When we were opposite to the middle of Billerica, the fields on either hand had a soft and cultivated English aspect, the village ...spire being seen over the copses which skirt the river, and sometimes an orchard straggled down to the water-side, though, generally, our course this forenoon was the wildest part of our voyage. It seemed that men led a quiet and very civil life there. The inhabitants were plainly cultivators of the earth, and lived under an organized political government. The schoolhouse stood with a meek aspect, entreating a long truce to war and savage life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The next forenoon we went to Oldtown.... The Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet t...his village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sunday forenoon I attended a sort of Quaker meeting at the same place ... where it was expected that the Spirit would move me (I h...aving been previously spoken to about it); and it, or something else, did,--an inch or so. I said just enough to set them a little by the ears and make it lively.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We visited Whitman the next morning ... and were much interested and provoked. He is apparently the greatest democrat the world ha...s seen. Kings and aristocracy go by the board at once, as they have long deserved to. A remarkably strong though coarse nature, of a sweet disposition, and much prized by his friends. Though peculiar and rough in his exterior, his skin ... red, he is essentially a gentleman. I am still somewhat in a quandry about him,--feel that he is essentially strange to me, at any rate; but I am surprised by the sight of him. He is very broad, but, as I have said, not fine. He said that I misapprehended him. I am not quite sure that I do. He told us that he loved to ride up and down Broadway all day on an omnibus, sitting beside the driver, listening to the roar of the carts, and sometimes gesticulating and declaiming Homer at the top of his voice. He has long been an editor and writer for the newspapers,... but now has no employment but to read and write in the forenoon, and walk in the afternoon, like the rest of the scribbling gentry.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we awoke, we found a heavy dew on our blankets. I lay awake very early, and listened to the clear, shrill ah, te te, te te, t...e of the white-throated sparrow, repeated at short intervals, without the least variation, for half an hour, as if it could not enough express its happiness. Whether my companions heard it or not, I know not, but it was a kind of matins to me, and the event of the forenoon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At breakfast this Saturday morning, the Indian ... asked me how I spent the Sunday when at home. I told him that I commonly sat in... my chamber reading, etc., in the forenoon, and went to walk in the afternoon. At which he shook his head and said, "Er, that is ver bad." "How do you spend it?" I asked? He said that he did no work, that he went to church at Oldtown when he was at home; in short, he did as he had been taught by the whites. This led to a discussion in which I found myself in the minority. He stated that he was a Protestant, and asked me if I was. I did not at first know what to say, but I thought that I could answer with truth, that I was.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would ta...ke a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this forenoon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles, .../>The rushing amorous contact high in space together,LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »