T THIS POINT, where I begin to tell of the adventures
during the second year of my apprenticeship on American
soil, I find myself confronted with a difficulty.
I had become an onlooker again. For quite a while,
after I left the city of
New York,
nothing of what I went through stirred me very deeply.
I had tried to meddle with the affairs of American life;
I had burned my fingers. I felt no temptation to try
again before I had regained an inner equilibrium and
a maturity from which I felt myself to be separated by
a great distance. I was engaged in a search.
One consequence is that memories have become dulled.
Only what moves us deeply do we remember across the gulf
of time. Above all, the chronology of events is confused.
Many impressions refuse to fall back into their proper
places. The only help I can get is from associations
of locality. Where an impression or an event is indissolubly
linked up with the scenery in which it arose or took
place, I can fit it back by putting it into the proper
point of my itinerary. Where I have not succeeded in
doing so, I have preferred to treat it as negligible
and to leave it out. The narrative must thus lose some
of its connections; transitions will be missing; apparent
contradictions will crop up; feelings, thoughts which
are hard to reconcile. And there are, especially in the
beginning, detached scenes, disconnected visions, like
mere pictures flashed upon the screen of memory, seemingly
quite meaningless; and yet they belong into the tale
of my tramps.
The very first memories are a series of mere visions.
To the left arises a railroad embankment, twenty feet
page 257
high, with a cinder slope from which here and there
a cloud of sharp, cutting dust whirls up in a playful
breeze. To the right runs something like an aqueduct
or a large watermain -- if I interpret the picture
in my mind correctly -- which shuts out the view.
Underfoot the road, smooth, tarry, soft to the touch,
tremendously hot from the sun which beats mercilessly
down on everything. The whole road, running for miles
between embankment and aqueduct, is alive with hordes
of winged locusts which, jumping and flying, stir
up an exceedingly fine, oily dust. So densely do
these insects cover the road that it is impossible
not to crush them at every step. When the breath
of the breeze sweeps the ground, they fly up to the
height of my face, hitting my cheeks, my ears, my
neck with the sharp impact of their mandibles as
with blunt needle-points. In spite of the tar on
the road, which pervades the whole atmosphere with
its tiring smell, the main feature of the landscape
is dust, dust. The perspiration runs down my face,
cutting runnels into the black coating which begins
to cover it. The wide leaves of False Ragweed plants
on the embankment are also grey with dust; their
stems are covered with locusts. The dreariness of
it all is accentuated when, at a bend in the road,
those huge pipes to the right come quite close to
the driveway before they form their angle; I stand
and listen to the swish of swift-moving water within.
The sound seems so cool. The sleeve of my coat on
the arm which carries the waterproof is crumpled
and creased as if pressed and ironed that way; the
skin of my arm is beady with sweat.
Locusts, tar-smell, dust and heat; for miles and miles.
In the afternoon I come to
Newark.
I have never been back there. A gulf of many years separates
me from that Sunday afternoon. But I see a raised railway
station, some twenty-five to thirty feet above the level
of the road. I am in the grateful shade of dusty trees
-- their leaves coated with the deposits of smoke --
and look up at that station where light, washable summer-dresses
flit about as if they had a life of their own -- a weird
impression of
page 258
unreality attaches to it all. The wearers of those
dresses are beings in a different world from my own
-- they seem like marionettes -- they live in a world
of make-believe and pretence -- a world that resembles
the painted wings on a stage -- the reality is dust
and tar-smell. I cross a street and get a drink at
a public fountain. People glance at me as if they
were seeing an apparition. Their movements in the
street look as if they were trying to hurry past
-- as if my sight looked like a threat.
But the shade is grateful.
I walk at the chance of the road. It does not matter
where it leads.
At last I have crossed the city and swing out again
into its outskirts. Houses become an episode. In the
cooling air of lengthening shadows I step along at a
brisker rate. Deeper and more refreshing becomes every
single breath I take.
A little bridge leaps over a brook. Verdure clothes
its banks right down to the water which merrily scampers
along. I leave the road to the left, eagerly hurrying
over the meadow, and reach a willow-clump at the water's
edge. Cap and coat are thrown off, the sleeves of my
shirt rolled back to the arm-pits. I plunge forward,
submerging head and arms in the cooling flood. If
Ray were with me, we should now start romping and splashing,
shouting and laughing the while. But every noise sounds
strange, since I am alone, alone. I feel hushed.
