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Transcriber's Note:

  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
  been preserved.  In particular, numerous spelling differences between
  the text and the Appendices were retained.

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Bold text is denoted by =equal
  signs=.

  Page 5, "Moved to Pinkney" is possibly a typo for "Moved to Pinckney".

  Footnote 3: "St. Helier's" should possibly be "St. Helier".

  Page 54, "It is not buried liked" should possibly be "It is not buried
    like".

  Page 235, "12 M." should possibly be "12 P.M."

  The index cross-references to "Melilot," "Mist," "Toad," "Nighthawk,"
  "Nuphar," "Aphorisms," "Earth-songs," "Loring's Pond," don't seem to
  exist.

  The index entry for Pepin Lake is incomplete.




     THE WRITINGS OF
     HENRY DAVID THOREAU

     IN TWENTY VOLUMES

     VOLUME VI




     MANUSCRIPT EDITION
     LIMITED TO SIX HUNDRED COPIES
     NUMBER ----




  [Illustration: _Sabbatia (page 264)_]

  [Illustration: _Thoreau's Boat-landing, Concord River_]




     THE WRITINGS OF
     HENRY DAVID THOREAU

     FAMILIAR LETTERS

     EDITED BY F. B. SANBORN

     ENLARGED EDITION

     BOSTON AND NEW YORK
     HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
     MDCCCCVI




     COPYRIGHT 1865 BY TICKNOR AND FIELDS
     COPYRIGHT 1894 AND 1906 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

     _All rights reserved_




CONTENTS


     INTRODUCTION


     I

     YEARS OF DISCIPLINE

     SKETCH OF THOREAU'S LIFE FROM BIRTH TO TWENTY YEARS             3

     LETTERS TO HIS BROTHER JOHN AND SISTER HELEN                   11

     EARLY FRIENDSHIP AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH EMERSON AND HIS
       FAMILY                                                       34

     STATEN ISLAND AND NEW YORK LETTERS TO THE THOREAUS AND
       EMERSONS                                                     68


     II

     THE GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT

     CORRESPONDENCE WITH C. LANE, J. E. CABOT, EMERSON, AND
       BLAKE                                                       120


     III

     FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS

     THE SHIPWRECK OF MARGARET FULLER                              183

     AN ESSAY ON LOVE AND CHASTITY                                 198

     MORAL EPISTLES TO HARRISON BLAKE OF WORCESTER                 209

     ACQUAINTANCE AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH DANIEL RICKETSON OF
       NEW BEDFORD                                                 237

     EXCURSIONS TO CAPE COD, NEW BEDFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEW
       YORK, AND NEW JERSEY                                        254

     EXCURSIONS TO MONADNOCK AND MINNESOTA                         364

     LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH                                        395

     APPENDIX: LETTERS TO ISAAC HECKER AND CALVIN H. GREENE        403


     GENERAL INDEX TO THOREAU'S WORKS                              417




ILLUSTRATIONS


     SABBATIA _Carbon photograph (page 264)_            _Frontispiece_

     THOREAU'S BOAT-LANDING, CONCORD RIVER             _Colored plate_

     HENRY D. THOREAU, FROM THE RICKETSON MEDALLION
       _(page 263)_                                                  1

     CONCORD BATTLE-GROUND                                          24

     WALDEN WOODS                                                  122

     THE HOSMER HOUSE                                              154

     THOREAU'S BOAT-LANDING, CONCORD RIVER                         236

     FROM THE SUMMIT OF MONADNOCK                                  370




INTRODUCTION


The fortune of Henry Thoreau as an author of books has been peculiar,
and such as to indicate more permanence of his name and fame than
could be predicted of many of his contemporaries. In the years of his
literary activity (twenty-five in all), from 1837 to 1862,--when he
died, not quite forty-five years old,--he published but two volumes,
and those with much delay and difficulty in finding a publisher. But
in the thirty-two years after his death, nine volumes were published
from his manuscripts and fugitive pieces,--the present being the
tenth. Besides these, two biographies of Thoreau had appeared in
America, and two others in England, with numerous reviews and sketches
of the man and his writings,--enough to make several volumes more.
Since 1894 other biographies and other volumes have appeared, and now
his writings in twenty volumes are coming from the press. The sale of
his books and the interest in his life are greater than ever; and he
seems to have grown early into an American classic, like his Concord
neighbors, Emerson and Hawthorne. Pilgrimages are made to his grave
and his daily haunts, as to theirs,--and those who come find it to be
true, as was said by an accomplished woman (Miss Elizabeth Hoar) soon
after his death, that "Concord is Henry's monument, adorned with
suitable inscriptions by his own hand."

When Horace wrote of a noble Roman family,--

     "Crescit occulto velut arbor aevo
     Fama Marcelli,"--

he pointed in felicitous phrase to the only fame that posterity has
much regarded,--the slow-growing, deep-rooted laurel of renown. And
Shakespeare, citing the old English rhyming saw,--

     "Small herbs have grace,
     Great weeds do grow apace,"--

signified the same thing in a parable,--the popularity and suddenness
of transient things, contrasted with the usefully permanent. There
were plenty of authors in Thoreau's time (of whom Willis may be taken
as the type) who would have smiled loftily to think that a rustic from
the Shawsheen and Assabet could compete with the traveled scholar or
elegant versifier who commanded the homage of drawing-rooms and
magazines, for the prize of lasting remembrance; yet who now are
forgotten, or live a shadowy life in the alcoves of libraries, piping
forth an ineffective voice, like the shades in Virgil's Tartarus. But
Thoreau was wiser when he wrote at the end of his poem,
"Inspiration,"--

     "Fame cannot tempt the bard
     Who's famous with his God;
     Nor laurel him reward
     Who has his Maker's nod."

He strove but little for glory, either immediate or posthumous, well
knowing that it is the inevitable and unpursued result of what men do
or say,--

     "Our fatal shadow that walks by us still."

The Letters of Thoreau, though not less remarkable in some aspects
than what he wrote carefully for publication, have thus far scarcely
had justice done them. The selection made for a small volume in 1865
was designedly done to exhibit one phase of his character,--the most
striking, if you will, but not the most native or attractive. "In his
own home," says Ellery Channing, who knew him more inwardly than any
other, "he was one of those characters who may be called 'household
treasures;' always on the spot, with skillful eye and hand, to raise
the best melons in the garden, plant the orchard with choicest trees,
or act as extempore mechanic; fond of the pets, his sister's flowers,
or sacred Tabby; kittens were his favorites,--he would play with them
by the half-hour. No whim or coldness, no absorption of his time by
public or private business, deprived those to whom he belonged of his
kindness and affection. He did the duties that lay nearest, and
satisfied those in his immediate circle; and whatever the impressions
from the theoretical part of his writings, when the matter is probed
to the bottom, good sense and good feeling will be detected in it."
This is preëminently true; and the affectionate conviction of this
made his sister Sophia dissatisfied with Emerson's rule of selection
among the letters. This she confided to me, and this determined me,
should occasion offer, to give the world some day a fuller and more
familiar view of our friend.

For this purpose I have chosen many letters and mere notes,
illustrating his domestic and gossipy moods,--for that element was in
his mixed nature, inherited from the lively maternal side,--and even
the colloquial vulgarity (using the word in the strict sense of
"popular speech") that he sometimes allowed himself. In his last years
he revolted a little at this turn of his thoughts, and, as Channing
relates, "rubbed out the more humorous parts of his essays, originally
a relief to their sterner features, saying, 'I cannot bear the levity
I find;'" to which Channing replied that he ought to spare it, even to
the puns, in which he abounded almost as much as Shakespeare. His
friend was right,--the obvious incongruity was as natural to Thoreau
as the grace and French elegance of his best sentences. In the dozen
letters newly added to this edition, these contrasted qualities hardly
appear so striking as in the longer, earlier ones; but they all
illustrate events of his life or points in his character which are
essential for fully understanding this most original of all American
authors. The present volume is enlarged by some thirty pages, chiefly
by additional letters to Ricketson, and all those to C. H. Greene. The
modesty and self-deprecation in the Michigan correspondence will
attract notice.

I have not rejected the common and trivial in these letters; being
well assured that what the increasing number of Thoreau's readers
desire is to see this piquant original just as he was,--not arrayed in
the paradoxical cloak of the Stoic sage, nor sitting complacent in the
cynic earthenware cave of Diogenes, and bidding Alexander stand out of
his sunshine. He did those acts also; but they were not the whole man.
He was far more poet than cynic or stoic; he had the proud humility of
those sects, but still more largely that unconscious pride which
comes to the poet when he sees that his pursuits are those of the few
and not of the multitude. This perception came early to Thoreau, and
was expressed in some unpublished verses dating from his long,
solitary rambles, by night and day, on the seashore at Staten Island,
where he first learned the sombre magnificence of Ocean. He feigns
himself the son of what might well be one of Homer's fishermen, or the
shipwrecked seaman of Lucretius,--

             "Saevis projectus ab undis
     Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum,"--

and then goes on thus with his parable:--

     "Within a humble cot that looks to sea,
       Daily I breathe this curious warm life;
     Beneath a friendly haven's sheltering lee
       My noiseless day with mystery still is rife.

     "'T is here, they say, my simple life began,--
       And easy credence to the tale I lend,
     For well I know 't is here I am a man,--
       But who will simply tell me of the end?

     "These eyes, fresh-opened, spied the far-off Sea,
       That like a silent godfather did stand,
     Nor uttered one explaining word to me,
       While introducing straight godmother Land.

     "And yonder still stretches that silent Main,
       With many glancing ships besprinkled o'er;
     And earnest still I gaze and gaze again
       Upon the selfsame waves and friendly shore.

     "Infinite work my hands find there to do,
       Gathering the relics which the waves upcast:
     Each storm doth scour the sea for something new,
       And every time the strangest is the last.

     "My neighbors sometimes come with lumbering carts.
       As if they wished my pleasant toil to share;
     But straight they go again to distant marts,
       For only weeds and ballast are their care."

"Only weeds and ballast?" that is exactly what Thoreau's neighbors
would have said he was gathering, for the most of his days; yet now he
is seen to have collected something more durable and precious than
they with their implements and market-carts. If they viewed him with a
kind of scorn and pity, it must be said that he returned the affront;
only time seems to have sided with the poet in the controversy that he
maintained against his busy age.

Superiority,--moral elevation, without peevishness or
condescension,--this was Thoreau's distinguishing quality. He softened
it with humor, and sometimes sharpened it with indignation; but he
directed his satire and his censure as often against himself as
against mankind; men he truly loved,--if they would not obstruct his
humble and strictly chosen path. The letters here printed show this,
if I mistake not,--and the many other epistles of his, still
uncollected, would hardly vary the picture he has sketched of himself,
though they would add new facts. Those most to be sought for are his
replies to the generous letters of his one English correspondent.[1]

The profile portrait reproduced in photogravure for this volume is
less known than it should be,--for it alone of the four likenesses
extant shows the aquiline features as his comrades of the wood and
mountain saw them,--not weakened by any effort to bring him to the
standard of other men in garb or expression. The artist, Mr. Walton
Ricketson, knew and admired him. To him and to his sister Anna I am
indebted for the letters and other material found in their volume
"Daniel Ricketson and His Friends."

     F. B. S.

     CONCORD MASS., March 1, 1906.


FOOTNOTE:

[1] These, written to Thomas Cholmondeley, are still (1906) lacking;
but a few other letters have been published since 1894.




FAMILIAR LETTERS OF THOREAU




  [Illustration: _Henry D. Thoreau, from the Ricketson Medallion_
   (_page 263_)]




I

YEARS OF DISCIPLINE


It was a happy thought of Thoreau's friend Ellery Channing, himself a
poet, to style our Concord hermit the "poet-naturalist;" for there
seemed to be no year of his life and no hour of his day when Nature
did not whisper some secret in his ear,--so intimate was he with her
from childhood. In another connection, speaking of natural beauty,
Channing said, "There is Thoreau,--he knows about it; give him
sunshine and a handful of nuts, and he has enough." He was also a
naturalist in the more customary sense,--one who studied and arranged
methodically in his mind the facts of outward nature; a good botanist
and ornithologist, a wise student of insects and fishes; an observer
of the winds, the clouds, the seasons, and all that goes to make up
what we call "weather" and "climate." Yet he was in heart a poet, and
held all the accumulated knowledge of more than forty years not so
much for use as for delight. As Gray's poor friend West said of
himself, "like a clear-flowing stream, he reflected the beauteous
prospect around;" and Mother Nature had given Thoreau for his prospect
the meandering Indian river of Concord, the woodland pastures and fair
lakes by which he dwelt or rambled most of his life. Born in the East
Quarter of Concord, July 12, 1817, he died in the village, May 6,
1862; he was there fitted for Harvard College, which he entered in
1833, graduating in 1837; and for the rest of his life was hardly away
from the town for more than a year in all. Consequently his letters to
his family are few, for he was usually among them; but when separated
from his elder brother John, or his sisters Helen and Sophia, he wrote
to them, and these are the earliest of his letters which have been
preserved. Always thoughtful for others, he has left a few facts to
aid his biographer, respecting his birth and early years. In his
Journal of December 27, 1855, he wrote:--

"Recalled this evening, with the aid of Mother, the various houses
(and towns) in which I have lived, and some events of my life. Born
... in the Minott house on the Virginia Road, where Father occupied
Grandmother's 'thirds,' carrying on the farm. The Catherines [had] the
other half of the house,--Bob Catherine and [brother] John threw up
the turkeys. Lived there about eight months; Si Merriam the next
neighbor. Uncle David [Dunbar] died when I was six weeks old.[2] I was
baptized in the old meeting-house, by Dr. Ripley, when I was three
months, and did not cry. [In] the Red House, where Grandmother lived,
we [had] the west side till October, 1818,--hiring of Josiah Davis,
agent for the Woodwards; there were Cousin Charles and Uncle Charles
[Dunbar], more or less. According to the day-book first used by
Grandfather [Thoreau],[3] dated 1797 (his part cut out and [then] used
by Father in Concord in 1808-9, and in Chelmsford in 1818-21), Father
hired of Proctor [in Chelmsford], and shop of Spaulding. Chelmsford
till March, 1821; last charge in Chelmsford about middle of March,
1821. Aunt Sarah taught me to walk there, when fourteen months old.
Lived next the meeting-house, where they kept the powder in the
garret. Father kept shop and painted signs, etc.

"Pope's house, at South End in Boston (a ten-footer) five or six
months,--moved from Chelmsford through Concord, and may have tarried
in Concord a little while.

"Day-book says, 'Moved to Pinkney Street [Boston], September 10, 1821,
on Monday;' Whitwell's house, Pinckney Street, to March, 1823; brick
house, Concord, to spring of 1826; Davis house (next to Samuel Hoar's)
to May 7, 1827; Shattuck house (now Wm. Munroe's) to spring of 1835;
Hollis Hall, Cambridge, 1833; Aunts' house to spring of 1837. [This
was what is now the inn called 'Thoreau House.'] At Brownson's
[Canton] while teaching in winter of 1835. Went to New York with
Father peddling in 1836."

This brings the date down to the year in which Henry Thoreau left
college, and when the family letters begin. The notes continue, and
now begin to have a literary value.

"Parkman house to fall of 1844; was graduated in 1837; kept town
school a fortnight in 1837; began the big Red Journal, October, 1837;
found my first arrowheads, fall of 1837; wrote a lecture (my first) on
Society, March 14, 1838, and read it before the Lyceum, in the Masons'
Hall, April 11, 1838; went to Maine for a school in May, 1838;
commenced school [in the Parkman house[4]] in the summer of 1838;
wrote an essay on 'Sound and Silence' December, 1838; fall of 1839 up
the Merrimack to White Mountains; 'Aulus Persius Flaccus' (first
printed paper of consequence), February 10, 1840; the Red Journal of
546 pages ended June, 1840; Journal of 396 pages ended January 31,
1841.

"Went to R. W. Emerson's in spring of 1841 [about April 25], and
stayed there to summer of 1843; went to [William Emerson's], Staten
Island, May, 1843, and returned in December, or to Thanksgiving, 1843;
made pencils in 1844; Texas house to August 29, 1850; at Walden,
July, 1845, to fall of 1847; then at R. W. Emerson's to fall of 1848,
or while he was in Europe; Yellow House (reformed) till the present."

As may be inferred from this simple record of the many mansions,
chiefly small ones, in which he had spent his first thirty-eight
years, there was nothing distinguished in the fortunes of Thoreau's
family, who were small merchants, artisans, or farmers mostly. On the
father's side they were from the isle of Jersey, where a French strain
mingled with his English or Scandinavian blood; on the other side he
was of Scotch and English descent, counting Jones, Dunbar, and Burns
among his feminine ancestors. Liveliness and humor came to him from
his Scotch connection; from father and grandfather he inherited a
grave steadiness of mind rather at variance with his mother's
vivacity. Manual dexterity was also inherited; so that he practiced
the simpler mechanic arts with ease and skill; his mathematical
training and his outdoor habits fitted him for a land-surveyor; and by
that art, as well as by pencil-making, lecturing, and writing, he paid
his way in the world, and left a small income from his writings to
those who survived him. He taught pupils also, as did his brother and
sisters; but it was not an occupation that he long followed after
John's death in 1842. With these introductory statements we may
proceed to Thoreau's first correspondence with his brother and
sisters.

As an introduction to the correspondence, and a key to the young man's
view of life, a passage may be taken from Thoreau's "part" at his
college commencement, August 16, 1837. He was one of two to hold what
was called a "Conference" on "The Commercial Spirit,"--his alternative
or opponent in the dispute being Henry Vose, also of Concord, who, in
later years, was a Massachusetts judge. Henry Thoreau,[5] then just
twenty, said:--

"The characteristic of our epoch is perfect freedom,--freedom of
thought and action. The indignant Greek, the oppressed Pole, the
jealous American assert it. The skeptic no less than the believer, the
heretic no less than the faithful child of the church, have begun to
enjoy it. It has generated an unusual degree of energy and activity;
it has generated the _commercial spirit_. Man thinks faster and freer
than ever before. He, moreover, moves faster and freer. He is more
restless, because he is more independent than ever. The winds and the
waves are not enough for him; he must needs ransack the bowels of the
earth, that he may make for himself a highway of iron over its
surface.

"Indeed, could one examine this beehive of ours from an observatory
among the stars, he would perceive an unwonted degree of bustle in
these later ages. There would be hammering and chipping in one
quarter; baking and brewing, buying and selling, money-changing and
speechmaking in another. What impression would he receive from so
general and impartial a survey. Would it appear to him that mankind
used this world as not abusing it? Doubtless he would first be struck
with the profuse beauty of our orb; he would never tire of admiring
its varied zones and seasons, with their changes of living. He could
not but notice that restless animal for whose sake it was contrived;
but where he found one man to admire with him his fair dwelling-place,
the ninety and nine would be scraping together a little of the gilded
dust upon its surface.... We are to look chiefly for the origin of the
commercial spirit, and the power that still cherishes and sustains it,
in a blind and unmanly love of wealth. Wherever this exists, it is too
sure to become the ruling spirit; and, as a natural consequence, it
infuses into all our thoughts and affections a degree of its own
selfishness; we become selfish in our patriotism, selfish in our
domestic relations, selfish in our religion.

"Let men, true to their natures, cultivate the moral affections, lead
manly and independent lives; let them make riches the means and not
the end of existence, and we shall hear no more of the commercial
spirit. The sea will not stagnate, the earth will be as green as ever,
and the air as pure. This curious world which we inhabit is more
wonderful than it is convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it
is more to be admired and enjoyed than used. The order of things
should be somewhat reversed; the seventh should be man's day of toil,
wherein to earn his living by the sweat of his brow; and the other six
his Sabbath of the affections and the soul,--in which to range this
widespread garden, and drink in the soft influences and sublime
revelations of Nature.... The spirit we are considering is not
altogether and without exception bad. We rejoice in it as one more
indication of the entire and universal freedom that characterizes the
age in which we live,--as an indication that the human race is making
one more advance in that infinite series of progressions which awaits
it. We glory in those very excesses which are a source of anxiety to
the wise and good; as an evidence that man will not always be the
slave of matter,--but ere long, casting off those earth-born desires
which identify him with the brute, shall pass the days of his sojourn
in this his nether paradise, as becomes the Lord of Creation."[6]

This passage is noteworthy as showing how early the philosophic mind
was developed in Thoreau, and how much his thought and expression were
influenced by Emerson's first book,--"Nature." But the soil in which
that germinating seed fell was naturally prepared to receive it; and
the wide diversity between the master and the disciple soon began to
appear. In 1863, reviewing Thoreau's work, Emerson said, "That oaken
strength which I noted whenever he walked or worked, or surveyed
wood-lots,--the same unhesitating hand with which a field-laborer
accosts a piece of work which I should shun as a waste of strength,
Henry shows in his literary task. He has muscle, and ventures on and
performs feats which I am forced to decline. In reading him I find the
same thoughts, the same spirit that is in me; but he takes a step
beyond, and illustrates by excellent images that which I should have
conveyed in a sleepy generalization." True as this is, it omits one
point of difference only too well known to Emerson,--the controversial
turn of Thoreau's mind, in which he was so unlike Emerson and Alcott,
and which must have given to his youthful utterances in company the
air of something requiring an apology.

This, at all events, seems to have been the feeling of Helen
Thoreau,[7] whose pride in her brother was such that she did not wish
to see him misunderstood. A pleasing indication of both these traits
is seen in the first extant letter of Thoreau to this sister. I have
this in an autograph copy made by Mr. Emerson, when he was preparing
the letters for partial publication, soon after Henry's death. For
some reason he did not insert it in his volume; but it quite deserves
to be printed, as indicating the period when it was clear to Thoreau
that he must think for himself, whatever those around him might think.


TO HELEN THOREAU (AT TAUNTON).

     CONCORD, October 27, 1837.

DEAR HELEN,--Please you, let the defendant say a few words in defense
of his long silence. You know we have hardly done our own deeds,
thought our own thoughts, or lived our own lives hitherto. For a man
to act himself, he must be perfectly free; otherwise he is in danger
of losing all sense of responsibility or of self-respect. Now when
such a state of things exists, that the sacred opinions one advances
in argument are apologized for by his friends, before his face, lest
his hearers receive a wrong impression of the man,--when such gross
injustice is of frequent occurrence, where shall we look, and not look
in vain, for men, deeds, thoughts? As well apologize for the grape
that it is sour, or the thunder that it is noisy, or the lightning
that it tarries not.

Further, letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of
facts, and not of truths; of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.
What are the convulsions of a planet, compared with the emotions of
the soul? or the rising of a thousand suns, if that is not enlightened
by a ray?

     Your affectionate brother,
     HENRY.

It is presumed the tender sister did not need a second lesson; and
equally that Henry did not see fit always to write such letters as he
praised above,--for he was quite ready to give his correspondents
facts, no less than thoughts, especially in his family letters.

Next to this epistle, chronologically, comes one in the conventional
dialect of the American Indian, as handed down by travelers and
romancers, by Jefferson, Chateaubriand, Lewis, Clarke, and Fenimore
Cooper. John Thoreau, Henry's brother, was born in 1815 and died
January 11, 1842. He was teaching at Taunton in 1837.


TO JOHN THOREAU (AT TAUNTON).

(Written as from one Indian to another.)

MUSKETAQUID, 202 Summers, two Moons, eleven Suns, since the coming of
the Pale Faces.

(November 11, 1837.)

TAHATAWAN, Sachimaussan, to his brother sachem, Hopeful of
Hopewell,--hoping that he is well:--

Brother: It is many suns that I have not seen the print of thy
moccasins by our council-fire; the Great Spirit has blown more leaves
from the trees, and many clouds from the land of snows have visited
our lodge; the earth has become hard, like a frozen buffalo-skin, so
that the trampling of many herds is like the Great Spirit's thunder;
the grass on the great fields is like the old man of many winters, and
the small song sparrow prepares for his flight to the land whence the
summer comes.

Brother: I write these things because I know that thou lovest the
Great Spirit's creatures, and wast wont to sit at thy lodge-door, when
the maize was green, to hear the bluebird's song. So shalt thou, in
the land of spirits, not only find good hunting-grounds and sharp
arrowheads, but much music of birds.

Brother: I have been thinking how the Pale-Faces have taken away our
lands,--and was a woman. You are fortunate to have pitched your wigwam
nearer to the great salt lake, where the Pale-Face can never plant
corn.

Brother: I need not tell thee how we hunted on the lands of the
Dundees,--a great war-chief never forgets the bitter taunts of his
enemies. Our young men called for strong water; they painted their
faces and dug up the hatchet. But their enemies, the Dundees, were
women; they hastened to cover their hatchets with wampum. Our braves
are not many; our enemies took a few strings from the heap their
fathers left them, and our hatchets are buried. But not Tahatawan's;
his heart is of rock when the Dundees sing,--his hatchet cuts deep
into the Dundee braves.

Brother: There is dust on my moccasins; I have journeyed to the White
Lake, in the country of the Ninares.[8] The Long-Knife has been
there,--like a woman I paddled his war-canoe. But the spirits of my
fathers were angered; the waters were ruffled, and the Bad Spirit
troubled the air.

The hearts of the Lee-vites are gladdened; the young Peacock has
returned to his lodge at Naushawtuck. He is the Medicine of his tribe,
but his heart is like the dry leaves when the whirlwind breathes. He
has come to help choose new chiefs for the tribe, in the great
council-house, when two suns are past.--There is no seat for Tahatawan
in the council-house. He lets the squaws talk,--his voice is heard
above the war-whoop of his tribe, piercing the hearts of his foes; his
legs are stiff, he cannot sit.

Brother: Art thou waiting for the spring, that the geese may fly low
over thy wigwam? Thy arrows are sharp, thy bow is strong. Has Anawan
killed all the eagles? The crows fear not the winter. Tahatawan's eyes
are sharp,--he can track a snake in the grass, he knows a friend from
a foe; he welcomes a friend to his lodge though the ravens croak.

Brother: Hast thou studied much in the medicine-books of the
Pale-Faces? Dost thou understand the long talk of the Medicine whose
words are like the music of the mockingbird? But our chiefs have not
ears to hear him; they listen like squaws to the council of old
men,--they understand not his words. But, Brother, he never danced the
war-dance, nor heard the war-whoop of his enemies. He was a squaw; he
stayed by the wigwam when the braves were out, and tended the tame
buffaloes.

Fear not; the Dundees have faint hearts and much wampum. When the
grass is green on the Great Fields, and the small titmouse returns
again, we will hunt the buffalo together.

Our old men say they will send the young chief of the Karlisles, who
lives in the green wigwam and is a great Medicine, that his word may
be heard in the long talk which the wise men are going to hold at
Shawmut, by the salt lake. He is a great talk, and will not forget the
enemies of his tribe.

14th Sun. The fire has gone out in the council-house. The words of our
old men have been like the vaunts of the Dundees. The Eagle-Beak was
moved to talk like a silly Pale-Face, and not as becomes a great
war-chief in a council of braves. The young Peacock is a woman among
braves; he heard not the words of the old men,--like a squaw he looked
at his medicine-paper.[9] The young chief of the green wigwam has
hung up his moccasins; he will not leave his tribe till after the
buffalo have come down on to the plains.

Brother: This is a long talk, but there is much meaning to my words;
they are not like the thunder of canes when the lightning smites them.
Brother, I have just heard _thy talk_ and am well pleased; thou art
getting to be a great Medicine. The Great Spirit confound the enemies
of thy tribe.

     TAHATAWAN.

     His mark [a bow and arrow].

This singular letter was addressed to John Thoreau at Taunton, and was
so carefully preserved in the family that it must have had value in
their eyes, as recalling traits of the two Thoreau brothers, and also
events in the village life of Concord, more interesting to the young
people of 1837 than to the present generation. Some of its parables
are easy to read, others quite obscure. The annual State election was
an important event to Henry Thoreau then,--more so than it afterwards
appeared; and he was certainly on the Whig side in politics, like most
of the educated youths of Concord. His "young chief of the Karlisles"
was Albert Nelson, son of a Carlisle physician, who began to practice
law in Concord in 1836, and was afterwards chief justice of the
Superior Court of the County of Suffolk. He was defeated at the
election of 1837, as a Whig candidate for the legislature, by a
Democrat. Henry Vose, above named, writing from "Butternuts," in New
York, three hundred miles west of Concord, October 22, 1837, said to
Thoreau: "You envy my happy situation, and mourn over your fate, which
condemns you to loiter about Concord and grub among clamshells [for
Indian relics]. If this were your only source of enjoyment while in
Concord,--but I know that it is not. I well remember that 'antique and
fish-like' office of _Major_ Nelson (to whom, and to Mr. Dennis, and
Bemis, and John Thoreau, I wish to be remembered); and still more
vividly do I remember the fairer portion of the community in C." This
indicates a social habit in Henry and John Thoreau, which the Indian
"talk" also implies. Tahatawan, whom Henry here impersonated, was the
mythical Sachem of Musketaquid (the Algonquin name for Concord River
and region), whose fishing and hunting lodge was on the hill
Naushawtuck, between the two rivers so much navigated by the Thoreaus.
In 1837 the two brothers were sportsmen, and went shooting over the
Concord meadows and moors, but of course the "buffalo" was a figure of
speech; they never shot anything larger than a raccoon. A few years
later they gave up killing the game.


