An exceedingly pleasant narrative of a week’s boating excursion upon the waters of two rivers, whose very existence, perhaps, is all unknown to the majority of the dwellers on this side of the Atlantic. The author is evidently one who has read much, and thought much,—a keen observer and lover of nature, and one whom we could gladly journey with, amid the scenery described in this volume. Notwithstanding occasional attempts at fine writing, and some rather long-winded disquisitions upon religion, literature, and other matters,—sometimes naturally arising from the incidents of the voyage, sometimes lugged in apparently without rhyme or reason,—the book is an agreeable book and all the irrelevant matter may be skipped by those who don’t like it, while such as prefer this kind of reading to the narrative portions, may revel in it to their heart’s content; and so may each class of readers find something to suit them in these pages.

  We know not if the following choice morceau be original or select; it figures as one of the three mottoes at the beginning of the book, each having a page devoted to itself, a significant hint, perhaps, of the absence of “taxes on knowledge” across the Atlantic:—

  As a set-off we give a sample of the prose, in the following description of a bivouac on the banks of a river, which makes one long to be of such a party.

  The voyageurs are two brothers, who, in a boat of their own building, weighed anchor in the river port of Concord, U. S., “on Saturday, the last day of August, 1839.” A tranquil voyage, with but few incidents, bring them, on Monday evening, to their halting-place, which is thus described:—[quote from page 177: “Soon the village of Nashua was out of sight . . . ”]

  We shall be glad to meet our author again, as soon as his ‘Day in the Woods,’ which we see announced as nearly ready, shall have reached England; for we may as well intimate, before we conclude, that the present volume is a native of Boston, U.S., having been introduced to this country by a spirited publisher, to whom the English reader is already under considerable obligation.

  I was at South Danvers on Monday Evening, & promised Mr C. Northend, Secretary of the Lyceum, to invite you for Monday 18th Feb. to read a lecture to his institution. I told him there were two lectures to describe Cape Cod, which interested him & his friends, & they hoped that the two might somehow be rolled into one to give them some sort of complete story of the journey. I hope it will not quite discredit my negotiation if I confess that they heard with joy that Concord people laughed till they cried, when it was read to them. I understand Mr N., that there is a possibility but no probability that his absent colleague of the Lyceum has filled up that evening by an appointment. But Mr N. will be glad to hear from you that you will come, & if any cause exist why not, he will immediately reply to you. They will pay your expenses, & $10.00. You will go from the Salem depot in an omnibus to Mr N.’s house. Do go if you can. Address Charles Northend, Esq. South Danvers.

Yours ever
R. W. Emerson

  My dear Sir,I leave town tomorrow & must beg you, if any question arises between Mr [Charles] Bartlett & me, in regard to boundary lines, to act as my attorney, & I will be bound by any agreement you shall make. Will you also, if you have opportunity, warn Mr Bartlett, on my part, against burning his woodlot, without having there present a sufficient number of hands to prevent the fire from spreading into my wood,—which, I think, will be greatly endangered, unless much care is used.

Show him too, if you can, where his cutting & his post-holes trench on our line, by plan and, so doing, oblige as ever,

Yours faithfully,

R. W. Emerson

We wonder that the sinner does not confess his sin. When we are weary with travel, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So, when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies we cease to suppose them; we recline on the lap of the earth. So, when we would rest our spirits, we must recline on the Great Spirit. Let things alone; let them weigh what they will; let them soar or fall. To succeed is letting only one thing alone in a winter morning, if it be only one poor frozen-thawed apple that hangs on a tree, what a glorious achievement! Methinks it lightens though the dusky universe. What an infinite wealth we have discovered! God reigns, i.e., when we take a liberal view,—when a liberal view is presented us.

Let God alone if need be. Methinks, if I loved him more, I should keep him, I should keep myself rather,—at a more respectable distance. It is not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and leaving him alone, that I discovered that God is. I say, God. I am not sure that that is the name. You will know whom I mean.

