Green fields and whispering woods; or, The recreations of an American "country gentleman"; embracing journeys over his farm and excursions into his library

Front matter

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Chapter I

Mottoes — The Debate Begins — Poetry and Potatoes — Beecher's Idea — Old Ruins of Enoland — An Apparent Advantage — I Lose Mt Temper — A Lesson From History — A Disappointment — Turning the Tables — I Adjourn the Session — Victory at Last — Oakeields Farm , • . 33

Chapter II

Mottoes — Pretty Pictures — Practical Considerations — Tallyrand's Notions — A Libel — Rustic Homes — We Argue Certain Points — Several Authors Cited — A Sweet Influence Departed 36

Chapter III

Mottoes — A Dull Cotemporary — Doubts and Fears — A Country Cousin — A Parlor Concert — The 'Squire's Solo — My Cousin's Discomfiture — We Go Fishing — A Bald Insult — Peccavi — I Feel Better 46

CHAPTER IV. Mottoes — Squaring Away Again — Quoting a Precedent

— A Sample Case — Proceedings In Coubt — What if You Fail? — The Farmer's Life — Contention, Contention — It is not the Law, but Lawyers — Some Sage Comments — What Greeley Said 58

Chapter V

Motto — Fondness for Journalism — Journalism Discussed — Some Comments — A Good Moral — Nature and Peace

— Quotation from Emerson — Mad as a Hornet — CuRius Dentatus — My Father Receives an Embassy —

PhILOPCEMEN — A LITTLE MoONSHINE 70

Chapter VI

Mottoes — Aristotle Commented upon — An Ideal Retreat — The Subject of Politics Introduced — More

X CONTENTS.

Politics — Dramatization — Council of the Conspirators — The Plot Thickens — Other Scenes — The Devil A Politician — Impolite, but not Impolitic ... 8^

Chapter VII

Mottoes — Homely Themes — Highways and By-ways — Primitive Farming — And "We Enjoy It — The Subject of Owls Introduced — The Owl-Music — Nocturnal Wanderings — A Horror — Metaphysical — Hoo-hoo, Hoo- Hoo — An Illustration — But I Resume — A Woor^- LAND Enchanted — Hopeful Signs 94

Chapter VIII

Mottoes — Game not Plenty — The Author no Sportsman — Pliny as a Hunter — I Go Dekr-Stalking — Why I Didn't Shoot — Defective Game Laws — W. P. Hawes ON Quails — Et tu, Frank Forester — Merciful Murderers — The Black List — No use for Wolves and Lynxes — But I Do Respect Bruin — The Story of our Bear — A Mutual Surprise — A Masterly Retreat — Ashamed of the Reader , . HO*

Chapter IX

Mottoes — Who Is this IV — Characteristics — Gen. Allen at Ft. Ti. — Difficulties Still — The Elicitation of Truth — Certain Bards Quoted — Only Weary; not Spiteful — Hazlitt's Picture — The Lake Poets — Montaigne — The Town no Place for Me — Several Authors Cited — A Paradise — Democritus Again — The Englishman's Love of Nature 12S

Chapter X

Mottoes — Objections Considered — More Replies to Criticisms — A Fault Admitted — It Can't be Stealing — Only Poetical Justice — Don't Mention It 144

CHAPTER XL Mottoes — A Fellow-Feeling — We Write a Letter — Wb Owe for a Lodge in S. V. W. — Up at the Farm — Wb Farm for Fun — A Leafy Luxury — A Sweet Dream op Peace — A Sudden Ending 153^

Chapter XII

Mottoes — He Should Have Been Happy — Why He Was NOT — Arrant Nonsense — Discussion Found Unprofit-

CONTENTS. XI

ABLE — A Poem — I Resolve to Begin Plowlng — The Ancients Praised the Work — Ancient Deities and Rites — Hitching on — Making Ready for a Start — How She Moves off — A Crash — How it Ended — Some Comments — Ye Owle 162

Chapter XIII

Mottoes — Pigxjrativkly Speaking — Topographical — A Nook — A Maple Tree — My Oaks — A Sudden Fall — The Attitude of the Boys — The Scenery — Suspense

