CHAPTER IX THE QUIET EIGHTEEN-EIGHTIES 1882-1884 What matter if I stand alone? I wait with joy the coming years; My heart shall reap where it hath sown, BURROUGHS UNEVENTFUL, as men regard the lives of their fellows, is the life pictured in Journal and letters during this period — a life in which the breaking up of the ice on the river, the advent of the spring flowers, the tinge of yellow creeping on the willows, the discovery of a rare bird's nest, to name a few, are events of signal interest; when the finding of a goldfinch entangled in a web, and its release, make the day memorable; when more companionship is had with Plutarch and SainteBeuve than with men of his own day; when, for a time, that great Carlylean poem, 'Frederick the Great,' colors all his thoughts and days; when brief meetings with literary friends and an occasional lecture in New York are ripples in the tranquil stream. Echoes from the world of politics or from current events are but rarely heard, yet in the few that do occur the diarist is seen to be more a part of his times than the scarcity of such entries would indicate. Wide as are his interests in books and nature and current events, he is most concerned in a few humble lives in the little village where he was born. As he said of Carlyle, so may it be said of him: 'The family stamp was never more strongly set upon a man. . . . He is his father and mother touched to finer issues. . . . A vague, yearning homesickness seemed ever to possess him.' Indeed, diverse as were their natures, I doubt if any two literary men, past or present, were ever so closely akin in reverence and affection for their kindred as were Thomas Carlyle and John Burroughs. The following passage which he quotes from Carlyle reveals the kinship between him and the mournful Scot: 'The Hill I first saw the sun rise over, when the Sun and I and all things were yet in their auroral hour who can divorce me from it? Mystic, deep as the world's centre, are the roots I have struck into my Native Soil; no tree that grows is rooted so.' The returned travelers were soon busy at the old tasks, he with vineyard and writing, and his wife with the fall campaign of housecleaning. The latter event was regarded with unwonted equanimity by the man, safe in his snuggery, his confidence reinforced by the Scotch lassie who came back with them. He soon began writing up his English impressions, finding in himself more on the subject than he anticipated. In the light of later developments, it is amusing to read this passage from the Journal: The writings of Emerson and Thoreau drew readers to seek them personally. My books do not bring readers to me [sic], but send them to Nature. I take credit to myself on this account. I seek always to hold the mirror of my mind up to Nature, that the reader may find her lineaments alone reflected there. I remember that this is one of the great merits of the 'gentle Shakespeare'; himself you see not, only the great world compacted and idealized as in a Claude Lorraine mirror. Shakespeare, I take it, was really a gentle spirit who never obtruded himself; who made little impression upon those who knew him; so that the memory of him was quickly lost; far less of an egotist, say, than Ben Jonson, and with a less striking personality - all his vast power working in a kind of impersonal way, just the contrary, say, of such a man as Carlyle. As a matter of fact, during the last four decades of his life, John Burroughs was probably more sought after, had more of a personal following, more contacts with his readers, both through correspondence and in person, than any other American author has had, and, probably, more than any other author of modern times. Oct. 4. Go out Home today with Wife and Julian, a bright, lovely day. At the crossing near Roxbury a first-class American railroadcrossing tragedy.' 1 Here follows a graphic account of the terrible scene they, as passengers, witnessed when the train stopped. Both he and Mrs. Burroughs were called to court as witnesses. He used to tell what a good witness Mrs. Burroughs made, and what a poor one he made, she so positive and emphatic, he uncertain and hesitant. When it came to swearing just where they were when the train whistled, how long it whistled, how long it was after whistling before the train reached the crossing, he was unwilling to give positive testimony. 'She was probably no more certain than I was on these points, but she thought she was, and gave such positive testimony that she made what is called a good witness. If they had asked me what I saw after the accident, I could have told them accurately enough.' One of his few comments on current politics occurs in an October letter to Gilder: I should like to know the private thoughts of Arthur and his stalwart crew just now. That set is done for, thank the Lord! Perhaps the whole party is, but if so, it is legitimate and right. When the mountain and the valley change places, there is some deep principle or force at work. In the subjoined letter, from one of the Concord Brahmins, one sees how transcendentally fruit from the Riverby vineyard was received in Concord If the genuine Concord philosophy does not, as you intimate, flourish outside of Concord, its 'wine that never grew fair clusters, sunned under wise eyes, ripened in vineyards by the fertile banks of the Hudson, do flourish there, and find way to gladden some of the host here dwelling by sluggish Concord stream. The crate came safely to hand yesterday. And that your generous gift shall not be selfishly appropriated and enjoyed, our friends and yours - Channing, Sanborn, and Harris—are to partake thereof this evening at our fortnightly Symposium, our Mystic Club. So if perchance we get heady. My thanks for your generous gift and your kind remembrance of me. Come yourself and see us. Cordially yours To Whitman in late October: A. BRONSON ALCOTT I was much disturbed by your