I felt this yesterday while looking at Cole's paintings. Each picture of "The Voyage of Life" impressed me somewhat as the voyage itself does. Especially the cold, subdued tone of the last, which suggests infinity by the tone merely. Perhaps you have not seen them, and will suffer a brief account. The pictures are four. The first represents a boat of golden prow and sides wrought into the images of the hours, bearing an infant in a bed of roses, and issuing from a dim cave in a dark, indefinable mountain, and hasting down a flower-crowned stream. The second shows the babe grown to manhood, and, assuming himself the guidance, leaves the guardian spirit upon the bank, and upon a wider stream, piercing a wider prospect, sails away, allured by a dim cloud-castle which seems to hang over the river, yet from which the stream turns. The next shows him dashing along amid clouds and whirlpools and tempests, without rudder or compass, towards threatening rocks, yet serenely, with clasped hands, abiding the issue. In the last, grown to old age, he sails forth upon a fathomless, shoreless sea, leaving behind all rocks and tempests, while the guardian angel again at the helm points to regions of cloudless day. Though very beautiful of themselves, they suggested to me grander pictures of this grandest theme, and so interested me very much.

Truly there is nothing final; all is suggestive. When, entranced in summer woods, we demand that nature lend our homes somewhat of her beauty, she replies to us that beauty is so subtle, residing not in the green of this leaf nor in the curve of that branch, and not in the whole, but in the soul that contemplates it, that of herself she has none, and that we her lovers have invested her with such golden charms. The universal wish to realize is only typified by the grasping gain. Most men live to acknowledge in heart the superiority of young dreams over old possessions; and the world feels that in the unshrinking aspirations of the youth lies the hope of the world. That is the lightning that purifies the dense atmosphere, and, glancing for an instant, reveals the keenest light known to men. So the old year sings to me as it goes crowned with crystals and snow-drops to its end. Without shrinking, without sorrow, it folds its white garment around unwithered limbs, and submits gracefully to the past. Nature regards it with that calm face whereon no emotions are written, but a wise serenity forever sits. This year, too, is to many lonely hearts a redeemer; and no heavens will be darkly clouded when it is over, but still stars will shine unsurprised. Pale scholars in midnight vigils, golden gayety wreathing the hours with flowers and gems, unbending sorrow pressing heavy seals upon yielding wretchedness, it will steal surely from all these, and on the morrow be a colorless ghost in the distant past. Its constancy will secure our immortality. The grandeur of the year may be the strength of our character; and as the East receives it, we may enter the inscrutable future reverently and with folded hands.

Sunday. I am going to F. Rakemann's to pass the afternoon and give him this for you. He proposes to pass a week in Boston. I have heard Wallace during the week. He has great talent; but I had heard Ole Bull, and Wallace's violin-playing was only good. What think you of Vieuxtemps, who, I see, is in Boston? Shall you not send Knoop hither? So many things I would say! It is wiser to say nothing. Remember me to my West Roxbury friends, Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Shaw and their spouses.

Ever your friend,

G.W.C.

VIII

N.Y., Thursday, January 18, '44.

I have not yet answered your letter by W.H. Channing in words, though I have said a great deal to you that you have not heard. What an interrupter of conversation is this absence! Neither have I told you of my Vieuxtemps experience, nor shall I close my letter without speaking of Knoop, who by the gods' favor concerts to-night. Your letter by W.H. Channing crystallized a resolution which has been quiet in me for the winter, so still that it needed only a powerful jerk to induce crystallization at once. So the day or two succeeding its receipt found me busy in expressing some thoughts about reform and association which I meant for The Present. But the necessity for expression seems to have been satisfied without publication. The essay remains as quietly in my portfolio as did the idea in my mind. So it was with an article on Ole Bull that I wrote some weeks since for the Tribune. The need seems to give the thought expression and form, whether it then lay still or fly abroad upon paper wings. Besides, printing does give a dignity to thoughts that the author should feel that they deserve, a permanency too. The newspaper that escapes the turmoil and tear and dust of years bears the same aspect as all its fellows of the same date that were ushered into the morning parlors with it; and so some commentator on Ole Bull and Vieuxtemps or what not shall run down to the lower generations more noiselessly, yet as certainly, as Shakespeare and Plato. There is a singular pleasure, too, in publishing what nobody thinks is yours. It is addressing the world not as Geo. Curtis, but as some distinguished messenger, the mystery of whom is a charm, if nothing more. Yet unfortunate me! I could never maintain the secret long. Is that from pride or because you cannot endure to see men go wrong, if you can help them? When Charles Dana came running to me with what he thought Emerson's poem, how could I help saying, "It is mine." In that case, at least, it was sympathy for Emerson's reputation that prompted the speech.

There is something that pleases me much in the united works of young authors. Sands and who? in our country published "Yamoyden" and some other poems together. C. Lamb and Lloyd (was not Coleridge one?) published some small verses in company. There is a sort of meanness in it, too, as if they should say, "Here we come, two scribblers, not worthy singly to attract your attention, but together making out something worth your money." After all, a single failure may be better than a double respectability. Imagine the united literary works of Dwight and Curtis rotting in an odd drawer of Ticknor's or James Munroe's; could we ever look each other in the face again? What a still, perpetual suspicion there would be that the one swamped the other.

Do you not mean some day to gather your musical essays together, like a whorl of leaves, and suffer them to expand into a book, though not with the cream—colored calyx that Ticknor affects, I beg. Nay, might you not make some arrangements with Greeley to publish them here, in a cheap way, if you would make money, for those who valued them would of course obtain more durable copies. If not, and you would think dignity compromitted, some of the regular publishers might be diplomatized with. They would make an unique work. You know we have nothing similar in American literature, no book of artistic criticism, have we? Why will you not think of it, if you have not done so? And what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do, you shall command. How recreant am I to this noble art, that listen only and celebrate with feeble voice its charms.

Tuesday evening, at a small musical party, I heard Euphrasia Borghese sing, whom you may have heard, and who is to be Prima Donna at the new Opera-house, which opens on the 25th or 2eth of the present month. They begin with the "Puritani." It will be altogether devoted to Italian music, I suppose, from the tendency of the New York taste and the collection of musicians.

I heard Vieuxtemps both times he played after his return. I was very much delighted; he was so modest and composed and refined. His playing is as wonderful as Ole Bull's, but not so fascinating; his compositions more contemplative and regular, not so wild and throbbing with the irregular pulsations of unsatisfied genius, as are Ole Bull's. I felt no disposition to compare, feeling how different they were. I thanked God when I came away that no one man has sole power, but that many may serve in this boundless temple, each in its various offices. Yet in my memory is Ole Bull the only man who has stirred me up as genius always must. When I heard Vieuxtemps, I knew what to anticipate; the grandeur of the instrumental and the human possibility upon it had been revealed to me, therefore he could not surprise me, and for that revelation I am indebted to Ole Bull. Vieuxtemps prolonged the echo of the deep tone that had been sounded into my spiritual ear. I must say that the first was grandest to me, and remains so.

I passed Sunday P.M. with Rakemann; he played all the time, told me of you and Boston and his love for it, asked me if I had heard more of the concerts you mentioned. Timm on Monday played me the "Invitation to the W." very beautifully, beside some Mazurkas of Chopin, also the "Egmont" overture grandly. Saturday evening the second Philharmonic, the "Jupiter Symphony," and some Septuats, etc. It was not a good concert. Castellan sang for the last time. Not a note of Beethoven! Yesterday afternoon and evening I passed with Josephine Maman, who plays and sings finely. We had some of Beethoven, the "Pathetique," etc., and some songs of Schubert, which I had never heard. A singular girl, but delightful to me. My musical appetite has been well appeased; can it ever be satisfied? To-night, Knoop, for whom I have left little space, especially as I find my paper is torn.

Evening. Have just come from Knoop's. It was beautiful to see the worthy mate of such men as Ole Bull and Vieuxtemps. From what you and others had told me, I knew I should like him. So calm and grand. Yet when I left the room a mournful feeling came over me, that so he must leave and be heard no more. Beethoven is not done when he is dead, nor Raphael nor Shakespeare; but for him whose glory is action, which leaves no trace but upon the heart, what shall remain? The notes he may transcribe for others, but the charm of the musical artist lies not therein; it is a personal effluence; how shall we measure it? I felt to-night that he played not for an audience, but to the private heart. He was singing to me his deep searching thought, his star-lost aspiration. Indeed, he is worthy to close the brilliant winter; a calm planet fading from us, but with a mild, steady lustre that condemns sorrow. How invisible, insensibly proceeds his fame! My character must needs be strengthened and mellowed by such men, and so my influence upon others is moulded, till perhaps it meets him again. Surrounded by these intimate relations, we cannot touch one but all thrill. In such a subtle shrine is the influence of genius fitly embalmed and there worshipped. How grand an era in my life, when through a winter I may justly use the word genius many times!

Good-night!

G.W.C.

