# Thoreau: His Home, Friends and Books/Chapter 1

CHAPTER I
THOREAU'S CONCORD AND ITS ENVIRONS
THOREAU and Concord are interdependent words; either suggests its complement. The meadows, cliffs and wooded hills, the interlinked streams, which form the specific landscape of this region, have been stamped by Thoreau's personal, even proprietary, seal. In early recognition of this mystic bond he wrote,—"Almost I believe the Concord would not rise and overflow its banks again, were I not here." If Thoreau's writings are photographs of the town and its contiguous scenery, his name and memory, in turn, are vivified on many a local shrine. The visitor to Concord to-day, even as he leaves the station, is attracted by the sign, "Thoreau Street." The larger hotel preserves a part of the ancestral home of Thoreau's family and until recently, this name has been above its lintel. In Thoreau's journal, mention is made of seven different houses where his family lived at sundry periods, and one is tempted to pause before any residence of suggestive aspect and inquire, "Did Thoreau once ​live here?" Some of these family homes have been removed or remodeled but others remain, including his birthplace, moved from its original site, and his last home, near the junction of Thoreau and Main streets.
The pervasive atmosphere of his memory extends through the town, from the willow banks of the Concord river to the woods encircling Walden, with its monumental cairn of world-wide contributions. Near Emerson's house are shade-trees and shrubs planted by Thoreau. He also beautified, with locusts and fruit-trees, the terraced hillside behind Alcott's "Orchard House." On the very summit of Ridge Path in Sleepy Hollow, overlooking the hills and meadows which he revered, is his plain memorial stone. Here, as in the world of letters, his name rests beside Emerson, Alcott, and Hawthorne. While Concord was loved by this trio of authors, it was in no case an exclusive allegiance. All were born elsewhere, all had lived long in other places, and all had visited foreign lands. In contrast with their broader sympathies, as regards locale, was the intense, restrictive devotion of Thoreau to the village where he was born, where he spent nearly all his life, and where alone he was able to develop and disclose his true character.
​It would be difficult to example elsewhere in literary history such rapt devotion to home-country. Scott at Abbotsford, Ruskin at Brantwood, Irving at Sunnyside, reveal passionate love for chosen landscape but these were residences of later years; to their serenity the authors returned from travels and conflicts amid other scenes. Perhaps, as in other phases of comparison, one is here reminded most often of Wordsworth, yet the peace of Rydal Mount succeeded years of troublous excitement and travel on the continent. Thoreau was an aggressive promulgator of the Emersonian maxim,—"Traveling is a fool's paradise." On return from brief and few excursions into regions not far distant, he was eager to reaffirm the beauties and blessings of Concord. Alcott well said,—"Thoreau thought he lived in the centre of the universe and would annex the rest of the planet to Concord." It was the mission of this poet-lover of nature to select and apotheosize in permanent form the picturesque features of Concord landscape and soil, and to bequeath to later times a rare example of nature's influence as incentive to the purest, loftiest ideals of life and the most varied and poetic concepts in literature. Hawthorne was not unjust to the scenery of Concord and its vicinage when he affirmed the lack of any marked features of beauty ​or grandeur, though he recognized that upon these hazy meadows "the heart reposed with secure homeliness" amid more distinct and sublime vistas. The fine villas and velvet terraces, which now adorn the river-slopes, belong to the Concord of to-day, well-nigh a suburb of Boston, and were unknown to the home-town of Hawthorne and Thoreau.
Placidity is the most pervasive quality of the scenery and life of Concord. It offers a restful welcome to the traveler to-day, even as it gave to the sages and poets who became its residents more than sixty years ago. Each visit awakens gratitude that these early literary homes are allowed to escape the fiends of demolition or improvement. The Old Manse retains the quaint duskiness of the days of Dr. Eipley and Hawthorne; one recalls the latter's apt comment that to desecrate the exterior with a coat of new paint would seem "like rouging the venerable cheeks of one's grandmother." The dun, weather-browned, tints of the Orchard House, merging into the sombre hillside, remain an unchanged monument to Alcott's memory and the heroic efforts of his daughter to provide home-comforts for this "pathetic family." The Thoreau-Alcott house is still "the Yellow House," product in part of Thoreau's manual skill, and surrounded ​ FROM NASHAWTUC HILL Placidity is the most pervasive quality of the scenery and life of Concord ​by pines and maples of his grafting. There are few places where the entrance of the trolley seems more inept, if not sacrilegious, than in Concord. "Margaret Sidney," a loyal daughter of later Concord, has said, with pleasing truth and fancy mingled,—"When all things shall come up for a final adjustment in the last great day of days, it seems that Concord might be gently passed by and allowed, amid general dissolution, to hold herself together untouched. . . . With a not unpleasing indifference to material progress, she adjusts her opinions on every subject, considers this adjustment final, and rests by her river, gentle, sluggish, persistent as herself."
The river, thus fittingly characterized, is the primal element in the landscape. The expanse of meadow and bog is relieved of monotony by the tortuous, interwoven paths of the Assabet and Sudbury rivers, forming, at their juncture, the Concord. Overgrown with grasses, slowly meandering past the town, this river was a source of unfailing delight to Thoreau. Guiding his boat through its tortuous traces, bathing in its waters, skating over its narrow channel, or gathering from its banks and inlets some rare aquatic plants, the Concord river is associated with many happy hours and most poetic pages. He usually chose its Indian name, ​Musketaquid, the grass-grown; he symbolized its gradual ingress and slumber:
"The river swelleth more and more, Like some sweet influence stealing o'er The passive town:" ***** "No ripple shows Musketaquid, Her very current e'en is hid, As deepest souls do calmest rest, When thoughts are swelling in the breast. And she that in the summer's drought Doth make a ripple and a rout, Sleeps from Nawshawtuck to the Cliff, Unruffled by a single skiff." ***** "Methinks 'twas in this school of art Venice and Naples learned their part."
Secondary to the river and its rustic bridges, as elements of pictorial beauty, is a circlet of lakes, or more properly, ponds, all familiar to Thoreau's readers,—Bateman's Pond, Flint's Pond, Goose Pond, and White Pond, "the lesser twin of Walden." By the banks of river or pond, the tourist seeks the hibiscus or marsillia, or waits for the appearance of pickerel or bream, whose friendly habits were so familiar to the man who renounced the role of angler for that of poet. From the cliffs above the river, Monadnock and Wachusett are outlined in the distance, while in the foreground are many of Thoreau's favorite walks. Frequent are his ​journal allusions to the old Carlisle road, the tract of swamp and woodland to the northeast, to the Easterbrook Country, farther west, begirt with birches and cedars and enticing with apple-orchards and berry pastures, and to Nine Acre Corner and Fairhaven southward, affording unsurpassed glories of sunset. The winding highway towards Sudbury and Marlborough has a special charm, for it was his chosen ramble. He once wrote in fanciful analogy,—"the pathway towards heaven lies south or southwest along the old Marlborough Road." In lighter, buoyant tone, in the essay on "Walking," he included the stanzas on this favorite expanse of country:
"When the spring stirs my blood With the instinct to travel, I can get enough gravel On the old Marlborough Road. Nobody repairs it, For nobody wears it;" ***** "If with fancy unfurled You leave your abode, You may go round the world By the Old Marlborough Road."
The pines enclosing Walden, and the Lincoln woods beyond, form picturesque background to the Concord meadows. Sauntering thither from the town, along the red, sandy road, past Laurel Glen ​and Brister's Hill, the reader of Thoreau notes the varieties of willows, pines, and maple keys, listens to the notes of veery, bluebird, or pewee, or watches a gay chipmunk in his gallop over the trees. Hickories and pines still form close barricade around the little lake of Walden, though the woods are more sparse than when Thoreau threaded their mazes. Sundry footpaths all verge towards the cairn, witnessing its thousand yearly visitors. A hundred rods away, the modern pavilions of a pleasure park have detracted from the beauty and sacred peace of this nature-shrine.
