Excerpts from “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” by H.D. Thoreau
We were soon floating past the first regular battle-ground of the Revolution,
resting on our oars between the still visible abutments of that “North
Bridge,” over which in , rolled the
first faint tide of that war, which ceased not, till, as we read on the stone
on our right, it “gave peace to these United States.” As a Concord poet has
sung:—
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
“The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.”
Our reflections had already acquired a historical remoteness from the scenes
we had left, and we ourselves essayed to sing.
Ah, ’t is in vain the peaceful din
That wakes the ignoble town,
Not thus did braver spirits win
A patriot’s renown.
There is one field beside this stream,
Wherein no foot does fall,
But yet it beareth in my dream
A richer crop than all.
Let me believe a dream so dear,
Some heart beat high that day,
Above the petty Province here,
And Britain far away;
Some hero of the ancient mould,
Some arm of knightly worth,
Of strength unbought, and faith unsold,
Honored this spot of earth;
Who sought the prize his heart described,
And did not ask release,
Whose free-born valor was not bribed
By prospect of a peace.
The men who stood on yonder height
That day are long since gone;
Not the same hand directs the fight
And monumental stone.
Ye were the Grecian cities then,
The Romes of modern birth,
Where the New England husbandmen
Have shown a Roman worth.
In vain I search a foreign land
To find our Bunker Hill,
And Lexington and Concord stand
By no Laconian rill.
With such thoughts we swept gently by this now peaceful pasture-ground, on
waves of Concord, in which was long since drowned the din of war.
…Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the
forest and the outlaw. There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of
anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated
man, — all whose bones can be bent! whose heaven-born virtues are but good manners!
The young pines springing up in the cornfields from year to year are to me a
refreshing fact. We talk of civilizing the Indian, but that is not the name
for his improvement. By the wary independence and aloofness of his dim forest
life he preserves his intercourse with his native gods, and is admitted from
time to time to a rare and peculiar society with Nature. He has glances of
starry recognition to which our saloons are strangers. The steady illumination
of his genius, dim only because distant, is like the faint but satisfying
light of the stars compared with the dazzling but ineffectual and short-lived
blaze of candles. The Society-Islanders had their day-born gods, but they were
not supposed to be “of equal antiquity with the atua fauau
po, or night-born gods.” It is true, there are the innocent pleasures of
country life, and it is sometimes pleasant to make the earth yield her
increase, and gather the fruits in their season, but the heroic spirit will
not fail to dream of remoter retirements and more rugged paths. It will have
its garden-plots and its parterres elsewhere than on the earth, and gather
nuts and berries by the way for its subsistence, or orchard fruits with such
heedlessness as berries. We would not always be soothing and taming nature,
breaking the horse and the ox, but sometimes ride the horse wild and chase the
buffalo. The Indian’s intercourse with Nature is at least such as admits of
the greatest independence of each. If he is somewhat of a stranger in her
midst, the gardener is too much of a familiar. There is something vulgar and
foul in the latter’s closeness to his mistress, something noble and cleanly in
the former’s distance. In civilization, as in a southern latitude, man
degenerates at length, and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes,
“Some nation yet shut in
With hills of ice.”
There are other, savager, and more primeval aspects of nature than our poets
have sung. It is only white man’s poetry. Homer and Ossian even can never
revive in London or Boston. And yet behold how these cities are refreshed by
the mere tradition, or the imperfectly transmitted fragrance and flavor of
these wild fruits. If we could listen but for an instant to the chant of the
Indian muse, we should understand why he will not exchange his savageness for
civilization. Nations are not whimsical. Steel and blankets are strong
temptations; but the Indian does well to continue Indian.
It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New
Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is
defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the
order of truth with which it deals. I know of no book that has so few readers.
There is none so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To Christians,
no less than Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness and a stumbling-block. There
are, indeed, severe things in it which no man should read aloud more than
once. — “Seek first the kingdom of heaven.” — “Lay not up for yourselves
treasures on earth.” — “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast,
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” — “For what is
a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” — Think of this,
Yankees! — “Verily, I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard
seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it
shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” — Think of repeating
these things to a New England audience! thirdly, fourthly, fifteenthly, till
there are three barrels of sermons! Who, without cant, can read them aloud?
Who, without cant, can hear them, and not go out of the meeting-house? They
never were read, they never were heard. Let but one of these
sentences be rightly read, from any pulpit in the land, and there would not be
left one stone of that meeting-house upon another.
Yet the New Testament treats of man and man’s so-called spiritual affairs too
exclusively, and is too constantly moral and personal, to alone content me,
who am not interested solely in man’s religious or moral nature, or in man
even. I have not the most definite designs on the future. Absolutely speaking,
Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you, is by no means a
golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but
little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a
case. The book has never been written which is to be accepted without any
allowance. Christ was a sublime actor on the stage of the world. He knew what
he was thinking of when he said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my
words shall not pass away.” I draw near to him at such a time. Yet he taught
mankind but imperfectly how to live; his thoughts were all directed toward
another world. There is another kind of success than his. Even here we have a
sort of living to get, and must buffet it somewhat longer. There are various
tough problems yet to solve, and we must make shift to live, betwixt spirit
and matter, such a human life as we can.