TO JOHN THOREAU (AT TAUNTON).

     CONCORD, February 10, 1838.

DEAR JOHN,--Dost expect to elicit a spark from so dull a steel as
myself, by that flinty subject of thine? Truly, one of your copper
percussion caps would have fitted this nail-head better.

Unfortunately, the "Americana"[10] has hardly two words on the
subject. The process is very simple. The stone is struck with a mallet
so as to produce pieces sharp at one end, and blunt at the other.
These are laid upon a steel line (probably a chisel's edge), and again
struck with the mallet, and flints of the required size are broken
off. A skillful workman may make a thousand in a day.

So much for the "Americana." Dr. Jacob Bigelow in his "Technology,"
says, "Gunflints are formed by a skillful workman, who breaks them out
with a hammer, a roller, and steel chisel, with small, repeated
strokes."

Your ornithological commission shall be executed. When are you coming
home?

     Your affectionate brother,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


TO JOHN THOREAU (AT TAUNTON).

     CONCORD, March 17, 1838.

DEAR JOHN,--Your box of relics came safe to hand, but was speedily
deposited on the carpet, I assure you. What could it be? Some
declared it must be Taunton herrings: "Just nose it, sir!" So down we
went on to our knees, and commenced smelling in good earnest,--now
horizontally from this corner to that, now perpendicularly from the
carpet up, now diagonally,--and finally with a sweeping movement
describing the circumference. But it availed not. Taunton herring
would not be smelled. So we e'en proceeded to open it _vi et chisel_.
What an array of nails! Four nails make a quarter, four quarters a
yard,--i' faith, this is n't cloth measure! Blaze away, old boy! Clap
in another wedge, then! There, softly! she begins to gape. Just give
that old stickler, with a black hat on, another hoist. Aye, we'll pare
his nails for him! Well done, old fellow, there's a breathing-hole for
you. "Drive it in!" cries one; "Nip it off!" cries another. Be easy, I
say. What's done may be undone. Your richest veins don't lie nearest
the surface. Suppose we sit down and enjoy the prospect, for who knows
but we may be disappointed? When they opened Pandora's box, all the
contents escaped except Hope, but in this case hope is uppermost, and
will be the first to escape when the box is opened. However, the
general voice was for kicking the coverlid off.

The relics have been arranged numerically on a table. When shall we
set up housekeeping? Miss Ward thanks you for her share of the spoils;
also accept many thanks from your humble servant "for yourself."

I have a proposal to make. Suppose by the time you are released we
should start in company for the West, and there either establish a
school jointly, or procure ourselves separate situations. Suppose,
moreover, you should get ready to start previous to leaving Taunton,
to save time. Go _I_ must, at all events. Dr. Jarvis enumerates nearly
a dozen schools which I could have,--all such as would suit you
equally well.[11] I wish you would write soon about this. It is high
season to start. The canals are now open, and traveling comparatively
cheap. I think I can borrow the cash in this town. There's nothing
like trying.

Brigham wrote you a few words on the 8th, which father took the
liberty to read, with the advice and consent of the family. He wishes
you to send him those [numbers] of the "Library of Health" received
since 1838, if you are in Concord; otherwise, he says you need not
trouble yourself about it at present. He is in C., and enjoying better
health than usual. But one number, and that you have, has been
received.

The bluebirds made their appearance the 14th day of March; robins and
pigeons have also been seen. Mr. Emerson has put up the bluebird-box
in due form. All send their love.

     From your aff. br.
     H. D. THOREAU.

[Postscript by Helen Thoreau.]

DEAR JOHN,--Will you have the kindness to inquire at Mr. Marston's for
an old singing-book I left there,--the "Handel and Haydn Collection,"
without a cover? Have you ever got those red handkerchiefs? Much love
to the Marstons, Crockers, and Muenschers. Mr. Josiah Davis has
failed. Mr. and Mrs. Howe have both written again, urging my going to
Roxbury; which I suppose I shall do. What day of the month shall you
return?

     HELEN.

One remark in this letter calls for attention,--that concerning the
"bluebird-box" for Mr. Emerson. In 1853 Emerson wrote in his journal:
"Long ago I wrote of Gifts, and neglected a capital example. John
Thoreau, Jr., one day put a bluebird's box on my barn,--fifteen years
ago it must be,--and there it still is, with every summer a melodious
family in it, adorning the place and singing his praises. There's a
gift for you,--which cost the giver no money, but nothing which he
bought could have been so good. I think of another, quite inestimable.
John Thoreau knew how much I should value a head of little Waldo, then
five years old. He came to me and offered to take him to a
daguerreotypist who was then in town, and he (Thoreau) would see it
well done. He did it, and brought me the daguerre, which I thankfully
paid for. A few months after, my boy died; and I have since to thank
John Thoreau for that wise and gentle piece of friendship."

Little Waldo Emerson died January 27, 1842, and John Thoreau the same
month; so that this taking of the portrait must have been but a few
months before his own death, January 11. Henry Thoreau was then living
in the Emerson family.


TO JOHN THOREAU (AT WEST ROXBURY).

     CONCORD, July 8, 1838.

DEAR JOHN,--We heard from Helen to-day, and she informs us that you
are coming home by the first of August. Now I wish you to write and
let me know exactly when your vacation takes place, that I may take
one at the same time. I am in school from 8 to 12 in the morning, and
from 2 to 4 in the afternoon. After that I read a little Greek or
English, or, for variety, take a stroll in the fields. We have not had
such a year for berries this long time,--the earth is actually blue
with them. High blueberries, three kinds of low, thimble- and
raspberries constitute my diet at present. (Take notice,--I only diet
between meals.) Among my deeds of charity, I may reckon the picking of
a cherry tree for two helpless single ladies, who live under the hill;
but i' faith, it was robbing Peter to pay Paul,--for while I was
exalted in charity towards them, I had no mercy on my own stomach. Be
advised, my love for currants continues.

The only addition that I have made to my stock of ornithological
information is in the shape not of a _Fring. melod._,--but surely a
melodious Fringilla,--the _F. juncorum_, or rush-sparrow. I had long
known him by note, but never by name.

Report says that Elijah Stearns is going to take the town school. I
have four scholars, and one more engaged. Mr. Fenner left town
yesterday. Among occurrences of ill omen may be mentioned the falling
out and cracking of the inscription stone of Concord Monument.[12]
Mrs. Lowell and children are at Aunts'. Peabody [a college classmate]
walked up last Wednesday, spent the night, and took a stroll in the
woods.

Sophia says I must leave off and pen a few lines for her to Helen: so
good-by. Love from all, and among them your aff. brother,

     H. D. T.

The school above mentioned as begun by Henry Thoreau in this summer of
1838 was joined in by John, after finishing his teaching at West
Roxbury, and was continued for several years. It was in this school
that Louisa Alcott and her sister received some instruction, after
their father removed from Boston to Concord, in the spring of 1840. It
was opened in the Parkman house, where the family then lived, and soon
after was transferred to the building of the Concord Academy,[13] not
far off. John Thoreau taught the English branches and mathematics;
Henry taught Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics,--and it was
the custom of both brothers to go walking with their pupils one
afternoon each week. It is as a professional schoolmaster that Henry
thus writes to his sister Helen, then teaching at Roxbury, after a
like experience in Taunton.

  [Illustration: _Concord Battle-Ground_]


TO HELEN THOREAU (AT ROXBURY).

     CONCORD, October 6, 1838.

DEAR HELEN,--I dropped Sophia's letter into the box immediately on
taking yours out, else the tone of the former had been changed.

I have no acquaintance with "Cleaveland's First Lessons," though I
have peeped into his abridged grammar, which I should think very well
calculated for beginners,--at least for such as would be likely to
wear out one book before they would be prepared for the abstruser
parts of grammar. Ahem!

As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes
the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own
language; so that with us of the vowels only A has a peculiar sound.
In the end of a word of more than one syllable it is sounded like
"ah," as _pennah_, _Lydiah_, _Hannah_, etc., without regard to case;
but "_da_" is never sounded "_dah_," because it is a monosyllable. All
terminations in _es_, and plural cases in _os_, as you know, are
pronounced long,--as _homines_ (hominese), _dominos_ (dominose), or,
in English, _Johnny Vose_. For information, see Adams' "Latin
Grammar," before the Rudiments.

This is all law and gospel in the eyes of the world; but remember I am
speaking, as it were, in the third person, and should sing quite a
different tune if it were I that had made the quire. However, one must
occasionally hang his harp on the willows, and play on the Jew's harp,
in such a strange country as this.

One of your young ladies wishes to study mental philosophy, hey?
Well, tell her that she has the very best text-book that I know of in
her possession already. If she do not believe it, then she should have
bespoken another better in another world, and not have expected to
find one at "Little & Wilkins." But if she wishes to know how poor an
apology for a mental philosophy men have tacked together,
synthetically or analytically, in these latter days,--how they have
squeezed the infinite mind into a compass that would not nonplus a
surveyor of Eastern Lands--making Imagination and Memory to lie still
in their respective apartments like ink-stand and wafers in a lady's
escritoire,--why let her read Locke, or Stewart, or Brown. The fact
is, mental philosophy is very like Poverty, which, you know, begins at
home; and indeed, when it goes abroad, it is poverty itself.

_Chorus._ I should think an abridgment of one of the above authors, or
of Ambercrombie, would answer her purpose. It may set her a-thinking.
Probably there are many systems in the market of which I am ignorant.

As for themes, say first "Miscellaneous Thoughts." Set one up to a
window, to note what passes in the street, and make her comments
thereon; or let her gaze in the fire, or into a corner where there is
a spider's web, and philosophize, moralize, theorize, or what not.
What their hands find to putter about, or their minds to think about,
that let them write about. To say nothing of advantage or disadvantage
of this, that, or the other, let them set down their ideas at any
given season, preserving the chain of thought as complete as may be.

This is the style pedagogical. I am much obliged to you for your piece
of information. Knowing your dislike to a sentimental letter, I remain

     Your affectionate brother,
     H. D. T.

The next letter to Helen carries this pedagogical style a little
farther, for it is in Latin, addressed "Ad Helenam L. Thoreau,
Roxbury, Mass.," and postmarked "Concord, Jan. 25" (1840).


TO HELEN THOREAU (AT ROXBURY).

     CONCORDIAE, Dec. Kal. Feb. A. D. MDCCCXL.

CARA SOROR,--Est magnus acervus nivis ad limina, et frigus
intolerabile intus. Coelum ipsum ruit, credo, et terram operit. Sero
stratum linquo et mature repeto; in fenestris multa pruina prospectum
absumit; et hic miser scribo, non currente calamo, nam digiti
mentesque torpescunt. Canerem cum Horatio, si vox non faucibus
haeserit,--

     Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
     Nawshawtuct, nec jam sustineant onus
       Silvae laborantes, geluque
       Flumina constiterint acuto?

     Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco
     Large reponens, etc.

Sed olim, Musa mutata, et laetiore plectro,

     Neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus, aut arator igne,
             Nec prata canis albicant pruinis;
     Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus imminente luna.

Quam turdus ferrugineus ver reduxerit, tu, spero, linques curas
scholasticas, et, negotio religato, desipere in loco audebis; aut
mecum inter sylvas, aut super scopulos Pulchri-Portus, aut in cymba
super lacum Waldensem, mulcens fluctus manu, aut speciem miratus sub
undas.

Bulwerius est mihi nomen incognitum,--unus ex ignobile vulgo, nec
refutandus nec laudandus. Certe alicui nonnullam honorem habeo qui
insanabili cacoethe scribendi teneatur.

Specie flagrantis Lexingtonis non somnia deturbat? At non Vulcanum
Neptunumque culpemus, cum superstitioso grege. Natura curat
animalculis aeque ac hominibus; cum serena, tum procellosa, amica est.

Si amas historiam et fortia facta heroum, non depone Rollin, precor;
ne Clio offendas nunc, nec illa det veniam olim. Quos libros Latinos
legis? legis, inquam, non studes. Beatus qui potest suos libellos
tractare, et saepe perlegere, sine metu domini urgentis! ab otio
injurioso procul est: suos amicos et vocare et dimittere quandocunque
velit, potest. Bonus liber opus nobilissimum hominis. Hinc ratio non
modo cur legeres, sed cur tu quoque scriberes; nec lectores carent;
ego sum. Si non librum meditaris, libellum certe. Nihil posteris
proderit te spirasse, et vitam nunc leniter nunc aspere egisse; sed
cogitasse praecipue et scripsisse. Vereor ne tibi pertaesum hujus
epistolae sit; necnon alma lux caret,

     Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.

Quamobrem vale,--imo valete, et requiescatis placide, Sorores.

     H. D. THOREAUS.

Memento scribere!

CARA SOPHIA,--Samuel Niger crebris aegrotationibus, quae agilitatem et
aequum animum abstulere, obnoxius est; iis temporibus ad cellam
descendit, et multas horas (ibi) manet.

Flores, ah crudelis pruina! parvo leti discrimine sunt. Cactus frigore
ustus est, gerania vero adhuc vigent.

Conventus sociabiles hac hieme reinstituti fuere. Conveniunt (?) ad
meum domum mense quarto vel quinto, ut tu hic esse possis. Matertera
Sophia cum nobis remanet; quando urbem revertet non scio. Gravedine
etiamnum, sed non tam aegre, laboramus.

Adolescentula E. White apud pagum paulisper moratur. Memento scribere
intra duas hebdomedas.

Te valere desiderium est

     Tui Matris,
     C. THOREAUS.

P. S. Epistolam die solis proxima expectamus. (Amanuense, H. D. T.)

Barring a few slips, this is a good and lively piece of Latin, and
noticeable for its thought as well as its learning and humor. The
poets were evidently his favorites among Latin authors. Shall we
attempt a free translation, such as Thoreau would give?


VERNACULAR VERSION.

     CONCORD, January 23, 1840.

DEAR SISTER,--There is a huge snow-drift at the door, and the cold
inside is intolerable. The very sky is coming down, I guess, and
covering up the ground. I turn out late in the morning, and go to bed
early; there is thick frost on the windows, shutting out the view; and
here I write in pain, for fingers and brains are numb. I would chant
with Horace, if my voice did not stick in my throat,--

     See how Naushawtuct, deep in snow,
     Stands glittering, while the bending woods
     Scarce bear their burden, and the floods
     Feel arctic winter stay their flow.

     Pile on the firewood, melt the cold,
     Spare nothing, etc.

But soon, changing my tune, and with a cheerfuller note, I'll say,--

     No longer the flock huddles up in the stall, the plowman bends
       over the fire,
     No longer frost whitens the meadow;
     But the goddess of love, while the moon shines above,
     Sets us dancing in light and in shadow.

