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Excursions, Houghton
and Mifflin Company, the Riverside Press,
Walking Henry David Thoreau I wish to speak a word for Nature,
for absolute freedom and
wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, — to
regard
man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a
member of
society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make a
emphatic one,
for there are enough champions of civilization; the minister, and the
school-committee, and every one of you will take care of that. I have met with but one or two
persons in the course of my life
who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a
genius,
so to speak, for sauntering: which
word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the
country, in
the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la
Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed,
"There
goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer,
a
Holy Lander.[1] They who never
go to the holy land in their walks, as they
pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; 252
It
is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the
walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering never-ending
enterprises. Our
expeditions are but tours and come round again at evening to the old
hearth
side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps.
We should
go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying
adventure,
never to return, — prepared
to send back
our embalmed hearts only, as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you
are ready
to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and 253 child
and friends, and never see them again, —
if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and
settled all your
affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk.
To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I
sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights
of a
new, or rather an old, order, — not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not
Ritters or
Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust.
The
chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now
to
reside in, or perchance to have subsided into the We have felt that we almost alone
hereabouts practiced this
noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions
are to
be received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do,
but they
cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and
independence,
which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of
God. It
requires a direct dispensation from heaven to become a walker. You must
be born
into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator
nascitur,non fit [4].
Some of my townsmen, it is true, can remember, and have
described to me some walks 254 which
they took ten years ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose
themselves
for half an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have
confined
themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may
make to
belong to this select class. No doubt, they were elevated for a moment
as by
the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they were
foresters and outlaws. "When
he came to grene wode, In
a mery
mornynge, There
he herde the notes small, Of
byrdes
mery syngynge. "It
is ferre gone, sayd Robyn , That
I was
last here, Me
lyste a lytell for to shote, At
the
donne dere."[5] I think that I cannot preserve my
health and spirits unless
I spend a day at least, — and it is commonly more than that, —
sauntering
through the woods and over the hills and fields absolutely free from
all
worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or
a
thousand pounds [6].
When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and
shop-keepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the
afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them, — as if the
legs
were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk 255 upon
— I
think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed
suicide long
ago. I who cannot stay in my chamber for
a single day without
acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk
at the
eleventh hour of four o’clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the
day,
when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the
day-light, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for, —
I
confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing
of the moral
insensibility of my neighbors who confine themselves to shops and
offices the
whole day for weeks and months, aye and years almost together. I know
not what
manner of stuff they are of, — sitting there now at three o’clock in
the
afternoon, as if it were three o’clock in the morning. Bonaparte may
talk of
the three o’clock in the morning courage [7],
but it is nothing to the courage
which can sit down cheerfully at this hour in the afternoon over
against one’s
self whom you have known all the morning, to starve out a garrison to
whom you
are bound by such strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about these
times, or
say between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, too late for the
morning
papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a general
explosion
heard up and down the street, scattering a legion of antiquated 256 and
house-bred notions and whims to the four winds for an airing, — and so
the evil
cure itself. How womankind, who are confined to
the house still more than
men, stand it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of
them do
not stand it at all. When, early in
a
summer afternoon, we have been shaking the dust of the village from the
skirts
of our garments, making haste past those houses with purely Doric or
Gothic
fronts,[8]
which have such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that
probably about these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it
is that
I appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself
never turns
in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping watch over the
slumberers. No doubt temperament, and above all
age, have a good deal to
do with it. As a man grows older his ability to sit still and follow
in-door
occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits, as the
evening of
life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before sundown,
and gets
all the walk that he requires in half an hour. But the walking of which I speak
has nothing in it akin to
taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated
hours, —
as the 257 swinging
of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of
the day.
If you would get exercise go in search of the springs of life. Think of
a man’s
swinging dumb-bells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up
in far
off pastures unsought by him! Moreover, you must walk like a
camel which is said to be the
only beast which ruminates when walking.[9] When a traveler
asked Wordsworth’s
servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, "Here is his
library, but his study is out of doors."[10] Living much out of doors, in the
sun and wind, will no doubt
produce a certain roughness of character, — will cause a thicker
cuticle to
grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and
hands,
or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of
touch. So
staying in the house on the other hand may produce a softness and
smoothness,
not to say thinness of skin, accompanied by an increased sensibility to
certain
impressions. Perhaps we should be more susceptible to some influences
important
to our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind
blown
on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion
rightly the
thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will fall off
fast
enough, — 258 that
the
natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which the night bears
to the
day, the winter to the summer, thought to experience. There will be so
much the
more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer
are
conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism whose touch
thrills
the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere
sentimentality
that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and
callus of
experience. [11] When we walk we naturally go to the
fields and woods; what
would become of us if we walked only in a garden or a mall?[12]
Even some sects of 259 In
my
walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the
woods, if I
am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot
help a
shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good
works, — for this may sometimes happen.
My
vicinity affords many good walks, and though I have walked almost every
day for
so many years, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet
exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I
can
still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours’ walking will carry me
to as
strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farm-house which I
had not
seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Nowadays, almost all man’s improvements, so called, as the building of houses, and the cutting down of the forest, and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest 260 stand!
I saw the fences half consumed,
their ends lost in the middle of the prairie, and some worldly
miser with a
surveyor looking after his bounds, while heaven had taken place around
him, and
he did not see the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old
post-hole in the midst of paradise. I looked again and saw him standing
in the
middle of a boggy Stygian fen [17] surrounded by devils, and he
had found his bounds
without a doubt, three little stones where a stake had been driven, and
looking
nearer I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor. I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road except where the fox and the mink do. First along by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are square miles in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can see civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarming of them all, —I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, 261
and
that still narrower highway yonder leads to it. I
sometimes direct the traveller thither. If you would go to the
political world,
follow the great road,—follow that market man, keep his dust in your
eyes, and
it will lead you straight to it; for it too has its place merely, and
does not
occupy all space. I pass from it as from a bean field into the forest,
and it
is forgotten. In one half hour I can walk off to some portion of the
earth’s
surface where a man does not stand from one year’s end to another and
there
consequently politics are not, for they are but as the cigar smoke of a
man. The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion of the highway as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads are the arms and legs, — a trivial or quadrivial [18] place, the thoroughfare and ordinary of travellers. The word is from the Latin villa, which together with via, a way, or more anciently ved and vella, Varro derives from veho to carry, because the villa is the place to and from which things are carried. They who got their living by teaming were said vellaturam facere. Hence too apparently the Latin word vilis and our vile; also villain. [19] This suggests what kind of degeneracy villagers are liable to. They are way-worn by the travel that goes by and over them, without travelling themselves.
262
Some do
not walk at all, others walk in the high-ways; a few walk across lots.
Roads
are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much
comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern, or
grocery, or
livery stable, or depot to which they lead. I am a good horse to travel
but not
from choice a roadster. The landscape painter uses the figures of men
to mark a
road. He would not make that use of my figure. I walk out into a nature
such as
the old prophets and poets Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, [20]
walked in. You may name
it
However,
there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as if they
led
somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There is the The
Where
they once dug for money
But
never found any;
Singly
files,
And
Elijah Wood,
I fear
for no good.
No other
man
Save
Elisha Dugan [23], —
O man of
wild habits,
Partridges
and rabbits,
Who hast
no cares
Only to
set snares,
Who
liv’st all alone,
Close to
the bone;
And
where life is sweetest
Constantly
eatest. When
the
spring stirs my blood
With
the instinct to travel,
I can
get enough gravel On
the
Nobody
repairs it,
For
nobody wears it;
It is a
living way,
As the Christians say, Not
many
there be
Who
enter therein, Only
the
guests of the
Irishman
Quin. [24]
What
is
it, what is it
But a
direction out there, And
the
bare possibility
Of going
somewhere?
Great
guide boards of stone But travellers none. 264
Cenotaphs
of the towns
Named on
their crowns.
It is
worth going to see
What you
might be.
What king
Did the
thing,
I am
still wondering—
Set up
how or when,
By what
select men,
Gourgas
or Lee,
Clark or
Darby? [25]
They’re
a great endeavor
To
be something forever.
Blank
tablets of stone,
Where a
traveller might groan,
And in
one sentence
Grave
all that is known.
Which
another might read,
In his
extreme need,
I know
one or two
Lines
that would do,
Literature
that might stand
All over
the land,
Which a
man could remember
Till
next December,
And read
again in the spring,
After
the thawing. If
with
fancy unfurled
You
leave your abode, You
may
go round the world
By the
old At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come
265
when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only,—when fences shall be multiplied, and man traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road; and walking over the surface of God’s earth, shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds.To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities then before the evil days come.
What is
it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I
believe
that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously
yield
to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we
walk.
There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and
stupidity to
take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us
through
this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we
love to
travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we
find it
difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist
distinctly in
our idea. When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and
266
submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to settle, — varies a few degrees, and does not always point due south-west, it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. The outline which would bound my walks, would be, not a circle, but a parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits, which have been thought to be non-returning curves,[25] in this case opening westward, in which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide for the thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes, or sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly towards the setting sun, and that there are no towns
267
nor cities in it of enough
consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is
the city,
on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more,
and
withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much stress on
this fact,
if I did not believe that something like this is the prevailing
tendency of my
countrymen. I must walk toward
We go
eastward to realize history, and study the works of art and literature,
retracing the steps of the race,—we go westward as into the future,
with a
spirit of enterprise and adventure. The
268
more chance for the race left before it arrives on the
banks of the
I know
not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of singularity,
that an
individual should thus consent in his pettiest walk, with the general
movement
of the race; but I know that something akin to the migratory instinct
in birds
and quadrupeds,—which, in some instances, is known to have affected the
squirrel tribe, impelling them to a general and mysterious movement, in
which
they were seen, say some, crossing the broadest rivers, each on its
particular
chip, with its tail raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams
with their
dead,[30]—that something like the furor which affects the domestic
cattle in the
spring, and which is referred to a worm in their tails,—affects both
nations
and individuals, either perennially or from time to time. Not a flock
of wild
geese cackles over our town but it to some extent unsettles the value
of real
estate here, and if I were a broker I should probably take that
disturbance
into account.—
"Than
longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And
palmeres for to seken strange strondes." [31]
Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He appears
269
to migrate
westward daily and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western
Pioneer whom
the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in the
horizon,
though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays.
The
"And
now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And
now was dropt into the western bay;
At last
he rose, and twitch’d his mantle blue;
To-morrow
to fresh woods and pastures new." [33] Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that occupied by the bulk of our states, so fertile and so rich and varied in its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as this is? Michaux [34] who knew but part of them, says that "the species of large trees are much more numerous
270
in
North America than in Europe: in the United States there are more than
140
species that exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but
thirty that
attain this size." Later botanists more than confirm his observations.
Humboldt [35]
came to 271
From
this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the
To use an
obsolete Latin word, I might say Ex
Oriente lux; ex Occidente FRUX.
From the
East light; from the West fruit.[38]
Sir Francis Head, an English traveller, and a Governor General of Canada, tells us that "in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New World, Nature has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World. ... The heavens of America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers larger, the forests bigger, the plains broader." [39] This statement will do at least to set against Buffon’s [40] account of this part of the world and its productions. 272
Linnaeus
said long ago "Nescio quae facies laeta,
glabra plantis Americanis."
(I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect of
American
plants)[41];
and I think that in this country there are no, or at most, very few,
Africanae bestiae, African beasts, as the Romans called them, and that
in this
respect also it is peculiarly fitted for the habitation of man. We are
told that
within three miles of the center of the East Indian city of Singapore
some of
the inhabitants are annually carried off by tigers [42];
but the traveller can lie
down in the woods at night almost anywhere in North America without
fear of
wild beasts.
These
are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than in
273
these
influences? Or is it
unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we
shall be
more imaginative; that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher and more
ethereal,
as our sky—our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our
plains—our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and
lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests,—and our hearts shall
even
correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas.
Perchance
there will appear to the traveller something, he knows not what, of laeta and
glabra,
of joyous and serene [43], in our very faces. Else, to
what end does the
world go on, and why was
To
Americans I hardly need to say, —
"Westward
the star of empire takes its way." [44]
As a
true patriot I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was
more
favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country.
Our
sympathies in
274
Some
months ago I went to see a panorama of the Soon after I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked my way up the stream in the light of to-day,—and saw the steam-boats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as before I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri, and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona’s Cliff [48], —still thinking more of the future than of the past or present, — I saw that this was a Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations
275
of castles were yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the stream; and I felt that this was the heroic age itself though we know it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.
The West
of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been
preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the world.
Every
tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it
at any
price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come
the tonics
and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of
I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock spruce or arbor- vitae in our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the
276
marrow
of the koodoo [50]
and other
antelopes raw, as a matter of course. Some of our Northern Indians eat
raw the
marrow of the Arctic reindeer, as well as various other parts,
including the
summits of the antlers as long as they are soft. And herein perchance
they have
stolen a march on the cooks of
There
are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, to which
I would
migrate, — wild lands where no settler has squatted; to which,
methinks, I am
already acclimated.
The African hunter Cummings tells us that the skin of the eland [51], as well as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most delicious perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much a wild antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence, and remind us of those parts of nature which he most haunts. I feel no disposition to be satirical when the trapper’s coat emits the odor of musquash even; it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales
277
from
the merchant’s or the scholar’s garments. When I go into their
wardrobes and handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains
and
flowery meads which they have frequented, but of dusty merchants’
exchange sand
libraries rather.
A tanned
skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter
color
than white for a man—a denizen of the woods. "The pale white man!" I
do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the naturalist says
"A
white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like a plant bleached
by the
gardener’s art compared with a fine, dark green one growing vigorously
in the
open fields."
Ben
Jonson exclaims,—
"How
near to good is what is fair!" So
I
would say—
How near
to good is what is wild! Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest-trees.
278 Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analysed my partiality for some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog, — a natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda (Cassandra calyculata) which cover these tender places on the earth’s surface. Botany cannot go further than tell me the names of the shrubs which grow there, — the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, azalea, and rhodora, — all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often think that I would like to have my house front on this mass of dull red bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce and trim box, even gravelled walks, — to have this fertile spot under my windows, not a few imported barrow-fuls of soil only, to cover the sand which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my parlor, behind this plot instead of behind that meagre
279
assemblage
of
curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and art, which I call my
front yard?
It is an effort to clear up and make a decent appearance when the
carpenter and
mason have departed, though done as much for the passer by as the
dweller
within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was never an agreeable
object of
study to me; the most elaborate ornaments, acorn tops, or what not,
soon
wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills up to the very edge of the
swamp
then, (though it may not be the best place for a dry cellar,) so that
there be
no access on that side to citizens. Front-yards are not made to walk
in, but,
at most, through, and you could go in the back way.
Yes;
though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to dwell in
the
neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human art
contrived, or
else of a Dismal Swamp, I should certainly decide for the swamp. How
vain then
have been all your labors, citizens, for me!
My
spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give
me the
Ocean, the desert, or the wilderness. In the desert a pure air and
solitude
compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveller
280
the
desert
spirituous liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a
mere
animal existence." They who have been travelling long on the steppes of
Tartary say: "On reentering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity
and turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed
to fail
us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia." When I
would
recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most
interminable,
and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred
place, — a
sanctum sanctorum.
There is the strength, the marrow of Nature. The wild wood
covers the virgin mould, — and the same soil is good for men and for
trees. A
man’s health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his
farm does
loads of muck. There are the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is
saved,
not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that
surround
it. A township where one primitive forest waves above, while another
primitive
forest rots below,— such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and
potatoes,
but poets and To preserve wild animals implies generally
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the
creation of a forest for them to
dwell in or resort to. So is it with man. A hundred years ago they sold
bark in
our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very aspect of those
primitive
and rugged trees, there was methinks a tanning principle which hardened
and
consolidated the fibres of men’s thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for
these
comparatively degenerate days of my native village, when you cannot
collect a
load of bark of good thickness, — and we no longer produce tar and
turpentine.
The
civilized nations — It is said to be the task of the American, "to work the virgin soil," and that "agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown everywhere else." I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural. I was surveying for a man
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the
other day a single straight line one
hundred and thirty-two rods long through a swamp, at whose entrance
might have
been written the words which Dante read over the entrance to the
Infernal
regions, — "Leave all hope ye that enter," — that is of ever getting
out again; where
at one time I saw my employer actually up to his neck and swimming for
his life
in his property, though it was still winter. He had another similar
swamp which
I could not survey at all because it was completely under water, and
nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp which I did survey from a
distance,
he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not part with
it for
any consideration, on account of the mud which it contained. And that
man
intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole in the course of forty
months,
and so redeem it by the magic of his spade. I refer to him only as the
type of
a class. The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian’s corn-field into the meadow, and pointed out the
283
way
which he had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement with
which to intrench himself in the land than a clam-shell. But the farmer
is
armed with plow and spade.
In literature, it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but
another name
for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in "Hamlet"
and the
"Iliad," in all the Scriptures and Mythologies, not learned in the
Schools, that
delights us. As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the
tame, so is
the wild — the mallard — thought, which, ‘mid falling dews wings its
way above the
fens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly
and
unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the
prairies of
the west, or in the jungles of the east. Genius is a light which makes
the
darkness visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters
the
temple of knowledge itself, — and not a taper lighted at the
hearth-stone of the
race which pales before the light of common day.
English
literature from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets, — Chaucer
and Spenser
and Milton, and even Shakespeare included, — breathes no quite fresh
and in this
sense wild strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature
reflecting
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Hood.
There is plenty of genial love of nature,
but not so much of Nature herself. Her chronicles inform us when her
wild
animals, but not when the wild man in her, became extinct.
The
science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The poet
to-day,
notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the accumulated
learning of
mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer.
Where is
the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a poet who
could
impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak for him; who
nailed
words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the
spring
which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as often as he used
them, — transplanted them to his page with earth adhering to their
roots; whose
words were so true, and fresh, and natural that they would appear to
expand
like the buds at the approach of spring, though they lay half smothered
between
two musty leaves in a library, — aye, to bloom and bear fruit there
after their
kind annually for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding
Nature. I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side the best poetry is tame. I do not know where to find in any literature,
285
ancient
or modern, any account which contents me, of
that Nature with which even I am acquainted. You will perceive that I
demand
something which no Augustan nor Elizabethan age—which no culture
in short can
give. Mythology comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile
a Nature, at least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English
Literature!
Mythology is the crop which the old world bore before its soil was
exhausted,
before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight; and which
it still
bears wherever its pristine vigor is unabated. All other literatures
endure
only as the elms which overshadow our houses; but this is like the
great dragon
tree of the Western Isles, as old as mankind, and whether that does or
not,
will endure as long; for the decay of other literatures makes the soil
in which
it thrives.
The West
is preparing to add its fables to those of the east. The valleys of the
Ganges,
the Nile, and the Rhine, having yielded their crop, it remains to be
seen what
the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence and
the
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The
wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they
may not
recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among Englishmen
and
Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends itself to the
common
sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis as well as for the
cabbage.
Some expressions of truth are reminiscent,—others merely sensible, as the
phrase is, — others prophetic. Some forms of disease even may prophesy
forms of
health. The geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents,
griffins,
flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have
their
prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct before man
was
created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy knowledge of a
previous
state of organic existence." The Hindoos dreamed that the earth rested
on
an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a
serpent; and
though it may be an unimportant coincidence, it will not be out of
place here
to state, that a fossil tortoise has lately been discovered in
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In
short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a
strain of
music, whether produced by an instrument or by the human voice, — take
the sound
of a bugle in a summer night, for instance,— which by its wildness, to
speak without
satire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native
forests.
It is so much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my
friends and
neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a
faint
symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.
I love
even to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights, — any
evidence that
they have not wholly lost their original wild habits and vigor; as when
my
neighbor’s cow breaks out of her pasture early in the spring and boldly
swims
the river, a cold grey tide, twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen
by the
melted snow. It is the
Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldly sport, like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook
288
their
heads, raised their tails, and rushed up and
down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as well as by their
activity,
their relation to the deer tribe. But, alas! a sudden loud Whoa! would have
damped their ardor at once, reduced them from venison to beef, and
stiffened
their sides and sinews like the locomotive. Who but the Evil One has
cried
"Whoa!" to mankind? Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men,
is but a
sort of locomotiveness, they move a side at a time, and Man by his
machinery is
meeting the horse and ox half way. Whatever part the whip has touched
is
thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a side of any of the
supple cat
tribe, as we speak of a side
of beef? I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; and because the majority, like dogs and sheep are tame by inherited disposition, is no reason why the others should have their natures broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly
289
or
quite as well
as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. Any
man can
stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so rare
a use
as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says, "The skins of
the
tiger and the leopard when they are tanned, are as the skins of the dog
and the
sheep tanned." But it is not the part of a true culture to tame tigers,
any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and tanning their skins
for shoes
is not the best use to which they can be put.
When
looking over a list of men’s names in a foreign language, as of
military
officers or of authors who have written on a particular subject, I am
reminded
once more that there is nothing in a name. The name Menschikoff, for
instance,
has nothing in it to my ears more human than a whisker, and it may
belong to a
rat. As the names of the Poles and Russians are to us, so are ours to
them. It
is as if they had been named by the child’s rigmarole, — Iery wiery ichery van,
tittle-tol-tan. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures
swarming over the
earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in his
own
dialect. The names of men are of course as cheap and meaningless as
Methinks
it would be some advantage to
At present our only true names are nick-names. I knew a
boy who from his peculiar energy was called "Buster" by his
playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some
travellers tell
us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but earned it, and
his name
was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired a new name with every
new
exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely,
who has
earned neither name nor fame. I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it off
291
with
his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or
in anger, or aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear
pronounced
by some of his kin at such a time, his original wild name in some
jaw-breaking
or else melodious tongue.
Here is
this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature lying all around,
with such
beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we
are so
early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is
exclusively an
interaction of man on man, — a sort of breeding in and in, which
produces at most
a merely English nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy
limit.
In
society, in the best institutions of men it is easy to detect a certain
precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already
little men.
Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens
the
soil, — not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved
implements and
modes of culture only.
Many a
poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of, would grow faster both
intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very late,
he
honestly slumbered a fool’s allowance.
There may be an excess even of informing
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light.
Niepce, a Frenchman, discovered
"actinism," that power in the sun’s rays which produces a chemical
effect; that granite rocks, and stone structures, and statues of metal
"are all alike destructively acted upon during the hours of sunshine,
and
but for provisions of nature no less wonderful, would soon perish under
the
delicate touch of the most subtile of the agencies of the universe."
But
he observed that "those bodies which underwent this change
during the
day-light possessed the power of restoring themselves to their original
conditions
during the hours of night, when this excitement was no longer
influencing
them." Hence it has been inferred that "the hours of darkness are as
necessary to the inorganic creation, as we know night and sleep are to
the
organic kingdom." Not even does the moon shine every night, but gives
place to darkness.
I would
not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I
would
have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the
greater part
will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but
preparing a
mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation
which it
supports. There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards
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have
a good term to express this wild and dusky
knowledge, Gramática
parda, tawny grammar, a kind of mother wit derived from
that
same leopard to which I have referred. We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that Knowledge is power; and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense; for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of the newspapers, — for what are the libraries of science but files of newspapers? — a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into the Great Fields of thought, he as it were goes to grass like a horse, and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,— Go to grass. You have eaten hay long enough. The Spring has come with its green crop. The very cows are driven to their country pastures before the end of May; though I have heard of
294
one
unnatural farmer who
kept his cow in the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So,
frequently
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its cattle.
295
296
subjected
to a kind of culture such as our district schools and
colleges do not contemplate. Even Mahomet, though Christians may scream
at his
name, had a good deal more to live for, aye and to die for than they
have
commonly.
When, at
rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is walking on
a
railroad, then indeed the cars go by without his hearing them. But
soon, by
some inexorable law our life goes by and the cars return.—
And
bendest the thistles round Loira of storms
Traveller
of the windy glens,
Why hast
thou left my ear so soon?"
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forays
only,
and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I
seem to
retreat are those of a moss-trooper. Unto a life which I call natural I
would
gladly follow even a will-o’-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs
unimaginable,
but no moon nor fire-fly has shown me the cause-way to it. Nature is a
personality so vast and universal that we have never seen one of her
features.
The
298
some
ancient
and altogether admirable and shining family had seated there in that
part of
the land called
299
sweet
musical hum, — as of a distant
hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had
no idle
thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry
was not
as in knots and excrescences embayed.
300
Our winged thoughts
are turned to poultry. They no longer soar, and they attain only to a
301
ancient
architects finishing their works on the tops
of columns as perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts! Nature
has from
the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the
heavens,
above men’s heads and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that
are
under our feet in the meadows. The pines have developed their delicate
blossoms
on the highest twigs of the wood every summer for ages, as well over
the heads
of Nature’s red children, as of her white ones. Yet scarcely a farmer
or hunter
in the land has ever seen them.
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all
the
world,— healthiness as of a spring burst forth, a new fountain of the
Muses, to
celebrate this last instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave
laws are
passed. Who has not betrayed his master many times since last he heard
that
note?
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light
as we could not have imagined a
moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was
wanting
to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not
a
solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen
forever
and ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the
latest
child that walked there, it was more glorious still.
304
ever
he has done, shall perchance shine into
our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great
awakening
light, so warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn. |