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A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Henry D. Thoreau's classic A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is published now as a new paperback edition and includes an introduction by noted writer John McPhee. This work--unusual for its symbolism and structure, its criticism of Christian institutions, and its many-layered storytelling--was Thoreau's first published book.
In the late summer of 1839, Thoreau and his older brother John made a two-week boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. After John's sudden death in 1842, Thoreau began to prepare a memorial account of their excursion. He wrote two drafts of this story at Walden Pond, which he continued to revise and expand until 1849, when he arranged for its publication at his own expense. The book's heterodoxy and apparent formlessness troubled its contemporary audience. Modern readers, however, have come to see it as an appropriate predecessor to Walden, with Thoreau's story of a river journey depicting the early years of his spiritual and artistic growth.
1136 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1849
About the author
Henry David Thoreau
2,644 books6,960 followersHenry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
December 2, 2019
I loved this book for so many reasons. I guess the first reason is that it was imperfect. It’s Thoreau’s first published work – self-published – a financial failure. I like that. My first novel was pretty much the same. I think most first time authors have to go through something like this. And usually, despite the book’s many flaws, something good shines through.
The book is full of wonderful descriptive language and tangents that lead the book off into the backwoods of imagination. That’s wonderful at times. But that’s also a nice way to say that nothing happens for long stretches in the book. The book was also written after the death of Thoreau’s brother. I’d like to think the book is a tribute to his brother, but it’s hard to tell because his brother is almost invisible in the book. At the forefront is nature and thoughts it inspires.
I also liked this book because it was short. I can forgive the many shortcomings of a sort book. A long book, not so much.
Though I wouldn’t recommend this book to the casual reader, I would recommend this book to someone who has enjoyed Thoreau’s other works and it interested in what his work looked like early in his career.
The book is full of wonderful descriptive language and tangents that lead the book off into the backwoods of imagination. That’s wonderful at times. But that’s also a nice way to say that nothing happens for long stretches in the book. The book was also written after the death of Thoreau’s brother. I’d like to think the book is a tribute to his brother, but it’s hard to tell because his brother is almost invisible in the book. At the forefront is nature and thoughts it inspires.
I also liked this book because it was short. I can forgive the many shortcomings of a sort book. A long book, not so much.
Though I wouldn’t recommend this book to the casual reader, I would recommend this book to someone who has enjoyed Thoreau’s other works and it interested in what his work looked like early in his career.
March 31, 2026
A Week With Thoreau
In late August, 1839, Henry David Thoreau and his brother John took a two-week trip on the Concord and Merrimack rivers in a boat called the Musketaquid that they had built themselves. John Thoreau subsequently died of lockjaw in 1842, a death which greatly affected his brother. While living at Walden Pond from 1845-1847, Thoreau worked on the manuscript of what became "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers", and the book was first published, with little commercial success in 1849. A revised edition was published after Thoreau's death.
The book describes the Thoreau brothers' river journey on the Concord River from Concord west to Lowell, Massachusetts where it connects with the Merrimack River from Lowell north to Concord, New Hampshire. (The brothers spent one week on land exploring Concord, New Hampshire and its environs, and this is not described in the book.) At the time of the journey Lowell was already a manufacturing center where girls from New England farms lived in large barracks and worked long hours spinning cotton in factories powered by the Merrimack River.
I was familiar with "Walden", but I didn't know this earlier book of Thoreau's. It is a wonderful read. The book is arranged in seven chapters, one for each day of the river journey, and Thoreau describes extensively the rivers and inlets, the land, the plants and animals, the weather, the locks and the people that they encountered on their journey. Thoreau here and elsewhere has a clear and detailed eye for nature.
But the more fascinating part of this book consists of its extended digressions and discussions that are only suggested by the description of the brothers' journey. Thoreau uses the river trip as a jumping-off point for meditations on history, science, literature, education, philosophy, religion, and much else. There is information on the early settlements of Concord and Lowell and of New England, especially involving contact with the Indian tribes. Even with this, most of the book is internalized. On almost every page, Thoreau's text is interspersed with poetry, some of it his own, some by other writers. Thoreau discusses the ancient Greek writers, including Homer and the Greek lyricists, as well as writers including Shakespeare and Goethe. There are long meditations on subjects such as the nature of friendship. Thoreau discusses comparative religion and turns a critical eye on the Puritanical religion of New England. The book shows a great fascination with and knowledge of Eastern thought, which is striking for this time in America's history, particularly with the Bhagavad-Gita.
Near the end of the book, capturing the end of his trip, Thoreau assumes an oratorical tone and his work takes on a philosophical theme. Although the American philosophy of Transcendentalism is notoriously difficult to define, Thoreau here discusses a world beyond the world of our senses and of nature. He alludes to a world of the timeless and of mysticism, which encompasses all religion, and which the evidence of the senses only suggests to us. It is a difficult and inspiring vision, informed greatly by Eastern thought and by Thoreau's friendship with Emerson. The discussion forms a moving conclusion to the book.
With its learning, its love of poetry, its picture of early New England, and its spirituality, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" is one of the great American books. For readers who know Thoreau only, as I did, through "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience,", this book will be a revelation.
Robin Friedman
In late August, 1839, Henry David Thoreau and his brother John took a two-week trip on the Concord and Merrimack rivers in a boat called the Musketaquid that they had built themselves. John Thoreau subsequently died of lockjaw in 1842, a death which greatly affected his brother. While living at Walden Pond from 1845-1847, Thoreau worked on the manuscript of what became "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers", and the book was first published, with little commercial success in 1849. A revised edition was published after Thoreau's death.
The book describes the Thoreau brothers' river journey on the Concord River from Concord west to Lowell, Massachusetts where it connects with the Merrimack River from Lowell north to Concord, New Hampshire. (The brothers spent one week on land exploring Concord, New Hampshire and its environs, and this is not described in the book.) At the time of the journey Lowell was already a manufacturing center where girls from New England farms lived in large barracks and worked long hours spinning cotton in factories powered by the Merrimack River.
I was familiar with "Walden", but I didn't know this earlier book of Thoreau's. It is a wonderful read. The book is arranged in seven chapters, one for each day of the river journey, and Thoreau describes extensively the rivers and inlets, the land, the plants and animals, the weather, the locks and the people that they encountered on their journey. Thoreau here and elsewhere has a clear and detailed eye for nature.
But the more fascinating part of this book consists of its extended digressions and discussions that are only suggested by the description of the brothers' journey. Thoreau uses the river trip as a jumping-off point for meditations on history, science, literature, education, philosophy, religion, and much else. There is information on the early settlements of Concord and Lowell and of New England, especially involving contact with the Indian tribes. Even with this, most of the book is internalized. On almost every page, Thoreau's text is interspersed with poetry, some of it his own, some by other writers. Thoreau discusses the ancient Greek writers, including Homer and the Greek lyricists, as well as writers including Shakespeare and Goethe. There are long meditations on subjects such as the nature of friendship. Thoreau discusses comparative religion and turns a critical eye on the Puritanical religion of New England. The book shows a great fascination with and knowledge of Eastern thought, which is striking for this time in America's history, particularly with the Bhagavad-Gita.
Near the end of the book, capturing the end of his trip, Thoreau assumes an oratorical tone and his work takes on a philosophical theme. Although the American philosophy of Transcendentalism is notoriously difficult to define, Thoreau here discusses a world beyond the world of our senses and of nature. He alludes to a world of the timeless and of mysticism, which encompasses all religion, and which the evidence of the senses only suggests to us. It is a difficult and inspiring vision, informed greatly by Eastern thought and by Thoreau's friendship with Emerson. The discussion forms a moving conclusion to the book.
With its learning, its love of poetry, its picture of early New England, and its spirituality, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" is one of the great American books. For readers who know Thoreau only, as I did, through "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience,", this book will be a revelation.
Robin Friedman
March 26, 2017
This is a book that is meant to be read slowly. While ostensibly a travel book, it is actually a book of prose and poetic digressions attached onto a thin narrative. Some of those digressions are incredible. The poetry is not quite the same level, but it can be impressive nonetheless.
It was in 1839 that Henry David Thoreau, accompanied by his brother John, took a boat trip north along the Concord River and, when it met the Merrimack, continued north, though this time upstream. Shortly thereafter, John cut himself shaving and died of tetanus. Although in some remote sense the book is a tribute to him, he is never named, nor is anyone else they encounter.
Toward the end of their journey appears this beautiful passage:
It was in 1839 that Henry David Thoreau, accompanied by his brother John, took a boat trip north along the Concord River and, when it met the Merrimack, continued north, though this time upstream. Shortly thereafter, John cut himself shaving and died of tetanus. Although in some remote sense the book is a tribute to him, he is never named, nor is anyone else they encounter.
Toward the end of their journey appears this beautiful passage:
As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind. It is recorded in the Chronicle of Bernaldez, that in Columbus's first voyage the natives "pointed towards the heavens, making signs that they believed that there was all power and holiness." We have reason to be grateful for celestial phenomena, for they chiefly answer to the ideal in man. The stars are distant and unobtrusive, but bright and enduring as our fairest and most memorable experiences. "Let the immortal depth of your soul lead you, but earnestly extend your eyes upwards."A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is one of a kind -- a book which I hope to read again some day. Books that make your heart sing are few and far between.
August 10, 2016
This is my second time to read this book. I enjoyed it much more than the first time. Think of it as a beta version of Walden. This book ostensibly presents his experience of a week long boat voyage with his brother John. It is primarily a weave of thoughts of the author inspired throughout the trip. The thoughts include, fish, fishing, local history, scripture, genius, literature, symbols and metaphors...and on and on. The book is well written and beautiful in its own rambling way. It is perfect for the reader who loves everything written by Thoreau.
Most will prefer Walden with its narrower focus and efficiently presented rhetorical argument.
Personally, I think I will be returning this way again. Many of his thoughts appear to be similar or the same as what I find in the work of Owen Barfield, who I have been studying for the past year.
Most will prefer Walden with its narrower focus and efficiently presented rhetorical argument.
Personally, I think I will be returning this way again. Many of his thoughts appear to be similar or the same as what I find in the work of Owen Barfield, who I have been studying for the past year.
February 8, 2019
This book, far from a vacation travelogue, was Thoreau’s first published work. Like any novice effort of someone as talented and unique as Thoreau, it is a mixed work and several kinds of mixed work. There is the journey he and his brother took together, collapsed from the actual two-week duration into a single week. There is poetry, philosophy, biology, botany, theology, history, literary criticism, and much more in the form of long essay length digressions from his journey up and down river. Some of the digressions are close to the spirit of the journey (the history of the species of fishes that inhabit the rivers and how they have changed over time, being closest, and his thoughts on Homer and other literary themes being furthest from the event.)
Strangest to me was the invisibility of his brother, there is a “we” always when the journey is under discussion but nothing is said to separate the two. Perhaps this was some mystical intent—Henry was one with his brother (who died in the years between journey and book writing). Even when the two young men separate for some purpose, Thoreau tells us only one of them went to nearby farm to look for supplies and the other stayed with the boat, not which did which and why or what if anything unique happened to them. It is an enjoyable read, particularly on the river, and the nearest digressions are usually the most engrossing (botany and biology, local history and lore) but pales compared to Walden or The Journal.
Strangest to me was the invisibility of his brother, there is a “we” always when the journey is under discussion but nothing is said to separate the two. Perhaps this was some mystical intent—Henry was one with his brother (who died in the years between journey and book writing). Even when the two young men separate for some purpose, Thoreau tells us only one of them went to nearby farm to look for supplies and the other stayed with the boat, not which did which and why or what if anything unique happened to them. It is an enjoyable read, particularly on the river, and the nearest digressions are usually the most engrossing (botany and biology, local history and lore) but pales compared to Walden or The Journal.
August 29, 2018
"But behind the sheaves, and under the sod, there lurks a ripe fruit, which the reapers have not gathered, the true harvest of the year, which it bears forever, annually watering and maturing it, and man never severs the stalk which bears this palatable fruit."
At times a simple and poetic travel narrative, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers follows Thoreau as he weaves together careful descriptions of Nature with intimate musings on friendship, virtue, literature, and culture.
I am trying not to be quick in calling this a better book than Thoreau's magnum opus Walden. I am still caught in the throws of the majesty of this text, having just finished it. (I haven't read Walden in its totality in almost two years.) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers was published before Walden, and is one of the only two books that Thoreau actually published himself. There is something much more youthful about this book; Walden is a mature text, Thoreau knew himself and his beliefs better and was able to organize his thoughts clearly. A Week is a travel narrative spanning the course of a week's journey down the rivers of New England, but often and pleasantly veers off and lands on shores rich with wisdom. The reader is essentially following Thoreau's train of thought. On that same note I feel as though Walden was written consciously, whilst A Week reads as the natural fruition of a solemn September river journey. Not to say Walden is so concrete, but it is certainly more concise in its layout.
I adored this book. It has left me hungry for more of Thoreau's beautiful musings and inspired dialogue. With each of his works that I read, I understand more and more the final line of Emerson's eulogy,
"His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home."
At times a simple and poetic travel narrative, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers follows Thoreau as he weaves together careful descriptions of Nature with intimate musings on friendship, virtue, literature, and culture.
I am trying not to be quick in calling this a better book than Thoreau's magnum opus Walden. I am still caught in the throws of the majesty of this text, having just finished it. (I haven't read Walden in its totality in almost two years.) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers was published before Walden, and is one of the only two books that Thoreau actually published himself. There is something much more youthful about this book; Walden is a mature text, Thoreau knew himself and his beliefs better and was able to organize his thoughts clearly. A Week is a travel narrative spanning the course of a week's journey down the rivers of New England, but often and pleasantly veers off and lands on shores rich with wisdom. The reader is essentially following Thoreau's train of thought. On that same note I feel as though Walden was written consciously, whilst A Week reads as the natural fruition of a solemn September river journey. Not to say Walden is so concrete, but it is certainly more concise in its layout.
I adored this book. It has left me hungry for more of Thoreau's beautiful musings and inspired dialogue. With each of his works that I read, I understand more and more the final line of Emerson's eulogy,
"His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home."
September 29, 2007
Throeau's admirers laud him as a nature writer, and often describe this work as a "journal" recording a week's worth of river travel in Van Buren-era Massachusetts. This will not prepare you for the profound pilosophical and literary qualities found in this book. This is no journal. The seven days on the river are a framing device for Thoreau's extended thoughts on nature, religon, America, friendship, fish, and anything else that might cross his mind. Living as we do in an age of specialization, it is humbling to read the work of a man who could comfortably discuss (at great length) Hinduism, colonial history, Classical poetry, the operation of canal locks, etc. Thoreau also includes plenty of exquisite decriptions of nature, which reveal him to have a true poetic soul on top of everything else. His thoughts on local history are especially interesting. The US is often derided as a "young" country, but Throeau reminds us that Englishmen had already been living along the Concord River for 200 years at the time he made his journey. Often the history is fantastically detailed, a reflection of the extent to which the settling of America was a matter of one family going 10 miles farther inland than the last. Interesting biographical note: Thoreau appears to have worked harder on this book than any of his others. He worked on it for 10 years (including the 2 he spent at Walden). He unsuccessfully self-published it, causing him to famously quip that he had a library containing 1000 volumes, of which he was the author of 800. In other words, this book is central to understanding Thoreau as an author.
June 27, 2024
This book took me quite a while to read but I think that enhanced the experience. I took a long break in the winter because I made a point to read this book outside as much as possible. Especially living in a city, this book took me out of the hustle and bustle and was very calming. Thoreau’s poetry, wildlife knowledge, historical accounts and detailed interactions were perfect bites of escapism when I did pick this book up.