If for a moment we make way with our petty selves, wish no ill to anything, apprehend no ill, cease to be but as the crystal which reflects a ray,—what shall we not reflect! What a universe will appear crystallized and radiant around us!

I should say, let the Muse lead the Muse,—let the understanding lead the understanding, though in any case it is the farthest forward which leads them both. If the Muse accompany, she is no muse, but an amusement. The Muse should lead like a star which is very far off; but that does not imply that we are to follow foolishly, falling into sloughs and over precipices, for it is not foolish, but understanding, which is to follow, which is the Muse appointed to lead, as a fit guide of a fit follower.

Will you will? or will you be embalmed? Will you live, though it be astride of a sunbeam; or will or will you repose safely in the catacombs for a thousand years? In the former case, the worst accident that can happen is that you may break your neck. Will you break your heart, your soul, to save your neck? Necks and pipe-stems are fated to be broken. Men make a great ado about folly of demanding too much of life (or of eternity?) and of endeavoring to live according to that demand It is much ado about nothing. No harm ever come from that quarter. I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is. I shall be sorry to remember that I was there, but I noticed nothing remarkable,—not so much as a principle in disguise; lived in the golden age of hired man; visited Olympus even, but fell asleep after differ, and did not hear the conversation of the gods. I lived in Judæa eighteen hundred years ago, but I never knew that there was such a one as Christ among my contemporaries! If there is anything more glorious than a congress of men a-framing or amending of a constitution going on, which I suspect there is, I desire to see the morning papers. I am greedy of the faintest rumor, though it were got by listening at the key-hole. I will dissipate myself in that direction.

I am glad to know that you find what I have said on Friendship worthy of attention. I wish I could have the benefit of your criticism; it would be a rare help to me. Will you not communicate it?

  You probably think ere this I have forgotten to answer your letter but it is not so. I have waited until now that I might send some definite word about that Job I spoke of. You will recollect I told you one of the owners lived in Cincinate. He has come on and wishes to have the farm immediately surveyed and laid into house lots. there is some twenty acres of it. So you see it is quite a Job and there will be probably some small jobs. Mr. [Nehemia] Emmerson will wait untill you come which must by as soon as Thursday.  I hope it will be so you can come as I have some Jobs to do on the lots as soon as laid nut & I think we both can make a good living at it. Let me see you if possible if not drop, a fine that we may not be in suspense. All well as usual. Give my best respects to all and say to them we should he happy to see them at Haverhill.

  Yours

  C H Dunbar

  Also visited the same day an ancient garrison-house now occupied by Fred. Ayer, who said it was built one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty ago by one Emerson, and that several oxen were killed by lightning while it was building. There was also a pear tree nearly as old as the house. It was built of larger and thicker and harder brick than are used nowadays, and on the whole looked more durable and still likely to stand a hundred years. The hard burnt blue-black ends of some of the bricks were so arranged as to checker the outside. He said it was considered the handsomest house in Haverhill when it was built, and people used to come up from town some two miles to see it. He thought that they were the original doors which we saw. There were but few windows, and most of them were about two feet and a half long and a foot or more wide, only to fire out of. The oven originally projected outside. There were two large fireplaces. I walked into one, by stooping slightly, and looked up at the sky. Ayer said jokingly that some said they were so made to shoot wild geese as they flew over. The chains and hooks were suspended from a wooden bar high in the chimney. The timbers were of immense size.

  Fourteen vessels in or to be in the port of Haverhill, laden with coal, lumber, lime, wood, and so forth. Boys go [to] the wharf with their fourpences to buy a bundle of laths to make a hen-house; none elsewhere to be had.

  Saw two or three other garrison-houses. Mrs. Dustin was an Emerson, one of the family for whom I surveyed.

  Measured a buttonwood tree in Haverhill, one of twenty and more set out about 1739 on the banks of the Merrimack. It was thirteen and eight twelfths feet in circumference at three and a half feet from the ground.

