Chapter 14

_June 25_.--Returned to New York last night. Out to-day on the waters for a sail in the wide bay, southeast of Staten island--a rough, tossing ride, and a free sight--the long stretch of Sandy Hook, the highlands of Navesink, and the many vessels outward and inward bound. We came up through the midst of all, in the full sun. I especially enjoy'd the last hour or two. A moderate sea-breeze had set in; yet over the city, and the waters adjacent, was a thin haze, concealing nothing, only adding to the beauty. From my point of view, as I write amid the soft breeze, with a sea-temperature, surely nothing on earth of its kind can go beyond this show. To the left the North river with its far vista--nearer, three or four war-ships, anchor'd peacefully--the Jersey side, the banks of Weehawken, the Palisades, and the gradually receding blue, lost in the distance--to the right the East river--the mast-hemm'd shores--the grand obelisk-like towers of the bridge, one on either side, in haze, yet plainly defin'd, giant brothers twain, throwing free graceful interlinking loops high across the tumbled tumultuous current below--(the tide is just changing to its ebb)--the broad water-spread everywhere crowded--no, not crowded, but thick as stars in the sky--with all sorts and sizes of sail and steam vessels, plying ferry-boats, arriving and departing coasters, great ocean Dons, iron-black, modern, magnificent in size and power, fill'd with their incalculable value of human life and precious merchandise--with here and there, above all, those daring, careening things of grace and wonder, those white and shaded swift-darting fish-birds, (I wonder if shore or sea elsewhere can outvie them,) ever with their slanting spars, and fierce, pure, hawk-like beauty and motion--first-class New York sloop or schooner yachts, sailing, this fine day, the free sea in a good wind. And rising out of the midst, tall-topt, ship-hemm'd, modern, American, yet strangely oriental, V-shaped Manhattan, with its compact mass, its spires, its cloud-touching edifices group'd at the centre--the green of the trees, and all the white, brown and gray of the architecture well blended, as I see it, under a miracle of limpid sky, delicious light of heaven above, and June haze on the surface below.

HUMAN AND HEROIC NEW YORK

The general subjective view of New York and Brooklyn--(will not the time hasten when the two shall be municipally united in one, and named Manhattan?)--what I may call the human interior and exterior of these great seething oceanic populations, as I get it in this visit, is to me best of all. After an absence of many years, (I went away at the outbreak of the secession war, and have never been back to stay since,) again I resume with curiosity the crowds, the streets, I knew so well, Broadway, the ferries, the west side of the city, democratic Bowery--human appearances and manners as seen in all these, and along the wharves, and in the perpetual travel of the horse-cars, or the crowded excursion steamers, or in Wall and Nassau streets by day--in the places of amusement at night--bubbling and whirling and moving like its own environment of waters--endless humanity in all phases--Brooklyn also--taken in for the last three weeks. No need to specify minutely--enough to say that (making all allowances for the shadows and side-streaks of a million-headed-city) the brief total of the impressions, the human qualities, of these vast cities, is to me comforting, even heroic, beyond statement. Alertness, generally fine physique, clear eyes that look straight at you, a singular combination of reticence and self-possession, with good nature and friendliness--a prevailing range of according manners, taste and intellect, surely beyond any elsewhere upon earth--and a palpable outcropping of that personal comradeship I look forward to as the subtlest, strongest future hold of this many-item'd Union--are not only constantly visible here in these mighty channels of men, but they form the rule and average. To-day, I should say--defiant of cynics and pessimists, and with a full knowledge of all their exceptions--an appreciative and perceptive study of the current humanity of New York gives the directest proof yet of successful Democracy, and of the solution of that paradox, the eligibility of the free and fully developed individual with the paramount aggregate. In old age, lame and sick, pondering for years on many a doubt and danger for this republic of ours--fully aware of all that can be said on the other side--I find in this visit to New York, and the daily contact and rapport with its myriad people, on the scale of the oceans and tides, the best, most effective medicine my soul has yet partaken--the grandest physical habitat and surroundings of land and water the globe affords--namely, Manhattan island and Brooklyn, which the future shall join in one city--city of superb democracy, amid superb surroundings.