I am on the road again and suddenly realize that all
day long I have not eaten. There are buns in the pocket
of my raincoat. I find a bottle, a perfectly good, sound
bottle by the roadside. It seems a treasure; I pick it
up.
The road rises over the shoulder of a hill. As I climb
it, the feeling in my legs which keep swinging along
mechanically is that of a man who for the first time
in his life shoots up in an elevator; the ground seems
to press upward. Rail-fences appear on both sides. A
desire overcomes me to whistle as I march; but I am shy
under the eye of nature. Dusk is rising.
page 259
Simultaneously I see in front the white shoe of the moon floating in the
deepening blue, and in a straight line with it, above the crest of the
hill, the black shape of a building. When I approach, I find it to be a
crossroads store. Forgetful of its being Sunday, I stop and ask a man who
sits on the stoop for a can of condensed milk. He mutters something; but
he gets up, walks in, and returns with the tin.
A little farther along the road a car lurches past
me, the exhaust ringing like so many pistol-shots through
the quiet air. I pass a farm huddled by the roadside
in a cluster of trees.
My purchase at the store has set my thoughts on milk.
My throat seems to cry out for milk.
I stop and turn.
"Yes," says the woman who is working at the stove in
the dusky kitchen at the back of the farm-house -- no
lamps being lit yet -- "yes, I guess I can let you have
some."
And while she fills my bottle, out of the shadows beyond
a man steps forward into the frame of the door. "Had
a breakdown?" he asks.
For a moment I fail to understand. Then it flashes
upon me that he takes me for the driver of the car which
has just shot by -- cars were still scarce at the time,
still something to be commented upon. And, strange to
say, nearly against my will, certainly without any intention
of deception, simply as the easiest way of avoiding further
queries, my mouth answers, "Yes, rather."
But I feel the colour mantling my face which is mercifully
hidden by the darkness. I take the bottle from the woman's
hands and ask for the charge.
"Oh," she says pleasantly, "I don't think we'll miss
it."
"Thanks," I say and walk off.
Out on the road, away from the shadows of buildings
and trees, there is still the light of the heavenly sickle.
I feel strangely weightless.
I am cut loose, adrift on the world.
The ribbon of the road still rises; but it reaches
the
page 260
crest, and I top the hill. Like a pair of weights
suspended from my body my feet swing on, downhill
now. Below lies a shallow valley, filled with the
shadow of trees. As I move on with large strides,
my body seems to gather weight, my knees begin to
bend at every step.
Not a single, solitary thought is in my head. But my
teeth seem to be on edge for the bite into those buns;
my throat seems to anticipate the gurgling flow of the
milk.
Thus I reach the bottom of the valley -- there is a
tiny trickling stream which crosses the road under a
culvert. I step aside, on the meadow and bend to the
ground -- the grass is wet with dew; but that does not
matter. I spread my raincoat out, sit down, and eat.
Half my bread I put back into the pockets, half my milk
I leave in the bottle. I rest.
I seem to be weighing the time, as if I held a certain
mass of it in my hand.
At last I get up to proceed. But an unearthly load
presses on my shoulders; the ground seems to heave under
my step; I notice that I stagger.
I do not reason or think; instinctively I strike to
the left, into the forest, on rising ground. Dry leaves
rustle under my feet. The failing light of the moon only
half illuminates the roots in which my feet get caught.
At last I spread my raincoat on the ground and lie down.
The air is still warm; but everything around is hung
with beads of dew. The clean smell of humus, mixed with
the smoky haze of the lower air, has something heady;
it affects me like new wine. Strange noises are alive
among the trees, rustlings and whirrings of the creatures
of the wild. The very stillness which is underlined by
these noises has something exciting. Long, long I lie
awake. And when at last I doze, I still toss restlessly
about. An uncanny, mocking laughter close at hand makes
me sit up; I do not recall where I am, I do not awake
to full consciousness. I feel chilly; my clothes are
damp; I curl up, pull my raincoat closer about my body,
sink back, and sleep.
page 261
And then: all kinds of sounds are astir: a dog barks, a cock crows, a
cow lows in the meadow. Birds begin to twitter and to chirp. I am lifted.
out of the depths of sleep. A lassitude which is nearly voluptuous pervades
limbs and body. Awakening is like a resurrection; but I do not move.
Gradually the sky begins to whiten, the canopy of the
leaves overhead turns into a black etching. Slowly, slowly
the light of day steals into all things around. I lie
still, I do not even look. But the consciousness that
another day has risen soaks into me by never-suspected
senses. I am still alive.
By and by the consciousness of what I have done obtrudes.
