Complete Prose Works

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_Another_.--I am studying the stars, under advantages, as I cross
tonight. (It is late in February, and again extra clear.) High toward
the west, the Pleiades, tremulous with delicate sparkle, in the soft
heavens,--Aldebaran, leading the V-shaped Hyades--and overhead Capella
and her kids. Most majestic of all, in full display in the high south,
Orion, vast-spread, roomy, chief historian of the stage, with his
shiny yellow rosette on his shoulder, and his three kings--and a
little to the east, Sirius, calmly arrogant, most wondrous single
star. Going late ashore, (I couldn't give up the beauty, and
soothingness of the night,) as I staid around, or slowly wander'd I
heard the echoing calls of the railroad men in the West Jersey depot
yard, shifting and switching trains, engines, etc.; amid the general
silence otherways, and something in the acoustic quality of the air,
musical, emotional effects, never thought of before. I linger'd long
and long, listening to them.

_Night of March 18, '79_.--One of the calm, pleasantly cool,
exquisitely clear and cloudless, early spring nights--the atmosphere
again that rare vitreous blue-black, welcom'd by astronomers. Just at
8, evening, the scene overhead of certainly solemnest beauty, never
surpass'd. Venus nearly down in the west, of a size and lustre as if
trying to outshow herself, before departing. Teeming, maternal orb--I
take you again to myself. I am reminded of that spring preceding
Abraham Lincoln's murder, when I, restlessly haunting the Potomac
banks, around Washington city, watch'd you, off there, aloof, moody as
myself:

As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after
night,
As you droop from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the
other stars all look'd on,)
As we wander'd together the solemn night.

With departing Venus, large to the last, and shining even to the
edge of the horizon, the vast dome presents at this moment, such
a spectacle! Mercury was visible just after sunset--a rare sight.
Arcturus is now risen, just north of east. In calm glory all the stars
of Orion hold the place of honor, in meridian, to the south,--with the
Dog-star a little to the left. And now, just rising, Spica, late,
low, and slightly veil'd. Castor, Regulus and the rest, all shining
unusually clear, (no Mars or Jupiter or moon till morning.) On the
edge of the river, many lamps twinkling--with two or three huge
chimneys, a couple of miles up, belching forth molten, steady flames,
volcano-like, illuminating all around--and sometimes an electric
or calcium, its Dante-Inferno gleams, in far shafts, terrible,
ghastly-powerful. Of later May nights, crossing, I like to watch the
fishermen's little buoy-lights--so pretty, so dreamy--like corpse
candles--undulating delicate and lonesome on the surface of the
shadowy waters, floating with the current.

THE FIRST SPRING DAY ON CHESTNUT STREET

Winter relaxing its hold, has already allow'd us a foretaste of
spring. As I write, yesterday afternoon's softness and brightness,
(after the morning fog, which gave it a better setting, by contrast,)
show'd Chestnut street--say between Broad and Fourth--to more
advantage in its various asides, and all its stores, and gay-dress'd
crowds generally, than for three months past. I took a walk there
between one and two. Doubtless, there were plenty of hard-up folks
along the pavements, but nine-tenths of the myriad-moving human
panorama to all appearance seem'd flush, well-fed, and fully-provided.
At all events it was good to be on Chestnut street yesterday.
The peddlers on the sidewalk--("sleeve-buttons, three for five
cents")--the handsome little fellow with canary-bird whistles--the
cane men, toy men, toothpick men--the old woman squatted in a heap on
the cold stone flags, with her basket of matches, pins and
tape--the young negro mother, sitting, begging, with her two
little coffee-color'd twins on her lap--the beauty of the cramm'd
conservatory of rare flowers, flaunting reds, yellows, snowy lilies,
incredible orchids, at the Baldwin mansion near Twelfth street--
the show of fine poultry, beef, fish, at the restaurants--the china
stores, with glass and statuettes--the luscious tropical fruits--the
street cars plodding along, with their tintinnabulating bells--the
fat, cab-looking, rapidly driven one-horse vehicles of the
post-office, squeez'd full of coming or going letter-carriers, so
healthy and handsome and manly-looking, in their gray uniforms--the
costly books, pictures, curiosities, in the windows--the gigantic
policemen at most of the corners will all be readily remember'd and
recognized as features of this principal avenue of Philadelphia.
Chestnut street, I have discover'd, is not without individuality, and
its own points, even when compared with the great promenade-streets
of other cities. I have never been in Europe, but acquired years'
familiar experience with New York's, (perhaps the world's) great
thoroughfare, Broadway, and possess to some extent a personal and
saunterer's knowledge of St. Charles street in New Orleans, Tremont
street in Boston, and the broad trottoirs of Pennsylvania avenue in
Washington. Of course it is a pity that Chestnut were not two or three
times wider; but the street, any fine day, shows vividness, motion,
variety, not easily to be surpass'd. (Sparkling eyes, human faces,
magnetism, well-dress'd women, ambulating to and fro--with lots o
fine things in the windows--are they not about the same, the civilized
world over?)

