Complete Prose Works
less alone than when alone. Never before did I get so close to Nature;
never before did she come so close to me. By old habit, I pencill'd down
from time to time, almost automatically, moods, sights, hours, tints and
outlines, on the spot. Let me specially record the satisfaction of
this current forenoon, so serene and primitive, so conventionally
exceptional, natural.
An hour or so after breakfast I wended my way down to the recesses of
the aforesaid dell, which I and certain thrushes, cat-birds, &c.,
had all to ourselves. A light south-west wind was blowing through the
tree-tops. It was just the place and time for my Adamic air-bath and
flesh-brushing from head to foot. So hanging clothes on a rail near by,
keeping old broadbrim straw on head and easy shoes on feet, havn't I had
a good time the last two hours! First with the stiff-elastic bristles
rasping arms, breast, sides, till they turn'd scarlet--then partially
bathing in the clear waters of the running brook--taking everything very
leisurely, with many rests and pauses--stepping about barefooted every
few minutes now and then in some neighboring black ooze, for unctuous
mud-bath to my feet--a brief second and third rinsing in the crystal
running waters--rubbing with the fragrant towel--slow negligent
promenades on the turf up and down in the sun, varied with occasional
rests, and further frictions of the bristle-brush--sometimes carrying
my portable chair with me from place to place, as my range is quite
extensive here, nearly a hundred rods, feeling quite secure from
intrusion, (and that indeed I am not at all nervous about, if it
accidentally happens.)
As I walk'd slowly over the grass, the sun shone out enough to show the
shadow moving with me. Somehow I seem'd to get identity with each and
every thing around me, in its condition. Nature was naked, and I was
also. It was too lazy, soothing, and joyous-equable to speculate
about. Yet I might have thought somehow in this vein: Perhaps the inner
never-lost rapport we hold with earth, light, air, trees, &c., is not to
be realized through eyes and mind only, but through the whole corporeal
body, which I will not have blinded or bandaged any more than the eyes.
Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature!--ah if poor, sick, prurient
humanity in cities might really know you once more! Is not nakedness
then indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your
sophistication, your tear, your respectability, that is indecent. There
come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear,
but are themselves indecent. Perhaps indeed he or she to whom the free
exhilarating extasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and
how many thousands there are!) has not really known what purity is--nor
what faith or art or health really is. (Probably the whole curriculum
of first-class philosophy, beauty, heroism, form, illustrated by the
old Hellenic race--the highest height and deepest depth known to
civilization in those departments--came from their natural and religious
idea of Nakedness.)
Many such hours, from time to time, the last two summers--I attribute my
partial rehabilitation largely to them. Some good people may think it a
feeble or half-crack'd way of spending one's time and thinking. May-be
it is.
THE OAKS AND I
_Sept. 5, '77._--I write this, 11 A.M., shelter'd under a dense oak
by the bank, where I have taken refuge from a sudden rain. I came down
here, (we had sulky drizzles all the morning, but an hour ago a lull,)
for the before-mention'd daily and simple exercise I am fond of--to
pull on that young hickory sapling out there--to sway and yield to its
tough-limber upright stem--haply to get into my old sinews some of
its elastic fibre and clear sap. I stand on the turf and take these
health-pulls moderately and at intervals for nearly an hour, inhaling
great draughts of fresh air. Wandering by the creek, I have three or
four naturally favorable spots where I rest--besides a chair I lug with
me and use for more deliberate occasions. At other spots convenient I
have selected, besides the hickory just named, strong and limber boughs
of beech or holly, in easy-reaching distance, for my natural gymnasia,
for arms, chest, trunk-muscles. I can soon feel the sap and sinew rising
through me, like mercury to heat. I hold on boughs or slender trees
caressingly there in the sun and shade, wrestle with their innocent
stalwartness--and _know_ the virtue thereof passes from them into me.
(Or may-be we interchange--may-be the trees are more aware of it all
than I ever thought.)
But now pleasantly imprison'd here under the big oak--the rain dripping,
and the sky cover'd with leaden clouds--nothing but the pond on one
side, and the other a spread of grass, spotted with the milky blossoms
of the wild carrot--the sound of an axe wielded at some distant
wood-pile--yet in this dull scene, (as most folks would call it,) why am
I so (almost) happy here and alone? Why would any intrusion, even from
people I like, spoil the charm? But am I alone? Doubtless there comes a
time--perhaps it has come to me--when one feels through his whole being,
and pronouncedly the emotional part, that identity between himself
subjectively and Nature objectively which Schelling and Fichte are so
fond of pressing. How it is I know not, but I often realize a presence
here--in clear moods I am certain of it, and neither chemistry nor
reasoning nor esthetics will give the least explanation. All the past
two summers it has been strengthening and nourishing my sick body and
soul, as never before. Thanks, invisible physician, for thy silent
delicious medicine, thy day and night, thy waters and thy airs, the
banks, the grass, the trees, and e'en the weeds!
A QUINTETTE
While I have been kept by the rain under the shelter of my great oak,
(perfectly dry and comfortable, to the rattle of the drops all around,)
I have pencill'd off the mood of the hour in a little quintette, which I
will give you:
At vacancy with Nature,
Acceptive and at ease,
Distilling the present hour,
Whatever, wherever it is,
And over the past, oblivion.
