the poet at the breakfast table-第4章
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south; a few steps from it; over a paved foot…walk; on the other side
of which is the miniature front yard; bordered with lilacs and
syringas。 The honest mansion makes no pretensions。 Accessible;
companionable; holding its hand out to all; comfortable; respectable;
and even in its way dignified; but not imposing; not a house for his
Majesty's Counsellor; or the Right Reverend successor of Him who had
not where to lay his head; for something like a hundred and fifty
years it has stood in its lot; and seen the generations of men come
and go like the leaves of the forest。 I passed some pleasant hours;
a few years since; in the Registry of Deeds and the Town Records;
looking up the history of the old house。 How those dear friends of
mine; the antiquarians; for whose grave councils I compose my
features on the too rare Thursdays when I am at liberty to meet them;
in whose human herbarium the leaves and blossoms of past generations
are so carefully spread out and pressed and laid away; would listen
to an expansion of the following brief details into an Historical
Memoir!
The estate was the third lot of the eighth 〃Squadron〃 (whatever that
might be); and in the year 1707 was allotted in the distribution of
undivided lands to 〃Mr。 ffox;〃 the Reverend Jabez Fox of Woburn; it
may be supposed; as it passed from his heirs to the first Jonathan
Hastings; from him to his son; the long remembered College Steward;
from him in the year 1792 to the Reverend Eliphalet Pearson;
Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental languages in Harvard College;
whose large personality swam into my ken when I was looking forward
to my teens; from him the progenitors of my unborn self。
I wonder if there are any such beings nowadays as the great
Eliphalet; with his large features and conversational basso profundo;
seemed to me。 His very name had something elephantine about it; and
it seemed to me that the house shook from cellar to garret at his
footfall。 Some have pretended that he had Olympian aspirations; and
wanted to sit in the seat of Jove and bear the academic thunderbolt
and the aegis inscribed Christo et Ecclesiae。 It is a common
weakness enough to wish to find one's self in an empty saddle; Cotton
Mather was miserable all his days; I am afraid; after that entry in
his Diary: 〃This Day Dr。 Sewall was chosen President; for his Piety。〃
There is no doubt that the men of the older generation look bigger
and more formidable to the boys whose eyes are turned up at their
venerable countenances than the race which succeeds them; to the same
boys grown older。 Everything is twice as large; measured on a three…
year…olds three…foot scale as on a thirty…year…olds six…foot scale;
but age magnifies and aggravates persons out of due proportion。 Old
people are a kind of monsters to little folks; mild manifestations of
the terrible; it may be; but still; with their white locks and ridged
and grooved features; which those horrid little eyes exhaust of their
details; like so many microscopes not exactly what human beings ought
to be。 The middle…aged and young men have left comparatively faint
impressions in my memory; but how grandly the procession of the old
clergymen who filled our pulpit from time to time; and passed the day
under our roof; marches before my closed eyes! At their head the
most venerable David Osgood; the majestic minister of Medford; with
massive front and shaggy over…shadowing eyebrows; following in the
train; mild…eyed John Foster of Brighton; with the lambent aurora of
a smile about his pleasant mouth; which not even the 〃Sabbath〃 could
subdue to the true Levitical aspect; and bulky Charles Steams of
Lincoln; author of 〃The Ladies' Philosophy of Love。 A Poem。 1797〃
(how I stared at him! he was the first living person ever pointed out
to me as a poet); and Thaddeus Mason Harris of Dorchester (the same
who; a poor youth; trudging along; staff in hand; being then in a
stress of sore need; found all at once that somewhat was adhering to
the end of his stick; which somewhat proved to be a gold ring of
price; bearing the words; 〃God speed thee; Friend!〃); already in
decadence as I remember him; with head slanting forward and downward
as if looking for a place to rest in after his learned labors; and
that other Thaddeus; the old man of West Cambridge; who outwatched
the rest so long after they had gone to sleep in their own
churchyards; that it almost seemed as if he meant to sit up until the
morning of the resurrection; and bringing up the rear; attenuated but
vivacious little Jonathan Homer of Newton; who was; to look upon; a
kind of expurgated; reduced and Americanized copy of Voltaire; but
very unlike him in wickedness or wit。 The good…humored junior member
of our family always loved to make him happy by setting him
chirruping about Miles Coverdale's Version; and the Bishop's Bible;
and how he wrote to his friend Sir Isaac (Coffin) about something or
other; and how Sir Isaac wrote back that he was very much pleased
with the contents of his letter; and so on about Sir Isaac; ad
libitum;for the admiral was his old friend; and he was proud of
him。 The kindly little old gentleman was a collector of Bibles; and
made himself believe he thought he should publish a learned
Commentary some day or other; but his friends looked for it only in
the Greek Calends;say on the 31st of April; when that should come
round; if you would modernize the phrase。 I recall also one or two
exceptional and infrequent visitors with perfect distinctness:
cheerful Elijah Kellogg; a lively missionary from the region of the
Quoddy Indians; with much hopeful talk about Sock Bason and his
tribe; also poor old Poor…house…Parson Isaac Smith; his head going
like a China mandarin; as he discussed the possibilities of the
escape of that distinguished captive whom he spoke of under the name;
if I can reproduce phonetically its vibrating nasalities of 〃General
Mmbongaparty;〃a name suggestive to my young imagination of a
dangerous; loose…jointed skeleton; threatening us all like the armed
figure of Death in my little New England Primer。
I have mentioned only the names of those whose images come up
pleasantly before me; and I do not mean to say anything which any
descendant might not read smilingly。 But there were some of the
black…coated gentry whose aspect was not so agreeable to me。 It is
very curious to me to look back on my early likes and dislikes; and
see how as a child I was attracted or repelled by such and such
ministers; a good deal; as I found out long afterwards; according to
their theological beliefs。 On the whole; I think the old…fashioned
New England divine softening down into Arminianism was about as
agreeable as any of them。 And here I may remark; that a mellowing
rigorist is always a much pleasanter object to contemplate than a
tightening liberal; as a cold day warming up to 32 Fahrenheit is much
more agreeable than a warm one chilling down to the same temperature。
The least pleasing change is that kind of mental hemiplegia which now
and then attacks the rational side of a man at about the same period
of life when one side of the body is liable to be palsied; and in
fact is; very probably; the same thing as palsy; in another form。
The worst of it is that the subjects of it never seem to suspect that
they are intellectual invalids; stammerers and cripples at best; but
are all the time hitting out at their old friends with the well arm;
and calling them hard names out of their twisted mouths。
It was a real delight to have one of those good; hearty; happy;
benignant old clergymen pass the Sunday; with us; and I can remember。
some whose advent made the day feel almost like 〃Thanksgiving。〃 But
now and then would come along a clerical visitor with a sad face and
a wailing voice; which sounded exactly as if somebody must be lying
dead up stairs; who took no interest in us children; except a painful
one; as being in a bad way with our cheery looks; and did more to
unchristianize us with his woebegone ways than all his sermons were
like to accomplish in the other direction。 I remember one in
particular; who twitted me so with my blessings as a Chr