I am preaching, mind you, to bare walls, that is to myself; and if you have chanced to come in and occupy a pew—do not think that my remarks are directed at you particularly, and so slam the seat in disgust. This discourse was written long before these exciting times.

Some absorbing employment on your higher ground—your upland farm, wither no catpath leads—but where you mount alone with your hoe—Where the life-ever—lasting grows—you raise a crop which needs not to be brought down into the valley to a market, which you barter for heavenly products.

Do you separate distinctly enough support of your body from that of your essence? By how distinct a course commonly are these two ends attained! Not that they should not be attained by one & the same means—that indeed is the rarest success—but there is no half and half about it.

I shall be glad to read my lectures to a small audience in Worcester, such as you describe, and will only require that my expenses be paid. If only the parlor be large enough for an echo, and the audience will embarrass themselves with hearing as much as the lecture would otherwise embarrass himself with reading. But I warn you that this is no better calculated for a promiscuous audience than the last two which I read to you. It requires in every sense a concordant audience

I will come on Sunday next and spend Sunday with you, if you wish it. Say so if you do.

Drink deep or taste not of the Peirian spring. Be not deterred by the melancholy on the path which leads to immortal health & joy. When they tasted of the water of the river over which they were to go, they thought that tasted a little bitterish to the palate, but it proved sweeter when it was down

H D T

  I love to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights,—any evidence that they have not lost their original wild habits and vigor. . .

  I visited a retired, now almost unused, graveyard in Lincoln today, where five British soldiers lie buried who fell on the 19th April, ’75. Edmund Wheeler, grandfather of William, who lived in the old house now pulled down near the present went over the next day and carted them to this ground. . .

  The water was over the turnpike below Master Cheney’s when I returned (May 31st, 1850).

  You must burn against the wind always, and burn slowly. When the fire breaks over the hoed line, a little system and perseverance will accomplish more toward quelling it than any man would believe. It fortunately happens that the experience acquired is oftentimes worth more than the wages. When a fire breaks out in the woods, and a man fights it too near and on the side, in the heat of the moment, without the systematic cooperation of others, he is disposed to think it a desperate case, and that this relentless fiend will run through the forest till it is glutted with food; but let the company rest from their labors a moment, and then proceed more deliberately and systematically, giving the fire a wider berth, and the company will be astonished to find how soon and easily they will subdue it. The woods themselves furnish one of the best weapons with which to contend with the fires that destroy them,—a pitch pine bough. It is the best instrument to thrash it with. There are few men who do not love better to give advice than to give assistance.

  However large the fire, let a few men go to work deliberately but perseveringly to rake away the leaves and hoe off the surface of the ground at a convenient distance from the fire, while others follow with pine boughs to thrash it with when it reaches the line, and they will finally get round it and subdue it, and will be astonished at their own success.

  A man who is about to burn his field in the midst of woods should rake off the leaves and twigs for the breadth of a rod at least, making no large heaps near the outside, and then plow around it several furrows and break them up with hoes, and set his fire early in the morning, before the wind rises.

  As I was fighting the fire to-day, in the midst of the roaring and crackling,—for the fire seems to snort like a wild horse,—I heard from time to time the dying strain, the last sigh, the fine, clear, shrill scream of agony, as it were, of the trees breathing their last, probably the heated air or the steam escaping from some chink. At first I thought it was some bird, or a dying squirrel’s note of anguish, or steam escaping from the tree. You sometimes hear it on a small scale in the log on the hearth. When a field is burned over, the squirrels probably go into the ground. How foreign is the yellow pine to the green woods-and what business has it here?

  The fire stopped within a few inches of a partridge’s nest to-day, June 4th, whom we took off in our hands and found thirteen creamy-colored eggs. I started up a woodcock when I went to a rill to drink, at the westernmost, angle of R. W. E.’s wood-lot.

