I have something more to say about elms.A relative tells me there is one of great glory in Andover, near Bradford.I have some recollections of the former place, pleasant and other.[I wonder if the old Seminary clock strikes as slowly as it used to.My room-mate thought, when he first came, it was the bell tolling deaths, and people's ages, as they do in the country.He swore -(ministers' sons get so familiar with good words that they are apt to handle them carelessly) - that the children were dying by the dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran off next day in recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was caught before the clock got through striking.] At the foot of "the hill," down in town, is, or was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been hooped with iron to protect it from Indian tomahawks, (CREDATHAHNEMANNUS,) and to have grown round its hoops and buried them in its wood.Of course, this is not the tree my relative means.
Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in Connecticut, telling me of two noble elms which are to be seen in that town.
One hundred and twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end!
What do you say to that? And gentle ladies beneath it, that love it and celebrate its praises! And that in a town of such supreme, audacious, Alpine loveliness as Norwich! - Only the dear people there must learn to call it Norridge, and not be misled by the mere accident of spelling.
NorWICH.
PorCHmouth.
CincinnatAH.
What a sad picture of our civilization!
I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the Colman farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for many years, and did not like to trust my recollection.But I had it in memory, and even noted down, as one of the finest trees in symmetry and beauty I had ever seen.I have received a document, signed by two citizens of a neighboring town, certified by the postmaster and a selectman, and these again corroborated, reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that extraordinary college-class to which it is the good fortune of my friend the Professor to belong, who, though he has FORMERLY been a member of Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence.The tree "girts" eighteen and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a real beauty.
I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we don't have "youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm."And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows in Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for anything but thanks.
[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many communications, in prose and verse since I began printing these notes.The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and brief poem, from New Orleans.I could not make any of them public, though sometimes requested to do so.Some of them have given me great pleasure, and encouraged me to believe I had friends whose faces I had never seen.If you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself.I purr very loud over a good, honest letter that says pretty things to me.]
- Sometimes very young persons send communications which they want forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public, and of themselves.Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young folks, but, on the whole, thought it best not to send.It is not fair to single out one for such sharp advice, where there are hundreds that are in need of it.
DEAR SIR, - You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser than I was at your age.I don't wish to be understood as saying too much, for I think, without committing myself to any opinion on my present state, that I was not a Solomon at that stage of development.
You long to "leap at a single bound into celebrity." Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else, - very rarely to those who say to themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!" The struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in notoriety; - that ladder is easy to climb, but it leads to the pillory which is crowded with fools who could not hold their tongues and rogues who could not hide their tricks.
If you have the consciousness of genius, do something to show it.
The world is pretty quick, nowadays, to catch the flavor of true originality; if you write anything remarkable, the magazines and newspapers will find you out, as the school-boys find out where the ripe apples and pears are.Produce anything really good, and an intelligent editor will jump at it.Don't flatter yourself that any article of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame.
Nothing pleases an editor more than to get anything worth having from a new hand.There is always a dearth of really fine articles for a first-rate journal; for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety are at or below the sea-level; some have water enough, but no head;some head enough, but no water; only two or three are from full reservoirs, high up that hill which is so hard to climb.
You may have genius.The contrary is of course probable, but it is not demonstrated.If you have, the world wants you more than you want it.It has not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark of genius that shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in our national pasture that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, among his friends, and no takers, that he is the real, genuine, no-mistake Osiris.
QU'EST CE QU'IL A FAIT? What has he done? That was Napoleon's test.What have you done? Turn up the faces of your picture-cards, my boy! You need not make mouths at the public because it has not accepted you at your own fancy-valuation.Do the prettiest thing you can and wait your time.