Morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born."
The sun-setting presumed all men at leisure, and in a contemplative
mood; but the farmer's boy only whistled the more thoughtfully as
he drove his cows home from pasture, and the teamster refrained
from cracking his whip, and guided his team with a subdued voice.
The last vestiges of daylight at length disappeared, and as we
rowed silently along with our backs toward home through the
darkness, only a few stars being visible, we had little to say,
but sat absorbed in thought, or in silence listened to the
monotonous sound of our oars, a sort of rudimental music,
suitable for the ear of Night and the acoustics of her dimly
lighted halls;
"Pulsae referunt ad sidera valles,"
and the valleys echoed the sound to the stars.
As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were
reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that
the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on
mankind. It is recorded in the Chronicle of Bernaldez, that in
Columbus's first voyage the natives "pointed towards the heavens,
making signs that they believed that there was all power and
holiness." We have reason to be grateful for celestial
phenomena, for they chiefly answer to the ideal in man. The
stars are distant and unobtrusive, but bright and enduring as our
fairest and most memorable experiences. "Let the immortal depth
of your soul lead you, but earnestly extend your eyes upwards."
As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so
the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is
audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when
we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not
displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds
are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their
mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought
after. They are so far akin to Silence, that they are but
bubbles on her surface, which straightway burst, an evidence of
the strength and prolificness of the under-current; a faint
utterance of Silence, and then only agreeable to our auditory
nerves when they contrast themselves with and relieve the former.
In proportion as they do this, and are heighteners and
intensifiers of the Silence, they are harmony and purest melody.
Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull
discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as
welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background
which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and
which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the
foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no
indignity can assail, no personality disturb us.
The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent
when most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer
along with his audience. Who has not hearkened to Her infinite
din? She is Truth's speaking-trumpet, the sole oracle, the true
Delphi and Dodona, which kings and courtiers would do well to
consult, nor will they be balked by an ambiguous answer. For
through Her all revelations have been made, and just in
proportion as men have consulted her oracle within, they have
obtained a clear insight, and their age has been marked as an
enlightened one. But as often as they have gone gadding abroad
to a strange Delphi and her mad priestess, their age has been
dark and leaden. Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no
longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious
era is ever sounding and resounding in the ears of men.
A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are
struck. We not unfrequently refer the interest which belongs to
our own unwritten sequel, to the written and comparatively
lifeless body of the work. Of all books this sequel is the most
indispensable part. It should be the author's aim to say once
and emphatically, "He said," . This is the most the
book-maker can attain to. If he make his volume a mole whereon
the waves of Silence may break, it is well.
It were vain for me to endeavor to interrupt the Silence. She
cannot be done into English. For six thousand years men have
translated her with what fidelity belonged to each, and still she
is little better than a sealed book. A man may run on confidently
for a time, thinking he has her under his thumb, and shall one
day exhaust her, but he too must at last be silent, and men
remark only how brave a beginning he made; for when he at length
dives into her, so vast is the disproportion of the told to the
untold, that the former will seem but the bubble on the surface
where he disappeared. Nevertheless, we will go on, like those
Chinese cliff swallows, feathering our nests with the froth,
which may one day be bread of life to such as dwell by the
sea-shore.
We had made about fifty miles this day with sail and oar, and
now, far in the evening, our boat was grating against the
bulrushes of its native port, and its keel recognized the Concord
mud, where some semblance of its outline was still preserved in
the flattened flags which had scarce yet erected themselves since
our departure; and we leaped gladly on shore, drawing it up, and
fastening it to the wild apple-tree, whose stem still bore the
mark which its chain had worn in the chafing of the spring
freshets.
THE END.
End of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau
