Speaker 1: Chapter five of In the Wilderness by Charles Dudley Warner.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter five
Speaker 1: a character study. There has been a lively inquiry after
Speaker 1: the primeval man wanted a man who would satisfy the
Speaker 1: conditions of the Miocene environment, and yet would be good
Speaker 1: enough for an ancestor. We are not particular about our ancestors,
Speaker 1: if they are sufficiently remote, but we must have something
Speaker 1: failing to apprehend the primeval man. Science has sought the
Speaker 1: primitive man where he exists as a survival in present
Speaker 1: savage races. He is at best only a mushroom growth
Speaker 1: of the recent period, came in probably with the general
Speaker 1: raft of mammalian fauna. But he possesses yet some rudimentary
Speaker 1: traits that may be studied. It is a good mental
Speaker 1: exercise to try to fix the mind of the primitive man,
Speaker 1: divested of all the attributes he has acquired in his
Speaker 1: struggle with the other mammalian fauna. Fix the mind on
Speaker 1: an orange, the ordinary occupation of the metaphysician. Take from
Speaker 1: it without eating it odor, color, weight, form, substance, and
Speaker 1: peel thou let. The mind still dwell on it as
Speaker 1: an orange. The experiment is perfectly successful. Only at the
Speaker 1: end of it you haven't any mind. Better still, consider
Speaker 1: the telephone. Take away from it the metallic disk and
Speaker 1: the magnetized iron and the connecting wire, and then let
Speaker 1: the mind run abroad on the telephone. The mind won't
Speaker 1: come back. I have tried by this sort of process
Speaker 1: to get a conception of the primitive man. I let
Speaker 1: the mind roam away back over the vast geologic spaces,
Speaker 1: and sometimes of fancy, as he had dim image of
Speaker 1: him stalking across the terrace epoch of the Quaternary period.
Speaker 1: But this is an unsatisfying pleasure. The best results are
Speaker 1: obtained by studying the primitive man as he is left
Speaker 1: here and there in our era, a witness of what
Speaker 1: has been. And I find him most to my mind.
Speaker 1: In the Adirontic system of what geologists call the Champlain epoch.
Speaker 1: I suppose the primitive man is one who owes more
Speaker 1: to nature than to the forces of civilization. What we
Speaker 1: seek in him are the primal and original traits, unmixed
Speaker 1: with the sophistications of society, and unimpaired by the refinements
Speaker 1: of an artificial culture. He would retain the primitive instincts
Speaker 1: which are cultivated out of the ordinary commonplace. Man I
Speaker 1: should expect to find him by reason of an unrelinquished kinship,
Speaker 1: enjoying a special communion with nature, admitted to its mysteries,
Speaker 1: understanding its moods, and able to predict its vagaries. He
Speaker 1: would be a kind of test to us of what
Speaker 1: we have lost by our gregarious acquisitions. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: there would be the sharpness of the senses, the keen
Speaker 1: instincts which the fox and beaver still possess, the ability
Speaker 1: to find one's way in the pathless forest, to follow
Speaker 1: a trail, to circumvent the wild linizens of the woods.
Speaker 1: And on the other hand, there would be the philosophy
Speaker 1: of life, which the primitive man, with little external aid,
Speaker 1: would evolve from original observation and cogitation. It is our
Speaker 1: good fortune to know such a man, but it is
Speaker 1: difficult to present him to a scientific and caviling generation.
Speaker 1: He emigrated from somewhat limited conditions in Vermont at an
Speaker 1: early age, nearly half a century ago, and such freedom
Speaker 1: the first natural development backward in the wilds of the Adirondacks.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is a love of adventure and freedom that
Speaker 1: sends men out of the more civilized conditions into the
Speaker 1: lass Sometimes it is a constitutional physical lassitude which leads
Speaker 1: them to prefer the rod to the hoe, the trap
Speaker 1: to the sickle, and the society of bears to town
Speaker 1: meetings and Texas. I think that Old Mountain Phelps had
Speaker 1: merely the instincts of the primitive man, and never any
Speaker 1: hostile civilizing intent as to the wilderness into which he plunged.
Speaker 1: Why should he want to slash away the forest and
Speaker 1: plow up the ancient mold when it is infinitely pleasanter
Speaker 1: to roam boat in the leafy solitudes, or sit upon
Speaker 1: a mossy log and listen to the chatter of birds
Speaker 1: and the stir of beasts. Alther not trout in the streams,
Speaker 1: Gum exuding from the spruce, sugar in the maples, honey
Speaker 1: in the hollow trees, fur on the sables, warmth in
Speaker 1: hickory logs, will not a few days planting and scratching
Speaker 1: in the open yielded potatoes and rye. And if there
Speaker 1: is steady or diet needed, then venison and bear is
Speaker 1: the pigant expensive animal. If Old Phelps bowed to the
Speaker 1: prejudice or fashion of his aide. Since we come out
Speaker 1: of the terchary state of things and reared a family,
Speaker 1: built the frame house in a secluded nook by a
Speaker 1: cold spring, planted about it some apple trees and a
Speaker 1: rudimentary garden, and installed a group of flaming some flowers
Speaker 1: by the door. I am convinced that it was a
Speaker 1: concession that did not touch his radical character. That is
Speaker 1: to say, it did not impair his reluctance to split
Speaker 1: oven wood. He was a true citizen of the wilderness.
