Note:
[18] _Samples of my common-place book down at the creek:_
I have--says old Pindar--many swift arrows in my quiver which speak to the wise, though they need an interpreter to the thoughtless. Such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages to understand. _H. D. Thoreau._
If you hate a man, don't kill him, but let him live.--_Buddhistic._ Famous swords are made of refuse scraps, thought worthless.
Poetry is the only verity--the expression of a sound mind speaking after the ideal--and not after the apparent.--_Emerson_.
The form of oath among the Shoshone Indians is, "The earth hears me. The sun hears me. Shall I lie?"
The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops--no, but the kind of a man the country turns out.--_Emerson_.
The whole wide ether is the eagle's sway: The whole earth is a brave man's fatherland.--_Euripides_.
Spices crush'd, their pungence yield, Trodden scents their sweets respire; Would you have its strength reveal'd? Cast the incense in the fire.
Matthew Arnold speaks of "the huge Mississippi of falsehood called History."
The wind blows north, the wind blows south, The wind blows east and west; No matter how the free wind blows, Some ship will find it best.
Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent.--_Epictetus_.
Victor Hugo makes a donkey meditate and apostrophize thus:
My brother, man, if you would know the truth, We both are by the same dull walls shut in; The gate is massive and the dungeon strong. But you look through the key-hole out beyond, And call this knowledge; yet have not at hand The key wherein to turn the fatal lock.
"William Cullen Bryant surprised me once," relates a writer in a New York paper, "by saying that prose was the natural language of composition, and he wonder'd how anybody came to write poetry."
Farewell! I did not know thy worth; But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized: So angels walk'd unknown on earth, But when they flew were recognized.--_Hood_.
John Burroughs, writing of Thoreau, says: "He improves with age--in fact requires age to take off a little of his asperity, and fully ripen him. The world likes a good hater and refuser almost as well as it likes a good lover and accepter--only it likes him farther off."
_Louise Michel at the burial of Blanqui, (1881.)_
Blanqui drill'd his body to subjection to his grand conscience and his noble passions, and commencing as a young man, broke with all that is sybaritish in modern civilization. Without the power to sacrifice self, great ideas will never bear fruit.
Out of the leaping furnace flame A mass of molten silver came; Then, beaten into pieces three, Went forth to meet its destiny. The first a crucifix was made, Within a soldier's knapsack laid; The second was a locket fair, Where a mother kept her dead child's hair; The third--a bangle, bright and warm, Around a faithless woman's arm.
A mighty pain to love it is, And'tis a pain that pain to miss; But of all pain the greatest pain, It is to love, but love in vain.
_Maurice F. Egan on De Guerin._
A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he, He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sigh'd, Till earth and heaven met within his breast: As if Theocritus in Sicily Had come upon the Figure crucified, And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest.
And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me, Is, leave the mind that now I bear, And give me Liberty.--_Emily Bronte._
I travel on not knowing, I would not if I might; I would rather walk with God in the dark, Than go alone in the light; I would rather walk with Him by faith Than pick my way by sight
MY NATIVE SAND AND SALT ONCE MORE
_July 25, '81.--Far Rockaway, L. I._--A good day here, on a jaunt, amid the sand and salt, a steady breeze setting in from the sea, the sun shining, the sedge-odor, the noise of the surf, a mixture of hissing and booming, the milk-white crest curling. I had a leisurely bath and naked ramble as of old, on the warm-gray shore-sands, my companions off in a oat in deeper water--(I shouting to them Jupiter's menaces against the gods, from Pope's Homer) _July 28--to Long Branch_--8-1/2 A.M., on the steamer "Plymouth Rock," foot of 23d street, New York, for Long Branch. Another fine day, fine sights, the shores, the shipping and bay--everything comforting to the body and spirit of me. (I find the human and objective atmosphere of New York city and Brooklyn more affiliative to me than any other.) _An hour later_--Still on the steamer, now sniffing the salt very plainly--the long pulsating _swash_ as our boat steams seaward--the hills of Navesink and many passing vessels--the air the best part of all. At Long Branch the bulk of the day, stopt at a good hotel, took all very leisurely, had an excellent dinner, and then drove for over two hours about the place, especially Ocean avenue, the finest drive one can imagine, seven or eight miles right along the beach. In all directions costly villas, palaces, millionaires--(but few among them I opine like my friend George W. Childs, whose personal integrity, generosity, unaffected simplicity, go beyond all worldly wealth.)