Such are some of the scenes visited by pilgrims, not because Concord contains rare historical monuments alone, nor yet in memory of her sage and romancer, but because they have been immortalized, "covered with suitable inscriptions," by the hand of Thoreau. As naturalist, he has revealed the hidden secrets of flora, wood-fibre, and bird-life throughout the Concord region with a completeness and poetry unsurpassed. As man, he found pleasure in the free, agrarian life of his birth-town and it is fitting to recall briefly the social and political environment. Concord of to-day is about twice as large in population as the village of Thoreau's records. In active life, however, it is hardly less somnolent than fifty years ago, for it was then the ​shire-town and the direct trade-mart for farmers and lumbermen en route from New Hampshire to Boston. Through Concord passed stages for Boston, Lowell and Framingham; the four taverns were well patronized in those earlier decades when toddy was a symbol of hospitality not of inebriety. With extremes of heat and cold, lacking the luxuries of modern houses, the people developed that sturdy, self-reliant endurance which characterized the best New England communities. If the sheets froze about their faces on cold nights, as Thoreau related, and a drop of water from the pitcher at once congealed upon the floor, yet they possessed that vigor of body and soul which is fostered by hardihood, not indulgence. Around the wide fireplace, they gathered with zest for leisurely, earnest conversation, when the evening came, a happiness too little known in these later days of over-heated houses and hurried gossip of the hour.
The old-time farms, with their hospitable inmates, the Arcadian homesteads of the Minotts, the Barretts, the Hosmers, formed the nucleus of Thoreau's domestic pictures. During his encampment at Walden, he visited his farmer-friends almost every day or lingered at the few village homes where he was most welcome. With a touch of keen insight, mixed with humor, he describes, in "Walden," the typical ​village street, its interests, and its residents: "I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office and the bank; and, as a necessary part of the machinery, they kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire engine at convenient places, and the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one another, so that every traveler had to run the gauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him. Of course, those who were stationed nearest to the head of the line, where they could most see and be seen, and have the first blow at him, paid the highest prices for their places; and the few straggling inhabitants in the outskirts, where long gaps in the line began to occur, and the traveler could get over walls or turn aside into cow-paths, and so escape, paid a very slight ground or window tax. Signs were hung out on all sides to allure him; some to catch him by the appetite as the tavern or victualing cellar; some by the fancy, as the dry-goods store or the jeweler's; and others by the hair, the feet, or the skirts, as the barber, the shoemaker, or the tailor. Besides there was a still more terrible standing invitation to call at every one of these houses, and company expected about these times. For the most part I escaped wonderfully from these dangers, either by ​proceeding at once boldly and without deliberation to the goal, as is recommended to those who run the gauntlet, or by keeping my thoughts on high things like Orpheus, who, 'loudly singing the praises of the god to his lyre, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and kept out of danger.' Sometimes, I bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not stand much about gracefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a fence. I was even accustomed to make an irruption into some houses, where I was well entertained, and after learning the kernels and the very last sieveful of news, what had subsided, the prospects of war and peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together much longer, I was let out through the rear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again."
To Thoreau's lifelong devotion, as to the present-day visitor, Concord represents far more than a rich botanical region or a serene village of happy farmlands and mild trade. While Thoreau lingered fondly upon the topography, he often recalled the landmarks of Concord history, from that early settlement by Peter Bulkeley in 1635, whose Concord with the Indian chief, Tahatawan, is still commemorated by the tablet on the Lowell Road, under "Jethro's Oak." Among Thoreau's "Familiar Letters," edited by Mr. Sanborn, none exceed in interest that written ​to his brother in 1837, under guise of "Tahatawan, to his brother sachem, Hopewell of Hopewell." It preserves the dialect and superstitious phrases of Indian epistles, and abounds in deft, droll allusions to both traditions of the primeval settlers and also to current political and social incidents.
In the days of anti-slavery conflict, Thoreau often appealed to his townsmen for a revival of that spirit of resistance to oppression and wrong, which had given to the name of Concord primal rank in the making of independent American history. His own ancestors were buried on the hillside, hard by the powder-house and site of the liberty pole, and close to the graves of Major Buttrick and his heroes of that immemorial April day of 1775. Opposite was the old Unitarian church, where the Provincial Congress had convened in 1774. At the Old North Bridge, where nature seems at her apogee of peaceful beauty, had already been erected the first monument to Concord valor. As her men had enrolled themselves upon the side of right and liberty in the earlier struggle, so again she took preeminent part in behalf of free speech and defiance to any laws which openly or covertly favored slavery. Here centred vital thoughts and acts at the time of John Brown's martyrdom. To Concord, though it was not, as has been averred, a ​station on the underground railway, came fugitive slaves, to receive aid from Alcott, Emerson, Sanborn and members of the Thoreau family. Concord welcomed lecturers and reformers of radical type during the crucial years of the mid-century. At the Concord Town-Hall in 1857, John Brown made his famous plea; thence he set forth on his fatal mission; here kind attentions were later given to his family.