When Robin Redbreast brings back the springtime, I trust that you will
lay your school duties aside, cast off care, and venture to be gay now
and then; roaming with me in the woods, or climbing the Fair Haven
cliffs,--or else, in my boat on Walden, let the water kiss your hand,
or gaze at your image in the wave.

Bulwer is to me a name unknown,--one of the unnoticed crowd,
attracting neither blame nor praise. To be sure, I hold any one in
some esteem who is helpless in the grasp of the writing demon.

Does not the image of the Lexington afire trouble your dreams?[14] But
we may not, like the superstitious mob, blame Vulcan or
Neptune,--neither fire nor water was in fault. Nature takes as much
care for midgets as for mankind; she is our friend in storm and in
calm.

If you like history, and the exploits of the brave, don't give up
Rollin, I beg; thus would you displease Clio, who might not forgive
you hereafter. What Latin are you reading? I mean _reading_, not
studying. Blessed is the man who can have his library at hand, and oft
peruse the books, without the fear of a taskmaster! he is far enough
from harmful idleness, who can call in and dismiss these friends when
he pleases. An honest book's the noblest work of man. There's a
reason, now, not only for your reading, but for writing something,
too. You will not lack readers,--here am I, for one. If you cannot
compose a volume, then try a tract. It will do the world no good,
hereafter, if you merely exist, and pass life smoothly or roughly; but
to have thoughts, and write them down, that helps greatly.

I fear you will tire of this epistle; the light of day is dwindling,
too,--

     And longer fall the shadows of the hills.

Therefore, good-by; fare ye well, and sleep in quiet, both my sisters!
Don't forget to write.

     H. D. THOREAU.


POSTSCRIPT. (BY MRS. THOREAU.)

DEAR SOPHIA,--Sam Black [the cat] is liable to frequent attacks that
impair his agility and good-nature; at such times he goes down cellar,
and stays many hours. Your flowers--O, the cruel frost!--are all but
dead; the cactus is withered by cold, but the geraniums yet flourish.
The Sewing Circle has been revived this winter; they meet at our house
in April or May, so that you may then be here. Your Aunt Sophia
remains with us,--when she will return to the city I don't know. We
still suffer from heavy colds, but not so much. Young Miss E. White is
staying in the village a little while (is making a little visit in
town). Don't forget to write within two weeks. We expect a letter next
Sunday.

That you may enjoy good health is the prayer of

     Your mother,
     C. THOREAU.

(H. D. T. was the scribe.)

Cats were always an important branch of the Thoreaus' domestic
economy, and Henry was more tolerant of them than men are wont to be.
Flowers were the specialty of Sophia, who, when I knew her, from 1855
to 1876, usually had a small conservatory in a recess of the
dining-room. At this time (1840) she seems to have been aiding Helen
in her school. The next letter, to Helen, is of a graver tone:--


TO HELEN THOREAU (AT ROXBURY).

     CONCORD, June 13, 1840.

DEAR HELEN,--That letter to John, for which you had an opportunity
doubtless to substitute a more perfect communication, fell, as was
natural, into the hands of his "transcendental brother," who is his
proxy in such cases, having been commissioned to acknowledge and
receipt all bills that may be presented. But what's in a name? Perhaps
it does not matter whether it be John or Henry. Nor will those same
six months have to be altered, I fear, to suit his case as well. But
methinks they have not passed entirely without intercourse, provided
we have been sincere though humble worshipers of the same virtue in
the mean time. Certainly it is better that we should make ourselves
quite sure of such a communion as this by the only course which is
completely free from suspicion,--the coincidence of two earnest and
aspiring lives,--than run the risk of a disappointment by relying
wholly or chiefly on so meagre and uncertain a means as speech,
whether written or spoken, affords. How often, when we have been
nearest each other bodily, have we really been farthest off! Our
tongues were the witty foils with which we fenced each other off. Not
that we have not met heartily and with profit as members of one
family, but it was a small one surely, and not that other human
family. We have met frankly and without concealment ever, as befits
those who have an instinctive trust in one another, and the scenery of
whose outward lives has been the same, but never as prompted by an
earnest and affectionate desire to probe deeper our mutual natures.
Such intercourse, at least, if it has ever been, has not condescended
to the vulgarities of oral communication, for the ears are provided
with no lid as the eye is, and would not have been deaf to it in
sleep. And now glad am I, if I am not mistaken in imagining that some
such transcendental inquisitiveness has traveled post _thither_,--for,
as I observed before, where the bolt hits, thither was it aimed,--any
arbitrary direction notwithstanding.

Thus much, at least, our _kindred_ temperament of mind and body--and
long _family_-arity--have done for us, that we already find ourselves
standing on a solid and natural footing with respect to one another,
and shall not have to waste time in the so often unavailing endeavor
to arrive fairly at this simple ground.

Let us leave trifles, then, to accident; and politics, and finance,
and such gossip, to the moments when diet and exercise are cared for,
and speak to each other deliberately as out of one infinity into
another,--you there in time and space, and I here. For beside this
relation, all books and doctrines are no better than gossip or the
turning of a spit.

Equally to you and Sophia, from

     Your affectionate brother,
     H. D. THOREAU.

We come now to the period when Thoreau entered on more intimate
relations with Emerson. There was a difference of fourteen years in
their ages, which had hitherto separated them intellectually; but now
the young scholar, thinker, and naturalist had so fast advanced that
he could meet his senior on more equal terms, and each became
essential to the other. With all his prudence and common sense, in
which he surpassed most men, Emerson was yet lacking in some practical
faculties; while Thoreau was the most practical and handy person in
all matters of every-day life,--a good mechanic and gardener,
methodical in his habits, observant and kindly in the domestic world,
and attractive to children, who now were important members of the
Emerson household. He was therefore invited by Emerson to make his
house a home,--looking after the garden, the business affairs, and
performing the office of a younger brother or a grown-up son. The
invitation was accepted in April, 1841, and Thoreau remained in the
family, with frequent absences, until he went in May, 1843, to reside
with Mr. William Emerson, near New York, as the tutor of his sons.
During these two years much occurred of deep moment to the two
friends. Young Waldo Emerson, the beautiful boy, died, and just
before, John Thoreau, the sunny and hopeful brother, whom Henry seems
to have loved more than any human being. These tragedies brought the
bereaved nearer together, and gave to Mrs. Emerson in particular an
affection for Thoreau and a trust in him which made the intimate life
of the household move harmoniously, notwithstanding the independent
and eccentric genius of Thoreau.


TO MRS. LUCY BROWN[15] (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, July 21, 1841.

DEAR FRIEND,--Don't think I need any prompting to write to you; but
what tough earthenware shall I put into my packet to travel over so
many hills, and thrid so many woods, as lie between Concord and
Plymouth? Thank fortune it is all the way down hill, so they will get
safely carried; and yet it seems as if it were writing against time
and the sun to send a letter east, for no natural force forwards it.
You should go dwell in the West, and then I would deluge you with
letters, as boys throw feathers into the air to see the wind take
them. I should rather fancy you at evening dwelling far away behind
the serene curtain of the West,--the home of fair weather,--than over
by the chilly sources of the east wind.

What quiet thoughts have you nowadays which will float on that east
wind to west, for so we may make our worst servants our
carriers,--what progress made from _can't_ to _can_, in practice and
theory? Under this category, you remember, we used to place all our
philosophy. Do you have any still, startling, well moments, in which
you think grandly, and speak with emphasis? Don't take this for
sarcasm, for not in a year of the gods, I fear, will such a golden
approach to plain speaking revolve again. But away with such fears; by
a few miles of travel we have not distanced each other's sincerity.

I grow savager and savager every day, as if fed on raw meat, and my
tameness is only the repose of untamableness. I dream of looking
abroad summer and winter, with free gaze, from some mountain-side,
while my eyes revolve in an Egyptian slime of health,--I to be nature
looking into nature with such easy sympathy as the blue-eyed grass in
the meadow looks in the face of the sky. From some such recess I would
put forth sublime thoughts daily, as the plant puts forth leaves.
Now-a-nights I go on to the hill to see the sun set, as one would go
home at evening; the bustle of the village has run on all day, and
left me quite in the rear; but I see the sunset, and find that it can
wait for my slow virtue.

But I forget that you think more of this human nature than of this
nature I praise. Why won't you believe that mine is more human than
any single man or woman can be? that in it, in the sunset there, are
all the qualities that can adorn a household, and that sometimes, in a
fluttering leaf, one may hear all your Christianity preached.

You see how unskillful a letter-writer I am, thus to have come to the
end of my sheet when hardly arrived at the beginning of my story. I
was going to be soberer, I assure you, but now have only room to add,
that if the fates allot you a serene hour, don't fail to communicate
some of its serenity to your friend,

     HENRY D. THOREAU.

No, no. Improve so rare a gift for yourself, and send me of your
leisure.


TO MRS. LUCY BROWN (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, Wednesday evening,
     September 8, [1841.]

DEAR FRIEND,--Your note came wafted to my hand like the first leaf of
the fall on the September wind, and I put only another interpretation
upon its lines than upon the veins of those which are soon to be
strewed around me. It is nothing but Indian summer here at present. I
mean that any weather seems reserved expressly for our late purposes
whenever we happen to be fulfilling them. I do not know what right I
have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time
of my desert.

What with the crickets and the crowing of cocks, and the lowing of
kine, our Concord life is sonorous enough. Sometimes I hear the cock
bestir himself on his perch under my feet, and crow shrilly before
dawn; and I think I might have been born any year for all the
phenomena I know. We count sixteen eggs daily now, when arithmetic
will only fetch the hens up to thirteen; but the world is young, and
we wait to see this eccentricity complete its period.

My verses on Friendship are already printed in the _Dial_; not
expanded, but reduced to completeness by leaving out the long lines,
which always have, or should have, a longer or at least another sense
than short ones.

Just now I am in the mid-sea of verses, and they actually rustle
around me as the leaves would round the head of Autumnus himself
should he thrust it up through some vales which I know; but, alas!
many of them are but crisped and yellow leaves like his, I fear, and
will deserve no better fate than to make mould for new harvests. I see
the stanzas rise around me, verse upon verse, far and near, like the
mountains from Agiocochook, not all having a terrestrial existence as
yet, even as some of them may be clouds; but I fancy I see the gleam
of some Sebago Lake and Silver Cascade, at whose well I may drink one
day. I am as unfit for any practical purpose--I mean for the
furtherance of the world's ends--as gossamer for ship-timber; and I,
who am going to be a pencil-maker to-morrow,[16] can sympathize with
God Apollo, who served King Admetus for a while on earth. But I
believe he found it for his advantage at last,--as I am sure I shall,
though I shall hold the nobler part at least out of the service.

Don't attach any undue seriousness to this threnody, for I love my
fate to the very core and rind, and could swallow it without paring
it, I think. You ask if I have written any more poems? Excepting those
which Vulcan is now forging, I have only discharged a few more bolts
into the horizon,--in all, three hundred verses--and sent them, as I
may say, over the mountains to Miss Fuller, who may have occasion to
remember the old rhyme:--

     "Three scipen gode
     Comen mid than flode
     Three hundred cnihten."

But these are far more Vandalic than they. In this narrow sheet there
is not room even for one thought to root itself. But you must consider
this an odd leaf of a volume, and that volume

     Your friend,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


TO MRS. LUCY BROWN (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, October 5, 1841.

DEAR FRIEND,--I send you Williams's[17] letter as the last
remembrancer to one of those "whose acquaintance he had the pleasure
to form while in Concord." It came quite unexpectedly to me, but I was
very glad to receive it, though I hardly know whether my utmost
sincerity and interest can inspire a sufficient answer to it. I should
like to have you send it back by some convenient opportunity.

Pray let me know what you are thinking about any day,--what most
nearly concerns you. Last winter, you know, you did more than your
share of the talking, and I did not complain for want of an
opportunity. Imagine your stove-door out of order, at least, and then
while I am fixing it you will think of enough things to say.

What makes the value of your life at present? what dreams have you,
and what realizations? You know there is a high table-land which not
even the east wind reaches. Now can't we walk and chat upon its plane
still, as if there were no lower latitudes? Surely our two destinies
are topics interesting and grand enough for any occasion.

I hope you have many gleams of serenity and health, or, if your body
will grant you no positive respite, that you may, at any rate, enjoy
your sickness occasionally, as much as I used to tell of. But here is
the bundle going to be done up, so accept a "good-night" from

     HENRY D. THOREAU.


TO MRS. LUCY BROWN (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, March 2, 1842.

DEAR FRIEND,--I believe I have nothing new to tell you, for what was
news you have learned from other sources. I am much the same person
that I was, who should be so much better; yet when I realize what has
transpired, and the greatness of the part I am unconsciously acting, I
am thrilled, and it seems as if there were none in history to match
it.

Soon after John's death I listened to a music-box, and if, at any
time, that event had seemed inconsistent with the beauty and harmony
of the universe, it was then gently constrained into the placid course
of nature by those steady notes, in mild and unoffended tone echoing
far and wide under the heavens. But I find these things more strange
than sad to me. What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to
wonder? We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and
sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any _pure grief_ is ample
recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a great grief is
but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as
the resin on Arabian trees. Only Nature has a right to grieve
perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the
blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as
ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God,
and we will not be sorrowful if he is not.

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The
memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of
present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness
that these motes were invisible in their light.

I do not wish to see John ever again,--I mean him who is dead,--but
that other, whom only he would have wished to see, or to be, of whom
he was the imperfect representative. For we are not what we are, nor
do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable
of being.

As for Waldo, he died as the mist rises from the brook, which the sun
will soon dart his rays through. Do not the flowers die every autumn?
He had not even taken root here. I was not startled to hear that he
was dead; it seemed the most natural event that could happen. His fine
organization demanded it, and nature gently yielded its request. It
would have been strange if he had lived. Neither will nature manifest
any sorrow at his death, but soon the note of the lark will be heard
down in the meadow, and fresh dandelions will spring from the old
stocks where he plucked them last summer.

I have been living ill of late, but am now doing better. How do you
live in that Plymouth world, nowadays?[18] Please remember me to Mary
Russell. You must not blame me if I do _talk to the clouds_, for I
remain

     Your friend,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


TO MRS. LUCY BROWN (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, January 24, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--The other day I wrote you a letter to go in Mrs.
Emerson's bundle, but, as it seemed unworthy, I did not send it, and
now, to atone for that, I am going to send this, whether it be worthy
or not. I will not venture upon news, for, as all the household are
gone to bed, I cannot learn what has been told you. Do you read any
noble verses nowadays? or do not verses still seem noble? For my own
part, they have been the only things I remembered, or that which
occasioned them, when all things else were blurred and defaced. All
things have put on mourning but they; for the elegy itself is some
victorious melody or joy escaping from the wreck.