— That Terrible Oath — How Recorded — The Reader Upbraided — A Spectacle 178

Chapter XIV

Mottoes — The Tale — Flossofer Daniel — Thoreau — Certain other Writers — Burroughs — The Old Story — An Older Anecdote — Statement of the Case — On Trial — An Appeal to Posterity , 192

Chapter XV

Mottoes — The East Eighty — An Historical Spring — Stumps — Will Pine Stumps Become Valuable? — Trees

— A Joke — Clearing Land — Good Men Love Trees — The Autocrat — Gibson — The Woods in Winter — A Notable Tree — Our Beeches — Beecher — Matters TO Lament — Fruit from Our Orchard — Farmers with Souls — Visitors — My Neighbors — Old-Fashioned Honesty — Friendly Interest — Labor 202

CHAPTER XVI. Mottoes — Thereby Hangs a Tale — Was it Providential?

— Kathleen Visits the Farm — The Question Decided

— A Faithful Assistant — Taste and Wit — The Printer AT THE Farm — Moonshine — Goneness — Distrust AND Lectures — She's Come ! — Misery Enough — A Pitiful Tale — Was It Maniacy? — Flight, Freedom and Happiness — Conclusion of the Tale 220

Chapter XVII

Mottoes — A Typical Camp — The Site — Extent of the Robbery — A Visit to Camp — In Your Mind — Morning Exercises in Camp — Serious and Substantial Eating — Preparations for Business — How the Work Goes

XII CONTENTS.

ON — Dining and Supping — Songs — Sleeping — Occasional Features — Sunday — Striking Camp .... 238

Chapter XVIII

Mottoes — Our Camp and Crew — An Epistle to Doc. — On Guard — Voices of the Woods — Doc's Sinning — Some OF Our Boys — Good Times — A Christmas Tree — The Gifts — A Little Sentiment 254

Chapter XIX

Mottoes — Should He Have Been A Farmer — Emerson's Thoughts — The Poets Have Spoken — A Landscape — Other Poets — Would Men Let Me Alone .... 264

Chapter XX

Mottoes — I Like Beecher's Style — Mitchell — Does Farming Pay? — Pecuniary Profits Small — Another Farmer — Thoreau Buys the Hollowell Place — What the Attractions Were — Why I Purchased "The Willows " — The Brook Farmers — A Lament 272

Chapter XXI

Mottoes — Certain Considerations — Why I Purchased a New Farm — All About Axes — With My Little Hatchet — I Did It — Butterflies — Strong Testimonials — Authorities Cited — Poetical Testimony . , 282

Chapter XXII

Mottoes — A Paradox — Experimentation — Wanted, a Sympathizer — A Landed Country-Gentleman — Two Varieties — An Intellectual Democracy — Defective Definitions — I Will Describe — The Definition — What A Mortgage Is — The Foul Fiend — Note .... 292

Chapter XXIII

Mottoes — Topographical Pursuits — Forests — Townships — Our Territory — The Farm Buildings — The Farm — Shape and Surface — Ridges — Our Mountains — Fort Ti. — Sylvan Scenery at Oakfields — The Woods — Crimes We Commit 306

CHAPTER XXIV. Mottoes — Thereby Hang the Profits — In the Meadow

CONTENTS. XIII

— The Watbr-Wats — The Beavers — The Soils — As

TO Sand-Ridges — Too Cheap — How Long, Oh Lord? 316

Chapter XXV

Mottoes — Ancestor-Worship — Various Vanities — My Castle in Spain — Ossian — Ecclesiastes — Emerson — The Earth-Song — Job — " Only Waiting " — The " Everlasting Hills " not Stable — The World Shall Pass Away — How Newton Regarded the Matter — No Mat ■ TER — Idealism — I Only an Idea — "Through a Glass, Darkly" — As to Philosophy — Bivious Theorems — I Am Troubled Thereby — Philosophy op no Practical Use 326

Chapter XXVI

Mottoes — Symposium at the Farmstead — Why not a Teacher — My Alma Mater — ' ' Board " Dictation — Desultory Debate — I Write the Old 'Squire — Beauty OF the Husbandman's Life — Exhortation and Reproof

— Sundry Considerations — An Honest Security — Meteors AND Rockets — A Pastoral Scene — A Beautiful Vision — Farewell 344