Always active alike in movements of reform and of education, the little town possessed a rare mentality and her efforts to increase true culture mark the beginnings of the great revival of social and educational life in New England. The mental lethargy of the first quarter of the nineteenth century had resulted in narrow adherence to fixed tenets and customs in religion and society, with a corresponding self-satisfaction, which often hid real ignorance and was always fatal to creative advance along intellectual and educational lines. The movements towards freedom in thought and religion, exampled in Unitarianism and Transcendentalism, found many earnest disciples in Concord, men and women ever eager to know the truth in its free fulness. Among pioneer towns, she established higher schools, Atheneum and Reading Room, Mutual Improvement Society and the Lyceum, ​which brought thither some of the most famous orators of that day when the orator was fast superseding the clergyman as exponent of intellect and politics. During Thoreau's manhood, the anti-slavery sentiment increased, with its digressive themes for bitter dispute, and the Lyceum, here as elsewhere, prohibited for a time all allusions to "religious or political controversy, or other exciting topics upon which the public mind is honestly divided." In Concord, where Emerson was curator of the Lyceum, a long and ultimately victorious battle was waged against these limits to free speech. Among some unpublished letters, granted for use in this volume, is one written by Thoreau's elder sister, Helen, which refers to this matter and gives a vivid picture of Concord's life during these years of political and intellectual revolution.
"Concord, April 27, 1845.
"Dear Miss———:
"I wish to thank you for the nice long letter you sent by Henry in return for my little note, and also to remind you of the meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society at the Tabernacle in New York on the 6th of May. You must not fail to attend and I hope to meet you at the New England Convention.—Aunt Maria has, I suppose, kept you informed of our controversy with the Lyceum, a Hard battle but Victory at last. Next winter we shall have undoubtedly a free Lyceum. ​Mr. Emerson says that words cannot express his admiration of Mr. Phillips' lecture. Did you receive the paper containing Henry's article about it? I am glad that you like the Hutchinsons. One of our meetings last May was closed with their Emancipation Song,—the whole audience rising and joining in the last huzza.
"I long to see you in Concord again. We always have something stirring here. Aunt M. will, of course, tell you all the news. Remember me to your brother and sister and believe me ever yours,
"Helen."
When Emerson, in 1834, came to his ancestral town, to mingle a poet's coveted quiet with delight in intellectual and congenial society, new impetus was given to the freedom and culture already existent in Concord, and a literary fame was added, which the writings of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott, and his daughter were destined to augment. Like nearly all New England towns of sixty years ago, Concord was, in aim, liberal and democratic in social and educational affairs, yet she maintained rigidly certain traditions and exclusions. Emerson's residence, bringing hither poets, philosophers, orators and reformers, of all social grades, acted somewhat as a social leveler and largely eliminated that aristocratic coldness so prevalent elsewhere in New England. Concord retained, and justly, pride in her family names of renown; to her venerable ​"Social Circle" only Emerson among her authors was admitted in membership; yet the influences towards free thought and literary expression enabled her to recognize intellect and genius of varied kinds, apart from all exclusive social rank. Inevitably there were occasions when family pride dominated broader impulses but, in the main, this town, which won Thoreau's persistent devotion, represented hardy, and kindly, democracy. Senator George F .Hoar, a member of the family of highest social rank, in recalling the memories of his boyhood in Concord, says: "The people, old and young, constituted one great family. . . . They esteemed each other because of personal character, and not on account of wealth, or holding office."
As a courageous and progressive individual is likely to receive misinterpretation from his inert neighbor, content with the laissez-faire principles of society, so a community that takes precedence in reform or education is sure to win envious and dubious comment. An older inhabitant of Concord recalls that, during these years of agitated politics and seething reforms in philosophy and literature, the outside world regarded Concord people "as very queer." Emerson, in his journal, records the mixed pride of the place where visited Everett and Webster, Garrison and Phillips, Bancroft and ​"Whittier, and where also came "shows and processions, conjurors and bear-gardens, and even Herr Driesbach with cats and snakes."