I am 24! Will you write me the numbers of the "Tempest" sonata, and some others that I liked particularly? The op. 14, No. 2, I have got, and Timm played it to me on Monday. How inexorable is this space, that will not let me crowd in that I am ever your friend,

G.W.C.

IX

N.Y., Sunday evening, Feb. 25, '44.

Do you remember ever to have read a novel called "The Collegians?" A work of great interest, and displaying great dramatic power. I was always anxious to know the author, and chance has thrown his name and history in my way. It was Gerald Griffin, an Irishman of genius, who lived the varied life of a professed literary man. Desirous of having his dramas accepted at the London theatres, and finding no one to favor him. Too noble to be dependent, and going days without food. In 183ty something he published, "Gisippus," a tragedy, famed of the greatest merit. Finally he became weary of his literary life, and entered an Irish convent, where, within two or three years, he died. His father's family in greater part have removed to America, and his elder brother, a physician of note, has recently published his memoirs, the reviews of which I have happened to meet. The reviews say the usual thing of genius, that his writings were full of promise, and that he might have achieved greatly had he lived. Must not this be always a complaint of genius? Its being, not its expression, has the charm which captivates. The dramas are the least part of Shakespeare, and one would give more to have known him than to study them forever. It must seem to us promising, till we have entered into the fulness of its spirit. The necessity of expressing compromises the dignity of being. God is more pleasing to thought as self-contemplation, rather than creation. Expression is degradation to us, not to the genius. That informs everything with its complete Loveliness. But we who must seek in the expression for it, miss its beauty. Critics complain of Tennyson that he writes no epic, as if all poets must do the same thing. "Comus" is as Miltonic as the "Paradise Lost;" and the little songs of Shakespeare as wide and fresh as the dramas. The diamond is no less wonderful than the world.

Recently my reading has led me into the old English poetry. A friend gave me a card to the Society Library, the largest in the city; and I have found much good browsing in those fields. I have found "Amadis de Gaul" among the rest, and the complete works of Carew, Suckling, Drayton, Drummond, etc. It has led me to wish some more intimate knowledge of English history, to which I must turn. How imperceptibly and surely spread out these meadows where the rare flowers bloom! There is no end to these threads which place themselves in our hand, and which lead every man of the world his different way. So we sail on through the blue spaces, separate as stars.

And you, they tell me, have joined the association. I supposed you were making some move, and thought this might be it. I am glad that you do so so heartily, and more glad that I can say so. After all, the defiance offered us by the varied positions of our friends is what life needs. Each dissimilar act of my friend, while it does not sever him from me, throws me more sternly upon myself. Can we not make our friendship so fine that it shall be only a sympathy of thought, and let the expression differ, and court it to differ? This ray of the sunlight falls upon summer woods, that sinks into the wintry sea, yet are they brothers. The severe loneliness that has sun and moon in its bosom invites us as the vigorous health of the soul. The beautiful isolation of the rose in its own fragrance is self-sufficient.

Charles wrote Burrill a manly letter during the week. The Arcadian beauty of the place is lost to me, and would have been lost, had there been no change. Seen from this city life, you cannot think how fair it seems. So calm a congregation of devoted men and true women performing their perpetual service to the Idea of their lives, and clothed always in white garments. Though you change your ritual, I feel your hope is unchanged; and though it seems to me less beautiful than the one you leave, it is otherwise to you. There was a mild grace about our former life that no system attains. The unity in variety bound us very closely together. I doubt if we shall be again among you, as I had hoped. I cannot, in thought, lose my hold upon the place without pain not to be spoken of. On the whole, I cannot say, even to you, just what I would about it. It will leak out from the pores of my hands before we have done with each other.

I hear no music here now, except Timm and Rakemann. Charlotte Dana is here; I have heard her only once. The opera is a wretched affair. By-the-by, I gave W.H. Channing an article for The Present, very short, upon music and Ole Bull. If he publishes it, it will not be new to you, though I do not remember if I have talked with you about all at which it hints. I await orders and manuscripts about the French stories; though you are very busy, all of you, just now, perhaps too much so for that business. The rest stands adjourned. Give my love to friends. Yrs ever,

G.W.C.

Will you say to C. Dana that I would like to come for a short visit—at least, before going elsewhere; and that as soon as possible, say in a week. Can I come? If not, ask him to say when. Yours,

J. Burrill Curtis.

Feb'y 27.

X

NEW YORK, March 3, 1844.

Your letter was very grateful to me. I had supposed the silence would be broken by some music burst of devotion, and that all friends would be dearer to you the more imperative the call upon your strength to battle for the Ideal. It half reproved me for the meagre sheet the same day brought to your hand. And yet could we see how all the forces of heaven and earth unite to shape the particle that floats idly by us, we should never see meagreness more.

I do not think (and what a heresy!) that your life has found more than an object, not yet a centre. The new order will systematize your course; but I do not see that it aids your journey. Is it not the deeper insight you constantly gain into music which explains the social economy you adopt, and not the economy the music? One fine symphony or song leads all reforms captive, as the grand old paintings in St. Peter's completely ignore all sects. Association will only interpret music so far as it is a pure art, as poetry and sculpture and painting explain each other. But necessarily Brook Farm, association and all, do not regard it artistically, but charitably. It regenerates the world with them because it does tangible good, not because it refines. We must view all pursuits as arts before we can accomplish.

With respect to association as a means of reform, I have seen no reason to change my view. Though, like the monastic, a life of devotion, to severe criticism it offers a selfish and an unheroic aspect. When your letter first spoke of your personal interest in the movement, I had written you a long statement of my thought, which I did not send, and then partly spun into an article for The Present, which I did not entirely finish. It was only a strong statement of Individualism, which would not be new to you, perhaps, and the essential reason of which could not be readily treated. What we call union seems to me only a name for a phase of individual action. I live only for myself; and in proportion to my own growth, so I benefit others. As Fourier seems to me to have postponed his life, in finding out how to live, so I often felt it was with Mr. Ripley. Besides, I feel that our evils are entirely individual, not social. What is society but the shadow of the single men behind it. That there is a slave on my plantation or a servant in my kitchen is no evil; but that the slave and servant should be unwilling to be so, that is the difficulty. The weary and the worn do not ask of me an asylum, but aid. The need of the most oppressed man is strength to endure, not means of escape. The slave toiling in the Southern heats is a nobler aspect of thought than the freed black upon the shore of England. That is just now the point which pains me in association, its lack of heroism. Reform is purification, forming anew, not forming again. Love, like genius, uses the means that are, and the opportunities of to-day. If paints are wanting, it draws charcoal heads with Michael Angelo. These crooked features of society we cannot rend and twist into a Roman outline and grace; but they may be animated with a soul that will utterly shame our carved and painted faces. A noble man purges these present relations, and does not ask beautiful houses and landscapes and appliances to make life beautiful. In Wall Street he gives another significance to trade; in the City Hall he justifies its erection; in the churches he interprets to themselves the weekly assembly of citizens. He uses the pen with which, just now, the coal-man scrawled his bill, and turns off an epic with the fife that in the band so sadly pierced our ears. He moves our trudging lives to the beauties of golden measures. He laughs heartily at our absorbing charities and meetings, upon which we waste our health and grow thin. He answers our distressing plea for the rights of the oppressed, and the "all-men-born-to-be-free-and-equal" with a smiling strength, which assures us therein lies the wealth and the equality which we are trying to manufacture out of such materials as association, organization of society, copartnership, no wages, and the like. While this may be done, why should we retire from the field behind the walls which you offer? Let us die battling or victorious. And this, true for me and you, is true to the uttermost. The love which alone can make your Phalanx beautiful, also renders it unnecessary. You may insure food and lodgings to the starving beggar, I do not see that strength is afforded to the man. Moreover, a stern divine justice ordains that each man stand where he stands, and do his utmost. Retreat, if you will, behind this prospect of comfortable living, but you do so at a sacrifice of strength. Your food must be eternal, for your life is so. I do not feel that the weary man outworn by toil needs a fine house and books and culture and free air; he needs to feel that his position, also, is as good as these. When he has, by a full recognition of that, earned the right to come to you, then his faith is deeper than the walls of association, and the desolate cellar is a cheerful room for his shining lore. Men do not want opportunities, they do not want to start fair, they do not want to reach the same goal; they want only perfect submission. The gospel now to be preached is not, "Away with me to the land where the fields are fair and the waters flow," but, "Here in your penury, while the rich go idly by and scoff, and the chariot wheels choke you with dust, make here your golden age."

"Who cannot on his own bed sweetly sleep, Can on another's hardly rest."

So sings the saintly George Herbert, no new thought in these days of ours.

