Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 58, August, 1862», страница 13

Yes, I was mad,–mad to think that the world's horny eyes could not receive the severe light of knowledge,–mad as was he who ran through the streets and cried, "Eureka!" The head and front of my madness have this extent,–no more. And for this I must write the rest of my story here amid iron gratings, through which, however, thank God, my familiars, the stars, and the red, blue, and golden planets, glance kindly, saying, "Courage, brother! soon thou shaft rise to us, to whom thou belongest!" Yet I will write it: one day men will read, and say, "Come, let us garnish the sepulchre of one immured because his stupid age could not understand!" and then, doubtless, they will go forth to stone the seer on whose tongue lies the noblest secret of the Universe for that day.

When I left the last experiment mentioned in these pages, in order to recover steadiness of brain and nerve, and to relieve my overtaxed eyes, I had no hope of reaching success in any other way than that pointed out in the principle which I was pressing,–a principle whose importance is proved in the familiar experiments on stereoscopic views, whereby things entirely invisible to the naked eye are disclosed by lenses. But that night I dreamed out the success which had eluded my waking hours. I have nothing to say here about the phenomenon of dreaming: I state only the fact. In my dream there appeared to me my father, bearing in his left hand a plate of glass, and in his right a phial of bright blue liquid which he seemed to be pouring on the polished surface. The phial was of singular shape, having a long slender neck rising from a round globe. When I awoke, I found myself standing in the middle of the floor with hands stretched out appealingly to the vacant air.

Acknowledging, as I did, nothing but purely scientific methods,–convinced that nothing could be reached but through all the intervening steps fixed by Nature between Reason and Truth,–I should, at any other than such a weary time, have forgotten the vision in an hour. But now it took a deeper hold on my imagination. That my father should be associated in my dream with these experiments was natural; the glass plate which he had held was the same I was using; as for the phial, might it not be some old compound that I had known him or the daguerrotypist use, now casually spun out of the past and woven in with my present pursuits? Nevertheless, I was glad to shove aside this rationalistic interpretation: on the verge of drowning, I magnified the straw to a lifeboat, and caught at it. I pardoned myself for going to the shelves which still held my father's medicines, and examining each of the phials there. But when I turned away without finding one which at all answered to my dream, I felt mean and miserable; deeply disappointed at not having found the phial, I was ashamed at my retrogression to ages which dealt with incantations, and luck, and other impostures. I was shamed to the conclusion that the phial with its blue liquid was something I had read of in the curious old books which my father had hidden away from me, and which, strange to say, I had never been able to find since his death.

Whilst I was meditating thus, there was a knock at my door, and a drayman entered with a chest, which he said had belonged to my father, and had been by him deposited several years before with a friend who lived a few miles from our village. I could scarcely close and bolt the door after the man had departed; as he brought in the chest, I had seen through the lid the phial with the blue liquid. So certain was I of this, that before I opened it I went and withdrew my glass plate, repolished it, and made all ready for a final experiment. Opening the chest, I found the old books which had been abstracted, and a small medicine-box, in which was the phial seen in my dream.

But now the question arose, How was the blue fluid to be applied? I had not looked closely at the plate which my father held to see whether it was already prepared for an impression; and so I was at a loss to know whether this new fluid was to prepare the glass with a more perfect polish, or to mingle with the subtile nitrate itself. Unfortunately I tried the last first, and there was no result at all,–except the destruction of a third of the precious fluid. Cleaning the plate perfectly, I burnt into it, drop by drop, the whole of the contents of the phial. As I drained the last drop from it, it reddened on the glass as if it were the last drop of my heart's blood poured out.

At the first glance on the star-picture thus taken, I knew that I was successful. Jupiter shone like the nucleus of a comet, even before a second power was upon it. As picture after picture was formed, belts of the most exquisite hues surrounded the luminous planet, which seemed rolling up to me, hurled from lens to lens, as if wrested from its orbit by a commanding force. Plainer and plainer grew its surface; mountain-ranges, without crags or chasms, smooth and undulating, emerged; it was zoned with a central sunlit sea. On each scene of the panorama I lingered, and each was retained as well as the poor materials would allow. I was cautious enough to take two pictures of each distinct phase,–one to keep, if this happy voyage should be my last, and the other of course as the subject from which a centre should be selected for a new expansion.

At last there stood plainly before my eye a tower!–a tower, slender and high, with curved dome, the work of Art! A cry burst from my lips,–I fainted with joy. Afraid to touch the instrument with my trembling hand, I walked the floor, imploring back my nervous self-possession. Fixing the tower by photograph, I took the centre of its dome as the next point for expansion. Slowly, slowly, as if the fate of a solar system depended on each turn of the screw, I drew on the final view. An instant of gray confusion,–another of tremulous crystallization,–and, scarcely in contact with the tower's dome, as if about to float from it, hovered an aerial ship, with two round balls suspended above it. Again one little point was taken, for I felt that this was not the culmination of my vision; and now two figures appeared, manifestly human, but their features and dress as yet undistinguishable.

Another turn, and I looked upon the face of a glorious man!

Another, and the illusion, Space, shrank away beneath my feet, my eye soared over her abysses, and gazed into the eye of an immortal.

But now,–oh, horror!–turning back to earth, I remembered that I had not analyzed the precious liquid which could so link world with world. Seized with a sudden agony, I tried to strain one least drop more; but, alas! the power had perished from the earth!

For this loss I deserve all that has happened to me. My haste to fulfil my life's object proved me the victim of a mental lust, and I saw why the highest truth is not revealed: simply, it awaits those who can receive and not be intoxicated by it. And now the planet which I had disobeyed for another avenges itself,–seeing, naturally, in strange results, whose methods are untraceable, nothing but monomania. The photographs, in which the pollens of two planet-flowers mingle, lie in my attic, dust-eaten:–"Above all, the patient must not see anything of that kind," has been the order ever since I published a card announcing my discovery to my fellow-citizens.

But they were gentle; they did not take away all. The old books are with me, each a benison from a brother. The best works of ancient times are, I think, best understood when read by prison-light.

Hist! some visitor comes! Many come from curiosity to see one who thinks he descried a man in a planet "Distinguished man of science from Boston to see me,"–ah, indeed! Celebrated paper on tadpoles, I suppose! But now that I look closer, I like my Boston man-of-science's eye, and his voice is good. I have not yet exhausted the fingers of one hand in counting up all the sane people who have visited me since I have been immured.

How do I test them?

As now I test you.

Here my treasure of treasures I open. It is the old suppressed volume of John de Sacro Bosco, inscribed to that Castilian Alphonso who dared to have the tables of Ptolemy corrected. (Had he not been a king, he had been mad: such men as Bosco were mad after Alphonso died.) And thus to my curious scientific visitor I read what I ask may go into his report along with the description of my case.

"John de Sacro Bosco sendeth this book to Alphonso de Castile. A. D. 1237."

"They alone are kings who know." "Ken and Can are twins." "God will not be hurried."

"Sacred are the fools: God understandeth them."

"Impatient, I cried, 'I will clear the stair that leadeth to God!' Now sit I at His feet, lame and weak, and men scoff at knowledge,–'Aha, this cometh of ascending stairways!'"

"The silk-worm span its way up to wings. I am ashamed and dumb, who would soar ere I had toiled.

"When riseth an Ideal in the concave of some vaulting heart or brain, it is a new heaven and signeth a new earth."

"Each clear Idea that ascendeth the vault of Pure Reason is a Bethlehem star; be sure a Messias is born for it on the Earth; the new sign lit up in the heaven of Vision is a new power set in motion among men; and, do what the Herods will, Earth's incense, myrrh, yea, even its gold, must gather to the feet of the Omnipotent Child,–the IDEA."