How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles--and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

A few days ago one of the six-story clothing stores along here had the
space inside its plate-glass show-window partition'd into a little
corral, and litter'd deeply with rich clover and hay, (I could smell
the odor outside,) on which reposed two magnificent fat sheep,
full-sized but young--the handsomest creatures of the kind I ever saw.
I stop's long and long, with the crowd, to view them--one lying down
chewing the cud, and one standing up, looking out, with dense-fringed
patient eyes. Their wool, of a clear tawny color, with streaks of
glistening black--altogether a queer sight amidst that crowded
promenade of dandies, dollars and dry-goods.

UP THE HUDSON TO ULSTER COUNTY

_April 23._--Off to New York on a little tour and visit. Leaving the
hospitable, home-like quarters of my valued friends, Mr. and Mrs. J.
H. Johnston--took the 4 P. M. boat, bound up the Hudson, 100 miles
or so. Sunset and evening fine. Especially enjoy'd the hour after
we passed Cozzens's landing--the night lit by the crescent moon and
Venus, now swimming in tender glory, and now hid by the high rocks and
hills of the western shore, which we hugg'd close. (Where I spend the
next ten days is in Ulster county and its neighborhood, with frequent
morning and evening drives, observations of the river, and short
rambles.)

_April 24--Noon._--A little more and the sun would be oppressive. The
bees are out gathering their bread from willows and other trees. I
watch them returning, darting through the air or lighting on the
hives, their thighs covered with the yellow forage. A solitary robin
sings near. I sit in my shirt sleeves and gaze from an open bay-window
on the indolent scene--the thin haze, the Fishkill hills in the
distance--off on the river, a sloop with slanting mainsail, and two or
three little shad-boats. Over on the railroad opposite, long freight
trains, sometimes weighted by cylinder-tanks of petroleum, thirty,
forty, fifty cars in a string, panting and rumbling along in full
view, but the sound soften'd by distance.

DAYS AT J. B.'S TURF-FIRES--SPRING SONGS

_April 26_.--At sunrise, the pure clear sound of the meadow lark. An
hour later, some notes, few and simple, yet delicious and perfect,
from the bush-sparrow-towards noon the reedy trill of the robin.
To-day is the fairest, sweetest yet--penetrating warmth--a lovely
veil in the air, partly heat-vapor and partly from the turf-fires
everywhere in patches on the farms. A group of soft maples near by
silently bursts out in crimson tips, buzzing all day with busy bees.
The white sails of sloops and schooners glide up and down the river;
and long trains of cars, with ponderous roll, or faint bell notes,
almost constantly on the opposite shore. The earliest wild flowers in
the woods and fields, spicy arbutus, blue liverwort, frail anemone,
and the pretty white blossoms of the bloodroot. I launch out in slow
rambles, discovering them. As I go along the roads I like to see the
farmers' fires in patches, burning the dry brush, turf, debris. How
the smoke crawls along, flat to the ground, slanting, slowly rising,
reaching away, and at last dissipating. I like its acrid smell--whiffs
just reaching me--welcomer than French perfume.

The birds are plenty; of any sort, or of two or three sorts,
curiously, not a sign, till suddenly some warm, gushing, sunny April
(or even March) day--lo! there they are, from twig to twig, or fence
to fence, flirting, singing, some mating, preparing to build. But most
of them _en passant_--a fortnight, a month in these parts, and then
away. As in all phases, Nature keeps up her vital, copious, eternal
procession. Still, plenty of the birds hang around all or most of the
season--now their love-time, and era of nest-building. I find flying
over the river, crows, gulls and hawks. I hear the afternoon shriek of
the latter, darting about, preparing to nest. The oriole will soon
be heard here, and the twanging _meoeow_ of the cat-bird; also the
king-bird, cuckoo and the warblers. All along, there are three
peculiarly characteristic spring songs--the meadow-lark's, so sweet,
so alert and remonstrating (as if he said, "don't you see?" or, "can't
you understand?")--the cheery, mellow, human tones of the robin--(I
have been trying for years to get a brief term, or phrase, that would
identify and describe that robin call)--and the amorous whistle of the
high-hole. Insects are out plentifully at midday.