I laugh; but a sob mingles into the laugh. It seems so
simple -- all I have done is to walk out of a great city.
But it means that I have left the society of man. I am
an outcast -- something closely resembling those dreaded
beings which I have thought of with a shudder: anarchists.
I am alone; I stand against the world.
This thought sends me into a sitting posture; but I
fall back with a groan; a wild, stabbing pain has flashed
across my back. A sob convulses my whole body; tears,
unreasoning tears, seem a relief. Again I try to rise,
this time slowly, cautiously. I am very stiff, every
movement seems to hurt.
At last I stand. My foot-joints, my ankles, my knees,
my hips, and my back -- all hurt. But I pick my raincoat
up and start a descent from tree to tree.
Meanwhile the sun has risen in the east, and its orange-coloured
rays send golden flashes along the leaves overhead. I
have to get out of the woods to dry, to shake off the
cloak of misty dampness that covers the world.
I reach the road in the valley-bottom where the little
stream hurries towards the east. White mist still floats;
I shiver as I step over the deep-napped carpet of the
meadow. I stand and listen. There is no human sound.
So, slowly, painfully, I strip and wash. Then I bend
down and drink deep at the nearest pool. Again I shiver;
page 262
and when I have sat and eaten, I rise and limp back
to the road, to a point where a dry, mossy spot in
the western hillside catches the light and heat from
the sun. There I sit down once more to gather warmth.
This second day there was a new quality to the rays
of the sun, something I could not define as yet; but
for the moment it felt good. It was what we realize when
we say, "It is going to be a hot day." Not an air seemed
to stir; I did not move, but lay there for hours.
I do not know how far or in what direction I walked
that day. But I remember how more and more that strange
feeling in the air predominated which forebodes a storm.
I also remember that my progress was slow and halting.
The stiffness in my body and limbs did not disappear
altogether, though I finally settled down into a definite
routine of motion. The slightest departure from this
routine brought pain. The atmosphere took on that breathless,
brooding concentration which causes us to look into the
sky for thunderheads.
My vision clears towards the afternoon when I was slowly
plodding along a road which was more and more densely
flanked by farms and residences, till it changed into
something like a wide and spacious street; but there
were no trees to give shade.
I looked up again and saw vast threatening clouds with
edges of a ghostly white.
I scanned the street and caught sight of a large, unpainted
building ahead which resembled a store. I went on; a
sidewalk sprang up out of the edge of the road. The building
was indeed a store. Connected with it was something like
a little inn which did not look as if it were doing a
flourishing business.
I entered the store, bought ten cents' worth of bacon
and a loaf of bread, and turned back into the street.
Again I looked at the sky and hesitated. Then I entered
the hall of the inn and waited. Nobody came, and at last
I sat down.
Heavy drops began to knock at the building like finger
page 263
knuckles. I thought of the city, of
Ray,
and brushed the thought away because it sent a sob
rising into my throat.
A short, fat woman entered. I rose to my feet.
"You take in guests for the night?" I asked.
"Sometimes," she said and looked me up and down, coolly,
with insolent appraisal.
"What do you charge for a room?"
"With meals?"
"No."
"Fifty cents," she replied, ". . . in advance."
I laid down a dollar bill, and she gave me the change.
This interview proved that I was indeed on the other
side of the line which demarcates society.
She showed me my room, and I laid my parcels on a table
there. The air in the room was witness that it had not
been occupied for a long, long time. There was no dirt;
on the contrary, everything was painfully clean; but
it smelt of damp sheets and lowered blinds; to this very
day, when I catch the smell, I see the room.
I raised the window and went out.
In front of the store the sidewalk was roofed over,
and in this shelter stood a chair. When I sat down, a
wind sprang up, suddenly, furiously, with a whirl preceding
it; and then it settled down into a roaring blow. The
rain lashed the road and gathered into brooks on both
sides, shooting down the gently sloping hillside. It
was a soaking, gushing, drowning rain, as if the gates
of some lock had been opened and a flood were sweeping
over the dusty stretches below. I looked on, unmoved;
and as suddenly as it had started, it ceased. The sun
broke forth again; I breathed more freely; and only the
little brooks on both sides of the road, yellow with
the washings of clay, told of the short and vehement
fury of the storm.
It was still daylight when I turned in. I was paying
precious money for this room; I was going to get my money's
worth of the luxury. No mere eight or ten hours of sleep
would have seemed adequate; I meant to have sixteen at
least and had them.
page 264
As for the next day, or the one after that, and probably
quite a few more that followed, my memory is a blank.
I do remember, though, that the experience of the nights
in the open was more than once similar to that of the
first night. It took me two weeks or longer to learn
that I had to get under some kind of cover, straw or
hay, to protect myself from the dew. I also remember
how I got used to being silent for days and days at a
stretch. When I entered a store -- I preferred little
crossroads places to those in towns -- my voice sounded
husky to me, unfamiliar like that of a stranger.
Gradually I became hardened to this life.
One day, after a week or so, I found that I was nearing
the city of
Philadelphia. Promptly I struck off for the west. I did
not care to go even near a city.
I also settled down to a certain routine in my habits,
a routine rather unusual for a tramp, I suppose. Every
second day I shaved, carefully, painstakingly, with the
help of a little disk-mirror which I carried in the pocket
of my vest. Every third day I washed my underwear and
my shirt -- they were of the best that money could buy
-- in some brook or stream, provided the sun shone brightly
or the wind blew briskly enough to dry things within
an hour or so.
As for the two little books which I carried, I tried
to read the ; but it seemed irrelevant. I must confess
that, up to that time, I had -- like most people, ministers
not excluded -- never read it with an open mind; I found
that I could not do so now; but I kept the booklet. Now
and then I looked into the , and I liked it better; I
suppose, because I was much more familiar with it; and
if I picked out a line or two, I did not need to feel
that I was perverting their meaning by taking them out
of their context. Their meaning did not greatly matter,
anyway; there was a sadness about the whole which chimed
in with my mood; there was a soothing melody in its rhythm
which made me forget my feeling of loneliness.
page 265
I was in Pennsylvania now; and once more a vision arises
of my staying at an inn over night -- the last time during
that season as far as I remember.
I had been swinging along vigorously all day, topping
bare and barren-looking hills, down into shallow valleys,
and over hills again. Here and there I had seen a needy-looking
farmstead in the distance; but I had not passed a single
one close by.
Then, somehow, in the dusk of evening, the road I followed
gave out; it was on a marshy plain in the hills; it became
less and less well marked and finally ended in a number
of diverging water-soaked wheel-tracks, not far from
a cluster of half-decaying, storm-battered, lightning-rived
remnants of trees.
Thus I struck out at random, going west.
I came to a steep ridge and climbed it. Night began
to wrap the world. But when I reached the summit, I looked
down upon a long, winding valley, filled with the shadow
of trees. Darkness lay huddled down there, in the fold
of the hills, as if it, too, had coiled up for the night.
Compared with this darkness, the heights and summits
seemed to reach up into a thinner, less opaque air, into
a region of indistinct, grey visibility which seemed
pregnant with danger, threatened with the invasion of
incomprehensible, cosmic things sweeping along over the
universe.
The valley in its inky blackness seemed infinitely
sheltered, cosy, homelike. Right in its centre gleamed,
ruddily, a light. I greeted that light like a message
from the sane, quiet, well-ordered world of man. Up here
on the heights perched insanity.
As if I were fleeing from the threat of the inanimate
world above, from the terrible things that lurked and
flitted through the grey of the upper air, I started
to plunge down the hillside, stumbling over rocks, falling
headlong over roots, running up against rail-fences,
scaling them, rushing forward again.
Then, having once more brought up against a railfence,
I suddenly heard human voices close by; I stopped
page 266
short, a lump in my throat. The night was so dark
by this time that I could not have seen my own hand,
even though I had held it up close to my eyes. As
I stood there, blotted into the dark shadows of the
trees behind, I saw two glowing spots glide down
upon myself; the voices became louder; and from the
ground, close at hand, the reverberating tramp of
two men walking downhill arose. They were talking
and laughing and smoking. They seemed to be coming
straight on; but at the last moment they swung off
and passed me, not more than two or three feet from
where I stood, unsuspected by them in the dark.
I realized that only the fence in front of me separated
me from a road which led along the bottom of the sloping
valley to the light.
I waited so as to give the men time to get beyond earshot.
Then I climbed out on the road and settled down to the
rhythm of their steady swing which I still heard.
After a while I became aware of a widening of the road.
Without seeing a thing I was conscious of the fact that
there were houses on both sides; at last one of the houses
showed a mild, ruddy light through two or three windows.
This was the inn; I had escaped . . .
I was a wanderer in the hills. Soon after I became
a wanderer in the valleys. But before I reached those
valleys, one more picture engraved itself on my brain
so that it stands in sharp outline to this very day.
Again, in a steady tramp, I was winding up a hill.
