# Pebbles and Shells (Hawkes collection)/Introduction

INTRODUCTION
In accordance with the above adjuration, so captivating to those to whom the apostrophe is addressed the almoner who subscribes himself herewith, at once opens out this new and effervescing volume of poems for their perusal, bespeaking from the world of letters a sympathetic ear, and consonance with its song: for,
The Book of Nature is ever full of ecstasy and beauty. Its leaves turn toward the sun. Its music is eolean. Its fountains are pellucid and inexhaustible. From its sources we have to draw and drink refreshingly. Perchance some of those who read these stanzas—some of those who have trod the sylvan paths which Thoreau so much loved, and which Longfellow never tired of describing with his pen, may be persuaded to link arms with the blind author, and so all saunter on together?
​It has been well said that there are but few great Nature lovers; that is strictly speaking, whose souls are in attune with the Creator's: but there have been a sufficient few to stamp their personality on the regions which they have animated. Thoreau's country, simple as it is, plain in its features, rough in its contour sometimes, is lovable because Thoreau has been there. We love the sods and the brown leaves which his feet have pressed. The wildwood precincts are hallowed by his memories. Men die, voices fail, and sentiment decays. Catbirds which are melodious in June squawk in August. Nevertheless, we love them all, birds and human kind, for what they were, and for what they have made their little spots of earth; and so, when the Hadley poet sings, we love him too. A quiet bit of country under an observant eye can be made to yield a store of happiness. Dudley Warner wheeled his settee around the garden-oak, to follow the sunshine or the shade, until he wore a path in the grass. N. P. Willis wrote winsome letters from under a bridge. And now, herewith, a vista opens before us down the forest lane. Methinks I hear the muffled drum beat of a partridge in the spruce. "Listen!" We feel already an impulse to proceed. Come with the poet! He will not sing in vain.
Our favorite Eugene Field is wont to dwell with sentimental fondness upon the memories of his dear Hampshire Hills: the old homestead, the cow pasture, the yearling colt, the watering trough, the deserted mill, the little red school house, and the playmates of his youth. But his reveries are liable to start a tear or draw his readers off into overgrown lanes and solitary corners, while Hawkes' themes, which bubble and flow from the self-same hillsides, are for the most part sparkling, treating of the ecstasies of the present hour. Sun pictures they are, ​indeed, and all the brighter, apparently, for being physiologically developed in the dark! He says himself:
The outburst is spontaneous and continuous. Perhaps it is because he is so young? And so we find his treble keyed to the notes of the bluebird. He twines his lute with the flowers that bloom in the spring and the clematis which climbs up over the porch. In the sunny corner he weaves his webs of fancy, while he inhales the sweet aroma which lures the insect tribes. In his mind's eye he watches them, as they flit from anther to corolla, and following after, gathers poesy from each bloom. Forsooth, it is a blessed thing to have no eyes, and so shut out the hideous things of earth!
Na'theless, the mind will not permit the material senses to dwell always in Elysium. Whenever the imagination strays into the Valley of the Dark Shadow, as it must sometimes, it conjures up all sorts of sombre themes; and on such occasions the vagrant muse emits an undertone like the rumble of water in a deep cavern. It is then the poet writes dramatically of battle fields and carnage in which he has had no part, and of chimeras which he has never seen. Ah! this discerning with the spiritual eye! who shall fathom it? Biologists are puzzled. But are not these mysterious lucubrations which so much surprise us, really the outcome of the divine nature which is in man? scintillations of omniscience, as it were, which we are told is an attribute of the immortal world? Does Drummond ​inform us exactly where the natural and the spiritual meet and blend?
It was my good fortune to be domiciled during the summer of 1893 under the same venerable rooftree with my blind young friend whose all seeing Muse has inspired this book of poems. I have touched elbows with him while we strolled under the spreading elms which double line the main thoroughfare of historic Hadley, and marvelled as we walked, to discover that his perception was in some respects more acute than mine; especially on pitch-dark nights, when I had to depend upon his subtle acumen to avoid obstacles which my natural eye could not perceive! He says the air seems more dense when objects intervene. And so it is that he recognizes open spaces and solid bodies like houses, trees and telegraph poles, as he passes along; or persons as they approach, on foot or in vehicles, even at considerable distances. He has correct ideas of locality and associated landmarks, and an apprehension of dangerous proximities, seldom stumbling over obstacles, or into a hole. In fact, throughout his everyday life there is a constant manifestation of psychical phenomena which it will be useless to attempt to account for until we come to realize that the carnal envelope with its five so-called senses is actually a hindrance rather than a help to a free operation of the spiritual energy.
In the case of Clarence Hawkes, he seems to possess the gift of clairvoyance. He easily discovers articles mislaid; reads character with correctness by a grasp of the hand; and when introduced to strangers will size up their height, weight, features, age, and state of health, as soon as he shakes hands with them. He knows when chairs and tables are removed from their wonted places without having to ascertain by feeling for them, and he can tell when people are in the ​room and how many there are even when perfect silence is preserved. No meteorological changes escape his notice. Fair weather cheers him and dull weather depresses him, more than it does most of those who see. He identifies the birds by their chirps and carols, the flowers by their odors, shrubs by their leaves, trees by their bark, and fishes by their shape and fins. He is a critical musician and a piano tuner, plays chess, works a type-writer, keeps scores of ball games, and travels all over the country without a companion. Few habitues of the mountain streams which thread his native hills in western Massachusetts are more deft in casting a fly or worm, or handling a trout. Most remarkable of all, he has discovered that the gamut is prismatic and that sounds have color. Middle C, he says, is deep red, and each ascending note grows lighter by degrees until the highest becomes white; while the lower tones are graded in darker shades till the very lowest shows black.
Mr. Hawkes received a four years' course of instruction at the Perkins Institute in Boston. His study of elocution at that time has fitted him for the lecture platform which he adorns. He has also been a successful magazine writer. His poem "Erosion" took the fourth prize among two thousand competitors for the prizes offered by the Magazine of Poetry this year. His younger brother, it is due to say, has been his constant help as reader and amanuensis for several years.
It is half a century since the literary world possessed a blind poet. Percival of New Haven was the last. But Percival had not the refined intellectuality of the author of this volume. As yet it is too soon to define his position among the literati; but if "Pebbles and Shells" are an index, the Blind Poet of New England is destined to occupy a high place among the ​great bards of America. The merits of some part of its contents have been so signal as to elicit an autograph letter of approval from Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, ex-Secretary of the Navy.
Charles Hallock.