14 November 1859 – 20 November 1859

A very pleasant Indian-summer day. P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. I look up the river from the railroad bridge. It is perfectly smooth between the uniformly tawny mead- ows, and I see several musquash-cabins off Hubbard Shore distinctly outlined as usual in the November light. I hear in several places a faint cricket note, either a fine z-ing or a distincter creak, also see and hear a grass- hopper’s crackling flight. The clouds were never more fairly reflected in the water than now, as I look up the Cyanean Reach from Clamshell. A fine gossamer is streaming from every fence and tree and stubble, though a careless observer would not notice it. As I look along over the grass toward the sun at Hosmer’s field, beyond Lupine Hill, I notice the shim- mering effect of the gossamer, — which seems to cover it almost like a web, — occasioned by its motion, though the air is so still. This is noticed at least forty rods off. I turn down Witherell Glade, only that I may bring its tufts of andropogon between me and the sun for a moment. They are pretty as ever.’ In the midst of Ledum Swamp I came upon a white cat under the spruces and the water brush, which evi- dently had not seen me till I was within ten feet. There she stood, quite still, as if hoping to be concealed, only turning her head slowly away from and toward me, look- ing at me thus two or three times with an extremely worried expression in her eyes, but not moving any other part of her body. It occurred to me from her peculiar anxious expression and this motion, as if spellbound, that perhaps she was deaf; but when I moved toward her she found the use of her limbs and dashed off, bounding over the andromeda by successive leaps like a rabbit, no longer making her way through or beneath it. I noticed on the 3d, in Worcester,’ that the white pines had been as full of seed there as here this year. Also gathered half a pocketful of shagbarks, of which many still hung on the trees though most had fallen. . All through the excitement occasioned by Brown’s remarkable attempt and subsequent behavior, the Mas- sachusetts Legislature, not taking any steps for the defense of her citizens who are likely to be carried to Virginia as witnesses and exposed to the violence of a slaveholding mob, is absorbed in a liquor-agency question. That has, in fact, been the all-absorbing question with it!! I am sure that no person up to the occasion, or who perceived the significance of the former event, could at present attend to this question at all. As for the Legislature, bad spirits occupied their thoughts.’ If any person, in a lecture or a conversation, should now cite any ancient example of heroism, such as Cato, or Tell, or Winkelried, passing over the recent deeds and words of John Brown, I am sure that it would be felt by any intelligent audience of Northern men to be tame and inexcusably far-fetched. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, in Roman, or English, or any, history.° It is a fact proving how universal and widely re- lated any transcendent greatness is, like the apex of a pyramid to all beneath it, that when I now look over my extracts of the noblest poetry the best is oftenest applicable in part or wholly to this man’s position. Almost any noble verse may be read either as his elegy or eulogy or be made the text of an oration on him. Indeed, such are now first discerned to be the parts of a divinely established liturgy, applicable to those rare cases for which the ritual of no church has provided, — the case of heroes, martyrs, and saints. This is the for- mula established on high, their burial service, to which every great genius has contributed its line or syllable. Of course the ritual of no church which is wedded to the state can contain a service applicable to the case of a state criminal unjustly condemned, — a martyr. The sense of grand poetry read by the light of this event is brought out distinctly like an invisible writing held to the fire.’ About the 23d of October I saw a large flock of gold- finches’? (judging from their motions and notes) on the tops of the hemlocks up the Assabet, apparently feeding on their seeds, then falling. They were collected in great numbers on the very tops of these trees and flitting from one to another. Rice has since described to me the same phenomenon as observed by him there since (says he saw the birds picking out the seeds), though he did not know what birds they were. William Rice says that these birds get so much of the lettuce seed that you can hardly save any. They get sunflower seeds also. Are called “lettuce-birds” in the books. A lady who was suitably indignant at the outrage on Senator Sumner, lamenting to me to-day the very com- mon insensibility to.such things, said that one woman to whom she described the deed and on whom she thought that she had made some impression, lately in- quired of her with feeble curiosity: “ How is that young man who had his head hurt? I have n’t heard anything about him for a good while.” As I returned over the Corner Bridge I saw cows in the sun half-way down Fair Haven Hill next the Chiff, half a mile off, the declining sun so warmly reflected from their red coats that I could not for some time tell if they were not some still bright-red shrub oaks, — for they had no more form at that distance.

Another Indian-summer day, as fair as any we’ve had. I go down the railroad to Andro- meda Ponds this afternoon. Captain Hubbard is having his large wood — oak and white pine, on the west of the railroad this side the pond —cut. I see one white oak felled with one hundred and fifteen rings to it; another, a red, oak has about the same number. Thus disappear the haunts of the owls. The time may come when their aboriginal hoo-hoo-hoo will not be heard hereabouts. I have been so absorbed of late in Captain Brown’s fate as to be surprised whenever I detected the old rou- tine running still,—met persons going about their affairs indifferent. It appeared strange to me that the little dipper should be still diving in the river as of yore; and this suggested that this grebe might be diving here when Concord shall be no more. Any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects.’ At the pond-side I see titmice alighting on the now hoary gray goldenrod and hanging back downward from it, as if eating its seeds; or could they have been looking for insects? There were three or four about it. I sit in the sun on the northeast side of the first Andro- meda Pond, looking over it toward the sun. How fair and memorable this prospect when you stand opposite to the sun, these November afternoons, and look over the red andromeda swamp! — a glowing, warm brown red in the Indian-summer sun, like a bed of moss in a hollow in the woods, with gray high blueberry and straw-colored grasses interspersed. And when, going round it, you look over it in the opposite direction, it presents a gray aspect. The musquash are active, swimming about in the further pond to-day, — this Indian-summer day. Chan- ning also sees them thus stirring in the river this after- noon.

A fog this morning and yesterday morn- ing, lasting till about 10 a. Mm. I looked into the Church of England liturgy, printed near the beginning of the last century, to find a service applicable to the case of Captain Brown. The only martyr recognized and provided for by it was King Charles the First! ! Of all the inhabitants of England and of the world, he was the only one whom that church made a martyr and saint of!! And now for more than half a century it had celebrated his martyrdom by an annual service! What a satire on the church is that!* An apothecary in New Bedford told R.? the other day that a man (a Mr. Leonard) of Springfield told him that he once attended a meeting in Springfield where a woman was exhibited as in a mesmeric state, insensible to pain, — a large and fleshy woman, — and the specta- - tors were invited to test her condition with pins or other- . wise. After some had tried, one among them came for- ° ward with a vial of cowage, and, after stating to the company that it would produce intolerable irritation in the skin, he proceeded to rub a little on the woman’s bare arm and on her neck. She immediately winced under it, whereupon he took out another vial containing sweet oil, and, applying a little of that, relieved her. He then stated that any one present might apply to his skin as much as he pleased. Some came forward and he laid bare his breast and when they applied it spar- ingly and hesitatingly, he said, “Rub away, gentlemen, —as much as you like,” and he betrayed no sign of irritation. That man was John Brown.