Speaker 1: The rou would have liked him, as he liked Indians
Speaker 1: and woodchucks and a smell of pine forests. And if
Speaker 1: Old Phalpes had seen thereau, he would probably have said
Speaker 1: to him, why on earthemester, I thoroughoutum hill have a
Speaker 1: cardon to your preachin you might be misled by the
Speaker 1: shaggy suggestion of Old Phelps given name Orson, into the
Speaker 1: notion that he was a mighty hunter with the fierce
Speaker 1: spirit of the berserkers in his veins. Nothing could be
Speaker 1: farther from the truth that hersuit and grizzly sound of
Speaker 1: Orson expresses only his entire affinity with the untamed and
Speaker 1: the natural, an uncouth but gentle passion for the freedom
Speaker 1: and wildness of the forest. Orson phalps has only those
Speaker 1: unconventional and humorous qualities of the bear which make the
Speaker 1: animal so beloved in literature, And one does not think
Speaker 1: of old Phelps so much as a lover of nature
Speaker 1: to use the sentimental slang of the period as a
Speaker 1: part of nature itself. His appearance at the time when
Speaker 1: as a guide he began to come into public notice,
Speaker 1: fostered this impression. A sturdy figure with long body and
Speaker 1: short legs, clad in a woolen shirt and butternut colored
Speaker 1: trousers repaired to the point of picturesqueness, his head surmounted
Speaker 1: by a limp like brown felt hat, frayed away at
Speaker 1: the top so that his yellowish hair grew out of
Speaker 1: it like some nameless fern out of a pot. His
Speaker 1: tiny hair was long and tangled, matted, now many years
Speaker 1: past the possibility of being entered by a comb. His
Speaker 1: features were small and delicate, and set in the frame
Speaker 1: of a reddish beard, the razor having motorway clearing about
Speaker 1: sensitive mouth which was not seldom wreathed with the childlike
Speaker 1: and charming smile out of this rescute environment, looked the
Speaker 1: small gray eyes set near together, eyes keen to observe
Speaker 1: and quick true expressed change of thought, Eyes that made
Speaker 1: you believe instinct can grow into philosophical judgment. His feet
Speaker 1: and hands were of aristocratic smallness, although the latter were
Speaker 1: not worn away by ablutions. They assisted his toilet to
Speaker 1: give the impression that he was a man who had
Speaker 1: just come out of the ground, a real sun of
Speaker 1: the soil, whose appearance was partially explained by a humorous
Speaker 1: relation to soap. Soap is a thing. He said that
Speaker 1: I hain't no kinder use for his clothes seemed to
Speaker 1: have been put on him once for all, like the
Speaker 1: bark of a tree a long time ago. The observant
Speaker 1: stranger was sure to be puzzled. While the contrast of
Speaker 1: this realistic and uncouth exterior with the internal fineness amounting
Speaker 1: to refinement and culture that shone through it all. What
Speaker 1: communion had supplied the place of our artificial breeding to
Speaker 1: this man? Perhaps his most characteristic attitude was sitting on
Speaker 1: a log with a short pipe in his mouth. If
Speaker 1: ever man was formed to sit on the log, it
Speaker 1: was Old Phelps. He was essentially a contemplative person. Walking
Speaker 1: on a country road or anywhere in the open was
Speaker 1: irksome to him. He had a shambling, loose jointed gait,
Speaker 1: not unlike that of the bear. His short legs bowed out,
Speaker 1: as if they had been more in the habit of
Speaker 1: climbing trees than of walking on land, if we may
Speaker 1: use that expression. He was something like a sailor. But
Speaker 1: once in the rugged trail of the unmarked root of
Speaker 1: his native forest, he was a different person, and few
Speaker 1: pedestrians could compete with him. The vulgar estimate of his
Speaker 1: contemporaries that reckoned Old Phelps lazy was simply a failure
Speaker 1: to comprehend the conditions of his being. It is the
Speaker 1: unjustness of civilization that it sets up uniform and artificial
Speaker 1: standards for all persons. The primitive man suffers by them,
Speaker 1: much as the contemplative philosopher does when one happens to
Speaker 1: arrive in this busy, fussy world. If the appearance of
Speaker 1: old Phelps attracts attention, his voice, when first heard, invariably
Speaker 1: startles the listener. A small, high pitched, half querulous voice,
Speaker 1: it easily rises into the shrowest falsetto, and it has
Speaker 1: equality in it that makes it audible in all the
Speaker 1: tempests of the forest, or the roar of rapids, like
Speaker 1: the piping of a bosn's whistle at sea in a gale.
Speaker 1: He has a way of letting it rise as his
Speaker 1: sentence goes on, or when he is opposed in argument,
Speaker 1: or wishes to mount above other voices in the conversation,
Speaker 1: until it dominates everything heard in the depths of the woods,
Speaker 1: quivering aloft. It is felt to be as much a
Speaker 1: part of nature, an original force, as the northwest wind
Speaker 1: or the scream of the handhowk when he is pottering
Speaker 1: about the camp fire trying to light his pipe with
Speaker 1: a twig held in the flame, he is apt to
Speaker 1: begin some philosophical observation in a small, slow, stumbling voice,
Speaker 1: which seems about to end in defeat, but he puts
Speaker 1: on some unsuspected force, and the sentence ends in an
Speaker 1: insistent shriek. Horace Greeley had such a voice and could
Speaker 1: regulate it in the same manner. But Phelps's voice is
Speaker 1: not seldom plaintive, as if touched by the dreamy sadness
Speaker 1: of the woods themselves. When old mounton Phelps was discovered.
Speaker 1: He was, as the reader has already guessed, not understood
Speaker 1: by his contemporaries. His neighbors, farmers in the secluded valley,
Speaker 1: had many of them grown thrifty and prosperous, cultivating the
Speaker 1: fertile meadows and vigorously attacking the timbered mountains. While Phelps,
Speaker 1: with not much more faculty of acquiring property than the
Speaker 1: rooming deer, had pursued the even tenor of the life
Speaker 1: in the forest on which he set out. They would
Speaker 1: have been surprised to be told that Old Phelps owned
Speaker 1: more of what makes the value of the Adirondacks than
Speaker 1: all of them put together. But it was true, this woodsman,
Speaker 1: this trapper, this hunter, this fisherman, this sitter on a
Speaker 1: log and philosopher, was the real proprietor of the region
Speaker 1: over which he was ready to guide the stranger. It
Speaker 1: is true that he had not a monopoly of his
Speaker 1: geography or topography, though his knowledge was superior in these respects.
Speaker 1: There were other trappers and more deadly hunters, and as
Speaker 1: intrepid guides. But Old Phelps was the discoverer of the
Speaker 1: beauties and sublimities of the mountains, And when city strangers
Speaker 1: broke into their region, he moanopolized the appreciation of these
Speaker 1: delights and wonders of nature. I suppose that in all
Speaker 1: that country he alone had noticed the sunsets and observed
Speaker 1: the delightful processes of the seasons, taken pleasure in the
Speaker 1: woods for themselves, and clammed mountains solely for the sake
Speaker 1: of the prospect. He alone understood what was meant by scenery.
Speaker 1: In the eyes of his neighbors, who did not know
Speaker 1: that he was a poet and a philosopher, I daresay
Speaker 1: he appeared to be a slack provider, a rather shiftless
Speaker 1: trapper and fisherman, and his passionate love of the forest
Speaker 1: and the mountains, if it was noticed, was accounted to
Speaker 1: him for idleness. When the appreciative tourist arrived, Phelps was
Speaker 1: ready as a guide to open to him all the
Speaker 1: wonders of his possessions. He for the first time found
Speaker 1: an outlet for his enthusiasm and a response to his
Speaker 1: own passion. It then became known what manner of man
Speaker 1: this was, who had grown up here in the companionship
Speaker 1: of forests, mountains and wild animals, that these scenes had
Speaker 1: highly developed in him the love of beauty, the aesthetic sense,
Speaker 1: delicacy of appreciation, refinement of feeling, and that in his
Speaker 1: solitary wanderings and musings the primitive man self taught had
Speaker 1: evolved fro himself a philosophy and a system of things.
Speaker 1: And it was a sufficient system, so long as it
Speaker 1: was not disturbed by external skepticism. When the outer world
Speaker 1: came to him, perhaps he had about as much to
Speaker 1: give it as to receive from it, probably more in
Speaker 1: his own estimation, for there was no conceit like that
Speaker 1: of isolation. Phelps loved his mountains. He was the discoverer
Speaker 1: of Marcy, and caused the first trail to be cut
Speaker 1: to its summit so that others could enjoy the noble
Speaker 1: views from its round and rocky top. To him, it
Speaker 1: was in noble symmetry and beauty the chief mountain of
Speaker 1: the globe. To stand on. It gave him, as he said,
Speaker 1: a failing of having apeistetness. He heard with impatience that
Speaker 1: Mount Washington was a thousand feet higher, and he had
Speaker 1: a childlike incredulity about the surpressing sublimity of the Alps.
Speaker 1: Praise of any other elevation. He seemed to consider a
Speaker 1: slight to Mount Marcy, and did not willingly hear it
Speaker 1: any more than a lover hears the laudation of the
Speaker 1: beauty of another woman than the one he loves. When
Speaker 1: he showed us scenery he loved, it made him melancholy
Speaker 1: to have a speak of scenery elsewhere that was finer.
Speaker 1: And yet there was this delicacy about him, that he
Speaker 1: never over praised what he brought us to see, any
Speaker 1: more than one would overpraise a friend of whom he
Speaker 1: was fond. I remember that, when, for the first time,
Speaker 1: after a trialsome journey through the forest, the splendors of
Speaker 1: the lower Ausable Pond broke upon our vision, that low
Speaker 1: lying silver lake, imprisoned by the precipices which it reflected
Speaker 1: in its bosom, he made no outward response to our
Speaker 1: burst of admiration. Only a quiet gleam of the eye
Speaker 1: showed the pleasure our appreciation gave him. As someone said,
Speaker 1: it was as if his friend had been admired, a
Speaker 1: friend about whom he was unwilling to say much himself,
Speaker 1: but well pleased to have others praise. Thus far, we
Speaker 1: have considered old Phelps as simply the product of the Adirondacks,
Speaker 1: not so much a self made man, as the doubtful
Speaker 1: phrase has it, as a natural growth amid primal forces.
Speaker 1: But our study is interrupted by another influence, which complicates
Speaker 1: the problem but increases its interest. No scientific observer, so
Speaker 1: far as we know, has ever been able to watch
Speaker 1: the development of the primitive man played upon and fashioned
Speaker 1: by the hebdomadal iteration of Greeley's Weekly Tribune. Old Phelps
Speaker 1: educated by the Woods as a fascinating study educated by the
Speaker 1: Woods in the Tribune. He is a phenomenon. No one
Speaker 1: at this day can reasonably conceive exactly what this newspaper
Speaker 1: was to such a mountain valley as Keen. If it
Speaker 1: was not a providence, it was a bible. It was
Speaker 1: no doubt owing to it that democrats became as scarce
Speaker 1: as moose in the ADIRONDACKX. But it does not have
Speaker 1: its political aspect that I speak. I suppose that the
Speaker 1: most cultivated and best informed portion of the Earth's surface,
Speaker 1: the Western Reserve of Ohio, as free from conceit as
Speaker 1: it is from a suspicion that it lacks anything, owes
Speaker 1: its pre eminence solely to this comprehensive journal it received
Speaker 1: from it everything except a collegian in the classical education,
Speaker 1: things not to be desired, since they interfere with the
Speaker 1: self manufacture of man. If Greek had been in this curriculum,
Speaker 1: its best known dictum would have been translated, make thyself.
Speaker 1: This journal carried to the community that fed on it
Speaker 1: not only a complete education in all departments of human
Speaker 1: practice and theorizing, but the more valuable and satisfying assurance
Speaker 1: that there was nothing more to be gleaned in the
Speaker 1: universe worth the attention of man. This pineplate its readers
Speaker 1: in completeness politics, literature, arts, sciences, universal brotherhood and sisterhood.
Speaker 1: Nothing was omitted, neither of the poetry of Tennyson, nor
Speaker 1: the philosophy of Margaret Fuller, neither the virtues of association
Speaker 1: nor of unbolted wheat. The laws of politically, economy and
Speaker 1: trade were laid down as positively and clearly as the
Speaker 1: best way to bake beans, and the saving truth that
Speaker 1: the millennium would come and come only when every foot
Speaker 1: of the earth was subsoiled. I do not say that
Speaker 1: Orson Phelps was the product of nature and the Tribune,
Speaker 1: but he cannot be explained without considering these two factors.
Speaker 1: To him, Greeley was the Tribune, and the Tribune was Greeley.
Speaker 1: And yet I think he conceived of Horace Greeley as
Speaker 1: something greater than his newspaper, and perhaps capable of producing
Speaker 1: another journal equal to it in another part of the universe.
Speaker 1: At any rate, so completely did Phelps absorb this paper
Speaker 1: in this personality that he was popularly known as Greeley
Speaker 1: in the region where he lived. Perhaps a fancied resemblance
Speaker 1: of the two men in the popular mind had something
Speaker 1: to do with this transfer of name. There is no
Speaker 1: doubt that Horace Greeley owed his vast influence in the
Speaker 1: country to his genius, nor much doubt that he owed
Speaker 1: his popularity in the rural district to James Gordon Bennett.