  I am writing this at the house of Smith Oakes, within one mile of the wreck. He is the one who rendered the most assistance. Wm H Channing come down with me, but I have not seen Arthur Fuller—nor [Horace] Greeley, nor [Marcus] Spring. Spring & [Charles] Sumner were here yesterday, but left soon. Mr Oakes & wife tell me (all the survivors came or were brought dir[ec]tly to their house) that the ship struck at 10 minutes after 4 A M. and all hands, being mostly in their night clothes made haste to the forecastle—the water coming in [at o]nce. There they remained the passengers in the forecastle, the crew above it doing what they could. Every wave lifted the forecastle roof & washed over those within. The first man got ashore at 9. many from 9 to noon—. At floodtide about 3½ o’clock when the ship broke up entirely—they came out of the forecastle & Margaret sat with her back to the foremast with her hands over her knees—her husband & child already drowned—a great wave came & washed her off. The Steward? had just before taken her child & started for shore; both were drowned.

  The broken desk in a bag—containing no very valuable papers—a large black leather trunk—with an upper and under apartment—the upper holding books & papers—A carpet bag probably Ossolis and one of his? shoes—are all the Ossolis’ effects known to have been found.

  Four bodies remain to be found—the two Ossoli’s—Horace Summer—& a sailor.

  I have visited the child’s grave—Nobody will probably be taken away today.

  The wreck is to be sold at auction—excepting the hull—todav The mortar would not go off. Mrs Hartz the Captain’s wife, told Mrs Oakes that she & Margaret divided their money-&tied up the halves in handkerchiefs around their persons that Margaret took 60 or 70 dol[lars.] Mrs Hartz who can tell all about Margaret up to 11 ‘oclock on Friday is said to be going to Portland Me. today—She & Mrs Fuller must & probably will come together. The cook, the last to leave, & the Steward? will know the rest. I shall try to see them. In the meanwhile I shall do what I can to recover property & obtain particulars here abouts. Wm H. Channing—did I write it? has come with me. Arthur Fuller has this moment reached this house. He reached the beach last night—we got here yesterday noon. A good part of the wreck still holds together where she struck, & something may come ashore with her fragments. The last body was found on Tuesday 3 mules west. Mrs Oakes dried the papers which were in the trunk—and she says they appeared to be of various kinds. “Would they cover that table”?, a small round one—”They would spread out”—Some were tied tip. There were 20 or 30 books in the same half of the trunk. Another, smaller trunk empty, came ashore, but there is no mark on it—She speaks of [Celesta] Pardena as if she might have been a sort of nurse to the child”—I expect to go to Patchogue whence the pilferers must have chiefly come—& advertise &c &c.

  Mr. Henry D. Thoreau is still on Fire Island, and Mr. W[illiam]. E[llery]. Channing, the brother in law of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, leaves this morning for the same place. We shall probably receive further intelligence in the course of the day.

  I left Fire Island Beach on Saturday between nine & ten o’clock A. M. The same morning I saw on the beach, four or five miles west of the wreck, a portion of a human skeleton, which was found the day before, probably from the Elisabeth, but I have not knowledge enough of anatomy to decide confidently, as many might, whether it was that of a male or a female. I therefore hired Selah Strong, Keeper of the Light, to bury it simply for the present, and mark the spot, leaving it to future events, or a trustworthy examination, to decide the question.

  Yrs in haste
  Henry D. Thoreau

P.S. No more bodies had then been found.

  I desire to thank you for your kindness in writing me with regard to the remains of a human body found on the beach last Saturday. From what you write & from what I hear from others, it seems impossible to identify them. If the body of my brother could be found, it would be a great satisfaction to us to bury him with those of his family who have gone before him.