IN WAR-TIME

INSCRIBED TO W.B

 
As they who watch by sick-beds find relief
Unwittingly from the great stress of grief
And anxious care in fantasies outwrought
From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught
From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet,
Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet
Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why
They scarcely know or ask,–so, thou and I,
Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong
In the endurance which outwearies Wrong,
With meek persistence baffling brutal force,
And trusting God against the universe,–
We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share
With other weapons than the patriot's prayer,
Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes,
The awful beauty of self-sacrifice,
And wrung by keenest sympathy for all
Who give their loved ones for the living wall
'Twixt law and treason,–in this evil day
May haply find, through automatic play
Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain,
And hearten others with the strength we gain.
I know it has been said our times require
No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre,
No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform
To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm,
But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets
The battle's teeth of serried bayonets,
And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these
Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys
Believe the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet,
If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat
The bitter harvest of our own device
And half a century's moral cowardice.
As Nürnberg sang while Wittenberg defied,
And Kranach painted by his Luther's side,
And through the war-march of the Puritan
The silver stream of Marvell's music ran,
So let the household melodies be sung,
The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung,–
So let us hold against the hosts of Night
And Slavery all our vantage-ground of Light.
Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake
From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake,
Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan,
And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man,
And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull
By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,–
But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease,
(God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peace:
No foes are conquered who the victors teach
Their vandal manners and barbaric speech.
 
 
And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear
Of the great common burden our full share,
Let none upbraid us that the waves entice
Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device,
Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles my pen away
From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day.
Thus, while the east-wind keen from Labrador
Sings in the leafless elms, and from the shore
Of the great sea comes the monotonous roar
Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky
Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try
To time a simple legend to the sounds
Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled bounds,–
A song of breeze and billow, such as might
Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night
Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove
Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love.
(So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay
On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay,
And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled
Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.)
Something it has–a flavor of the sea,
And the sea's freedom–which reminds of thee.
Its faded picture, dimly smiling down
From the blurred fresco of the ancient town,
I have not touched with warmer tints in vain,
If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought from pain.
 

AMY WENTWORTH

 
Her fingers shame the ivory keys
They dance so light along;
The bloom upon her parted lips
Is sweeter than the song.
 
 
O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles!
Her thoughts are not of thee:
She better loves the salted wind,
The voices of the sea.
 
 
Her heart is like an outbound ship
That at its anchor swings;
The murmur of the stranded shell
Is in the song she sings.
 
 
She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise,
But dreams the while of one
Who watches from his sea-blown deck
The icebergs in the sun.
 
 
She questions all the winds that blow,
And every fog-wreath dim,
And bids the sea-birds flying north
Bear messages to him.
 
 
She speeds them with the thanks of men
He perilled life to save,
And grateful prayers like holy oil
To smooth for him the wave.
 
 
Brown Viking of the fishing-smack!
Fair toast of all the town!–
The skipper's jerkin ill beseems
The lady's silken gown!
 
 
But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear
For him the blush of shame
Who dares to set his manly gifts
Against her ancient name.
 
 
The stream is brightest at its spring,
And blood is not like wine;
Nor honored less than he who heirs
Is he who founds a line.
 
 
Full lightly shall the prize be won,
If love be Fortune's spur;
And never maiden stoops to him
Who lifts himself to her.
 
 
Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street,
With stately stair-ways worn
By feet of old Colonial knights
And ladies gentle-born.
 
 
Still green about its ample porch
The English ivy twines,
Trained back to show in English oak
The herald's carven signs.
 
 
And on her, from the wainscot old,
Ancestral faces frown,–
And this has worn the soldier's sword,
And that the judge's gown.
 
 
But, strong of will and proud as they,
She walks the gallery-floor
As if she trod her sailor's deck
By stormy Labrador!
 
 
The sweet-brier blooms on Kittery-side,
And green are Elliot's bowers;
Her garden is the pebbled beach,
The mosses are her flowers.
 
 
She looks across the harbor-bar
To see the white gulls fly,
His greeting from the Northern sea
Is in their clanging cry.
 