HOT WEATHER NEW YORK
_August_.--In the big city awhile. Even the height of the dog-days, there is a good deal of fun about New York, if you only avoid fluster, and take all the buoyant wholesomeness that offers. More comfort, too, than most folks think. A middle-aged man, with plenty of money in his pocket, tells me that he has been off for a month to all the swell places, has disburs'd a small fortune, has been hot and out of kilter everywhere, and has return' d home and lived in New York city the last two weeks quite contented and happy. People forget when it is hot here, it is generally hotter still in other places.
New York is so situated, with the great ozonic brine on both sides, it comprises the most favorable health-chances in the world. (If only the suffocating crowding of some of its tenement houses could be broken up.) I find I never sufficiently realized how beautiful are the upper two-thirds of Manhattan island. I am stopping at Mott Haven, and have been familiar now for ten days with the region above One-hundredth street, and along the Harlem river and Washington heights. Am dwelling a few days with my friends Mr. and Mrs. J. H. J., and a merry houseful of young ladies. Am putting the last touches on the printer's copy of my new volume of "Leaves of Grass"--the completed book at last. Work at it two or three hours, and then go down and loaf along the Harlem river; have just had a good spell of this recreation. The sun sufficiently veil'd, a soft south breeze, the river full of small or large shells (light taper boats) darting up and down, some singly, now and then long ones with six or eight young fellows practicing--very inspiriting sights. Two fine yachts lie anchor'd off the shore. I linger long, enjoying the sundown, the glow, the streak'd sky, the heights, distances, shadows. _Aug. 10._--As I haltingly ramble an hour or two this forenoon by the more secluded parts of the shore, or sit under an old cedar half way up the hill, the city near in view, many young parties gather to bathe or swim, squads of boys, generally twos or threes, some larger ones, along the sand-bottom, or off an old pier close by. A peculiar and pretty carnival--at its height a hundred lads or young men, very democratic, but all decent behaving. The laughter, voices, calls, re-responses--the springing and diving of the bathers from the great string-piece of the decay'd pier, where climb or stand long ranks of them, naked, rose-color'd, with movements, postures ahead of any sculpture. To all this, the sun, so bright, the dark-green shadow of the hills the other side, the amber-rolling waves, changing as the tide comes in to a trans-parent tea-color--the frequent splash of the playful boys, sousing--the glittering drops sparkling, and the good western breeze blowing.
CUSTER'S LAST RALLY
Went to-day to see this just-finish'd painting by John Mulvany, who has been out in far Dakota, on the spot, at the forts, and among the frontiersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two years, on purpose to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. Sat for over an hour before the picture, completely absorb'd in the first view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve, all crowded, and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color, it takes a little time to get used to it. There are no tricks; there is no throwing of shades in masses; it is all at first painfully real, overwhelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full finish and detail in the mid-ground, with three times that number, or more, through the rest--swarms upon swarms of savage Sioux, in their war-bonnets, frantic, mostly on ponies, driving through the background, through the smoke, like a hurricane of demons. A dozen of the figures are wonderful. Altogether a western, autochthonic phase of America, the frontiers, culminating, typical, deadly, heroic to the uttermost--nothing in the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing in Shakspere; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our own, and all a fact. A great lot of muscular, tan-faced men, brought to bay under terrible circumstances--death ahold of them, yet every man undaunted, not one losing his head, wringing out every cent of the pay before they sell their lives. Custer (his hair cut short stands in the middle), with dilated eye and extended arm, aiming a huge cavalry pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the white handkerchief around his head, aiming his carbine coolly, half kneeling--(his body was afterwards found close by Custer's.) The slaughter'd or half-slaughter'd horses, for breastworks, make a peculiar feature. Two dead Indians, herculean, lie in the foreground, clutching their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers, their faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimm'd western hats, the powder-smoke in puffs, the dying horses with their rolling eyes almost human in their agony, the clouds of war-bonneted Sioux in the background, the figures of Custer and Cook--with indeed the whole scene, dreadful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain in my memory. With all its color and fierce action, a certain Greek continence pervades it. A sunny sky and clear light envelop all. There is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The physiognomy of the work is realistic and Western. I only saw it for an hour or so; but it needs to be seen many times--needs to be studied over and over again. I could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring; it is very tonic to me; then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all great art must have. The artist said the sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talk'd of. I advised him if it went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there--nay, they certainly would. Then I would like to show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as others.