Speaker 1: That is, to the personality of the man which the
Speaker 1: ingenious Bennett impressed upon the country. That he despised the
Speaker 1: conventionalities of society and was a slow and his toilet
Speaker 1: was firmly believed, and the belief indegged him to the
Speaker 1: hearts of the people. To them, the old white coat,
Speaker 1: an antique garment of unrenewed immortality, was as much a
Speaker 1: subject of vitolatry as the riding got grace to the
Speaker 1: soldiers of the First Napoleon, who had seen it by
Speaker 1: the camp fires on the po and on the Boristhenes,
Speaker 1: and believed that he would come again in it to
Speaker 1: lead them against the enemies of France. The Greeley of
Speaker 1: the Popular Heart was clad, as Bennett said he was clad.
Speaker 1: It was in vain, even pathetically in vain, that he
Speaker 1: published in his newspaper the full bull of his fashionable tailor.
Speaker 1: The fact that it was reseated may have excited the
Speaker 1: animosity of some of his contemporaries to show that he
Speaker 1: wore the best broadcloth, and that the folds of his
Speaker 1: trousers followed the city fashion of faulting outside his boots.
Speaker 1: If this revelation was believed, it made no sort of
Speaker 1: impression in the country. The rural readers were not to
Speaker 1: be wheedled under their cherished conception of the personal appearance
Speaker 1: of the philosopher of the Tribune. That the Tribune taught
Speaker 1: old Phelps to be more Phelps than he would have
Speaker 1: been without it was part of the independence teaching method
Speaker 1: of Greeley's paper. The subscribers were an army in which
Speaker 1: every man was a general, and I am not surprised
Speaker 1: to find Old's felps lately arising to the audacity of
Speaker 1: criticizing his exemplar in some recently published observations. My focus
Speaker 1: upon the philosophy of reading has laid down this definition.
Speaker 1: If I understand the necessity or use of reading, it
Speaker 1: is to reproduce again what has been said or proclaimed before. Hence, letters, characters,
Speaker 1: et cetera are arranged in all the perfection they can
Speaker 1: possibly be to show how certain language has been spoken
Speaker 1: by the original author. Now to reproduce by reading, the
Speaker 1: reading should be so perfectly like the original that no
Speaker 1: one standing out of sight could tell the reading from
Speaker 1: the first time the language was spoken. This is illustrated
Speaker 1: by the highest authority at hand. I have heard as
Speaker 1: good readers read and as poor readers as almost anyone
Speaker 1: in this region. If I have not heard as many,
Speaker 1: I have had a chance to hear nearly the extreme
Speaker 1: in variety, or as really ought to have been a
Speaker 1: good reader, certainly, But few, if any, ever knew every
Speaker 1: word the English language at a glance more readily than
Speaker 1: he did, or do the meaning of every mark punctuation
Speaker 1: more clearly but he could not read proper But how
Speaker 1: do you know, says one, from the fact I heard
Speaker 1: him in the same lecture deliver or produced remarks in
Speaker 1: his own particular way, that if they had been published
Speaker 1: properly in print, a proper reader would have reproduced them
Speaker 1: again the same way. In the midst of those remarks,
Speaker 1: mister Gullley took up a paper to reproduce by reading
Speaker 1: part of a speech that some one else had made,
Speaker 1: And his reading did not sound much more like the
Speaker 1: man that first read or made the speech, that the
Speaker 1: clatter of a mail factory sounds like a well delivered speech. Now,
Speaker 1: the fault was not because mister Greeley did not know
Speaker 1: how to read, as well as almost any man that
Speaker 1: ever lived, if not quite. But in his youth he
Speaker 1: learned to read wrong. And, as it is ten times
Speaker 1: harder to unlearn anything than it is to learn it,
Speaker 1: like thousands of others, could never stop to unlearn it,
Speaker 1: but carried it on through his whole life. Whether a
Speaker 1: reader would be thanked for reproducing one of Horace Greeley's
Speaker 1: lectures as he delivered it is a question that could
Speaker 1: not detain us here. But the teaching that he ought
Speaker 1: to do so, I think would please mister Greeley. The
Speaker 1: first driblets of professional tourists and summer boarders who arrived
Speaker 1: among the Adirondack Mountains a few years ago found Old
Speaker 1: Phelps the chief and best guide of the region. Those
Speaker 1: who were eager to throw off the usages of civilization
Speaker 1: and trampant camp in the wilderness could not but be
Speaker 1: well satisfied with the aboriginal appearance of this guide. And
Speaker 1: when he led off into the woods axe in hand
Speaker 1: and a huge kinvas sack upon his shoulders, they seemed
Speaker 1: to be following the wandering Jew. The contents of this
Speaker 1: sec were to furnished a modern industrial exhibition provisions cooked
Speaker 1: and raw blankets, maple sugar, tin ware, clothing, pork, Indian meal, flour, coffee, tea,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Phelps was the ideal guide. He knew every
Speaker 1: foot of the pathless forest. He knew all woodcraft, all
Speaker 1: the signs of the weather, or what is the same thing,
Speaker 1: how to make a delphic prediction about it? He was
Speaker 1: fisherman at hunter and had beune the karmarde of sportsmen
Speaker 1: at explorers, and his enthusiasm for the beauty and sublimity
Speaker 1: of the region and for its untamable wildness, amounted to
Speaker 1: a passion. He loved his profession, and yet it very
Speaker 1: soon appeared that he exercised it was reluctance for those
Speaker 1: who had neither ideality nor love for the woods. Their
Speaker 1: presence was a profanation amid the scenery he loved to
Speaker 1: guide into his private and secret haunts. A party that
Speaker 1: had no appreciation of their loveliness disgusted him. It was
Speaker 1: a waste of his time to conduct flippant young men
Speaker 1: and gidey girls who made a noisy and irreverent lark
Speaker 1: of the expedition. And for their part, they did not
Speaker 1: appreciate the benefit of being accompanied by a poet and
Speaker 1: a philosopher. They neither understood nor value to special knowledge
Speaker 1: and his shrude observations. They didn't even like his strill voice.