 
She hums a song, and dreams that he,
As in its romance old,
Shall homeward ride with silken sails
And masts of beaten gold!
 
 
Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair,
And high and low mate ill;
But love has never known a law
Beyond its own sweet will!
 

THOREAU

Henry David Thoreau was the last male descendant of a French ancestor who came to this country from the Isle of Guernsey. His character exhibited occasional traits drawn from this blood in singular combination with a very strong Saxon genius.

He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary distinction. An iconoclast in literature, he seldom thanked colleges for their service to him, holding them in small esteem, whilst yet his debt to them was important. After leaving the University, he joined his brother in teaching a private school, which he soon renounced. His father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself for a time to this craft, believing he could make a better pencil than was then in use. After completing his experiments, he exhibited his work to chemists and artists in Boston, and having obtained their certificates to its excellence and to its equality with the best London manufacture, he returned home contented. His friends congratulated him that he had now opened his way to fortune. But he replied, that he should never make another pencil. "Why should I? I would not do again what I have done once." He resumed his endless walks and miscellaneous studies, making every day some new acquaintance with Nature, though as yet never speaking of zoology or botany, since, though very studious of natural facts, he was incurious of technical and textual science.

At this time, a strong, healthy youth, fresh from college, whilst all his companions were choosing their profession, or eager to begin some lucrative employment, it was inevitable that his thoughts should be exercised on the same question, and it required rare decision to refuse all the accustomed paths, and keep his solitary freedom at the cost of disappointing the natural expectations of his family and friends: all the more difficult that he had a perfect probity, was exact in securing his own independence, and in holding every man to the like duty. But Thoreau never faltered. He was a born protestant. He declined to give up his large ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the art of living well. If he slighted and defied the opinions of others, it was only that he was more intent to reconcile his practice with his own belief. Never idle or self-indulgent, he preferred, when he wanted money, earning it by some piece of manual labor agreeable to him, as building a boat or a fence, planting, grafting, surveying, or other short work, to any long engagements. With his hardy habits and few wants, his skill in wood-craft, and his powerful arithmetic, he was very competent to live in any part of the world. It would cost him less time to supply his wants than another. He was therefore secure of his leisure.

A natural skill for mensuration, growing out of his mathematical knowledge, and his habit of ascertaining the measures and distances of objects which interested him, the size of trees, the depth and extent of ponds and rivers, the height of mountains, and the air-line distance of his favorite summits,–this, and his intimate knowledge of the territory about Concord, made him drift into the profession of land-surveyor. It had the advantage for him that it led him continually into new and secluded grounds, and helped his studies of Nature. His accuracy and skill in this work were readily appreciated, and he found all the employment he wanted.

He could easily solve the problems of the surveyor, but he was daily beset with graver questions, which he manfully confronted. He interrogated every custom, and wished to settle all his practice on an ideal foundation. He was a protestant à l'outrance, and few lives contain so many renunciations. He was bred to no profession; he never married; he lived alone; be never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely, no doubt, for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth, and knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inelegance. Perhaps he fell into his way of living without forecasting it much, but approved it with later wisdom. "I am often reminded," he wrote in his journal, "that, if I had bestowed on me the wealth of Croesus, my aims must be still the same, and my means essentially the same." He had no temptations to fight against,–no appetites, no passions, no taste for elegant trifles. A fine house, dress, the manners and talk of highly cultivated people were all thrown away on him. He much preferred a good Indian, and considered these refinements as impediments to conversation, wishing to meet his companion on the simplest terms. He declined invitations to dinner-parties, because there each was in every one's way, and he could not meet the individuals to any purpose. "They make their pride," he said, "in making their dinner cost much; I make my pride in making my dinner cost little." When asked at table what dish he preferred, he answered, "The nearest." He did not like the taste of wine, and never had a vice in his life. He said,–"I have a faint recollection of pleasure derived from smoking dried lily-stems, before I was a man. I had commonly a supply of these. I have never smoked anything more noxious."

