CONCORD, April 5th, 1845.
Judge, my unitary friend, how grateful was your letter, perfumed with flowers and moonlight, to an unfortunate up to his ears in manure and dish-water! For no happier is my plight at this moment. I snatch a moment out of the week wherein the significance of that fearful word business has been revealed to me to send an echo, a reply to your good letter.
Since Monday we have been moving and manuring and fretting and fuming and rushing desperately up and down turnpikes with bundles and baskets, and have arrived at the end of the week barely in order. Yesterday, in the midst, while I was escorting a huge wagon of that invaluable farming wealth, I encountered Mrs. Pratt and family making their reappearance in civilization. All Brook Farm in the golden age seemed to be strapped to the rear of their wagon as baggage, for Mrs. Pratt was the first lady I saw at Brook Farm, where ladyhood blossomed so fairly. Ah! my minute is over, and I must leave you to lie in wait for another.
Evening. I have captured an evening instead, my first tolerably quiet evening in this new life, this new system of ours for a summer sojourn. The waves of my nomadic life drift me on strange shores, and sometimes, as I mount them, I dream of a home, quiet and beautiful, that home which allures all young minds and gradually fades into the sad features of such households as we see. In all my experience I think of three happy homes where the impression is uniform, for in all there are May Days and Thanksgivings; and yet to see a complete home would be to see that marriage which, if we may credit Miss Fuller, does not belong to an age when celibacy is the "great fact." As if the divine force could be extinguished! I must marry and spite her theory. You would be amused if you could see some of the letters which I receive, and which discourse of a wife with the same gravity as they do of washing clothes, as if each were a necessary, and that it would not do for me to settle upon a farm until I am married. There is some wisdom in the last advice. An old bachelor upon a farm, with a solitary old maid-servant, is not the most pleasing prospect for young one-and-twenty to contemplate. But I ignore farms and maids and prospects, saving always the natural one. Next year may find me the favored of all three.
How gladly I would be with you on Monday, you know; but what candidate for the plough and the broom should I be after the bewilderment of that scene! I remember too well the festivals which graced the younger days to trust myself within their sphere again, save in the midst of a boundless summer leisure. And when, after these chill, moist, April days, the perfect flower of summer shall bloom, I will be in its heart and breathe the enchanted air again. The word reminds me how glad I am that the flowers were so grateful. I committed my memory to delicate guardians, who, dying, did not suffer that to die. And the trinity of tone, color, and sentiment, though I knew not, like you, how to indicate it, is one of the most alluring of mysteries, so much so that I must leave it even unexpressed. Since so little may be known, I will not bring it into the melancholy purlieus of theory, but see it and hear it and feel it in echoes and glimpses. Yet all these rainbows which span the heaven of thought, finely woven of the tears of humility, one would sometimes grasp and crystallize forever. In that I find my satisfaction in what I know of Fourier; but to clutch at the rainbow! can it be crystallized?
Let not the spasm of infidelity mar my letter in your eyes or heart, and on your anniversary let one stream flow to the memory of your friend,
G.W.C.
XXIV
CONCORD, April 17th, 1845.
As a good friend, am I not bound to advise you how my new household works, here in the very bosom of terrible civilization, which yet keeps me very warm? A long wet day like this, when I have been gloriously imprisoned by dropping diamonds, tries well the power of my new solitary life to charm me. It has not failed. It is going away now through the dark, still midnight, but it bears the image of my smile. A long wet day, with my books and fire and Burrill for external, long thoughts for internal, company. After a morning service prolonged far beyond the hour of matins, led by the sweet and solemn Milton, I read Miss Martineau's last tale, founded upon the history of Toussaint L'Ouverture, in whom I have been interested. I have just read Victor Hugo's "Bug Jargal," his first novel, and also based upon the insurrection of St. Domingo. I feel that Miss Martineau's picture is highly colored, but the features must be correct. A strong, sad, long-suffering, far-seeing man, finally privately murdered by one who had been the idol of his manhood. The interest is individual throughout, which is necessary, yet fatal to the novel. I followed the Hero away from St. Domingo to his grave, and afterwards the thought of the remaining negroes came very faintly back. We read what Napoleon said of his own conduct in the matter; but with the abolitionist Miss Martineau on one side, and the doubtful Man of Destiny on the other, the pure fact grew very attenuated, and I am not now sure that I have seen it. The moment your curiosity is really aroused about an historical circumstance, the glasses through which you have been viewing so varied and wide a landscape become suddenly very opaque. History is a gallery of pictures so individually unexpressive that you must know the artist to know their meaning. Very few men relate with cold precision what occurs daily, so much are their feelings enlisted; and no less daily experiences are the recorded events of the past to the man whose days are devoted to them, and he too must infuse himself into them. He is a Guelph or a Ghibelline, not a judge of the struggle, wiser by five or six centuries of experience. In Carlyle's book "that shall be" the "Cromwell," I feel there will be so much stress laid upon the gravity and prompt, sturdy heroism of the man that much else will be shoved out of sight. It will be the history of Cromwell as a strong man, for Carlyle loves strong men; but if there are other things to be said, we shall not hear so much about them. So in Emerson's "Napoleon." He commences with saying that Napoleon is the Incarnate Democrat, the representative of the 19th century, and the lecture is an illustration of that position, but most comprehensive and eloquent.