Passages from the American Notebooks Volume II Part 9

I saw, for a wonder, a man pretty drunk at Parker's the other evening,--a well-dressed man, of not ungentlemanly aspect. He talked loudly and foolishly, but in good phrases, with a great flow of language, and he was no otherwise impertinent than in addressing his talk to strangers.

Finally, after sitting a long time staring steadfastly across the room in silence, he arose, and staggered away as best he might, only showing his very drunken state when he attempted to walk.

Old acquaintances,--a gentleman whom I knew ten years ago, brisk, active, vigorous, with a kind of fire of physical well-being and cheerful spirits glowing through him. Now, after a course, I presume, of rather free living, pale, thin, oldish, with a grave and care or pain worn brow,--yet still lively and cheerful in his accost, though with something invincibly saddened in his tones. Another, formerly commander of a revenue vessel, --a man of splendid epaulets and very aristocratic equipment and demeanor; now out of service and without position, and changed into a brandy-burnt and rowdyish sort of personage. He seemed as if he might still be a gentleman if he would; but his manners show a desperate state of mind by their familiarity, recklessness, the lack of any hedge of reserve about himself, while still he is evidently a man of the world, accustomed to good society. He has latterly, I think, been in the Russian service, and would very probably turn pirate on fair occasion.

Lenox, July 14th.--The tops of the chestnut-trees have a whitish appearance, they being, I suppose, in bloom. Red raspberries are just through the season.

Language,--human language,--after all, is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls and other utterances of brute nature,-- sometimes not so adequate.

July 16th.--The tops of the chestnut-trees are peculiarly rich, as if a more luscious sunshine were falling on them than anywhere else.

"Whitish," as above, don't express it.

The queer gestures and sounds of a hen looking about for a place to deposit her egg; her self-important gait; the sideway turn of her head and c.o.c.k of her eye, as she pries into one and another nook, croaking all the while,--evidently with the idea that the egg in question is the most important thing that has been brought to pa.s.s since the world began. A speckled black and white and tufted hen of ours does it to most ludicrous perfection; and there is something laughably womanish in it too.

July 25th.--As I sit in my study, with the windows open, the occasional incident of the visit of some winged creature,--wasp, hornet, or bee,-- entering out of the warm sunny atmosphere, soaring round the room in large sweeps, then buzzing against the gla.s.s, as not satisfied with the place, and desirous of getting out. Finally, the joyous, uprising curve with which, coming to the open part of the window, it emerges into the cheerful glow of the outside.

August 4th.--Dined at hotel with J. T. Fields and wife. Afternoon, drove with them to Pittsfield and called on Dr. Holmes.

August 5th.--Drove with Fields and his wife to Stockbridge, being thereto invited by Mr. Field of Stockbridge, in order to ascend Monument Mountain. Found at Mr. Field's Dr. Holmes and Mr. Duyckinck of New York; also Mr. Cornelius Matthews and Herman Melville. Ascended the mountain; that is to say, Mrs. Fields and Miss Jenny Field, Mr. Field and Mr.

Fields, Dr. Holmes, Messrs. Duyckinck, Matthews, Melville, Mr. Henry Sedgewick, and I, and were caught in a shower. Dined at Mr. Field's.

Afternoon, under guidance of J. T. Headley, the party scrambled through the ice-glen.

August 7th.--Messrs. Duyckink, Matthews, Melville, and Melville, junior, called in the forenoon. Gave them a couple of bottles of Mr. Mansfield's champagne, and walked down to the lake with them. At twilight Mr. Edwin P. Whipple and wife called.

August 8th.--Mr. and Mrs. Whipple took tea with us.

August 12th.--Seven chickens hatched. J. T. Readley and brother called.

Eight chickens.

August 19th.--Monument Mountain, in the early sunshine; its base enveloped in mist, parts of which are floating in the sky, so that the great hill looks really as if it were founded on a cloud. Just emerging from the mist is seen a yellow field of rye, and, above that, forest.

August 21st.--Eight more chickens hatched. Ascended a mountain with my wife; a beautiful, mellow, autumnal sunshine.

August 24th.--In the afternoons, nowadays, this valley in which I dwell seems like a vast basin filled with golden sunshine as with wine.

August 31st.--J. R. Lowell called in the evening.