The effect of a residence at the Farm, I imagine, was not greater willingness to serve in the kitchen, and so particularly assert that labor was divine; but discontent that there was such a place as a kitchen. And, however aimless life there seemed to be, it was an aimlessness of the general, not of the individual life. Its beauty faded suddenly if I remembered that it was a society for special ends, though those ends were very noble. In the midst of busy trades and bustling commerce, it was a congregation of calm scholars and poets, cherishing the ideal and the true in each other's hearts, dedicate to a healthy and vigorous life. As an association it needed a stricter system to insure success; and since it had not the means to justify its mild life, it necessarily grew to this. As reformers, you are now certainly more active, and may promise yourselves heaven's reward for that. That impossibility of severance from the world, of which you speak, I liked, though I did not like that there should be such a protest against the world by those who were somewhat subject to it. This was not my first feeling. When I went, it seemed as if all hope had died from the race, as if the return to simplicity and beauty lay through the woods and fields, and was to be a march of men whose very habits and personal appearance should wear a sign of the coming grace. The longer I stayed, the more surely that thought vanished. I had unconsciously been devoted to the circumstance, while I had earnestly denied its value. Gradually I perceived that only as a man grew deeper and broader could he wear the coat and submit to the etiquette and obey the laws which society demands. Now I feel that no new order is demanded, but that the universe is plastic to the pious hand.

Besides, it seems to me that reform becomes atheistic the moment it is organized. For it aims, really, at that which conservatism represents. The merit of the reformer is his sincerity, not his busy effort to emancipate the slaves or to raise the drunkards. And the deeper his sincerity the more deeply grounded seems to him the order he holds to be so corrupt. God always weighs down the Devil. Therefore the church is not a collection of puzzling priests and deceived people, but the representative, now as much as ever, of the religious sentiment. A pious man needs no new church or ritual. The Catholic is not too formal nor the Quaker too plain. If he complains of these, and build another temple and construct a new service, it is not the satisfaction which piety would have. Luther's protest was that of the intellect against the supremacy of sentiment. So was Unitarianism, and now we do not seek in the Boston churches for the profound pietists. Does not our present experience show that as fast as we are emancipated from morality and the dominance of the intellect, we revert to the older rituals, if we need any. And if we have no need, the piety can so fully inform them, that we seek no other. The transcendental is a spiritual movement. It is the effort to regain the lost equilibrium between the intellect and the soul, between morals and piety. Therefore, put of its ranks come Catholics and Calvinists and mystics, and those who continue the reform movement commenced by Luther; and, proceeding at intervals down the stream of history, are the Rationalists. There is indeed a latent movement, badly represented by these reforms, and that is the constant perception of the supremacy of the Individual. But the stronger the feet become the more delicate may be the movements. The more strictly individual I am, the more certainly I am bound to all others. I can reach other men only through myself. So far as you have need of association you are injured by it.

You will gather what I think from such hints as these. I recognize the worth of the movement, as I do of all sincere action. Other reasons must bind me peculiarly to the particular me at Brook Farm. "Think not of any severance of our loves," though we should not meet immediately. Burrill will see if there is any such place as we wish about you. I have not much hope of his success. The scent of the roses will not depart, though the many are scattered. I hardly hope to say directly how very beautiful it lies in my memory. What a heart-fresco it has become! All the dignity, the strength, the devotion will be preserved by you; that graceful "aimlessness" comes no more. And yet that was necessary. Long before I knew of the changes I perceived that the growth of the place would overshadow the spots where the sunlight had lain so softly and long. We must still regret the waywardness of the child, though the man is active and victorious; and the delicate odor of the blossom is unrivalled by the juicy taste of the fruit. The one implies necessity; the other a self-obedient impulse. You see I do not forget it was a child; but the philosopher has no better playfellow.

I wish this was me instead of my letter, for a warm grasp of the hand might say more than all these words. Yr friend,

G.W.C.

XI

NEW YORK, March 27, 1844.

At last I imagine our summer destiny is fixed. This morning Burrill received a reply from Emerson informing us of a promising place near Concord. The farmer's name being Captain Nathaniel Barrett, of pleasant family and situation, and a farm on which more farm work than usual is done. Altogether the prospect is very alluring and satisfactory; and I have little doubt of our acceptance of the situation. We shall not then be very far removed from you; and at some AEsthetical tea or Transcendental club or Poet's assembly meet you, perhaps, and other Brook Farmers. At all events, we shall breathe pretty much the same atmosphere as before, and understand more fully the complete pivacy of the country life.

Burrill brought pleasant accounts of your appearance at Brook Farm. The summer shall not pass without my looking in upon you, though only for an hour. That time will suffice to show me the unaltered beauty of aspect, though days would be scarce to express all that they suggested.

Emerson writes that there is a piano and music at the farm mentioned. I have no faith in pianos under such circumstances; but it shows a taste, a hope, a capability, possibly it is equal to all spiritual significances except music! which want in a piano may be termed a deficiency.

I have become acquainted with a fine amateur, a niece of Dr. Channing's, name Gibbs. She is yet young, not more than 17, but plays with great grace and beauty. She played me one of Mendelssohn's songs, translated by Liszt, a beautiful piece, one of F.R.'s, and spoke more sensibly of music than any girl I have met. By-the-way, yesterday I bought the January number of the Democratic Review to read Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler's review of Tennyson, when, to my great surprise, I found your "Haydn." O'Sullivan I have met a great deal, but made no acquaintance. The Tennyson review is very fine. I think she understands him well. Perhaps she is too masculine a woman to judge correctly his delicacy; but she does the whole thing well.

Cranch has just painted a scene from the "Lady of Shalott," the scene—

"In among the bearded barley, The reaping late and early," etc.—

represents two reapers standing with sickles among the grain, and turning intently towards the four "gray walls and four gray towers which overlook a space of flowers" in an island covered with foliage to the water, and lying in the midst of the stream. The criticism upon the picture is obvious; if Cranch is as painter what Tennyson is as poet, it is good—if not, it is bad. What do you think? When a man illustrates a poem he is pledged by the poem, hence the absurdity of Martyn's drawings from the "Paradise Lost," and the various pictures of Belshazzar's feast. Only the Madonnas of the greatest painters are satisfactory. But I shall not abandon myself to the tracking of these mysteries of art.

I have been reading Goethe's "Tasso." Now I am at the "Sorrows of Werther." I am wonderfully impressed with his dramatic power. The "Egmont," "Iphigenia," and "Tasso" are grander than anything I know in modern literature, than anything else of his which I have read. The serene simplicity of the "Iphigenia" is like a keen blast of ocean air. It stands like a Grecian temple, but in the moonlight. Is not that because, as Fanny Kemble says, and so many have thought, he was a Heathen? He did not enter into the state called the Christian. He served gods, not a God; and had it been otherwise this tragedy had been full-bathed in sunlight. And yet I hardly dare to say anything decidedly of such a man. I shall condemn myself a little while hence if I do.

Let me hear from you before I leave New York, which will be in two or three weeks. I shall not leave all my good friends, and all the fine music here, without a pang. But if we stop for pangs! Will you send me the number of the "Mondschein," and the "Tempest" sonata?

Yr friend,

G.W. CURTIS.

XII

N.Y., Monday morning, April 8th, 1844.

The last few days have been like glimpses of Brook Farm, seeing so constantly Mr. Ripley, and Charles, and Liszt, and Isaac, and Georgiana, and Margaret Fuller. The last three days of the past week were occupied by the sessions of the Convention, about which there was no enthusiasm, but an air of quiet resolution which always precedes success. To be sure, the success, to me, is the constant hope in humanity that inspires them, the sure, glowing prophecies of paradise and heaven, being individual not general prophecies, and announcing the advent in their own hearts and lives of the feet beautiful of old upon the mountains. In comparison with this what was done, and what was doing, lost much of its greatness. Leave to Albert Brisbane, and id omne genus, these practical etchings and phalansteries; but let us serve the gods without bell or candle. Have these men, with all their faith and love, not yet full confidence in love? Is that not strong enough to sway all institutions that are, and cause to overflow with life? does that ask houses and lands to express its power? does it not ride supreme over the abounding selfishness of the world, and so raise men from their sorrow and degradation, or so inspire them that their hovels are good enough for them?

But all difference of thought vanished before the profound, sincere eloquence of these men. Last night, at W.H. Channing's church, the room was full, and the risen Lord Jesus might have smiled upon a worthy worship. From all sections were gathered in that small room men led by the same high thought, and in the light of that thought joining hearts and hands, unknown to each other, never to be seen again, and in the early dawn setting forth with hard hands and stout hearts to hew down the trees which shall be wrought into the stately dwellings for those who come after in the day. So knelt the devoted Pilgrims upon the sands of Holland, and embarked upon that doubtful sea. They fought and perished; their homes were pierced with the Indian's bullet and flames of fire; the solitude of stern forests scared not their hearts, and we follow now and live in peace. It was something to have felt and seen such heroism.

The meetings of the convention were made interesting by some speeches of W.H. Channing. His fervor kindles the sympathy of all who listen. I do not think he is a man of great intellect; his views of society are not always correct. He speaks very often as an infidel-in-the-capability- of-men might speak. He is fanatical, as all who perceive by the heart and not the head are, as deeply pious men are apt to be. But I never heard so eloquent a man, one who commanded attention and sympathy, not by his words or thoughts, but the religion that lay far below them. It is a warm, fragrant, southern wind at which the heart leaps, not the pure, cold, ocean air which braces the frame. Between him and some whom I have heard is the same difference as between Goethe and Novalis. The one a June meadow, with flower-scents and cloud-shadows and the soft, sultry music of humming-bees and singing-birds, with clear skies bending over; a deep sea the other, whereon sail stately ships, wafted by health-bearing breezes, in whose waters the sick gain strength, in whose soundless depths the coral and the precious stones repose forever, which supplies the clouds whose shadow makes the meadow beautiful.

Indeed, how glorious is the range and variety of character among which we move. Though the stars differ in glory they all make the sky fair, and do not clash in their revolutions. That dissimilarity is the secret of friendship, which educates to stand alone. Indeed—to make a most heretical conclusion—the race exists to teach me to live without it. My friend, God has no need of creatures, but he is not less nearly bound to them.

I send you the final number of The Present. You will see my article, "a poor thing, but mine own." To you it will be nothing new. It seems to me I have used some of the same sentences in speaking to you.

The Dial stops. Is it not like the going out of a star? Its place was so unique in our literature! All who wrote and sang for it were clothed in white garments; and the work itself so calm and collected, though springing from the same undismayed hope which fathers all our best reforms. But the intellectual worth of the time will be told in other ways, though The Dial no longer reports the progress of the day.

On Friday we leave for Boston. I do not know precisely if we shall go immediately to Concord, for we are performing at the same time a duty of affection in accompanying to Mount Auburn the body of an uncle. We may possibly be detained in Boston until the following Monday, in which case I shall not fail to come out and see you.

So endeth my New York correspondence.

Yours truly and ever,

G.W. CURTIS.

MUSIC AND OLE BULL

We know little of the art of music; though our concerts are crowded, and the names of the composers familiar. But our reverence to the Masters in art is like the reverence for the Bible, not a hearty one. A late musical reviewer well says, that the admiration of the Parisians for Beethoven is a conceit. That calculation answers for our meridian. Slight Italian scholars are eloquent in their admiration of Dante, but the depths and majesty of his poem are explored by few. The dullest may recognize the beauty of feature, but the soul which inspires quite eludes them. During the performance of a symphony the audience smile and shake when the airs float out of the orchestra, not observing that they are the breathing-places, the relaxation of the composer. Every one who can play can compose tunes, but to the lover of the art they yield no greater pleasure than the rhymes of a poem. Often the grandest passages are most melodious, as in poems the greatest thought suggests the happiest expression. Tune and song occupy a distinct portion of the realm of music. They are attaches to the royal court. Perhaps the finest music is allied to verse, but if it be a true marriage, the music comprehends the whole. No artist would hear the words of one of Handel's or Haydn's choral hosannas. The words are the translation, but the scholar will not accept that.

Music is an art distinct and self-sufficient. It represents the harmony of that interior truth which all art seeks to reveal, and whose beauty and grace appear in painting and sculpture. The interpreters of that harmony are sounds, which are related to music as colors to painting, and the fullest expression is given to them by instrumental combination. The human voice in respect of the art is valuable as an instrument, and in suppleness may exceed mechanical contrivances; wherefore one readily understands why a mighty chorus is introduced in the finale of the grandest symphony, that the whole effect may be duly crowned, and the appeal to the heart be assured by the union of human sounds. But with such an effect words have nothing to do. The charm of the foreign opera to us Americans is, that the full music of the Masters is received with syllables meaning to us no more than the fa-sol-la of the gamut. The reason of this is very evident. If the poetry be good it has a rhythm and cadence of its own which resembles music, but in respect of art belongs to poetry and not to music. Arbitrarily united with melody the words obtrude a meaning which the music may not suggest, though the capacity of fine music is equal to any words. The beauty of Schubert's songs is their completeness. They are lyrics, and the words are only an addition. Those who heard Rakemann play the translated serenade will remember that the instrumentation produced the whole effect of the song. If the music be fine, it gives all the sentiment of the words in its own way. It is like painting a statue to unite them. Sometimes, indeed, one feels that both are written from the same mood in the grandest minds. The mysterious charms of Goethe's song of Mignon, to which Beethoven wrote the music, is that the song is the expression of the same awe-struck yearning which wails and thunders through the music of the master. In the melody alone all the wild vagueness and dim aspiration of the song are manifest, and only because the union is perfect is the impression uniform. Should Wilhelm Meister be lost to literature the blossom of Mignon's life would still bloom in the music.

The same necessity which divided art into the arts ordains their practical separation. Because they are divisions of one their impression is similar. They work to the same end, but each has a way. To complete the harmony, the soprano, and the tenor, and the bass, must all strictly observe their parts. So must the arts. It is a mournful degradation when the composer would make his sounds, colors, as those who heard the battle of Waterloo symphony will not soon forget. Without his interference, the relation between his art and the rest will be preserved. In his symphony he is the spiritual significance of the Apollo and the Iliad; and the graceful, romantic songs of Mozart are in the drops of poetry scattered upon the old drama, and in the infinite, tender beauty of Raphael's pictures. Yet this is a likeness as between woods and waters, and with which we have nothing to do.

If a reply be sought to the question, why the grandest compositions of this art are more generally impressive than the efforts of the pure science, it may be reached in various ways. The old masters, doubtless, obeyed an unconscious instinct in joining words to their music. Then, as now, the art was in its young years, and the words served as a dictionary to the student. Merely as a dictionary, for the deep significance of the thing could not be apprehended until that was thrown aside, and the scholar read and spoke and lived in that high language as in his daily speech. The best American critic of the art says, speaking of the Messiah, "Feeling that it was time now to do something more worthy his genius, and more fitting his years, as he was getting old, he resolved to draw from all the sources of his art, and put forth all his power, to make an eloquent exposition of his faith in music, and interpret the Bible thus to the hearts of all men." And yet, hitherto, have not the sublime fragments he culled from the Bible served as expositors of the Oratorio? The Messiah is the celebration, in Handel's way, of the great things of his life, which, more or less, are the remarkable experience of all men, and which receive the grandest verbal expression in the Bible. Having this same confession to make, and obeying a different means from Moses and the apostles, a means which few could understand, what remained but to transcribe the sublimest verbal record men knew, and tell them that that was a free translation of his thought. So, in later times, Beethoven replied to one who asked the meaning of a sonata, "Read Shakespeare's Tempest." With the masses and operas of modern times the case is the same. Genius, which is plenitude of power, adapts itself to all facts. It will receive the outline of a story and weave upon it a wonderful web, which the story shall interpret. But an opera of Mozart's reveals to the voiceless player its whole magnificence. Trilling Prima Donnas and silvery Italian are the addenda and vocabulary. They are the "this is the man, this the beast" written under the picture. The severe beauty of the art is immediately injured by any encroachment upon the others. The highest praise awarded to the most successful of such attempts is that of imitation. Haydn would represent the growing of grass and the budding of trees—a beautiful conceit, but a false perception of his art. Art has little to do with imitation. The best portrait is not the fac-simile of a face, but the suggestion of a character. Music has not to do with form but thought. The Germans derive no more pleasure from the songs of their masters than we who may not know their language.

The second question is that of persons who do not understand the claims of music to the dignity of an art, whom pleasant old songs pleasantly lull to sleep after dinner; to whom comes no voice of the art separate from all things else, but which stands before him silent and veiled, while an interpreter converses. Often these songs are beautiful ballads, and so have a peculiar grace. If the music is appropriate and simple and melodious it is enough, and henceforth, to such, no artist who does not play tunes is more than a quack; and the complaint of the man who sat hearing Ole Bull for an hour, and then departed because he was so long tuning his fiddle, is the most general criticism upon his performance. But the old Scotch and Irish airs, which endear these songs to us, were doubtless, at some remote period, the wordless singings of maternal love over the rocking-cradle. They become readily united with words as a help to the memory, and as imparting facility of expression. Those who have heard "Auld Robin Gray," "Robin Adair," and the airs which Moore has gratefully accompanied with words, played on summer evenings, with flutes and horns, then realize that the impression lies in that which the words shadow. This fact is recognized in modern music by the introduction of songs without words—by the composition and performance, with more or less success, of Beethoven's symphonies, where most of all words are at fault. The pleasure of him to whom these profound compositions reveal a meaning is more private and enchanting than any he knows. He is very well content to be called enthusiastic, for his presence along justifies the performance of such works. When he meets at the concert-room those who are enraptured with Donizetti, yet who come to do homage to Beethoven, he is reminded that Beethoven would not see Rossini, holding him as one who debased the art; and it seems to him like Jesus calling upon the Jews to become as little children. Everybody reads Shakespeare, but few know what the word means. The theatre is crowded to hear Macready's "Hamlet," but it is to see Macready, not to study the drama. When he is gone the play remains; and though it is spoken by stupid men, their dulness cannot affect its profundity and strength. That is the test of art, that it transcends its instruments; and the artist at his piano realizes the soul, though not the effect of the symphony which has spoken to him so loudly from the orchestra.

The music written at this day is gymnastics for the instrument, rather than worthy offerings upon the altar of art. It is a perverse separation of the art and the science. It requires an accurate knowledge of the instrument that it may surprise, and so win applause for the performer; not that it may the better serve music, whether it has auditors or not. Few things could have more deeply pained a worthy musician than the last concert of Max Bohrer. Such profound knowledge of the power of the instrument, such utter ignorance of its intention. It seemed to groan in despair, that he, who knew its changes so well, could not awaken it to melody, but, with solemn conceit, show that he did know them, and gain approbation for that knowledge. Knoop, with the same exact science, showed a hearty reverence for art, and reverently withdrew himself and his violoncello. Castellan's voice was so full that her person was necessarily forgotten. One would not do injustice to the voice; that is frequently the instrument for which fine music is written; but in view of the art, it is an instrument only. Its deeper effect upon many minds springs from its humanity, from that part of it of which nothing can be said, and which the coal-man has as well as Malibran. This constitutes its occasional superiority of influence, but cannot impart to it the effect and artistic manifestation which instruments produce. When the full force of both is united, as in the symphony mentioned, the grandest musical expression appears.

The winter has been full of finer musical experience than we have yet had. With Ole Bull, Vieuxtemps, and Knoop, Castellan and Damoreau—the Beethoven symphonies and German overtures of the Philharmonic Society, the art has reached a point hitherto unattained. Yet this is partly deceptive. Most persons heard Ole Bull from curiosity, and the symphonies from fashion. Such music and such artists have no permanent hold of the heart here. The pianos are covered with the songs of Donizetti; and Max Bohrer takes, generally, a higher rank than Knoop. The student of art does not regard these noble artists and fine music as the dawning of the art among us, but as brighter stars flashing across the sky, while still the east is dark. Europe has made these artists and this music after many centuries. In the bosom of a church, full of profound spiritual experiences, this music has been nurtured, and artistic devotion has streamed upon these men. The necessity of this hoary antiquity to the development of art we cannot readily determine. Our painters and sculptors must flock to Italy, and lie down in the shadows of those old fanes, before they are willing to announce their claim to be servants of the art. Our poets sing in self-defence the majesty and grandeur of primeval America, and drink deeply at the stream of letters that flows from the Past. Had foreign literature been cut off from us, we should have had few writers of poetry, and Mr. Griswold's book had been a valuable duodecimo and not a heavy octavo. Our chief poets are cultivated men. Poetry with us is the recreation of elegant scholars. Mr. Percival announces that he writes poetry in more than a hundred ways; and the few young men who seem to advance first claims to the dignity of poets, by their fresh expression, need the overshadowing of Time to make them artists. How especially is this so with music. We have no native artists and few hearty students. The societies which introduce to us the finest music are German, our musical teachers are Germans and Italians, our opera is Italian. Of this no complaint is to be made. The nation is content with a foreign fragrance, as the individual students are content to live in Rome and send home to us the ideas of an old mythology wrought into statues. Art is the flower of life. The man will build his house, then he will have pictures and a piano. The claims of the interior life will surely be heard at last, and art will follow. Yankees and Wall Street govern now, Niagara by-and-by. The prophecies of our American literature, with which the literary anniversaries are annually eloquent, are sure. Contemplating the healthy seed which they represent, we need not fear for the flower. But the literature and art will be American only in respect of culture. The German music is an universal song, sung in a provincial dialect. The immortality of the classics is the universality of their truth. English and Italian art are the several ways that nations regard the same thing. The soul of music, as of painting and poetry, is always one. The foreigner is no longer a foreigner when he hears the music he loves; and silent under its spell, lovers, for the first time, meet. In the Louvre or the Vatican will not the traveller see his home?

Yet in our present backwoods life let me not omit to notice the wonderful artist whom we have recently seen. The genius of Ole Bull is so delicate and profound that we must speak of it modestly, but with certainty. It is not to be estimated by comparison. The height assures us of its loftiness, not by the inferior summits below it, but by the wide, full sunlight and the free winds that flow around it and rest upon it. The perception of genius is so sure that we need not attempt to define what it is. Every artist, full of its power, shows something more than the last. Like beauty, it will not be measured, but every beautiful person shames our analysis and philosophy of beauty. Yet the impression of genius is always the same, and its appearance in any one individual makes real to us all the rest. Until we heard Ole Bull, Paganini was a fabulous being of whom, as of Orpheus and Amphion, strange stories were told, which seemed rather prophecies of musical possibility than the history of actual accomplishment. Henceforth Paganini is a household god, and the old Pagans loom more distinctly through the misty centuries and wear something of the aspect of reality.

To us, children of a seventy years' nation, plucking the full blossom of European musical culture, the appearance of Ole Bull was like a new star in the sky. Few had predicted its shining. At most, there was a faint hope, in some minds, that we should yet see a worthy minister of art, in honoring whom we should fitly reverence the Masters. Yet it was a hope too faint and limited to inspire confidence in our manager to secure to himself a fair portion of the ample harvest nodding for so sharp a sickle. When he appeared, that wild Norwegian bravery, subdued by a reverence for art and deepened by commanding originality, the shouting theatre, the crowded tabernacle, the press for once speaking confidently in one tone, the silent joy of hearts to whom this was the first vision of genius—these announced a triumph. The ecstatic musical festivals of Europe, the pilgrimages of artists more royally surrounded than the progress of kings, we now understood.

The chief value of Ole Bull is that he introduces us more nearly to art. It is the prerogative of genius to illustrate that; therefore he stood before us as one who had in rapt hours pierced a little further into the mystery which envelops life like an atmosphere and came to recite his vision. He had detected some of those fine sunbeams that make the air golden and give it warmth, and painted them for us as well as he could. Yet in his music there was the same melancholy strain, varied by wonderful and wild freaks, like the hysterics of the gods, that hitherto so emphatically characterizes the works of genius. Throughout his compositions there was the want of unity which expressed aspiration not fulfilment, scattered stones of a fairer temple than men have seen, which also are all works of art hitherto, yet each so fair that for these the old shrines are deserted, and here men worship. One perceived that the performance was the least part of the man. It was not his height and limit, a faint beacon-light, rather, trembling over the waters, marking the shore of a wide land, with deep ravines and towering mountains and endless woods fringing depthless seas, and yet a light so bright that we thought the sun was rising. For the genius which enables one to illustrate art is universal power, whose expression is inadequate because thought is quicker than execution. Every work of art represents an era past. Only the whole character of the artist is the present flower of his life. It is no matter of surprise that Ole Bull practises little, that his compositions are unique. A deep rhythm, a subdued, infinite harmony pervades them. The rugged Norway shows in them its influence upon the artist. The rocks and glens and forests of his fatherland are not painted, but their spiritual significance floats through his music, modified and moulded by the individuality of the man. All this appears in his aspect. As he advances, the strong, composed grace of his appearance, deferential not to individuals but to the mind which shall receive the song of his inspiration, destroys conventional ideas of grace, as Mont Blanc might destroy them. His tall, compact figure well becomes a priest of art. Out of his eyes shines the reflection of the perpetual fire of which all artists are the ministers and which communicates energy and warmth to his action. With a slight, respectful motion of the head and violin-bow towards the orchestra, the respect of Olympian power, he draws from them the first notes of the symphony; then, leaning his head upon his instrument caressingly, as if he gratefully heard at once what he is about to unfold to the audience, he draws his bow. Then that violin expresses with intense passion the undefined yearnings that haunt the private heart. It entreats and restrains. Its wildness harmonizes with the deep unrest of a great aspiring soul. Its solemn movement is like the progress of a brave man to an unknown destiny, and as the last yet distinct cadence floats away into the stillness, it is as if a dove disappeared in heaven. At his second concert he played an adagio of Mozart. It was full of tender delicacy and the graceful imagination that makes all his music romance. All this the artist felt, and every tone that followed his bow was exquisite. Then was it seen how all genius meets. It was as if the composer lay in the violin and sang the song anew, as if Raphael recited one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

With what has been said about the man one who realizes the genius has little to do. The music was not false, and that is his language. There has been stern opposition and prejudice and ill-will; but so we must all bring our gifts to the altar, and they who have not gold gifts must tender swine.

Not the least of his offices is that he has enabled us to appreciate Vieuxtemps. They will not be compared by the reverent worshipper at the shrine of art. The plant needs the sunshine and the dew. It was pleasant to feel that genius abides in one man and realize that one star differeth from another in glory. Surely the firmament of art is wide enough and yet deep enough to contain many planets.