A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord,
and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subject for Christianity. The New
Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or most of his
days. He will rather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles, though
they were fishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and never
trolled for pickerel on inland streams.
Men have a singular desire to be good without being good for anything,
because, perchance, they think vaguely that so it will be good for them in the
end. The sort of morality which the priests inculcate is a very subtle policy,
far finer than the politicians, and the world is very successfully ruled by
them as the policemen. It is not worth the while to let our imperfections
disturb us always. The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolize
the whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head. It is as liable
to disease as any other part. I have seen some whose consciences, owing
undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt
children, and at length gave them no peace. They did not know when to swallow
their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk.
Conscience is instinct bred in the house,
Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin
By an unnatural breeding in and in.
I say, Turn it out doors,
Into the moors.
I love a life whose plot is simple,
And does not thicken with every pimple,
A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it,
That makes the universe no worse than ’t finds it.
I love an earnest soul,
Whose mighty joy and sorrow
Are not drowned in a bowl,
And brought to life to-morrow;
That lives one tragedy,
And not seventy;
A conscience worth keeping,
Laughing not weeping;
A conscience wise and steady,
And forever ready;
Not changing with events,
Dealing in compliments;
A conscience exercised about
Large things, where one may doubt.
I love a soul not all of wood,
Predestinated to be good,
But true to the backbone
Unto itself alone,
And false to none;
Born to its own affairs,
Its own joys and own cares;
By whom the work which God begun
Is finished, and not undone;
Taken up where he left off,
Whether to worship or to scoff;
If not good, why then evil,
If not good god, good devil.
Goodness! — yon hypocrite, come out of that,
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
I have no patience towards
Such conscientious cowards.
Give me simple laboring folk,
Who love their work,
Whose virtue is a song
To cheer God along.
In 1694 a law was passed “that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his rights therein.” But now, at any rate, as I have frequently observed, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories of truth and justice, which are the State’s best lands, for fear of far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any of his civil rights therein. Nay, townships are granted to deserters, and the General Court, as I am sometimes inclined to regard it, is but a deserters’ camp itself.
There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation. Wolff, travelling in the deserts of Bukhara, says, “Another party of dervishes came to me and observed, ‘The time will come when there shall be no difference between rich and poor, between high and low, when property will be in common, even wives and children.’ ” But forever I ask of such: What then? The dervishes in the deserts of Bukhara and the reformers in Marlboro’ Chapel sing the same song. “There’s a good time coming, boys,” but, asked one of the audience, in good faith, “Can you fix the date?” Said I, “Will you help it along?”
To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true state of things, the
political state can hardly be said to have any existence whatever. It is
unreal, incredible, and insignificant to him, and for him to endeavor to
extract the truth from such lean material is like making sugar from linen
rags, when sugar-cane may be had. Generally speaking, the political news,
whether domestic or foreign, might be written to-day for the next ten years,
with sufficient accuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to
interest, still less alarm us; but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or
the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend. Most events
recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the
sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the
trouble to calculate.
But will the government never be so well administered, inquired one, that we
private men shall hear nothing about it? “The king answered: At all events, I
require a prudent and able man, who is capable of managing the state affairs
of my kingdom. The ex-minister said: The criterion, O Sire! of a wise and
competent man is, that he will not meddle with such like matters.” Alas that
the ex-minister should have been so nearly right!
In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there
were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead. It
is grateful to make one’s way through this latest generation as through dewy
grass. Men are as innocent as the morning to the unsuspicious.
thieves and robbers all, nevertheless. I have not so surely foreseen that
any Cossack or
Chippeway would come to
disturb the honest and simple commonwealth, as that some monster institution
would at length embrace and crush its free members in its scaly folds; for it
is not to be forgotten, that while the law holds fast the thief and murderer,
it lets itself go loose. When I have not paid the tax which the State
demanded for that protection which I did not want, itself has robbed me; when
I have asserted the liberty it presumed to declare, itself has imprisoned me.
Poor creature! if it knows no better I will not blame it. If it cannot live
but by these means, I can. I do not wish, it happens, to be associated with
Massachusetts,
either in
holding
slaves or in
conquering
Mexico. I am a little better than herself in these respects. — As for
Massachusetts, that huge she
Briareus,
Argus
and Colchian Dragon conjoined, set to watch the Heifer of the
Constitution
and the Golden Fleece,
we would not warrant our respect for her, like some compositions, to preserve
its qualities through all weathers. — Thus it has happened, that not the
Arch Fiend himself has been
in my way, but these toils which tradition says were originally spun to
obstruct him. They are cobwebs and trifling obstacles in an earnest man’s
path, it is true, and at length one even becomes attached to his unswept and
undusted garret. I love man — kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead
un-kind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the
last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but
their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons,
commonly. They are all
Dudleian;
and piety derives its origin still from that exploit of
piusÆneas, who bore his
father, Anchises, on his
shoulders from the ruins of
Troy. Or rather, like some
Indian
tribes, we bear about with us the mouldering relics of our ancestors on our
shoulders. If, for instance, a man asserts the value of individual liberty
over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still tolerates him, that
he who is living near him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the
State. Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in
his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailer or constable it may be,
he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the
tragedy; that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called
wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal
ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and what else may not come in by this
opening? But certainly there are modes by which a man may put bread into his
mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.