Speaker 1: His quaint talk bored them. It was true that at
Speaker 1: this period Phelps had lost something of the activity of
Speaker 1: his youth, and the habit of contemplative setting on a
Speaker 1: log and talking increased with the infirmities induced by the
Speaker 1: hard life of the woodsman. Perhaps he would rather talk
Speaker 1: either about the woods life or the various problems of existence,
Speaker 1: that cut wood or busy himself in the drudgery of
Speaker 1: the camp. His critics went so far as to say
Speaker 1: old Phalps is a fraud. They would have said the
Speaker 1: same of Socrates. Xantippe, who never appreciated the world which
Speaker 1: Socrates lived, thought he was lazy. Probably Socrates could cook
Speaker 1: no better than old Phelps, and no doubt went gumming
Speaker 1: about Athens with very little care of what was in
Speaker 1: the pot for dinner. If the summer visitors measured Old Phelps,
Speaker 1: he also measured them by his own standards. He used
Speaker 1: to write out what he called short faced descriptions of
Speaker 1: his comrades in the woods, which were never so flattering
Speaker 1: as true. It was curious to see how the various
Speaker 1: qualities which are esteemed in society appeared in his eyes,
Speaker 1: looked at merely in their relation to the limited world
Speaker 1: he knew, and judged by their adaptation to the primitive life.
Speaker 1: It was a much subtler comparison than that of the
Speaker 1: ordinary guide, who rates his traveler by his ability to
Speaker 1: endorw on a march, to carry a pack, use an oar,
Speaker 1: hit a mark, or sing a song. Phelps brought his
Speaker 1: people to attest to their naturalness and sincerity tried by
Speaker 1: contact with the verities of the woods. If a person
Speaker 1: failed to appreciate the woods, Phelps had no opinion of
Speaker 1: him or his culture. And yet, although he was perfectly
Speaker 1: satisfied with his own philosophy of life, worked out by
Speaker 1: close observation of nature and study of the tribune, he
Speaker 1: was always eager for converse with superior minds, with those
Speaker 1: who had the advantage of travel on much reading, and
Speaker 1: above all but those who had any original speculation. Of
Speaker 1: all the society he was ever permitted to enjoy. I
Speaker 1: think he prized most that of Doctor Bushnell. The doctor
Speaker 1: enjoyed the quainted firsthand observations of the old woodsman, and
Speaker 1: Phelps found new worlds open to him. In the wide
Speaker 1: ranges of the doctor's mind. They tucked by the hour
Speaker 1: upon all sorts of themes, the growth of the tree,
Speaker 1: the habits of wild animals, the migration of seeds, the
Speaker 1: succession of oak and pine, not to mention theology, and
Speaker 1: the mysteries of the supernatural. I recalled the bearing of
Speaker 1: old Phelps, when several years ago he conducted a party
Speaker 1: to the summit of Mount Marcy by the way he
Speaker 1: had bushed out. This was his mountain, and he had
Speaker 1: a peculiar sense of ownership in it. In a way,
Speaker 1: it was wholly ground, and he would rather no one
Speaker 1: should go on it who did not feel its sanctity.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was a sense of some divine relation in
Speaker 1: it that made him always speak of it as Mercy.
Speaker 1: To him, this ridiculously dubbed Mount Marcy was always Mount Mercy.
Speaker 1: By a like effort to soften the personal offensiveness of
Speaker 1: the nomenclature of this region, he invariably spoke of Dix's Peak,
Speaker 1: one of the southern peaks of the range, as Dixie.
Speaker 1: It was sometime since Phelps himself had visited his mountain,
Speaker 1: and as he pushed on through the miles of forest,
Speaker 1: we noticed a kind of eagerness in the old man,
Speaker 1: as of a lover go into a rendezvous. Along the
Speaker 1: foot of the mountain flows a clear trout stream, secluded
Speaker 1: and undisturbed in those awful solitudes, which is the Mercy
Speaker 1: Brook of the old woodsman. That day, when he crossed
Speaker 1: it in advance of his company, he was heard to say,
Speaker 1: in a low voice, as if greeting some object of
Speaker 1: which he was styly fond, So little brook, do I
Speaker 1: meet you once more? And when we were well up
Speaker 1: in the mountain and emerged from the last stunted fringe
Speaker 1: of vegetation upon the rock bound slope, I saw old Phelps,
Speaker 1: who was still foremost cast himself upon the ground, and
Speaker 1: heard him cry with an enthusiasm that was intended for
Speaker 1: no mortal ear, I am with you once again. His
Speaker 1: great passion very rarely found it expression in any such
Speaker 1: theatrical burst. The bare summit that day was swept by
Speaker 1: a fierce cold wind and lost in an occasional chilling cloud.
Speaker 1: Some of the party, exhausted by the climb and shivering
Speaker 1: in the rude wind, wanted a fire kindled than a
Speaker 1: cup of tea made, and thoughtless the guide's business. Fire
Speaker 1: and tea were far enough from his thought. He had
Speaker 1: withdrawn himself quite apart, and wrapped in a ragged blanket,
Speaker 1: still went silent as the rocky stood on was gazing
Speaker 1: out upon the wilderness of peaks. The view from Mercy
Speaker 1: is peculiar. It is without softness or relief. The narrow
Speaker 1: valleys are only dark shadows. The lakes are bits of
Speaker 1: broken mirror from horizon to horizon, there was a tumultuous
Speaker 1: sea of billows turned to stone. You stand upon the
Speaker 1: highest billow. You commanded the situation. You have surprised nature
Speaker 1: in a high creative act. The mighty primal energy has
Speaker 1: only just become repose. This was a supreme hour to
Speaker 1: old Phelps. I believe the boys succeeded in kindling a fire.
Speaker 1: But the enthusiastic stoic had no reason to complain of
Speaker 1: want of appreciation in the rest of the party. When
Speaker 1: we were descending, he told us with mingled humor and scorn,
Speaker 1: of a party of ladies he once led to the
Speaker 1: top of the mountain on a still day, who began
Speaker 1: immediately to talk about the fashions as he related to
Speaker 1: the scene. Stopping and facing us in the trail, His
Speaker 1: mild far in eyes came to the front, and his
Speaker 1: voice rose with his language to a kind of scream.
