An Unpublished Concord Journal By FRANK SANBORN [Edited by GEORGE S. HELLMAN] Frank Sanborn as a young man was in the confidence and association of the famous Concord group in which were Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, Alcott, Hawthorne, Channing, and others. Journals were then the fashion. Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and others were, in almost daily entrances, making them the storehouses of their ideas. Young Sanborn as a senior at Harvard began in this journal, in 1854–55, to follow in their footsteps. The new and fascinating material in this journal we shall leave the reader to discover for himself. The portrait of Thoreau which accompanies the text is from the only known oil-painting of the Hermit of Walden, and has not before been reproduced.-G. S. H. N Tovember 2, 1854. Suddenly I went to Concord by railroad, and getting to Mr. Emerson's house at 2 o'cl'k, found him just arrived at home from Keene. We sat by the dining-room fire and talked awhile-of Stonehenge and of new theories, of Bossuet and his book, of cones, etc. Speaking of pines, Mr. Emerson said Issac Porter offered to shew him on his Maine woodlands trees a thousand years old, for there is no limit to the life of trees; they die only by accident. We walked out across the pasture to Walden Pond, and Mr. Emerson spoke of an Englishman, Cholmondely, who had lately come to Concord, a Preel man, a Puseyite, who had been to Australia and written a book called book called "Ultima Thule" thereupon. "He is the son of a Shropshire squire, and is travelling during his nonage. He is better acquainted with things than most travelling Englishmen are; they are a singularly verdant race. The Englishman who stays at home and attends to what he knows is one of the wisest of men, but their travellers are most unobservant and self-complacent. I asked this man if he saw any difference between our autumn foliage and that of England. He said no, but all men who have eyes notice it at once; ours is tulips and carnations compared with theirs. So, too, he told me he went to hear a Mr. Parker in Boston; he thought him able, but was shocked at some of his doctrines. He began," said Mr. Emerson, "to talk to me about original sin and such things, but I said: 'I see you are speaking of something which had a meaning once, but has now grown obsolete. Those words once stood for something, and the world got good from them; but not now."" Just then we met the man himself, and Mr. Emerson invited him to dinner on Saturday. November 20, 1854. Coming in from Agassiz's lecture, found Mr. Alcott in my room. Talked with him a few minutes and then took him to dinner. There we spoke of Agassiz and science. Mr. Alcott complained of naturalists that they begin with matter, they should begin with spirit,—as in the "Vestiges" the author supposes man developed as a final product from inorganic matter. This is wrong. The Deity does not work in this way, building up man out of matter, but man is rather a link between God and matter. Matter is the refuse of spirit, the residuum not taken up and made pure spirit. It is like a swarm of bees. They are conical, like the arrangement of things and man. All the bees depend on the queen bee; so all matter depends on man. "This which we are now engaged in," said Mr. Alcott, "is an instance of what I mean by the use of matter by spirit. Out of the food before us each selects what is needful for him, and rejects the rest. So spirit, selecting what is for its use, rejects the rest, and to it this refuse is matter." I spoke of A. T. Davis. Mr. Alcott said: "He is a simple, earnest man, but to him matter is everything; spirit at its extreme limit is still matter. It is better to say boldly that we are not formed from matter, but that we ourselves form it, that the eye creates what it looks upon, the desires what they act upon, etc." "This is nearer the truth," said I; but Mr. Alcott seemed to imply it was almost the exact truth. Turning to Baxter he said: "We are waiting for you theologians to set forth this view, but you are slow to do it." Baxter replied that the majority of men who listen to sermons would not understand a statement of this kind; "Shall we preach only to the few while the many go uncared for?" "Can you ever preach to many at once?" said Mr. Alcott (not in these words), "and would you preach to the Irishman on the railroad, with his brain built of potatoes and such things? No, you must pass by Patrick and speak to men who are before him; they will hand it down until by and by Patrick will get it." We all demurred a little to this. I said the greatest minds often found themselves equally appreciated by the high and the low. Baxter spoke of Christ's apostles, who were "Irishmen" in Mr. Alcott's signification. "Not at all," said he. "Christ made them what they were, to be sure; but he had good timber to make them of; they were not really common men. It is not the distinctions of society that I speak of, but those in the nature of man." Baxter spoke of Dr. Lothrop's congregation. on. "They are a sort of human brutes," said Mr. Alcott, "and they say, like people, like preacher. How few there are who really hear a man!" he went "Those who do so must dine on him; you must eat him up to get the good of him. Christ's disciples did so. That is the meaning of transubstantiation, nothing else. So nowadays men feed on Mr. Parker; he is strong meat to them; and they go away only to come back with an appetite for more. "That was good,' they say; 'we must have some more of that.' It is not so much so with Emerson; he is a finer food. A man who eats meat gets hungry sooner than I do; he has a ravenous appetite." Coming up to my room, we spoke of S. Longfellow, so different from his brother, whom I spoke of as a little conceited. Mr. Alcott said he was genial and pleasing, and was disposed to think him not much conceited. Mrs. Longfellow he spoke of as a fine woman, with less of Boston than any Saturday, Nov. 25. I went to Mr. Alcott's a few minutes before one, and was met by him at the door. I sat I sat with him a while in his study, and then we went down to dinner. The dinner was without meat, but nice and inviting. "Abby" talked of Forrest, whom she had seen the night before; she was warm in his praise. Mr. Alcott spoke of Connecticut and clockmaking. He was born in the town of Wolcott, the highest land in the State and the center of the clock-making trade. He spoke of its origin, its extent, and of his formerly working for Ferry. His business was putting the clocks together, and at this he worked a year. We talked about the "Dial." Mr. Alcott got his journal and showed me some memoranda of the "Symposium, or Transcendental Club, of his first acquaintance with Emerson, &c. He spoke of his school in the Masonic Temple, of its ultimate failure. I saw letters of Mr. Emerson about "Psyche," a book which Mr. Alcott talked of publishing, but was dissuaded by Mr. Emerson. He told me the names of most of the writers for the "Dial." He showed me also what he called "Tablets," extracts from his diaries, arranged in a certain order, under the signs of the zodiac. They consist of apothegms, short essays, and the like, and are designed for publication. In this connection Mr. Alcott told me Emerson's way of writing. He puts down in his commonplace-book whatever he thinks worthy, and in the fall, when he is preparing his lectures or when he is making up a book, he goes over this commonplace-book and notices what topic has been uppermost in his thought, and arranges his fragments with reference to that. This accounts for the want of formal method in his books. They are crystallizations. Speaking of theology, Mr. Alcott said: "A theology infused into you as in Emerson is better than one directly taught. The best men, when they teach theology, get harsh and narrow; the indirect way is the best. Saturday, Dec. 2. A little past 3 I went to the Albion, expecting to meet Mr. Alcott. He was not there, but I found Emerson and John Dwight, H. Woodman and Cholmondely, the Englishman. About a quarter to four I went for Mr. Alcott and found him with Kimball, of the last divinity class. He soon got ready and went down with We sat thus: me. Woodman spoke of Everett as a "curse to American scholarship," and this led to a discussion of Everett's merits. I suggested Bancroft as one of our best American scholars. Mr. Emerson laughed, and spoke of his speech in New York the other day, his "Triune God," "arrogant Arius," "devout Athanasius," and the like. Bancroft, he said, is not a religious man. To which Dwight heartily assented. They thought this Trinitarianism assumed out of deference to New York sentiment, which is Presbyterian and Episcopalian. "In conversation," Mr. Emerson said, "Bancroft will take any side and defend it skillfully; he is a soldier of fortune." He thought his speech at the Phi Beta dinner in Cambridge, where Lord Ashburton was present, was one of his best efforts. Quincy and Story had spoken, but rather stiffly and coldly; Bancroft warmed up the audience. He spoke of Bancroft's ostracism in Boston on account of his politics as an instance of Boston proscription. Soon after, Mr. Emerson rose to go to the depot, and the company broke up. I should have mentioned that soon after Mr. Alcott came the conversation turned on age. Dwight said it was something he could not reconcile himself to; he could not understand why youth was left behind. Emerson said much the same, adding, "This man here [Mr. Alcott] used to tell us what experience is every day disproving, that the beauty turned inward." Mr. Alcott made some answer which I do not remember. "I have the trick," said Mr. Emerson, "of believing of every man whom I talk with as old as myself, so I warn you, young men." The point in question was Mr. Sumner's age. Leaving Mr. Alcott, I spoke to Cholmondely of his [Alcott's] early life. He wondered that a pedlar should have educated himself so and acquired such graceful manners. "They are the manners of a very great peer," said he. Tuesday, Dec. 12. About 11 this morning came a knock at my door, and when I said, "Come in," in walked serene Mr. Alcott with his placid smile. He had come to invite Morton and myself to sup with him to-night, but as I was to wait here for George W., I could not go. Cholmondely and Woodman were to be there, he said, and hoped I would "break bread" with him. I was very sorry I could not. We went over to Morton's room (13 Mass.) and found him writing on Thoreau. This led me to talk about Thoreau, and Mr. Alcott spoke of him most happily. "He is a fine beast; the brutes ought to choose him their king, so near does he live to nature and understand her so well. He is older than civilisation, and loves Homer because he is of Homer's time. In the parlor he is out of place, as a lion would be. He is outside of humanity; men he knows little about. What a naturalist he is! Agassiz and the rest might learn of him. It is a pity that he and Emerson live in the same age. Both are original, but they borrow from each other, living so near each other." Said Mr. Alcott: "Thoreau has seen the day from all points—and the night; he knows all about them. "Whatever he does is from fate; he is as much under its control as the beasts are." Thoreau and Horace Greeley went to the opera together! Saturday, Dec. 16. At a little past three I went to Mr. Alcott's to go with him to the Albion. He was alone, but said he would not then go; so I went alone. I found at the table a party thus arranged: J. R. Lowell, Cholmondely, Morton |