The sun shone brightly from the western sky; a clear,
blue breeze came rambling across from the east. I stopped
now and then and turned to let it blow through my heated
body. I was young, and the world was young.
I have a picture in my mind even of the looks of the
soil to both sides of the road. It was a bare, heavy
clay with marly patches here and there, a poor soil for
farms, washed into gullies by many rains.
Yet, at last I saw a cluster of little buildings ahead,
right on the summit of the pass in the hills. It seemed
to bar the road; but as I approached, I found that the
road
page 267
turned aside in a double bend for this cluster of
poverty-stricken hovels. As I turned, I saw beyond
the rail-fence the scaffolding of a well which had
a pole-lift. I had not met with water for some time;
and so, at the sight of the well, I realized that
I was thirsty. I followed the second bend of the
road, and it brought me alongside the unpainted,
rain-washed house.
There was a gap, without a gate in the fence, and I
entered. I looked about in the yard, but I saw no one,
nor any sign of human occupancy. I went to the back door
and knocked, but received no answer.
I went around to the front; and there, on a rough,
wooden bench, leaning against the house, sat two old
people, a man and a woman. They were old indeed, hollow-eyed
and hollow-cheeked. And when I turned the corner of the
house, the old man was holding one of the woman's hands
between his two; and she was leaning against his shoulder,
crooning some old song. Their hair was white and soft
and smooth; the man's long, flowing beard as lightly
grey as the rain-bleached lumber of the house. In their
watery, light-blue eyes was a far-away look.
I wanted to steal back as I had come; but I had been
seen, and both of them started.
"Hello," sang the man in a childish treble.
"Hello," I replied shamefacedly; and I made known my
want.
The woman bustled away with astounding activity and
got a cup; the man drew water from the well and would
not let me help.
Somehow I felt the need of furnishing a pretext for
my presence, and I enquired for the road to some nearby
town. They pointed it out but thought I could never reach
my destination by nightfall. Again I fenced. Was there
a farm somewhere along the road where I might stop in
case the dark should overtake me? I was thinking of some
straw or, haystack to crawl into. No, they replied; most
of the rare travellers along this trail stopped with
them; they had a cot, not much of a bed, to be sure;
but they kept it set
page 268
up against the home-coming of their son; might I
want to stay for the night? Hardly. I could not afford
to pay for a night's rest anywhere; I might snatch
an hour's sleep by the roadside. And catch my death
of cold, to be sure! That would not do! As for pay,
they never took any, for their son's sake; and had
they ever done so, they would not take it from me;
I reminded them of their son so. That son, I must
know, had gone off, along that very road, twenty
or twenty-five years ago -- yes, twenty-four it would
be, come next Easter; the farm had not paid a living
for the three any longer; he had gone out west; and
there, on the hill which I could just see over yonder,
he had stopped and waved his hat for the last time
back home; and that was all they had ever seen or
heard of him; was he alive still, did I think? But
surely, he must! And both wiped a tear from their
eyes.
I stayed over night; and, oh, how I wished I could
leave a "wonderful pitcher" behind!
One day, I looked down upon
Harrisburg.
I remembered, of course, the night when I had looked
out at the station, from the window of the sleeping-car;
but I banished the thought. I banished many thoughts
those days.
I turned to the north to avoid the city.
I came down into the
Susquehanna valley.
I do not remember a great deal of this part of my tramps.
But I still feel how my blood was quickened by the sight
of the swift-shooting river. I have a vision of a wide,
flatbottomed valley with large slabs of rock under shallow,
smoothly gliding sheets of water; of little islets with
tufts of long, waving grass nearly choking the current;
of a good road along the bank. I have often longed for
a second sight; but it has been my fate not to see these
parts again. Nothing remains in my memory but the impression
of an inner and unconscious development of myself.
The first factors in the complex fraction of my life
at the time which I will enumerate are, as it were, positive
page 269
ones; or, to borrow
Carlyle's
figure once more, they must be put down in the Numerator.
For one thing, I established a mood which eliminated
the feeling of loneliness. It may have been because I
got used to being alone. That terrible need for communication,
for imparting to others what I garnered in impressions,
moods, thoughts was on the wane. My body had become adjusted
to the conditions of the tramp and left my mind free
to commune with itself. Things that I felt or thought
began to crystallise into short statements, sometimes
into brief lines of verse. I obtained a pencil and a
little note-book and occasionally jotted observations
down. But I did not date them; nor did I attach to them
the names of localities. Nothing was further from my
mind than to keep a journal or a record. What I wrote
down fulfilled its purpose right then and there, in affording
me that satisfaction which we find in formulating elusive
things. So, when among my papers I ran across this little
note-book, several years ago, it helped me to realize
in remembrance the general mood of the days; but it did
not reconstruct definite scenes and events in the album
of mental photographs. To-day, when at last I am trying
to write this record, even that little help is no longer
available; the note-book seems to have been lost.
