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25 March 1845, Tuesday; 7:00 p.m.
Concord, Massachusetts; Unitarian Church, Vestry
"Concord River"
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NARRATIVE OF EVENT: On 25 March 1845, Concord
Lyceum secretary George M. Brooks recorded, "A Lecture was delivered this evening by
Mr David H. Thoreau of Concord. Subject: Concord river" (MassLyc, p.
160). Thoreau’s was the penultimate lecture in a course of fourteen, the eleventh of
which was a controversial presentation on slavery by abolitionist Wendell Phillips in
which Thoreau also had a hand. Specifically, when the question of inviting Phillips to
speak was considered by Lyceum members, the conservative curators resigned rather than
accede to the invitation. They were replaced on 5 March by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Samuel
Barrett, and Thoreau. The invitation was immediately delivered and Phillips spoke less
than a week later, on 11 March (MassLyc, pp. 159-60). After the Phillips brouhaha,
Thoreau’s paean to the Concord River was a lecture that Lyceum members could
appreciate, as suggested by the reminiscence that appeared thirty-seven years later in the
Concord Freeman (see below).
ADVERTISEMENTS, REVIEWS, AND
RESPONSES: On 1 September 1882, the Concord Freeman published an article called
"Reminiscences of Thoreau" containing this tribute to Thoreau’s comments on
the river, comments purportedly from his 1845 lecture and later incorporated in A Week
on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers:
[Thoreau] has many peculiarities and
absurd ideas, viewed from our standpoint, but the following apostrophe to the Concord
Lyceum will be read and admired by all men hundreds of years hence as today, for the
philosophical truths enunciated, the poetic beauty of expression, and its pure
naturalness.
"I had often stood on the banks of
the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the
same law with the system, with time, and all that is made; the weeds at the bottom gently
bending down the stream, shaken by the watery wind, still planted where their seeds had
sunk, but ere long to die and go down likewise; the shining pebbles, not yet anxious to
better their condition, the chips and weeds, and occasional logs and stems of trees, that
floated past, fulfilling their fate, were objects of singular interest to me, and at last
I resolved to launch myself on its bosom, and float whither it would bear me."
DESCRIPTION OF TOPIC: The
content of this lecture, the title of which is identical to the title of the first chapter
of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, apparently consisted of large
portions of that first chapter, as well as at least most of the "fish" portions
of the second chapter, "Saturday," of Thoreau’s first book. |