HOURS FOR THE SOUL

_July 22d, 1878_.--Living down in the country again. A wonderful conjunction of all that goes to make those sometime miracle-hours after sunset--so near and yet so far. Perfect, or nearly perfect days, I notice, are not so very uncommon; but the combinations that make perfect nights are few, even in a life time. We have one of those perfections to-night. Sunset left things pretty clear; the larger stars were visible soon as the shades allow'd. A while after 8, three or four great black clouds suddenly rose, seemingly from different points, and sweeping with broad swirls of wind but no thunder, underspread the orbs from view everywhere, and indicated a violent heatstorm. But without storm, clouds, blackness and all, sped and vanish'd as suddenly as they had risen; and from a little after 9 till 11 the atmosphere and the whole show above were in that state of exceptional clearness and glory just alluded to. In the northwest turned the Great Dipper with its pointers round the Cynosure. A little south of east the constellation of the Scorpion was fully up, with red Antares glowing in its neck; while dominating, majestic Jupiter swam, an hour and a half risen, in the east--(no moon till after 11.) A large part of the sky seem'd just laid in great splashes of phosphorus. You could look deeper in, farther through, than usual; the orbs thick as heads of wheat in a field. Not that there was any special brilliancy either--nothing near as sharp as I have seen of keen winter nights, but a curious general luminousness throughout to sight, sense, and soul. The latter had much to do with it. (I am convinced there are hours of Nature, especially of the atmosphere, mornings and evenings, address'd to the soul. Night transcends, for that purpose, what the proudest day can do.) Now, indeed, if never before, the heavens declared the glory of God. It was to the full sky of the Bible, of Arabia, of the prophets, and of the oldest poems. There, in abstraction and stillness, (I had gone off by myself to absorb the scene, to have the spell unbroken,) the copiousness, the removedness, vitality, loose-clear-crowdedness, of that stellar concave spreading overhead, softly absorb'd into me, rising so free, interminably high, stretching east, west, north, south--and I, though but a point in the centre below, embodying all.

As if for the first time, indeed, creation noiselessly sank into and through me its placid and untellable lesson, beyond--O, so infinitely beyond!--anything from art, books, sermons, or from science, old or new. The spirit's hour--religion's hour--the visible suggestion of God in space and time--now once definitely indicated, if never again. The untold pointed at--the heavens all paved with it. The Milky Way, as if some superhuman symphony, some ode of universal vagueness, disdaining syllable and sound--a flashing glance of Deity, address'd to the soul. All silently--the indescribable night and stars--far off and silently.

THE DAWN.--_July 23_.--This morning, between one and two hours before sunrise, a spectacle wrought on the same background, yet of quite different beauty and meaning. The moon well up in the heavens, and past her half, is shining brightly--the air and sky of that cynical-clear, Minerva-like quality, virgin cool--not the weight of sentiment or mystery, or passion's ecstasy indefinable--not the religious sense, the varied All, distill'd and sublimated into one, of the night just described. Every star now clear-cut, showing for just what it is, there in the colorless ether. The character of the heralded morning, ineffably sweet and fresh and limpid, but for the esthetic sense alone, and for purity without sentiment. I have itemized the night--but dare I attempt the cloudless dawn? (What subtle tie is this between one's soul and the break of day? Alike, and yet no two nights or morning shows ever exactly alike.) Preceded by an immense star, almost unearthly in its effusion of white splendor, with two or three long unequal spoke-rays of diamond radiance, shedding down through the fresh morning air below--an hour of this, and then the sunrise.

THE EAST.--What a subject for a poem! Indeed, where else a more pregnant, more splendid one? Where one more idealistic-real, more subtle, more sensuous-delicate? The East, answering all lands, all ages, peoples; touching all senses, here, immediate, now--and yet so indescribably far off--such retrospect! The East--long-stretching--so losing itself--the orient, the gardens of Asia, the womb of history and song--forth-issuing all those strange, dim cavalcades--Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion. Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garment. With sunburnt visage, intense soul and glittering eyes. Always the East--old, how incalculably old! And yet here the same--ours yet, fresh as a rose, to every morning, every life, to-day--and always will be.