Can you get hold of it, reader dear? and how do you like it anyhow?
THE FIRST FROST--MEMS
Where I was stopping I saw the first palpable frost, on my sunrise walk,
October 6; all over the yet-green spread a light blue-gray veil, giving
a new show to the entire landscape. I had but little time to notice it,
for the sun rose cloudless and mellow-warm, and as I returned along the
lane it had turn'd to glittering patches of wet. As I walk I notice
the bursting pods of wild-cotton, (Indian hemp they call it here,) with
flossy-silky contents, and dark red-brown seeds--a startled rabbit--I
pull a handful of the balsamic life-ever-lasting and stuff it down in my
trowsers-pocket for scent.
THREE YOUNG MEN'S DEATHS
_December 20_.--Somehow I got thinking to-day of young men's deaths--not
at all sadly or sentimentally, but gravely, realistically, perhaps a
little artistically. Let me give the following three cases from budgets
of personal memoranda, which I have been turning over, alone in my room,
and resuming and dwelling on, this rainy afternoon. Who is there to whom
the theme does not come home? Then I don't know how it may be to
others, but to me not only is there nothing gloomy or depressing in such
cases--on the contrary, as reminiscences, I find them soothing, bracing,
tonic.
ERASTUS HASKELL.--[I just transcribe verbatim from a letter written by
myself in one of the army hospitals, 16 years ago, during the secession
war.] _Washington, July 28, 1863._--Dear M.,--I am writing this in the
hospital, sitting by the side of a soldier, I do not expect to last many
hours. His fate has been a hard one--he seems to be only about 19 or
20--Erastus Haskell, company K, 141st N. Y.--has been out about a year,
and sick or half-sick more than half that time--has been down on the
peninsula--was detail'd to go in the band as fifer-boy. While sick, the
surgeon told him to keep up with the rest--(probably work'd and march'd
too long.) He is a shy, and seems to me a very sensible boy--has fine
manners--never complains--was sick down on the peninsula in an old
storehouse--typhoid fever. The first week this July was brought up
here--journey very bad, no accommodations, no nourishment, nothing
but hard jolting, and exposure enough to make a well man sick; (these
fearful journeys do the job for many)--arrived here July 11th--a silent
dark-skinn'd Spanish-looking youth, with large very dark blue eyes,
peculiar looking. Doctor F. here made light of his sickness--said he
would recover soon, etc.; but I thought very different, and told F.
so repeatedly; (I came near quarreling with him about it from the
first)--but he laugh'd, and would not listen to me. About four days ago,
I told Doctor he would in my opinion lose the boy without doubt--but F.
again laugh'd at me. The next day he changed his opinion--brought the
head surgeon of the post--he said the boy would probably die, but they
would make a hard fight for him.
The last two days he has been lying panting for breath--a pitiful
sight. I have been with him some every day or night since he arrived. He
suffers a great deal with the heat--says little or nothing--is flighty
the last three days, at times--knows me always, however--calls me
"Walter"--(sometimes calls the name over and over and over again,
musingly, abstractedly, to himself.) His father lives at Breesport,
Chemung county, N. Y., is a mechanic with large family--is a steady,
religious man; his mother too is living. I have written to them, and
shall write again to-day--Erastus has not receiv'd a word from home for
months.
As I sit here writing to you, M., I wish you could see the whole scene.
This young man lies within reach of me, flat on his back, his hands
clasp'd across his breast, his thick black hair cut close; he is dozing,
breathing hard, every breath a spasm--it looks so cruel. He is a noble
youngster,--I consider him past all hope. Often there is no one with him
for a long while. I am here as much as possible.
WILLIAM ALCOTT, fireman. _Camden, Nov., 1874_.--Last Monday afternoon
his widow, mother, relatives, mates of the fire department, and his
other friends, (I was one, only lately it is true, but our love grew
fast and close, the days and nights of those eight weeks by the chair
of rapid decline, and the bed of death,) gather'd to the funeral of
this young man, who had grown up, and was well-known here. With nothing
special, perhaps, to record, I would give a word or two to his memory.
He seem'd to me not an inappropriate specimen in character and elements,
of that bulk of the average good American race that ebbs and flows
perennially beneath this scum of eructations on the surface. Always very
quiet in manner, neat in person and dress, good temper'd--punctual and
industrious at his work, till he could work no longer--he just lived his
steady, square, unobtrusive life, in its own humble sphere, doubtless
unconscious of itself. (Though I think there were currents of emotion
and intellect undevelop'd beneath, far deeper than his acquaintances
ever suspected--or than he himself ever did.) He was no talker. His
troubles, when he had any, he kept to himself. As there was nothing
querulous about him in life, he made no complaints during his last
sickness. He was one of those persons that while his associates never
thought of attributing any particular talent or grace to him, yet all
insensibly, really, liked Billy Alcott.
I, too, loved him. At last, after being with him quite a good
deal--after hours and days of panting for breath, much of the time
unconscious, (for though the consumption that had been lurking in his