Further, there stands out another fact, an external
one this time. All my life I have been a lover of water
-- rivers, lakes, the sea. I had made many an inland
and outland voyage. Water is nothing inanimate. It responds
to the moods of sky and cloud as we do. The mere fact
that water is rarely silent has something to do with
it. Water is company. Instinctively I clung for a large
part of my tramps to the courses of rivers. Here it was,
first, the
Susquehanna, then the
Juniata;
later,
Conemaugh,
Allegheny,
Ohio,
Missouri.
There were other reasons for this, of course. So long
as I followed a river, I was sure I could not stray.
I had one of the prime essentials for sustaining life
without ever approaching human habitations which I shunned.
Shade and privacy were available
page 270
whenever I needed them -- for my ablutions, for instance. When the time
came, as now it did, that I needed a fire at night, I was never at a loss
for fuel; and soon I learned that a river is also a bountiful giver of
other things which were no longer -- to me -- necessities. All this, however,
was secondary; for even in cutting across the streams, so long as I was
within the mountains, I should have met enough of them to minister to all
my wants. The river, whether large or small, relieved the feeling that
I was alone and an outcast.
Among the negative factors -- or those that went down
in the ever-lessening Denominator -- the most important
one was the habit of utter frugality which became established.
I learned to expect less and less. Wild fruit -- blackberries
above all -- the bark of certain trees which I began
to be familiar with, and nuts played an ever-increasing
part in my daily fare. Less and less did I spend money.
Against such days as proved barren of finds I carried
a bundle. I learned to pick up tin-cans for cooking utensils.
I eliminated bread from my diet as too expensive and
substituted oatmeal which I cooked in those tin-cans.
I carried salt and, as the rarest treat on chilly nights,
a little tea. There was no longer any need for my entering
stores except once a fortnight or so; less than half
a dollar bought all I needed for the interval. I might
mention that I also learned to eat roots and tubers --
parsnips, turnips, potatoes -- raw with great relish.
These I did not scruple to purloin from occasional
Fields.
Since I avoided men, they being what above all was
to be feared, I escaped importune questions and the discomfort
of prevarication.
My body lost its last vestige of fat. I was a bundle
of bones, sinews, muscles. I doubt whether my health
has ever been what it was during this tramp in the valleys
of the Appalachians. I did no longer flee from sudden,
drenching showers. I merely rolled my provisions, my
watch, my matches in my waterproof and protected them
as best I could, letting the rain soak my clothes as
it listed.
page 271
Nothing seemed to do me any harm. I felt fit and able to cope with any
difficulty, amply equal to any feat of athletics. I prided myself on strength
and endurance.
The woods began to flame on the east sides of the ridges.
But on the west side of the divide, beyond Altoona, where
the waters drain into the Mississippi basin, they were still green. To pass to the
west slope seemed like experiencing a resurrection of
summer after fall had come. The waters seemed warmer
there, and so did the air.
And now, to close this
CHAPTER of dim reminiscences, I have to explain a general
attitude towards things and scenes which I find it hard
to grasp in thought and harder still to formulate in
a medium as coarse and lacking in delicacy, and as unfamiliar
to myself as language is.
Every morning I awoke as
to a feast.
I was young, in the early years of manhood.
My whole body and soul were astir with the possibilities
of passion. Love was not only a potentiality; it was
a prime need; it was a craving, a cry of my innermost
being.
And this love had no object except the woods,
the mountains, the streams; bird, insect, beast, gossamer
threads, smoky haze, the smell of the earth. These, or
more briefly, the country, I loved.
My love for it
was not the love for a friend -- which is the love for
that which is not; it idealizes, substitutes, omits,
redraws. It was not the love for the mother-- which is
the love for origins, help, food, shelter, care, guidance,
akin to gratitude. It was the love for the bride, full
of desires, seeking all things, accepting them, craving
fulfilment of higher destinies. Forgotten was where I
came from; forgotten what I had gone through; forgiven
in advance what I might rush into and still have to suffer.
Every fibre of my being yearned. And though what lured
me was nature, yet it was also America
page 142