The atmosphere of Concord during Thoreau's life was stimulative to free, earnest speculation on life and was instinct with simple, noble ideals and purposes. It was fitted to produce men of unusual genius in literature and independence in character, whose words and acts might savor of unconventionally but whose influence fostered purity, reform, and true culture. Much has been written of the famous men who have immortalized Concord but inadequate praise has been given to the coterie of noble, brilliant women of these families of renown. Madam Emerson, with due priority of rank, is best described by her grandson's words,—"a serene and beautiful presence in the household," whose chamber became a sanctuary. Nobly had she triumphed over tragic losses, poverty, and sickness: educating, with rare wisdom, her five boys, she lived to share the home and honor of her most famous son. Mrs. Lidian Emerson added to wonderful beauty of face, mind and soul, the sagacity and helpfulness of the best womanhood. She could bear her part in philosophical discussions and, at the same time, preserve the graciousness of an ideal mother and hostess. Mrs. Alcott, of the famous May family, ​bad the dramatic, vigorous intellect reflected in her daughter's stories. She was always efficient, sympathetic, brave, through a life that would have crushed or embittered any ordinary woman. Never swerving in practical devotion to her philosopher-husband, with his idealistic fancies which constantly proved futile for family support, she and her daughters must have realized, from years of patient endurance, Louisa Alcott's famous definition of a philosopher,—"a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down."
The spiritual Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, with artistic and poetic tastes, always guarding her husband from a prurient world, exerted a subtle influence upon the Concord circle. Ellen Fuller, wife of the eccentric poet, Channing,—last survivor of this early literary group,—and her more famous sister, Margaret Fuller, contributed to the free intellectuality of the town. Elizabeth Hoar, with a mind of great breadth and beauty, wielded a strong influence for culture and democracy through her own personality and her family name. The wife and daughters of Edmund Hosmer well typified those early families of husbandry in which mental life received marked expansion. Mrs. Cheney, the friend of Daniel Webster, at her beautiful home on ​the river-slope, was the hostess of many famous visitors from the political and social ranks. Mrs. Thoreau and her daughters, no less than her sisters and her husband's sisters, had assured places among the Concord women who contributed large measure to the mental prestige of the town. Like other women of this transcendental age and circle, they were often harassed by severe anxieties, for to their prudent, sagacious brains were relegated many problems of domestic economy. "Plain living and high thinking," a spiritual preference to their husbands, became a practical necessity to these women, that they might preserve the health of their children and, at the same time, maintain their own mental poise.
​No place other than Concord could be so fittingly identified with Thoreau's personality. The varied and prodigal forms of nature allured him to become her poet and naturalist. The independence and virility of intellectual life awakened his speculative mind to search for a new philosophy of living. The literary impulse of the town fostered innate love for letters and encouraged him to preserve thoughts on nature and humanity destined to bring fame to his loved "Rome." Born, bred, and tested amid such environment, his inherited traits, to be noted in the next chapter, reached full development and created a personality unique in American literature. As he immortalized Concord scenery and products, so, in turn, was his strange and plastic genius evolved by her intellectual activity. In an address at the dedication of the Concord Public Library in 1873, Emerson well summarized these varied bonds which identified Thoreau with his parental town. These words, among the later public utterances of Emerson, have escaped the use of Thoreau's biographers. The sentences of possible reproach and disappointment, spoken or written about Thoreau by this first teacher and friend of renown, have been widely quoted and often misconstrued. It is fitting that these later sentences of frank, careful analysis should also be recorded, as testimony to the mutual ​pride existent between Thoreau and Concord: "Henry Thoreau we all remember as a man of genius and of marked character, known to our farmers as the most skilful of surveyors, and indeed better acquainted with their forests and meadows and trees than themselves, but more widely known as the writer of some of the best books which have been written in this country and which, I am persuaded, have not yet gathered half their fame. He too, was an excellent reader. No man would have rejoiced more than he in the event of this day."