_Sept. 17_. Another presentation--same theme--just before sunrise again, (a favorite hour with me.) The clear gray sky, a faint glow in the dull liver-color of the east, the cool fresh odor and the moisture--the cattle and horses off there grazing in the fields--the star Venus again, two hours high. For sounds, the chirping of crickets in the grass, the clarion of chanticleer, and the distant cawing of an early crow. Quietly over the dense fringe of cedars and pines rises that dazzling, red, transparent disk of flame, and the low sheets of white vapor roll and roll into dissolution.

THE MOON.--_May 18_.--I went to bed early last night, but found myself waked shortly after 12, and, turning awhile, sleepless and mentally feverish, I rose, dress'd myself, sallied forth and walk'd down the lane. The full moon, some three or four hours up--a sprinkle of light and less-light clouds just lazily moving--Jupiter an hour high in the east, and here and there throughout the heavens a random star appearing and disappearing. So beautifully veiled and varied--the air, with that early-summer perfume, not at all damp or raw--at times Luna languidly emerging in richest brightness for minutes, and then partially envelop'd again. Far off a poor whip-poor-will plied his notes incessantly. It was that silent time between 1 and 3.

The rare nocturnal scene, how soon it sooth'd and pacified me! Is there not something about the moon, some relation or reminder, which no poem or literature has yet caught? (In very old and primitive ballads I have come across lines or asides that suggest it.) After a while the clouds mostly clear'd, and as the moon swam on, she carried, shimmering and shifting, delicate color-effects of pellucid green and tawny vapor. Let me conclude this part with an extract, (some writer in the "Tribune," May 16, 1878):

No one ever gets tired of the moon. Goddess that she is by dower of her eternal beauty, she is a true woman by her tact--knows the charm of being seldom seen, of coming by surprise and staying but a little while; never wears the same dress two nights running, nor all night the same way; commends herself to the matter-of-fact people by her usefulness, and makes her uselessness adored by poets, artists, and all lovers in all lands; lends herself to every symbolism and to every emblem; is Diana's bow and Venus's mirror and Mary's throne; is a sickle, a scarf, an eyebrow, his face or her face, and look'd at by her or by him; is the madman's hell, the poet's heaven, the baby's toy, the philosopher's study; and while her admirers follow her footsteps, and hang on her lovely looks, she knows how to keep her woman's secret--her other side--unguess'd and unguessable.

_Furthermore. February 19, 1880_.--Just before 10 P.M. cold and entirely clear again, the show overhead, bearing southwest, of wonderful and crowded magnificence. The moon in her third quarter--the clusters of the Hyades and Pleiades, with the planet Mars between--in full crossing sprawl in the sky the great Egyptian X, (Sirius, Procyon, and the main stars in the constellations of the Ship, the Dove, and of Orion;) just north of east Bootes, and in his knee Arcturus, an hour high, mounting the heaven, ambitiously large and sparkling, as if he meant to challenge with Sirius the stellar supremacy.

With the sentiment of the stars and moon such nights I get all the free margins and indefiniteness of music or poetry, fused in geometry's utmost exactness.

