We have pleasant
reminiscences
of these.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
At
ten miles see where the Tavern stands,--really an _entertaining_
prospect,--so public and inviting that only the rain and snow do not
enter. It is no gay pavilion, made of bright stuffs, and furnished
with nuts and gingerbread, but as plain and sincere as a caravansary;
located in no Tarrytown, where you receive only the civilities of
commerce, but far in the fields it exercises a primitive hospitality,
amid the fresh scent of new hay and raspberries, if it be summer-time,
and the tinkling of cow-bells from invisible pastures; for it is a
land flowing with milk and honey, and the newest milk courses in a
broad, deep stream across the premises.
In these retired places the tavern is first of all a
house,--elsewhere, last of all, or never,--and warms and shelters its
inhabitants. It is as simple and sincere in its essentials as the
caves in which the first men dwelt, but it is also as open and public.
The traveler steps across the threshold, and lo! he too is master, for
he only can be called proprietor of the house here who behaves with
most propriety in it. The Landlord stands clear back in nature, to my
imagination, with his axe and spade felling trees and raising potatoes
with the vigor of a pioneer; with Promethean energy making nature
yield her increase to supply the wants of so many; and he is not so
exhausted, nor of so short a stride, but that he comes forward even to
the highway to this wide hospitality and publicity. Surely, he has
solved some of the problems of life. He comes in at his back door,
holding a log fresh cut for the hearth upon his shoulder with one
hand, while he greets the newly arrived traveler with the other.
Here at length we have free range, as not in palaces, nor cottages,
nor temples, and intrude nowhere. All the secrets of housekeeping are
exhibited to the eyes of men, above and below, before and behind. This
is the necessary way to live, men have confessed, in these days, and
shall he skulk and hide? And why should we have any serious disgust at
kitchens? Perhaps they are the holiest recess of the house. There is
the hearth, after all,--and the settle, and the fagots, and the
kettle, and the crickets.
We have pleasant reminiscences of these.
They are the heart, the left ventricle, the very vital part of the
house. Here the real and sincere life which we meet in the streets was
actually fed and sheltered. Here burns the taper that cheers the
lonely traveler by night, and from this hearth ascend the smokes that
populate the valley to his eyes by day. On the whole, a man may not be
so little ashamed of any other part of his house, for here is his
sincerity and earnest, at least. It may not be here that the besoms
are plied most,--it is not here that they need to be, for dust will
not settle on the kitchen floor more than in nature.
Hence it will not do for the Landlord to possess too fine a nature. He
must have health above the common accidents of life, subject to no
modern fashionable diseases; but no taste, rather a vast relish or
appetite. His sentiments on all subjects will be delivered as freely
as the wind blows; there is nothing private or individual in them,
though still original, but they are public, and of the hue of the
heavens over his house,--a certain out-of-door obviousness and
transparency not to be disputed. What he does, his manners are not to
be complained of, though abstractly offensive, for it is what man
does, and in him the race is exhibited. When he eats, he is liver and
bowels and the whole digestive apparatus to the company, and so all
admit the thing is done. He must have no idiosyncrasies, no particular
bents or tendencies to this or that, but a general, uniform, and
healthy development, such as his portly person indicates, offering
himself equally on all sides to men. He is not one of your peaked and
inhospitable men of genius, with particular tastes, but, as we said
before, has one uniform relish, and taste which never aspires higher
than a tavern-sign, or the cut of a weather-cock. The man of genius,
like a dog with a bone, or the slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a
patient with the gravel, sits afar and retired, off the road, hangs
out no sign of refreshment for man and beast, but says, by all
possible hints and signs, I wish to be alone,--good-by,--farewell. But
the Landlord can afford to live without privacy. He entertains no
private thought, he cherishes no solitary hour, no Sabbath-day, but
thinks,--enough to assert the dignity of reason,--and talks, and reads
the newspaper.
ten miles see where the Tavern stands,--really an _entertaining_
prospect,--so public and inviting that only the rain and snow do not
enter. It is no gay pavilion, made of bright stuffs, and furnished
with nuts and gingerbread, but as plain and sincere as a caravansary;
located in no Tarrytown, where you receive only the civilities of
commerce, but far in the fields it exercises a primitive hospitality,
amid the fresh scent of new hay and raspberries, if it be summer-time,
and the tinkling of cow-bells from invisible pastures; for it is a
land flowing with milk and honey, and the newest milk courses in a
broad, deep stream across the premises.
In these retired places the tavern is first of all a
house,--elsewhere, last of all, or never,--and warms and shelters its
inhabitants. It is as simple and sincere in its essentials as the
caves in which the first men dwelt, but it is also as open and public.
The traveler steps across the threshold, and lo! he too is master, for
he only can be called proprietor of the house here who behaves with
most propriety in it. The Landlord stands clear back in nature, to my
imagination, with his axe and spade felling trees and raising potatoes
with the vigor of a pioneer; with Promethean energy making nature
yield her increase to supply the wants of so many; and he is not so
exhausted, nor of so short a stride, but that he comes forward even to
the highway to this wide hospitality and publicity. Surely, he has
solved some of the problems of life. He comes in at his back door,
holding a log fresh cut for the hearth upon his shoulder with one
hand, while he greets the newly arrived traveler with the other.
Here at length we have free range, as not in palaces, nor cottages,
nor temples, and intrude nowhere. All the secrets of housekeeping are
exhibited to the eyes of men, above and below, before and behind. This
is the necessary way to live, men have confessed, in these days, and
shall he skulk and hide? And why should we have any serious disgust at
kitchens? Perhaps they are the holiest recess of the house. There is
the hearth, after all,--and the settle, and the fagots, and the
kettle, and the crickets.
We have pleasant reminiscences of these.
They are the heart, the left ventricle, the very vital part of the
house. Here the real and sincere life which we meet in the streets was
actually fed and sheltered. Here burns the taper that cheers the
lonely traveler by night, and from this hearth ascend the smokes that
populate the valley to his eyes by day. On the whole, a man may not be
so little ashamed of any other part of his house, for here is his
sincerity and earnest, at least. It may not be here that the besoms
are plied most,--it is not here that they need to be, for dust will
not settle on the kitchen floor more than in nature.
Hence it will not do for the Landlord to possess too fine a nature. He
must have health above the common accidents of life, subject to no
modern fashionable diseases; but no taste, rather a vast relish or
appetite. His sentiments on all subjects will be delivered as freely
as the wind blows; there is nothing private or individual in them,
though still original, but they are public, and of the hue of the
heavens over his house,--a certain out-of-door obviousness and
transparency not to be disputed. What he does, his manners are not to
be complained of, though abstractly offensive, for it is what man
does, and in him the race is exhibited. When he eats, he is liver and
bowels and the whole digestive apparatus to the company, and so all
admit the thing is done. He must have no idiosyncrasies, no particular
bents or tendencies to this or that, but a general, uniform, and
healthy development, such as his portly person indicates, offering
himself equally on all sides to men. He is not one of your peaked and
inhospitable men of genius, with particular tastes, but, as we said
before, has one uniform relish, and taste which never aspires higher
than a tavern-sign, or the cut of a weather-cock. The man of genius,
like a dog with a bone, or the slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a
patient with the gravel, sits afar and retired, off the road, hangs
out no sign of refreshment for man and beast, but says, by all
possible hints and signs, I wish to be alone,--good-by,--farewell. But
the Landlord can afford to live without privacy. He entertains no
private thought, he cherishes no solitary hour, no Sabbath-day, but
thinks,--enough to assert the dignity of reason,--and talks, and reads
the newspaper.