Read
February 19, 2024bruhhh shut up
June 28, 2017
Didn't finish. Not what I expected. Too much babbling on, without really saying interesting stuff. Of course, such a style was to be expected in a book like this, but this book has a too unfavourable information to noise ratio for my taste.
Already started on Walden, much better so far!
Already started on Walden, much better so far!
August 14, 2022
A meandering journey in search of the universal in nature, history, poetry, philosophy.
January 9, 2025
The stillness was intense and almost conscious, and we fancied that the morning was the evening of a celestial day. The air was so elastic and crystalline that it had the same effect on the landscape that a glass has on a picture, to give it an ideal remoteness and perfection.
There are already essays and poems, the growth of this land, which are not in vain, all which, however, we could conveniently have stowed in the till of our chest. If the gods permitted their own inspiration to be breathed in vain, these might be overlooked in the crowd, but the accents of truth are as sure to be heard at last on earth as in heaven. They already seem ancient, and in some measure have lost the traces of their modern birth. Here are they who "ask for that which is our whole life's light, For the perpetual, true and clear insight."
A lovely little account of Thoreau and his brother sailing some New England Rivers, one of those snapshots of time long ago that seem so peaceful and bucolic; I grew up along a polluted New England River and never even dipped a toe in it, and only bushwhacked to its edge a few times in my life. I cherish these descriptions of a time I can dream of, and hope for again as we learn and blow up dams and clean up rivers. Please.
Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me,
Though now thou climbest loftier mounts,
And fairer rivers dost ascend,
Be thou my Muse, my Brother-
I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore,
By a lonely isle, by a far Azore,
There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek,
On the barren sands of a desolate creek.
I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind,
New lands, new people, and new thoughts to find;
Many fair reaches and headlands appeared,
And many dangers were there to be feared;
But when I remember where I have been,
And the fair landscapes that I have seen,
THOU seemest the only permanent shore,
The cape never rounded, nor wandered o'er.
The Musketaquid, or Grass-ground River, though probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place in civilized history, until the fame of its grassy meadows and its fish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of CONCORD from the first plantation on its banks, which appears to have been commenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass-ground River as long as grass grows and water runs here; it will be Concord River only while men lead peaceable lives on its banks. It is still perennial grass-ground to Concord farmers, who own the Great Meadows, and get the hay from year to year. "One branch of it," according to the historian of Concord, for I love to quote so good authority, "rises in the south part of Hopkinton, and another from a pond and a large cedar-swamp in Westborough," and flowing between Hopkinton and Southborough, through Framingham, and between Sudbury and Wayland, where it is sometimes called Sudbury River, it enters Concord at the south part of the town, and after receiving the North or Assabeth River, which has its source a little farther to the north and west, goes out at the northeast angle, and flowing between Bedford and Carlisle, and through Billerica, empties into the Merrimack at Lowell.
In Concord it is, in summer, from four to fifteen feet deep, and from one hundred to three hundred feet wide, but in the spring freshets, when it overflows its banks, it is in some places nearly a mile wide. Between Sudbury and Wayland the meadows acquire their greatest breadth, and when covered with water, they form a handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to by numerous gulls and ducks. Just above Sherman's Bridge, between these towns, is the largest expanse, and when the wind blows freshly in a raw March day, heaving up the surface into dark and sober billows or regular swells, skirted as it is in the distance with alder-swamps and smoke-like maples, it looks like a smaller Lake Huron, and is very pleasant and exciting for a landsman to row or sail over. The farm-houses along the Sudbury shore, which rises gently to a considerable height, command fine water prospects at this season. The shore is more flat on the Wayland side, and this town is the greatest loser by the flood. Its farmers tell me that thousands of acres are flooded now, since the dams have been erected, where they remember to have seen the white honeysuckle or clover growing once, and they could go dry with shoes only in summer.
Let us here read what old Johnson says of these meadows in his "Wonder-working Providence, which gives the account of New England from 1628 to 1652, and see how matters looked to him. He says of the Twelfth Church of Christ gathered at Concord: "This town is seated upon a fair fresh river, whose rivulets are filled with fresh marsh, and her streams with fish, it being a branch of that large river of Merrimack. Allwifes and shad in their season come up to this town, but salmon and dace cannot come up, by reason of the rocky falls, which causeth their meadows to lie much covered with water.”
At length, on Saturday, the last day of August, 1839, we two, brothers, and natives of Concord, weighed anchor in this river port; for Concord, too, lies under the sun, a port of entry and departure for the bodies as well as the souls of men; one shore at least exempted from all duties but such as an honest man will gladly discharge. A warm drizzling rain had obscured the morning, and threatened to delay our voyage, but at length the leaves and grass were dried, and it came out a mild afternoon, as serene and fresh as if Nature were maturing some greater scheme of her own. After this long dripping and oozing from every pore, she began to respire again more healthily than ever. So with a vigorous shove we launched our boat from the bank, while the flags and bulrushes courtesied a God-speed, and dropped silently down the stream.
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest.
Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening thoughts. We glided noiselessly down the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel or a bream from the covert of the pads, and the smaller bittern now and then sailed away on sluggish wings from some recess in the shore, or the larger lifted itself out of the long grass at our approach, and carried its precious legs away to deposit them in a place of safety. The tortoises also rapidly dropped into the water, as our boat ruffled the surface amid the willows, breaking the reflections of the trees. The banks had passed the height of their beauty, and some of the brighter flowers showed by their faded tints that the season was verging towards the afternoon of the year; but this sombre tinge enhanced their sincerity, and in the still unabated heats they seemed like the mossy brink of some cool well.
For the most part, there was no recognition of human life in the night, no human breathing was heard, only the breathing of the wind. As we sat up, kept awake by the novelty of our situation, we heard at intervals foxes stepping about over the dead leaves, and brushing the dewy grass close to our tent, and once a musquash fumbling among the potatoes and melons in our boat, but when we hastened to the shore we could detect only a ripple in the water ruffling the disk of a star. At intervals we were serenaded by the song of a dreaming sparrow or the throttled cry of an owl, but after each sound which near at hand broke the stillness of the night, each crackling of the twigs, or rustling among the leaves, there was a sudden pause, and deeper and more conscious silence, as if the intruder were aware that no life was rightfully abroad at that hour. There was a fire in Lowell, as we judged, this night, and we saw the horizon blazing, and heard the distant alarm-bells, as it were a faint tinkling music borne to these woods.
In the morning the river and adjacent country were covered with a dense fog, through which the smoke of our fire curled up like a still subtiler mist; but before we had rowed many rods, the sun arose and the fog rapidly dispersed, leaving a slight steam only to curl along the surface of the water. It was a quiet Sunday morning, with more of the auroral rosy and white than of the yellow light in it, as if it dated from earlier than the fall of man.
"There is an inward voice, that in the stream sends forth its spirit to the listening ear, And in a calm content it floweth on, like wisdom, welcome with its own respect.
Clear in its breast lie all these beauteous thoughts, it doth receive the green and graceful trees, and the gray rocks smile in its peaceful arms."
For every oak and birch too growing on the hill-top, as well as for these elms and willows, we knew that there was a graceful ethereal and ideal tree making down from the roots, and sometimes Nature in high tides brings her mirror to its foot and makes it visible. The stillness was intense and almost conscious, as if it were a natural Sabbath, and we fancied that the morning was the evening of a celestial day. The air was so elastic and crystalline that it had the same effect on the landscape that a glass has on a picture, to give it an ideal remoteness and perfection. The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairy-land. The world seemed decked for some holiday or prouder pageantry, with silken streamers flying, and the course of our lives to wind on before us like a green lane into a country maze, at the season when fruit trees are in blossom.
The sun lodged on the old gray cliffs, and glanced from every pad; the bulrushes and flags seemed to rejoice in the delicious light and air; the meadows were a-drinking at their leisure; the frogs sat meditating, all sabbath thoughts, summing up their week, with one eye out on the golden sun, and one toe upon a reed, eying the wondrous universe in which they act their part; the fishes swam more staid and soberly, as maidens go to church; shoals of golden and silver minnows rose to the surface to behold the heavens, and then sheered off into more sombre aisles; they swept by as if moved by one mind, continually gliding past each other, and yet preserving the form of their battalion unchanged, as if they were still embraced by the transparent membrane which held the spawn; a young band of brethren and sisters trying their new fins; now they wheeled, now shot ahead, and when we drove them to the shore and cut them off, they dexterously tacked and passed underneath the boat.
But here on the stream of the Concord, where we have all the while been bodily, Nature, who is superior to all styles and ages, is now, with pensive face, composing her poem Autumn, with which no work of man will bear to be compared.
In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy, not far off geographically.
There are already essays and poems, the growth of this land, which are not in vain, all which, however, we could conveniently have stowed in the till of our chest. If the gods permitted their own inspiration to be breathed in vain, these might be overlooked in the crowd, but the accents of truth are as sure to be heard at last on earth as in heaven. They already seem ancient, and in some measure have lost the traces of their modern birth. Here are they who "ask for that which is our whole life's light, For the perpetual, true and clear insight."
A lovely little account of Thoreau and his brother sailing some New England Rivers, one of those snapshots of time long ago that seem so peaceful and bucolic; I grew up along a polluted New England River and never even dipped a toe in it, and only bushwhacked to its edge a few times in my life. I cherish these descriptions of a time I can dream of, and hope for again as we learn and blow up dams and clean up rivers. Please.
Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me,
Though now thou climbest loftier mounts,
And fairer rivers dost ascend,
Be thou my Muse, my Brother-
I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore,
By a lonely isle, by a far Azore,
There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek,
On the barren sands of a desolate creek.
I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind,
New lands, new people, and new thoughts to find;
Many fair reaches and headlands appeared,
And many dangers were there to be feared;
But when I remember where I have been,
And the fair landscapes that I have seen,
THOU seemest the only permanent shore,
The cape never rounded, nor wandered o'er.
The Musketaquid, or Grass-ground River, though probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place in civilized history, until the fame of its grassy meadows and its fish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of CONCORD from the first plantation on its banks, which appears to have been commenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass-ground River as long as grass grows and water runs here; it will be Concord River only while men lead peaceable lives on its banks. It is still perennial grass-ground to Concord farmers, who own the Great Meadows, and get the hay from year to year. "One branch of it," according to the historian of Concord, for I love to quote so good authority, "rises in the south part of Hopkinton, and another from a pond and a large cedar-swamp in Westborough," and flowing between Hopkinton and Southborough, through Framingham, and between Sudbury and Wayland, where it is sometimes called Sudbury River, it enters Concord at the south part of the town, and after receiving the North or Assabeth River, which has its source a little farther to the north and west, goes out at the northeast angle, and flowing between Bedford and Carlisle, and through Billerica, empties into the Merrimack at Lowell.
In Concord it is, in summer, from four to fifteen feet deep, and from one hundred to three hundred feet wide, but in the spring freshets, when it overflows its banks, it is in some places nearly a mile wide. Between Sudbury and Wayland the meadows acquire their greatest breadth, and when covered with water, they form a handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to by numerous gulls and ducks. Just above Sherman's Bridge, between these towns, is the largest expanse, and when the wind blows freshly in a raw March day, heaving up the surface into dark and sober billows or regular swells, skirted as it is in the distance with alder-swamps and smoke-like maples, it looks like a smaller Lake Huron, and is very pleasant and exciting for a landsman to row or sail over. The farm-houses along the Sudbury shore, which rises gently to a considerable height, command fine water prospects at this season. The shore is more flat on the Wayland side, and this town is the greatest loser by the flood. Its farmers tell me that thousands of acres are flooded now, since the dams have been erected, where they remember to have seen the white honeysuckle or clover growing once, and they could go dry with shoes only in summer.
Let us here read what old Johnson says of these meadows in his "Wonder-working Providence, which gives the account of New England from 1628 to 1652, and see how matters looked to him. He says of the Twelfth Church of Christ gathered at Concord: "This town is seated upon a fair fresh river, whose rivulets are filled with fresh marsh, and her streams with fish, it being a branch of that large river of Merrimack. Allwifes and shad in their season come up to this town, but salmon and dace cannot come up, by reason of the rocky falls, which causeth their meadows to lie much covered with water.”
At length, on Saturday, the last day of August, 1839, we two, brothers, and natives of Concord, weighed anchor in this river port; for Concord, too, lies under the sun, a port of entry and departure for the bodies as well as the souls of men; one shore at least exempted from all duties but such as an honest man will gladly discharge. A warm drizzling rain had obscured the morning, and threatened to delay our voyage, but at length the leaves and grass were dried, and it came out a mild afternoon, as serene and fresh as if Nature were maturing some greater scheme of her own. After this long dripping and oozing from every pore, she began to respire again more healthily than ever. So with a vigorous shove we launched our boat from the bank, while the flags and bulrushes courtesied a God-speed, and dropped silently down the stream.
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest.
Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening thoughts. We glided noiselessly down the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel or a bream from the covert of the pads, and the smaller bittern now and then sailed away on sluggish wings from some recess in the shore, or the larger lifted itself out of the long grass at our approach, and carried its precious legs away to deposit them in a place of safety. The tortoises also rapidly dropped into the water, as our boat ruffled the surface amid the willows, breaking the reflections of the trees. The banks had passed the height of their beauty, and some of the brighter flowers showed by their faded tints that the season was verging towards the afternoon of the year; but this sombre tinge enhanced their sincerity, and in the still unabated heats they seemed like the mossy brink of some cool well.
For the most part, there was no recognition of human life in the night, no human breathing was heard, only the breathing of the wind. As we sat up, kept awake by the novelty of our situation, we heard at intervals foxes stepping about over the dead leaves, and brushing the dewy grass close to our tent, and once a musquash fumbling among the potatoes and melons in our boat, but when we hastened to the shore we could detect only a ripple in the water ruffling the disk of a star. At intervals we were serenaded by the song of a dreaming sparrow or the throttled cry of an owl, but after each sound which near at hand broke the stillness of the night, each crackling of the twigs, or rustling among the leaves, there was a sudden pause, and deeper and more conscious silence, as if the intruder were aware that no life was rightfully abroad at that hour. There was a fire in Lowell, as we judged, this night, and we saw the horizon blazing, and heard the distant alarm-bells, as it were a faint tinkling music borne to these woods.
In the morning the river and adjacent country were covered with a dense fog, through which the smoke of our fire curled up like a still subtiler mist; but before we had rowed many rods, the sun arose and the fog rapidly dispersed, leaving a slight steam only to curl along the surface of the water. It was a quiet Sunday morning, with more of the auroral rosy and white than of the yellow light in it, as if it dated from earlier than the fall of man.
"There is an inward voice, that in the stream sends forth its spirit to the listening ear, And in a calm content it floweth on, like wisdom, welcome with its own respect.
Clear in its breast lie all these beauteous thoughts, it doth receive the green and graceful trees, and the gray rocks smile in its peaceful arms."
For every oak and birch too growing on the hill-top, as well as for these elms and willows, we knew that there was a graceful ethereal and ideal tree making down from the roots, and sometimes Nature in high tides brings her mirror to its foot and makes it visible. The stillness was intense and almost conscious, as if it were a natural Sabbath, and we fancied that the morning was the evening of a celestial day. The air was so elastic and crystalline that it had the same effect on the landscape that a glass has on a picture, to give it an ideal remoteness and perfection. The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairy-land. The world seemed decked for some holiday or prouder pageantry, with silken streamers flying, and the course of our lives to wind on before us like a green lane into a country maze, at the season when fruit trees are in blossom.
The sun lodged on the old gray cliffs, and glanced from every pad; the bulrushes and flags seemed to rejoice in the delicious light and air; the meadows were a-drinking at their leisure; the frogs sat meditating, all sabbath thoughts, summing up their week, with one eye out on the golden sun, and one toe upon a reed, eying the wondrous universe in which they act their part; the fishes swam more staid and soberly, as maidens go to church; shoals of golden and silver minnows rose to the surface to behold the heavens, and then sheered off into more sombre aisles; they swept by as if moved by one mind, continually gliding past each other, and yet preserving the form of their battalion unchanged, as if they were still embraced by the transparent membrane which held the spawn; a young band of brethren and sisters trying their new fins; now they wheeled, now shot ahead, and when we drove them to the shore and cut them off, they dexterously tacked and passed underneath the boat.
But here on the stream of the Concord, where we have all the while been bodily, Nature, who is superior to all styles and ages, is now, with pensive face, composing her poem Autumn, with which no work of man will bear to be compared.
In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy, not far off geographically.
April 28, 2026
After watching the PBS Documentary Henry David Thoreau produced by Ken Burns, I decided to read A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Several years ago, I read Thoreau’s Walden and his Essay on Civil Disobedience. I enjoyed both, and I often reread sections of Walden. In selecting this book, I imagined Thoreau would write about what he and his brother, John, experienced on this adventure. While Thoreau wrote a few observations about their journey, he mostly wrote poetry. He also shared his thoughts on Roman and Greek history, Native Americans, astronomy and philosophy. In light of the fact that Thoreau’s brother was not in good health, and that this trip had to be special for both of them, I was disappointed that it didn’t reflect their time spent sailing on two rivers.
September 29, 2025
A fraction of this was beautifully poetic, but most of it was incredibly boring, and a lot of it was racist and contributes to disappearance myths about Native people. It’s also as much religious philosophy as descriptions of the landscape. Not worth your time unless you are very familiar with and interested in cherry-picking passages about this specific region.
November 23, 2022
Avaliação mais tarde!
January 7, 2016
“A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” was Henry David Thoreau’s first published book. In it, one can already see the roots of the ideas he would establish in his great writings like “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience”. As a great fan of Thoreau, I enjoyed taking a step back and seeing the beginnings of a great writer forming themselves in this book. While “A Week” is not quite on the same level as “Walden,” it has its own merits.
The book is an account of a canoeing trip that Thoreau took with his older brother, John, who died suddenly not long after. In many ways, "A Week" also serves as a way to remember what was likely the last major expedition Henry took with his beloved brother before John's tragic death. The brothers traveled on the river from Concord, MA into New Hampshire. "A Week" is a good example of Thoreau’s knack for intermingling gorgeous physical descriptions of nature with philosophical implications. In my mind, Thoreau is in part a great writer because he does not merely notice the beauty of natural scenery, but finds deeper meaning in it. In “A Week,” Thoreau often returns to the theme of rivers, as he and his brother traveled using the river as a guide. He considers the symbolic implications of rivers in the human history of exploring the unknown, writing “Rivers must have been the guides which conducted the footsteps of the first travelers. They are the constant lure, when they flow by our doors, to distant enterprise and adventure… They are the natural highways of all nations, not only leveling the ground, and removing obstacles from the path of the traveler… but conducting him through the most interesting scenery… where the animal and vegetable kingdoms attain their greatest perfection” (5). Thoreau returns to the symbolic implications of rivers various times throughout the book, noting their importance to exploration, their purity, and the idea that they allow for a “highway” that can be traveled without harming the natural environment.
As in much of his work, Thoreau also values wildness and the unknown in “A Week,” writing that “the wilderness is near, as well as dear, to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men… The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams” (108). For Thoreau, unexplored nature is not merely alluring, but essential to human existence. His definition of morality itself is connected to exploration, first of nature, then of the self. Attention to nature and the seasons, in Thoreau’s view, allows us to glimpse the sublime and become greater for it. He writes that “In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy, not far off geographically” (245).
Later, in language that echoes a famous self-exploration passage in “Walden”, he goes on to add that “It is easier to discover another such new world as Columbus did, than to go within one fold of this which we appear to know so well; the land is lost sight of, the compass varies… But there is only necessary a moment’s sanity and sound senses, to teach us that there is a nature behind the ordinary, in which we have only some vague preemption… as yet. We live on the outskirts of that region. Carved wood, and floating boughs, and sunset skies, are all that we know of it” (249). Like the famous line in “Walden” to “explore your own higher latitudes… Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought” (215), this passage in “A Week” asks the reader to consider whether he or she has the inner strength to explore “this which we appear to know so well”. Symbolically, the passage seems to point to the sort of interior discovery voyage Thoreau advocates for as a necessary precursor to formation of moral beliefs. To his mind, the October sunset skies, carved wood, and floating boughs of the natural world invite us to journey into the great unknown within ourselves and see what we might find there.
It is because he pays so much attention to the minute details of nature that Thoreau understands humans—and himself—so deeply. In the young man who undertook a canoe expedition on the Concord and Merrimack rivers would one day develop the courageous figure who protested the government’s upholding of slavery and laid the foundations for the civil disobedience of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
The book is an account of a canoeing trip that Thoreau took with his older brother, John, who died suddenly not long after. In many ways, "A Week" also serves as a way to remember what was likely the last major expedition Henry took with his beloved brother before John's tragic death. The brothers traveled on the river from Concord, MA into New Hampshire. "A Week" is a good example of Thoreau’s knack for intermingling gorgeous physical descriptions of nature with philosophical implications. In my mind, Thoreau is in part a great writer because he does not merely notice the beauty of natural scenery, but finds deeper meaning in it. In “A Week,” Thoreau often returns to the theme of rivers, as he and his brother traveled using the river as a guide. He considers the symbolic implications of rivers in the human history of exploring the unknown, writing “Rivers must have been the guides which conducted the footsteps of the first travelers. They are the constant lure, when they flow by our doors, to distant enterprise and adventure… They are the natural highways of all nations, not only leveling the ground, and removing obstacles from the path of the traveler… but conducting him through the most interesting scenery… where the animal and vegetable kingdoms attain their greatest perfection” (5). Thoreau returns to the symbolic implications of rivers various times throughout the book, noting their importance to exploration, their purity, and the idea that they allow for a “highway” that can be traveled without harming the natural environment.
As in much of his work, Thoreau also values wildness and the unknown in “A Week,” writing that “the wilderness is near, as well as dear, to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men… The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams” (108). For Thoreau, unexplored nature is not merely alluring, but essential to human existence. His definition of morality itself is connected to exploration, first of nature, then of the self. Attention to nature and the seasons, in Thoreau’s view, allows us to glimpse the sublime and become greater for it. He writes that “In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy, not far off geographically” (245).
Later, in language that echoes a famous self-exploration passage in “Walden”, he goes on to add that “It is easier to discover another such new world as Columbus did, than to go within one fold of this which we appear to know so well; the land is lost sight of, the compass varies… But there is only necessary a moment’s sanity and sound senses, to teach us that there is a nature behind the ordinary, in which we have only some vague preemption… as yet. We live on the outskirts of that region. Carved wood, and floating boughs, and sunset skies, are all that we know of it” (249). Like the famous line in “Walden” to “explore your own higher latitudes… Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought” (215), this passage in “A Week” asks the reader to consider whether he or she has the inner strength to explore “this which we appear to know so well”. Symbolically, the passage seems to point to the sort of interior discovery voyage Thoreau advocates for as a necessary precursor to formation of moral beliefs. To his mind, the October sunset skies, carved wood, and floating boughs of the natural world invite us to journey into the great unknown within ourselves and see what we might find there.
It is because he pays so much attention to the minute details of nature that Thoreau understands humans—and himself—so deeply. In the young man who undertook a canoe expedition on the Concord and Merrimack rivers would one day develop the courageous figure who protested the government’s upholding of slavery and laid the foundations for the civil disobedience of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
November 19, 2018
3 1/2 stars
March 8, 2025
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers has its long, boring passages, but they are interrupted with the most charming descriptions of the woodlands, farms, flora and fauna of New England, and pages upon pages of the most staggeringly beautiful meditations on mortality, friendship, literature, and history. The ending of the book, a description of silence, is made moving by the biographical context of this log (a journal describing a trip that Thoreau made with his brother, John—a journal that he returned to, edited, and published after the death of his brother).
