The Portland Transcript reviews Thoreau’s lecture of 15 January:
MR. THOREAU’S LECTURE
The performance of this gentleman, before the Lyceum, was unique. All who heard him lecture here two years ago [21 March 1849] were doubtless prepared for something eccentric and original, and we are quite sure they were not disappointed! His subject might be termed A Ramble upon Cape Cod,—along its wreck strewn shores—across its desert sands, and among its amphibious inhabitants. All the minute peculiarities of these, were presented in the light of a peculiarly quaint and humorous fancy. Mr. Thoreau is a most acute observer, and he has a singularly graphic style of describing what he has seen. he is an observer of nature, animate and inanimate, but he sees everything form a peculiar point of view, all is bathed in the light of a strong imagination. He takes all things by the angles and sets them before you in the most quaint phrase. He reaches out into the immensity of nature, and startles you by bringing dissimilarities together in which for the first time you perceive resemblances. Again he bewilders you in the mists of transcendentalism, delights you with brilliant imagery, shocks you by his apparent irreverence, and sts you in a roar by his sallies of wit, which springs from ambush upon you. He lies in wait for you, and dodges around about, ever and anon thrusting grotesque images before you. You cannot anticipate him. He is the most erratic of travelers. One moment he is in the clouds, and the next eating hen clams by the sea shore, or whittling kelp, that he “may become better acquainted with it.” You have scarce ceased to smile at his last pun, before you are overwhelmed by a great thought or what, by the manner of its clothing, cleverly made to appear such! All this, you feel, is not the result of effort. It is the natural out-pouring of the man. He could not speak otherwise if he would. His style is a part of himself, as much as his voice, manner, and the peculiar look which prepares you for something quaint, and adds its effect far more than words. And it is for this reason that we are now attempting to describe the man instead of reporting his lecture. His voice and manner, which are more than half of what he says, we cannot transfer to paper. He must be heard to be enjoyed. In short he is an original, who follows no beaten path, but has struck out one for himself, full of winding bouts and odd corners; perplexing labyrinths, and commanding prospects; now running over mountain summits, lost in the clouds, and anon descending into quiet vales of beauty, meandering in the deep recesses of nature, and leading—nowhither! To men with imagination enough to enjoy an occasional ramble through the domains of thought, wit and fancy, for the ramble’s sake, he is a delightful companion, but to your slow plodder, who clings to the beaten track as his only salvation, he is incomprehensible—an ignis fatuus, luring honest men into forbidden paths.This was well illustrated by the remarks of the audience at the close of the lecture. We were amused at the various comments made. One worthy man, who has more of the practical than the imaginative in his composition, was demanding with a smile forced from him by the tickling fancies of the lecturer, that the committee should “pay him for the time lost in listening to such trash!” A fair philosopher of sixteen thought he possessed “a vein of satire, but spoke of the clergy with too much levity.” A sober young man declared it the “greatest piece of nonsense he ever listened to,” while another thought it trivial, and even prophane! But then, again, there were other who were infinitely amused with his quaint humor, delighted with his graphic descriptions, and his far-reaching flights of imagination. To them it was “a rich treat.”—Then there were those, as there always are, who were ready to quarrel with the lecture because it did not square with their pre-conceived standard of what a lyceum lecture should be. It was very well as almost anything else than a lecture! “If they had come to listen to a story, they would have been delighted,” but as it was given to them as a lecture, they could not enjoy it! We would advise all such, to rid their minds of rigid rules, and be prepared to receive whatever comes, judging it by what it is, rather than by what it is not.
For ourselves, we were content to receive it for what it was—a most original, quaint, humorous, lifelike and entertaining description of Cape Cod and its inhabitants, and we care not whether it comes under the denomination of lecture, sketch, travels, or fish story! Nor do we think it without instruction. We shall certainly never think of Cape Cod without recalling images of rocky shores, and their ghastly dead, its desert beaches, its masculine women, and its verten wreckers. Cape Cod is no longer blank on our mental map. Its natural features and its inhabitants are pictured there, and we have added so much to our knowledge of “men and things.”
. . .
The merry and well preserved old man they met there, his “good for nothing critter” of a wife, with whom he had lived 64 years, her aged daughter, the boy, and the fool; the old man’s rambling and unceasing talk, the scene at the breakfast table, recalling the laughable one between Johnson and Boswell at the inn; the story of the calm, and the scraps of information thrown scatteringly in,—all these were worth telling could we give them in the tone and manner of the lecturer. But as we cannot, we pause.
