And why the star-form she repeats.

Lover of all things alive,
Wonderer at all he meets,
Wonderer chiefly at himself—
Who can tell him what he is,
Or how meet in human elf
Coming and past eternities?

2

And such I knew, a forest seer,
A minstrel of the natural year,
Foreteller of the vernal ides,

Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,
A lover true, who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seemed that Nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place,
In quaking bog, on snowy hill,
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It opened in its virgin bower,
As if a sunbeam showed the place,
And tell its long-descended race.

45

50

55

65

It seemed as if the breezes brought him,
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him, 60
As if by secret sight he knew
Where, in far fields, the orchis grew.
There are many events in the field
Which are not shown to common eyes,
But all her shows did Nature yield,
To please and win this pilgrim wise.
He saw the partridge drum in the woods,
He heard the woodcock's evening hymn;
He found the tawny thrush's broods,
And the shy hawk did wait for him.
What others did at distance hear,
And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
Was shown to this philosopher,
And at his bidding seemed to come.

3

70

Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road,

By God's own light illumined and foreshowed.

4

'Twas one of the charméd days When the genius of God doth flow; The wind may alter twenty ways, A tempest cannot blow;

110

It may blow north, it still is warm; Or south, it still is clear;

Or east, it smells like a clover-farm; Or west, no thunder fear.

115

The musing peasant lowly great

Beside the forest water sate;

The rope-like pine-roots crosswise grown Composed the network of his throne;

120

Through beds of granite cut my road,
And their resistless friendship showed. 140
The falling waters led me,

The foodful waters fed me,

And brought me to the lowest land,
Unerring to the ocean sand.

The moss upon the forest bark

Was pole-star when the night was dark;
The purple berries in the wood
Supplied me necessary food;
For Nature ever faithful is
To such as trust her faithfulness.
When the forest shall mislead me,
When the night and morning lie,
When sea and land refuse to feed me,
"Twill be time enough to die;
Then will yet my mother yield
A pillow in her greenest field,
Nor the June flowers scorn to cover
The clay of their departed lover."

145

150

155

Friendship. 1. In what way do the introductory verses give the theme of the essay? The first two paragraphs of the essay express Emerson's confidence in the underlying goodness and kindliness in human nature; how may this faith be related to attempts to solve some of the vexed problems of our industrial and social life?

2. In the third paragraph Emerson speaks of the effect of association with others upon our best powers. What illustrations does he give? Can you think of others?

3. The last two paragraphs of this selection point out the two elements that are necessary in friendship. Name them. With what Emerson says of the man who under the influence of religious emotion "spoke to the conscience of every person," compare Hawthorne's story, "The Ambitious Guest," whose earnestness and sincerity set all the family to talking on matters they had not thought of before. You might compare this also with Emerson's statement about the effect of the coming of a stranger upon conversation.

4. Can you think of other elements that enter into perfect friendship?

Forbearance. State the theme of this poem in your own language. In what way are the illustrations (hunting, the rose, eating, courage, silence) related to each other and to the theme? Why are these illustrations chosen? What ideal of life does the poem express?

The Past. State the theme in a sentence.

Each and All. 1. At first reading, this poem may seem difficult, partly because of Emerson's fondness for naming a series of apparently unrelated illustrations. As a matter of fact, the illustrations are closely related, and may be summarized in a sentence. The theme of this poem is in line 11. How are the lines about the peasant, the heifer, the sexton, related to each other and to this theme?

2. Following line 11, we have a different kind of illustration: Not only do our actions unconsciously influence others, but whatever beauty or joy life brings us depends not on the source of the joy itself but on other circumstances. What are these other circumstances?

3. The third part of the poem begins with line 37. What is its theme? In what sense are truth and beauty the same?

Woodnotes I. 1. This poem may be compared with Bryant's poems about the woods. What resemblances and what contrasts do you observe? In stanza 1 notice the sources of the poet's joy in Nature and the question that he asks. In stanza 2, the poet meets one who can answer the question. Why (stanza 3)? In stanza 4 find the answer to the poet's question. 2.

Memorize the characterization of the wise man (lines 99-108). How do the lines about the "clear spirit" illustrate what is said in the biography of Emerson about his view of selfreliance? Can you relate this passage about timidity and self-reliance to the nation as well as to the individual?

of Emerson's work by reading in the library the following poems and prose essays. Perhaps Emerson is almost a new author to you, so you will find it all the more interesting to study him in connection with his place in American literature. Be prepared to make a report on some of the poems that appealed to you most, and make an abstract of one of the essays. Poems: "Good-by," "The River," "The Apology," "The Humble-bee," "A Fable," "The Informing Spirit," "Threnody," "The Seashore," "The Titmouse." Prose essays: “Friendship" (entire), and "Compensation."

Somewhat similar in ideas and ideals to Emerson, as he was friend and neighbor, yet quite different in his literary productions, was Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and passed most of his life there, one of the group of literary men who made it their home and enriched it with the luster of their reputations. He had to turn his hands to any odd job in order to finish his university course. As his tastes were extremely simple for a young man, he did not have to work long at a stretch in order to provide the necessities of life for a considerable period.

Thoreau was a lover of Nature of a unique kind. He wished to live with her, not merely to watch her, but to have a share in all her moods, to grasp the full meaning of all changes and appearances. His almost microscopic eyes aided him in this. In addition to this passion for the out-door world, Thoreau was a student of early English literature. He also read Greek for pleasure. He was sincere and simple in his disposition; an attractive man in spite of seeming eccentricities. Men of sturdy peasant stock appealed to him. He loved their inherent common sense; their close relation to the forces of Nature which produced their livelihood.

During his entire life Thoreau kept a minutely accurate Journal, from which fourteen volumes of selections have been printed. Two books published during his lifetime have assured his place in our

literature. With a brother he spent a week in a rowboat exploring two rivers, catching with his quick eye every detail of natural phenomena, noting it in a book, and amplifying it later; A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers (1849) is one of the rarely stimulating Nature books of our history. Even more original, and more generally read, is another volume of the same kind, Walden (1854). An idea of the contents of this book may be gathered from some of the chapter headings: Sounds, The Bean-field, Brute Neighbors, Higher Laws, Winter Animals, The Pond in Winter, Solitude.

Thoreau states thus his reasons for going out into the woods near Walden Pond:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

The book therefore contains three kinds of material: the story of a hermitlike existence lasting nearly two years; an account of his observations of Nature, very minute and set forth in an interesting manner; some observations on the meaning of life, philosophical passages which often remind us of Emerson. The first of these elements in the book is a story somewhat like that of Robinson Crusoe. tells how he built his cabin, planted his little field of beans and potatoes, kept house; all the daily routine of work, swim

He

ming, and recreation. It also contains his expense accounts, which show that his expenses for a year's living were around eight dollars. From this point of view Walden is a book devoted to the great out-of-doors, and possesses the fascination that all such books exert. The second strand of interest in the book, the records of his keen observation, cannot be illustrated here; it is fully as fascinating as the story of his pioneering. The third element, more philosophical, interests those who are fond of Emerson, and all those, too, who appreciate shrewd, epigrammatic summaries of the meaning of life, expressed by a man capable of thinking for himself and phrasing the results in concise, oftentimes memorable, language.

While Thoreau contributed no interpretation of American political principles, wrote no novels that picture American life, and seemingly had small influence on his contemporaries, yet he belongs in a very real sense among the interpreters whose lives and works we are considering in this chapter. In a time relatively late

and in a region representative of an advanced civilization, he chose deliberately to front the facts of life as a pioneer. That he did this pioneering, lived this elemental life of simplicity and frugality, of "plain living and high thinking," within a stone's throw of the railroad and almost within sight of Harvard College, makes his experience interesting to us and fruitful to our thought. America has always been a country of pioneers, of men who repeat, generation after generation, the experience of the first colonists at Plymouth and on the James. Like the hero of old legend, we renew our strength through these repeated contacts with mother earth. Not aristocracy, or wealth, or high learning can take the place of this pioneer spirit, or drive it from our blood. Thoreau at Walden lived as the first settlers in the Ohio Valley, in the Dakotas, in Wyoming and Montana and Utah, on the Pacific coast, lived in successive generations. This pioneer instinct governed Thoreau's life and thought; he interprets it for us.

CHOOSING A FARM

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's 10 premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it-took everything but a deed of it-took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk-cultivated it, and him, too, to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough,

This ex- 20

leaving him to carry it on. perience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat?-better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes 30 the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to 40