September 1st.--Mr. and Mrs. Lowell called in the forenoon, on their way to Stockbridge or Lebanon to meet Miss Bremer.

September 2d.--"When I grow up," quoth J-----, in ill.u.s.tration of the might to which he means to attain,--"when I grow up, I shall be two men."

September 3d.--Foliage of maples begins to change. Julian, after picking up a handful of autumnal maple-leaves the other day,--"Look, papa, here's a bunch of fire!"

September 7th.--In a wood, a heap or pile of logs and sticks, that had been cut for firewood, and piled up square, in order to be carted away to the house when convenience served,--or, rather, to be sledded in sleighing time. But the moss had acc.u.mulated on them, and leaves falling over them from year to year and decaying, a kind of soil had quite covered them, although the softened outline of the woodpile was perceptible in the green mound. It was perhaps fifty years--perhaps more--since the woodman had cut and piled those logs and sticks, intending them for his winter fires. But he probably needs no fire now.

There was something strangely interesting in this simple circ.u.mstance.

Imagine the long-dead woodman, and his long-dead wife and family, and the old man who was a little child when the wood was cut, coming back from their graves, and trying to make a fire with this mossy fuel.

September 19th.--Lying by the lake yesterday afternoon, with my eyes shut, while the waves and sunshine were playing together on the water, the quick glimmer of the wavelets was perceptible through my closed eyelids.

October 13th.--A windy day, with wind northwest, cool, with a prevalence of dull gray clouds over the sky, but with brief, quick glimpses of sunshine.

The foliage having its autumn hues, Monument Mountain looks like a headless sphinx, wrapped in a rich Persian shawl. Yesterday, through a diffused mist, with the sun shining on it, it had the aspect of burnished copper. The sun-gleams on the hills are peculiarly magnificent just in these days.

One of the children, drawing a cow on the blackboard, says, "I'll kick this leg out a little more,"--a very happy energy of expression, completely identifying herself with the cow; or perhaps, as the cow's creator, conscious of full power over its movements.

October 14th.--The brilliancy of the foliage has pa.s.sed its acme; and indeed it has not been so magnificent this season as in some others, owing to the gradual approaches of cooler weather, and there having been slight frosts instead of severe ones. There is still a s.h.a.ggy richness on the hillsides.

October 16th.--A morning mist, filling up the whole length and breadth of the valley betwixt my house and Monument Mountain, the summit of the mountain emerging. The mist reaches almost to my window, so dense as to conceal everything, except that near its. .h.i.ther boundary a few ruddy or yellow tree-tops appear, glorified by the early sunshine, as is likewise the whole mist-cloud.

There is a glen between this house and the lake, through which winds a little brook with pools and tiny waterfalls over the great roots of trees. The glen is deep and narrow, and filled with trees; so that, in the summer, it is all a dense shadow of obscurity. Now, the foliage of the trees being almost entirely a golden yellow, instead of being full of shadow, the glen is absolutely full of sunshine, and its depths are more brilliant than the open plain or the mountain-tops. The trees are sunshine, and, many of the golden leaves being freshly fallen, the glen is strewn with sunshine, amid which winds and gurgles the bright, dark little brook.

December 1st.--I saw a dandelion in bloom near the lake.

December 19th.--If the world were crumbled to the finest dust, and scattered through the universe, there would not be an atom of the dust for each star.

"Generosity is the flower of justice."

The print in blood of a naked foot to be traced through the street of a town.

Sketch of a personage with the malignity of a witch, and doing the mischief attributed to one,--but by natural means; breaking off love-affairs, teaching children vices, ruining men of wealth, etc.

Ladislaus, King of Naples, besieging the city of Florence, agreed to show mercy, provided the inhabitants would deliver to him a certain virgin of famous beauty, the daughter of a physician of the city. When she was sent to the king, every one contributing something to adorn her in the richest manner, her father gave her a perfumed handkerchief, at that time a universal decoration, richly wrought. This handkerchief was poisoned with his utmost art, . . . . and they presently died in one another's arms.

Of a bitter satirist,--of Swift, for instance,--it might be said, that the person or thing on which his satire fell shrivelled up as if the Devil had spit on it.

The Fount of Tears,--a traveller to discover it,--and other similar localites.

Benvenuto Cellini saw a Salamander in the household fire. It was shown him by his father, in childhood.