He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them himself. In his travels, he used the railroad only to get over so much country as was unimportant to the present purpose, walking hundreds of miles, avoiding taverns, buying a lodging in farmers' and fishermen's houses, as cheaper, and more agreeable to him, and because there he could better find the men and the information he wanted.

There was somewhat military in big nature not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise. It cost him nothing to say No; indeed, he found it much easier than to say Yes. It seemed as if his first instinct on hearing a proposition was to controvert it, so impatient was he of the limitations of our daily thought. This habit, of course, is a little chilling to the social affections; and though the companion would in the end acquit him of any malice or untruth, yet it mars conversation. Hence, no equal companion stood in affectionate relations with one so pure and guileless. "I love Henry," said one of his friends, "but I cannot like him; and as for taking his arm, I should as soon think of taking the arm of an elm-tree."

Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of sympathy, and threw himself heartily and childlike into the company of young people whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain, as he only could, with the varied and endless anecdotes of his experiences by field and river. And he was always ready to lead a huckleberry-party or a search for chestnuts or grapes. Talking, one day, of a public discourse, Henry remarked, that whatever succeeded with the audience was bad. I said, "Who would not like to write something which all can read, like 'Robinson Crusoe'? and who does not see with regret that his page is not solid with a right materialistic treatment, which delights everybody?" Henry objected, of course, and vaunted the better lectures which reached only a few persons. But, at supper, a young girl, understanding that he was to lecture at the Lyceum, sharply asked him, "whether his lecture would be a nice, interesting story, such as she wished to hear, or whether it was one of those old philosophical things that she did not care about." Henry turned to her, and bethought himself, and, I saw, was trying to believe that he had matter that might fit her and her brother, who were to sit up and go to the lecture, if it was a good one for them.

He was a speaker and actor of the truth,–born such,–and was ever running into dramatic situations from this cause. In any circumstance, it interested all bystanders to know what part Henry would take, and what he would say; and he did not disappoint expectation, but used an original judgment on each emergency. In 1845 he built himself a small framed house on the shores of Walden Pond, and lived there two years alone, a life of labor and study. This action was quite native and fit for him. No one who knew him would tax him with affectation. He was more unlike his neighbors in his thought than in his action. As soon as he had exhausted the advantages of that solitude, he abandoned it. In 1847, not approving some uses to which the public expenditure was applied, he refused to pay his town tax, and was put in jail. A friend paid the tax for him, and he was released. The like annoyance was threatened the next year. But, as his friends paid the tax, notwithstanding his protest, I believe he ceased to resist. No opposition or ridicule had any weight with him. He coldly and fully stated his opinion without affecting to believe that it was the opinion of the company. It was of no consequence, if every one present held the opposite opinion. On one occasion he went to the University Library to procure some books. The librarian refused to lend them. Mr. Thoreau repaired to the President, who stated to him the rules and usages, which permitted the loan of books to resident graduates, to clergymen who were alumni, and to some others resident within a circle of ten miles' radius from the College. Mr. Thoreau explained to the President that the railroad had destroyed the old scale of distances,–that the library was useless, yes, and President and College useless, on the terms of his rules,–that the one benefit he owed to the College was its library,–that, at this moment, not only his want of books was imperative, but he wanted a large number of books, and assured him that he, Thoreau, and not the librarian, was the proper custodian of these. In short, the President found the petitioner so formidable, and the rules getting to look so ridiculous, that he ended by giving him a privilege which in his hands proved unlimited thereafter.

No truer American existed than Thoreau. His preference of his country and condition was genuine, and his aversation from English and European manners and tastes almost reached contempt. He listened impatiently to news or bon mots gleaned from London circles; and though he tried to be civil, these anecdotes fatigued him. The men were all imitating each other, and on a small mould. Why can they not live as far apart as possible, and each be a man by himself? What he sought was the most energetic nature; and he wished to go to Oregon, not to London. "In every part of Great Britain," he wrote in his diary, "are discovered traces of the Romans, their funereal urns, their camps, their roads, their dwellings. But New England, at least, is not based on any Roman ruins. We have not to lay the foundations of our houses on the ashes of a former civilization."

