Hawthorne took little interest in the battlefield, though he did express a desire to open the graves of the two nameless British soldiers, who lie buried by the roadside, because of a tale that one of them had been killed by a boy with an axe—a fiendish yarn which we may be glad is not authenticated. The great romancer confessed that the field between the battlefield and his house interested him far more because of the Indian arrow-heads and other relics he could pick up there—a trick he had learned from Thoreau.
On our way back to the village we made a turn to the left, for a visit to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Never was such a place more appropriately named. An elliptical bowl, bordered by grassy knolls, with flowering shrubs and green groves, forms a perfect cradle among the hills in which sleep generation after generation of the inhabitants of old Concord. On the opposite side of the hollow, well up the slope of the hill and shaded by many trees, we came to the graves of the Emersons, the Thoreaus, and the Hawthornes, in neighborly proximity. The Emerson grave seemed eminently satisfactory. A rough-hewn boulder at the foot of a tall pine marks the resting-place of a strong, sincere, and unpretentious character, who lived close to Nature. By his side lies Lidian, his wife, with an inscription on her tombstone, which few, perchance, stop to read, but which ought to be read by all who can appreciate this rare tribute to a woman’s worth:—
In her youth an unusual sense of
the Divine Presence was granted her
and she retained through life
the impress of that high Communion.
To her children she seemed in her
native ascendancy and unquestioning
courage, a Queen, a Flower in
elegance and delicacy.
The love and care for her husband and
children was her first earthly interest
but with overflowing compassion
her heart went out to the slave, the sick
and the dumb creation. She remembered
them that were in bonds as bound with them.
Thoreau’s grave is not quite so satisfactory. It creates the impression that the poet and naturalist who brought fame to his family was only one of a considerable number of children and died in infancy with all the rest. It is marked with a small headstone and the single name, Henry. In the center of the lot a larger stone records the names of all the members of the family who lie buried there.
The Hawthorne grave is wholly unsatisfactory. It is not easily found by a stranger, even after careful directions. The small lot is inclosed by an ugly fence, only partially concealed by a poorly kept hedge. By making an effort one can peep through and see a simple headstone with the name Hawthorne. The most conspicuous object in the inclosure is a big sign warning the public not to pluck the leaves, etc., and ending with the curt injunction, “Have respect for the living if not for the dead.” The unsightly fence and the rudeness of the sign clang discordantly upon the sensibilities of those who have been taught to admire the gracious hospitality and courteous disposition of the man. We came to gaze reverently upon the grave of a man whom we had seemed to know for many years as a personal friend, but found ourselves treated with contempt as if we were merely vulgar seekers for useless souvenirs! Let us get back to the village and see the things of life.
Next to the Old Manse, the most interesting house in Concord is Emerson’s. It is southeast of the public square, at the point where the Cambridge Turnpike joins the Lexington Road. When Emerson bought it in 1835, it was on the outskirts of the village and not prepossessing. He said, himself, “It is in a mean place, and cannot be fine until trees and flowers give it a character of its own. But we shall crowd so many books and papers, and, if possible, wise friends into it, that it shall have as much wit as it can carry.” In September of that year, Emerson went to Plymouth and was married to Miss Lydia Jackson, in a colonial mansion belonging to the bride, who suggested that they remain there. But Concord had charms which the poet could not sacrifice, so the couple established themselves in the big house at the southern edge of the village, where, ere long, the philosopher was dividing time between his study and the vegetable-garden, while Lidian, as her husband preferred to call her, set out her favorite flowers transplanted from the garden at Plymouth.
| HOUSE OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON |
The first thing that strikes your eye, as you pass the Emerson house, is the row of great horse-chestnuts shading its front. Mr. Coolidge, of Boston, who built the house in 1828, remembered the lofty chestnuts of his boyhood home in Bowdoin Square and promptly set to work to duplicate them when he completed his new country house. Emerson added to his original two acres until he had nine, and planted an orchard of apple trees and pear trees, on which Thoreau did the grafting. “When I bought my farm,” said Emerson, “I did not know what a bargain I had in the bluebirds, bobolinks, and thrushes, which were not charged in the bill. As little did I guess what sublime mornings and sunsets I was buying, what reaches of landscape, and what fields and lanes for a tramp.” To appreciate the full extent, therefore, of Emerson’s domain, we must next visit the favorite objective of his Sunday walks, Walden Pond, only a mile or two away.
Walden Pond is a pretty sheet of water, about half a mile long, completely inclosed by trees, which grow very near to the water’s edge. I fancy the visitors who go there may be divided into two classes: first, those who go for a swim in the cool, deep waters, as Hawthorne liked to do; and second, those who go to lay a stone upon the cairn that marks the site of Thoreau’s hut. It is well worth a pilgrimage, in these days, to see the place where a man actually built a dwelling-house at a cost of $28.12½ and lived in it two years at an estimated expense of $1.09 a month. One of his extravagances was a watermelon, costing two cents, and this was classified in his summary among the “Experiments which failed!” The site of the hut was admirably chosen. It overlooks a little cove or bay, and the still surface of the pond, glimpses of which could be seen through the trees, reflecting the blue sky overhead, made a beautiful picture.