STRAW-COLOR'D AND OTHER PSYCHES

_Aug. 4_.--A pretty sight! Where I sit in the shade--a warm day, the sun shining from cloudless skies, the forenoon well advanc'd--I look over a ten-acre field of luxuriant clover-hay, (the second crop)--the livid-ripe red blossoms and dabs of August brown thickly spotting the prevailing dark-green. Over all flutter myriads of light-yellow butterflies, mostly skimming along the surface, dipping and oscillating, giving a curious animation to the scene. The beautiful, spiritual insects! straw-color'd Psyches! Occasionally one of them leaves his mates, and mounts, perhaps spirally, perhaps in a straight line in the air, fluttering up, up, till literally out of sight. In the lane as I came along just now I noticed one spot, ten feet square or so, where more than a hundred had collected, holding a revel, a gyration-dance, or butterfly good-time, winding and circling, down and across, but always keeping within the limits. The little creatures have come out all of a sudden the last few days, and are now very plentiful. As I sit outdoors, or walk, I hardly look around without somewhere seeing two (always two) fluttering through the air in amorous dalliance. Then their inimitable color, their fragility, peculiar motion--and that strange, frequent way of one leaving the crowd and mounting up, up in the free ether, and apparently never returning. As I look over the field, these yellow-wings everywhere mildly sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the wild carrot gracefully bending on their tall and taper stems--while for sounds, the distant guttural screech of a flock of guinea-hens comes shrilly yet somehow musically to my ears. And now a faint growl of heat-thunder in the north--and ever the low rising and falling wind-purr from the tops of the maples and willows.

_Aug. 20_.--Butterflies and butterflies, (taking the place of the bumble-bees of three months since, who have quite disappear'd,) continue to flit to and fro, all sorts, white, yellow, brown, purple--now and then some gorgeous fellow flashing lazily by on wings like artists' palettes dabb'd with every color. Over the breast of the pond I notice many white ones, crossing, pursuing their idle capricious flight. Near where I sit grows a tall-stemm'd weed topt with a profusion of rich scarlet blossoms, on which the snowy insects alight and dally, sometimes four or five of them at a time. By-and-by a humming-bird visits the same, and I watch him coming and going, daintily balancing and shimmering about. These white butterflies give new beautiful contrasts to the pure greens of the August foliage, (we have had some copious rains lately,) and over the glistening bronze of the pond-surface. You can tame even such insects; I have one big and handsome moth down here, knows and comes to me, likes me to hold him up on my extended hand.

_Another Day, later_.--A grand twelve-acre field of ripe cabbages with their prevailing hue of malachite green, and floating-flying over and among them in all directions myriads of these same white butterflies. As I came up the lane to-day I saw a living globe of the same, two or three feet in diameter, many scores cluster'd together and rolling along in the air, adhering to their ball-shape, six or eight feet above the ground.

A NIGHT REMEMBRANCE

_Aug. 23, 9-10 A.M._--I sit by the pond, everything quiet, the broad polish'd surface spread before me--the blue of the heavens and the white clouds reflected from it--and flitting across, now and then, the reflection of some flying bird. Last night I was down here with a friend till after midnight; everything a miracle of splendor--the glory of the stars, and the completely rounded moon--the passing clouds, silver and luminous-tawny--now and then masses of vapory illuminated scud--and silently by my side my dear friend. The shades of the trees, and patches of moonlight on the grass--the softly blowing breeze, and just-palpable odor of the neighboring ripening corn--the indolent and spiritual night, inexpressibly rich, tender, suggestive--something altogether to filter through one's soul, and nourish and feed and soothe the memory long afterwards.

WILD FLOWERS

This has been and is yet a great season for wild flowers; oceans of them line the roads through the woods, border the edges of the water-runlets, grow all along the old fences, and are scatter'd in profusion over the fields. An eight-petal'd blossom of gold-yellow, clear and bright, with a brown tuft in the middle, nearly as large as a silver half-dollar, is very common; yesterday on a long drive I noticed it thickly lining the borders of the brooks everywhere. Then there is a beautiful weed cover'd with blue flowers, (the blue of the old Chinese teacups treasur'd by our grand-aunts,) I am continually stopping to admire--a little larger than a dime, and very plentiful. White, however, is the prevailing color. The wild carrot I have spoken of; also the fragrant life-everlasting. But there are all hues and beauties, especially on the frequent tracts of half-opened scrub-oak and dwarf cedar hereabout--wild asters of all colors. Notwithstanding the frost-touch the hardy little chaps maintain themselves in all their bloom. The tree-leaves, too, some of them are beginning to turn yellow or drab or dull green. The deep wine-color of the sumachs and gum-treesis already visible, and the straw-color of the dog-wood and beech. Let me give the names of some of these perennial blossoms and friendly weeds I have made acquaintance with hereabout one season or another in my walks:

