IV. WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD: BROOK FARM, ETC.
_Scenes of the Old Oaken Bucket--Webster's Home and Grave--Where Emerson won his Wife--Home of Miss Peabody--Parkman--Miss Guiney--Aldrich's Ponkapog--Farm of Ripley's Community--Relics and Reminiscences_ 141
_North Adams and about--Hawthorne's Acquaintances and Excursions-- Actors and Incidents of Ethan Brand--Kiln of Bertram the Lime-Burner--Natural Bridge--Graylock--Thoreau--Hoosac Mountain--Deerfield Arch--Williamstown--Bryant_ 155
_Beloved of the Littérateurs--La Maison Rouge--Where The House of the Seven Gables was written--Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Scenes-- The Bowl--Beecher's Laurel Lake--Kemble--Bryant's Monument Mountain--Stockbridge--Catherine Sedgwick--Melville's Piazza and Chimney--Holmes--Longfellow--Pittsfield_ 176
_Walk and Talk with Socrates in Camden--The Bard's Appearance and Surroundings--Recollections of his Life and Work--Hospital Service--Praise for his Critics--His Literary Habit, Purpose, Equipment, and Style--His Religious Bent--Readings_ 201
The Thoreau-Alcott House,--Present Appearance 21
I. A Village of Literary Shrines II. The Old Manse III. Storied River and Battle-field IV. The Home of Emerson V. Alcott's Orchard House, etc. VI. Hawthorne's Wayside Home VII. The Walden of Thoreau VIII. The Hill-top Hearsed with Pines
_Abodes of Thoreau--The Alcotts--Channing--Sanborn--Hudson--Hoar-- Wheildon--Bartlett--The Historic Common--Cemetery--Church._
If to trace the footsteps of genius and to linger and muse in the sometime haunts of the authors we read and love, serve to bring us nearer their personality, to place us _en rapport_ with their aspirations, and thus to incite our own spiritual development and broaden and exalt our moral nature, then the Concord pilgrimage should be one of the most fruitful and beneficent of human experiences. Familiarity with the physical stand-point of our authors, with the scenes amid which they lived and wrote, and with the objects which suggested the imagery of their poems, the settings of their tales, and which gave tone and color to their work, will not only bring us into closer sympathy with the writers, but will help us to a better understanding of the writings.
A plain, straggling village, set in a low country amid a landscape devoid of any striking beauty or grandeur, Concord yet attracts more pilgrims than any other place of equal size upon the continent, not because it holds an historic battle-field, but because it has been the dwelling-place of some of the brightest and best in American letters, who have here written their books and warred against creeds, forms, and intellectual servitude. It is another Stratford, another Mecca, to which come reverent pilgrims from the Old World and the New to worship at its shrines and to wander through the scenes hallowed by the memories of its illustrious _littérateurs_, seers, and evangels. To the literary prowler it is all sacred ground,--its streets, its environing hills, forests, lakes, and streams have alike been blessed by the loving presence of genius, have alike been the theatres and the inspirations of noble literary achievement.