It is a relief to read some true book, wherein all are equally
dead,--equally alive. I think the best parts of Shakespeare would only
be enchanced by the most thrilling and affecting events. I have found
it so. And so much the more, as they are not intended for consolation.

Do you think of coming to Concord again? I shall be glad to see you. I
should be glad to know that I could see you when I would.

We always seem to be living just on the brink of a pure and lofty
intercourse, which would make the ills and trivialness of life
ridiculous. After each little interval, though it be but for the
night, we are prepared to meet each other as gods and goddesses.

I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived
upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom; and so I am
content to live.

What means the fact--which is so common, so universal--that some soul
that has lost all hope for itself can inspire in another listening
soul an infinite confidence in it, even while it is expressing its
despair?

I am very happy in my present environment, though actually mean enough
myself, and so, of course, all around me; yet, I am sure, we for the
most part are transfigured to one another, and are that to the other
which we aspire to be ourselves. The longest course of mean and
trivial intercourse may not prevent my practicing this divine courtesy
to my companion. Notwithstanding all I hear about brooms, and
scouring, and taxes, and housekeeping, I am constrained to live a
strangely mixed life,--as if even Valhalla might have its kitchen. We
are all of us Apollos serving some Admetus.

I think I must have some Muses in my pay that I know not of, for
certain musical wishes of mine are answered as soon as entertained.
Last summer I went to Hawthorne's suddenly for the express purpose of
borrowing his music-box, and almost immediately Mrs. Hawthorne
proposed to lend it to me. The other day I said I must go to Mrs.
Barrett's to hear hers, and lo! straightway Richard Fuller sent me one
for a present from Cambridge. It is a very good one. I should like to
have you hear it. I shall not have to employ you to borrow for me now.
Good-night.

     From your affectionate friend,
     H. D. T.


TO RICHARD F. FULLER (AT CAMBRIDGE).

     CONCORD, January 16, 1843.

DEAR RICHARD,--I need not thank you for your present, for I hear its
music, which seems to be playing just for us two pilgrims marching
over hill and dale of a summer afternoon, up those long Bolton hills
and by those bright Harvard lakes, such as I see in the placid Lucerne
on the lid; and whenever I hear it, it will recall happy hours passed
with its donor.

When did mankind make that foray into nature and bring off this booty?
For certainly it is but history that some rare virtue in remote times
plundered these strains from above and communicated them to men.
Whatever we may think of it, it is a part of the harmony of the
spheres you have sent me; which has condescended to serve us
Admetuses, and I hope I may so behave that this may always be the
tenor of your thought for me.

If you have any strains, the conquest of your own spear or quill, to
accompany these, let the winds waft them also to me.

I write this with one of the "primaries" of my osprey's wings, which I
have preserved over my glass for some state occasion, and now it
offers.

Mrs. Emerson sends her love.


TO MRS. LUCY BROWN (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, Friday evening,
     January 25, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--Mrs. Emerson asks me to write you a letter, which she
will put into her bundle to-morrow along with the "Tribunes" and
"Standards," and miscellanies, and what not, to make an assortment.
But what shall I write? You live a good way off, and I don't know that
I have anything which will bear sending so far. But I am mistaken, or
rather impatient when I say this,--for we all have a gift to send, not
only when the year begins, but as long as interest and memory last. I
don't know whether you have got the many I have sent you, or rather
whether you were quite sure where they came from. I mean the letters I
have sometimes launched off eastward in my thought; but if you have
been happier at one time than another, think that then you received
them. But this that I now send you is of another sort. It will go
slowly, drawn by horses over muddy roads, and lose much of its little
value by the way. You may have to pay for it, and it may not make you
happy after all. But what shall be my new-year's gift, then? Why, I
will send you my still fresh remembrance of the hours I have passed
with you here, for I find in the remembrance of them the best gift
you have left to me. We are poor and sick creatures at best; but we
can have well memories, and sound and healthy thoughts of one another
still, and an intercourse may be remembered which was without blur,
and above us both.

Perhaps you may like to know of my estate nowadays. As usual, I find
it harder to account for the happiness I enjoy, than for the sadness
which instructs me occasionally. If the little of this last which
visits me would only be sadder, it would be happier. One while I am
vexed by a sense of meanness; one while I simply wonder at the mystery
of life; and at another, and at another, seem to rest on my oars, as
if propelled by propitious breezes from I know not what quarter. But
for the most part I am an idle, inefficient, lingering (one term will
do as well as another, where all are true and none true enough) member
of the great commonwealth, who have most need of my own charity,--if I
could not be charitable and indulgent to myself, perhaps as good a
subject for my own satire as any. You see how, when I come to talk of
myself, I soon run dry, for I would fain make that a subject which can
be no subject for me, at least not till I have the grace to rule
myself.

I do not venture to say anything about your griefs, for it would be
unnatural for me to speak as if I grieved with you, when I think I do
not. If I were to see you, it might be otherwise. But I know you will
pardon the trivialness of this letter; and I only hope--as I know that
you have reason to be so--that you are still happier than you are
sad, and that you remember that the smallest seed of faith is of more
worth than the largest fruit of happiness. I have no doubt that out of
S----'s death you sometimes draw sweet consolation, not only for that,
but for long-standing griefs, and may find some things made smooth by
it, which before were rough.

I wish you would communicate with me, and not think me unworthy to
know any of your thoughts. Don't think me unkind because I have not
written to you. I confess it was for so poor a reason as that you
almost made a principle of not answering. I could not speak truly with
this ugly fact in the way; and perhaps I wished to be assured, by such
evidence as you could not voluntarily give, that it was a kindness.
For every glance at the moon, does she not send me an answering ray?
Noah would hardly have done himself the pleasure to release his dove,
if she had not been about to come back to him with tidings of green
islands amid the waste.

But these are far-fetched reasons. I am not speaking directly enough
to yourself now; so let me say _directly_

     From your friend,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.

Exactly when correspondence began between Emerson and Thoreau is not
now to be ascertained, since all the letters do not seem to have been
preserved. Their acquaintance opened while Thoreau was in college,
although Emerson may have seen the studious boy at the town school in
Concord, or at the "Academy" there, while fitting for college. But
they only came to know each other as sharers of the same thoughts and
aspirations in the autumn of 1837, when, on hearing a new lecture of
Emerson's, Helen Thoreau said to Mrs. Brown, then living or visiting
in the Thoreau family, "Henry has a thought very like that in his
journal" (which he had newly begun to keep). Mrs. Brown desired to see
the passage, and soon bore it to her sister, Mrs. Emerson, whose
husband saw it, and asked Mrs. Brown to bring her young friend to see
him. By 1838 their new relation of respect was established, and
Emerson wrote to a correspondent, "I delight much in my young friend,
who seems to have as free and erect a mind as any I have ever met." A
year later (Aug. 9, 1839), he wrote to Carlyle, "I have a young poet
in this village, named Thoreau, who writes the truest verses." Indeed,
it was in the years 1839-40 that he seems to have written the poems by
which he is best remembered. Thoreau told me in his last illness that
he had written many verses and destroyed many,--this fact he then
regretted, although he had done it at the instance of Emerson, who did
not praise them. "But," said he, "they may have been better than we
thought them, twenty years ago."

The earliest note which I find from Emerson to Thoreau bears no date,
but must have been written before 1842, for at no later time could the
persons named in it have visited Concord together. Most likely it was
in the summer of 1840, and to the same date do I assign a note asking
Henry to join the Emersons in a party to the Cliffs (_scopuli
Pulchri-Portus_), and to bring his flute,--for on that pastoral reed
Thoreau played sweetly. The first series of letters from Thoreau to
Emerson begins early in 1843, about the time the letters just given
were written to Mrs. Brown. In the first he gives thanks to Emerson
for the hospitality of his house in the two preceding years; a theme
to which he returned a few months later,--for I doubt not the lovely
sad poem called "The Departure" was written at Staten Island soon
after his leaving the Emerson house in Concord for the more stately
but less congenial residence of William Emerson at Staten Island,
whither he betook himself in May, 1843. This first letter, however,
was sent from the Concord home to Waldo Emerson at Staten Island, or
perhaps in New York, where he was that winter giving a course of
lectures.

In explanation of the passages concerning Bronson Alcott, in this
letter, it should be said that he was then living at the Hosmer
Cottage, in Concord, with his English friends, Charles Lane and Henry
Wright, and that he had refused to pay a tax in support of what he
considered an unjust government, and was arrested by the constable,
Sam Staples, in consequence.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT NEW YORK).

     CONCORD, January 24, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--The best way to correct a mistake is to make it right. I
had not spoken of writing to you, but as you say you are about to
write to me when you get my letter, I make haste on my part in order
to get yours the sooner. I don't well know what to say to earn the
forthcoming epistle, unless that Edith takes rapid strides in the arts
and sciences--or music and natural history--as well as over the
carpet; that she says "papa" less and less abstractedly every day,
looking in _my_ face,--which may sound like a _Ranz des Vaches_ to
yourself. And Ellen declares every morning that "papa _may_ come home
to-night;" and by and by it will have changed to such positive
statement as that "papa came home _larks_ night."

Elizabeth Hoar still flits about these clearings, and I meet her here
and there, and in all houses but her own, but as if I were not the
less of her family for all that. I have made slight acquaintance also
with one Mrs. Lidian Emerson, who almost persuades me to be a
Christian, but I fear I as often lapse into heathenism. Mr.
O'Sullivan[19] was here three days. I met him at the Atheneum
[Concord], and went to Hawthorne's [at the Old Manse] to tea with him.
He expressed a great deal of interest in your poems, and wished me to
give him a list of them, which I did; he saying he did not know but he
should notice them. He is a rather puny-looking man, and did not
strike me. We had nothing to say to one another, and therefore we said
a great deal! He, however, made a point of asking me to write for his
Review, which I shall be glad to do. He is, at any rate, one of the
not-bad, but does not by any means take you by storm,--no, nor by
calm, which is the best way. He expects to see you in New York. After
tea I carried him and Hawthorne to the Lyceum.

Mr. Alcott has not altered much since you left. I think you will find
him much the same sort of person. With Mr. Lane I have had one regular
chat _à la_ George Minott, which of course was greatly to our mutual
grati- and edification; and, as two or three as regular conversations
have taken place since, I fear there may have been a precession of the
equinoxes. Mr. Wright, according to the last accounts, is in Lynn,
with uncertain aims and prospects,--maturing slowly, perhaps, as
indeed are all of us. I suppose they have told you how near Mr. Alcott
went to the jail, but I can add a good anecdote to the rest. When
Staples came to collect Mrs. Ward's taxes, my sister Helen asked him
what he thought Mr. Alcott meant,--what his idea was,--and he
answered, "I vum, I believe it was nothing but principle, for I never
heerd a man talk honester."

There was a lecture on Peace by a Mr. Spear (ought he not to be beaten
into a plowshare?), the same evening, and, as the gentlemen, Lane and
Alcott, dined at our house while the matter was in suspense,--that is,
while the constable was waiting for his receipt from the jailer,--we
there settled it that we, that is, Lane and myself, perhaps, should
agitate the State while Winkelried lay in durance. But when, over the
audience, I saw our hero's head moving in the free air of the
Universalist church, my fire all went out, and the State was safe as
far as I was concerned. But Lane, it seems, had cogitated and even
written on the matter, in the afternoon, and so, out of courtesy,
taking his point of departure from the Spear-man's lecture, he drove
gracefully _in medias res_, and gave the affair a very good setting
out; but, to spoil all, our martyr very characteristically, but, as
artists would say, in bad taste, brought up the rear with a "My
Prisons," which made us forget Silvio Pellico himself.

Mr. Lane wishes me to ask you to see if there is anything for him in
the New York office, and pay the charges. Will you tell me what to do
with Mr. [Theodore] Parker, who was to lecture February 15th? Mrs.
Emerson says my letter is written instead of one from her.

At the end of this strange letter I will not write--what alone I had
to say--to thank you and Mrs. Emerson for your long kindness to me. It
would be more ungrateful than my constant thought. I have been your
pensioner for nearly two years, and still left free as under the sky.
It has been as free a gift as the sun or the summer, though I have
sometimes molested you with my mean acceptance of it,--I who have
failed to render even those slight services of the _hand_ which would
have been for a sign at least; and, by the fault of my nature, have
failed of many better and higher services. But I will not trouble you
with this, but for once thank you as well as Heaven.

     Your friend, H. D. T.

Mrs. Lidian Emerson, the wife of R. W. Emerson, and her two daughters,
Ellen and Edith, are named in this first letter, and will be
frequently mentioned in the correspondence. At this date, Edith, now
Mrs. W. H. Forbes, was fourteen months old. Mr. Emerson's mother,
Madam Ruth Emerson, was also one of the household, which had for a
little more than seven years occupied the well-known house under the
trees, east of the village.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT NEW YORK).

     CONCORD, February 10, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--I have stolen one of your own sheets to write you a
letter upon, and I hope, with two layers of ink, to turn it into a
comforter. If you like to receive a letter from me, too, I am glad,
for it gives me pleasure to write. But don't let it come amiss; it
must fall as harmlessly as leaves settle on the landscape. I will tell
you what we are doing this now. Supper is done, and Edith--the
dessert, perhaps more than the dessert--is brought in, or even comes
in _per se_; and round she goes, now to this altar, and then to that,
with her monosyllabic invocation of "oc," "oc." It makes me think of
"Langue d'oc." She must belong to that province. And like the gypsies
she talks a language of her own while she understands ours. While she
jabbers Sanskrit, Parsee, Pehlvi, say "Edith go bah!" and "bah" it is.
No intelligence passes between us. She knows. It is a capital
joke,--that is the reason she smiles so. How well the secret is kept!
she never descends to explanation. It is not buried liked a common
secret, bolstered up on two sides, but by an eternal silence on the
one side, at least. It has been long kept, and comes in from the
unexplored horizon, like a blue mountain range, to end abruptly at our
door one day. (Don't stumble at this steep simile.) And now she
studies the heights and depths of nature

     On shoulders whirled in some eccentric orbit
     Just by old Pæstum's temples and the perch
     Where Time doth plume his wings.

And now she runs the race over the carpet, while all Olympia
applauds,--mamma, grandma, and uncle, good Grecians all,--and that
dark-hued barbarian, Partheanna Parker, whose shafts go through and
through, not backward! Grandmamma smiles over all, and mamma is
wondering what papa would say, should she descend on Carlton House
some day. "Larks night" 's abed, dreaming of "pleased faces" far away.
But now the trumpet sounds, the games are over; some Hebe comes, and
Edith is translated. I don't know where; it must be to some cloud, for
I never was there.

_Query_: what becomes of the answers Edith thinks, but cannot express?
She really gives you glances which are before this world was. You
can't feel any difference of age, except that you have longer legs and
arms.