Yet the artists are but messengers whom we send before into the undiscovered country. They return and sing to us songs familiar in the Eldorado of our hope, yet of which we have learned no note. Afloat upon the depthless sea we loose doves and ravens, who bear back to us olive boughs and flowers which we cannot analyze, but whose form and fragrance make our homes beautiful. When the first shock of delighted wonder is past we receive great men as the present attainment of an illimitable Nature, as the Earth receives the light of stars, unnoticed save of wandering lovers, and sweeps undisturbed on its way. If sometimes we are warped from our sphere by the apparition of noble persons, wise men presently recover themselves and serve with a milder and firmer persistence their own nature. The way is made clearer by these bright lights, universal nature is fairer that there are so many single stars; but they must be only stars in our heaven and fires on our hearth, nor turn out the heart by inserting themselves in the bosom.

G.W.C.

XIII

CONCORD, Friday evening, May 10th, 1844.

Since our arrival here I have been busy enough. From breakfast at 6 to dinner at 12-1/2, hard at work, and all the afternoon roaming over the country far and near. When we came the spring was just waking, now it is opening like a rose-bud, with continually deepening beauty. The apple-trees in full bloom, making the landscape so white, seem to present a synopsis of the future summer glory of the flower-world.

Our farm lies on one of the three hills of Concord. They call it Punkatassett. Before us, at the foot of the hill, is the river; and the slope between holds a large part of the Captain's orchard. Among the hills at one side we see the town, about a mile away; and a wide horizon all around, which Elizabeth Hoar tells me she has learned is the charm of Concord scenery. The summit of the hill on which we are is crowned with woods, and from a clearing commands a grand prospect. Wachusett rises alone upon the distance, and takes the place of the ocean in the landscape. There is a limitation in the prospect if one cannot see the sea or mountains. The Blue Hill, in a measure, supplies that want at West Roxbury. Otherwise the landscape is a garden which only pleases. We are much pleased with our host and his family. He is that Capt. Nathan Barrett to whom Messrs. Pratt and Brown came for seed, and who raises a good deal of seed for Ruggles, Nourse and Mason. We go into all work. The Captain turns us out with the oxen and plough, and we do our best. Already I have learned a good deal. The men are very courteous and generous.

Indeed, I am disposed to think it just the place we wanted. As yet I see no reason to doubt it. It is so still a life after the city, and after the family at Brook Farm. I am glad to be thrown so directly and almost alone into nature, and am more ready than ever to pay my debt in a human way by learning the names of her beautiful flowers and the places where they blossom. We study Botany daily, and have thus far kept pace with the season. I have found here the yellow violet, which I do not remember at West Roxbury. Already we have the rhodora and the columbine, which you have probably found. And with our afternoons surrendered to the meadows and hills, and our mornings to the fields, we find no heavy hours; but every Sunday surprises us. I am to bed at 9, and rise at 4-1/2 or 5. I practise the Orphic, which says: "Baptize thyself in pure water every morning when thou leavest thy couch," which I more concisely render, Wash betimes.

For the last three evenings I have been in the village, hearing Belinda Randall play and sing. With the smallest voice she sings so delicately, and understands her power so well, that I have been charmed. It was a beautiful crown to my day, not regal and majestic, like Frances O.'s in the ripe summer, but woven of spring flowers and buds. Last night I saw her at Mr. Hoar's, only herself and Miss E. Hoar, G.P. Bradford, Mr. and Mrs. Emerson, and myself and Mr. Hoar. She played Beethoven, sang the "Adelaide Serenade," "Fischer Madchen," "Amid this Green Wood." I walked home under the low, heavy, gray clouds; but the echo lingered about me like starlight.

We have a piano in the house, and a very good one. It was made by Currier, and is but a few years old. The evenings do not all pass without reminding me of the flute music of the last summer, and making me half long to hear it again. Yet I am too contented to wish to be back at the Farm. The country about us is wilder than there; but I need now this tender severity of nature and of friendship. With John Hosmer, Isaac, Geo. Bradford, and Burrill, I am not without some actual features of the Farm as I knew it. When I shall see you I cannot say. I shall not willingly break the circle of life here, though occasion will make me willing enough.

Let me not remain unmentioned to my friends at Brook Farm and in the village; and when you can ungroup yourself for an hour paint me a portrait of the life you lead.

Yr friend,

G.W.C.

XIV

CONCORD, May 24th, '44.

My dear Friend,—I heard of you at Ole Bull's concert, and have sympathized with you in your delight. I was in Worcester that evening, and had hoped to have come down to Boston and heard him once more. But so many were listening with that pleasure which can come but once, and I knew so many must try in vain to hear, that I was content others should then express that admiration which lies so deeply in my heart. But who of all heard? Was it not as if he walked above the earth, and of his sublime conversation you heard now and then the notes? Did not the singular beauty of the man unite with his performance to make the completest musical festival you have had?

Indeed, I owe more to him than one can know, except as he feels the same debt; are you not that one?

To Belinda Randall, who has been here, as I told you, I was obliged for revealing Beethoven's tenderness. She is so soft and tender herself that she could not fail unconsciously to express it in her playing. I passed some fine evenings with her. Since I had been here I had heard no music, and felt that I needed to hear some as an adequate expression of all that I felt. When she came that demand was satisfied. Ole Bull satisfies the claim of the same nature which our whole life makes, and of itself creates, rather reveals newer and deeper demands, and so on, I suppose, until the celestial harmonies are heard by us.

I heard from a friend of the last Philharmonic in New York. It seems they have made Vieux-temps an honorary member, and he played for them. On the same evening they performed one of Beethoven's symphonies. It is one of those accounts whose beauty is their nakedness. To lovers of music a bare description is as an outline to a painter which he can readily fill up and supply with the shadows and sunlight. Yet not he so magnificently as sunlight and shadows sweep over this landscape. It seems to me that a century of splendor has been rushing by since I have been here.

The persons who make Concord famous I have hardly seen. The consciousness of their presence is like the feeling of lofty mountains whom the night and thick forests hide. Of one of them, E. Hoar, I need to say nothing to you. One evening I sat with her and Waldo Emerson and Geo. P. Bradford while Belinda Randall played and sang.

Isaac brings you this, and will himself best tell you of himself. Burrill is well, and unites with me in remembrance to all who remember.

Your friend,

G.W.C.

XV

CONCORD, June 26th, 1844.

These are Tophetic times. I doubt if the sturdy faith of those heroes, Shadrack and co., would carry them through this fervor unliquefied. Their much vaunted furnace was but a cool retreat where thoughts of great-coats were possible, compared with this. And if that nether region of whose fires so much is sung by poets and other men possessed, can offer hotter heats, let them be produced. Those Purgatorial ardencies for the gentle suggestion of torment to thin shades can have little in common with these perspiration-compelling torridities. Why does not some ingenious Yankee improve such times for the purchase, at a ruinous discount, of all thick clothes? I tremble lest some one should offer me an ice-cream for my best woollens! Is it human to resist such an offer? Does it not savor something of Devildom, and a too great familiarity with that lower Torrid Zone, to entertain such a proposition cool-ly? when such a word grows suddenly obsolete in such seasons? If I venture to move, such an atmosphere of heat is created immediately around my body that all cool breezes (if the imagination is competent to such a conception) are like arid airs when they reach my mouth. Perhaps we are tending to those final, fiery days of which Miller is a prophet. We are slowly sinking, perhaps, from heat to heat, until entire rarefication and evanishment in imperceptible vapor ensues; and so the great experiment of a world may end in smoke, as many minor ones have ended. If it were not so hot, I should love to think about these things.

June 28th. So far I had proceeded on the afternoon I returned to Concord. When I desisted I supposed I had inscribed my final manuscript, and that only a cinder would be found sitting over it when some one should enter. Yet by the providence of God I am preserved for the experience of greater heats. I did not know before what was the capacity of endurance of the human frame. I begin to suspect we are of nearer kin to the Salamander than our pride will allow; and since Devils only are admitted to nether fire, I begin to lapse into the credence of total depravity!! Reflect upon my deplorable condition! As Shelley's body, when lifeless, was caused to disappear in flames and smoke, so may mine before its tenant is departed. Was it not prophetic that on Sunday afternoon the following lines came to me while thinking of that poet?

SHELLEY

A smoke that delicately curled to heaven, Mingling its blueness with the infinite blue, So to the air the faded form was given, So unto fame the gentle spirit grew.

And as Shelley and Keats are associated always together in my mind, immediately the Muse gave me this:

KEATS

A youth did plight his troth to Poesy. "Thee only," were the fervent words he said, Then sadly sailed across the foaming sea, And lay beneath the southern sunset dead.

I was glad that once I could express what I think about those men. These will show you, but you must write your own poem upon them before you will be satisfied. Is it not so always? We cannot speak much about poets until our thought of them sings itself.

The day I left you was very hot in Boston. Anna Shaw and Rose Russell passed me like beautiful spirits; one like a fresh morning, the other like an Oriental night. Then I did my business, and met James Sturgis, who carried me to see his head cut in cameo by Mr. King. It is quite good, though it gives him rather a finer head than he has; but that's a good failing. I went to the Athenaeum. There I saw one or two pictures, and much paint upon canvas. Those that I liked I saw belonged to the Athenaeum, and I suppose were old objects to those who are familiar with the gallery. A face of Ophelia interested me. It was very simple and sweet. But I was so warm that I could do little more than lay upon a bench and catch dreamy glimpses of the walls. The sculpture gallery, full of white marble heads, seemed quite cool.

My dear Friend, I shall melt and be mailed in this letter as a spot if I do not surcease. May you be blest with frigidity, a blessing far removed from my hope. Of course I must be warmly, nay, hotly remembered to Charles.

Yrs ever,

G.W.C.

XVI

CONCORD, August 7th, 1844.

My regret at not seeing you was only lessened by the beautiful day I passed with Mr. Hawthorne. His life is so harmonious with the antique repose of his house, and so redeemed into the present by his infant, that it is much better to sit an hour with him than hear the Rev. Barzillai Frost! His baby is the most serenely happy I ever saw. It is very beautiful, and lies amid such placid influences that it too may have a milk-white lamb as emblem; and Mrs. Hawthorne is so tenderly respectful towards her husband that all the romance we picture in a cottage of lovers dwells subdued and dignified with them. I see them very seldom. The people here who are worth knowing, I find, live very quietly and retired. In the country, friendship seems not to be of that consuming, absorbing character that city circumstances give it, but to be quite content to feel rather than hear or do; and that very independence which withdraws them into the privacy of their homes is the charm which draws thither.

Mr. Emerson read an address before the anti-slavery "friends" last Thursday. It was very fine. Not of that cold, clear, intellectual character which so many dislike, but ardent and strong. His recent reading of the history of the cause has given him new light and warmed a fine enthusiasm. It commenced with allusions to the day "which gives the immense fortification of a fact to a great principle," and then drew in strong, bold outline the progress of British emancipation. Thence to slavery in its influence upon the holders, to the remark that this event hushed the old slander about inferior natures in the negro, thence to the philosophy of slavery, and so through many detached thoughts to the end. It was nearly two hours long, but was very commanding. He looked genial and benevolent, as who should smilingly defy the world, the flesh, and the devil to ensnare him. The address will be published by the society; and he will probably write it more fully, and chisel it into fitter grace for the public criticism. He spoke of your unfortunate call, but said you bore the sulkiness very well. George Bradford was also very sorry; and it was bad that you should come so far, with the faces of friends for a hospitable city before you, and find a mirage only, or (begging Burrill's pardon) one house.

For the last six weeks I have been learning what hard work is. Afternoon leisure is now remembered with the holiday which Saturday brought to the school-boy. During the haying we have devoted all our time and faculty to the making of hay, leaving the body at night fit only to be devoted to sheets and pillows, and not to grave or even friendly epistolary intercourse. Oh friends! live upon faith, say I, as I pitch into bed with the ghosts of Sunday morning resolutions of letters tickling my sides or thumping my back, and then sink into dreams where every day seems a day in the valley of Ajalon, and innumerable Joshuas command the sun and moon to stay, and universal leisure spreads over the universe like a great wind. Then comes morning and wakefulness and boots and breakfast and scythes and heat and fatigue, and all my venerable Joshuas endeavor in vain to make oxen stand still, and I heartily wish them and I back in our valley ruling the heavens and not bending scythes over unseen hassocks which do sometimes bend the words of our mouths into shapes resembling oaths! those most crooked of all speech, but therefore best and fittest for the occasional crooks of life, particularly mowing. Yet I mow and sweat and get tired very heartily, for I want to drink this cup of farming to the bottom and taste not only the morning froth but the afternoon and evening strength of dregs and bitterness, if there be any. When haying is over, which event will take place on Saturday night of this week, fair weather being vouchsafed, I shall return to my moderation. Towards the latter part of the month I shall stray away towards Providence and Newport and sit down by the sea, and in it, too, probably. So I shall pass until harvest. Where the snows will fall upon me I cannot yet say.

Say to Charles that I was sorry not to have seen him; but if persons of consequence will travel without previous annunciation, they may chance to find even the humblest of their servants not at home. I know you will write when the time comes, so I say nothing but that I am your friend ever.

G.W.C.

XVII

CONCORD, Sept. 23, 1844.

Shall we not see you on the day of the cattle-show? Certainly Brook Farm will be represented; and I think you may, by this time, be farmer enough to enjoy the cattle and the ploughing. Besides, as I remember a similar excursion last year at which I assisted, the splendor of the early morning, which was not yet awake when we came away from the Farm, will amply repay any extraordinary effort. And still another besides; I do not want the winter to build its white, impenetrable walls between us before I have heard your voice once more. I should hope to come and look at you for one day, at least, in West Roxbury; but our Captain has work, autumnal work, the end whereof is not comprehended by the unassisted human vision. Potato-digging, apple-picking, thrashing, the gathering of innumerable seeds, must be done before winter; and yet to-day is like a despatch from December to announce that snow and ice and wind are to be just as cold this winter as they were the last.

And I have had a long vacation, too. I think, on the very day after I wrote my last letter to you, as I was whetting my scythe for the last swath of the season, my hat half fell off, and suddenly raising my hand to catch it, I thrust it against the scythe and cut my thumb just upon the joint. It has healed, but I shall never find it quite as agile as formerly. I could not use the hand—my right hand—for more than a fortnight. It was like losing a sense to lose its use. After a week of inaction in Concord, I went to Rhode Island and remained three weeks, and am now at home a fortnight. I came back more charmed than ever with Concord, which hides under a quiet surface most precious scenes. I suppose we see more deeply into the spirit of a landscape where we have been happy. Then we behold the summer bloom. It is spring or autumn or winter to men generally.

We shall remain with Capt. Barrett through the winter. The spring will bring its own arrangements, or rather the conclusion of those which are formed during the winter. I suspect that our affections, like our bodies, have been transplanted to Massachusetts, and that our lives will grow in the new soil. Not at all ambitious of settling and becoming a citizen, I am very well content with the nomadic life until obedience to the law of things shall plant me in some home.

And are you still at home in the Farm? Rumors, whose faces I cannot fairly see, pass by me sometimes, breathing your name and others. But I have long ago turned rumor out-of-doors as an impostor and impertinent person, who apes the manners and appearance of its betters. I shall receive none as from you, however loudly they may shout your name, except they show your hand and seal.

Autumn has already begun to leave the traces of her golden fingers upon the brakes, and occasionally upon some tall nut-trees. It seems as if she were trying her skill before she comes like a wind over the landscape. She warbles a few glittering notes before the mournful, majestic Death-song.

Dear friend, why should I send you this chip of ore out of the mine of regard which is yours in my heart? Come and dig in it.

Your friend,

G.W. CURTIS.

XVIII

CONCORD, January 12, '45.

My dear Friend,—I have written Burrill to look at the Custom-house, and inquire about the method of warming by water. He replies that he has been there, but defers writing to you until he learns more about the matter. Through him I received a message from Isaac to tell you that he (I) can procure an edition of the Beethoven Sonatas (26, I believe) for about $10.

I think it highly probable that I shall pass some weeks in Providence next month, and so will defer my day with you at Brook Farm until that time, of which I will inform you.

Burrill has not yet returned, and leaves me still a hermit. I am well pleased with my solitude, nor do I care much to go out of the country during the winter; but domestic circumstances make it advisable to go to Providence. There I shall have a good library at hand, which I miss a good deal here. Indeed, I think it likely that every year while my home is in the country I may perform a pilgrimage to the city for two or three months for purposes of art and literature and affection, for, as there seems in the minds of divines to be some doubt of personal identity when this mortal coil is shuffled off, I am fain to embrace my friends' coils while they are yet palpable. This idea of city visits implies a very free life; but there seems now to be no hinderance to it. When the band of Phalanxes, proceeding into desert and free air, no more allow art to rendezvous in cities, I can take one of the nearest radiating railroads and rush from my solitude into the healthily-peopled and cityish-countrified Phalanx.

I am loath to forgive Fourier the unmitigated slander upon the moon. I began to suspect that was the only influence alive since the sun lights men to cheating and deviltry; and the moon recalls the sweetest remembrance and best hope. After our evening at Almira's it lighted me home with such forgiving splendor that I could have fallen on my knees in the snow and have prayed its pardon if it would not have chilled those members.

Almira I have not seen since Wednesday. She was then well, and went with me to hear Dr. Francis lecture upon Bishop Berkeley. He told the life, which is the most poetical and beautiful of any of his contemporary philosophers, and then suggested that the "limits of a lecture" did not permit an extended notice of his philosophy, and so gave none.