Speaker 1: Why there they were, right before the greatest view they
Speaker 1: ever saw, talking about the fashions. Impossible to convey the
Speaker 1: extent of contempt in which she pronounced the word fashions,
Speaker 1: and then added, with a sort of regretful bitterness, I
Speaker 1: was a great mind to come down and leave them
Speaker 1: there in common with the Greeks. Old Solps personified the woods,
Speaker 1: mountains and streams. They had not only personality, but distinctions
Speaker 1: of sex. It was something beyond the characterization of the hunter,
Speaker 1: which appeared, for instance, when he related to fight with
Speaker 1: the panther, and such expressions as that mister panther thought
Speaker 1: he would see what he could do, et cetera. He
Speaker 1: was in imaginative sympathy with all wild things. The afternoon
Speaker 1: we descended Darcy. We went away to the west through
Speaker 1: the primeval forests towards Avalanche and Coldon, and followed the
Speaker 1: course of the charming Opalescent. When we reached the Leaping Stream,
Speaker 1: Phelps exclaimed, here's little miss Opalescent. Why don't you say,
Speaker 1: mister oplescant Someone asked, Oh, she's too pretty and too
Speaker 1: pretty She was with her foam whitened rainbow dress and
Speaker 1: her downfalls, and found him like uprising, a bewitching young person.
Speaker 1: We found her all that summer afternoon. This self like
Speaker 1: person had little in common with the monstrous lady whose
Speaker 1: adventures in the wilderness Phelps was fond of relating. She
Speaker 1: was built something on the planet of the mountains, and
Speaker 1: her ambition to explore was equal to her size. Phelps
Speaker 1: and the other guides once succeeded in raising her to
Speaker 1: the top of Marcy, but the feet of getting a
Speaker 1: hogshead of molasses up there, it would have been easier
Speaker 1: in attempting to give us an idea of her magnitude.
Speaker 1: That night, as we sat in the forest camp, Phelps
Speaker 1: hesitated a moment while he cast his eyes around the woods. Wow,
Speaker 1: there ain't now tree. It is only by recalling fragmentary
Speaker 1: remarks and incidents that I can put the reader in
Speaker 1: possession of the peculiarities of my subject. And this involves
Speaker 1: the wrenching of things under their natural order and continuity,
Speaker 1: and introducing them abruptly, an abruptness illustrated by the remark
Speaker 1: of old man Hoskins, which Phelps liked to quote when
Speaker 1: one day he suddenly slipped down a bank into a
Speaker 1: thicket and seated himself in a wasp's nest. I hain't
Speaker 1: no business here, but here I be. The first time
Speaker 1: we went into camp on the upper al Sable Pond,
Speaker 1: which has been justly celebrated as the most prettily set
Speaker 1: sheet of water in the region, we were disposed to
Speaker 1: build our shindy on the south side, so that we
Speaker 1: could have in full view of the Gothics, and that
Speaker 1: loveliest mountain contours through our surprise. Old Phelps, whose sentimental
Speaker 1: weakness for these mountains we knew, opposed this. His favorite
Speaker 1: camping ground was on the north side, a pretty sight
Speaker 1: in itself, but with no special view. In order to
Speaker 1: enjoy the lovely mountains, we should be obliged to row
Speaker 1: out into the lake. We wanted them always before our
Speaker 1: eyes at sunrise and sunset, and in the blaze of noon.
Speaker 1: With a deliberate speech, as if weighing our arguments and
Speaker 1: disposing of them, he replied, well, now them Gothics ain't
Speaker 1: the kinder scenery you want, or hog down. It was
Speaker 1: on quiet sundays in the woods or in talks by
Speaker 1: the campfire, that Phelps came out as the philosopher and
Speaker 1: commonly contributed the light of his observations. Unfortunate marriages and
Speaker 1: marriages in general, were, on one occasion the subject of discussion,
Speaker 1: and a good deal of darkness had been cast on
Speaker 1: it by various speakers, when Phelps suddenly piped up from
Speaker 1: a log where he had sat silent, almost invisible in
Speaker 1: the shadow and smoke. Well, now, when you've said all
Speaker 1: there is to be said, marriage is mostly for discipline.
Speaker 1: Discipline certainly the old man had in one way or another,
Speaker 1: and years of solitary communing in the forest had given
Speaker 1: him perhaps a childlike insight into spiritual concerns, whether he
Speaker 1: had formerly leated any creed or what faith he had.
Speaker 1: I never knew Keen Valley had a reputation of not
Speaker 1: ripening Christians any more successfully than Mays, the season there
Speaker 1: being short, and on our first visit it was said
Speaker 1: to contain but one bibold Christian, though I think an
Speaker 1: accurate census disclosed three old Phelps, who sometimes made abrupt
Speaker 1: remarks and trying situation, was not included in this census.
Speaker 1: But he was the disciple of supernaturalism in a most
Speaker 1: charming form. I have heard of his opening his inmost
Speaker 1: Thoughts to a lady one Sunday after a noble sermon
Speaker 1: of Robertson's had been read in the cathedral stillness of
Speaker 1: the forest. His experience was entirely first hand and related
Speaker 1: with unconsciousness, that it was not come unto all. There
Speaker 1: was nothing of the mystic of the sentimentalist, only a
Speaker 1: vivid realism in that nearness of God, of which he
Speaker 1: spoke as near sometimes as those trees, and of the
Speaker 1: holy voice that, in a time of inward struggle, had
Speaker 1: seemed to him to come from the depths of the forest, saying,
Speaker 1: poor soul, I am the way. In later years there
Speaker 1: was a revival in Keene Valley, the result of which
Speaker 1: was a number of young converts, whom Phelps seemed to
Speaker 1: regard as the veteran might raw recruits, and to have
Speaker 1: his doubts what sort of soldiers they would make. Wow, Jemmy,
Speaker 1: he said to one of them, if kend not the
Speaker 1: purty good fire, what light wood? That's what we do
Speaker 1: of a direct night in the woods, you know, But
Speaker 1: we do it just still. We can look around and
Speaker 1: find the solid wood. So now put on your solid wood.
Speaker 1: In the Sunday Bible classes of the period, Phelps was
Speaker 1: a perpetual anxiety to the others who followed closely the
Speaker 1: printed lessons and behold with alarm his discursive efforts to
Speaker 1: get into freer air and light. His remarks were the
Speaker 1: most refreshing part of the exercises, but were outside of
Speaker 1: the safe path into which the other thought it necessary
Speaker 1: to win him from his speculations. The class were one
Speaker 1: day on the verses concerning God's word being written on
Speaker 1: the heart, and were keeping close to the shore under
Speaker 1: the guidance of Barnes's notes, when old Selps made a
Speaker 1: dive to the bottom and remarked that he had bought
Speaker 1: a good deal about the expression God's broad written on
Speaker 1: the heart, and had been asking himself how that was
Speaker 1: to be done. And suddenly it occurred to him, having
Speaker 1: been much interested lately in watching the work of a photographer,
Speaker 1: that when a photograph is going to be taken, all
Speaker 1: that has to be honest to put the subject in position,
Speaker 1: and the sun makes the picture. And so he rather
Speaker 1: thought that all we had to do was to put
Speaker 1: our hearts in place, and God would do the writing.
Speaker 1: Phelps's theology, like his science, is first hand in the woods.
Speaker 1: One day talkman on the Trinity as being nowhere asserted
Speaker 1: as a doctrine in the Bible. Some one suggested that
Speaker 1: the attempt to pack these great and fluid mysteries into
Speaker 1: one word must always be more or less unsatisfactory. Yes,
Speaker 1: droaned Phelps. I never could see much speculation in that
Speaker 1: expression the trinity, Why did a good deal better? Say legion?
Speaker 1: The sentiment of the man about nature, or his poetic sensibility,
Speaker 1: was frequently not to be distinguished from natural religion, and
Speaker 1: was always tinged with the devoutness of Wordsworth's verse. Climbing
Speaker 1: slowly one day after balcony, he was more than usually
Speaker 1: calm and slow. He espied an exquisite fragile flower in
Speaker 1: the crevice of a rock, in a very lonely spot.
Speaker 1: It seems as if, he said, a rather dreamed out
Speaker 1: It seems as if the creator had kept something just
Speaker 1: to look at himself. To a lady whom he had
Speaker 1: taken to chapel pond, he retired but rather uninteresting spot,
Speaker 1: and to express a little disappointment at its tameness, saying
Speaker 1: of this, why, mister Phelps. The principal charm of this
Speaker 1: place seemed to be his loneliness. Yes, he replied, in
Speaker 1: gentle and lingering tones, and its nativeness. It lies just
Speaker 1: here where it was born. Rest and quiet had infinite
Speaker 1: attractions for him. A secluded opening in the woods was
Speaker 1: a calm spot he told of seeing once, or rather
Speaker 1: being in a circular rainbow. He stood on Indian head,
Speaker 1: overlooking the lower lake, so that he saw the whole
Speaker 1: bow in the sky and the lake, and seemed to
Speaker 1: be in the midst of it. Only at one place
Speaker 1: there was an indentation in it, where it rested on
Speaker 1: the lake, just enough to keep it from rolling off.
Speaker 1: This resting of the sphere seemed to give him great comfort.
Speaker 1: One Indian summer morning in October, some ladies found the
Speaker 1: old man sitting on his doorstep, smoking a short pipe.
Speaker 1: He gave no sign of recognition except a pinkle of
Speaker 1: the eye, being evidently quite in harmony with the peaceful day.
Speaker 1: They stood there a full minute before he opened his mouth.
Speaker 1: Then he did not rise, but slowly took his pipe
Speaker 1: from his mouth, and said, in a dreamy way, pointing
Speaker 1: towards the brook, do you see that tree? Indicating a
Speaker 1: maple almost denuded of leaves, which lay like a yellow
Speaker 1: garment cast at its feet. Watching that tree all the morning,
Speaker 1: there ain't been a breath of wind, but for hours
Speaker 1: leaves have been falling, falling, just as you see them now,
Speaker 1: and a last it's pretty much bare. And after a pause, pensively, well,
Speaker 1: I suppose it's hour had come. This contemplative habit of
Speaker 1: old Phelps is wholly unappreciated by his neighbors, but it
Speaker 1: has been indulged in no inconsiderable part of his life.
Speaker 1: Rising after a time, he said, now I want you
Speaker 1: to go Wedman and see in my goalden city I've
Speaker 1: talked so much about. He led the way to a
Speaker 1: hell out look, when suddenly, emerging from the forest the
Speaker 1: spectators saw revealed the winding valley in its stream. He said, quietly,
Speaker 1: there's my golden city. Far below. At their feet they
Speaker 1: saw that vast assemblage of birches and popples, yellow was
Speaker 1: gold in the brooding noonday, and slender spires rising out
Speaker 1: of the glowing mass. Without another word, Phelps sat a
Speaker 1: long time in silent content. It was to him, as
Speaker 1: Bunyan says, a place desirous to be in? Is this
Speaker 1: philosopher contented with what life has brought him? Speaking of money?
Speaker 1: One day, would we could asked him if he should
Speaker 1: do differently if he had his life to live over again.
Speaker 1: He said, yes, but not about money. To have had
Speaker 1: hours such as I have had in these mountains, and
Speaker 1: with such man as doctor Bushnell and doctor Shaw, and
Speaker 1: mister Twitchell and others I could name. Is worth all
Speaker 1: the money the world could give. He read character very
Speaker 1: well and took in accurately the boy nature Tom a newrepressible,
Speaker 1: rather overdone specimen. Tom's a nice kind of a boy,
Speaker 1: but he's got to come up against a snubun post
Speaker 1: one of these days. Boys, he once said, you can't
Speaker 1: get boys to take any kinder notice of scenery. I
Speaker 1: never yet saw a boy who look a second time
Speaker 1: in a sunset. Now a girl will sometimes, but even
Speaker 1: then it's instantaneous, comes and goes like the sunset. As
Speaker 1: for me, still speaking of scenery, these mountains about here
Speaker 1: that I see every day are no more to me
Speaker 1: in one sense than a man's farm is to him.
Speaker 1: But mostly interests me now is when I see some new,
Speaker 1: freaker shape in the face of nature. In literature, it
Speaker 1: may be said that old Felps prefers the best in
Speaker 1: the very limited range that has been opened to him.