Wild azalea, dandelions wild honeysuckle, yarrow, wild roses, coreopsis, golden rod, wild pea, larkspur, woodbine, early crocus, elderberry, sweet flag, (great patches of it,) poke-weed, creeper, trumpet-flower, sun-flower, scented marjoram, chamomile, snakeroot, violets, Solomon's seal, clematis, sweet balm, bloodroot mint, (great plenty,) swamp magnolia, wild geranium, milk-weed, wild heliotrope, wild daisy, (plenty,) burdock, wild chrysanthemum.

A CIVILITY TOO LONG NEGLECTED

The foregoing reminds me of something.

As the individualities I would mainly portray have certainly been slighted by folks who make pictures, volumes, poems, out of them--as a faint testimonial of my own gratitude for many hours of peace and comfort in half-sickness, (and not by any means sure but they will somehow get wind of the compliment,) I hereby dedicate the last half of these Specimen Days to the

bees, glow-worms, (swarming millions black-birds, of them indescribably dragon-flies, strange and beautiful at night pond-turtles, over the pond and creek,) mulleins, tansy, peppermint, water-snakes, moths, (great and little, some crows, splendid fellows,) millers, mosquitoes, cedars, butterflies, tulip-trees, (and all other trees,) wasps and hornets, and to the spots and memories cat-birds, (and all other birds,) of those days, and the creek.

DELAWARE RIVER--DAYS AND NIGHTS

_April 5, 1879_.-With the return of spring to the skies, airs, waters of the Delaware, return the sea-gulls. I never tire of watching their broad and easy flight, in spirals, or as they oscillate with slow unflapping wings, or look down with curved beak, or dipping to the water after food. The crows, plenty enough all through the winter, have vanish'd with the ice. Not one of them now to be seen. The steamboats have again come forth--bustling up, handsome, freshly painted, for summer work--the Columbia, the Edwin Forrest, (the Republic not yet out,) the Reybold, Nelly White, the Twilight, the Ariel, the Warner, the Perry, the Taggart, the Jersey Blue--even the hulky old Trenton--not forgetting those saucy little bull-pups of the current, the steamtugs.

But let me bunch and catalogue the affair--the river itself, all the way from the sea--Cape island on one side and Henlopen light on the other--up the broad bay north, and so to Philadelphia, and on further to Trenton;--the sights I am most familiar with, (as I live a good part of the time in Camden, I view matters from that outlook)--the great arrogant, black, full-freighted ocean steamers, inward or outward bound--the ample width here between the two cities, intersected by Windmill island--an occasional man-of-war, sometimes a foreigner, at anchor, with her guns and port-holes, and the boats, and the brown-faced sailors, and the regular oar-strokes, and the gay crowds of "visiting day"--the frequent large and handsome three-masted schooners, (a favorite style of marine build, hereabout of late years,) some of them new and very jaunty, with their white-gray sails and yellow pine spars--the sloops dashing along in a fair wind--(I see one now, coming up, under broad canvas, her gaff-topsail shining in the sun, high and picturesque--what a thing of beauty amid the sky and waters!)--the crowded wharf-slips along the city--the flags of different nationalities, the sturdy English cross on its ground of blood, the French tricolor, the banner of the great North German empire, and the Italian and the Spanish colors--sometimes, of an afternoon, the whole scene enliven'd by a fleet of yachts, in a half calm, lazily returning from a race down at Gloucester;--the neat, rakish, revenue steamer "Hamilton" in mid-stream, with her perpendicular stripes flaunting aft--and, turning the eyes north, the long ribands of fleecy-white steam, or dingy-black smoke, stretching far, fan-shaped, slanting diagonally across from the Kensington or Richmond shores, in the west-by-south-west wind.

SCENES ON FERRY AND RIVER--LAST WINTER'S NIGHTS