Among my holiday gifts was Miss Barrett's poems. She is a woman of vigorous thought, but not very poetical thought, and throwing herself into verse involuntarily becomes honied and ornate, so that her verse cloys. It is not natural, quite. Tennyson's world is purple, and all his thoughts. Therefore his poetry is so, and so naturally. Wordsworth lives in a clear atmosphere of thought, and his poetry is simple and natural, but no more than Tennyson's. Pardon these critical distinctions. I make them to have them expressed, for Burrill did not see why I called Miss Barrett purple. It was because her highly colored robe was not harmonious with her native style of thought. Ben Jonson, too, I have been reading. After him and Beaumont and Fletcher (who are imitators, rather, of Shakespeare), I feel that Shakespeare differed not in degree only but in kind from all others, his contemporaries and successors. In his peculiar path Jonson was unequalled, but Shakespeare includes that and so much more! He seems to be the only one to whom poets are content to be inferior.

Remember me to Charles Dana and my other compeers at Brook Farm, especially Charles Newcomb.

Yours sincerely,

G.W.C.

XIX

My dear Friend,—If I should come to Brook Farm on Thursday evening will it be convenient, and shall you be at home? If all circumstances favor, I should like to remain with you until Saturday. On Thursday I shall go into Boston to hear what the Texas Convention is saying, and if I hear anything very eloquent or interesting may not see you until Friday.

I was very sorry to know nothing of your convention until it was over. I should have run down to have seen you.

On Saturday evening I was at the Academy, and on Sunday at the Handel and Haydn. I have by Burrill a letter from Cranch, and a book of German songs from Isaac. More anon.

Your friend ever,

G.W. Curtis.

CONCORD, January 28th, 1845.

XX

PROVIDENCE, March 5th, '45.

My dear Friend,—I hope to see you at Brook Farm by Friday, intending to remain until Friday P.M. Here in Providence I have been having a quiet good time, though the weeks have flown faster than I thought weeks could fly. Mrs. Burges received a Phalanx from Miss Russell, in which we found a good deal of interesting matter. I hear from her that she will write by me to Miss Russell.

To-day it rains merrily, a warm southern April rain; and the weeks of mild weather hint that there must be ploughing and sowing very soon. I anticipate my summer work with a good deal of pleasure.

Yours truly and hastily,

G.W. Curtis.

XXI

CONCORD, March 13, '45.

My dear Friend,—The cold gray days at Brook Farm were the sunniest of the month. I wish I could step into the parlor when my heart is ready for music, and surrender to Beethoven and Mozart or, indeed, when I find men very selfish and mean, look in upon your kindliness and general sympathy. But while your intercourse at the Farm is so gentle and sweet you will not forget that it springs from the characters whose companions are still in outer darkness and civilization! I meet every day men of very tender characters under the roughest mien. Even in the midst of the world I constantly balance my ledger in favor of actual virtue, and enjoy intercourse, not so familiar but as sweet, as that I saw at Brook Farm. Is it not the tendency of a decided institution of reform to be unjust to the Barbarians? I do assure you the warm, tender south winds blow over us here in the unsocial state no less than the chilly east.

The snow on the ground belies the season. It is warm to-day and the birds sing. I should have enjoyed more my ride in the soft snow on Tuesday if conscience had not arrayed me against Mr. Billings. But I am most glad to see that I am withdrawing from the argumentative. I begin to enjoy more than ever the pure still characters which I meet. Intellect is not quite satisfying though so alluring. It is a scentless flower; but there is a purer summer pleasure in the sweet-brier than the dahlia, though one would have each in his garden. It is because Shakespeare is not solely intellectual, but equally developed, that his fame is universal. The old philosophers, the sheer intellects, lack as much fitness to life as a man without a hand or an eye. And because life is interpreted by sentiment, the higher the flight of the intellect the colder and sadder is the man. Plato and Emerson are called poets, but if they were so their audience would be as wide as the world. Milton's fame is limited because he lacked a subtlety and delicacy corresponding with his healthiness and strength. Milton fused in Keats would have formed a greater than Shakespeare. If Milton's piety had been Catholic and not Puritanical I do not see why he should not have been a greater poet.

I shall not have much work to do before we undertake our garden plot. We take care of the cattle daily, and that is about all. Yesterday in the sunlight I walked in the woods. It was a spectacle finer than the sleet—the flower of winter among the trees.

I forgot to take the Phalanxes. Geo. Bradford asked me for a half-dozen. If you will send them to me I will give them to him. Almira says that he is now in a Brook Farm way. It is a species of chills and fever with him, as you know.

Remember me to the Eaglets, Dolly and her friend, Mary especially; and tell Abby Foord I have already learned the Polonaise which she is practising. I sit and play it over and over, and think I shall never tire of it. It has a peculiar charm to me, as I have never heard it except in the Eyrie parlor. It will always float me back to that room. Will you say to Charles Newcomb that Burrill has destroyed all "the churchmen"? Remember me to your family and believe me, as always,

G.W.C.

XXII

CONCORD, April 22d, 1845.

Will you forgive me if I flood you with letters now while the mood of writing lasts? It seems that I must so exhaust some of the added life which spring infuses into my veins. The gray herbage of winter fades so slowly, so imperceptibly into the spring greenness, that I watch it with the curious eyes of a lover who sees gradual developments of deeper beauty in the face of his mistress. Do you note how every spring, sliding down from heaven with such intense life, quenches or rather subdues the remembrance of all past springs as a great gem surrounded in the ring by many small ones? And as I stood to-day, as if hearing the throb of the new active life in nature, for winter is more like the unchanged dead face of an intellectual person, the contrast of this steaming and heating life was suggested to me as is always the case, and necessarily so to the perfection of the thought. The idea of day is not symmetrical except when night is implied in thought, for if one could paint a portrait of the day, it would be brightness against darkness.

Why are we so troubled or moved at death, elated or depressed? It cannot give anything, nor take. Every sphere satisfies its desires by its hopes, and so seems to show that life is only an effort at equilibrium. At least it does show that to this state. There is a perpetual balance in every experience, never a permanence, as night follows day, but never survives the sunrise. Plato nor Shakespeare have drunk all this beauty, and it seems not right to become cold and callous towards it, externally, as the dead are. If they see the soul of things, do they see the form of nature without the soul, as we do now? If death mark only a general expansion of life and nature, it is no more pleasant. With greater hopes greater desires; and, after all, it is only keeping a larger set of books. There is no standard of life, as there is none of character. A flower is sometimes as pure a satisfaction as a man or the thought of an archangel. It passes into a proverb that the beggar is happier than a king, and proverbs are only the homely disguises in which wisdom roams the world.

The "Polarity" which Emerson talks about is the nearest approximation to the universal form of life, but this is constantly marred by a stray thought of permanence and the confusing hint of the passive mind that we suppose the balance to be the law, and are glad to accept night with day, and cold with heat, because there is a blindness in the spiritual eye which will not let us see the riper spirits who are not sated but satisfied with permanency. For there, too, is a reason that we are so glad to hide in the equipoise as an eternal fact that we are surfeited with constancy. Drowning in the malmsey-butt is no better than the Thames. Enjoyment to-day is secured by the certain prospect of sorrow to-morrow, which is not wilful, but a lesson of life, and as we suppose, at last, of the central life, just as the creation at daybreak is supported and adorned in the mind by the prospective tenderness of twilight. And this balancing, so universal in this sphere, in outward if not in real life, is therefore a fact, and why not as profound as any, since there is no standard of life? Is there any law at last? Nature seems so general and yet so intensely individual. As fine harmony results from the accord of distinct tones, and each tone an infinite division of vibrations. At bottom no things are similar. Harmony is only unison, not identity. Nature is like the ocean, which bears whole forests hewn into ships laden with treasure; but no bottom is found to support all the weight, only a drop resting upon a drop forever. The elephant that bore the earth stood upon a tortoise, who fortunately could keep his feet in his shell, and so had no need to stand anywhere!

The spring day looks very inscrutably upon all such wandering fancies. Her beauty is very inexorable, yet fascinating beyond resistance. It is not regal and composing and self-finding as is the mellowed summer, but an alluring splendor. It is a bud in inner, as well as outer, expression, and not yet a satisfying flower. Yet in the young days of June is sometimes seen the sereneness of autumn. After the full summer it is quite plain. It is like a child with pale, consumptive hands. Yet this is a constant reference to unity, which just now seemed so far off. Beauty suggests what Truth only can answer and Goodness realize; and the whole circle of nature offers these three only, beauty, truth, and goodness, or, again, poetry, philosophy, religion, or, more subtly, tone, color, feeling. This lies beyond words, because they are an intellectual means. Music foreshadows their interpretation, but always faintly, as it does everything, because music is revealed only enough here that we may not be surprised hereafter in some sphere. This is an intellectual sphere, but music is sentiment, so it is here an accomplishment for women, and for men of finer natures. Music is the science of spiritual form; and poetry, which is the loftiest expression of the intellectual sphere, finds its profound distinction from prose, which is the language of the vulgar, in its spiritual and sensuous rhythm, and so is music applied to the intellectual state.