Chapter XXVII

Mottoes — The Indian Question — Two Ways of Treating A Subject — The Subject Introduced — A Squaw, Ancient and Ugly — How She Was Rigged Out — She Was Thinking — Lo — Kaween-Neshin Nish-e-naw-ba — The Birds — Home Again — I Could Say More — Why I Don't 360

Chapter XXVIII

Mottoes — Real History and Biography — A 'Ruption op Barbarians — A Conversation in a Lumber Camp — A Council of War — Will they 'Rupt? — Apprehensions DissMissED — The Evening at the Cabin — Boys They're Comin' ! — Some Sentiment — An Embassy — A Palaver that Didn't Count — The Attack — The Combat Deepens — Saved by a Woman — The Historical Bridge — Victory is Ours — Where We Found Jose — How Certain Matters Occurred — Once and Out 373

Chapter XXIX

Mottoes — A Practical Age — Yet I Read Poetry — Poets AND Poetry — No Science op Criticism — Coleridge's

XIV CONTENTS.

Rule — The Distich — My Rule, &c. — An Inter-Chapter — A Mad World 393

Chapter XXX

Mottoes — Beecher's House and Mine — A House Should G-Row — A Low-Browed Cottage — A Strange Jumble

— Wings and Lean-tos — Other Additions .... 402

Chapter XXXI

Mottoes — My Study Windows — The Interior — A Picture — A Slander — Greeley's Cottage — Southey's

AND WhITTIER's STUDIES — MoNTAIGNE'S LIBRARY — BeG

Pardon Once More — The Center 410

CHAPTER XXXn.

Mottoes — Bucolics — The Morning Walk — What Has Re-Strung the Lyre — Universal Tenderness — The Farm- Yard — A Green Lane — The Owl and Other Feathered Friends — The Brook — The Return — The Crow and the Kingbird — Thieves and Cowards . . 418

Chapter XXXIII

Mottoes — A Rustic Picture — Ambition — And the End — Sanguine but not Sanguinary — Give the Devil His Due — A Happy Hour — I Speak for a Class — Graduation — An Old Story — The Changes Time Has Wrought — Old Volumes — No More — The Parchment — What it Recites and What Omits — One Who Will Understand — Who? 430

Chapter XXXIV

Mottoes — Letters to Horace — Bees — Origin, Varieties — An Enthusiast — Bee Literature — Wicked Gossip — Growing Audacious — Business Changes — The Cause

— I Warn My Brother — Only A Little Nonsense — The Blessed Bees — Exquisitely Beautiful — And Man

so Dull 444

Chapter XXXV

Mottoes — Our Heritage — Nature's Storehouse — Wherefore?— Not in the Bible alone — Nature's Worship — Awake, Ye That Sleep — 'Tis Pitiful — Things I Love — Burns, Thoreau, and other Examples — Moral Courage

CONTENTS. XV FEATtTRES OF THE FoREST — TOMB OF WASHINGTON —

Is There Hope? — The New Spring — Musical Creatures — Later Spring — A Wild Meadow in Summer — Summer, Autumn, Winter — Features op Winter — A Question — Live Your Own Life — What Does it all Mean? — Summer Sunset — Truth and Beauty — Let Us Seek to Learn 458

CHAPTER XXXVL

Mottoes — My Rule for Autobiographers — Mt Case— An Illustration — Little Latin and Less Greek — Good Lord Deliver Us! — Certain Erudite Authors Excused

— They Should Explain Their Explanation — This Book an Aurobiography — Plutarch and Montaigne

— Menschlich-Anecdotische — Will it Pay? — Forward THEN — The Size of My Circle 483

Chapter XXXVII

Mottoes — My Immethodical Method — Pleasant but not Commendable — My First Favorite — A Book-Making Age — Why I Like It — Books Do not Live — One Cannot Read All 496

Chapter Xxxviii

Mottoes — Who Knows? — A Real Service — Tom, Dick, AND Harry — Naked Truth — It Is All in the Traveller — Another Epistle — What Certain Old Worthies Held — Pictures, and Milk — Morn in the Forest

— Resources — Evidences — An Amusing Incident — A Curious Matter — Our Ramble — Consultation, a Tour, A Party — Evening — Sweet Rural Seclusion — The iPXiYMOUTH Pastor once more — Good-Bye 505

MOTTOEg TOR THE INTRODUmON.

■ ^he -wopld is too rr|uch with us ; late and goon,

©cttind and spendirjg "we lay waste our powers ;

Lsittle -we gee iij nature that is ours ; 'S^Je have giver) our hearts a^way, a sordid boor) ! The ssa tl^at bares bjer bosorr) to thje rrjoor),

Vhe -winds tbjat -will be howlirjg at all Iqoups,

i^r)d are upgatl;)eped no-w like sleeping flo-wers, — Fop this, fop everytljiijg, -we ape out of tuqe ; It moves us not. — @peat ©od ! I'd patljep be

R. pagan suckled in a creed outworn, — So migl^t I, star)dir)g or) tljis pleasar)t lea,

J^ave glirqpses that would make me less forlorn. Have sig^jt of "?^poteus pisirjg from tlje sea,

©p hear old T^piton blow his wpeathcd horr)."

Wordsworth.

"While such pupe joys my bliss cpeate,

"Who but -would gmile at guilty state ?

W^bjo but -would -wist) his tjoly lot

W^ho but -would cast V)is pomp a-way,

To take rr)y staff and amice gray ;

^ijd to tl^e -wopld's turqultuous stage

•f^refer the blameless hermitage ?"

Thomas Warton.

INTKODUCTION.

' ORTHY reader, I have determined at tlie outset, if only you will promise to be very discreet, and not divulge the secret, to make a confidant of you : The author of this book is really not much of a Farmer, after all. If then you turn upon me and demand how I have dared to assume the name, as in the sub-title of this work I so plainly do, I have simply to urge that I make up in the recreating part what I lack in the other.

That is to say, while in a qualified sense only am I an agriculturist, and not heart-whole as a cultivator of the soil, I am an entirely sincere and earnest believer in and advocate of the universal culture of the soul; and, although sometimes I have been reproached by my more practical rural neighbors with being a "book-farmer," I am rather, by instinct and aspiration, a Brook-Farmer.

But, it will be objected, the Brook-Farmers were dreamers, builders of tinselled air-castles, whose fairy fabrics, with gossamer-raftered roofs, sunshine-shingled, only touched earth at a single point, and hence could not stand, Yery well then, I am a dreamer ; and would go on and try the 2 17

18 INTRODUCTION.

pretty experiment over again, but in modified forms perhaps, and over again and again, until either some way is devised of making the Castle Beautiful maintain its proper erect position, or the pleasure of trying them shall compensate a thousand-fold for all the attendant labor and expense of the successive essays.

How noble the following language of the author of the Blithesdale Romance:

"Yet, after all," he says, "let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious, to follow out one's day-dream to its natural consummation, although, if the vision have been worth the having, it is certain never to be consummated otherwise than by a failure. But what of that? Its airiest fragments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a value that lurks not in the most ponderous realities of any practicable scheme ! They are not the rubbish of the mind. Whatever else I may repent of, therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins or follies that I once had faith enough to form generous hopes of the world's destiny!"*

"Without sharing in the despondency of this noble spirit, reader, let us adopt, as our platform of principles, the remarkable words of his conclusion.

" I'm sadder now, — I have had cause; but oh, I'm proud to think That each pure joy -fount loved of yore I yet delight to drink! Leaf, blossom, blade, hill, valley, stream, the clear unclouded sky, Still mingle music in my dreams as in the days gone by."f

To me the human soul is the most beautiful, the most valuable, the most sacred thing under the whole Heaven ! its culture the business for us the most worthy, the most important, the most imperatively necessary ! Nay, of such tremendous and transcendent consequence is this work of the development of the intellectual and moral nature of the

*HaWTHORNE. fWlLLIAM MOTHERWELL.

INTRODUCTION. 19

liiiman, that, neglecting this, all other enterprises appear trivial, — of little value or avail.