But, idealist as he was, standing for abolition of slavery, abolition of tariffs, almost for abolition of government, it is needless to say he found himself not only unrepresented in actual politics, but almost equally opposed to every class of reformers. Yet he paid the tribute of his uniform respect to the Anti-Slavery party. One man, whose personal acquaintance he had formed, he honored with exceptional regard. Before the first friendly word had been spoken for Captain John Brown, he sent notices to most houses in Concord, that he would speak in a public hall on the condition and character of John Brown, on Sunday evening, and invited all people to come. The Republican Committee, the Abolitionist Committee, sent him word that it was premature and not advisable. He replied,–"I did not send to you for advice, but to announce that I am to speak." The hall was filled at an early hour by people of all parties, and his earnest eulogy of the hero was heard by all respectfully, by many with a sympathy that surprised themselves.

It was said of Plotinus that he was ashamed of his body, and it is very likely he had good reason for it,–that his body was a bad servant, and he had not skill in dealing with the material world, as happens often to men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body. He was of short stature, firmly built, of light complexion, with strong, serious blue eyes, and a grave aspect,–his face covered in the late years with a becoming beard. His senses were acute, his frame well-knit and hardy, his hands strong and skilful in the use of tools. And there was a wonderful fitness of body and mind. He could pace sixteen rods more accurately than another man could measure them with rod and chain. He could find his path in the woods at night, he said, better by his feet than his eyes. He could estimate the measure of a tree very well by his eye; he could estimate the weight of a calf or a pig, like a dealer. From a box containing a bushel or more of loose pencils, he could take up with his hands fast enough just a dozen pencils at every grasp. He was a good swimmer, runner, skater, boatman, and would probably outwalk most countrymen in a day's journey. And the relation of body to mind was still finer than we have indicated. He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he did not write at all.

He had a strong common sense, like that which Rose Flammock, the weaver's daughter, in Scott's romance, commends in her father, as resembling a yardstick, which, whilst it measures dowlas and diaper, can equally well measure tapestry and cloth of gold. He had always a new resource. When I was planting forest-trees, and had procured half a peck of acorns, he said that only a small portion of them would be sound, and proceeded to examine them, and select the sound ones. But finding this took time, he said, "I think, if you put them all into water, the good ones will sink"; which experiment we tried with success. He could plan a garden, or a house, or a barn; would have been competent to lead a "Pacific Exploring Expedition"; could give judicious counsel in the gravest private or public affairs.

He lived for the day, not cumbered and mortified by his memory. If he brought you yesterday a new proposition, he would bring you to-day another not less revolutionary. A very industrious man, and setting, like all highly organized men, a high value on his time, he seemed the only man of leisure in town, always ready for any excursion that promised well, or for conversation prolonged into late hours. His trenchant sense was never stopped by his rules of daily prudence, but was always up to the new occasion. He liked and used the simplest food, yet, when some one urged a vegetable diet, Thoreau thought all diets a very small matter, saying that "the man who shoots the buffalo lives better than the man who boards at the Graham House." He said,–"You can sleep near the railroad, and never be disturbed: Nature knows very well what sounds are worth attending to, and has made up her mind not to hear the railroad-whistle. But things respect the devout mind, and a mental ecstasy was never interrupted." He noted, what repeatedly befell him, that, after receiving from a distance a rare plant, he would presently find the same in his own haunts. And those pieces of luck which happen only to good players happened to him. One day, walking with a stranger, who inquired where Indian arrow-heads could be found, he replied, "Everywhere," and, stooping forward, picked one on the instant from the ground. At Mount Washington, in Tuckerman's Ravine, Thoreau had a bad fall, and sprained his foot. As he was in the act of getting up from his fall, he saw for the first time the leaves of the Arnica mollis.