  Believe me, clear Sir, faithfully & gratefully Yours,

  Charles Sumner

  I find that actual events, notwithstanding the singular prominence which we all allow them, are far less real than the creation of my imagination. They are truly visionary and insignificant,—all that we commonly call life and death,—and affect me less than my dreams. This petty stream which from time to time swells and carries away the mills and bridges of our habitual life, and that mightier stream or ocean on which we securely float, what makes the difference between them? I have in my pocket a button which I ripped off the coat of the Marquis of Ossoli, on the seashore, the other day. Held up, it intercepts the light,—an actual button,—and yet all the life it is connected with is less substantial to me, and interests me less, than my faintest dream. Our thoughts are the epochs in our lives: all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here.

  I say to myself, Do a little more of that work which you have confessed to be good. You are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with yourself, without reason. Have you not a thinking faculty of inestimable value? If there is an experiment which you would like to try, try it. Do not entertain doubts if they are not agreeable to you. Remember that you need not eat unless you are hungry. Do not read the newspapers. Improve every opportunity to be melancholy. As for health, consider yourself well. Do not engage to find things as you think they are. Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else. It is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like the tortoise, what helplessly; yet there is more than philosophy in that.

  Do not waste any reverence on my attitude. I merely manage to sit up where I have dropped. I am sure that my acquaintances mistake me. They ask my advice on high matters, but they do not know even how poorly on ‘t I am for hats and shoes. I have hardly a shift. Just as shabby, am I in my inward substance. If I should turn myself inside out, my rags and meanness would indeed appear. I am something to him that made me, undoubtedly, but not much to any other that he has made.

  Would it not be worth while discover nature in Milton? be native to the universe? I, too, love Concord best, but I am glad when I discover in oceans and wilderness far away, the material of a million Concords: indeed, I am lost, unless I discover them. I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly. It is a swamp, however, too dismal and dreary even for me, and I should be glad if there were fewer owls, and frogs and mosquitoes in it. I prefer ever a more cultivated place, free from miasma and crocodiles. I am so sophisticated, and I will take my choice. As for missing friends,—what if we do miss one another? Have we not agreed on a rendezvous? While each wanders his own way through the woods, without anxiety, ay, with serene joy, though it be on his hands and knees, over rocks and fallen frees, he cannot but be in the right way. There is no wrong way to him. How can he be said to miss his friend, whom the fruits still nourish and the elements sustain? A man who missed his friend at a turn, went on buoyantly, dividing the friendly air, and humming a tone to himself, ever and anon kneeling with delight to study each little lichen in his path, and scarcely made three miles a day for friendship. As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let not your right hand know what your left hand does in that line of business. It will prove a failure. Just as successfully can you walk against a sharp steel edge which divides you cleanly right and left. Do you wish to try your ability to resist distension? It is a greater strain than any soul can long endure. When you get God to pulling one way, and the devil the other, each having his feet well braced,—to say nothing of the conscience sawing transversely,—almost any timber will give way.

  I do not dare invite you earnestly to come to Concord, because I know too well that the berries are not thick in my fields, and we should have to take it out in viewing the landscape. But come, on every account, and we will see—one another.

  But I must remember a real or imagined period in my youth, when they who spoke to me of nature, were religious, & made it so, & made it deep: now it is to the young sentimentalists frippery; & a milliner’s shop has as much reason & worth.

  A few days since, by a lucky accident I met with a copy of a work of yours—“A week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.”—I read to with much interest,—and if I tell you plainly that I am delighted with the book, it is because I cannot help telling you so;—therefore you should pardon whatever is amiss in the expression.—I should like to ask you many questions touching your allusions to persons; such, for instance, is “What were the names of the “aged shepherd” and “youthful pastor”, p. 21?—what that of the “Concord poet” quoted on p. 49?—of the Justice of the Peace and Deacon, p. 68? what the name of “one who was born on its head waters; quoted on p. 90?—and many more of a similar nature; but I fear that such an act on the part of a stranger, would be but little short of impertinence, though it might be kindly considered by you; so I must not use that method of making myself “wise above what is written.”

