young negro mother, sitting, begging, with her two lit-
tle coffee-color'd twins on her lap--the beauty of the cramm'd conservatory of rare flowers, flaunting reds, yellows, snowy
lilies, incredible orchids, at the Baldwin mansion near Twelfth street--the show of fine poultry, beef, fish, at the restau-
rants--the china stores, with glass and statuettes--the luscious tropical fruits--the street cars plodding along, with their
tintinnabulating bells--the fat, cab-looking, rapidly driven one-horse vehicles of the post-office, squeez'd full of coming
or going letter-carriers, so healthy and handsome and manly-looking, in their gray uniforms--the costly books, pictures, cur-
iosities, in the windows--the gigantic policemen at most of the corners--will all be readily remember'd and recognized as
features of this principal avenue of Philadelphia. Chestnut street, I have discover'd, is not without individuality, and
its own points, even when compared with the great promenade-streets of other cities. I have never been in Europe, but acqu-
ired years' familiar experience with New York's, (perhaps the world's,) great thoroughfare, Broadway, and possess to some
extent a personal and saunterer's knowledge of St. Charles street in New Orleans, Tremont street in Boston, and the broad
trottoirs of Pennsylvania avenue in Washington. Of course it is a pity that Chestnut were not two or three times wider; but
the street, any fine day, shows vividness, motion, variety, not easily to be surpass'd. (Sparkling eyes, human faces, mag-
netism, welldress'd women, ambulating to and fro--with lots of fine things in the windows--are they not about the same, the
civilized world over?)

　　　　　　　　　How fast the flitting figures come!
　　　　　　　　　The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
　　　　　　　　　Some bright with thoughtless smiles--and some
　　　　　　　　　Where secret tears have left their trace.

A few days ago one of the six-story clothing stores along here had the space inside its plate-glass show-window partition'd
into a little corral, and litter'd deeply with rich clover and hay, (I could smell the odor outside,) on which reposed two
magnificent fat sheep, full-sized but young--the handsomest creatures of the kind I ever saw. I stopp'd long and long, with
the crowd, to view them--one lying down chewing the cud, and one standing up, looking out, with dense-fringed patient eyes.
Their wool, of a clear tawny color, with streaks of glistening black--altogether a queer sight amidst that crowded promenade
of dandies, dollars and drygoods.




　　　　　　 　　 　　161. Up the Hudson to Ulster County




April 23.--OFF to New York on a little tour and visit. Leaving the hospitable, home-like quarters of my valued friends, Mr.
and Mrs. J. H. Johnston--took the 4 P. M. boat, bound up the Hudson, 100 miles or so. Sunset and evening fine. Especially en-
joy'd the hour after we passed Cozzens's landing--the night lit by the crescent moon and Venus, now swimming in tender glory,
and now hid by the high rocks and hills of the western shore, which we hugg'd close. (Where I spend the next ten days is in
Ulster county and its neighborhood, with frequent morning and evening drives, observations of the river, and short rambles.)

April 24--Noon.--A little more and the sun would be oppressive. The bees are out gathering their bread from willows and other
trees. I watch them returning, darting through the air or lighting on the hives, their thighs covered with the yellow forage.
A solitary robin sings near. I sit in my shirt sleeves and gaze from an open bay-window on the indolent scene--the thin haze,
the Fishkill hills in the distance--off on the river, a sloop with slanting mainsail, and two or three little shad-boats. Over
on the railroad opposite, long freight trains, sometimes weighted by cylinder-tanks of petroleum, thirty, forty, fifty cars
in a string, panting and rumbling along in full view, but the sound soften'd by distance.




　　　　　　 　　162. Days at J. B.'s--Turf-Fires--Spring Songs




April 26.--AT sunrise, the pure clear sound of the meadow lark. An hour later, some notes, few and simple, yet delicious and
perfect, from the bush-sparrow--towards noon the reedy trill of the robin. To-day is the fairest, sweetest yet--penetrating
warmth--a lovely veil in the air, partly heat-vapor and partly from the turf-fires everywhere in patches on the farms. A group
of soft maples near by silently bursts out in crimson tips, buzzing all day with busy bees. The white sails of sloops and
schooners glide up or down the river; and long trains of cars, with ponderous roll, or faint bell notes, almost constantly
on the opposite shore. The earliest wild flowers in the woods and fields, spicy arbutus, blue liverwort, frail anemone, and
the pretty white blossoms of the bloodroot. I launch out in slow rambles, discovering them. As I go along the roads I like
to see the farmers' fires in patches, burning the dry brush, turf, debris. How the smoke crawls along, flat to the ground,
slanting, slowly rising, reaching away, and at last dissipating. I like its acrid smell--whiffs just reaching me--welcomer than
French perfume.

The birds are plenty; of any sort, or of two or three sorts, curiously, not a sign, till suddenly some warm, gushing, sunny
April (or even March) day--lo! there they are, from twig to twig, or fence to fence, flirting, singing, some mating, preparing
to build. But most of them en passant--a fortnight, a month in these parts, and then away. As in all phases, Nature keeps up
her vital, copious, eternal procession. Still, plenty of the birds hang around all or most of the season--now their love-time,
and era of nest-building. I find flying over the river, crows, gulls and hawks. I hear the afternoon shriek of the latter,
darting about, preparing to nest. The oriole will soon be heard here, and the twanging meoeow of the cat-bird; also the king-
bird, cuckoo and the warblers. All along, there are three peculiarly characteristic spring songs--the meadow-lark's, so sweet,
so alert and remonstrating (as if he said, --don't you see?” or, --can't you understand?”)--the cheery, mellow, human tones
of the robin--(I have been trying for years to get a brief term, or phrase, that would identify and describe that robin-call)--
and the amorous whistle of the high-hole. Insects are out plentifully at midday.

April 29.--As we drove lingering along the road we heard, just after sundown, the song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd without
a word, and listen'd long. The delicious notes--a sweet, artless, voluntary, simple anthem, as from the flute-stops of some
organ, wafted through the twilight--echoing well to us from the perpendicular high rock, where, in some thick young trees'
recesses at the base, sat the bird--fill'd our senses, our souls.




　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　163. Meeting a Hermit




I FOUND in one of my rambles up the hills a real hermit, living in a lonesome spot, hard to get at, rocky, the view fine, with
a little patch of land two rods square. A man of youngish middle age, city born and raised, had been to school, had travel'd
in Europe and California. I first met him once or twice on the road, and pass'd the time of day, with some small talk; then,
the third time, he ask'd me to go along a bit and rest in his hut (an almost unprecedented compliment, as I heard from others
afterwards.) He was of Quaker stock, I think; talk'd with ease and moderate freedom, but did not unbosom his life, or story,
or tragedy, or whatever it was.




　　　　　　　　　　　　 164. An Ulster County Waterfall




I JOT this mem. in a wild scene of woods and hills, where we have come to visit a waterfall. I never saw finer or more copious
hemlocks, many of them large, some old and hoary. Such a sentiment to them, secretive, shaggy--what I call weather-beaten and
let-alone--a rich underlay of ferns, yew sprouts and mosses, beginning to be spotted with the early summer wild-flowers. Enve-
loping all, the monotone and liquid gurgle from the hoarse impetuous copious fall--the greenish-tawny, darkly transparent waters,
plunging with velocity down the rocks, with patches of milk-white foam--a stream of hurrying amber, thirty feet wide, risen far
back in the hills and woods, now rushing with volume--every hundred rods a fall, and sometimes three or four in that distance.
A primitive forest, druidical, solitary and savage--not ten visitors a year--broken rocks everywhere--shade overhead, thick under-
foot with leaves--a just palpable wild and delicate aroma.




　　　　　　　　　　　 165. Walter Dumont and His Medal




AS I saunter'd along the high road yesterday, I stopp'd to watch a man near by, ploughing a rough stony field with a yoke of
oxen. Usually there is much geeing and hawing, excitement, and continual noise and expletives, about a job of this kind. But I
noticed how different, how easy and wordless, yet firm and sufficient, the work of this young ploughman. His name was Walter
Dumont, a farmer, and son of a farmer, working for their living. Three years ago, when the steamer --Sunnyside” was wreck'd
of a bitter icy night on the west bank here, Walter went out in his boat--was the first man on hand with assistance--made a way
through the ice to shore, connected a line, perform'd work of first-class readiness, daring, danger, and saved numerous lives.
Some weeks after, one evening when he was up at Esopus, among the usual loafing crowd at the country store and post-office,
there arrived the gift of an unexpected official gold medal for the quiet hero. The impromptu presentation was made to him on
the spot, but he blush'd, hesitated as he took it, and had nothing to say.




　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　166. Hudson River Sights




IT was a happy thought to build the Hudson river railroad right along the shore. The grade is already made by nature; you are
sure of ventilation one side--and you are in nobody's way. I see, hear, the locomotives and cars, rumbling, roaring, flaming,
smoking, constantly, away off there, night and day--less than a mile distant, and in full view by day. I like both sight and
sound. Express trains thunder and lighten along; of freight trains, most of them very long, there cannot be less than a hund-
red a day. At night far down you see the headlight approaching, coming steadily on like a meteor. The river at night has its
special character-beauties. The shad fishermen go forth in their boats and pay out their nets--one sitting forward, rowing, and
one standing up aft dropping it properly--marking the line with little floats bearing candles, conveying, as they glide over
the water, an indescribable sentiment and doubled brightness. I like to watch the tows at night, too, with their twinkling
lamps, and hear the husky panting of the steamers; or catch the sloops' and schooners' shadowy forms, like phantoms, white,
silent, indefinite, out there. Then the Hudson of a clear moonlight night.

But there is one sight the very grandest. Sometimes in the fiercest driving storm of wind, rain, hail or snow, a great eagle
will appear over the river, now soaring with steady and now overhended wings--always confronting the gale, or perhaps cleaving
into, or at times literally sitting upon it. It is like reading some first-class natural tragedy or epic, or hearing martial
trumpets. The splendid bird enjoys the hubbub--is adjusted and equal to it--finishes it so artistically. His pinions just oscil-
lating--the position of his head and neck--his resistless, occasionally varied flight--now a swirl, now an upward movement--the
black clouds driving--the angry wash below--the hiss of rain, the wind's piping (perhaps the ice colliding, grunting)--he tack-
ing or jibing--now, as it were, for a change, abandoning himself to the gale, moving with it with such velocity--and now, re-
suming control, he comes up against it, lord of the situation and the storm--lord, amid it, of power and savage joy. 2

Sometimes (as at present writing,) middle of sunny afternoon, the old --Vanderbilt” steamer stalking ahead--I plainly hear
her rhythmic, slushing paddles--drawing by long hawsers an immense and varied following string, (--an old sow and pigs,” the
river folks call it.) First comes a big barge, with a house built on it, and spars towering over the roof; then canal boats,
a lengthen'd, clustering train, fasten'd and link'd together--the one in the middle, with high staff, flaunting a broad and
gaudy flag--others with the almost invariable lines of new-wash'd clothes, drying; two sloops and a schooner aside the tow--
little wind, and that adverse--with three long, dark, empty barges bringing up the rear. People are on the boats: men lounging,
women in sun-bonnets, children, stovepipes with streaming smoke. 3




　　　　　　　 　　 　　167. Two City Areas, Certain Hours




NEW YORK, May 24, '79.--PERHAPS no quarters of this city (I have return'd again for awhile,) make more brilliant, animated,
crowded, spectacular human presentations these fine May afternoons than the two I am now going to describe from personal ob-
servation. First: that area comprising Fourteenth street (especially the short range between Broadway and Fifth avenue) with
Union square, its adjacencies, and so retrostretching down Broadway for half a mile. All the walks here are wide, and the spa-
ces ample and free--now flooded with liquid gold from the last two hours of powerful sunshine. The whole area at 5 o'clock,
the days of my observations, must have contain'd from thirty to forty thousand finely-dress'd people, all in motion, plenty
of them good-looking, many beautiful women, often youths and children, the latter in groups with their nurses--the trottoirs
everywhere close-spread, thick-tangled, (yet no collision, no trouble,) with masses of bright color, action, and tasty toi-
lets; (surely the women dress better than ever before, and the men do too.) As if New York would show these afternoons what
it can do in its humanity, its choicest physique and physiognomy, and its countless prodigality of locomotion, dry goods,
glitter, magnestism, and happiness.

Second: also from 5 to 7 P. M. the stretch of Fifth avenue, all the way from the Central Park exits at Fifty-ninth street,
down to Fourteenth, especially along the high grade by Fortieth street, and down the hill. A Mississippi of horses and rich
vehicles, not by dozens and scores, but hundreds and thousands--the broad avenue filled and cramm'd with them--a moving,
sparkling, hurrying crush, for more than two miles. (I wonder they don't get block'd, but I believe they never do.) Alto-
gether it is to me the marvel sight of New York. I like to get in one of the Fifth avenue stages and ride up, stemming the
swift-moving procession. I doubt if London or Paris or any city in the world can show such a carriage carnival as I have
seen here five or six times these beautiful May afternoons. 2




　　　　　　　 　　 　 　168. Central Park Walks and Talks




May 16 to 22.--I VISIT Central Park now almost every day, sitting, or slowly rambling, or riding around. The whole place pre-
sents its very best appearance this current month--the full flush of the trees, the plentiful white and pink of the flowering
shrubs, the emerald green of the grass spreading everywhere, yellow dotted still with dandelions--the specialty of the plenti-
ful gray rocks, peculiar to these grounds, cropping out, miles and miles--and over all the beauty and purity, three days out
of four, of our summer skies. As I sit, placidly, early afternoon, off against Ninetieth street, the policeman, C. C., a
well-form'd sandy-complexion'd young fellow, comes over and stands near me. We grow quite friendly and chatty forthwith. He
is a New Yorker born and raised, and in answer to my questions tells me about the life of a New York Park policeman, (while
he talks keeping his eyes and ears vigilantly open, occasionally pausing and moving where he can get full views of the vis-
tas of the road, up and down, and the spaces around.) The pay is $2 40 a day (seven days to a week)--the men come on and work
eight hours straight ahead, which is all that is required of them out of the twenty-four. The position has more risks than
one might suppose--for instance if a team or horse runs away (which happens daily) each man is expected not only to be prompt,
but to waive safety and stop wildest nag or nags--(do it, and don't be thinking of your bones or face)--give the alarm-whistle
too, so that other guards may repeat, and the vehicles up and down the tracks be warn'd. Injuries to the men are continually
happening. There is much alertness and quiet strength. (Few appreciate, I have often thought, the Ulyssean capacity, derring
do, quick readiness in emergencies, practicality, unwritting devotion and heroism, among our American young men and working-
people--the firemen, the railroad employes, the steamer and ferry men, the police, the conductors and drivers--the whole splen-
did average of native stock, city and country.) It is good work, though; and upon the whole, the Park force members like it.
They see life, and the excitement keeps them up. There is not so much difficulty as might be supposed from tramps, roughs, or
in keeping people "off the grass." The worst trouble of the regular Park employe is from malarial fever, chills, and the
like.




　　　　　　　 　　 　 　　169. A Fine Afternoon, 4 to 6




TEN thousand vehicles careering through the Park this perfect afternoon. Such a show! and I have seen all--watch'd it
narrowly, and at my leisure. Private barouches, cabs and coupes, some fine horseflesh--lapdogs, footmen, fashions, fo-
reigners, cockades on hats, crests on panels--the full oceanic tide of New York's wealth and "gentility." It was an
impressive, rich, interminable circus on a grand scale, full of action and color in the beauty of the day, under the
clear sun and moderate breeze. Family groups, couples, single drivers--of course dresses generally elegant--much
"style," (yet perhaps little or nothing, even in that direction, that fully justified itself.) Through the windows of
two or three of the richest carriages I saw faces almost corpse-like, so ashy and listless. Indeed the whole affair
exhibited less of sterling America, either in spirit or countenance, than I had counted on from such a select mass-
spectacle. I suppose, as a proof of limitless wealth, leisure, and the aforesaid "gentility," it was tremendous. Yet
what I saw those hours (I took two other occasions, two other afternoons to watch the same scene,) confirms a thought
that haunts me every additional glimpse I get of our top-loftical general or rather exceptional phases of wealth and
fashion in this country--namely, that they are ill at ease, much too conscious, cased in too many cerements, and far
from happy--that there is nothing in them which we who are poor and plain need at all envy, and that instead of the
perennial smell of the grass and woods and shores, their typical redolence is of soaps and essences, very rare may be,
but suggesting the barber shop--something that turns stale and musty in a few hours anyhow. 1

Perhaps the show on the horseback road was prettiest. Many groups (threes a favorite number,) some couples, some sing-
ly--many ladies--frequently horses or parties dashing along on a full run--fine riding the rule--a few really first-
class animals. As the afternoon waned, the wheel'd carriages grew less, but the saddle-riders seemed to increase. They
linger'd long--and I saw some charming forms and faces. 2




　　　　　　　 　　 　　170. Departing of the Big Steamers




May 15.--A THREE hours' bay-trip from 12 to 3 this afternoon, accompanying "the City of Brussels" down as far as the
Narrows, in behoof of some Europe-bound friends, to give them a good send off. Our spirited little tug, the "Seth Low,"
kept close to the great black "Brussels," sometimes one side, sometimes the other, always up to her, or even press-
ing ahead, (like the blooded pony accompanying the royal elephant.) The whole affair, from the first, was an animated,
quick-passing, characteristic New York scene; the large, good-looking, well-dress'd crowd on the wharf-end--men and wo
men come to see their friends depart, and bid them God-speed--the ship's sides swarming with passengers--groups of bronze-
faced sailors, with uniform'd officers at their posts--the quiet directions, as she quickly unfastens and moves out,
prompt to a minute--the emotional faces, adieus and fluttering handkerchiefs, and many smiles and some tears on the
wharf--the answering faces, smiles, tears and fluttering handkerchiefs, from the ship--(what can be subtler and finer than
this play of faces on such occasions in these responding crowds?--what go more to one's heart?)--the proud, steady, noise-
less cleaving of the grand oceaner down the bay--we speeding by her side a few miles, and then turning, wheeling, amid a
babel of wild hurrahs, shouted partings, ear-splitting steam whistles, kissing of hands and waving of handkerchiefs. 1

This departing of the big steamers, noons or afternoons--there is no better medicine when one is listless or vapory. I
am fond of going down Wednesdays and Saturdays--their more special days--to watch them and the crowds on the wharves, the
arriving passengers, the general bustle and activity, the eager looks from the faces, the clear-toned voices, (a tra-
vel'd foreigner, a musician, told me the other day she thinks an American crowd has the finest voices in the world,)
the whole look of the great, shapely black ships themselves, and their groups and lined sides--in the setting of our bay
with the blue sky overhead. Two days after the above I saw the "Britannic," the "Donau," the "Helvetia" and the
"Schiedam" steam out, all off for Europe--a magnificent sight.




　　　　　　　 　 　 　　171. Two Hours on the Minnesota




FROM 7 to 9, aboard the United States school-ship Minnesota, lying up the North river. Captain Luce sent his gig for us
about sundown, to the foot of Twenty-third street, and receiv'd us aboard with officer-like hospitality and sailor hear-
tiness. There are several hundred youths on the Minnesota to be train'd for efficiently manning the government navy. I
like the idea much; and, so far as I have seen to-night, I like the way it is carried out on this huge vessel. Below, on
the gun-deck, were gather'd nearly a hundred of the boys, to give us some of their singing exercises, with a melodeon
accompaniment, play'd by one of their number. They sang with a will. The best part, however, was the sight of the young
fellows themselves. I went over among them before the singing began, and talk'd a few minutes informally. They are from
all the States; I asked for the Southerners, but could only find one, a lad from Baltimore. In age, apparently, they
range from about fourteen years to nineteen or twenty. They are all of American birth, and have to pass a rigid medical
examination; well-grown youths, good flesh, bright eyes, looking straight at you, healthy, intelligent, not a slouch
among them, nor a menial--in every one the promise of a man. I have been to many public aggregations of young and old,
and of schools and colleges, in my day, but I confess I have never been so near satisfied, so comforted, (both from the
fact of the school itself, and the splendid proof of our country, our composite race, and the sample-promises of its good
average capacities, its future,) as in the collection from all parts of the United States on this navy training ship.
("Are there going to be any men there?" was the dry and pregnant reply of Emerson to one who had been crowding him with
the rich material statistics and possibilities of some western or Pacific region.)

May 26.--Aboard the Minnesota again. Lieut. Murphy kindly came for me in his boat. Enjoy'd specially those brief trips to
and fro--the sailors, tann'd, strong, so bright and able-looking, pulling their oars in long side-swing, man-of-war style,
as they row'd me across. I saw the boys in companies drilling with small arms; had a talk with Chaplain Rawson. At 11 o'
clock all of us gathered to breakfast around a long table in the great ward room--I among the rest--a genial, plentiful,
hospitable affair every way--plenty to eat, and of the best; became acquainted with several new officers. This second visit,
with its observations, talks, (two or three at random with the boys,) confirm'd my first impressions.




　　　　　　　 　　 　　172. Mature Summer Days and Nights




Aug. 4.--Forenoon--AS I sit under the willow shade, (have retreated down in the country again,) a little bird is leisurely
dousing and flirting himself amid the brook almost within reach of me. He evidently fears me not--takes me for some con-
comitant of the neighboring earthly banks, free bushery and wild weeds. 6 P. M.--The last three days have been perfect
ones for the season, (four nights ago copious rains, with vehement thunder and lightning.) I write this sitting by the
creek watching my two kingfishers at their sundown sport. The strong, beautiful, joyous creatures! Their wings glisten
in the slanted sunbeams as they circle and circle around, occasionally dipping and dashing the water, and making long
stretches up and down the creek. Wherever I go over fields, through lanes, in by-places, blooms the white-flowering
wild-carrot, its delicate pat of snow-flakes crowning its slender stem, gracefully oscillating in the breeze.




　　　　　　　　 　173. Exposition Building--New City Hall--River Trip




PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 26.--LAST night and to-night of unsurpass'd clearness, after two days' rain; moon splendor and star
splendor. Being out toward the great Exposition building, West Philadelphia, I saw it lit up, and thought I would go in.
There was a ball, democratic but nice; plenty of young couples waltzing and quadrilling--music by a good string-band. To
the sight and hearing of these--to moderate strolls up and down the roomy spaces--to getting off aside, resting in an arm-
chair and looking up a long while at the grand high roof with its graceful and multitudinous work of iron rods, angles,
gray colors, plays of light and shade, receding into dim outlines--to absorbing (in the intervals of the string band,)
some capital voluntaries and rolling caprices from the big organ at the other end of the building--to sighting a sha-
dow'd figure or group or couple of lovers every now and then passing some near or farther aisle--I abandon'd myself
for over an hour. 1

Returning home, riding down Market street in an open summer car, something detain'd us between Fifteenth and Broad,
and I got out to view better the new, three-fifths-built marble edifice, the City Hall, of magnificent proportions--a
majestic and lovely show there in the moonlight--flooded all over, facades, myriad silver-white lines and carv'd heads
and mouldings, with the soft dazzle--silent, weird, beautiful--well, I know that never when finish'd will that magnifi-
cent pile impress one as it impress'd me those fifteen minutes. 2

To-night, since, I have been long on the river. I watch the C-shaped Northern Crown, (with the star Alshacca that bla-
zed out so suddenly, alarmingly, one night a few years ago.) The moon in her third quarter, and up nearly all night.
And there, as I look eastward, my long-absent Pleiades, welcome again to sight. For an hour I enjoy the soothing and
vital scene to the low splash of waves--new stars steadily, noiselessly rising in the east. 3

As I cross the Delaware, one of the deck-hands, F. R., tells me how a woman jump'd overboard and was drown'd a couple
of hours since. It happen'd in mid-channel--she leap'd from the forward part of the boat, which went over her. He saw
her rise on the other side in the swift running water, throw her arms and closed hands high up, (white hands and bare
forearms in the moonlight like a flash,) and then she sank. (I found out afterwards that this young fellow had promptly
jump'd in, swam after the poor creature, and made, though unsuccessfully, the bravest efforts to rescue her; but he
didn't mention that part at all in telling me the story.)




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 　174. Swallows on the River




Sept. 3.--CLOUDY and wet, and wind due east; air without palpable fog, but very heavy with moisture--welcome for a change.
Forenoon, crossing the Delaware, I noticed unusual numbers of swallows in flight, circling, darting, graceful beyond
description, close to the water. Thick, around the bows of the ferry-boat as she lay tied in her slip, they flew; and
as we went out I watch'd beyond the pier-heads, and across the broad stream, their swift-winding loop-ribands of mo-
tion, down close to it, cutting and intersecting. Though I had seen swallows all my life, seem'd as though I never be-
fore realized their peculiar beauty and character in the landscape. (Some time ago, for an hour, in a huge old country
barn, watching these birds flying, recall'd the 22d book of the Odyssey, where Ulysses slays the suitors, bringing
things to eclaircissement, and Minerva, swallow-bodied, darts up through the spaces of the hall, sits high on a beam,
looks complacently on the show of slaughter, and feels in her element, exulting, joyous.) 1




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 175. Begin a Long Jaunt West




THE FOLLOWING three or four months (Sept. to Dec. '79) I made quite a western journey, fetching up at Denver, Colorado,
and penetrating the Rocky Mountain region enough to get a good notion of it all. Left West Philadelphia after 9 o'clock
one night, middle of September, in a comfortable sleeper. Oblivious of the two or three hundred miles across Pennsylvania;
at Pittsburgh in the morning to breakfast. Pretty good view of the city and Birmingham--fog and damp, smoke, coke-furnaces,
flames, discolor'd wooden houses, and vast collections of coal-barges. Presently a bit of fine region, West Virginia,
the Pan-handle, and crossing the river, the Ohio. By day through the latter State--then Indiana--and so rock'd to slumber
for a second night, flying like lightning through Illinois. 1




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 　　176. In the Sleeper




WHAT a fierce weird pleasure to lie in my berth at night in the luxurious palace-car, drawn by the mighty Baldwin--embodying,
and filling me, too, full of the swiftest motion, and most resistless strength! It is late, perhaps midnight or after--dis-
tances join'd like magic--as we speed through Harrisburg, Columbus, Indianapolis. The element of danger adds zest to it all.
On we go, rumbling and flashing, with our loud whinnies thrown out from time to time, or trumpet-blasts, into the darkness.
Passing the homes of men, the farms, barns, cattle--the silent villages. And the car itself, the sleeper, with curtains drawn
and lights turn'd down--in the berths the slumberers, many of them women and children--as on, on, on, we fly like lightning
through the night--how strangely sound and sweet they sleep! (They say the French Voltaire in his time designated the grand
opera and a ship of war the most signal illustrations of the growth of humanity's and art's advance beyond primitive bar-
barism. Perhaps if the witty philosopher were here these days, and went in the same car with perfect bedding and feed from
New York to San Francisco, he would shift his type and sample to one of our American sleepers.)




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 　　177. Missouri State




WE should have made the run of 960 miles from Philadelphia to St. Louis in thirty-six hours, but we had a collision and bad
locomotive smash about two-thirds of the way, which set us back. So merely stopping over night that time in St. Louis, I sped
on westward. As I cross'd Missouri State the whole distance by the St. Louis and Kansas City Northern Railroad, a fine early
autumn day, I thought my eyes had never looked on scenes of greater pastoral beauty. For over two hundred miles successive
rolling prairies, agriculturally perfect view'd by Pennsylvania and New Jersey eyes, and dotted here and there with fine tim-
ber. Yet fine as the land is, it isn't the finest portion; (there is a bed of impervious clay and hard-pan beneath this sec-
tion that holds water too firmly, "drowns the land in wet weather, and bakes it in dry," as a cynical farmer told me.) South
are some richer tracts, though perhaps the beauty-spots of the State are the northwestern counties. Altogether, I am clear,
(now, and from what I have seen and learn'd since,) that Missouri, in climate, soil, relative situation, wheat, grass, mines,
railroads, and every important materialistic respect, stands in the front rank of the Union. Of Missouri averaged politically
and socially I have heard all sorts of talk, some pretty severe--but I should have no fear myself of getting along safely and
comfortably anywhere among the Missourians. They raise a good deal of tobacco. You see at this time quantities of the light
greenish-gray leaves pulled and hanging out to dry on temporary frameworks or rows of sticks. Looks much like the mullein fam-
iliar to eastern eyes.




　　　　　　　　 　　178. Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas




WE thought of stopping in Kansas City, but when we got there we found a train ready and a crowd of hospitable Kansians to take
us on to Lawrence, to which I proceeded. I shall not soon forget my good days in L., in company with Judge Usher and his sons,
(especially John and Linton,) true westerners of the noblest type. Nor the similar days in Topeka. Nor the brotherly kindness
of my RR. friends there, and the city and State officials. Lawrence and Topeka are large, bustling, half-rural, handsome cities.
I took two or three long drives about the latter, drawn by a spirited team over smooth roads.




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 　　179. The Prairies


　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　And an Undeliver'd Speech.


AT a large popular meeting at Topeka--the Kansas State Silver Wedding, fifteen or twenty thousand people--I had been erroneously
bill'd to deliver a poem. As I seem'd to be made much of, and wanted to be good-natured, I hastily pencill'd out the following
little speech. Unfortunately, (or fortunately,) I had such a good time and rest, and talk and dinner, with the U. boys, that I let
the hours slip away and didn't drive over to the meeting and speak my piece. But here it is just the same:


　　　　 "My friends, your bills announce me as giving a poem; but I have no poem--have composed none for this occasion. And I
　　　　 can honestly say I am now glad of it. Under these skies resplendent in September beauty--amid the peculiar landscape you
　　　　 are used to, but which is new to me--these interminable and stately prairies--in the freedom and vigor and sane enthusiasm
　　　　 of this perfect western air and autumn sunshine--it seems to me a poem would be almost an impertinence. But if you care
　　　　 to have a word from me, I should speak it about these very prairies; they impress me most, of all the objective shows
　　　　 I see or have seen on this, my first real visit to the West. As I have roll'd rapidly hither for more than a thousand
　　　　 miles, through fair Ohio, through bread-raising Indiana and Illinois--through ample Missouri, that contains and raises
　　　　 everything; as I have partially explor'd your charming city during the last two days, and, standing on Oread hill, by
　　　　 the university, have launch'd my view across broad expanses of living green, in every direction--I have again been most
　　　　 impress'd, I say, and shall remain for the rest of my life most impress'd, with that feature of the topography of your
　　　　 western central world--that vast Something, stretching out on its own unbounded scale, unconfined, which there is in these
　　　　 prairies, combining the real and ideal, and beautiful as dreams.

　　　　 "I wonder indeed if the people of this continental inland West know how much of first-class art they have in these prai-
　　　　 ries--how original and all your own--how much of the influences of a character for your future humanity, broad, patriotic,
　　　　 heroic and new? how entirely they tally on land the grandeur and superb monotony of the skies of heaven, and the ocean with
　　　　 its waters? how freeing, soothing, nourishing they are to the soul?

　　　　 "Then is it not subtly they who have given us our leading modern Americans, Lincoln and Grant?--vast-spread, average men--
　　　　 their foregrounds of character altogether practical and real, yet (to those who have eyes to see) with finest backgrounds
　　　　 of the ideal, towering high as any. And do we not see, in them, foreshadowings of the future races that shall fill these
　　　　 prairies?

　　　　 "Not but what the Yankee and Atlantic States, and every other part--Texas, and the States flanking the south-east and the
　　　　 Gulf of Mexico--the Pacific shore empire--the Territories and Lakes, and the Canada line (the day is not yet, but it will
　　　　 come, including Canada entire)--are equally and integrally and indissolubly this Nation, the sine qua non of the human,
　　　　 political and commercial New World. But this favor'd central area of (in round numbers) two thousand miles square seems
　　　　 fated to be the home both of what I would call America's distinctive ideas and distinctive realities."




　　　　　　　　 　　180. On to Denver--A Frontier Incident




THE JAUNT of five or six hundred miles from Topeka to Denver took me through a variety of country, but all unmistakably prolific,
western, American, and on the largest scale. For a long distance we follow the line of the Kansas river, (I like better the old name,
Kaw,) a stretch of very rich, dark soil, famed for its wheat, and call'd the Golden Belt--then plains and plains, hour after hour--Ell-
sworth county, the centre of the State--where I must stop a moment to tell a characteristic story of early days--scene the very spot
where I am passing--time 1868. In a scrimmage at some public gathering in the town, A. had shot B. quite badly, but had not kill'd him.
The sober men of Ellsworth conferr'd with one another and decided that A. deserv'd punishment. As they wished to set a good example
and establish their reputation the reverse of a Lynching town, they open an informal court and bring both men before them for deliberate
trial. Soon as this trial begins the wounded man is led forward to give his testimony. Seeing his enemy in durance and unarm'd, B.
walks suddenly up in a fury and shoots A. through the head--shoots him dead. The court is instantly adjourn'd, and its unanimous mem-
bers, without a word of debate, walk the murderer B. out, wounded as he is, and hang him. 1

In due time we reach Denver, which city I fall in love with from the first, and have that feeling confirm'd, the longer I stay there.
One of my pleasantest days was a jaunt, via Platte canon, to Leadville.




　　　　　　　　　 　　181. An Hour on Kenosha Summit




JOTTINGS from the Rocky Mountains, mostly pencill'd during a day's trip over the South Park RR., returning from Leadville, and es-
pecially the hour we were detain'd, (much to my satisfaction,) at Kenosha summit. As afternoon advances, novelties, far-reaching s
plendors, accumulate under the bright sun in this pure air. But I had better commence with the day.

The confronting of Platte canon just at dawn, after a ten miles' ride in early darkness on the rail from Denver--the seasonable stop-
page at the entrance of the canon, and good breakfast of eggs, trout, and nice griddle-cakes--then as we travel on, and get well in the
gorge, all the wonders, beauty, savage power of the scene--the wild stream of water, from sources of snows, brawling continually in sight
one side--the dazzling sun, and the morning lights on the rocks--such turns and grades in the track, squirming around corners, or up and
down hills--far glimpses of a hundred peaks, titanic necklaces, stretching north and south--the huge rightly-named Dome-rock--and as we
dash along, others similar, simple, monolithic, elephantine.




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 182. An Egotistical "Find"




"I HAVE found the law of my own poems," was the unspoken but more-and-more decided feeling that came to me as I pass’d, hour after
hour, amid all this grim yet joyous elemental abandon--this plenitude of material, entire absence of art, untrammel’d play of primitive
Nature--the chasm, the gorge, the crystal mountain stream, repeated scores, hundreds of miles--the broad handling and absolute uncramped-
ness--the fantastic forms, bathed in transparent browns, faint reds and grays, towering sometimes a thousand, sometimes two or three
thousand feet high--at their tops now and then huge masses pois’d, and mixing with the clouds, with only their outlines, hazed in misty
lilac, visible. ("In Nature’s grandest shows," says an old Dutch writer, an ecclesiastic, "amid the ocean’s depth, if so might be,
or countless worlds rolling above at night, a man thinks of them, weighs all, not for themselves or the abstract, but with reference to
his own personality, and how they may affect him or color his destinies.")




　　　　　　　　 　　 　 183. New Senses--New Joys




WE follow the stream of amber and bronze brawling along its bed, with its frequent cascades and snow-white foam. Through the canon we
fly--mountains not only each side, but seemingly, till we get near, right in front of us--every rood a new view flashing, and each flash
defying description--on the almost perpendicular sides, clinging pines, cedars, spruces, crimson sumach bushes, spots of wild grass--but
dominating all, those towering rocks, rocks, rocks, bathed in delicate vari-colors, with the clear sky of autumn overhead. New senses,
new joys, seem develop’d. Talk as you like, a typical Rocky Mountain canon, or a limitless sea-like stretch of the great Kansas or Col-
orado plains, under favoring circumstances, tallies, perhaps expresses, certainly awakes, those grandest and subtlest element emotions
in the human soul, that all the marble temples and sculptures from Phidias to Thorwaldsen--all paintings, poems, reminiscences, or even
music, probably never can.




　　　　　　　　　 　　184. Steam-Power, Telegraphs, &c




I GET out on a ten minutes' stoppage at Deer creek, to enjoy the unequal'd combination of hill, stone and wood. As we
speed again, the yellow granite in the sunshine, with natural spires, minarets, castellated perches far aloft--then long
stretches of straight-upright palisades, rhinoceros color--then gamboge and tinted chromos. Ever the best of my pleasures
the cool-fresh Colorado atmosphere, yet sufficiently warm. Signs of man's restless advent and pioneerage, hard as Nature's
face is--deserted dug-outs by dozens in the side-hills--the scantling hut, the telegraph-pole, the smoke of some impromptu
chimney or outdoor fire--at intervals little settlements of log-houses, or parties of surveyors or telegraph builders, with
their comfortable tents. Once, a canvas office where you could send a message by electricity anywhere around the world!
Yes, pronounc'd signs of the man of latest dates, dauntlessly grappling with these grisliest shows of the old kosmos. At
several places steam saw-mills, with their piles of logs and boards, and the pipes puffing. Occasionally Platte canon ex-
panding into a grassy flat of a few acres. At one such place, toward the end, where we stop, and I get out to stretch my
legs, as I look skyward, or rather mountain-topward, a huge hawk or eagle (a rare sight here) is idly soaring, balancing
along the ether, now sinking low and coming quite near, and then up again in stately-languid circles--then higher, higher,
slanting to the north, and gradually out of sight.




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 185. America's Back-Bone




I JOT these lines literally at Kenosha summit, where we return, afternoon, and take a long rest, 10,000 feet above sea-le-
vel. At this immense height the South Park stretches fifty miles before me. Mountainous chains and peaks in every variety
of perspective, every hue of vista, fringe the view, in nearer, or middle, or far-dim distance, or fade on the horizon. We
have now reach'd, penetrated the Rockies, (Hayden calls it the Front Range,) for a hundred miles or so; and though these
chains spread away in every direction, specially north and south, thousands and thousands farther, I have seen specimens
of the utmost of them, and know henceforth at least what they are, and what they look like. Not themselves alone, for they
typify stretches and areas of half the globe--are, in fact, the vertebra or back-bone of our hemisphere. As the anatomists
say a man is only a spine, topp'd, footed, breasted and radiated, so the whole Western world is, in a sense, but an ex-
pansion of these mountains. In South America they are the Andes, in Central America and Mexico the Cordilleras, and in our
States they go under different names--in California the Coast and Cascade ranges--thence more eastwardly the Sierra Nevadas--
but mainly and more centrally here the Rocky Mountains proper, with many an elevation such as Lincoln's, Grey's, Har-
vard's, Yale's, Long's and Pike's peaks, all over 14,000 feet high. (East, the highest peaks of the Alleghanies, the
Adirondacks, the Cattskills, and the White Mountains, range from 2000 to 5500 feet--only Mount Washington, in the latter,
6300 feet.)




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 　　186. The Parks




IN the midst of all here, lie such beautiful contrasts as the sunken basins of the North, Middle, and South Parks, (the
latter I am now on one side of, and overlooking,) each the size of a large, level, almost quandrangular, grassy, western
county, wall'd in by walls of hills, and each park the source of a river. The ones I specify are the largest in Colorado,
but the whole of that State, and of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and western California, through their sierras and ravines, are
copiously mark'd by similar spreads and openings, many of the small ones of paradisiac loveliness and perfection, with
their offsets of mountains, streams, atmosphere and hues beyond compare.




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 　　187. Art Features




TALK, I say again, of going to Europe, of visiting the ruins of feudal castles, or Coliseum remains, or kings' palaces--
when you can come here. The alternations one gets, too; after the Illinois and Kansas prairies of a thousand miles--smooth
and easy areas of the corn and wheat of ten million democratic farms in the future--here start up in every conceivable pre-
sentation of shape, these non-utilitarian piles, coping the skies, emanating a beauty, terror, power, more than Dante or
Angelo ever knew. Yes, I think the chyle of not only poetry and painting, but oratory, and even the metaphysics and music
fit for the New World, before being finally assimilated, need first and feeding visits here.

Mountain streams.--The spiritual contrast and etheriality of the whole region consist largely to me in its never-absent pe-
culiar streams--the snows of inaccessible upper areas melting and running down through the gorges continually. Nothing like
the water of pastoral plains, or creeks with wooded banks and turf, or anything of the kind elsewhere. The shapes that el-
ement takes in the shows of the globe cannot be fully understood by an artist until he has studied these unique rivulets. 2

Aerial effects.--But perhaps as I gaze around me the rarest sight of all is in atmospheric hues. The prairies--as I cross'd
them in my journey hither--and these mountains and parks, seem to me to afford new lights and shades. Everywhere the aerial
gradations and sky-effects inimitable; nowhere else such perspectives, such transparent lilacs and grays. I can conceive of
some superior landscape painter, some fine colorist, after sketching awhile out here, discarding all his previous work, de-
lightful to stock exhibition amateurs, as muddy, raw and artificial. Near one's eye ranges an infinite variety; high up,
the bare whitey-brown, above timber line; in certain spots afar patches of snow any time of year; (no trees, no flowers,
no birds, at those chilling altitudes.) As I write I see the Snowy Range through the blue mist, beautiful and far off. I
plainly see the patches of snow.




　　　　　　　　 　　 　　　188. Denver Impressions




THROUGH the long-lingering half-light of the most superb of evenings we return'd to Denver, where I staid several days
leisurely exploring, receiving impressions, with which I may as well taper off this memorandum, itemizing what I saw there.
The best was the men, three-fourths of them large, able, calm, alert, American. And cash! why they create it here. Out in
the smelting works, (the biggest and most improv'd ones, for the precious metals, in the world,) I saw long rows of vats,
pans, cover'd by bubbling-boiling water, and fill'd with pure silver, four or five inches thick, many thousand dollars'
worth in a pan. The foreman who was showing me shovel'd it carelessly up with a little wooden shovel, as one might toss
beans. Then large silver bricks, worth $2000 a brick, dozens of piles, twenty in a pile. In one place in the mountains, at
a mining camp, I had a few days before seen rough bullion on the ground in the open air, like the confectioner's pyramids
at some swell dinner in New York. (Such a sweet morsel to roll over with a poor author's pen and ink--and appropriate to
slip in here--that the silver product of Colorado and Utah, with the gold product of California, New Mexico, Nevada and Da-
kota, foots up an addition to the world's coin of near or toward a hundred millions every year.) 1

A city, this Denver, well-laid out--Laramie street, and 15th and 16th and Champa streets, with others, particularly fine--
some with tall storehouses of stone or iron, and windows of plateglass--all the streets with little canals of mountain water
running along the sides--plenty of people, "business," modernness--yet not without a certain racy wild smack, all its own.
A place of fast horses, (many mares with their colts,) and I saw lots of big greyhounds for antelope hunting. Now and then
groups of miners, some just come in, some starting out, very picturesque. 2

One of the papers here interview'd me, and reported me as saying off-hand: "I have lived in or visited all the great ci-
ties on the Atlantic third of the republic--Boston, Brooklyn with its hills, New Orleans, Baltimore, stately Washington,
broad Philadelphia, teeming Cincinnati and Chicago, and for thirty years in that wonder, wash'd by hurried and glittering
tides, my own New York, not only the New World's but the world's city--but, newcomer to Denver as I am, and threading its
streets, breathing its air, warm'd by its sunshine, and having what there is of its human as well as aerial ozone flash'd
upon me now for only three or four days, I am very much like a man feels sometimes toward certain people he meets with,
and warms to, and hardly knows why. I, too, can hardly tell why, but as I enter'd the city in the slight haze of a late
September afternoon, and have breath'd its air, and slept well o' nights, and have roam'd or rode leisurely, and watch'd
the comers and goers at the hotels, and absorb'd the climatic magnetism of this curiously attractive region, there has
steadily grown upon me a feeling of affection for the spot, which, sudden as it is, has become so definite and strong that
I must put it on record." 3

So much for my feeling toward the Queen city of the plains and peaks, where she sits in her delicious rare atmosphere, over
5000 feet above sea-level, irrigated by mountain streams, one way looking east over the prairies for a thousand miles, and
having the other, westward, in constant view by day, draped in their violet haze, mountain tops innumerable. Yes, I fell in
love with Denver, and even felt a wish to spend my declining and dying days there.




　　　　　　　 　　189. I Turn South--And Then East Again




LEAVE Denver at 8 A. M. by the Rio Grande RR. going south. Mountains constantly in sight in the apparently near distance,
veil'd slightly, but still clear and very grand--their cones, colors, sides, distinct against the sky--hundreds, it seem'd
thousands, interminable necklaces of them, their tops and slopes hazed more or less slightly in that blue-gray, under the
autumn sun, for over a hundred miles--the most spiritual show of objective Nature I ever beheld, or ever thought possible.
Occasionally the light strengthens, making a contrast of yellow-tinged silver on one side, with dark and shaded gray on the
other. I took a long look at Pike's peak, and was a little disappointed. (I suppose I had expected something stunning.)
Our view over plains to the left stretches amply, with corrals here and there, the frequent cactus and wild sage, and herds
of cattle feeding. Thus about 120 miles to Pueblo. At that town we board the comfortable and well-equipt Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fe RR., now striking east.




　　　　　　　　　 190. Unfulfill'd Wants--The Arkansas River




I HAD wanted to go to the Yellowstone river region--wanted specially to see the National Park, and the geysers and the
"hoodoo" or goblin land of that country; indeed, hesitated a little at Pueblo, the turning point--wanted to thread the
Veta pass--wanted to go over the Santa Fe trail away southwestward to New Mexico--but turn'd and set my face eastward--
leaving behind me whetting glimpse-tastes of southeastern Colorado, Pueblo, Bald mountain, the Spanish peaks, Sangre de
Christos, Mile-Shoe-curve (which my veteran friend on the locomotive told me was "the boss railroad curve of the uni-
verse,") fort Garland on the plains, Veta, and the three great peaks of the Sierra Blancas.

The Arkansas river plays quite a part in the whole of this region--I see it, or its high-cut rocky northern shore, for
miles, and cross and recross it frequently, as it winds and squirms like a snake. The plains vary here even more than
usual--sometimes a long sterile stretch of scores of miles--then green, fertile and grassy, an equal length. Some very
large herds of sheep. (One wants new words in writing about these plains, and all the inland American West--the terms,
far, large, vast, &c., are insufficient.)




　　　　　　　 　　191. A Silent Little Follower--The Coreopsis




HERE I must say a word about a little follower, present even now before my eyes. I have been accompanied on my whole
journey from Barnegat to Pike’s Peak by a pleasant floricultural friend, or rather millions of friends--nothing more or
less than a hardy little yellow five-petal’d September and October wild-flower, growing I think everywhere in the mid-
dle and northern United States. I had seen it on the Hudson and over Long Island, and along the banks of the Delaware
and through New Jersey, (as years ago up the Connecticut, and one fall by Lake Champlain.) This trip it follow’d me
regularly, with its slender stem and eyes of gold, from Cape May to the Kaw valley, and so through the canons and to
these plains. In Missouri I saw immense fields all bright with it. Toward western Illinois I woke up one morning in the
sleeper and the first thing when I drew the curtain of my berth and look’d out was its pretty countenance and bending
neck.

Sept. 25th.--Early morning--still going east after we leave Sterling, Kansas, where I stopp’d a day and night. The sun
up about half an hour; nothing can be fresher or more beautiful than this time, this region. I see quite a field of my
yellow flower in full bloom. At intervals dots of nice two-story houses, as we ride swiftly by. Over the immense area,
flat as a floor, visible for twenty miles in every direction in the clear air, a prevalence of autumn-drab and reddish-
tawny herbage--sparse stacks of hay and enclosures, breaking the landscape--as we rumble by, flocks of prairie-hens star-
ting up. Between Sterling and Florence a fine country. (Remembrances to E.L., my old-young soldier friend of war times,
and his wife and boy at S.)




　　　　　　　 　　192. The Prairies and Great Plains in Poetry

　　　　　　　　　　(After traveling Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado.)




GRAND as the thought that doubtless the child is already born who will see a hundred millions of people, the most pros-
perous and advanc'd of the world, inhabiting these Prairies, the great Plains, and the valley of the Mississippi, I
could not help thinking it would be grander still to see all those inimitable American areas fused in the alembic of a
perfect poem, or other esthetic work, entirely western, fresh and limitless--altogether our own, without a trace or taste
of Europe's soil, reminiscence, technical letter or spirit.My days and nights, as I travel here--what an exhilaration!
--not the air alone, and the sense of vastness, but every local sight and feature. Everywhere something characteristic--
the cactuses, pinks, buffalo grass, wild sage--the receding perspective, and the far circle-line of the horizon all times
of day, especially forenoon--the clear, pure, cool, rarefied nutriment for the lungs, previously quite unknown--the black
patches and streaks left by surface-conflagrations--the deep-plough'd furrow of the "fire-guard"--the slanting snow-
racks built all along to shield the railroad from winter drifts--the prairie-dogs and the herds of antelope--the curious
"dry rivers"--occasionally a "dug-out" or corral--Fort Riley and Fort Wallace--those towns of the northern plains, (like
ships on the sea,) Eagle-Tail, Coyote, Cheyenne, Agate, Monotony, Kit Carson--with ever the anthill and the buffalo-wal-
low--ever the herds of cattle and the cow-boys ("cow-punchers") to me a strangely interesting class, bright-eyed as
hawks, with their swarthy complexions and their broad-brimm'd hats--apparently always on horseback, with loose arms
slightly raised and swinging as they ride.




　　　　　　　 　　193. The Spanish Peaks--Evening on the Plains




BETWEEN Pueblo and Bent's fort, southward, in a clear afternoon sun-spell I catch exceptionally good glimpses of the
Spanish peaks. We are in southeastern Colorado--pass immense herds of cattle as our first-class locomotive rushes us a-
long--two or three times crossing the Arkansas, which we follow many miles, and of which river I get fine views, some-
times for quite a distance, its stony, upright, not very high, palisade banks, and then its muddy flats. We pass Fort
Lyon--lots of adobie houses--limit less pasturage, appropriately fleck'd with those herds of cattle--in due time the
declining sun in the west--a sky of limpid pearl over all--and so evening on the great plains. A calm, pensive, bound-
less landscape--the perpendicular rocks of the north Arkansas, hued in twilight--a thin line of violet on the southwes-
tern horizon--the palpable coolness and slight aroma--a belated cow-boy with some unruly member of his herd--an emigrant
wagon toiling yet a little further, the horses slow and tired--two men, apparently father and son, jogging along on
foot--and around all the indescribable chiaroscuro and sentiment, (profounder than anything at sea,) athwart these
endless wilds.




　　　　　　 　　 　　194. America's Characteristic Landscape




SPEAKING generally as to the capacity and sure future destiny of that plain and prairie area (larger than any European
kingdom) it is the inexhaustible land of wheat, maize, wool, flax, coal, iron, beef and pork, butter and cheese, apples
and grapes--land of ten million virgin farms--to the eye at present wild and unproductive--yet experts say that upon it
when irrigated may easily be grown enough wheat to feed the world. Then as to scenery (giving my own thought and feel-
ing,) while I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara falls, the upper Yellowstone and the like, afford the
greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the Prairies and Plains, while less stunning at first sight, last longer,
fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America's characteristic landscape. 1

Indeed through the whole of this journey, with all its shows and varieties, what most impress'd me, and will longest
remain with me, are these same prairies. Day after day, and night after night, to my eyes, to all my senses--the esth-
etic one most of all--they silently and broadly unfolded. Even their simplest statistics are sublime.




　　　　　　　　　 　　195. Earth's Most Important Stream




THE VALLEY of the Mississippi river and its tributaries, (this stream and its adjuncts involve a big part of the ques-
tion,) comprehends more than twelve hundred thousand square miles, the greater part prairies. It is by far the most im-
portant stream on the globe, and would seem to have been marked out by design, slow-flowing from north to south, through
a dozen climates, all fitted for man's healthy occupancy, its outlet unfrozen all the year, and its line forming a safe,
cheap continental avenue for commerce and passage from the north temperate to the torrid zone. Not even the mighty Amazon
(though larger in volume) on its line of east and west--not the Nile in Africa, nor the Danube in Europe, nor the three
great rivers of China, compare with it. Only the Mediterranean sea has play'd some such part in history, and all through
the past, as the Mississippi is destined to play in the future. By its demesnes, water'd and welded by its branches, the
Missouri, the Ohio, the Arkansas, the Red, the Yazoo, the St. Francis and others, it already compacts twenty-five millions
of people, not merely the most peaceful and money-making, but the most restless and warlike on earth. Its valley, or reach,
is rapidly concentrating the political power of the American Union. One almost thinks it is the Union--or soon will be. Take
it out, with its radiations, and what would be left? From the car windows through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, or stopping
some days along the Topeka and Santa Fe road, in southern Kansas, and indeed wherever I went, hundreds and thousands of
miles through this region, my eyes feasted on primitive and rich meadows, some of them partially inhabited, but far, immen-
sely far more untouch'd, unbroken--and much of it more lovely and fertile in its unplough'd innocence than the fair and
valuable fields of New York's, Pennsylvania's, Maryland's or Virginia's richest farms.




　　　　　　　 　　196. Prairie Analogies--The Tree Question




THE WORD Prairie is French, and means literally meadow. The cosmical analogies of our North American plains are the Steppes
of Asia, the Pampas and Llanos of South America, and perhaps the Saharas of Africa. Some think the plains have been origi-
nally lake-beds; others attribute the absence of forests to the fires that almost annually sweep over them--(the cause, in
vulgar estimation, of Indian summer.) The tree question will soon become a grave one. Although the Atlantic slope, the Rocky
mountain region, and the southern portion of the Mississippi valley, are well wooded, there are here stretches of hundreds
and thousands of miles where either not a tree grows, or often useless destruction has prevail'd; and the matter of the
cultivation and spread of forests may well be press'd upon thinkers who look to the coming generations of the prairie
States. 1




　　　　　　　　　 　　197. Mississippi Valley Literature




LYING by one rainy day in Missouri to rest after quite a long exploration--first trying a big volume I found there of "Mil-
ton, Young, Gray, Beattie and Collins," but giving it up for a bad job--enjoying however for awhile, as often before, the
reading of Walter Scott's poems, "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and so on--I stopp'd and laid down the book,
and ponder'd the thought of a poetry that should in due time express and supply the teeming region I was in the midst of,
and have briefly touch'd upon. One's mind needs but a moment's deliberation anywhere in the United States to see clearly
enough that all the prevalent book and library poets, either as imported from Great Britain, or follow'd and doppel-gang'd
here, are foreign to our States, copiously as they are read by us all. But to fully understand not only how absolutely in
opposition to our times and lands, and how little and cramp'd, and what anachronisms and absurdities many of their pages
are, for American purposes, one must dwell or travel awhile in Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, and get rapport with their
people and country.

Will the day ever come--no matter how long deferr'd--when those models and lay-figures from the British islands--and even the
precious traditions of the classics--will be reminiscences, studies only? The pure breath, primitiveness, boundless prodiga-
lity and amplitude, strange mixture of delicacy and power, of continence, of real and ideal, and of all original and first-
class elements, of these prairies, the Rocky mountains, and of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers--will they ever appear in,
and in some sort form a standard for our poetry and art? (I sometimes think that even the ambition of my friend Joaquin Mil-
ler to put them in, and illustrate them, places him ahead of the whole crowd.) 2

Not long ago I was down New York bay, on a steamer, watching the sunset over the dark green heights of Navesink, and viewing
all that inimitable spread of shore, shipping and sea, around Sandy hook. But an intervening week or two, and my eyes catch
the shadowy outlines of the Spanish peaks. In the more than two thousand miles between, though of infinite and paradoxical
variety, a curious and absolute fusion is doubtless steadily annealing, compacting, identifying all. But subtler and wider
and more solid, (to produce such compaction,) than the laws of the States, or the common ground of Congress or the Supreme
Court, or the grim welding of our national wars, or the steel ties of railroads, or all the kneading and fusing process of
our material and business history, past or present, would in my opinion be a great throbbing, vital, imaginative work, or
series of works, or literature, in constructing which the Plains, the Prairies, and the Mississippi river, with the demesnes
of its varied and ample valley, should be the concrete background, and America's humanity, passions, struggles, hopes,
there and now--an eclaircissement as it is and is to be, on the stage of the New World, of all Time's hitherto drama of war,
romance and evolution--should furnish the lambent fire, the ideal. 3




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　198. An Interviewer's Item




Oct. 17, '79.--TO-DAY one of the newspapers of St. Louis prints the following informal remarks of mine on American, especially
Western literature: "We called on Mr. Whitman yesterday and after a somewhat desultory conversation abruptly asked him: 'Do
you think we are to have a distinctively American literature?' 'It seems to me,' said he, 'that our work at present is to
lay the foundations of a great nation in products, in agriculture, in commerce, in networks of intercommunication, and in all
that relates to the comforts of vast masses of men and families, with freedom of speech, ecclesiasticism, &c. These we have
founded and are carrying out on a grander scale than ever hitherto, and Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado,
seem to me to be the seat and field of these very facts and ideas. Materialistic prosperity in all its varied forms, with those
other points that I mentioned, intercommunication and freedom, are first to be attended to. When those have their results and
get settled, then a literature worthy of us will begin to be defined. Our American superiority and vitality are in the bulk of
our people, not in a gentry like the old world. The greatness of our army during the secession war, was in the rank and file,
and so with the nation. Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of the people. Our lead-
ing men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Some-
times I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not
have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great.'"




　　　　　　　　　　 　　199. The Women of the West




Kansas City.--I AM not so well satisfied with what I see of the women of the prairie cities. I am writing this where I sit lei-
surely in a store in Main street, Kansas city, a streaming crowd on the sidewalks flowing by. The ladies (and the same in Den-
ver) are all fashionably drest, and have the look of "gentility" in face, manner and action, but they do not have, either in
physique or the mentality appropriate to them, any high native originality of spirit or body, (as the men certainly have, appro-
priate to them.) They are "intellectual" and fashionable, but dyspeptic-looking and generally doll-like; their ambition evi-
dently is to copy their eastern sisters. Something far different and in advance must appear, to tally and complete the superb
masculinity of the West, and maintain and continue it.




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　200. The Silent General




Sept. 28, '79.--SO General Grant, after circumambiating the world, has arrived home again--landed in San Francisco yesterday,
from the ship City of Tokio from Japan. What a man he is! what a history! what an illustration--his life--of the capacities of
that American individuality common to us all. Cynical critics are wondering "what the people can see in Grant" to make such
a hubbub about. They aver (and it is no doubt true) that he has hardly the average of our day's literary and scholastic cul-
ture, and absolutely no pronounc'd genius or conventional eminence of any sort. Correct: but he proves how an average western
farmer, mechanic, boatman, carried by tides of circumstances, perhaps caprices, into a position of incredible military or civic
responsibilities, (history has presented none more trying, no born monarch's, no mark more shining for attack or envy,) may
steer his way fitly and steadily through them all, carrying the country and himself with credit year after year--command over a
million armed men--fight more than fifty heavy battles--rule for eight years a land larger than all the kingdoms of Europe com-
bined--and then, retiring, quietly (with a cigar in his mouth) make the promenade of the whole world, through its courts and
coteries, and kings and czars and mikados, and splendidest glitters and etiquettes, as phlegmatically as he ever walk'd the
portico of a Missouri hotel after dinner. I say all this is what people like--and I am sure I like it. Seems to me it transcends
Plutarch. How those old Greeks, indeed, would have seized on him! A mere plain man--no art, no poetry--only practical sense,
ability to do, or try his best to do, what devolv'd upon him. A common trader, money-maker, tanner, farmer of Illinois--general
for the republic, in its terrific struggle with itself, in the war of attempted secession--President following, (a task of peace,
more difficult than the war itself)--nothing heroic, as the authorities put it--and yet the greatest hero. The gods, the destin-
ies, seem to have concentrated upon him.




　　　　　　　　 　　201. President Hayes's Speeches




Sept. 30.--I SEE President Hayes has come out West, passing quite informally from point to point, with his wife and a small cor-
tege of big officers, receiving ovations, and making daily and sometimes double-daily addresses to the people. To these address-
es--all impromptu, and some would call them ephemeral--I feel to devote a memorandum. They are shrewd, good-natur'd, face-to-face
speeches, on easy topics not too deep; but they give me some revised ideas of oratory--of a new, opportune theory and practice of
that art, quite changed from the classic rules, and adapted to our days, our occasions, to American democracy, and to the swarm-
ing populations of the West. I hear them criticised as wanting in dignity, but to me they are just what they should be, consider-
ing all the circumstances, who they come from, and who they are address'd to. Underneath, his objects are to compact and frater-
nize the States, encourage their materialistic and industrial development, soothe and expand their self-poise, and tie all and
each with resistless double ties not only of intertrade barter, but human comradeship.

From Kansas city I went on to St. Louis, where I remain'd nearly three months, with my brother T. J. W., and my dear nieces.




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　202. St. Louis Memoranda




Oct., Nov., and Dec., '79.--THE POINTS of St. Louis are its position, its absolute wealth, (the long accumulations of time and
trade, solid riches, probably a higher average thereof than any city,) the unrivall'd amplitude of its well-laid out environage
of broad plateaus, for future expansion--and the great State of which it is the head. It fuses northern and southern qualities,
perhaps native and foreign ones, to perfection, rendezvous the whole stretch of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and its
American electricity goes well with its German phlegm. Fourth, Fifth and Third streets are store-streets, showy, modern, metro-
politan, with hurrying crowds, vehicles, horse-cars, hubbub, plenty of people, rich goods, plate-glass windows, iron fronts often
five or six stories high. You can purchase anything in St. Louis (in most of the big western cities for the matter of that) just
as readily and cheaply as in the Atlantic marts. Often in going about the town you see reminders of old, even decay'd civiliza-
tion. The water of the west, in some places, is not good, but they make it up here by plenty of very fair wine, and inexhaustible
quantities of the best beer in the world. There are immense establishments for slaughtering beef and pork--and I saw flocks of
sheep, 5000 in a flock. (In Kansas city I had visited a packing establishment that kills and packs an average of 2500 hogs a day
the whole year round, for export. Another in Atchison, Kansas, same extent; others nearly equal elsewhere. And just as big ones
here.) 1




　　　　　　　　　　 　　203. Nights on the Mississippi




Oct. 29th, 30th, and 31st.--WONDERFULLY fine, with the full harvest moon, dazzling and silvery. I have haunted the river every night
lately, where I could get a look at the bridge by moonlight. It is indeed a structure of perfection and beauty unsurpassable, and I
never tire of it. The river at present is very low; I noticed to-day it had much more of a blue-clear look than usual. I hear the
slight ripples, the air is fresh and cool, and the view, up or down, wonderfully clear, in the moonlight. I am out pretty late: it
is so fascinating, dreamy. The cool night-air, all the influences, the silence, with those far-off eternal stars, do me good. I have
been quite ill of late. And so, well-near the centre of our national demesne, these night views of the Mississippi. 1




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　204. Upon Our Own Land




"ALWAYS, after supper, take a walk half a mile long," says an old proverb, dryly adding, "and if convenient let it be upon your own
land." I wonder does any other nation but ours afford opportunity for such a jaunt as this? Indeed has any previous period afforded
it? No one, I discover, begins to know the real geographic, democratic, indissoluble American Union in the present, or suspect it in
the future, until he explores these Central States, and dwells awhile observantly on their prairies, or amid their busy towns, and
the mighty father of waters. A ride of two or three thousand miles, "on one's own land," with hardly a disconnection, could certainly
be had in no other place than the United States, and at no period before this. If you want to see what the railroad is, and how civ-
ilization and progress date from it--how it is the conqueror of crude nature, which it turns to man's use, both on small scales and
on the largest--come hither to inland America.

I return'd home, east, Jan. 5, 1880, having travers'd, to and fro and across, 10,000 miles and more. I soon resumed my seclusions
down in the woods, or by the creek, or gaddings about cities, and an occasional disquisition, as will be seen following.




　　　　　　　　　　 　　205. Edgar Poe's Significance




Jan. 1, '80.--IN diagnosing this disease called humanity--to assume for the nonce what seems a chief mood of the personality and writ-
ings of my subject--I have thought that poets, somewhere or other on the list, present the most mark'd indications. Comprehending art-
ists in a mass, musicians, painters, actors, and so on, and considering each and all of them as radiations or flanges of that furious
whirling wheel, poetry, the centre and axis of the whole, where else indeed may we so well investigate the causes, growths, tally-marks
of the time--the age's matter and malady?

By common consent there is nothing better for man or woman than a perfect and noble life, morally without flaw, happily balanced in
activity, physically sound and pure, giving its due proportion, and no more, to the sympathetic, the human emotional element--a life,
in all these, unhasting, unresting, untiring to the end. And yet there is another shape of personality dearer far to the artist-sense,
(which likes the play of strongest lights and shades,) where the perfect character, the good, the heroic, although never attain'd, is
never lost sight of, but through failures, sorrows, temporary downfalls, is return'd to again and again, and while often violated, is
passionately adhered to as long as mind, muscles, voice, obey the power we call volition. This sort of personality we see more or less
in Burns, Byron, Schiller, and George Sand. But we do not see it in Edgar Poe. (All this is the result of reading at intervals the last
three days a new volume of his poems--I took it on my rambles down by the pond, and by degrees read it all through there.) While to the
character first outlined the service Poe renders is certainly that entire contrast and contradiction which is next best to fully exem-
plifying it.

Almost without the first sign of moral principle, or of the concrete or its heroisms, or the simpler affections of the heart, Poe's
verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity to-
ward nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page--and, by final judgment, probably belong among the electric lights of i-
maginative literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat. There is an indescribable magnetism about the poet's life and remini-
scences, as well as the poems. To one who could work out their subtle retracing and retrospect, the latter would make a close tally no
doubt between the author's birth and antecedents, his childhood and youth, his physique, his so-call'd education, his studies and as-
sociates, the literary and social Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia and New York, of those times--not only the places and circumstances
in themselves, but often, very often, in a strange spurning of, and reaction from them all.

The following from a report in the Washington "Star” of November 16, 1875, may afford those who care for it something further of my
point of view toward this interesting figure and influence of our era. There occurr'd about that date in Baltimore a public reburial
of Poe's remains, and dedication of a monument over the grave:

　　"Being in Washington on a visit at the time, 'the old gray' went over to Baltimore, and though ill from paralysis, con-
　　sented to hobble up and silently take a seat on the platform, but refused to make any speech, saying, 'I have felt a strong
　　impulse to come over and be here to-day myself in memory of Poe, which I have obey'd, but not the slightest impulse to make a
　　speech, which, my dear friends, must also be obeyed.' In an informal circle, however, in conversation after the ceremonies,
　　Whitman said: 'For a long while, and until lately, I had a distaste for Poe's writings. I wanted, and still want for poetry,
　　the clear sun shining, and fresh air blowing--the strength and power of health, not of delirium, even amid the stormiest passi-
　　ons--with always the background of the eternal moralities. Non-complying with these requirements, Poe's genius has yet con-
　　quer'd a special recognition for itself, and I too have come to fully admit it, and appreciate it and him.

　　"'In a dream I once had, I saw a vessel on the sea, at midnight, in a storm. It was no great full-rigg'd ship, nor majestic
　　steamer, steering firmly through the gale, but seem'd one of those superb little schooner yachts I had often seen lying anchor'd,
　　rocking so jauntily, in the waters around New York, or up Long Island sound--now flying uncontroll'd with torn sails and broken
　　spars through the wild sleet and winds and waves of the night. On the deck was a slender, slight, beautiful figure, a dim man,
　　apparently enjoying all the terror, the murk, and the dislocation of which he was the centre and the victim. That figure of my
　　lurid dream might stand for Edgar Poe, his spirit, his fortunes, and his poems--themselves all lurid dreams.'”

Much more may be said, but I most desired to exploit the idea put at the beginning. By its popular poets the calibres of an age, the
weak spots of its embankments, its sub-currents, (often more significant than the biggest surface ones,) are unerringly indicated. The
lush and the weird that have taken such extraordinary possession of Nineteenth century verse-lovers--what mean they? The inevitable ten-
dency of poetic culture to morbidity, abnormal beauty--the sickliness of all technical thought or refinement in itself--the abnegation
of the perennial and democratic concretes at first hand, the body, the earth and sea, sex and the like--and the substitution of something
for them at second or third hand--what bearings have they on current pathological study?




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　206. Beethoven's Septette




Feb. 11, '80.--AT a good concert to-night in the foyer of the opera house, Philadelphia--the band a small but first-rate one. Never did
music more sink into and soothe and fill me--never so prove its soul-rousing power, its impossibility of statement. Especially in the
rendering of one of Beethoven's master septettes by the well-chosen and perfectly-combined instruments (violins, viola, clarionet, horn,
'cello and contrabass,) was I carried away, seeing, absorbing many wonders. Dainty abandon, sometimes as if Nature laughing on a hillside
in the sunshine; serious and firm monotonies, as of winds; a horn sounding through the tangle of the forest, and the dying echoes; soothing
floating of waves, but presently rising in surges, angrily lashing, muttering, heavy; piercing peals of laughter, for interstices; now and
then weird, as Nature herself is in certain moods--but mainly spontaneous, easy, careless--often the sentiment of the postures of naked chil-
dren playing or sleeping. It did me good even to watch the violinists drawing their bows so masterly--every motion a study. I allow'd my-
self, as I sometimes do, to wander out of myself. The conceit came to me of a copious grove of singing birds, and in their midst a simple
harmonic duo, two human souls, steadily asserting their own pensiveness, joyousness.




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　207. A Hint of Wild Nature




Feb. 13.--AS I was crossing the Delaware to-day, saw a large flock of wild geese, right overhead, not very high up, ranged in V-shape, in
relief against the noon clouds of light smoke-color. Had a capital though momentary view of them, and then of their course on and on south-
east, till gradually fading--(my eyesight yet first rate for the open air and its distances, but I use glasses for reading.) Queer thoughts
melted into me the two or three minutes, or less, seeing these creatures cleaving the sky--the spacious, airy realm--even the prevailing
smoke-gray color everywhere, (no sun shining)--the waters below--the rapid flight of the birds, appearing just for a minute--flashing to me
such a hint of the whole spread of Nature, with her eternal unsophisticated freshness, her never-visited recesses of sea, sky, shore--and
then disappearing in the distance.




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　208. Loafing in the Woods




March 8.--I WRITE this down in the country again, but in a new spot, seated on a log in the woods, warm, sunny, midday. Have been loafing
here deep among the trees, shafts of tall pines, oak, hickory, with a thick undergrowth of laurels and grapevines--the ground cover’d ever-
ywhere by debris, dead leaves, breakage, moss--everything solitary, ancient, grim. Paths (such as they are) leading hither and yon--(how made
I know not, for nobody seems to come here, nor man nor cattle-kind.) Temperature to-day about 60, the wind through the pine-tops; I sit and
listen to its hoarse sighing above (and to the stillness) long and long, varied by aimless rambles in the old roads and paths, and by exer-
cise-pulls at the young saplings, to keep my joints from getting stiff. Blue-birds, robins, meadow-larks begin to appear.

Next day, 9th.--A snowstorm in the morning, and continuing most of the day. But I took a walk over two hours, the same woods and paths, amid
the falling flakes. No wind, yet the musical low murmur through the pines, quite pronounced, curious, like waterfalls, now still’d, now
pouring again. All the senses, sight, sound, smell, delicately gratified. Every snowflake lay where it fell on the evergreens, holly-trees,
laurels, &c., the multitudinous leaves and branches piled, bulging-white, defined by edge-lines of emerald--the tall straight columns of the
plentiful bronze-topt pines--a slight resinous odor blending with that of the snow. (For there is a scent to everything, even the snow, if
you can only detect it--no two places, hardly any two hours, anywhere, exactly alike. How different the odor of noon from midnight, or winter
from summer, or a windy spell from a still one.)




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　209. A Contralto Voice




May 9, Sunday.--VISIT this evening to my friends the J.’s--good supper, to which I did Justice--lively chat with Mrs. J. and I. and J. As I sat
out front on the walk afterward, in the evening air, the church-choir and organ on the corner opposite gave Luther’s hymn, Ein feste Berg,
very finely. The air was borne by a rich contralto. For nearly half an hour there in the dark, (there was a good string of English stanzas,)
came the music, firm and unhurried, with long pauses. The full silver star-beams of Lyra rose silently over the church’s dim roof-ridge.
Varicolor’d lights from the stain’d glass windows broke through the tree-shadows. And under all--under the Northern Crown up there, and in
the fresh breeze below, and the chiaroscuro of the night, that liquid-full contralto.




　　　　　　　　　 　　210. Seeing Niagara to Advantage




June 4, ’80.--FOR really seizing a great picture or book, or piece of music, or architecture, or grand scenery--or perhaps for the first time
even the common sunshine, or landscape, or may-be even the mystery of identity, most curious mystery of all--there comes some lucky five min-
utes of a man’s life, set amid a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, and bringing in a brief flash the culmination of years of reading
and travel and thought. The present case about two o’clock this afternoon, gave me Niagara, its superb severity of action and color and maj-
estic grouping, in one short, indescribable show. We were very slowly crossing the Suspension bridge--not a full stop anywhere, but next to it--
the day clear, sunny, still--and I out on the platform. The falls were in plain view about a mile off, but very distinct, and no roar--hardly a
murmur. The river tumbling green and white, far below me; the dark high banks, the plentiful umbrage, many bronze cedars, in shadow; and tem-
pering and arching all the immense materiality, a clear sky overhead, with a few white clouds, limpid, spiritual, silent. Brief, and as quiet
as brief, that picture--a remembrance always afterwards. Such are the things, indeed, I lay away with my life’s rare and blessed bits of hours,
reminiscent, past--the wild sea-storm I once saw one winter day, off Fire island--the elder Booth in Richard, that famous night forty years ago
in the old Bowery--or Alboni in the children’s scene in Norma--or night-views, I remember, on the field, after battles in Virginia--or the pecu-
liar sentiment of moonlight and stars over the great Plains, western Kansas--or scooting up New York bay, with a stiff breeze and a good yacht,
off Navesink. With these, I say, I henceforth place that view, that afternoon, that combination complete, that five minutes’ perfect absorp
tion of Niagara--not the great majestic gem alone by itself, but set complete in all its varied, full, indispensable surroundings.




　　　　　　　　　　　 　　211. Jaunting to Canada




TO go back a little, I left Philadelphia, 9th and Green streets, at 8 o’clock P. M., June 3, on a first-class sleeper, by the Lehigh Valley
(North Pennsylvania) route, through Bethlehem Wilkesbarre, Waverly, and so (by Erie) on through Corning to Hornellsville, where we arrived at 8,
morning, and had a bounteous breakfast. I must say I never put in such a good night on any railroad track--smooth, firm, the minimum of jolting,
and all the swiftness compatible with safety. So without change to Buffalo, and thence to Clifton, where we arrived early afternoon; then on to
London, Ontario, Canada, in four more--less than twenty-two hours altogether. I am domiciled at the hospitable house of my friends Dr. and Mrs.
Bucke, in the ample and charming garden and lawns of the asylum.




　　　　　　　　　　　 　212. Sunday with the Insane




June 6.--WENT over to the religious services (Episcopal) main Insane asylum, held in a lofty, good-sized hall, third story. Plain boards, white-
wash, plenty of cheap chairs, no ornament or color, yet all scrupulously clean and sweet. Some three hundred persons present, mostly patients.
Everything, the prayers, a short sermon, the firm, orotund voice of the minister, and most of all, beyond any portraying or suggesting, that au-
dience, deeply impress’d me. I was furnish’d with an arm-chair near the pulpit, and sat facing the motley, yet perfectly well-behaved and or-
derly congregation. The quaint dresses and bonnets of some of the women, several very old and gray, here and there like the heads in old pic-
tures. O the looks that came from those faces! There were two or three I shall probably never forget. Nothing at all markedly repulsive or hid-
eous?strange enough I did not see one such. Our common humanity, mine and yours, everywhere:

　　　"The same old blood--the same red, running blood;”

yet behind most, an inferr’d arriere of such storms, such wrecks, such mysteries, fires, love, wrong, greed for wealth, religious problems,
crosses--mirror’d from those crazed faces (yet now temporarily so calm, like still waters,) all the woes and sad happenings of life and death?
now from every one the devotional element radiating--was it not, indeed, the peace of God that passeth all understanding, strange as it may sound?
I can only say that I took long and searching eye-sweeps as I sat there, and it seem’d so, rousing unprecedented thoughts, problems unanswer-
able. A very fair choir, and melodeon accompaniment. They sang “Lead, kindly light,” after the sermon. Many join’d in the beautiful hymn, to
which the minister read the introductory text, “In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire.” Then
the words:

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
　　Lead thou me on.
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
　　Lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that thou
　　Should’st lead me on;
I lov’d to choose and see my path; but now
　　Lead thou me on.
I loved the garish day, and spite of fears
Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.


A couple of days after, I went to the “Refractory building, under special charge of Dr. Beemer, and through the wards pretty thoroughly, both
the men’s and women’s. I have since made many other visits of the kind through the asylum, and around among the detach’d cottages. As far as
I could see, this is among the most advanced, perfected, and kindly and rationally carried on, of all its kind in America. It is a town in it-
self, with many buildings and a thousand inhabitants.

I learn that Canada, and especially this ample and populous province, Ontario, has the very best and plentiest benevolent institutions in all
departments.




　　　　　　　　　　213. Reminiscence of Elias Hicks




June 8.--TO-DAY a letter from Mrs. E. S. L., Detroit, accompanied in a little post-office roll by a rare old engraved head of Elias Hicks, (from
a portrait in oil by Henry Inman, painted for J. V. S., must have been 60 years or more ago, in New York)--among the rest the following excerpt
about E. H. in the letter:

　　"I have listen'd to his preaching so often when a child, and sat with my mother at social gatherings where he was the centre, and
　　every one so pleas'd and stirr'd by his conversation. I hear that you contemplate writing or speaking about him, and I wonder'd
　　whether you had a picture of him. As I am the owner of two, I send you one."



　　　 　　　　　　　　214. Grand Native Growth




IN a few days I go to lake Huron, and may have something to say of that region and people. From what I already see, I should say the young native
population of Canada was growing up, forming a hardy, democratic, intelligent, radically sound, and just as American, good-natured and individu-
alistic race, as the average range of best specimens among us. As among us, too, I please myself by considering that this element, though it may
not be the majority, promises to be the leaven which must eventually leaven the whole lump.




　　　　　　　215. A Zollverein Between the U. S. and Canada




SOME of the more liberal of the presses here are discussing the question of a zollverein between the United States and Canada. It is proposed to
form a union for commercial purposes--to altogether abolish the frontier tariff line, with its double sets of custom house officials now existing
between the two countries, and to agree upon one tariff for both, the proceeds of this tariff to be divided between the two governments on the
basis of population. It is said that a large proportion of the merchants of Canada are in favor of this step, as they believe it would materially
add to the business of the country, by removing the restrictions that now exist on trade between Canada and the States. Those persons who are op-
posed to the measure believe that it would increase the material welfare of the country, but it would loosen the bonds between Canada and En-
gland; and this sentiment overrides the desire for commercial prosperity. Whether the sentiment can continue to bear the strain put upon it is
a question. It is thought by many that commercial considerations must in the end prevail. It seems also to be generally agreed that such a zoll-
verein, or common customs union, would bring practically more benefits to the Canadian provinces than to the United States. (It seems to me a
certainty of time, sooner or later, that Canada shall form two or three grand States, equal and independent, with the rest of the American Union.
The St. Lawrence and lakes are not for a frontier line, but a grand interior or mid-channel.)




　　　　　　　　　　　216. The St. Lawrence Line




August 20.--PREMISING that my three or four months in Canada were intended, among the rest, as an exploration of the line of the St. Lawrence,
from lake Superior to the sea, (the engineers here insist upon considering it as one stream, over 2000 miles long, including lakes and Niagara
and all)--that I have only partially carried out my programme; but for the seven or eight hundred miles so far fulfill'd, I find that the Canada
question is absolutely control'd by this vast water line, with its first-class features and points of trade, humanity, and many more--here I am
writing this nearly a thousand miles north of my Philadelphia starting-point (by way of Montreal and Quebec) in the midst of regions that go to
a further extreme of grimness, wildness of beauty, and a sort of still and pagan scaredness, while yet Christian, inhabitable, and partially fer-
tile, than perhaps any other on earth. The weather remains perfect; some might call it a little cool, but I wear my old gray overcoat and find it
just right. The days are full of sunbeams and oxygen. Most of the forenoons and afternoons I am on the forward deck of the steamer.




　　　　　　　　　　　217. The Savage Saguenay




UP these black waters, over a hundred miles--always strong, deep, (hundreds of feet, sometimes thousands,) ever with high, rocky hills for banks,
green and gray--at times a little like some parts of the Hudson, but much more pronounc'd and defiant. The hills rise higher--keep their ranks more
unbroken. The river is straighter and of more resolute flow, and its hue, though dark as ink, exquisitely polish'd and sheeny under the August
sun. Different, indeed, this Saguenay from all other rivers--different effects--a bolder, more vehement play of lights and shades. Of a rare charm
of singleness and simplicity. (Like the organ-chant at midnight from the old Spanish convent, in "Favorita"--one strain only, simple and monoto-
nous and unornamented--but indescribably penetrating and grand and masterful.) Great place for echoes: while our steamer was tied at the wharf at
Tadousac (taj-oo-sac) waiting, the escape-pipe letting off steam, I was sure I heard a band at the hotel up in the rocks--could even make out some
of the tunes. Only when our pipe stopp'd, I knew what caused it. Then at cape Eternity and Trinity rock, the pilot with his whistle producing
similar marvellous results, echoes indescribably weird, as we lay off in the still bay under their shadows.




　　　　　　　　　　218. Capes Eternity and Trinity




BUT the great, haughty, silent capes themselves; I doubt if any crack points, or hills, or historic places of note, or anything of the kind else-
where in the world, outvies these objects--(I write while I am before them face to face.) They are very simple, they do not startle--at least they
did not me--but they linger in one's memory forever. They are placed very near each other, side by side, each a mountain rising flush out of the
Saguenay. A good thrower could throw a stone on each in passing--at least it seems so. Then they are as distinct in form as a perfect physical man
or a perfect physical woman. Cape Eternity is bare, rising, as just said, sheer out of the water, rugged and grim (yet with an indescribable beau-
ty) nearly two thousand feet high. Trinity rock, even a little higher, also rising flush, top-rounded like a great head with close-cut verdure of
hair. I consider myself well repaid for coming my thousand miles to get the sight and memory of the unrivall'd duo. They have stirr'd me more
profoundly than anything of the kind I have yet seen. If Europe or Asia had them, we should certainly hear of them in all sorts of sent-back poems,
rhapsodies, &c., a dozen times a year through our papers and magazines.




　　　　　　　　　　219. Chicoutimi and Ha-Ha Bay




NO indeed--life and travel and memory have offer'd and will preserve to me no deeper-cut incidents, panorama, or sights to cheer my soul, than
these at Chicoutimi and Ha-ha bay, and my days and nights up and down this fascinating savage river--the rounded mountains, some bare and gray,
some dull red, some draped close all over with matted green verdure or vines--the ample, calm, eternal rocks everywhere--the long streaks of motley
foam, a milk-white curd on the glistening breast of the stream--the little two-masted schooner, dingy yellow, with patch'd sails, set wing-and-wing,
nearing us, coming saucily up the water with a couple of swarthy, black-hair'd men aboard--the strong shades falling on the light gray or yellow
outlines of the hills all through the forenoon, as we steam within gunshot of them--while ever the pure and delicate sky spreads over all. And the
splendid sunsets, and the sights of evening--the same old stars, (relatively a little different, I see, so far north) Arcturus and Lyra, and the Ea-
gle, and great Jupiter like a silver globe, and the constellation of the Scorpion. Then northern lights nearly every night.




　　　　　　　　　　220. The Inhabitants--Good Living




GRIM and rocky and black-water'd as the demesne hereabout is, however, you must not think genial humanity, and comfort, and good-living are not to
be met. Before I began this memorandum I made a first-rate breakfast of sea-trout, finishing off with wild raspberries. I find smiles and courtesy
everywhere--physiognomies in general curiously like those in the United States--(I was astonish'd to find the same resemblance all through the pro-
vince of Quebec.) In general the inhabitants of this rugged country (Charlevoix, Chicoutimi and Tadousac counties, and lake St. John region) a sim-
ple, hardy population, lumbering, trapping furs, boating, fishing, berry-picking and a little farming. I was watching a group of young boatmen eat-
ing their early dinner--nothing but an immense loaf of bread, had apparently been the size of a bushel measure, from which they cut chunks with a
jack-knife. Must be a tremendous winter country this, when the solid frost and ice fully set in.




　　　　　　　　　　221. Cedar-Plums Like--Names




(Back again in Camden and down in Jersey.)

ONE time I thought of naming this collection "Cedar-Plums Like" (which I still fancy wouldn't have been a bad name, nor inappropriate.) A me-
lange of loafing, looking, hobbling, sitting, traveling--a little thinking thrown in for salt, but very little--not only summer but all seasons--
not only days but nights--some literary meditations--books, authors examined, Carlyle, Poe, Emerson tried, (always under my cedar-tree, in the
open air, and never in the library)--mostly the scenes everybody sees, but some of my own caprices, meditations, egotism--truly an open air and
mainly summer formation--singly, or in clusters--wild and free and somewhat acrid--indeed more like cedar-plums than you might guess at first
glance.

But do you know what they are? (To city man, or some sweet parlor lady, I now talk.) As you go along roads, or barrens, or across country, any-
where through these States, middle, eastern, western, or southern, you will see, certain seasons of the year, the thick woolly tufts of the cedar
mottled with bunches of china-blue berries, about as big as fox-grapes. But first a special word for the tree itself: everybody knows that the
cedar is a healthy, cheap, democratic wood, streak'd red and white--an evergreen--that it is not a cultivated tree--that it keeps away moths--
that it grows inland or seaboard, all climates, hot or cold, any soil--in fact rather prefers sand and bleak side spots--content if the plough,
the fertilizer and the trimming-axe, will but keep away and let it alone. After a long rain, when everything looks bright, often have I stopt
in my wood-saunters, south or north, or far west, to take in its dusky green, wash'd clean and sweet, and speck'd copiously with its fruit of
clear, hardy blue. The wood of the cedar is of use--but what profit on earth are those sprigs of acrid plums? A question impossible to answer
satisfactorily. True, some of the herb doctors give them for stomachic affections, but the remedy is as bad as the disease. Then in my rambles
down in Camden country I once found an old crazy woman gathering the clusters with zeal and joy. She show'd, as I was told afterward, a sort of
infatuation for them, and every year placed and kept profuse bunches high and low about her room. They had a strange charm on her uneasy head,
and effected docility and peace. (She was harmless, and lived near by with her well-off married daughter.) Whether there is any connection be-
tween those bunches, and being out of one's wits, I cannot say, but I myself entertain a weakness for them. Indeed, I love the cedar, anyhow--
its naked ruggedness, its just palpable odor, (so different from the perfumer's best,) its silence, its equable acceptance of winter's cold and
summer's heat, of rain or drouth--its shelter to me from those, at times--its associations--(well, I never could explain why I love anybody,
or anything.) The service I now specially owe to the cedar is, while I cast around for a name for my proposed collection, hesitating, puzzled--
after rejecting a long, long string, I lift my eyes, and lo! the very term I want. At any rate, I go no further--I tire in the search. I take
what some invisible kind spirit has put before me. Besides, who shall say there is not affinity enough between (at least the bundle of sticks
that produced) many of these pieces, or granulations, and those blue berries? their uselessness growing wild--a certain aroma of Nature I would
so like to have in my pages--the thin soil whence they come--their content in being let alone--their stolid and deaf repugnance to answering
questions, (this latter the nearest, dearest trait affinity of all.)

Then reader dear, in conclusion, as to the point of the name for the present collection, let us be satisfied to have a name--something to iden-
tify and bind it together, to concrete all its vegetable, mineral, personal memoranda, abrupt raids of criticism, crude gossip of philosophy, varied
sands and clumps--without bothering ourselves because certain pages do not present themselves to you or me as coming under their own name
with en-tire fitness or amiability. (It is a profound, vexatious, never-explicable matter--this of names. I have been exercised deeply about it
my whole life.)

After all of which the name "Cedar-Plums Like" got its nose put out of joint; but I cannot afford to throw away what I pencill'd down the lane
there, under the shelter of my old friend, one warm October noon. Besides, it wouldn't be civil to the cedar tree.



Note 1. In the pocket of my receptacle-book I find a list of suggested and rejected names for this volume, or parts of it--such as the follow-
ing:

As the wild bee hums in May,
& August mulleins grow,
& Winter snow-flakes fall,
& stars in the sky roll round.
Away from Books--away from Art,
Now for the Day and Night--the lesson done,
Now for the Sun and Stars.
Notes of a half-Paralytic,
As Voices in the Dusk, from Speakers far or hid,
Week in and Week out,
Embers of Ending Days,
Autochthons.….Embryons,
Ducks and Drakes,
Wing-and-Wing,
Flood Tide and Ebb,
Notes and Recalles,
Gossip at Early Candle-light,
Only Mulleins and Bumble-Bees,
Echoes and Escapades,
Pond-Babble.….Tete-a-Tetes,
Such as I.….Evening Dews,
Echoes of a Life in the 19th Century in the New World,
Notes after Writing a Book,
Far and Near at 63,
Flanges of Fifty Years,
Drifts and Cumulus,
Abandons.….Hurry Notes,
Maize-Tassels.….Kindlings,
A Life-Mosaic.….Native Moments,
Fore and Aft.….Vestibules,
Types and Semi-Tones,
Scintilla at 60 and after,
Oddments.….Sand-Drifts,
Sands on the Shores of 64,
Again and Again.




　　　　　　　　　　222. Death of Thomas Carlyle




Feb. 10, '81.--AND so the flame of the lamp, after long wasting and flickering, has gone out entirely. 1

As a representative author, a literary figure, no man else will bequeath to the future more significant hints of our stormy era, its fierce
paradoxes, its din, and its struggling parturition periods, than Carlyle. He belongs to our own branch of the stock too; neither Latin nor Greek,
but altogether Gothic. Rugged, mountainous, volcanic, he was himself more a French revolution than any of his volumes. In some respects, so far
in the Nineteenth century, the best equipt, keenest mind, even from the college point of view, of all Britain; only he had an ailing body. Dys-
pepsia is to be traced in every page, and now and then fills the page. One may include among the lessons of his life--even though that life
stretch'd to amazing length--how behind the tally of genius and morals stands the stomach, and gives a sort of casting vote.

Two conflicting agonistic elements seem to have contended in the man, sometimes pulling him different ways like wild horses. He was a cautious,
conservative Scotchman, fully aware what a f?tid gas-bag much of modern radicalism is; but then his great heart demanded reform, demanded change--
often terribly at odds with his scornful brain. No author ever put so much wailing and despair into his books, sometimes palpable, oftener latent.
He reminds me of that passage in Young's poems where as death presses closer and closer for his prey, the soul rushes hither and thither, appeal-
ing, shrieking, berating, to escape the general doom.

Of short-comings, even positive blur-spots, from an American point of view, he had serious share. 4

Not for his merely literary merit, (though that was great)--not as "maker of books," but as launching into the self-complacent atmosphere of our
days a rasping, questioning, dislocating agitation and shock, is Carlyle's final value. It is time the English-speaking peoples had some true
idea about the verteber of genius, namely power. As if they must always have it cut and bias'd to the fashion, like a lady's cloak! What a need-
ed service he performs! How he shakes our comfortable reading circles with a touch of the old Hebraic anger and prophecy--and indeed it is just
the same. Not Isaiah himself more scornful, more threatening: "The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: And the
glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading flower." (The word prophecy is much misused; it seems narrow'd to pre-
diction merely. That is not the main sense of the Hebrew word translated "prophet;" it means one whose mind bubbles up and pours forth as a foun-
tain, from inner, divine spontaneities revealing God. Prediction is a very minor part of prophecy. The great matter is to reveal and outpour the
God-like suggestions pressing for birth in the soul. This is briefly the doctrine of the Friends or Quakers.)

Then the simplicity and amid ostensible frailty the towering strength of this man--a hardy oak knot, you could never wear out--an old farmer
dress'd in brown clothes, and not handsome--his very foibles fascinating. Who cares that he wrote about Dr. Francia, and "Shooting Niagara"--and
"the Nigger Question,"--and didn't at all admire our United States? (I doubt if he ever thought or said half as bad words about us as we deserve.)
How he splashes like leviathan in the seas of modern literature and politics! Doubtless, respecting the latter, one needs first to realize, from
actual observation, the squalor, vice and doggedness ingrain'd in the bulk-population of the British Islands, with the red tape, the fatuity, the
flunkeyism everywhere, to understand the last meaning in his pages. Accordingly, though he was no chartist or radical, I consider Carlyle's by far
the most indignant comment or protest anent the fruits of feudalism to-day in Great Britain--the increasing poverty and degradation of the homeless,
landless twenty millions, while a few thousands, or rather a few hundreds, possess the entire soil, the money, and the fat berths. Trade and shipping,
and clubs and culture, and prestige, and guns, and a fine select class of gentry and aristocracy, with every modern improvement, cannot begin to
salve or defend such stupendous hoggishness.

The way to test how much he has left his country were to consider, or try to consider, for a moment, the array of British thought, the resultant en-
semble of the last fifty years, as existing to-day, but with Carlyle left out. It would be like an army with no artillery. The show were still a gay
and rich one--Byron, Scott, Tennyson, and many more--horsemen and rapid infantry, and banners flying--but the last heavy roar so dear to the ear of
the train'd soldier, and that settles fate and victory, would be lacking.

For the last three years we in America have had transmitted glimpses of a thin-bodied, lonesome, wifeless, childless, very old man, lying on a sofa,
kept out of bed by indomitable will, but, of late, never well enough to take the open air. I have noted this news from time to time in brief descrip-
tions in the papers. A week ago I read such an item just before I started out for my customary evening stroll between eight and nine. In the fine
cold night, unusually clear, (Feb. 5, '81,) as I walk'd some open grounds adjacent, the condition of Carlyle, and his approaching--perhaps even then
actual--death, filled me with thoughts eluding statement, and curiously blending with the scene. The planet Venus, an hour high in the west, with all
her volume and lustre recover'd, (she has been shorn and languid for nearly a year,) including an additional sentiment I never noticed before--not
merely voluptuous, Paphian, steeping, fascinating--now with calm commanding seriousness and hauteur--the Milo Venus now. Upward to the zenith, Jupi-
ter, Saturn, and the moon past her quarter, trailing in procession, with the Pleiades following, and the constellation Taurus, and red Aldebaran. Not
a cloud in heaven. Orion strode through the southeast, with his glittering belt--and a trifle below hung the sun of the night, Sirius. Every star di-
lated, more vitreous, nearer than usual. Not as in some clear nights when the larger stars entirely outshine the rest. Every little star or cluster
just as distinctly visible, and just as nigh. Berenice's hair showing every gem, and new ones. To the northeast and north the Sickle, the Goat and
kids, Cassiopea, Castor and Pollux, and the two Dippers. While through the whole of this silent indescribable show, inclosing and bathing my whole
receptivity, ran the thought of Carlyle dying. (To soothe and spiritualize, and, as far as may be, solve the mysteries of death and genius, consider
them under the stars at midnight.)

And now that he has gone hence, can it be that Thomas Carlyle, soon to chemically dissolve in ashes and by winds, remains an identity still? In ways
perhaps eluding all the statements, lore and speculations of ten thousand years--eluding all possible statements to mortal sense--does he yet exist,
a definite, vital being, a spirit, an individual--perhaps now wafted in space among those stellar systems, which, suggestive and limitless as they
are, merely edge more limitless, far more suggestive systems? I have no doubt of it. In silence, of a fine night, such questions are answer'd to the
soul, the best answers that can be given. With me, too, when depress'd by some specially sad event, or tearing problem, I wait till I go out under
the stars for the last voiceless satisfaction.




　　　　　　　 　　223. Carlyle from American Points of View




THERE is surely at present an inexplicable rapport (all the more piquant from its contradictoriness) between that deceas'd author and our United
States of America--no matter whether it lasts or not. 1 As we Westerners assume definite shape, and result in formations and fruitage unknown before,
it is curious with what a new sense our eyes turn to representative outgrowths of crises and personages in the Old World. Beyond question, since Car-
lyle's death, and the publication of Froude's memoirs, not only the interest in his books, but every personal bit regarding the famous Scotchman--
his dyspepsia, his buffetings, his parentage, his paragon of a wife, his career in Edinburgh, in the lonesome nest on Craigenputtock moor, and then
so many years in London--is probably wider and livelier to-day in this country than in his own land. Whether I succeed or no, I, too, reaching across
the Atlantic and taking the man's dark fortune-telling of humanity and politics, would offset it all, (such is the fancy that comes to me,) by a
farm ore profound horoscope-casting of those themes--G. F. Hegel's. 2 1

First, about a chance, a never-fulfill'd vacuity of this pale cast of thought--this British Hamlet from Cheyne row, more puzzling than the Danish one,
with his contrivances for settling the broken and spavin'd joints of the world's government, especially its democratic dislocation. Carlyle's grim
fate was cast to live and dwell in, and largely embody, the parturition agony and qualms of the old order, amid crowded accumulations of ghastly mor-
bidity, giving birth to the new. But conceive of him (or his parents before him) coming to America, recuperated by the cheering realities and activity
of our people and country--growing up and delving face-to-face resolutely among us here, especially at the West--inhaling and exhaling our limitless air
and eligibilities--devoting his mind to the theories and developments of this Republic amid its practical facts as exemplified in Kansas, Missouri, Ill-
inois, Tennessee, or Louisiana. I say facts, and face-to-face confrontings--so different from books, and all those quiddities and mere reports in the
libraries, upon which the man (it was wittily said of him at the age of thirty, that there was no one in Scotland who had glean'd so much and seen so
little,) almost wholly fed, and which even his sturdy and vital mind but reflected at best.

Something of the sort narrowly escaped happening. In 1835, after more than a dozen years of trial and non-success, the author of "Sartor Resartus"
removing to London, very poor, a confirmed hypochondriac, "Sartor" universally scoffed at, no literary prospects ahead, deliberately settled on one
last casting-throw of the literary dice--resolv'd to compose and launch forth a book on the subject of the French Revolution--and if that won no higher
guerdon or prize than hitherto, to sternly abandon the trade of author forever, and emigrate for good to America. But the venture turn'd out a lucky
one, and there was no emigration.

Carlyle's work in the sphere of literature as he commenced and carried it out, is the same in one or two leading respects that Immanuel Kant's was
in speculative philosophy. But the Scotchman had none of the stomachic phlegm and never-perturb'd placidity of the Konigsberg sage, and did not,
like the latter, understand his own limits, and stop when he got to the end of them. He clears away jungle and poison-vines and underbrush--at any
rate hacks valiantly at them, smiting hip and thigh. Kant did the like in his sphere, and it was all he profess'd to do; his labors have left the
ground fully prepared ever since--and greater service was probably never perform'd by mortal man. But the pang and hiatus of Carlyle seem to me to
consist in the evidence everywhere that amid a whirl of fog and fury and cross-purposes, he firmly believ'd he had a clue to the medication of the
world's ills, and that his bounden mission was to exploit it.

There were two anchors, or sheet-anchors, for steadying, as a last resort, the Carlylean ship. One will be specified presently. The other, perhaps
the main, was only to be found in some mark'd form of personal force, an extreme degree of competent urge and will, a man or men "born to command."
Probably there ran through every vein and current of the Scotchman's blood something that warm'd up to this kind of trait and character above aught
else in the world, and which makes him in my opinion the chief celebrater and promulger of it in literature--more than Plutarch, more than Shakspere.
The great masses of humanity stand for nothing--at least nothing but nebulous raw material; only the big planets and shining suns for him. To ideas
almost invariably languid or cold, a number-one forceful personality was sure to rouse his eulogistic passion and savage joy. In such case, even the
standard of duty hereinafter rais'd, was to be instantly lower'd and vail'd. All that is comprehended under the terms republicanism and democracy
were distasteful to him from the first, and as he grew older they became hateful and contemptible. For an undoubtedly candid and penetrating faculty
such as his, the bearings he persistently ignored were marvellous. For instance, the promise, nay certainty of the democratic principle, to each and
every State of the current world, not so much of helping it to perfect legislators and executives, but as the only effectual method for surely, how-
ever slowly, training people on a large scale toward voluntarily ruling and managing themselves (the ultimate aim of political and all other develop-
ment)--to gradually reduce the fact of governing to its minimum, and to subject all its staffs and their doings to the telescopes and microscopes of
commit-tees and parties--and greatest of all, to afford (not stagnation and obedient content, which went well enough with the feudalism and ecclesia-
sticism of the antique and medieval world, but) a vast and sane and recurrent ebb and tide action for those floods of the great deep that have hence-
forth palpably burst forever their old bounds--seem never to have enter'd Carlyle's thought. It was splendid how he refus'd any compromise to the
last. He was curiously antique. In that harsh, picturesque, most potent voice and figure, one seems to be carried back from the present of the Bri-
tish islands more than two thousand years, to the range between Jerusalem and Tarsus. His fullest best biographer justly says of him:

　　"He was a teacher and a prophet, in the Jewish sense of the word. The prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah have become a part of the permanent
　　spiritual inheritance of mankind, because events proved that they had interpreted correctly the signs of their own times, and their prophe-
　　cies were fulfill'd. Carlyle, like them, believ'd that he had a special message to deliver to the present age. Whether he was correct in
　　that belief, and whether his message was a true message, remains to be seen. He has told us that our most cherish'd ideas of political lib-
　　erty, with their kindred corollaries, are mere illusions, and that the progress which has seem'd to go along with them is a progress towards
　　anarchy and social dissolution. If he was wrong, he has misused his powers. The principles of his teachings are false. He has offer'd himself
　　as a guide upon a road of which he had no knowledge; and his own desire for himself would be the speediest oblivion both of his person and
　　his works. If, on the other hand, he has been right; if, like his great predecessors, he has read truly the tendencies of this modern age of
　　ours, and his teaching is authenticated by facts, then Carlyle, too, will take his place among the inspired seers."