card. I had been thinking of you as probably enjoying these superb autumn days down in the country, and here you are wretched and sick at home. I trust you are better now. You need a change. I dearly wish that as soon as you are well enough you would come up here and spend a few weeks with us. We could have a good time here in my bark-covered shanty, and in knocking about the country. Let me know that you will come. Specimen Days [and Collect] came all right. I do not like the last part of the title; it brings me up with such a short turn. I have read most of the new matter and like it.... I have just received an English book Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Steven son, with an essay upon you in it, but it does not amount to much. He has the American vice of smartness and flippancy.... I am bank-examining nowadays but shall be free again pretty soon. O'Connor writes me that he is going to publish his Tribune letters in a pamphlet, with some other matter. I am glad to hear it. He draws blood every time. I fear poor old Alcott will not rally; indeed, he may be dead now. I had a pleasant letter from him the other day. I had sent him a crate of Concord grapes. I am very stupid today. For the past two weeks my brain has been ground between the upper and nether millstones of bank ledgers, and it is sore.... To Edward Dowden, in mid-December, he writes: Time, the broker, has discounted my locks at a usurious rate since I last saw your handwriting, but I manage to keep him away from my heart yet. In five years one is bound to pay some tribute to him. But he has touched Whitman much more lightly than his friends had any reason to hope. When I last saw him, not many months past, he looked better and moved better than he had for years. There appears to be a freshness and a youthfulness in his very physiology that is proof against the years. You have touched off his book with delightful grace and ease. It is just the kind of notice that will please him.. ... I was on your side of the Atlantic the past summer with wife and youngster; passed the coast of Ireland; smelled its peat hearth fires; thought of you, and wafted greetings in your direction. On our return in August I passed a day in the north of Ireland, walking over the hills and among the humble little farms. If it had not been for the distracted state of the country, I should have taken Dublin in our route, and made an attempt to look you up.... It is quite an easy thing to do now to cross the Atlantic, and I sincerely hope you may yet see your way to do it. I will agree to meet your steamer in New York anytime you will name, and will take you to Whitman and will show you the country in one man the country as it is to be. If you cannot leave home, do as I did, bring your home with you. I seem to see less from your pen in the current British periodical literature than formerly. I hope your routine work there in the College is not dulling your enthusiasm for the old pursuit.... I am interested in your immersion in Goethe. I have always been skeptical about the heart of that monster of the deep, and now that you describe yourself as being quite within his belly, I hope you will look about you sharply for that piece of his anatomy. It is a task I have set for myself within the coming year, to study him carefully once more, and see if my early impression of him was well-founded or not. He is a giant, no doubt; there is something almost impious in his insight into nature, but I doubt if I could ever come to love him. ... About this time the Authors' Club of New York, in process of organization, expressed itself at one of the preliminary meetings as unwilling to include Whitman. In high dudgeon, Burroughs wrote Stedman to strike his name from their list. Stedman's reply, with its intimation that he might sometime reconsider and join them, must have heightened his anger several degrees. He did not reconsider, but in later years occasionally attended special dinners of the Club. Medical prognostications now began to cast a shadow over the spirit of our author. He wrote Benton he must go to New York to rub the moss and lichens off him, and let a medicineman make some passes and grimaces over his painful shoulder. He went, but the medicine-man made an examination, and the patient made the grimaces. The diagnosis (hardening of the arteries) hung like a Damocletian sword for months to come over the impressionable patient; but, as he said later, he lived to see the grass grow green for a score of years, and more, upon the grave of his medical friend. New friendships and interests soon helped to dispel the forebodings occasioned by the disquieting diagnosis. Bird-students came to walk the woods with him; his son was developing finely; his essays were bringing interesting, sometimes racy, correspondents; he was writing on themes of absorbing interest, and reading Darwin with avidity was, in fact, beginning to live a much less sequestered life than heretofore. That he would have liked to keep in closer touch with literary friends, the following letter to Stedman, written in early January, shows: Your wistful glance toward the country in your note of 30th ulto. reminds me that here is where you ought to be, and that there is a good foot-hold here for you alongside of me — a home already made if you want such, and a suitable plot of ground if you want to do your own planning (or planting) and building. The Frothingham estate here could be bought for about $25,000; it would cut up into four homesteads. There is a fine large farm and immense fruit orchards. A friend of mine wants part of it, and I should be very glad to have some neighbors of my own choosing on the rest of it. Come up and found a literary colony here, and we will have an Authors' club meeting four times a week. The West Shore RR will have a station close by.... My leisure up here is like that of Nature herself. I have a drawer |