_April 29_.--As we drove lingering along the road we heard, just after
sundown, the song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd without a word, and
listen'd long. The delicious notes--a sweet, artless, voluntary,
simple anthem, as from the flute-stops of some organ, wafted through
the twilight--echoing well to us from the perpendicular high rock,
where, in some thick young trees' recesses at the base, sat the bird
--fill'd our senses, our souls.

MEETING A HERMIT

I found in one of my rambles up the hills a real hermit, living in a
lonesome spot, hard to get at, rocky, the view fine, with a little
patch of land two rods square. A man of youngish middle age, city born
and raised, had been to school, had travel'd in Europe and California.
I first met him once or twice on the road, and pass'd the time of day,
with some small talk; then, the third time, he ask'd me to go along
a bit and rest in his hut (an almost unprecedented compliment, as I
heard from others afterwards.) He was of Quaker stock, I think; talk'd
with ease and moderate freedom, but did not unbosom his life, or
story, or tragedy, or whatever it was.

AN ULSTER COUNTY WATERFALL

I jot this mem, in a wild scene of woods and hills, where we have come
to visit a waterfall. I never saw finer or more copious hemlocks,
many of them large, some old and hoary. Such a sentiment to them,
secretive, shaggy--what I call weather-beaten and let-alone--a rich
underlay of ferns, yew sprouts and mosses, beginning to be spotted
with the early summer wild-flowers. Enveloping all, the monotone and
liquid gurgle from the hoarse impetuous copious fall--the greenish-
tawny, darkly transparent waters, plunging with velocity down the
rocks, with patches of milk-white foam--a stream of hurrying amber,
thirty feet wide, risen far back in the hills and woods, now rushing
with volume--every hundred rods a fall, and sometimes three or four in
that distance. A primitive forest, druidical, solitary and savage--not
ten visitors a year--broken rocks everywhere--shade overhead, thick
underfoot with leaves--a just palpable wild and delicate aroma.

WALTER DUMONT AND HIS MEDAL

As I saunter'd along the high road yesterday, I stopp'd to watch a man
near by, ploughing a rough stony field with a yoke of oxen. Usually
there is much geeing and hawing, excitement, and continual noise and
expletives, about a job of this kind. But I noticed how different, how
easy and wordless, yet firm and sufficient, the work of this young
ploughman. His name was Walter Dumont, a farmer, and son of a
farmer, working for their living. Three years ago, when the steamer
"Sunnyside" was wreck'd of a bitter icy night on the west bank
here, Walter went out in his boat--was the first man on hand with
assistance--made a way through the ice to shore, connected a line,
perform'd work of first-class readiness, daring, danger, and saved
numerous lives. Some weeks after, one evening when he was up at
Esopus, among the usual loafing crowd at the country store and
post-office, there arrived the gift of an unexpected official gold
medal for the quiet hero. The impromptu presentation was made to him
on the spot, but he blush'd, hesitated as he took it, and had nothing
to say.

HUDSON RIVER SIGHTS

It was a happy thought to build the Hudson river railroad right along
the shore. The grade is already made by nature; you are sure of
ventilation one side--and you are in nobody's way. I see, hear, the
locomotives and cars, rumbling, roaring, flaming, smoking, constantly,
away off there, night and day--less than a mile distant, and in full
view by day. I like both sight and sound. Express trains thunder and
lighten along; of freight trains, most of them very long, there cannot
be less than a hundred a day. At night far down you see the headlight
approaching, coming steadily on like a meteor. The river at night has
its special character-beauties. The shad fishermen go forth in their
boats and pay out their nets--one sitting forward, rowing, and one
standing up aft dropping it properly-marking the line with little
floats bearing candles, conveying, as they glide over the water, an
indescribable sentiment and doubled brightness. I like to watch the
tows at night, too, with their twinkling lamps, and hear the husky
panting of the steamers; or catch the sloops' and schooners' shadowy
forms, like phantoms, white, silent, indefinite, out there. Then the
Hudson of a clear moonlight night.

But there is one sight the very grandest. Sometimes in the fiercest
driving storm of wind, rain, hail or snow, a great eagle will appear
over the river, now soaring with steady and now overbended wings
--always confronting the gale, or perhaps cleaving into, or at times
literally _sitting_ upon it. It is like reading some first-class
natural tragedy or epic, or hearing martial trumpets. The splendid
bird enjoys the hubbub--is adjusted and equal to it--finishes it so
artistically. His pinions just oscillating--the position of his head
and neck--his resistless, occasionally varied flight--now a swirl,
now an upward movement--the black clouds driving--the angry wash
below--the hiss of rain, the wind's piping (perhaps the ice colliding,
grunting)--he tacking or jibing--now, as it were, for a change,
abandoning himself to the gale, moving with it with such velocity--and
now, resuming control, he comes up against it, lord of the situation
and the storm--lord, amid it, of power and savage joy.