To which I add an amendment that under no circumstances, and no matter how completely time and events disprove his lurid vaticinations, should the
English-speaking world forget this man, nor fail to hold in honor his unsurpass'd conscience, his unique method, and his honest fame. Never were con-
victions more earnest and genuine. Never was there less of a flunkey or temporizer. Never had political progressivism a foe it could more heartily
respect.

The second main point of Carlyle's utterance was the idea of duty being done. (It is simply a new codicil--if it be particularly new, which is by no
means certain--on the time-honor'd bequest of dynasticism, the mould-eaten rules of legitimacy and kings.) He seems to have been impatient sometimes
to madness when reminded by persons who thought at least as deeply as himself, that this formula, though precious, is rather a vague one, and that
there are many other considerations to a philosophical estimate of each and every department either in general history or individual affairs.

Altogether, I don't know anything more amazing than these persistent strides and throbbings so far through our Nineteenth century of perhaps its
biggest, sharpest, and most erudite brain, in defiance and discontent with everything; contemptuously ignoring, (either from constitutional inapti-
tude, ignorance itself, or more likely because he demanded a definite cure-all here and now,) the only solace and solvent to be had.

There is, apart from mere intellect, in the make-up of every superior human identity, (in its moral completeness, considered as ensemble, not for
that moral alone, but for the whole being, including physique,) a wondrous something that realizes without argument, frequently without what is
called education, (though I think it the goal and apex of all education deserving the name)--an intuition of the absolute balance, in time and space,
of the whole of this multifarious, mad chaos of fraud, frivolity, hoggishness--this revel of fools, and incredible make-believe and general unsettle-
dness, we call the world; a soul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole congeries of things, all history and time, and
all events, however trivial, however momentous, like a leash'd dog in the hand of the hunter. Such soul-sight and root-centre for the mind--mere
optimism explains only the surface or fringe of it--Carlyle was mostly, perhaps entirely without. He seems instead to have been haunted in the play
of his mental action by a spectre, never entirely laid from first to last, (Greek scholars, I believe, find the same mocking and fantastic appari-
tion attending Aristophanes, his comedies,)--the spectre of world-destruction.

How largest triumph or failure in human life, in war or peace, may depend on some little hidden centrality, hardly more than a drop of blood, a
pulse-beat, or a breath of air! It is certain that all these weighty matters, democracy in America, Carlyleism, and the temperament for deepest
political or literary exploration, turn on a simple point in speculative philosophy.

The most profound theme that can occupy the mind of man--the problem on whose solution science, art, the bases and pursuits of nations, and every-
thing else, including intelligent human happiness, (here to-day, 1882, New York, Texas, California, the same as all times, all lands,) subtly and
finally resting, depends for competent outset and argument, is doubtless involved in the query: What is the fusing explanation and tie--what the
relation between the (radical, democratic) Me, the human identity of understanding, emotions, spirit, &c., on the one side, of and with the (con-
servative) Not Me, the whole of the material objective universe and laws, with what is behind them in time and space, on the other side? Immanuel
Kant, though he explain'd, or partially explain'd, as may be said, the laws of the human understanding, left this question an open one. Schelling's
answer, or suggestion of answer, is (and very valuable and important, as far as it goes,) that the same general and particular intelligence, passi-
on, even the standards of right and wrong, which exist in a conscious and formulated state in man, exist in an unconscious state, or in perceptible
analogies, throughout the entire universe of external Nature in all its objects large or small, and all its movements and processes--thus making the
impalpable human mind, and concrete Nature, notwithstanding their duality and separation, convertible, and in centrality and essence one. But G. F.
Hegel's fuller statement of the matter probably remains the last best word that has been said upon it, up to date. Substantially adopting the scheme
just epitomized, he so carries it out and fortifies it and merges everything in it, with certain serious gaps now for the first time fill'd, that
it becomes a coherent metaphysical system, and substantial answer (as far as there can be any answer) to the foregoing question--a system which,
while I distinctly admit that the brain of the future may add to, revise, and even entirely reconstruct, at any rate beams forth to-day, in its en-
tirety, illuminating the thought of the universe, and satisfying the mystery thereof to the human mind, with a more consoling scientific assurance
than any yet.

According to Hegel the whole earth, (an old nucleus-thought, as in the Vedas, and no doubt before, but never hitherto brought so absolutely to the
front, fully surcharged with modern scientism and facts, and made the sole entrance to each and all,) with its infinite variety, the past, the sur-
roundings of to-day, or what may happen in the future, the contrarieties of material with spiritual, and of natural with artificial, are all, to the
eye of the ensemblist, but necessary sides and unfoldings, different steps or links, in the endless process of Creative thought, which, amid number-
less apparent failures and contradictions, is held together by central and never-broken unity--not contradictions or failures at all, but radiations
of one consistent and eternal purpose; the whole mass of everything steadily, unerringly tending and flowing toward the permanent utile and morale,
as rivers to oceans. As life is the whole law and incessant effort of the visible universe, and death only the other or invisible side of the same,
so the utile, so truth, so health, are the continuous-immutable laws of the moral universe, and vice and disease, with all their perturbations, are
but transient, even if ever so prevalent expressions.

To politics throughout, Hegel applies the like catholic standard and faith. Not any one party, or any one form of government, is absolutely and ex-
clusively true. Truth consists in the just relations of objects to each other. A majority or democracy may rule as outrageously and do as great harm
as an oligarchy or despotism--though far less likely to do so. But the great evil is either a violation of the relations just referr'd to, or of the
moral law. The specious, the unjust, the cruel, and what is called the unnatural, though not only permitted but in a certain sense, (like shade to
light,) inevitable in the divine scheme, are by the whole constitution of that scheme, partial, inconsistent, temporary, and though having ever so
great an ostensible majority, are certainly destin'd to failure, after causing great suffering.

Theology, Hegel translates into science.4 All apparent contradictions in the statement of the Deific nature by different ages, nations, churches,
points of view, are but fractional and imperfect expressions of one essential unity, from which they all proceed--crude endeavors or distorted parts,
to be regarded both as distinct and united. In short (to put it in our own form, or summing up,) that thinker or analyzer or overlooker who by an
inscrutable combination of train'd wisdom and natural intuition most fully accepts in perfect faith the moral unity and sanity of the creative scheme,
in history, science, and all life and time, present and future, is both the truest cosmical devotee or religioso, and the profoundest philosopher.
While he who, by the spell of himself and his circumstance, sees darkness and despair in the sum of the workings of God's providence, and who, in
that, denies or prevaricates, is, no matter how much piety plays on his lips, the most radical sinner and infidel.

I am the more assured in recounting Hegel a little freely here,5 not only for offsetting the Carlylean letter and spirit--cutting it out all and
several from the very roots, and below the roots--but to counterpoise, since the late death and deserv'd apotheosis of Darwin, the tenets of the e-
volutionists. Unspeakably precious as those are to biology, and henceforth indispensable to a right aim and estimate in study, they neither com-
prise or explain everything--and the last word or whisper still remains to be breathed, after the utmost of those claims, floating high and forever
above them all, and above technical metaphysics. While the contributions which German Kant and Fichte and Schelling and Hegel have bequeath'd to
humanity--and which English Darwin has also in his field--are indispensable to the erudition of America's future, I should say that in all of them,
and the best of them, when compared with the lightning flashes and flights of the old prophets and exaltes, the spiritual poets and poetry of all
lands, (as in the Hebrew Bible,) there seems to be, nay certainly is, something lacking--something cold, a failure to satisfy the deepest emotions
of the soul--a want of living glow, fondness, warmth, which the old exaltes and poets supply, and which the keenest modern philosophers so far do
not.

Upon the whole, and for our purposes, this man's name certainly belongs on the list with the just-specified, first-class moral physicians of our
current era--and with Emerson and two or three others--though his prescription is drastic, and perhaps destructive, while theirs is assimilating,
normal and tonic. Feudal at the core, and mental offspring and radiation of feudalism as are his books, they afford ever-valuable lessons and af-
finities to democratic America. Nations or individuals, we surely learn deepest from unlikeness, from a sincere opponent, from the light thrown
even scornfully on dangerous spots and liabilities. (Michel Angelo invoked heaven's special protection against his friends and affectionate flat-
terers; palpable foes he could manage for himself.) In many particulars Carlyle was indeed, as Froude terms him, one of those far-off Hebraic ut-
terers, a new Micah or Habbakuk. His words at times bubble forth with abysmic inspiration. Always precious, such men; as precious now as any time.
His rude, rasping, taunting, contradictory tones--what ones are more wanted amid the supple, polish'd, money-worshipping, Jesus-and-Judas-equali-
zing, suffrage-sovereignty echoes of current America? He has lit up our Nineteenth century with the light of a powerful, penetrating, and perfect-
ly honest intellect of the first-class, turn'd on British and European politics, social life, literature, and representative personages--thoro-
ughly dissatisfied with all, and mercilessly exposing the illness of all. But while he announces the malady, and scolds and raves about it, he
himself, born and bred in the same atmosphere, is a mark'd illustration of it.


Note 1. It will be difficult for the future--judging by his books, personal dissympathies, &c.,--to account for the deep hold this author has
taken on the present age, and the way he has color'd its method and thought. I am certainly at a loss to account for it all as affecting myself.
But there could be no view, or even partial picture, of the middle and latter part of our Nineteenth century, that did not markedly include Thomas
Carlyle. In his case (as so many others, literary productions, works of art, personal identities, events,) there has been an impalpable something
more effective than the palpable. Then I find no better text, (it is always important to have a definite, special, even oppositional, living man
to start from,) for sending out certain speculations and comparisons for home use. Let us see what they amount to--those reactionary doctrines,
fears, scornful analyses of democracy--even from the most erudite and sincere mind of Europe. [back]

Note 2. Not the least mentionable part of the case, (a streak, it may be, of that humor with which history and fate love to contrast their gravi-
ty,) is that although neither of my great authorities during their lives consider'd the United States worthy of serious mention, all the principal
works of both might not inappropriately be this day collected and bound up under the conspicuous title: "Speculations for the use of North America,
and Democracy there, with the relations of the same to Metaphysics, including Lessons and Warnings (encouragements too, and of the vastest,) from
the Old World to the New." [back]

Note 3. I hope I shall not myself fall into the error I charge upon him, of prescribing a specific for indispensable evils. My utmost pretension
is probably but to offset that old claim of the exclusively curative power of first-class individual men, as leaders and rulers, by the claims,
and general movement and result, of ideas, Something of the latter kind seems to me the distinctive theory of America, of democracy, and of the
modern--or rather, I should say, it is democracy, and is the modern. [back]

Note 4. I am much indebted to J. Gostick's abstract. [back]

Note 5. I have deliberately repeated it all, not only in offset to Carlyle's ever-lurking pessimism and world-decadence, but as presenting the
most thoroughly American points of view I know. In my opinion the above formulas of Hegel are an essential and crowning justification of New World
democracy in the creative realms of time and space. There is that about them which only the vastness, the multiplicity and the vitality of America
would seem able to comprehend, to give scope and illustration to, or to be fit for, or even originate. It is strange to me that they were born in
Germany, or in the old world at all. While a Carlyle, I should say, is quite the legitimate European product to be expected. [back]




　　　　　　　 　　224. A Couple of Old Friends--A Coleridge Bit




Latter April.--HAVE run down in my country haunt for a couple of days, and am spending them by the pond. I had already discover'd my kingfisher
here (but only one--the mate not here yet.) This fine bright morning, down by the creek, he has come out for a spree, circling, flirting, chirping
at a round rate. While I am writing these lines he is disporting himself in scoots and rings over the wider parts of the pond, into whose surface
he dashes, once or twice making a loud souse--the spray flying in the sun--beautiful! I see his white and dark-gray plumage and peculiar shape plain-
ly, as he has deign'd to come very near me. The noble, graceful bird! Now he is sitting on the limb of an old tree, high up, bending over the wa-
ter--seems to be looking at me while I memorandize. I almost fancy he knows me. Three days later.--My second kingfisher is here with his (or her)
mate. I saw the two together flying and whirling around. I had heard, in the distance, what I thought was the clear rasping staccato of the birds
several times already--but I couldn't be sure the notes came from both until I saw them together. To-day at noon they appear'd, but apparently
either on business, or for a little limited exercise only. No wild frolic now, full of free fun and motion, up and down for an hour. Doubtless,
now they have cares, duties, incubation responsibilities. The frolics are deferr'd till summer-close.

I don't know as I can finish to-day's memorandum better than with Coleridge's lines, curiously appropriate in more ways than one:

"All Nature seems at work--slugs leave their lair,
The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing,
And winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring;
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."

I don't know as I can finish to-day's memorandum better than with Coleridge's lines, curiously appropriate in more ways than one:

"All Nature seems at work--slugs leave their lair,
The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing,
And winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring;
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."




　　　　　　　　　　　　225. A Week's Visit to Boston




May 1, '81.--SEEMS as if all the ways and means of American travel to-day had been settled, not only with reference to speed and directness, but
for the comfort of women, children, invalids, and old fellows like me. I went on by a through train that runs daily from Washington to the Yankee
metropolis without change. You get in a sleeping-car soon after dark in Philadelphia, and after ruminating an hour or two, have your bed made up
if you like, draw the curtains, and go to sleep in it--fly on through Jersey to New York--hear in your half-slumbers a dull jolting and bumping
sound or two--are unconsciously toted from Jersey city by a midnight steamer around the Battery and under the big bridge to the track of the New
Haven road--resume your flight eastward, and early the next morning you wake up in Boston. All of which was my experience. I wanted to go to the
Revere house. A tall unknown gentleman, (a fellow-passenger on his way to Newport he told me, I had just chatted a few moments before with him,)
assisted me out through the depot crowd, procured a hack, put me in it with my traveling bag, saying smilingly and quietly, 'Now I want you to
let this be my ride," paid the driver, and before I could remonstrate bow'd himself off.

The occasion of my jaunt, I suppose I had better say here, was for a public reading of "the death of Abraham Lincoln" essay, on the sixteenth
anniversary of that tragedy; which reading duly came off, night of April 15. Then I linger'd a week in Boston--felt pretty well (the mood prop-
itious, my paralysis lull'd)--went around everywhere, and saw all that was to be seen, especially human beings. Boston's immense material growth
--commerce, finance, commission stores, the plethora of goods, the crowded streets and sidewalks--made of course the first surprising show. In my
trip out West, last year, I thought the wand of future prosperity, future empire, must soon surely be wielded by St. Louis, Chicago, beautiful
Denver, perhaps San Francisco; but I see the said wand stretch'd out just as decidedly in Boston, with just as much certainty of staying; evi-
dences of copious capital--indeed no centre of the New World ahead of it, (half the big railroads in the West are built with Yankees' money, and
they take the dividends.) Old Boston with its zigzag streets and multitudinous angles, (crush up a sheet of letter-paper in your hand, throw it
down, stamp it flat, and that is a map of old Boston)--new Boston with its miles upon miles of large and costly houses--Beacon street, Common-
wealth avenue, and a hundred others. But the best new departures and expansions of Boston, and of all the cities of New England, are in another
direction.




　　　　　　　　 　　　　226. The Boston of To-Day




IN the letters we get from Dr. Schliemann (interesting but fishy) about his excavations there in the far-off Homeric area, I notice cities, ruins,
&c., as he digs them out of their graves, are certain to be in layers--that is to say, upon the foundation of an old concern, very far down indeed,
is always another city or set of ruins, and upon that another superadded--and sometimes upon that still another--each representing either a long or
rapid stage of growth and development, different from its predecessor, but unerringly growing out of and resting on it. In the moral, emotional,
heroic, and human growths, (the main of a race in my opinion,) something of this kind has certainly taken place in Boston. The New England metro-
polis of to-day may be described as sunny, (there is something else that makes warmth, mastering even winds and meteorologies, though those are
not to be sneez'd at,) joyous, receptive, full of ardor, sparkle, a certain element of yearning, magnificently tolerant, yet not to be fool'd;
fond of good eating and drinking--costly in costume as its purse can buy; and all through its best average of houses, streets, people, that subtle
something (generally thought to be climate, but it is not--it is something indefinable amid the race, the turn of its development) which effuses
behind the whirl of animation, study, business, a happy and joyous public spirit, as distinguish'd from a sluggish and saturnine one. Makes me
think of the glints we get (as in Symonds's books) of the jolly old Greek cities. Indeed there is a good deal of the Hellenic in B., and the pe-
ople are getting handsomer too--padded out, with freer motions, and with color in their faces. I never saw (although this is not Greek) so many
fine-looking gray hair'd women. At my lecture I caught myself pausing more than once to look at them, plentiful everywhere through the audience--
healthy and wifely and motherly, and wonderfully charming and beautiful--I think such as no time or land but ours could show.




　　　　　　　　　　　　227. My Tribute to Four Poets




April 16.--A SHORT but pleasant visit to Longfellow. I am not one of the calling kind, but as the author of "Evangeline" kindly took the trouble
to come and see me three years ago in Camden, where I was ill, I felt not only the impulse of my own pleasure on that occasion, but a duty. He
was the only particular eminence I called on in Boston, and I shall not soon forget his lit-up face and glowing warmth and courtesy, in the modes
of what is called the old school.

And now just here I feel the impulse to interpolate something about the mighty four who stamp this first American century with its birth-marks of
poetic literature. In a late magazine one of my reviewers, who ought to know better, speaks of my "attitude of contempt and scorn and intolerance"
toward the leading poets--of my "deriding" them, and preaching their "uselessness." If anybody cares to know what I think--and have long thought
and avow'd--about them, I am entirely willing to propound. I can't imagine any better luck befalling these States for a poetical beginning and
initiation than has come from Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. Emerson, to me, stands unmistakable at the head, but for the others I am
at a loss where to give any precedence. Each illustrious, each rounded, each distinctive. Emerson for his sweet, vital-tasting melody, rhym'd
philosophy, and poems as amber-clear as the honey of the wild bee he loves to sing. Longfellow for rich color, graceful forms and incidents--all
that makes life beautiful and love refined--competing with the singers of Europe on their own ground, and, with one exception, better and finer
work than that of any of them. Bryant pulsing the first interior verse-throbs of a mighty world--bard of the river and the wood, ever conveying a
taste of open air, with scents as from hayfields, grapes, birch-borders--always lurkingly fond of threnodies--beginning and ending his long career
with chants of death, with here and there through all, poems, or passages of poems, touching the highest universal truths, enthusiasms, duties--
morals as grim and eternal, if not as stormy and fateful, as anything in Eschylus. While in Whittier, with his special themes--(his outcropping
love of heroism and war, for all his Quakerdom, his verses at times like the measur'd step of Cromwell's old veterans)--in Whittier lives the
zeal, the moral energy, that founded New England--the splendid rectitude and ardor of Luther, Milton, George Fox--I must not, dare not, say the wil-
fulness and narrowness--though doubtless the world needs now, and always will need, almost above all, just such narrowness and wilfulness.




　　　　　　　　　　　　228. Millet's Pictures--Last Items




April 18.--WENT out three or four miles to the house of Quincy Shaw, to see a collection of J. F. Millet's pictures. Two rapt hours. Never before
have I been so penetrated by this kind of expression. I stood long and long before "the Sower." I believe what the picture-men designate "the
first Sower," as the artist executed a second copy, and a third, and, some think, improved in each. But I doubt it. There is something in this
that could hardly be caught again--a sublime murkiness and original pent fury. Besides this masterpiece, there were many others, (I shall never
forget the simple evening scene, "Watering the Cow,") all inimitable, all perfect as pictures, works of mere art; and then it seem'd to me,
with that last impalpable ethic purpose from the artist (most likely unconscious to himself) which I am always looking for. To me all of them
told the full story of what went before and necessitated the great French revolution--the long precedent crushing of the masses of a heroic peo-
ple into the earth, in abject poverty, hunger--every right denied, humanity attempted to be put back for generations--yet Nature's force, titanic
here, the stronger and hardier for that repression--waiting terribly to break forth, revengeful--the pressure on the dykes, and the bursting at
last--the storming of the Bastile--the execution of the king and queen--the tempest of massacres and blood. Yet who can wonder?