Over the last few months, as I read A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, I was constantly putting the book down so that I could simply sit with the tender and astringent beauty of Thoreau's eye, his mind, his prose. When that savor began to fade, I would return to the book, hungry with the anticipation of the next delicious surprise. Now I put the book down knowing that there is nothing new for it to show me and it is difficult to accept that there is no chapter left waiting for me.
Over the last few months, as I read A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, I was constantly putting the book down so that I could simply sit with the tender and astringent beauty of Thoreau's eye, his mind, his prose. When that savor began to fade, I would return to the book, hungry with the anticipation of the next delicious surprise. Now I put the book down knowing that there is nothing new for it to show me and it is difficult to accept that there is no chapter left waiting for me.
December 3, 2020
Its taken me a while to get back to my good friend Thoreau, I believe the last book of his was Walden. On the surface, this book was about a boat trip Henry took with his brother John on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers in 1839. Presented as a journal of that trip, it takes the usual dense but wonderful Thoreau meanderings, much like his trip on the rivers. He speaks to the changing landscape and economy of this part of New England at the dawn of the industrial revolution. He gives a wonderful history of the Middlesex canal system and the once thriving river trade. Barges, sight seers and ferrymen. Along the way he shows his deep knowledge of botany and intense respect for the working class.
My favorite part of the book though was his remembrance and ode to the Native Indians, driven from the land by colonist expansion and time. He and his brother camp at areas that still show remains of Indigenous wigwam settlements, find arrowheads and he asks clearly why there are no monuments to these original men. He tells stories of local colonists and natives who participated in the often over looked King Philips War. He views these men with as much respect as he does the original settles and river workers both lost to overwhelming forces beyond their control. Thoreau also makes a side trip to my home town of Shelburne and visits the glacier potholes, and reflects not only on their staggering age but their use by natives to store supplies during war and calm times.
A side trip to Mt. Greylock is also included, which was the impetus for me to read the book as I hiked the trail he took.(at least the same approach to the summit.) Sitting atop of Greylock I wished I had seen the view he did, with vast woodland and much less settlements. Oddly he probably thought the same, wishing he could have seen the view Massasoit had seen as a child.
My favorite part of the book though was his remembrance and ode to the Native Indians, driven from the land by colonist expansion and time. He and his brother camp at areas that still show remains of Indigenous wigwam settlements, find arrowheads and he asks clearly why there are no monuments to these original men. He tells stories of local colonists and natives who participated in the often over looked King Philips War. He views these men with as much respect as he does the original settles and river workers both lost to overwhelming forces beyond their control. Thoreau also makes a side trip to my home town of Shelburne and visits the glacier potholes, and reflects not only on their staggering age but their use by natives to store supplies during war and calm times.
A side trip to Mt. Greylock is also included, which was the impetus for me to read the book as I hiked the trail he took.(at least the same approach to the summit.) Sitting atop of Greylock I wished I had seen the view he did, with vast woodland and much less settlements. Oddly he probably thought the same, wishing he could have seen the view Massasoit had seen as a child.
September 13, 2022
This was Thoreau's first book, published in 1849, describing a boat trip he and his brother took (after building the boat themselves) in 1839. The trip involved a week on the river, and a week hiking to the top of Mount Agiocochook in New Hampshire. The book basically skips the hiking.
His brother died of tetanus in 1842, which may be part of the reason it took ten years to publish this memorial of their trip. The Introduction by H. Daniel Peck points out that he worked on this book simultaneously with Walden, (it is the book he took to Walden Pond to work on), and that he divided his material into meditations based on travel (this book) and meditations based on being in one place (Walden). He intersperses the prose with poetry, both his own and quotes from others, so that the thing it most reminded me of was Bashō's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, even though that work wasn't available to HDT. He was probably modeling himself on Goethe's travel memoirs.
The book was published after a strong endorsement from Emerson (we understand that he pulled strings), but originally it did not catch on. In fact, HDT records the event of collecting his remainders in his diary:
"For a year or two past, my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" still on hand, and at last suggesting that he had use for the room they occupied in his cellar. So I had them all sent to me here, and they have arrived to-day by express, filling the man's wagon, -- 706 copies out of an edition of 1000 which I bought of Munroe four years ago, and have been ever since paying for, and have not quite paid for yet. The wares are sent to me at last, and I have the opportunity to examine my purchase. They are something more substantial than fame, as my back knows, which has borne them up two flights of stairs to a place similar to that to which they trace their origin. Of the remaining two hundred and ninety and odd, seventy-five were given away, the rest sold. I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. [October 28, 1853]
The good news is that he would be able to unload them once Walden came out, and made him rather famous.
This book has some beautiful writing in it, like "In deep ravines under the eastern sides of cliffs, Night forwardly plants her foot even at noonday, and as Day retreats she steps into his trenches, skulking from tree to tree, from fence to fence, until at last she sits in his citadel and draws out her forces into the plain." It isn't Walden, though. I would say that he saved his better-honed set pieces for that book, and used his more wandering meditations for this one. I'm glad I read it, and intend to go on to his posthumous collections on The Maine Woods and Cape Cod. I was put off by two weaknesses. The first is the "Wednesday" chapter's meditation on Friendship. I found it so periphrastic as to be incoherent. HDT was a prickly character, and some of the reason why is probably showing through here. I suspect we're also getting coded discussion of his sexuality -- whatever it was -- which helps make this obscure. It just ran off the rails for me, and it is many pages in length. Later in the book he does some literary criticism about poets, and this includes long praise for the works of Ossian, and he derives truths of the history of the English language and English poetry from those primitive survivals -- which is a bit hard to read when one knows that Ossian was a forgery by James Macpherson. (Wikipedia suggests there is a "debate" about their authenticity. There is not.) Reading this is like reading a scientific article based on Piltdown Man as real evidence. Painful, even though it's not fair to Thoreau, writing before the lack of evidence for Ossian became apparent.
What I liked most about the book is his clear sense of place, and of the changes in the landscape in recent history. When they took their trip there were canal locks on both rivers, and they locked through. By the time he wrote the book, steamboats and railroads had altered transportation, and the canals were fading away. He reports on historic events, on how various activities had led to little sand deserts developing, with dunes and all. We see a real consciousness of environmental change (the Lowell mills were just getting started, in his day), and a real sense of what it was like to travel the river.
I'll end with a quote that attempts to show how mysterious and exotic the canal boats were, to a young boy in Concord:
"The news spread like wildfire among us youths, when formerly, once in a year or two, one of these boats came up the Concord River, and was seen stealing mysteriously through the meadows and past the village. It came and departed as silently as a cloud, without noise or dust, and was witnessed by few. One summer day this huge traveller might be seen moored at some meadow's wharf, and another summer day it was not there. Where precisely it came from, or who these men were who knew the rocks and soundings better than we who bathed there, we could never tell. We knew some river's bay only, but they took rivers from end to end. They were a sort of fabulous river-men to us. It was inconceivable by what sort of mediation any mere landsman could hold communication with them. Would they heave to, to gratify his wishes? No, it was favor enough to know faintly of their destination, or the time of their possible return. I have seen them in the summer when the stream ran low, mowing the weeds in mid-channel, and with hayers' jests cutting broad swaths in three feet of water, that they might make a passage for their scow, while the grass in long windrows was carried down the stream, undried by the rarest hay-weather. We admired unweariedly how their vessel would float, like a huge chip, sustaining so many casks of lime, and thousands of bricks, and such heaps of iron ore, with wheelbarrows aboard, and that, when we stepped on it, it did not yield to the pressure of our feet. It gave us confidence in the prevalence of the law of buoyancy, and we imagined to what infinite uses it might be put. The men appeared to lead a kind of life on it, and it was whispered that they slept aboard. Some affirmed that it carried sail, and that such winds blew here as filled the sails of vessels on the ocean; which again others much doubted. They had been seen to sail across our Fair Haven bay by lucky fishers who were out, but unfortunately others were not there to see. We might then say that our river was navigable..."
His brother died of tetanus in 1842, which may be part of the reason it took ten years to publish this memorial of their trip. The Introduction by H. Daniel Peck points out that he worked on this book simultaneously with Walden, (it is the book he took to Walden Pond to work on), and that he divided his material into meditations based on travel (this book) and meditations based on being in one place (Walden). He intersperses the prose with poetry, both his own and quotes from others, so that the thing it most reminded me of was Bashō's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, even though that work wasn't available to HDT. He was probably modeling himself on Goethe's travel memoirs.
The book was published after a strong endorsement from Emerson (we understand that he pulled strings), but originally it did not catch on. In fact, HDT records the event of collecting his remainders in his diary:
"For a year or two past, my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" still on hand, and at last suggesting that he had use for the room they occupied in his cellar. So I had them all sent to me here, and they have arrived to-day by express, filling the man's wagon, -- 706 copies out of an edition of 1000 which I bought of Munroe four years ago, and have been ever since paying for, and have not quite paid for yet. The wares are sent to me at last, and I have the opportunity to examine my purchase. They are something more substantial than fame, as my back knows, which has borne them up two flights of stairs to a place similar to that to which they trace their origin. Of the remaining two hundred and ninety and odd, seventy-five were given away, the rest sold. I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. [October 28, 1853]
The good news is that he would be able to unload them once Walden came out, and made him rather famous.
This book has some beautiful writing in it, like "In deep ravines under the eastern sides of cliffs, Night forwardly plants her foot even at noonday, and as Day retreats she steps into his trenches, skulking from tree to tree, from fence to fence, until at last she sits in his citadel and draws out her forces into the plain." It isn't Walden, though. I would say that he saved his better-honed set pieces for that book, and used his more wandering meditations for this one. I'm glad I read it, and intend to go on to his posthumous collections on The Maine Woods and Cape Cod. I was put off by two weaknesses. The first is the "Wednesday" chapter's meditation on Friendship. I found it so periphrastic as to be incoherent. HDT was a prickly character, and some of the reason why is probably showing through here. I suspect we're also getting coded discussion of his sexuality -- whatever it was -- which helps make this obscure. It just ran off the rails for me, and it is many pages in length. Later in the book he does some literary criticism about poets, and this includes long praise for the works of Ossian, and he derives truths of the history of the English language and English poetry from those primitive survivals -- which is a bit hard to read when one knows that Ossian was a forgery by James Macpherson. (Wikipedia suggests there is a "debate" about their authenticity. There is not.) Reading this is like reading a scientific article based on Piltdown Man as real evidence. Painful, even though it's not fair to Thoreau, writing before the lack of evidence for Ossian became apparent.
What I liked most about the book is his clear sense of place, and of the changes in the landscape in recent history. When they took their trip there were canal locks on both rivers, and they locked through. By the time he wrote the book, steamboats and railroads had altered transportation, and the canals were fading away. He reports on historic events, on how various activities had led to little sand deserts developing, with dunes and all. We see a real consciousness of environmental change (the Lowell mills were just getting started, in his day), and a real sense of what it was like to travel the river.
I'll end with a quote that attempts to show how mysterious and exotic the canal boats were, to a young boy in Concord:
"The news spread like wildfire among us youths, when formerly, once in a year or two, one of these boats came up the Concord River, and was seen stealing mysteriously through the meadows and past the village. It came and departed as silently as a cloud, without noise or dust, and was witnessed by few. One summer day this huge traveller might be seen moored at some meadow's wharf, and another summer day it was not there. Where precisely it came from, or who these men were who knew the rocks and soundings better than we who bathed there, we could never tell. We knew some river's bay only, but they took rivers from end to end. They were a sort of fabulous river-men to us. It was inconceivable by what sort of mediation any mere landsman could hold communication with them. Would they heave to, to gratify his wishes? No, it was favor enough to know faintly of their destination, or the time of their possible return. I have seen them in the summer when the stream ran low, mowing the weeds in mid-channel, and with hayers' jests cutting broad swaths in three feet of water, that they might make a passage for their scow, while the grass in long windrows was carried down the stream, undried by the rarest hay-weather. We admired unweariedly how their vessel would float, like a huge chip, sustaining so many casks of lime, and thousands of bricks, and such heaps of iron ore, with wheelbarrows aboard, and that, when we stepped on it, it did not yield to the pressure of our feet. It gave us confidence in the prevalence of the law of buoyancy, and we imagined to what infinite uses it might be put. The men appeared to lead a kind of life on it, and it was whispered that they slept aboard. Some affirmed that it carried sail, and that such winds blew here as filled the sails of vessels on the ocean; which again others much doubted. They had been seen to sail across our Fair Haven bay by lucky fishers who were out, but unfortunately others were not there to see. We might then say that our river was navigable..."
April 9, 2020
Bom livro para ler nesta altura, à semelhança de Walden (livro no qual Thoreau conta a experiência de viver sozinho nos bosques durante 26 meses, numa casa feita pelas suas mãos).
Aqui descreve uma viagem que fez de barco, ao longo de uma semana, nos rios Concord e Merrimack. Mas isso é só o pretexto, o profundo contacto com a natureza, para uma série de reflexões, - quase ensaios - sobre história, política, filosofia e literatura. Apreciador dos clássicos (“There are few books which are fit to be remembered in our wisest hours, but the Iliad is brightest in the serenest days, and embodies all the sunlight that fell on Asia Minor”) a partir dos quais podemos aprender tanto, mostra também a sua veia poética, cruzando-a com outros autores seus contemporâneos.
Aqui descreve uma viagem que fez de barco, ao longo de uma semana, nos rios Concord e Merrimack. Mas isso é só o pretexto, o profundo contacto com a natureza, para uma série de reflexões, - quase ensaios - sobre história, política, filosofia e literatura. Apreciador dos clássicos (“There are few books which are fit to be remembered in our wisest hours, but the Iliad is brightest in the serenest days, and embodies all the sunlight that fell on Asia Minor”) a partir dos quais podemos aprender tanto, mostra também a sua veia poética, cruzando-a com outros autores seus contemporâneos.
January 22, 2022
This is a book to be savored on languid afternoons when when you have decided to indulge in reading and nothing else. The river trip is Thoreau’s excuse to ponder and expound on various topics. His thoughts strike me as both very modern and old fashioned at the same time. The expanse of his learning awed me. I will never read all the books and poems Thoreau has, but I catch a glimpse of them as he pulls the threads of his reading into his thoughts.
January 18, 2022
“ I’ll walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place,
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore,
And gently steer my boat
Where water lilies float,
And cardinal flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowers”
And choose the smoothest place,
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore,
And gently steer my boat
Where water lilies float,
And cardinal flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowers”
January 19, 2009
a wonderfully sloppier, more circular version of Walden
October 26, 2024
DNF - Thankfully, I will never know what happened on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
July 24, 2018
I read this work in another edition - Modern Library published in 1992 which includes Walden and other works.
Henry Thoreau and his brother, John Jr., built a rowboat and floated down the Concord River from Concord, Massachusetts to the Merrimac River and then on down that river and walked to Concord, New Hampshire. Then they returned to navigate (row and sail) back up the rivers to their starting point. This outing is reported over nine chapters such as Concord, Saturday, Sunday, The Inward
Morning and The Poet's Delay. Thoreau describes the voyage with a poet's brush and his commentary digresses onto the subjects of poetry, books, writing, friendship and Chaucer. These digressions sound the high note and laud the classical works of literature, the poetic life, sincere writing and being yourself. I did not find these sermons very persuasive but understand his feelings
considering the paucity of libraries and books in New England at that time. He is quick to adopt a haughty tone toward those not like himself. More enjoyable are the nuggets of prose that Thoreau does so well:
from the Saturday chapter:
"However, as art is all of a ship but the wood,....."