Mrs. Emerson said I must tell you about domestic affairs, when I
mentioned that I was going to write. Perhaps it will inform you of the
state of all if I only say that I am well and happy in your house here
in Concord.

     Your friend,
     HENRY.

Don't forget to tell us what to do with Mr. Parker when you write
next. I lectured this week. It was as bright a night as you could
wish. I hope there were no stars thrown away on the occasion.

[A part of the same letter, though bearing a date two days later, and
written in a wholly different style, as from one sage to another, is
this postscript:]


     February 12, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--As the packet still tarries, I will send you some
thoughts, which I have lately relearned, as the latest public and
private news.

How mean are our relations to one another! Let us pause till they are
nobler. A little silence, a little rest, is good. It would be
sufficient employment only to cultivate true ones.

The richest gifts we can bestow are the least marketable. We hate the
kindness which we understand. A noble person confers no such gift as
his whole confidence: none so exalts the giver and the receiver; it
produces the truest gratitude. Perhaps it is only essential to
friendship that some vital trust should have been reposed by the one
in the other. I feel addressed and probed even to the remote parts of
my being when one nobly shows, even in trivial things, an implicit
faith in me. When such divine commodities are so near and cheap, how
strange that it should have to be each day's discovery! A threat or a
curse may be forgotten, but this mild trust translates me. I am no
more of this earth; it acts dynamically; it changes my very substance.
I cannot do what before I did. I cannot be what before I was. Other
chains may be broken, but in the darkest night, in the remotest place,
I trail this thread. Then things cannot _happen_. What if God were to
confide in us for a moment! Should we not then be gods?

How subtle a thing is this confidence! Nothing sensible passes
between; never any consequences are to be apprehended should it be
misplaced. Yet something has transpired. A new behavior springs; the
ship carries new ballast in her hold. A sufficiently great and
generous trust could never be abused. It should be cause to lay down
one's life,--which would not be to lose it. Can there be any mistake
up there? Don't the gods know where to invest their wealth? Such
confidence, too, would be reciprocal. When one confides greatly in
you, he will feel the roots of an equal trust fastening themselves in
him. When such trust has been received or reposed, we dare not speak,
hardly to see each other; our voices sound harsh and untrustworthy. We
are as instruments which the Powers have dealt with. Through what
straits would we not carry this little burden of a magnanimous trust!
Yet no harm could possibly come, but simply faithlessness. Not a
feather, not a straw, is intrusted; that packet is empty. It is only
_committed_ to us, and, as it were, all things are committed to us.

The kindness I have longest remembered has been of this sort,--the
sort unsaid; so far behind the speaker's lips that almost it already
lay in my heart. It did not have far to go to be communicated. The
gods cannot misunderstand, man cannot explain. We communicate like the
burrows of foxes, in silence and darkness, under ground. We are
undermined by faith and love. How much more full is Nature where we
think the empty space is than where we place the solids!--full of
fluid influences. Should we ever communicate but by these? The spirit
abhors a vacuum more than Nature. There is a tide which pierces the
pores of the air. These aerial rivers, let us not pollute their
currents. What meadows do they course through? How many fine mails
there are which traverse their routes! He is privileged who gets his
letter franked by them.

I believe these things.

     HENRY D. THOREAU.

Emerson replied to these letters in two epistles of dates from
February 4 to 12, 1843,--in the latter asking Thoreau to aid him in
editing the April number of the _Dial_ of which he had taken charge.
Among other things, Emerson desired a manuscript of Charles Lane,
Alcott's English friend, to be sent to him in New York, where he was
detained several weeks by his lectures. He added: "Have we no news
from Wheeler? Has Bartlett none?" Of these persons, the first, Charles
Stearns Wheeler, a college classmate of Thoreau, and later Greek tutor
in the college, had gone to Germany,--where he died the next
summer,--and was contributing to the quarterly _Dial_. Robert
Bartlett, of Plymouth, a townsman of Mrs. Emerson, was Wheeler's
intimate friend, with whom he corresponded.[20] To this editorial
request Thoreau, who was punctuality itself, replied at once.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT NEW YORK).

     CONCORD, February 15, 1843.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I got your letters, one yesterday and the other
to-day, and they have made me quite happy. As a packet is to go in the
morning, I will give you a hasty account of the _Dial_. I called on
Mr. Lane this afternoon, and brought away, together with an abundance
of good-will, first, a bulky catalogue of books without
commentary,--some eight hundred, I think he told me, with an
introduction filling one sheet,--ten or a dozen pages, say, though I
have only glanced at them; second, a review--twenty-five or thirty
printed pages--of Conversations on the Gospels, Record of a School,
and Spiritual Culture, with rather copious extracts. However, it is a
good subject, and Lane says it gives him satisfaction. I will give it
a faithful reading directly. [These were Alcott's publications,
reviewed by Lane.] And now I come to the little end of the horn; for
myself, I have brought along the Minor Greek Poets, and will mine
there for a scrap or two, at least. As for Etzler, I don't remember
any "rude and snappish speech" that you made, and if you did it must
have been longer than anything I had written; however, here is the
book still, and I will try. Perhaps I have some few scraps in my
Journal which you may choose to print. The translation of the Æschylus
I should like very well to continue anon, if it should be worth the
while. As for poetry, I have not remembered to write any for some
time; it has quite slipped my mind; but sometimes I think I hear the
mutterings of the thunder. Don't you remember that last summer we
heard a low, tremulous sound in the woods and over the hills, and
thought it was partridges or rocks, and it proved to be thunder gone
down the river? But sometimes it was over Wayland way, and at last
burst over our heads. So we'll not despair by reason of the drought.
You see it takes a good many words to supply the place of one deed; a
hundred lines to a cobweb, and but one cable to a man-of-war. The
_Dial_ case needs to be reformed in many particulars. There is no news
from Wheeler, none from Bartlett.

They all look well and happy in this house, where it gives me much
pleasure to dwell.

     Yours in haste, HENRY.

P. S.

     Wednesday evening, February 16.

DEAR FRIEND,--I have time to write a few words about the _Dial_. I
have just received the three first signatures, which do not yet
complete Lane's piece. He will place five hundred copies for sale at
Munroe's bookstore. Wheeler has sent you two full sheets--more about
the German universities--and proper names, which will have to be
printed in alphabetical order for convenience; what this one has done,
that one is doing, and the other intends to do. Hammer-Purgstall (Von
Hammer) may be one, for aught I know. However, there are two or three
_things_ in it, as well as names. One of the books of Herodotus is
discovered to be out of place. He says something about having sent
Lowell, by the last steamer, a budget of literary news, which he will
have communicated to you ere this. Mr. Alcott has a letter from
Heraud,[21] and a book written by him,--the Life of Savonarola,--which
he wishes to have republished here. Mr. Lane will write a notice of
it. (The latter says that what is in the New York post-office _may_ be
directed to Mr. Alcott.) Miss [Elizabeth] Peabody has sent a "Notice
to the readers of the _Dial_" which is not good.

Mr. Chapin lectured this evening, and so rhetorically that I forgot my
duty and heard very little. I find myself better than I have been,
and am meditating some other method of paying debts than by lectures
and writing,--which will only do to talk about. If anything of that
"other" sort should come to your ears in New York, will you remember
it for me?

Excuse this scrawl, which I have written over the embers in the
dining-room. I hope that you live on good terms with yourself and the
gods.

     Yours in haste,       HENRY.

Mr. Lane and his lucubrations proved to be tough subjects, and the
next letter has more to say about them and the _Dial_. Lane had
undertaken to do justice to Mr. Alcott and his books, as may still be
read in the pages of that April number of the Transcendentalist
quarterly.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT NEW YORK).

     CONCORD, February 20, 1843.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have read Mr. Lane's review, and _can_ say,
speaking for this world and for fallen man, that "it is good for us."
As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of
it, so I may say, criticism never fails; but if I go and read
elsewhere, I say it is good,--far better than any notice Mr. Alcott
has received, or is likely to receive from another quarter. It is at
any rate "the other side" which Boston needs to hear. I do not send it
to you, because time is precious, and because I think you would accept
it, after all. After speaking briefly of the fate of Goethe and
Carlyle in their own countries, he says, "To Emerson in his own
circle is but slowly accorded a worthy response; and Alcott, almost
utterly neglected," etc. I will strike out what relates to yourself,
and correcting some verbal faults, send the rest to the printer with
Lane's initials.

The catalogue needs amendment, I think. It wants completeness now. It
should consist of such books only as they would tell Mr. [F. H.] Hedge
and [Theodore] Parker they had got; omitting the Bible, the classics,
and much besides,--for there the incompleteness begins. But you will
be here in season for this.

It is frequently easy to make Mr. Lane more universal and attractive;
to write, for instance, "universal ends" instead of "the universal
end," just as we pull open the petals of a flower with our fingers
where they are confined by its own sweets. Also he had better not say
"books designed for the nucleus of a _Home_ University," until he
makes that word "home" ring solid and universal too. This is that
abominable dialect. He had just given me a notice of George Bradford's
Fénelon for the Record of the Months, and speaks of extras of the
Review and Catalogue, if they are printed,--even a hundred, or
thereabouts. How shall this be arranged? Also he wishes to use some
manuscripts of his which are in your possession, if you do not. Can I
get them?

I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all
above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal their eggs
still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it
is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.

Do not think that my letters require as many special answers. I get
one as often as you write to Concord. Concord inquires for you daily,
as do all the members of this house. You must make haste home before
we have settled all the great questions, for they are fast being
disposed of. But I must leave room for Mrs. Emerson.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Emerson's letter, after speaking of other matters, gave a lively
sketch of Thoreau at one of Alcott's Conversations in her house, which
may be quoted as illustrating the young Nature-worshiper's position at
the time, and the more humane and socialistic spirit of Alcott and
Lane, who were soon to leave Concord for their experiment of
communistic life at "Fruitlands," in the rural town of Harvard.

"Last evening we had the 'Conversation,' though, owing to the bad
weather, but few attended. The subjects were: What is Prophecy? Who is
a Prophet? and The Love of Nature. Mr. Lane decided, as for all time
and the race, that this same love of nature--of which Henry [Thoreau]
was the champion, and Elizabeth Hoar and Lidian (though L. disclaimed
possessing it herself) his faithful squiresses--that this love was the
most subtle and dangerous of sins; a refined idolatry, much more to be
dreaded than gross wickednesses, because the gross sinner would be
alarmed by the depth of his degradation, and come up from it in
terror, but the unhappy idolaters of Nature were deceived by the
refined quality of their sin, and would be the last to enter the
kingdom. Henry frankly affirmed to both the wise men that they were
wholly deficient in the faculty in question, and therefore could not
judge of it. And Mr. Alcott as frankly answered that it was because
they went beyond the mere material objects, and were filled with
spiritual love and perception (as Mr. T. was not), that they seemed to
Mr. Thoreau not to appreciate outward nature. I am very heavy, and
have spoiled a most excellent story. I have given you no idea of the
scene, which was ineffably comic, though it made no laugh at the time;
I scarcely laughed at it myself,--too deeply amused to give the usual
sign. Henry was brave and noble; well as I have always liked him, he
still grows upon me."

Before going to Staten Island in May, 1843, Thoreau answered a letter
from the same Richard Fuller who had made him the musical gift in the
previous winter. He was at Harvard College, and desired to know
something of Thoreau's pursuits there,--concerning which Channing says
in his Life,[22] "He was a respectable student, having done there a
bold reading in English poetry,--even to some portions or the whole of
Davenant's 'Gondibert.'" This, Thoreau does not mention in his letter,
but it was one of the things that attracted Emerson's notice, since he
also had the same taste for the Elizabethan and Jacobean English
poets. An English youth, Henry Headley, pupil of Dr. Parr, and
graduate of Oxford in 1786, had preceded Thoreau in this study of
poets that had become obsolete; and it was perhaps Headley's volume,
"Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry, with Remarks by the late
Henry Headley," published long after his death,[23] that served
Thoreau as a guide to Quarles and the Fletchers, Daniel, Drummond,
Drayton, Habington, and Raleigh,--poets that few Americans had heard
of in 1833.


TO RICHARD F. FULLER (AT CAMBRIDGE).

     CONCORD, April 2, 1843.

DEAR RICHARD,--I was glad to receive a letter from you so bright and
cheery. You speak of not having made any conquests with your own spear
or quill as yet; but if you are tempering your spear-head during these
days, and fitting a straight and tough shaft thereto, will not that
suffice? We are more pleased to consider the hero in the forest
cutting cornel or ash for his spear, than marching in triumph with his
trophies. The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than
the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the
pleasantest prospects.

What you say about your studies furnishing you with a "mimic idiom"
only, reminds me that we shall all do well if we learn so much as to
talk,--to speak truth. The only fruit which even much living yields
seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some
slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for
the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon
and spices, you know. Even the grown hunter you speak of slays a
thousand buffaloes, and brings off only their hides and tongues. What
immense sacrifices, what hecatombs and holocausts, the gods exact for
very slight favors! How much sincere life before we can even utter one
sincere word.

What I was learning in college was chiefly, I think, to express
myself, and I see now, that as the old orator prescribed, 1st, action;
2d, action; 3d, action; my teachers should have prescribed to me, 1st,
sincerity; 2d, sincerity; 3d, sincerity. The old mythology is
incomplete without a god or goddess of sincerity, on whose altars we
might offer up all the products of our farms, our workshops, and our
studies. It should be our Lar when we sit on the hearth, and our
Tutelar Genius when we walk abroad. This is the only panacea. I mean
sincerity in our dealings with ourselves mainly; any other is
comparatively easy. But I must stop before I get to 17thly. I believe
I have but one text and one sermon.

Your rural adventures beyond the West Cambridge hills have probably
lost nothing by distance of time or space. I used to hear only the
sough of the wind in the woods of Concord, when I was striving to give
my attention to a page of calculus. But, depend upon it, you will love
your native hills the better for being separated from them.

I expect to leave Concord, which is my Rome, and its people, who are
my Romans, in May, and go to New York, to be a tutor in Mr. William
Emerson's family. So I will bid you good-by till I see you or hear
from you again.

       *       *       *       *       *

Going to Staten Island, early in May, 1843, Thoreau's first care was
to write to his "Romans, countrymen, and lovers by the banks of the
Musketaquid,"--beginning with his mother, his sisters, and Mrs.
Emerson. To Sophia and Mrs. E. he wrote May 22,--to Helen, with a few
touching verses on his brother John, the next day; and then he resumed
the correspondence with Emerson. It seems that one of his errands near
New York was to make the acquaintance of literary men and journalists
in the city, in order to find a vehicle for publication, such as his
neighbor Hawthorne had finally found in the pages of the _Democratic
Review_. For this purpose Thoreau made himself known to Henry James,
and other friends of Emerson, and to Horace Greeley, then in the first
freshness of his success with the _Tribune_,--a newspaper hardly more
than two years old then, but destined to a great career, in which
several of the early Transcendentalists took some part.