　　　Could we wish humanity different?
　　　Could we wish the people made of wood or stone?
　　　Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

The true France, base of all the rest, is certainly in these pictures. I comprehend "Field-People Reposing," "the Diggers," and "the Ange-
lus" in this opinion. Some folks always think of the French as a small race, five or five and a half feet high, and ever frivolous and smirking.
Nothing of the sort. The bulk of the personnel of France, before the revolution, was large-sized, serious, industrious as now, and simple. The
revolution and Napoleon's wars dwarf'd the standard of human size, but it will come up again. If for nothing else, I should dwell on my brief
Boston visit for opening to me the new world of Millet's pictures. Will America ever have such an artist out of her own gestation, body, soul?

Sunday, April 17.--An hour and a half, late this afternoon, in silence and half light, in the great nave of Memorial hall, Cambridge, the walls
thickly cover'd with mural tablets, bearing the names of students and graduates of the university who fell in the secession war.

April 23.--It was well I got away in fair order, for if I had staid another week I should have been killed with kindness, and with eating and
drinking.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　229. Birds--And a Caution




May 14.--HOME again; down temporarily in the Jersey woods. Between 8 and 9 A. M. a full concert of birds, from different quarters, in keeping
with the fresh scent, the peace, the naturalness all around me. I am lately noticing the russet-back size of the robin or a trifle less, light
breast and shoulders, with irregular dark stripes--tail long--sits hunch'd up by the hour these days, top of a tall bush, or some tree, singing
blithely. I often get near and listen, as he seems tame; I like to watch the working of his bill and throat, the quaint sidle of his body, and
flex of his long tail. I hear the woodpecker, and night and early morning the shuttle of the whip-poor-will--noons, the gurgle of thrush deli-
cious, and meo-o-ow of the cat-bird. Many I cannot name; but I do not very particularly seek information. (You must not know too much, or be
too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft; a certain free margin, and even vagueness--perhaps ignorance, cred-
ulity--helps your enjoyment of these things, and of the sentiment of feather'd, wooded, river, or marine Nature generally. I repeat it--don't
want to know too exactly, or the reasons why. My own notes have been written off-hand in the latitude of middle New Jersey. Though they des-
cribe what I saw--what appear'd to me--I dare say the expert ornithologist, botanist or entomologist will detect more than one slip in them.)




　　　　　　　 　　230. Samples of My Common-Place Book




I OUGHT not to offer a record of these days, interests, recuperations, without including a certain old, well-thumb'd common-place book, 1 fill-
ed with favorite excerpts, I carried in my pocket for three summers, and absorb'd over and over again, when the mood invited. I find so much
in having a poem or fine suggestion sink into me (a little then goes a great ways) prepar'd by these vacant-sane and natural influences.


Note 1. Samples of my common-place book down at the creek:
I have--says old Pindar--many swift arrows in my quiver which speak to the wise, though they need an interpreter to the thoughtless.
Such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages to understand.--H. D. Thoreau.
If you hate a man, don't kill him, but let him live.--Buddhistic.
Famous swords are made of refuse scraps, thought worthless.
Poetry is the only verity--the expression of a sound mind speaking after the ideal--and not after the apparent.--Emerson.
The form of oath among the Shoshone Indians is, "The earth hears me. The sun hears me. Shall I lie?"
The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops--no, but the kind of a man the country turns out.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Emerson.

The whole wide ether is the eagle's sway:
The whole earth is a brave man's fatherland.--Euripides.


　　　　　　　　　　　Spices crush'd, their pungence yield,
　　　　　　　　　　　Trodden scents their sweets respire;
　　　　　　　　　　　Would you have its strength reveal'd?
　　　　　　　　　　　Cast the incense in the fire.

Matthew Arnold speaks of "the huge Mississippi of falsehood called History."

　　　　　　　　　　　The wind blows north, the wind blows south,
　　　　　　　　　　　The wind blows east and west;
　　　　　　　　　　　No matter how the free wind blows,
　　　　　　　　　　　Some ship will find it best.

Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent.--Epictetus.

Victor Hugo makes a donkey meditate and apostrophize thus:

　　　　　　　　　　　My brother, man, if you would know the truth,
　　　　　　　　　　　We both are by the same dull walls shut in;
　　　　　　　　　　　The gate is massive and the dungeon strong.
　　　　　　　　　　　But you look through the key-hole out beyond,
　　　　　　　　　　　And call this knowledge, yet have not at hand
　　　　　　　　　　　The key wherein to turn the fatal lock.

"William Cullen Bryant surprised me once," relates a writer in a New York paper, "by saying that prose was the natural language of composition,
and he wonder'd how anybody came to write poetry."

Farewell! I did not know thy worth;
But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized:
So angels walk'd unknown on earth,
But when they flew were recognized.--Hood.

John Burroughs, writing of Thoreau, says: "He improves with age--in fact requires age to take off a little of his asperity, and fully ripen him.
The world likes a good hater and refuser almost as well as it likes a good lover and accepter--only it likes him farther off."

　　　　　　　　　Louise Michel at the burial of Blanqui, (1881.)

Blanqui drill'd his body to subjection to his grand conscience and his noble passions, and commencing as a young man, broke with all that is
sybaritish in modern civilization. Without the power to sacrifice self, great ideas will never bear fruit.

　　　　　　　　　　　Out of the leaping furnace flame
　　　　　　　　　　　A mass of molten silver came;
　　　　　　　　　　　Then, beaten into pieces three,
　　　　　　　　　　　Went forth to meet its destiny.
　　　　　　　　　　　The first a crucifix was made,
　　　　　　　　　　　Within a soldier's knapsack laid;
　　　　　　　　　　　The second was a locket fair,
　　　　　　　　　　　Where a mother kept her dead child's hair;
　　　　　　　　　　　The third--a bangle, bright and warm,
　　　　　　　　　　　Around a faithless woman's arm.

　　　　　　　　　　　A mighty pain to love it is,
　　　　　　　　　　　And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
　　　　　　　　　　　But of all pain the greatest pain,
　　　　　　　　　　　It is to love, but love in vain.



　　　　　　　　　　　Maurice F. Egan on De Guerin.

　　　　　　　　　　　A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he,
　　　　　　　　　　　He follow'd Christ, yet for dead Pan he sigh'd,
　　　　　　　　　　　Till earth and heaven met within his breast:
　　　　　　　　　　　As if Theocritus in Sicily
　　　　　　　　　　　Had come upon the Figure crucified,
　　　　　　　　　　　And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest.


　　　　　　　　　　　And if I pray, the only prayer
　　　　　　　　　　　That moves my lips for me,
　　　　　　　　　　　Is, leave the mind that now I bear,
　　　　　　　　　　　And give me Liberty.--Emily Bronte. 　　　　　　　　　　　


　　　　　　　　　　　I travel on not knowing,
　　　　　　　　　　　I would not if I might;
　　　　　　　　　　　I would rather walk with God in the dark,
　　　　　　　　　　　Than go alone in the light;
　　　　　　　　　　　I would rather walk with Him by faith
　　　　　　　　　　　Than pick my way by sight.


　　　　　　　　　　　Prof. Huxley in a late lecture.

I myself agree with the sentiment of Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, that "the scope of all speculation is the performance of some action or
thing to be done." I have not any very great respect for, or interest in, mere "knowing," as such.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Prince Metternich.

Napoleon was of all men in the world the one who most profoundly despised the race. He had a marvellous insight into the weaker sides of human
nature, (and all our passions are either foibles themselves, or the cause of foibles.) He was a very small man of imposing character. He was ig-
norant, as a sub-lieutenant generally is: a remarkable instinct supplied the lack of knowledge. From his mean opinion of men, he never had any
anxiety lest he should go wrong. He ventur'd everything, and gain'd thereby an immense step toward success. Throwing himself upon a prodigious
arena, he amaz'd the world, and made himself master of it, while others cannot even get so far as being masters of their own hearth. Then he
went on and on, until he broke his neck. [back]




　　　　　　　 　　231. My Native Sand and Salt Once More




July 25, '81.--Far Rockaway, L. I.--A GOOD day here, on a jaunt, amid the sand and salt, a steady breeze setting in from the sea, the sun shining,
the sedge-odor, the noise of the surf, a mixture of hissing and booming, the milk-white crests curling over. I had a leisurely bath and naked ram-
ble as of old, on the warm-gray shore-sands, my companions off in a boat in deeper water--(I shouting to them Jupiter's menaces against the gods,
from Pope's Homer.)

July 28--to Long Branch.--8 1/2 A. M., on the steamer "Plymouth Rock," foot of 23d street, New York, for Long Branch. Another fine day, fine
sights, the shores, the shipping and bay--everything comforting to the body and spirit of me. (I find the human and objective atmosphere of New
York city and Brooklyn more affiliative to me than any other.) An hour later--Still on the steamer, now sniffing the salt very plainly--the long
pulsating swash as our boat steams seaward--the hills of Navesink and many passing vessels--the air the best part of all. At Long Branch the bulk
of the day, stopt at a good hotel, took all very leisurely, had an excellent dinner, and then drove for over two hours about the place, especial-
ly Ocean avenue, the finest drive one can imagine, seven or eight miles right along the beach. In all directions costly villas, palaces, million-
aires--(but few among them I opine like my friend George W. Childs, whose personal integrity, generosity, unaffected simplicity, go beyond all
worldly wealth.)




　　　　　　　　　　　　　232. Hot Weather New York




August.--IN the big city awhile. Even the height of the dog-days, there is a good deal of fun about New York, if you only avoid fluster, and take
all the buoyant wholesomeness that offers. More comfort, too, than most folks think. A middle-aged man, with plenty of money in his pocket, tells
me that he has been off for a month to all the swell places, has disburs'd a small fortune, has been hot and out of kilter everywhere, and has
return'd home and lived in New York city the last two weeks quite contented and happy. People forget when it is hot here, it is generally hotter
still in other places. New York is so situated, with the great ozonic brine on both sides, it comprises the most favorable health-chances in the
world. (If only the suffocating crowding of some of its tenement houses could be broken up.) I find I never sufficiently realized how beautiful
are the upper two-thirds of Manhattan island. I am stopping at Mott Haven, and have been familiar now for ten days with the region above One-hund-
redth street, and along the Harlem river and Washington heights. Am dwelling a few days with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. J.H.J., and a merry house-
full of young ladies. Am putting the last touches on the printer's copy of my new volume of "Leaves of Grass"--the completed book at last. Work
at it two or three hours, and then go down and loaf along the Harlem river; have just had a good spell of this recreation. The sun sufficiently
veil'd, a soft south breeze, the river full of small or large shells (light taper boats) darting up and down, some singly, now and then long
ones with six or eight young fellows practicing--very inspiriting sights. Two fine yachts lie anchor'd off the shore. I linger long, enjoying
the sundown, the glow, the streak'd sky, the heights, distances, shadows.

Aug. 10.--As I haltingly ramble an hour or two this forenoon by the more secluded parts of the shore, or sit under an old cedar half way up the
hill, the city near in view, many young parties gather to bathe or swim, squads of boys, generally twos or threes, some larger ones, along the
sand-bottom, or off an old pier close by. A peculiar and pretty carnival--at its height a hundred lads or young men, very democratic, but all de-
cent behaving. The laughter, voices, calls, responses--the springing and diving of the bathers from the great string-piece of the decay'd pier,
where climb or stand long ranks of them, naked, rose-color'd, with movements, postures ahead of any sculpture. To all this, the sun, so bright,
the dark-green shadow of the hills the other side, the amber-rolling waves, changing as the tide comes in to a transparent tea-color--the frequent
splash of the playful boys, sousing--the glittering drops sparkling, and the good western breeze blowing.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　233. "Custer's Last Rally."




WENT to-day to see this just-finish'd painting by John Mulvany, who has been out in far Dakota, on the spot, at the forts, and among the front-
iersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two years, on purpose to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. Sat for over
an hour before the picture, completely absorb'd in the first view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve, all crowded,
and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color, it takes a little time to get used to it. There are no tricks; there is no throwing of
shades in masses; it is all at first painfully real, over-whelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full
finish and detail in the mid-ground, with three times that number, or more, through the rest--swarms upon swarms of savage Sioux, in their war-bon-
nets, frantic, mostly on ponies, driving through the background, through the smoke, like a hurricane of demons. A dozen of the figures are wonder-
ful. Altogether a western, autochthonic phase of America, the frontiers, culminating, typical, deadly, heroic to the uttermost--nothing in the
books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing in Shakspere; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our own, and all a fact. A great lot
of muscular, tan-faced men, brought to bay under terrible circumstances--death ahold of them, yet every man undaunted, not one losing his head,
wringing out every cent of the pay before they sell their lives. Custer (his hair cut short) stands in the middle, with dilated eye and extended
arm, aiming a huge cavalry pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the white handkerchief around his head, aiming his carbine
coolly, half kneeling--(his body was afterwards found close by Custer's.) The slaughter'd or halfslaughter'd horses, for breastworks, make a
peculiar feature. Two dead Indians. herculean, lie in the foreground, clutching their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers,
their faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimm'd western hats, the powder-smoke in puffs, the dying horses with their rolling eyes al-
most human in their agony, the clouds of war-bonneted Sioux in the background, the figures of Custer and Cook--with indeed the whole scene, dread-
ful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain in my memory. With all its color and fierce action, a certain Greek continence pervades
it. A sunny sky and clear light envelop all. There is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The physiognomy of
the work is realistic and Western. I only saw it for an hour or so; but it needs to be seen many times--needs to be studied over and over again.
I could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring; it is very tonic to me; then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all
great art must have. The artist said the sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talk'd of. I advised him if it went abroad
to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there--nay, they certainly would. Then I would like to show Messieur Crapeau that some
things can be done in America as well as others.




　　　　　　　　　　234. Some Old Acquaintances--Memories




Aug. 16.--"CHALK a big mark for to-day," was one of the sayings of an old sportsman-friend of mine, when he had had unusually good luck--come
home thoroughly tired, but with satisfactory results of fish or birds. Well, to-day might warrant such a mark for me. Everything propitious from
the start. An hour's fresh stimulation, coming down ten miles of Manhattan island by railroad and 8 o' clock stage. Then an excellent breakfast
at Pfaff's restaurant, 24th street. Our host himself, an old friend of mine, quickly appear'd on the scene to welcome me and bring up the news,
and, first opening a big fat bottle of the best wine in the cellar, talk about ante-bellum times, '59 and '60, and the jovial suppers at his
then Broadway place, near Bleecker street. Ah, the friends and names and frequenters, those times, that place. Most are dead--Ada Clare, Wilkins,
Daisy Sheppard, O'Brien, Henry Clapp, Stanley, Mullin, Wood, Brougham, Arnold--all gone. And there Pfaff and I, sitting opposite each other at
the little table, gave a remembrance to them in a style they would have themselves fully confirm'd, namely, big, brimming, fill'd-up champagne-
glasses, drain'd in abstracted silence, very leisurely, to the last drop. (Pfaff is a generous German restaurateur, silent, stout, jolly, and I
should say the best selecter of champagne in America.)




　　　　　　　　　　　　　235. A Discovery of Old Age




PERHAPS the best is always cumulative. One's eating and drinking one wants fresh, and for the nonce, right off, and have done with it--but I
would not give a straw for that person or poem, or friend, or city, or work of art, that was not more grateful the second time than the first--and
more still the third. Nay, I do not believe any grandest eligibility ever comes forth at first. In my own experience, (persons, poems, places,
characters,) I discover the best hardly ever at first, (no absolute rule about it, however,) sometimes suddenly bursting forth, or stealthily
opening to me, perhaps after years of unwitting familiarity, unappreciation, usage.




　　　　　　　　　　236. A Visit, at the Last, to R. W. Emerson




Concord, Mass.--OUT here on a visit--elastic, mellow, Indian-summery weather. Came to-day from Boston, (a pleasant ride of 40 minutes by steam,
through Somerville, Belmont, Waltham, Stony Brook, and other lively towns,) convoy'd by my friend F. B. Sanborn, and to his ample house, and the
kindness and hospitality of Mrs. S. and their fine family. Am writing this under the shade of some old hickories and elms, just after 4 P. M., on
the porch, within a stone's throw of the Concord river. Off against me, across stream, on a meadow and side-hill, haymakers are gathering and wa-
goning-in probably their second or third crop. The spread of emerald-green and brown, the knolls, the score or two of little haycocks dotting the
meadow, the loaded-up wagons, the patient horses, the slow-strong action of the men and pitch-forks--all in the just-waning afternoon, with patches
of yellow sun-sheen, mottled by long shadows--a cricket shrilly chirping, herald of the dusk--a boat with two figures noiselessly gliding along the
little river, passing under the stone bridge-arch--the slight settling haze of aerial moisture, the sky and the peacefulness expanding in all di-
rections and overhead--fill and soothe me.

Same evening.--Never had I a better piece of luck befall me: a long and blessed evening with Emerson, in a way I couldn't have wish'd better or
different. For nearly two hours he has been placidly sitting where I could see his face in the best light, near me. Mrs. S.'s back-parlor well
fill'd with people, neighbors, many fresh and charming faces, women, mostly young, but some old. My friend A. B. Alcott and his daughter Louisa
were there early. A good deal of talk, the subject Henry Thoreau--some new glints of his life and fortunes, with letters to and from him--one of the
best by Margaret Fuller, others by Horace Greeley, Channing, &c.--one from Thoreau himself, most quaint and interesting. (No doubt I seem'd very
stupid to the room-full of company, taking hardly any part in the conversation; but I had "my own pail to milk in," as the Swiss proverb puts
it.) My seat and the relative arrangement were such that, without being rude, or anything of the kind, I could just look squarely at E., which I
did a good part of the two hours. On entering, he had spoken very briefly and politely to several of the company, then settled himself in his
chair, a trifle push'd back, and, though a listener and apparently an alert one, remain'd silent through the whole talk and discussion. A lady
friend quietly took a seat next him, to give special attention. A good color in his face, eyes clear, with the well-known expression of sweetness,
and the old clear-peering aspect quite the same.

Next Day.--Several hours at E.'s house, and dinner there. An old familiar house, (he has been in it thirty-five years,) with surroundings, furn-
ishment, roominess, and plain elegance and fullness, signifying democratic ease, sufficient opulence, and an admirable old-fashioned simplicity--
modern luxury, with its mere sumptuousness and affectation, either touch'd lightly upon or ignored altogether. Dinner the same. Of course the
best of the occasion (Sunday, September 18, '81) was the sight of E. himself. As just said, a healthy color in the cheeks, and good light in
the eyes, cheery expression, and just the amount of talking that best suited, namely, a word or short phrase only where needed, and almost always
with a smile. Besides Emerson himself, Mrs. E., with their daughter Ellen, the son Edward and his wife, with my friend F. S. and Mrs. S., and
others, relatives and intimates. Mrs. Emerson, resuming the subject of the evening before, (I sat next to her,) gave me further and fuller in-
formation about Thoreau, who, years ago, during Mr. E.'s absence in Europe, had lived for some time in the family, by invitation.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　237. Other Concord Notations




THOUGH the evening at Mr. and Mrs. Sanborn's, and the memorable family dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Emerson's, have most pleasantly and permanently
fill'd my memory, I must not slight other notations of Concord. I went to the old Manse, walk'd through the ancient garden, enter'd the rooms,
noted the quaintness, the unkempt grass and bushes, the little panes in the windows, the low ceilings, the spicy smell, the creepers embowering
the light. Went to the Concord battle ground, which is close by, scann'd French's statue, "the Minute Man," read Emerson's poetic inscrip-
tion on the base, linger'd a long while on the bridge, and stopp'd by the grave of the unnamed British soldiers buried there the day after the
fight in April '75. Then riding on, (thanks to my friend Miss M. and her spirited white ponies, she driving them,) a half hour at Hawthorne's
and Thoreau's graves. I got out and went up of course on foot, and stood a long while and ponder'd. They lie close together in a pleasant wood-
ed spot well up the cemetery hill, "Sleepy Hollow." The flat surface of the first was densely cover'd by myrtle, with a border of arbor-vita,
and the other had a brown headstone, moderately elaborate, with inscriptions. By Henry's side lies his brother John, of whom much was expected,
but he died young. Then to Walden pond, that beautifully embower'd sheet of water, and spent over an hour there. On the spot in the woods where
Thoreau had his solitary house is now quite a cairn of stones, to mark the place; I too carried one and deposited on the heap. As we drove back,
saw the "School of Philosophy," but it was shut up, and I would not have it open'd for me. Near by stopp'd at the house of W. T. Harris, the
Hegelian, who came out, and we had a pleasant chat while I sat in the wagon. I shall not soon forget those Concord drives, and especially that
charming Sunday forenoon one with my friend Miss M., and the white ponies.




　　　　　　　　　　238. Boston Common--More of Emerson




Oct. 10-13.--I SPEND a good deal of time on the Common, these delicious days and nights--every mid-day from 11.30 to about 1--and almost ev-
ery sunset another hour. I know all the big trees, especially the old elms along Tremont and Beacon streets, and have come to a sociable-silent
understanding with most of them, in the sunlit air, (yet crispy-cool enough,) as I saunter along the wide unpaved walks. Up and down this breadth by
Beacon street, between these same old elms, I walk'd for two hours, of a bright sharp February mid-day twenty-one years ago, with Emerson, then
in his prime, keen, physically and morally magnetic, arm'd at every point, and when he chose, wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual.
During those two hours he was the talker and I the listener. It was an argument-statement, reconnoitring, review, attack, and pressing home, (like
an army corps in order, artillery, cavalry, infantry,) of all that could be said against that part (and a main part) in the construction of my poems,
"Children of Adam." More precious than gold to me that dissertation--it afforded me, ever after, this strange and paradoxical lesson; each point
of E.'s statement was unanswerable, no judge's charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear the points better put--and then I
felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way. "What have you to say then to such things?"
said E., pausing in conclusion. "Only that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and exemp-
lify it," was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American House. And thenceforward I never waver'd or was
touch'd with qualms, (as I confess I had been two or three times before).




　　　　　　　　　　239. An Ossianic* Night--Dearest Friends




Nov., '81.--AGAIN back in Camden. As I cross the Delaware in long trips to-night, between 9 and 11, the scene overhead is a peculiar one--swift
sheets of flitting vapor-gauze, follow'd by dense clouds throwing an inky pall on everything. Then a spell of that transparent steel-gray black
sky I have noticed under similar circumstances, on which the moon would beam for a few moments with calm lustre, throwing down a broad dazzle of
highway on the waters; then the mists careering again. All silently, yet driven as if by the furies they sweep along, sometimes quite thin, some-
times thicker--a real Ossianic night--amid the whirl, absent or dead friends, the old, the past, somehow tenderly suggested--while the Gael-strains
chant themselves from the mists--["Be thy soul blest, O Carril! in the midst of thy eddying winds. O that thou woulds't come to my hall when I
am alone by night! And thou dost come, my friend. I hear often thy light hand on my harp, when it hangs on the distant wall, and the feeble sound
touches my ear. Why dost thou not speak to me in my grief, and tell me when I shall behold my friends? But thou passest away in thy murmuring
blast; the wind whistles through the gray hairs of Ossian."]

But most of all, those changes of moon and sheets of hurrying vapor and black clouds, with the sense of rapid action in weird silence, recall the
far-back Erse belief that such above were the preparations for receiving the wraiths of just-slain warriors--["We sat that night in Selma, round
the strength of the shell. The wind was abroad in the oaks. The spirit of the mountain roar'd. The blast came rustling through the hall, and gen-
tly touch'd my harp. The sound was mournful and low, like the song of the tomb. Fingal heard it the first. The crowded sighs of his bosom rose.
Some of my heroes are low, said the gray-hair'd king of Morven. I hear the sound of death on the harp. Ossian, touch the trembling string. Bid
the sorrow rise, that their spirits may fly with joy to Morven's woody hills. I touch'd the harp before the king; the sound was mournful and
low. Bend forward from your clouds, I said, ghosts of my fathers! bend. Lay by the red terror of your course. Receive the falling chief; whether
he comes from a distant land, or rises from the rolling sea. Let his robe of mist be near; his spear that is form'd of a cloud. Place a half-ex-
tinguish'd meteor by his side, in the form of a hero's sword. And oh! let his countenance be lovely, that his friends may delight in his pre-
sence. Bend from your clouds, I said, ghosts of my fathers, bend. Such was my song in Selma, to the lightly trembling harp.]

How or why I know not, just at the moment, but I too muse and think of my best friends in their distant homes--of William O'Connor, of Maurice
Bucke, of John Burroughs, and of Mrs. Gilchrist--friends of my soul--stanchest friends of my other soul, my poems.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　240. Only a New Ferry Boat




Jan. 12, '82.--SUCH a show as the Delaware presented an hour before sundown yesterday evening, all along between Philadelphia and Camden, is
worth weaving into an item. It was full tide, a fair breeze from the southwest, the water of a pale tawny color, and just enough motion to make
things frolicsome and lively. Add to these an approaching sunset of unusual splendor, a broad tumble of clouds, with much golden haze and profu-
sion of beaming shaft and dazzle. In the midst of all, in the clear drab of the afternoon light, there steam'd up the river the large, new boat,
"the Wenonah," as pretty an object as you could wish to see, lightly and swiftly skimming along, all trim and white, cover'd with flags, trans-
parent red and blue, streaming out in the breeze. Only a new ferry-boat, and yet in its fitness comparable with the prettiest product of Nature's
cunning, and rivaling it. High up in the transparent ether gracefully balanced and circled four or five great sea hawks, while here below, amid
the pomp and picturesqueness of sky and river, swam this creation of artificial beauty and motion and power, in its way no less perfect.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　　241. Death of Longfellow




Camden, April 3, '82.--I HAVE just return'd from an old forest haunt, where I love to go occasionally away from parlors, pavements, and the
newspapers and magazines--and where, of a clear forenoon, deep in the shade of pines and cedars and a tangle of old laurel-trees and vines, the
news of Longfellow's death first reach'd me. For want of anything better, let me lightly twine a sprig of the sweet ground-ivy trailing so
plentifully through the dead leaves at my feet, with reflections of that half hour alone, there in the silence, and lay it as my contribution
on the dead bard's grave.

Longfellow in his voluminous works seems to me not only to be eminent in the style and forms of poetical expression that mark the present age,
(an idiosyncrasy, almost a sickness, of verbal melody,) but to bring what is always dearest as poetry to the general human heart and taste, and
probably must be so in the nature of things. He is certainly the sort of bard and counteractant most needed for our materialistic, self-assertive,
money-worshipping, Anglo-Saxon races, and especially for the present age in America--an age tyrannically regulated with reference to the manufact-
urer, the merchant. the financier, the politician and the day workman--for whom and among whom he comes as the poet of melody, courtesy, defer-
ence--poet of the mellow twilight of the past in Italy, Germany, Spain, and in Northern Europe--poet of all sympathetic gentleness--and universal
poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more, and in more valuable directions,
for America.

I doubt if there ever was before such a fine intuitive judge and selecter of poems. His translations of many German and Scandinavian pieces are
said to be better than the vernaculars. He does not urge or lash. His influence is like good drink or air. He is not tepid either, but always
vital, with flavor, motion, grace. He strikes a splendid average, and does not sing exceptional passions, or humanity's jagged escapades. He
is not revolutionary, brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows. On the contrary, his songs soothe and heal, or if they excite,
it is a healthy and agreeable excitement. His very anger is gentle, is at second hand, (as in the "Quadroon Girl" and the "Witnesses.")

There is no undue element of pensiveness in Longfellow's strains. Even in the early translation, the Manrique, the movement is as of strong
and steady wind or tide, holding up and buoying. Death is not avoided through his many themes, but there is something almost winning in his or-
iginal verses and renderings on that dread subject--as, closing "the Happiest Land" dispute,

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And then the landlord's daughter
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Up to heaven rais'd her hand,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And said, "Ye may no more contend,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　There lies the happiest land."

To the ungracious complaint-charge of his want of racy nativity and special originality, I shall only say that America and the world may well be
reverently thankful--can never be thankful enough--for any such singing-bird vouchsafed out of the centuries, without asking that the notes be
different from those of other songsters; adding what I have heard Longfellow himself say, that ere the New World can be worthily original, and
announce herself and her own heroes, she must be well saturated with the originality of others, and respectfully consider the heroes that lived
before Agamemnon.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　　242. Starting Newspapers




Reminiscences--(From the "Camden Courier.")--AS I sat taking my evening sail across the Delaware in the staunch ferryboat "Beverly," a night or
two ago, I was join'd by two young reporter friends. "I have a message for you," said one of them; "the C. folks told me to say they would like
a piece sign'd by your name, to go in their first number. Can you do it for them?" "I guess so," said I; "what might it be about?" "Well, any-
thing on newspapers, or perhaps what you've done yourself, starting them." And off the boys went, for we had reach'd the Philadelphia side.
The hour was fine and mild, the bright half-moon shining; Venus, with excess of splendor, just setting in the west, and the great Scorpion rear-
ing its length more than half up in the southeast. As I cross'd leisurely for an hour in the pleasant night-scene, my young friend's words
brought up quite a string of reminiscences.

I commenced when I was but a boy of eleven or twelve writing sentimental bits for the old "Long Island Patriot," in Brooklyn; this was about
1832. Soon after, I had a piece or two in George P. Morris's then celebrated and fashionable "Mirror," of New York city. I remember with what
half-suppress'd excitement I used to watch for the big, fat, red-faced, slow-moving, very old English carrier who distributed the "Mirror" in
Brooklyn; and when I got one, opening and cutting the leaves with trembling fingers. How it made my heart double-beat to see my piece on the
pretty white paper, in nice type.

My first real venture was the "Long Islander," in my own beautiful town of Huntington, in 1839. I was about twenty years old. I had been teach-
ing country school for two or three years in various parts of Suffolk and Queens counties, but liked printing; had been at it while a lad, lea-
rn'd the trade of compositor, and was encouraged to start a paper in the region where I was born. I went to New York, bought a press and types,
hired some little help, but did most of the work myself, including the press-work. Everything seem'd turning out well; (only my own restless-
ness prevented me gradually establishing a permanent property there.) I bought a good horse, and every week went all round the country serving
my papers, devoting one day and night to it. I never had happier jaunts--going over to south side, to Babylon, down the south road, across to
Smithtown and Comac, and back home. The experiences of those jaunts, the dear old-fashion'd farmers and their wives, the stops by the hay-
fields, the hospitality, nice dinners, occasional evenings, the girls, the rides through the brush, come up in my memory to this day.

I next went to the "Aurora" daily in New York city--a sort of free lance. Also wrote regularly for the "Tattler," an evening paper. With these
and a little outside work I was occupied off and on, until I went to edit the "Brooklyn Eagle," where for two years I had one of the pleasantest
sits of my life--a good owner, good pay, and easy work and hours. The troubles in the Democratic party broke forth about those times (1848?'49)
and I split off with the radicals, which led to rows with the boss and "the party," and I lost my place.

Being now out of a job, I was offer'd impromptu, (it happen'd between the acts one night in the lobby of the old Broadway theatre near Pearl
street, New York city,) a good chance to go down to New Orleans on the staff of the "Crescent," a daily to be started there with plenty of cap-
ital behind it. One of the owners, who was north buying material, met me walking in the lobby, and though that was our first acquaintance, after
fifteen minutes' talk (and a drink) we made a formal bargain, and he paid me two hundred dollars down to bind the contract and bear my expenses
to New Orleans. I started two days afterwards; had a good leisurely time, as the paper wasn't to be out in three weeks. I enjoy'd my journey
and Louisiana life much. Returning to Brooklyn a year or two afterward I started the "Freeman," first as a weekly, then daily. Pretty soon the
secession war broke out, and I, too, got drawn in the current southward, and spent the following three years there, (as memorandized preceding.)

Besides starting them as aforementioned, I have had to do, one time or another, during my life, with a long list of papers, at divers places,
sometimes under queer circumstances. During the war, the hospitals at Washington, among other means of amusement, printed a little sheet among
themselves, surrounded by wounds and death, the "Armory Square Gazette," to which I contributed. The same long afterward, casually, to a paper--
I think it was call'd the "Jimplecute"--out in Colorado where I stopp'd at the time. When I was in Quebec province, in Canada, in 1880, I went
into the queerest little old French printing office near Tadousac. It was far more primitive and ancient than my Camden friend William Kurtz's
place up on Federal street. I remember, as a youngster, several characteristic old printers of a kind hard to be seen these days.




　　　　　　　　　243. The Great Unrest of Which We Are Part




MY thoughts went floating on vast and mystic currents as I sat to-day in solitude and half-shade by the creek--returning mainly to two principal
centres. One of my cherish'd themes for a never-achiev'd poem has been the two impetuses of man and the universe--in the latter, creation's
incessant unrest, 1 exfoliation, (Darwin's evolution, I suppose.) Indeed, what is Nature but change, in all its visible, and still more its in-
visible processes? Or what is humanity in its faith, love, heroism, poetry, even morals, but emotion?




　　　　　　　　　　　　　　244. By Emerson's Grave




May 6, '82.--WE stand by Emerson's new-made grave without sadness--indeed a solemn joy and faith, almost hauteur--our soul-benison no mere

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"Warrior, rest, thy task is done,"

for one beyond the warriors of the world lies surely symboll'd here. A just man, poised on himself, all-loving, all-inclosing, and sane and
clear as the sun. Nor does it seem so much Emerson himself we are here to honor--it is conscience, simplicity, culture, humanity's attributes
at their best, yet applicable if need be to average affairs, and eligible to all. So used are we to suppose a heroic death can only come from
out of battle or storm, or mighty personal contest, or amid dramatic incidents or danger, (have we not been taught so for ages by all the plays
and poems?) that few even of those who most sympathizingly mourn Emerson's late departure will fully appreciate the ripen'd grandeur of that
event, with its play of calm and fitness, like evening light on the sea.

How I shall henceforth dwell on the blessed hours when, not long since, I saw that benignant face, the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth,
the form yet upright in its great age--to the very last, with so much spring and cheeriness, and such an absence of decrepitude, that even the
term venerable hardly seem'd fitting.

Perhaps the life now rounded and completed in its mortal development, and which nothing can change or harm more, has its most illustrious halo,
not in its splendid intellectual or esthetic products, but as forming in its entirety one of the few, (alas! how few!) perfect and flawless
excuses for being, of the entire literary class.

We can say, as Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It is not we who come to consecrate the dead--we reverently come to receive, if so it may be,
some consecration to ourselves and daily work from him.




　　　　　　　　　　　　　　245. At Present Writing--Personal


　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　A letter to a German friend--extract.

May 31,'82.--"FROM to-day I enter upon my 64th year. The paralysis that first affected me nearly ten years ago, has since remain'd, with varying
course--seems to have settled quietly down, and will probably continue. I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; but my spirits are first-
rate. I go around in public almost every day--now and then take long trips, by railroad or boat, hundreds of miles--live largely in the open air--
am sunburnt and stout, (weigh 190)--keep up my activity and interest in life, people, progress, and the questions of the day. About two-thirds of
the time I am quite comfortable. What mentality I ever had remains entirely unaffected; though physically I am a half-paralytic, and likely to be
so, long as I live. But the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplish'd--I have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affec-
tionate relatives--and of enemies I really make no account."




　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 246. After Trying a Certain Book




I TRIED to read a beautifully printed and scholarly volume on "the Theory of Poetry," received by mail this morning from England--but gave it up
at last for a bad job. Here are some capricious pencillings that follow'd, as I find them in my notes:

In youth and maturity Poems are charged with sunshine and varied pomp of day; but as the soul more and more takes precedence, (the sensuous still
included,) the Dusk becomes the poet's atmosphere. I too have sought, and ever seek, the brilliant sun, and make my songs according. But as I
grow old, the half-lights of evening are far more to me.

The play of Imagination, with the sensuous objects of Nature for symbols, and Faith--with Love and Pride as the unseen impetus and moving-power of
all, make up the curious chessgame of a poem.

Common teachers or critics are always asking "What does it mean?" Symphony of fine musician, or sunset, or sea-waves rolling up the beach--what
do they mean? Undoubtedly in the most subtle-elusive sense they mean something--as love does, and religion does, and the best poem;--but who shall
fathom and define those meanings? (I do not intend this as a warrant for wildness and frantic escapades--but to justify the soul's frequent joy
in what cannot be defined to the intellectual part, or to calculation.)

At its best, poetic lore is like what may be heard of conversation in the dusk, from speakers far or hid, of which we get only a few broken mur-
murs. What is not gather'd is far more--perhaps the main thing.

Grandest poetic passages are only to be taken at free removes, as we sometimes look for stars at night, not by gazing directly toward them, but
off one side.

(To a poetic student and friend.--I only seek to put you in rapport. Your own brain, heart, evolution, must not only understand the matter, but
largely supply it.



　　　　　　　　　　　　　247. Final Confessions--Literary Tests




SO draw near their end these garrulous notes. There have doubtless occurr'd some repetitions, technical errors in the consecutiveness of dates,
in the minutia of botanical, astronomical, &c., exactness, and perhaps elsewhere;--for in gathering up, writing, peremptorily dispatching copy,
this hot weather, (last of July and through August, '82,) and delaying not the printers, I have had to hurry along, no time to spare. But in the
deepest veracity of all--in reflections of objects, scenes, Nature's outpourings, to my senses and receptivity, as they seem'd to me--in the work
of giving those who care for it, some authentic glints, specimen-days of my life--and in the bona fide spirit and relations, from author to reader,
on all the subjects design'd, and as far as they go, I feel to make unmitigated claims.

The synopsis of my early life, Long Island, New York city, and so forth, and the diary-jottings in the Secession war, tell their own story. My plan
in starting what constitutes most of the middle of the book, was originally for hints and data of a Nature-poem that should carry one's experiences
a few hours, commencing at noon-flush, and so through the after-part of the day--I suppose led to such idea by my own life-afternoon now arrived. But
I soon found I could move at more ease, by giving the narrative at first hand. (Then there is a humiliating lesson one learns, in serene hours, of
a fine day or night. Nature seems to look on all fixed-up poetry and art as something almost impertinent.)

Thus I went on, years following, various seasons and areas, spinning forth my thought beneath the night and stars, (or as I was confined to my room
by half-sickness,) or at midday looking out upon the sea, or far north steaming over the Saguenay's black breast, jotting all down in the loosest
sort of chronological order, and here printing from my impromptu notes, hardly even the seasons group'd together, or anything corrected--so afraid
of dropping what smack of outdoors or sun or starlight might cling to the lines, I dared not try to meddle with or smooth them. Every now and then,
(not often, but for a foil,) I carried a book in my pocket--or perhaps tore out from some broken or cheap edition a bunch of loose leaves; most al-
ways had something of the sort ready, but only took it out when the mood demanded. In that way, utterly out of reach of literary conventions, I re-
read many authors.

I cannot divest my appetite of literature, yet I find myself eventually trying it all by Nature--first premises many call it, but really the crowning
results of all, laws, tallies and proofs. (Has it never occurr'd to any one how the last deciding tests applicable to a book are entirely outside
of technical and grammatical ones, and that any truly first-class production has little or nothing to do with the rules and calibres of ordinary
critics? or the bloodless chalk of Allibone's Dictionary? I have fancied the ocean and the daylight, the mountain and the forest, putting their
spirit in a judgment on our books. I have fancied some disembodied human soul giving its verdict.)




　　　　　　　　　　　　　248. Nature and Democracy--Morality




DEMOCRACY most of all affiliates with the open air, is sunny and hardy and sane only with Nature--just as much as Art is. Something is required to
temper both--to check them, restrain them from excess, morbidity. I have wanted, before departure, to bear special testimony to a very old lesson and
requisite. American Democracy, in its myriad personalities, in factories, work-shops, stores, offices--through the dense streets and houses of cities,
and all their manifold sophisticated life--must either be fibred, vitalized, by regular contact with out-door light and air and growths, farm-scenes,
animals, fields, trees, birds, sun-warmth and free skies, or it will certainly dwindle and pale. We cannot have grand races of mechanics, work people,
and commonalty, (the only specific purpose of America,) on any less terms. I conceive of no flourishing and heroic elements of Democracy in the United
States, or of Democracy maintaining itself at all, without the Nature-element forming a main part--to be its health-element and beauty-element--to real-
ly underlie the whole politics, sanity, religion and art of the New World.

Finally, the morality: "Virtue," said Marcus Aurelius, "what is it, only a living and enthusiastic sympathy with Nature?" Perhaps indeed the ef-
forts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same--to
bring people back from their persistent strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless average, divine, original concrete.