Speaker 1: Tennis is his favorite among poets, an affinity explained by
Speaker 1: the fact that they are both lutas eaters. Speaking of
Speaker 1: a lecture room talk of mister Beecher's, which he had read,
Speaker 1: he said, it felt my cup about as fall as
Speaker 1: I color late to have it. There was a good
Speaker 1: deal of truth in it, and some poetry while and
Speaker 1: a little spice too, But got to have the spice,
Speaker 1: you know. He admired for different reasons a lecture by
Speaker 1: Greeley that he once heard into which so much knowledge
Speaker 1: of various kinds was crowded, that he said, he made
Speaker 1: a rank l or a gobble of it. He was
Speaker 1: not without discrimination, which he exercised upon the local preaching
Speaker 1: when nothing better offered of one sermon, he said, the
Speaker 1: man began way back at the creation and just preached
Speaker 1: right along down. And he didn't say nothing after all.
Speaker 1: He just seemed to me as if he was trying
Speaker 1: to get up a kind of fix up. Old Phelps
Speaker 1: used words sometimes like algebraic signs, and had a habit
Speaker 1: of making one duty for a season together for all occasions.
Speaker 1: Speculation and color, relation and fix up are specimens of
Speaker 1: words or prolific an expression, An unusual expression, or an
Speaker 1: unusual article would be characterized as a kind of scientific
Speaker 1: literary get up. What is the program for tomorrow? I
Speaker 1: once asked him, Wow, I colorlate. If they up the calorlation,
Speaker 1: they colorlate on I'll go to the boreus starting out
Speaker 1: for a day's tramp in the woods, he would ask
Speaker 1: whether we wanted to take a wrangle or walk or
Speaker 1: a random scoot, the latter being a plunge into the
Speaker 1: pathless forest. When he was on such an expedition and
Speaker 1: became entangled in dense brush and maybe a network of
Speaker 1: slash and swamp, he was like an old wizard as
Speaker 1: he looked here and there, seeking away, peering into the tangle,
Speaker 1: or withdrawing from a thicket, and muttering to himself there
Speaker 1: ain't no speculation there. And when the way became altogether inscrutable, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is a regular or random scoot of a rigamarole.
Speaker 1: As someone remarked, the dictionary in his hands is like
Speaker 1: clay in the hands of the potter. A petrofaction was
Speaker 1: a kind of a hard one. Can I call get up?
Speaker 1: There's no conceit were apt to say, like that born
Speaker 1: of isolation from the world, and there are no such
Speaker 1: conceited people as those who have lived all their lives
Speaker 1: in the woods. Falps was, however, unsophisticated in his until
Speaker 1: the advent of strangers into his life, who brought in
Speaker 1: literature and various other disturbing influences. I am sorry to
Speaker 1: say that the effect is meant to take something off
Speaker 1: of the bloom of his simplicity and to elevate him
Speaker 1: into an oracle. I suppose this is inevitable as soon
Speaker 1: as one goes into print, and Falps has gone into
Speaker 1: print in the local papers, he has been written with
Speaker 1: the literary get up just the regarding most of the
Speaker 1: Ierontic literature as a perfect fizzle. He has himself projected
Speaker 1: a work and written much on the natural history of
Speaker 1: his region. Long ago he made a large map of
Speaker 1: the mountain country, and until recent surveys it was the
Speaker 1: only one that could lay any claimed accuracy. His history
Speaker 1: is no doubt original in form and unconventional in expression.
Speaker 1: Like most of the writers of the seventeenth century and
Speaker 1: the court ladies and gentlemen of the eighteenth century, he
Speaker 1: is an independent speller. Writing of his work on the Adirondacks,
Speaker 1: he says, if I should ever allow to get this
Speaker 1: wonderful thing about unexpected, will show one thing no more,
Speaker 1: and that is that everything has an opposite. I expect
Speaker 1: to show on this the literature has an opposite. If
Speaker 1: I do not show anything else we could not enjoy
Speaker 1: the blessings and happiness and righteousness if we did not
Speaker 1: know iniquity was in the world. In fact, there could
Speaker 1: be no righteousness without iniquity. Writing also of a great
Speaker 1: adementive being in the woods, especially since he has had
Speaker 1: the society. There are some people he names, he adds,
Speaker 1: and since I have literature, science, and art all spread
Speaker 1: about on the green moss of the mountain woods, or
Speaker 1: the gravel banks of a crystal stream, it seems like
Speaker 1: finding roses, honeysuckles, and violets on a crisp brown cliff
Speaker 1: in December. You know, I don't believe much in religion
Speaker 1: of ceremony, but any righteous thing that has life and
Speaker 1: spirit in it is food for me. I must not
Speaker 1: neglect to mention. An essay continued in several numbers of
Speaker 1: his local paper on the growth of the Tree, in
Speaker 1: which he demolishes the theory of mister Greeley, whom he
Speaker 1: calls one of the best vegetable philosophers about growth without seed.
Speaker 1: He treats of the office of sap. All trees have
Speaker 1: some kind of sap, and some kind of operation of
Speaker 1: sap flowing in their season. The dissemination of seeds, the
Speaker 1: processes of growth, the power of healing wounds, the proportion
Speaker 1: of roots to branches, et cetera. Speaking of the latter,
Speaker 1: he says, I have thought it would be one of
Speaker 1: the greatest curiosities on earth. See a certaty growing maple
Speaker 1: or elm that had grown on a deep soil interval,
Speaker 1: to be two feet in diameter, to be raised clear
Speaker 1: into the air, with every root and fiber down to
Speaker 1: the minutest thread, all entirely cleared of soil, so that
Speaker 1: every particle could be seen in its natural position. I
Speaker 1: think it would astonish E from the wise ones. From
Speaker 1: his instinctive sympathy with nature, he often creates vegetable organisms
Speaker 1: with instinctive judgment. Observation teaches us that a tree is
Speaker 1: given powerful instincts which would appear almost to mountain judgment
Speaker 1: in some cases, to provide for its own wants and necessities.
Speaker 1: Here our study must cease. When the primitive man comes
Speaker 1: into literature, he is no longer primitive. End of Chapter
Speaker 1: five