"By words Whicli speak of nothing more than what we are Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep Of death, and win the vacant and the vain To noble raptures, while my voice proclaims How exquisitely the individual mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external world Is fitted : — and how exquisitely, too, (Theme this but little heard of among men) The external world is fitted to the mind; And the creation (by no lesser name Can it be called) which they with blended might Accomplish: — This is our high argument."*

I am not unaware that by my method of reaching my 'object in the present work, I may incur the criticism of many and the hostility of a few ; and I have little defense to make. I confess that in this volume I have touched upon a variety of subjects, many of which may appear to bear little relation to the general purpose of the work, wherein I have possibly offended equally against the rules of rhetoric and the canons of good taste. Of much that I have said it may be urged, as was objected against Thoreau's Walden^ that it might have been as well written elsewhere or on another theme.f " I acknowledge it all " — the discursiveness — levity — egotism — all: " 'tis partly affected.":}: But if one shall rise and charge that my work hence is lacking either in sincerity or dignity, or that its lesson merits hence less attention, I desire to enter an indignant protest, and challenge him to his proofs !

I am mindful, too, — and if memory should fail me a* any season, three several times at least each day would nature

*"Wordsworth: Excursion. f Sanborn's Life of TJwreau. :|:Burton: Anat. of Mel.

2 JNTR OD VCTION.

quicken it, — that we must also attend to the "question of bread and butter." The author of Zwcz'fe — and he a poet — declares :

"We may live witliout poetry, music and. art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends, we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks."

I repeat we must not ignore the practical question of "making a living" ; — and if I have sometimes dreamed of the possibility of the return of the Golden Age, and deplored the manners of this age of gold, let it not be laid to my charge that I have failed in my theories of life to take into account the necessity of exertion to win a decent support for the physical part of this wonderful human animal, or that I decry, or deny the dignity of, the labor devoted to this end ! " Yenerable to me is the hard hand, — crooked, coarse, — wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indispensably royal, as of the scepter of the planet."* But I would fain believe it practicable still, in Dr. Eipley's words, " to establish a mode of life combining the enchantments of poetry with the facts of daily experience."

' ' Paradise and groves Elysian, Fortunate Fields, — like those of old Sought in the Atlantic main, — why should these be A history only of departed things.

Or a mere fiction of what never was?

For the discerning intellect of man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these The simple produce of the common day."f

But although a perusal of the following pages may fail perchance to arm the reader with a full equipment of logical arguments, wherewith to maintain the position which

*CakLYLE. fWORDSWOKTH.

INTR OD UCTION. 2 1

both himself and the author now so clearly occupy, and so tenaciously cling to, logic or no logic, yet a shadowy glimpse of the line of defense which I deem might by a more forcible genius be made effective, may be thus obtained. At all events some pleasant reading may possibly be found between the covers of this book, and useful meanings extracted thence, — meanings, however, which in some instances may not be obvious to the careless reader.

Will you accompany me, dear reader, upon these my *' Journeys" and my "excursions"?

"Beauty, a living presence of the earth, Surpassing the most fair ideal forms, Which craft of delicate spirits doth compose From earth's materials, waits upon my steps; Pitches her tents before me as I move, An hourly neighbor."

If I have successfully accomplished my purpose in preparing the following chapters, the sympathizing reader shall yet experience something of the delight the author has felt while the work has been in progress.

" Fit audience let me find, though few."

Emm FOR mmu i

"J^ay, if you conQe to ttjat, sir, have rjofe the -wigest men

of all ages, rjofe exceptirjg Solorrjor) bjimgelf, — l^ave ttjey not

all had their hobby l^opgeg ; — thjeir running tjorseg, their

petg, thjeip fiddleg and their pallets, t]r)eip njaggotg ar)d

tlgeir butterflies? J<X.nd so loijg as a mar) rides t)ig Ijobby

Vjorge peaceably ar)d quietly alor)g tl]e kirjg'g h)igh-way, ar)d

neither compelg you r)op nje to get up behind hirr) — pray,

sip, -what l]ave eithjep you op I to do "with) it ? "

Laurence Sterne.

"T^he setting op the pising sun, beir)g mepe njattep, are in thjenjgelves nothir|g, urjlesg they ape clothed in light by thje in^agirjatior), ur)less tl]e east and the west ape ippadiated. by poetry." Prof. Wilson.