Write of passage

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 5, 2003 | by Carma Wadley Deseret Morning News

CONCORD, Mass. -- When Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis at age 44, his good friend Louisa May Alcott penned a verse in his memory. "For such as he there is no death," she wrote, and went on to say:

O lonely friend! He still will be

A potent presence, though unseen,

Steadfast, sagacious, and serene,

Seek not for him, -- he is with thee.

Alcott would join Thoreau in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery some 26 years later. By then, two more of her friends and neighbors had also been laid to rest there: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. And as you walk along Author's Ridge, as this little section of the Concord, Mass., cemetery has come to be known, you can't help but think how Alcott's words so fittingly describe them all. Especially here in Concord.

There is a rich heritage of arts and letters throughout the area, of course. In Boston, you can find connections to everyone from Mother Goose to John F. Kennedy. Around Harvard Yard, in Cambridge, you can become steeped in the tradition of such authors as Thomas Wolfe, Eugene O'Neill, Henry James, William Faulkner and more.

But it's hard to beat the literary legacy of Concord.

The town itself had already been placed on the map by events of the American Revolution, when "embattled farmers stood" on the Old North Bridge and "fired the shot heard 'round the world." (Emerson penned those words, by the way, for the completion of the Battle Monument in 1837.)

But American literature was just coming into its own when Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Alcott all lived and worked here, and they each made a significant contribution. The Transcendental Movement -- the belief that the individual soul is connected to the universe, and that by contemplating objects in nature, that soul can transcend the world -- launched by Emerson, Thoreau and Louisa May's father, Bronson, is with us still. With his passion for sin and guilt, Hawthorne kick-started the psychological novel; Alcott's endearing stories of growing up in New England have charmed legions of young girls.

Not surprising that pilgrims come to Concord to walk where these literary masters walked. If you are among them, you will find a "potent presence" still -- a lingering spirit here that whispers gently to your senses.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. -- Henry David Thoreau

You might begin such a pilgrimage at Walden Pond, now a state park a couple of miles from town, not because it comes first chronologically, but because if you happen along in the early morning you get a wonderful feel for the virtues of nature and the companionship of solitude that drew Thoreau there.

A replica of the cabin where Thoreau spent two years of his life has been built near the parking lot, and you might be struck by how small it seems. One room, one window, space for a table, a bed and three chairs -- "one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society," he noted.

When you first see the pond itself, you might be inclined to call it a lake -- based on the notion of pond you probably have stuck in your brain. Fishing, swimming and boating are all popular activities here now. But it's not so big you can't walk around it; there's a path to take you the distance, just under two miles.

At the north end of the pond, you'll find a path to the actual site of Thoreau's cabin. Signs and markings help you visualize how it was in 1845 when Thoreau first came here. It's a peaceful place. Don't be surprised as you make your way around the other three- quarters of the pond, if you feel a heightened awareness of your surroundings. You will probably talk more softly, you will tread the path with reverence, and you'll notice that birds and berry bushes and branches have become art.

I find it impossible to invent anything half so true or touching as the simple facts with which every day life supplies me. -- Louisa May Alcott

The simple joys of life also run through the works of Louisa May Alcott. If you visit Orchard House, which was the home of her family for 20 years, you will appreciate the simplicity of her own life.

After a nomadic life chasing Bronson's dream of educational reform, the Alcotts arrived in Concord in 1857. The family, still grieving for daughter Elizabeth who had died a few months earlier of complications of scarlet fever, included Louisa May and her two sisters.

Orchard House is actually two 18th-century structures combined into one. And when he wasn't philosophizing in the school he built out back, Bronson used his carpentry skills to make repairs and install closets, cupboards and a writing desk for Louisa May. It was here, encouraged by Emerson and Thoreau, that she began writing her poetry and stories.

As you walk through the house, it is easy to imagine the ordinary life that unfolded here. You can see where Louisa drew on the walls. There's the trunk of costumes that supplied dress-up fun for the girls. You can imagine the bustle and warmth of the kitchen, envision the dances -- and more particularly, the wedding of Anna -- that took place in the parlor.