Sometimes (as at present writing,) middle of sunny afternoon, the old
"Vanderbilt" steamer stalking ahead--I plainly hear her rhythmic,
slushing paddles--drawing by long hawsers an immense and varied
following string, ("an old sow and pigs," the river folks call it.)
First comes a big barge, with a house built on it, and spars towering
over the roof; then canal boats, a lengthen'd, clustering train,
fasten'd and link'd together--the one in the middle, with high staff,
flaunting a broad and gaudy flag--others with the almost invariable
lines of new-wash'd clothes, drying; two sloops and a schooner aside
the tow--little wind, and that adverse--with three long, dark, empty
barges bringing up the rear. People are on the boats: men lounging,
women in sun-bonnets, children, stovepipes with streaming smoke.

TWO CITY AREAS, CERTAIN HOURS

NEW YORK, _May 24, '79_.--Perhaps no quarters of this city (I have
return'd again for awhile,) make more brilliant, animated, crowded,
spectacular human presentations these fine May afternoons than the two
I am now going to describe from personal observation. First: that
area comprising Fourteenth street (especially the short range between
Broadway and Fifth avenue) with Union square, its adjacencies, and so
retrostretching down Broadway for half a mile. All the walks here are
wide, and the spaces ample and free--now flooded with liquid gold from
the last two hours of powerful sunshine. The whole area at 5 o'clock,
the days of my observations, must have contain'd from thirty to
forty thousand finely-dress'd people, all in motion, plenty of them
good-looking, many beautiful women, often youths and children,
the latter in groups with their nurses--the trottoirs everywhere
close-spread, thick-tangled, (yet no collision, no trouble,) with
masses of bright color, action, and tasty toilets; (surely the women
dress better than ever before, and the men do too.) As if New York
would show these afternoons what it can do in its humanity, its
choicest physique and physiognomy, and its countless prodigality of
locomotion, dry goods, glitter, magnetism, and happiness.

Second: also from 5 to 7 P.M. the stretch of Fifth avenue, all the way
from the Central Park exits at Fifty-ninth street, down to Fourteenth,
especially along the high grade by Fortieth street, and down the hill.
A Mississippi of horses and rich vehicles, not by dozens and scores,
but hundreds and thousands--the broad avenue filled and cramm'd with
them--a moving, sparkling, hurrying crush, for more than two miles.
(I wonder they don't get block'd, but I believe they never do.)
Altogether it is to me the marvel sight of New York. I like to get in
one of the Fifth avenue stages and ride up, stemming the swift-moving
procession. I doubt if London or Paris or any city in the world can
show such a carriage carnival as I have seen here five or six times
these beautiful May afternoons.

CENTRAL PARK WALKS AND TALKS

_May 16 to 22_.--I visit Central Park now almost every day, sitting, or
slowly rambling, or riding around. The whole place presents its very
best appearance this current month--the full flush of the trees, the
plentiful white and pink of the flowering shrubs, the emerald green of
the grass spreading everywhere, yellow dotted still with dandelions
--the specialty of the plentiful gray rocks, peculiar to these grounds,
cropping out, miles and miles--and over all the beauty and purity,
three days out of four, of our summer skies. As I sit, placidly, early
afternoon, off against Ninetieth street, the policeman, C. C., a
well-form'd sandy-complexion'd young fellow, comes over and stands
near me. We grow quite friendly and chatty forth-with. He is a New
Yorker born and raised, and in answer to my questions tells me about
the life of a New York Park policeman, (while he talks keeping his
eyes and ears vigilantly open, occasionally pausing and moving where
he can get full views of the vistas of the road, up and down, and the
spaces around.) The pay is $2.40 a day (seven days to a week)--the
men come on and work eight hours straight ahead, which is all that is
required of them out of the twenty-four. The position has more risks
than one might suppose--for instance if a team or horse runs away
(which happens daily) each man is expected not only to be prompt, but
to waive safety and stop wildest nag or nags--(_do it_, and don't be
thinking of your bones or face)--give the alarm-whistle too, so that
other guards may repeat, and the vehicles up and down the tracks be
warn'd. Injuries to the men are continually happening. There is much
alertness and quiet strength. (Few appreciate, I have often thought,
the Ulyssean capacity, derring do, quick readiness in emergencies,
practicality, unwitting devotion and heroism, among our American
young men and working-people--the firemen, the railroad employes, the
steamer and ferry men, the police, the conductors and drivers--the
whole splendid average of native stock, city and country.) It is good
work, though; and upon the whole, the Park force members like it.
They see life, and the excitement keeps them up. There is not so much
difficulty as might be supposed from tramps, roughs, or in keeping
people "off the grass." The worst trouble of the regular Park employe
is from malarial fever, chills, and the like.