TO HIS FATHER AND MOTHER (AT CONCORD).

     CASTLETON, STATEN ISLAND, May 11, 1843.

DEAR MOTHER AND FRIENDS AT HOME,--We arrived here safely at ten
o'clock on Sunday morning, having had as good a passage as usual,
though we ran aground and were detained a couple of hours in the
Thames River, till the tide came to our relief. At length we curtseyed
up to a wharf just the other side of their Castle Garden,--very
incurious about them and their city. I believe my vacant looks,
absolutely inaccessible to questions, did at length satisfy an army of
starving cabmen that I did not want a hack, cab, or anything of that
sort as yet. It was the only demand the city made on us; as if a
wheeled vehicle of some sort were the sum and summit of a reasonable
man's wants. "Having tried the water," they seemed to say, "will you
not return to the pleasant securities of land carriage? Else why your
boat's prow turned toward the shore at last?" They are a sad-looking
set of fellows, not permitted to come on board, and I pitied them.
They had been expecting me, it would seem, and did really wish that I
should take a cab; though they did not seem rich enough to supply me
with one.

It was a confused jumble of heads and soiled coats, dangling from
flesh-colored faces,--all swaying to and fro, as by a sort of
undertow, while each whipstick, true as the needle to the pole, still
preserved that level and direction in which its proprietor had
dismissed his forlorn interrogatory. They took sight from them,--the
lash being wound up thereon, to prevent your attention from wandering,
or to make it concentre upon its object by the spiral line. They began
at first, perhaps, with the modest, but rather confident inquiry,
"Want a cab, sir?" but as their despair increased, it took the
affirmative tone, as the disheartened and irresolute are apt to do:
"You want a cab, sir," or even, "You want a nice cab, sir, to take you
to Fourth Street." The question which one had bravely and hopefully
begun to put, another had the tact to take up and conclude with fresh
emphasis,--twirling it from his particular whipstick as if it had
emanated from his lips,--as the sentiment did from his heart. Each one
could truly say, "Them 's my sentiments." But it was a sad sight.

I am seven and a half miles from New York, and, as it would take half
a day at least, have not been there yet. I have already run over no
small part of the island, to the highest hill, and some way along the
shore. From the hill directly behind the house I can see New York,
Brooklyn, Long Island, the Narrows, through which vessels bound to and
from all parts of the world chiefly pass,--Sandy Hook and the
Highlands of Neversink (part of the coast of New Jersey),--and, by
going still farther up the hill, the Kill van Kull, and Newark Bay.
From the pinnacle of one Madame Grimes's house, the other night at
sunset, I could see almost round the island. Far in the horizon there
was a fleet of sloops bound up the Hudson, which seemed to be going
over the edge of the earth; and in view of these trading ships
commerce seems quite imposing.

But it is rather derogatory that your dwelling-place should be only a
neighborhood to a great city,--to live on an inclined plane. I do not
like their cities and forts, with their morning and evening guns, and
sails flapping in one's eye. I want a whole continent to breathe in,
and a good deal of solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street
cannot buy,--nor Broadway with its wooden pavement. I must live along
the beach, on the southern shore, which looks directly out to
sea,--and see what that great parade of water means, that dashes and
roars, and has not yet wet me, as long as I have lived.

I must not know anything about my condition and relations here till
what is not permanent is worn off. I have not yet subsided. Give me
time enough, and I may like it. All my inner man heretofore has been a
Concord impression; and here come these Sandy Hook and Coney Island
breakers to meet and modify the former; but it will be long before I
can make nature look as innocently grand and inspiring as in Concord.

     Your affectionate son,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


TO SOPHIA THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

     CASTLETON, STATEN ISLAND, May 22, 1843.

DEAR SOPHIA,--I have had a severe cold ever since I came here, and
have been confined to the house for the last week with bronchitis,
though I am now getting out, so I have not seen much in the botanical
way. The cedar seems to be one of the most common trees here, and the
fields are very fragrant with it. There are also the gum and tulip
trees. The latter is not very common, but is very large and beautiful,
having flowers as large as tulips, and as handsome. It is not time for
it yet.

The woods are now full of a large honeysuckle in full bloom, which
differs from ours in being red instead of white, so that at first I
did not know its genus. The painted-cup is very common in the meadows
here. Peaches, and especially cherries, seem to grow by all the
fences. Things are very forward here compared with Concord. The
apricots growing out-of-doors are already as large as plums. The
apple, pear, peach, cherry, and plum trees have shed their blossoms.
The whole island is like a garden, and affords very fine scenery.

In front of the house is a very extensive wood, beyond which is the
sea, whose roar I can hear all night long, when there is a wind; if
easterly winds have prevailed on the Atlantic. There are always some
vessels in sight,--ten, twenty, or thirty miles off,--and Sunday
before last there were hundreds in long procession, stretching from
New York to Sandy Hook, and far beyond, for Sunday is a lucky day.

I went to New York Saturday before last. A walk of half an hour, by
half a dozen houses, along the Richmond road--that is the road that
leads to Richmond, on which we live--brings me to the village of
Stapleton, in Southfield, where is the lower dock; but if I prefer I
can walk along the shore three quarters of a mile farther toward New
York to the quarantine village of Castleton, to the upper dock, which
the boat leaves five or six times every day, a quarter of an hour
later than the former place. Farther on is the village of New
Brighton, and farther still Port Richmond, which villages another
steamboat visits.

In New York I saw George Ward, and also Giles Waldo and William
Tappan, whom I can describe better when I have seen them more. They
are young friends of Mr. Emerson. Waldo came down to the island to see
me the next day. I also saw the Great Western, the Croton water-works,
and the picture-gallery of the National Academy of Design. But I have
not had time to see or do much yet.

Tell Miss Ward I shall try to put my microscope to a good use, and if
I find any new and preservable flower, will throw it into my
commonplace-book. Garlic, the original of the common onion, grows here
all over the fields, and during its season spoils the cream and butter
for the market, as the cows like it very much.

Tell Helen there are two schools of late established in the
neighborhood, with large prospects, or rather designs, one for boys
and another for girls. The latter by a Miss Errington, and though it
is only small as yet, I will keep my ears open for her in such
directions. The encouragement is very slight.

I hope you will not be washed away by the Irish sea.

Tell Mother I think my cold was not wholly owing to imprudence.
Perhaps I was being acclimated.

Tell Father that Mr. Tappan, whose son I know,--and whose clerks young
Tappan and Waldo are,--has invented and established a new and very
important business, which Waldo thinks would allow them to burn
ninety-nine out of one hundred of the stores in New York, which now
only offset and cancel one another. It is a kind of intelligence
office for the whole country, with branches in the principal cities,
giving information with regard to the credit and affairs of every man
of business of the country. Of course it is not popular at the South
and West. It is an extensive business and will employ a great many
clerks.

Love to all--not forgetting Aunt and Aunts--and Miss and Mrs. Ward.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the 23d of May he wrote from Castleton to his sister Helen thus:--

DEAR HELEN,--In place of something fresher, I send you the following
verses from my Journal, written some time ago:--

     Brother, where dost thou dwell?
       What sun shines for thee now?
     Dost thou indeed fare well
       As we wished here below?

     What season didst thou find?
       'T was winter here.
     Are not the Fates more kind
       Than they appear?

     Is thy brow clear again,
       As in thy youthful years?
     And was that ugly pain
       The summit of thy fears?[24]

     Yet thou wast cheery still;
       They could not quench thy fire;
     Thou didst abide their will,
       And then retire.

     Where chiefly shall I look
       To feel thy presence near?
     Along the neighboring brook
       May I thy voice still hear?

     Dost thou still haunt the brink
       Of yonder river's tide?
     And may I ever think
       That thou art by my side?

     What bird wilt thou employ
       To bring me word of thee?
     For it would give them joy,--
       'T would give them liberty,
     To serve their former lord
       With wing and minstrelsy.

     A sadder strain mixed with their song,
       They've slowlier built their nests;
     Since thou art gone
       Their lively labor rests.

     Where is the finch, the thrush
       I used to hear?
     Ah, they could well abide
       The dying year.

     Now they no more return,
       I hear them not;
     They have remained to mourn,
       Or else forgot.

As the first letter of Thoreau to Emerson was to thank him for his
lofty friendship, so now the first letter to Mrs. Emerson, after
leaving her house, was to say similar things, with a passing allusion
to her love of flowers and of gardening, in which she surpassed all
his acquaintance in Concord, then and afterward. A letter to Emerson
followed, touching on the _Dial_ and on several of his new and old
acquaintance. "Rockwood Hoar" is the person since known as judge and
cabinet officer,--the brother of Senator Hoar, and of Thoreau's
special friends Elizabeth and Edward Hoar. Channing is the poet, who
had lately printed his first volume, without finding many readers.


TO MRS. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     CASTLETON, STATEN ISLAND, May 22, 1843.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I believe a good many conversations with you were
left in an unfinished state, and now indeed I don't know where to take
them up. But I will resume some of the unfinished silence. I shall not
hesitate to know you. I think of you as some elder sister of mine,
whom I could not have avoided,--a sort of lunar influence,--only of
such age as the moon, whose time is measured by her light. You must
know that you represent to me woman, for I have not traveled very far
or wide,--and what if I had? I like to deal with you, for I believe
you do not lie or steal, and these are very rare virtues. I thank you
for your influence for two years. I was fortunate to be subjected to
it, and am now to remember it. It is the noblest gift we can make;
what signify all others that can be bestowed? You have helped to keep
my life "on loft," as Chaucer says of Griselda, and in a better sense.
You always seemed to look down at me as from some elevation,--some of
your high humilities,--and I was the better for having to look up. I
felt taxed not to disappoint your expectation; for could there be any
accident so sad as to be respected for something better than we are?
It was a pleasure even to go away from you, as it is not to meet some,
as it apprised me of my high relations; and such a departure is a sort
of further introduction and meeting. Nothing makes the earth seem so
spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and
longitudes.

You must not think that fate is so dark there, for even here I can see
a faint reflected light over Concord, and I think that at this
distance I can better weigh the value of a doubt there. Your
moonlight, as I have told you, though it is a reflection of the sun,
allows of bats and owls and other twilight birds to flit therein. But
I am very glad that you can elevate your life with a doubt, for I am
sure that it is nothing but an insatiable faith after all that deepens
and darkens its current. And your doubt and my confidence are only a
difference of expression.

I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man
who, when forbidden to tread on English ground, carried Scottish
ground in his boots, I carry Concord ground in my boots and in my
hat,--and am I not made of Concord dust? I cannot realize that it is
the roar of the sea I hear now, and not the wind in Walden woods. I
find more of Concord, after all, in the prospect of the sea, beyond
Sandy Hook, than in the fields and woods.

If you were to have this Hugh the gardener for your man, you would
think a new dispensation had commenced. He might put a fairer aspect
on the natural world for you, or at any rate a screen between you and
the almshouse. There is a beautiful red honeysuckle now in blossom in
the woods here, which should be transplanted to Concord; and if what
they tell me about the tulip tree be true, you should have that also.
I have not seen Mrs. Black yet, but I intend to call on her soon. Have
you established those simpler modes of living yet?--"In the full tide
of successful operation?"

Tell Mrs. Brown that I hope she is anchored in a secure haven and
derives much pleasure still from reading the poets, and that her
constellation is not quite set from my sight, though it is sunk so low
in that northern horizon. Tell Elizabeth Hoar that her bright present
did "carry ink safely to Staten Island," and was a conspicuous object
in Master Haven's inventory of my effects. Give my respects to Madam
Emerson, whose Concord face I should be glad to see here this summer;
and remember me to the rest of the household who have had vision of
me. Shake a day-day to Edith, and say good-night to Ellen for me.
Farewell.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     CASTLETON, STATEN ISLAND, May 23.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I was just going to write to you when I received your
letter. I was waiting till I had got away from Concord. I should have
sent you something for the _Dial_ before, but I have been sick ever
since I came here, rather unaccountably,--what with a cold,
bronchitis, acclimation, etc., still unaccountably. I send you some
verses from my Journal which will help make a packet. I have not time
to correct them, if this goes by Rockwood Hoar. If I can finish an
account of a winter's walk in Concord, in the midst of a Staten Island
summer,--not so wise as true, I trust,--I will send it to you soon.

I have had no later experiences yet. You must not count much upon what
I can do or learn in New York. I feel a good way off here; and it is
not to be visited, but seen and dwelt in. I have been there but once,
and have been confined to the house since. Everything there
disappoints me but the crowd; rather, I was disappointed with the rest
before I came. I have no eyes for their churches, and what else they
find to brag of. Though I know but little about Boston, yet what
attracts me, in a quiet way, seems much meaner and more pretending
than there,--libraries, pictures, and faces in the street. You don't
know where any respectability inhabits. It is in the crowd in Chatham
Street. The crowd is something new, and to be attended to. It is worth
a thousand Trinity Churches and Exchanges while it is looking at them,
and will run over them and trample them under foot one day. There are
two things I hear and am aware I live in the neighborhood of,--the
roar of the sea and the hum of the city. I have just come from the
beach (to find your letter), and I like it much. Everything there is
on a grand and generous scale,--seaweed, water, and sand; and even the
dead fishes, horses, and hogs have a rank, luxuriant odor; great
shad-nets spread to dry; crabs and horseshoes crawling over the sand;
clumsy boats, only for service, dancing like sea-fowl over the surf,
and ships afar off going about their business.

Waldo and Tappan carried me to their English alehouse the first
Saturday, and Waldo spent two hours here the next day. But Tappan I
have only seen. I like his looks and the sound of his silence. They
are confined every day but Sunday, and then Tappan is obliged to
observe the demeanor of a church-goer to prevent open war with his
father.

I am glad that Channing has got settled, and that, too, before the
inroad of the Irish. I have read his poems two or three times over,
and partially through and under, with new and increased interest and
appreciation. Tell him I saw a man buy a copy at Little & Brown's. He
may have been a virtuoso, but we will give him the credit. What with
Alcott and Lane and Hawthorne, too, you look strong enough to take New
York by storm. Will you tell L., if he asks, that I have been able to
do nothing about the books yet?