"Perchance he is not confounded by many knowledges,.....",
from the Sunday chapter:
"...the frogs sat meditating, all Sabbath thoughts, summing up their week..." ,
"He comes with a list of ancient Saxon, Norman, and Celtic names, and
strews them up and down this river.......and this in New-Angleland, and
these are the new West Saxons, whom the red men call, not Angle-ish or
English, but Yengeese, and so at last they are known for Yankees." ,
"A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most
part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought;......" ,
"The little that is said is eked out by implication of the much that was
done.",
"Yet, after all, the truly efficient laborer will not crowd his day with
work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease
and leisure, and then do but what he loves best. He is anxious only
about the fruitful kernels of time."
from the Friday chapter:
"....and a solid bank of fog on every side forming a small yard
around us."
from Rumors from an Aeolian Harp:
"The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the
characters of individuals. Out discourse all runs to slander, and our
limits grow narrower as we advance."
From The Poet's Delay:
"We see the comfortable fireside, and hear the crackling fagots in all
the verse." (a put-down of 'fine' poets).
Reading this short work is like taking a long walk along a river with an
engaging naturalist and iconoclast. He is entertaining, enlightening and
such a good writer.
Henry Thoreau and his brother, John Jr., built a rowboat and floated down the Concord River from Concord, Massachusetts to the Merrimac River and then on down that river and walked to Concord, New Hampshire. Then they returned to navigate (row and sail) back up the rivers to their starting point. This outing is reported over nine chapters such as Concord, Saturday, Sunday, The Inward
Morning and The Poet's Delay. Thoreau describes the voyage with a poet's brush and his commentary digresses onto the subjects of poetry, books, writing, friendship and Chaucer. These digressions sound the high note and laud the classical works of literature, the poetic life, sincere writing and being yourself. I did not find these sermons very persuasive but understand his feelings
considering the paucity of libraries and books in New England at that time. He is quick to adopt a haughty tone toward those not like himself. More enjoyable are the nuggets of prose that Thoreau does so well:
from the Saturday chapter:
"However, as art is all of a ship but the wood,....."
"Perchance he is not confounded by many knowledges,.....",
from the Sunday chapter:
"...the frogs sat meditating, all Sabbath thoughts, summing up their week..." ,
"He comes with a list of ancient Saxon, Norman, and Celtic names, and
strews them up and down this river.......and this in New-Angleland, and
these are the new West Saxons, whom the red men call, not Angle-ish or
English, but Yengeese, and so at last they are known for Yankees." ,
"A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most
part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought;......" ,
"The little that is said is eked out by implication of the much that was
done.",
"Yet, after all, the truly efficient laborer will not crowd his day with
work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease
and leisure, and then do but what he loves best. He is anxious only
about the fruitful kernels of time."
from the Friday chapter:
"....and a solid bank of fog on every side forming a small yard
around us."
from Rumors from an Aeolian Harp:
"The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the
characters of individuals. Out discourse all runs to slander, and our
limits grow narrower as we advance."
From The Poet's Delay:
"We see the comfortable fireside, and hear the crackling fagots in all
the verse." (a put-down of 'fine' poets).
Reading this short work is like taking a long walk along a river with an
engaging naturalist and iconoclast. He is entertaining, enlightening and
such a good writer.
Read
July 12, 2026Thoreau really captures the feeling of wandering through your thoughts as you meander along, you notice something that penetrated your thoughts, and then drift off again. This book has a very dreamy quality to it, and the classic Thoreau vibe of oscillating between 'what is this mad man on about?' to some absolute heater one liners.
'The eyes were not made for such groveling used as they are now put to and worn out by, but to behold beauty now invisible.'
'Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring, such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions, — such call I good books.'
'Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailor or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff.'
'If the ligature is found to be loosened in one part, it is only drawn tighter in another.'
'Men reverence one another, not yet God.'
'Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.'
'Away with the superficial and selfish phil-anthropy of men, — who knows what admirable virtue of fishes may be below low-water mark, bearing up against a hard destiny, not admired by that fellow creature who alone can appreciate it! Who hears the fishes when they cry?'
'Almost all the opinions and sentiments expressed were so little considered, so shallow and flimsy, that I thought the very texture of the paper must be weaker in that part and tear the more easily.'
'My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.'
'Three thousand years ago are not agone, They are still lingering in this summer morn...'
Then he goes and says something about Indigenous people and it's like oof you're missing the mark on this one honestly.
'The eyes were not made for such groveling used as they are now put to and worn out by, but to behold beauty now invisible.'
'Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring, such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions, — such call I good books.'
'Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailor or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff.'
'If the ligature is found to be loosened in one part, it is only drawn tighter in another.'
'Men reverence one another, not yet God.'
'Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.'
'Away with the superficial and selfish phil-anthropy of men, — who knows what admirable virtue of fishes may be below low-water mark, bearing up against a hard destiny, not admired by that fellow creature who alone can appreciate it! Who hears the fishes when they cry?'
'Almost all the opinions and sentiments expressed were so little considered, so shallow and flimsy, that I thought the very texture of the paper must be weaker in that part and tear the more easily.'
'My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.'
'Three thousand years ago are not agone, They are still lingering in this summer morn...'
Then he goes and says something about Indigenous people and it's like oof you're missing the mark on this one honestly.
August 8, 2018
"At intervals we were serenaded by the song of a dreaming sparrow or the throttled cry of an owl, but after each sound which near at hand broke the stillness of the night, each crackling of the twigs, or rustling among the leaves, there was a sudden pause, and deeper and more conscious silence, as if the intruder were aware that no life was rightfully abroad at that hour."
This transcendentalist travelogue detailing almost two weeks of travel of the titled New England rivers, to and from Concord Massachusetts, not only contains prose on the natural splendor surrounding Thoreau and his brother during the trip, but also several philosophical meanderings on religion, poetry, New England history, all set against the backdrop of the lamented impact of the Industrial Revolution on the region. If you're considering reading Thoreau you know what you're about to experience and this is some of the most beautiful prose and poetic verse written by an American.
This transcendentalist travelogue detailing almost two weeks of travel of the titled New England rivers, to and from Concord Massachusetts, not only contains prose on the natural splendor surrounding Thoreau and his brother during the trip, but also several philosophical meanderings on religion, poetry, New England history, all set against the backdrop of the lamented impact of the Industrial Revolution on the region. If you're considering reading Thoreau you know what you're about to experience and this is some of the most beautiful prose and poetic verse written by an American.
May 16, 2020
A great pleasure to follow his mind up the river traveling with his brother who is never named or described and to read the immediate story and nature accounts and the offshoot essays in between the other paragraphs. In hindsight very modern. Thoreau has read the great books and poems of literary history but he also finds every one of their words written in almost a parallel script in the nature and people he observes. And there's the practical skill for example one night when he climbs up a mountain and finds his first drink in the small horse print pools of the trail where some water has collected that he sips carefully from thirst and then makes his bed with a discarded door for a blanket.
[this wasn't the edition I read but the one I read isn't listed on goodreads; the book was revised and corrected from its first error prone edition]
[this wasn't the edition I read but the one I read isn't listed on goodreads; the book was revised and corrected from its first error prone edition]
September 19, 2018
This was my first formal exposure to Thoreau, though I was familiar with him before reading this book. Though I had a basic understanding of his main philosophical beliefs, I was just astounded at how deeply and sincerely is was able to communicate them. This book was such that each sentence was its own little book, and I saw so many sentences that I could write a whole essay over alone. This book is in no way easy reading. You have to take it slow and often read passages multiple times, but it is well worth the payoff and intellectual achievement. Thoreau is a genius prose writer and a deeply touched spiritual philosopher. A great experience that went a long way toward advancing my reading abilities.
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