A FINE AFTERNOON, 4 TO 6

Ten thousand vehicles careering through the Park this perfect
afternoon. Such a show! and I have seen all--watch'd it narrowly,
and at my leisure. Private barouches, cabs and coupes, some fine
horseflesh--lapdogs, footmen, fashions, foreigners, cockades on hats,
crests on panels--the full oceanic tide of New York's wealth and
"gentility." It was an impressive, rich, interminable circus on a
grand scale, full of action and color in the beauty of the day, under
the clear sun and moderate breeze. Family groups, couples, single
drivers--of course dresses generally elegant--much "style," (yet
perhaps little or nothing, even in that direction, that fully
justified itself.) Through the windows of two or three of the richest
carriages I saw faces almost corpse-like, so ashy and listless. Indeed
the whole affair exhibited less of sterling America, either in
spirit or countenance, than I had counted on from such a select
mass-spectacle. I suppose, as a proof of limitless wealth, leisure,
and the aforesaid "gentility," it was tremendous. Yet what I saw those
hours (I took two other occasions, two other afternoons to watch
the same scene,) confirms a thought that haunts me every additional
glimpse I get of our top-loftical general or rather exceptional phases
of wealth and fashion in this country--namely, that they are ill at
ease, much too conscious, cased in too many cerements, and far from
happy--that there is nothing in them which we who are poor and plain
need at all envy, and that instead of the perennial smell of the
grass and woods and shores, their typical redolence is of soaps and
essences, very rare may be, but suggesting the barber shop--something
that turns stale and musty in a few hours anyhow.

Perhaps the show on the horseback road was prettiest. Many groups
(threes a favorite number,) some couples, some singly--many
ladies--frequently horses or parties dashing along on a full run--fine
riding the rule--a few really first-class animals. As the afternoon
waned, the wheel'd carriages grew less, but the saddle-riders seemed
to increase. They linger'd long--and I saw some charming forms and
faces.

DEPARTING OF THE BIG STEAMERS

_May 25._--A three hours' bay-trip from 12 to 3 this afternoon,
accompanying "the City of Brussels" down as far as the Narrows, in
behoof of some Europe-bound friends, to give them a good send off. Our
spirited little tug, the "Seth Low," kept close to the great black
"Brussels," sometimes one side, sometimes the other, always up to
her, or even pressing ahead, (like the blooded pony accompanying the
royal elephant.) The whole affair, from the first, was an animated,
quick-passing, characteristic New York scene; the large, good-looking,
well-dress'd crowd on the wharf-end--men and women come to see their
friends depart, and bid them God-speed--the ship's sides swarming with
passengers--groups of bronze-faced sailors, with uniform' d officers
at their posts--the quiet directions, as she quickly unfastens and
moves out, prompt to a minute--the emotional faces, adieus and
fluttering handkerchiefs, and many smiles and some tears on
the wharf--the answering faces, smiles, tears and fluttering
handkerchiefs, from the ship--(what can be subtler and finer than this
play of faces on such occasions in these responding crowds?--what go
more to one's heart?)--the proud, steady, noiseless cleaving of the
grand oceaner down the bay--we speeding by her side a few miles,
and then turning, wheeling,--amid a babel of wild hurrahs, shouted
partings, ear-splitting steam whistles, kissing of hands and waving of
handkerchiefs.

This departing of the big steamers, noons or afternoons--there is no
better medicine when one is listless or vapory. I am fond of going
down Wednesdays and Saturdays--their more special days--to watch them
and the crowds on the wharves, the arriving passengers, the general
bustle and activity, the eager looks from the faces, the clear-toned
voices, (a travel'd foreigner, a musician, told me the other day she
thinks an American crowd has the finest voices in the world,) the
whole look of the great, shapely black ships themselves, and their
groups and lined sides--in the setting of our bay with the blue sky
overhead. Two days after the above I saw the "Britannic," the "Donau,"
the "Helvetia" and the "Schiedam" steam out, all off for Europe--a
magnificent sight.