  Next to confessing to you my admiration of your book, my object in writing you, is to make an enquiry for “Walden; or Life in the Woods,”—announced at the close of the “Week,” as shortly to be published. I have enquired for it in Boston, but no one can tell me anything about it. Will you please inform me if it has been published, and, if so, where it may be found?—Truly & Respectfully Yours,

  Geo. A. Bailey

  In behalf of its Managing Committee, I have the honor of inviting you to lecture before the “Portland Lyceum” on some Wednesday evening during the next winter. Your former animated and interesting discourse is fresh in the memory of its members, and they are very anxious to have their minds again invigorated, enlivened and instructed by you. If you consent to our request, will you be pleased to designate the time of the winter when you would prefer to come here?The Managers have been used to offer gentlemen who come here to lecture from a distance equivalent to your own, only the sum of twenty-five dollars, not under the name of pecuniary compensation for the lectures but for traveling expenses—

  An early and favorable reply will much oblige us.

  With great respect, Your obedient Servant,

  Josiah. Pierce, Jr

  Then came the difference between American & English scholars. H. said, the English were all bred in one way, to one thing, he had read many lives lately, & they were all one life, Southey, Campbell, Leigh Hunt, or whosoever, they went to Eton, they went to College, they went to London, they all knew each other, & never did not feel the ability of each. But here, Channing is obscure, Newcomb is obscure, & so all the Scholars are in a more natural, healthful & independent condition . . .

  Why are we so excellent at the humdrum of our musty household life, when quite aware of these majestic prerogatives? We do not try the virtue of the amulets we have. Thus we can think so much better, by thinking with a wise man. Yet we come together as a pair of six footers, always as six footers, & never on the ground of the immensities, which we have together authentically & awfully surveyed. Why not once meet & work on the basis of the Immensities, & not of the six feet?

  Yes, we have infinite powers, but cannot use them. When shall we attain our majority, & come to our estate? Henry admitted, of course, the solstice.

  As one of the Committee on Lectures of the Bigelow Mechanic Institute of this town, I wish to ascertain if you will deliver your lecture on “Cap[e] Cod” before the Institute on either Wednesday Evening of the month of January—

  An early answer will much oblige

  Yrs respectfully,

  Franklin Forbes

  P.S. If you prefer any other lecture of yours to the above mentioned, please name a day on which you can deliver it.

  I shall be happy to lecture before your Institution this winter, but it will be most convenient for me to do so on the 11th of December. If, however, I am confined to the month of January I will choose the first day of it . Will you please inform me as soon as convenient whether I can come any earlier.

  Yrs respectfully

  Henry D. Thoreau

  You may perhaps believe that I am writing to you from Ireland and not from Portland, making a blunder even in the date of the letter, when you read that this is for the purpose of apologizing for and correcting another error—I intended and ought to have designated the evening of January 15th and not of January 8th or 10th, as that on which we hoped to hear a lecture from you.

  With the wish that this newly appointed time, the fifteenth of January next, maybe equally acceptable to you,

  I am With great respect, Yours truly

  J. Pierce, Jr

  The thought of its greater independence and its closeness to nature diminishes the pain I feel when I see a more interesting child than usual destined to be brought up in a shanty. I see that for the present the child is happy and is not puny, and has all the wonders of nature for its toys. Have I not faith that its tenderness will in some way be cherished and protected, as the buds of the spring in the remotest and wildest wintry dell no less than in the garden plot and summer-house?

  I hear with pleasure that you are to lecture in Newburyport this week. Myself & wife are now living in town again, & we shall be very glad to see you at our house, if you like it better than a poor hotel. And you shall go as early as you please on Saturday—which is the great point, I find, with guests, however unflattering to the hosts.

  If I do not hear to the contrary I shall expect you, & will meet you at the cars.

  Very sincerely yours

  T. W. Higginson

  Certain meadows, as Heywood’s, contain warmer water than others and are slow to freeze . . .