Undoubtedly, countless reforms are called for, because society is not
animated, or instinct enough with life, but in the condition of some snakes
which I have seen in early spring, with alternate portions of their bodies
torpid and flexible, so that they could wriggle neither way. All men are
partially buried in the grave of custom, and of some we see only the crown of
the head above ground. Better are the physically dead, for they more lively
rot. Even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man’s life should be
constantly as fresh as this river. It should be the same channel, but a new
water every instant.
“Virtues as rivers pass,
But still remains that virtuous man there was.”
Most men have no inclination, no rapids, no cascades, but marshes, and
alligators, and miasma instead. We read that when in the expedition of
Alexander,
Onesicritus was sent
forward to meet certain of the
Indian sect of
Gymnosophists, and
he had told them of those new philosophers of the West,
Pythagoras,
Socrates, and
Diogenes, and
their doctrines, one of them named
Dandamis
answered, that “They appeared to him to have been men of genius, but to have
lived with too passive a regard for the laws.” The philosophers of the West
are liable to this rebuke still.
“They
say that Lieou-hia-hoei, and Chao-lien did not sustain to the end their
resolutions, and that they dishonored their character. Their language was in
harmony with reason and justice; while their acts were in harmony with the
sentiments of men.”
Chateaubriand said: “There are two things which grow stronger in the
breast of man, in proportion as he advances in years: the love of country and
religion. Let them be never so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or later
present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms, and excite in the
recesses of our hearts an attachment justly due to their beauty.” It may be
so. But even this infirmity of noble minds marks the gradual decay of youthful
hope and faith. It is the allowed infidelity of age. There is a saying of the
Yoloffs, “He who was
born first has the greatest number of old clothes,” consequently
M. Chateaubriand
has more old clothes than I have. It is comparatively a faint and reflected
beauty that is admired, not an essential and intrinsic one. It is because the
old are weak, feel their mortality, and think that they have measured the
strength of man. They will not boast; they will be frank and humble. Well, let
them have the few poor comforts they can keep. Humility is still a very human
virtue. They look back on life, and so see not into the future. The prospect
of the young is forward and unbounded, mingling the future with the present.
In the declining day the thoughts make haste to rest in darkness, and hardly
look forward to the ensuing morning. The thoughts of the old prepare for night
and slumber. The same hopes and prospects are not for him who stands upon the
rosy mountain-tops of life, and him who expects the setting of his earthly day.
I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name of it, was not given us
for no purpose, or for a hindrance. However flattering order and expediency
may look, it is but the repose of a lethargy, and we will choose rather to be
awake, though it be stormy, and maintain ourselves on this earth and in this
life, as we may, without signing our death-warrant. Let us see if we cannot
stay here, where He has put us, on his own conditions. Does not his law reach
as far as his light? The expedients of the nations clash with one another,
only the absolutely right is expedient for all.
There are some passages in the
Antigone of
Sophocles, well known to scholars, of which I am reminded in this
connection. Antigone has resolved to sprinkle sand on the dead body of her
brother Polynices, notwithstanding the edict of King Creon condemning to death
that one who should perform this service, which the Greeks deemed so
important, for the enemy of his country; but Ismene, who is of a less resolute
and noble spirit, declines taking part with her sister in this work, and says,—
“I, therefore, asking those under the earth to consider me, that I am
compelled to do thus, will obey those who are placed in office; for to do
extreme things is not wise.”
ANTIGONE: “I would not ask you, nor would
you, if you still wished, do it joyfully with me. Be such as seems good to
you. But I will bury him. It is glorious for me doing this to die. I beloved
will lie with him beloved, having, like a criminal, done what is holy; since
the time is longer which it is necessary for me to please those below, than
those here, for there I shall always lie. But if it seems good to you, hold in
dishonor things which are honored by the gods.”
ISMENE: “I indeed do not hold them in
dishonor; but to act in opposition to the citizens I am by nature unable.”
Antigone being at length brought before King Creon, he asks,—
“Did you then dare to transgress these laws?”
ANTIGONE: “For it was not Zeus who proclaimed
these to me, nor Justice who dwells with the gods below; it was not they who
established these laws among men. Nor did I think that your proclamations were
so strong, as, being a mortal, to be able to transcend the unwritten and
immovable laws of the gods. For not something now and yesterday, but forever
these live, and no one knows from what time they appeared. I was not about to
pay the penalty of violating these to the gods, fearing the presumption of any
man. For I well knew that I should die, and why not? even if you had not
proclaimed it.”