Believe that I have something better to write you than this. It would
be unkind to thank you for particular deeds.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, June 8, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--I have been to see Henry James, and like him very much.
It was a great pleasure to meet him. It makes humanity seem more erect
and respectable. I never was more kindly and faithfully catechised. It
made me respect myself more to be thought worthy of such wise
questions. He is a man, and takes his own way, or stands still in his
own place. I know of no one so patient and determined to have the good
of you. It is almost friendship, such plain and human dealing. I think
that he will not write or speak inspiringly; but he is a refreshing,
forward-looking and forward-moving man, and he has naturalized and
humanized New York for me. He actually reproaches you by his respect
for your poor words. I had three hours' solid talk with him, and he
asks me to make free use of his house. He wants an expression of your
faith, or to be sure that it is faith, and confesses that his own
treads fast upon the neck of his understanding. He exclaimed, at some
careless answer of mine: "Well, you Transcendentalists are wonderfully
consistent. I must get hold of this somehow!" He likes Carlyle's
book,[25] but says that it leaves him in an excited and unprofitable
state, and that Carlyle is so ready to obey his humor that he makes
the least vestige of truth the foundation of any superstructure, not
keeping faith with his better genius nor truest readers.

I met Wright on the stairs of the Society Library, and W. H. Channing
and Brisbane on the steps. The former (Channing) is a concave man, and
you see by his attitude and the lines of his face that he is
retreating from himself and from yourself, with sad doubts. It is like
a fair mask swaying from the drooping boughs of some tree whose stem
is not seen. He would break with a conchoidal fracture. You feel as if
you would like to see him when he has made up his mind to run all the
risks. To be sure, he doubts because he has a great hope to be
disappointed, but he makes the possible disappointment of too much
consequence. Brisbane, with whom I did not converse, did not impress
me favorably. He looks like a man who has lived in a cellar, far gone
in consumption. I barely saw him, but he did not look as if he could
let Fourier go, in any case, and throw up his hat. But I need not have
come to New York to write this.

I have seen Tappan for two or three hours, and like both him and
Waldo; but I always see those of whom I have heard well with a slight
disappointment. They are so much better than the great herd, and yet
the heavens are not shivered into diamonds over their heads. Persons
and things flit so rapidly through my brain nowadays that I can hardly
remember them. They seem to be lying in the stream, stemming the tide,
ready to go to sea, as steamboats when they leave the dock go off in
the opposite direction first, until they are headed right, and then
begins the steady revolution of the paddle-wheels; and _they_ are not
quite cheerily headed anywhither yet, nor singing amid the shrouds as
they bound over the billows. There is a certain youthfulness and
generosity about them, very attractive; and Tappan's more reserved and
solitary thought commands respect.

After some ado, I discovered the residence of Mrs. Black, but there
was palmed off on me, in her stead, a Mrs. Grey (quite an inferior
color), who told me at last that she was not Mrs. Black, but her
mother, and was just as glad to see me as Mrs. Black would have been,
and so, forsooth, would answer just as well. Mrs. Black had gone with
Edward Palmer to New Jersey, and would return on the morrow.

I don't like the city better, the more I see it, but worse. I am
ashamed of my eyes that behold it. It is a thousand times meaner than
I could have imagined. It will be something to hate,--that's the
advantage it will be to me; and even the best people in it are a part
of it, and talk coolly about it. The pigs in the street are the most
respectable part of the population. When will the world learn that a
million men are of no importance compared with _one_ man? But I must
wait for a shower of shillings, or at least a slight dew or mizzling
of sixpences, before I explore New York very far.

The sea-beach is the best thing I have seen. It is very solitary and
remote, and you only remember New York occasionally. The distances,
too, along the shore, and inland in sight of it, are unaccountably
great and startling. The sea seems very near from the hills, but it
proves a long way over the plain, and yet you may be wet with the
spray before you can believe that you are there. The far seems near,
and the near far. Many rods from the beach, I step aside for the
Atlantic, and I see men drag up their boats on to the sand, with oxen,
stepping about amid the surf, as if it were possible they might draw
up Sandy Hook.

I do not feel myself especially serviceable to the good people with
whom I live, except as inflictions are sanctified to the righteous.
And so, too, must I serve the boy. I can look to the Latin and
mathematics sharply, and for the rest behave myself. But I cannot be
in his neighborhood hereafter as his Educator, of course, but as the
hawks fly over my own head. I am not attracted toward him but as to
youth generally. He shall frequent me, however, as much as he can, and
I'll be I.

Bradbury[26] told me, when I passed through Boston, that he was
coming to New York the following Saturday, and would then settle with
me, but he has not made his appearance yet. Will you, the next time
you go to Boston, present that order for me which I left with you?

If I say less about Waldo and Tappan now, it is, perhaps, because I
may have more to say by and by. Remember me to your mother and Mrs.
Emerson, who, I hope, is quite well. I shall be very glad to hear from
her, as well as from you. I have very hastily written out something
for the _Dial_, and send it only because you are expecting
something,--though something better. It seems idle and Howittish, but
it may be of more worth in Concord, where it belongs. In great haste.
Farewell.


TO HIS FATHER AND MOTHER (AT CONCORD).

     CASTLETON, June 8, 1843.

DEAR PARENTS,--I have got quite well now, and like the lay of the land
and the look of the sea veryDEAR PARENTS much,--only the country is so
fair that it seems rather too much as if it were made to be looked at.
I have been to New York four or five times, and have run about the
island a good deal.

George Ward, when I last saw him, which was at his house in Brooklyn,
was studying the daguerreotype process, preparing to set up in that
line. The boats run now almost every hour from 8 A. M. to 7 P. M.,
back and forth, so that I can get to the city much more easily than
before. I have seen there one Henry James, a lame man, of whom I had
heard before, whom I like very much; and he asks me to make free use
of his house, which is situated in a pleasant part of the city,
adjoining the University. I have met several people whom I knew
before, and among the rest Mr. Wright, who was on his way to Niagara.

I feel already about as well acquainted with New York as with
Boston,--that is, about as little, perhaps. It is large enough now,
and they intend it shall be larger still. Fifteenth Street, where some
of my new acquaintance live, is two or three miles from the Battery,
where the boat touches,--clear brick and stone, and no "give" to the
foot; and they have laid out, though not built, up to the 149th street
above. I had rather see a brick for a specimen, for my part, such as
they exhibited in old times. You see it is "quite a day's training" to
make a few calls in different parts of the city (to say nothing of
twelve miles by water and land,--_i. e._, not brick and stone),
especially if it does not rain shillings, which might interest
omnibuses in your behalf. Some omnibuses are marked "Broadway--Fourth
Street," and they go no farther; others "Eighth Street," and so
on,--and so of the other principal streets. (This letter will be
circumstantial enough for Helen.)

This is in all respects a very pleasant residence,--much more rural
than you would expect of the vicinity of New York. There are woods all
around. We breakfast at half past six, lunch, if we will, at twelve,
and dine or sup at five; thus is the day partitioned off. From nine
to two, or thereabouts, I am the schoolmaster, and at other times as
much the pupil as I can be. Mr. and Mrs. Emerson are not indeed of my
kith or kin in any sense; but they are irreproachable and kind. I have
met no one yet _on the island_ whose acquaintance I shall
cultivate,--or hoe round,--unless it be our neighbor Captain Smith, an
old fisherman, who catches the fish called "moss-bonkers"--so it
sounds--and invites me to come to the beach, where he spends the week,
and see him and his fish.

Farms are for sale all around here, and so, I suppose men are for
purchase. North of us live Peter Wandell, Mr. Mell, and Mr. Disosway
(don't mind the spelling), as far as the Clove road; and south, John
Britton, Van Pelt, and Captain Smith, as far as the Fingerboard road.
Behind is the hill, some 250 feet high, on the side of which we live;
and in front the forest and the sea,--the latter at the distance of a
mile and a half.

Tell Helen that Miss Errington is provided with assistance. This were
a good place as any to establish a school, if one could wait a little.
Families come down here to board in the summer, and three or four have
been already established this season.

As for money matters, I have not set my traps yet, but I am getting my
bait ready. Pray, how does the garden thrive, and what improvements in
the pencil line? I miss you all very much. Write soon, and send a
Concord paper to

     Your affectionate son,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.

The traps of this sportsman were magazine articles,--but the magazines
that would pay much for papers were very few in 1843. One such had
existed in Boston for a short time,--the _Miscellany_,--and it printed
a good paper of Thoreau's, but the pay was not forthcoming. His
efforts to find publishers more liberal in New York were not
successful. But he continued to write for fame in the _Dial_, and
helped to edit that.


TO MRS. EMERSON.

     STATEN ISLAND, June 20, 1843.

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,--I have only read a page of your letter, and have
come out to the top of the hill at sunset, where I can see the ocean,
to prepare to read the rest. It is fitter that it should hear it than
the walls of my chamber. The very crickets here seem to chirp around
me as they did not before. I feel as if it were a great daring to go
on and read the rest, and then to live accordingly. There are more
than thirty vessels in sight going to sea. I am almost afraid to look
at your letter. I see that it will make my life very steep, but it may
lead to fairer prospects than this.

You seem to me to speak out of a very clear and high heaven, where any
one may be who stands so high. Your voice seems not a voice, but comes
as much from the blue heavens as from the paper.

My dear friend, it was very noble in you to write me so trustful an
answer. It will do as well for another world as for this; such a voice
is for no particular time nor person, but it makes him who may hear it
stand for all that is lofty and true in humanity. The thought of you
will constantly elevate my life; it will be something always above the
horizon to behold, as when I look up at the evening star. I think I
know your thoughts without seeing you, and as well here as in Concord.
You are not at all strange to me.

I could hardly believe, after the lapse of one night, that I had such
a noble letter still at hand to read,--that it was not some fine
dream. I looked at midnight to be sure that it was real. I feel that I
am unworthy to know you, and yet they will not permit it wrongfully.

I, perhaps, am more willing to deceive by appearances than you say you
are; it would not be worth the while to tell how willing; but I have
the power perhaps too much to forget my meanness as soon as seen, and
not be incited by permanent sorrow. My actual life is unspeakably mean
compared with what I know and see that it might be. Yet the ground
from which I see and say this is some part of it. It ranges from
heaven to earth, and is all things in an hour. The experience of every
past moment but belies the faith of each present. We never conceive
the greatness of our fates. Are not these faint flashes of light which
sometimes obscure the sun their certain dawn?

My friend, I have read your letter as if I was not reading it. After
each pause I could defer the rest forever. The thought of you will be
a new motive for every right action. You are another human being whom
I know, and might not our topic be as broad as the universe? What have
we to do with petty rumbling news? We have our own great affairs.
Sometimes in Concord I found my actions dictated, as it were, by your
influence, and though it led almost to trivial Hindoo observances, yet
it was good and elevating. To hear that you have sad hours is not sad
to me. I rather rejoice at the richness of your experience. Only think
of some sadness away in Pekin,--unseen and unknown there. What a mine
it is! Would it not weigh down the Celestial Empire, with all its gay
Chinese? Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys. Let us be sad
about all we see and are, for so we demand and pray for better. It is
the constant prayer and whole Christian religion. I could hope that
you would get well soon, and have a healthy body for this world, but I
know this cannot be; and the Fates, after all, are the accomplishers
of our hopes. Yet I do hope that you may find it a worthy struggle,
and life seem grand still through the clouds.

What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them
without elevation! And we can think of them any time and anywhere, and
it costs nothing but the lofty disposition. I cannot tell you the joy
your letter gives me, which will not quite cease till the latest time.
Let me accompany your finest thought.

I send my love to my other friend and brother, whose nobleness I
slowly recognize.

     HENRY.


TO MRS. THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, July 7, 1843.

DEAR MOTHER,--I was very glad to get your letter and papers. Tell
Father that circumstantial letters make very substantial reading, at
any rate. I like to know even how the sun shines and garden grows
with you. I did not get my money in Boston, and probably shall not at
all. Tell Sophia that I have pressed some blossoms of the tulip tree
for her. They look somewhat like white lilies. The magnolia, too, is
in blossom here.

Pray, have you the seventeen-year locust in Concord? The air here is
filled with their din. They come out of the ground at first in an
imperfect state, and, crawling up the shrubs and plants, the perfect
insect bursts out through the back. They are doing great damage to the
fruit and forest trees. The latter are covered with dead twigs, which
in the distance look like the blossoms of the chestnut. They bore
every twig of last year's growth in order to deposit their eggs in it.
In a few weeks the eggs will be hatched, and the worms fall to the
ground and enter it, and in 1860 make their appearance again. I
conversed about their coming this season before they arrived. They do
no injury to the leaves, but, beside boring the twigs, suck their sap
for sustenance. Their din is heard by those who sail along the shore
from the distant woods,--Phar-r-r-aoh. Phar-r-r-aoh. They are
departing now. Dogs, cats, and chickens subsist mainly upon them in
some places.

I have not been to New York for more than three weeks. I have had an
interesting letter from Mr. Lane,[27] describing their new prospects.
My pupil and I are getting on apace. He is remarkably well advanced in
Latin, and is well advancing.

Your letter has just arrived. I was not aware that it was so long
since I wrote home; I only knew that I had sent five or six letters to
the town. It is very refreshing to hear from you, though it is not all
good news. But I trust that Stearns Wheeler is not dead. I should be
slow to believe it. He was made to work very well in this world. There
need be no tragedy in his death.

The demon which is said to haunt the Jones family, hovering over their
eyelids with wings steeped in juice of poppies, has commenced another
campaign against me. I am "clear Jones" in this respect at least. But
he finds little encouragement in my atmosphere, I assure you, for I do
not once fairly lose myself, except in those hours of truce allotted
to rest by immemorial custom. However, this skirmishing interferes
sadly with my literary projects, and I am apt to think it a good day's
work if I maintain a soldier's eye till nightfall. Very well, it does
not matter much in what wars we serve, whether in the Highlands or the
Lowlands. Everywhere we get soldiers' pay still.

Give my love to Aunt Louisa, whose benignant face I sometimes see
right in the wall, as naturally and necessarily shining on my path as
some star of unaccountably greater age and higher orbit than myself.
Let it be inquired by her of George Minott, as from me,--for she sees
him,--if he has seen any pigeons yet, and tell him there are plenty of
jack snipes here. As for William P., the "worthy young man,"--as I
live, my eyes have not fallen on him yet.

I have not had the influenza, though here are its
headquarters,--unless my first week's cold was it. Tell Helen I shall
write to her soon. I have heard Lucretia Mott. This is badly written;
but the worse the writing the sooner you get it this time from

     Your affectionate son,
     H. D. T.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, July 8, 1843.

DEAR FRIENDS,--I was very glad to hear your voices from so far. I do
not believe there are eight hundred human beings on the globe. It is
all a fable, and I cannot but think that you speak with a slight
outrage and disrespect of Concord when you talk of fifty of them.
There are not so many. Yet think not that I have left all behind, for
already I begin to track my way over the earth, and find the cope of
heaven extending beyond its horizon,--forsooth, like the roofs of
these Dutch houses. My thoughts revert to those dear hills and that
_river_ which so fills up the world to its brim,--worthy to be named
with Mincius and Alpheus,--still drinking its meadows while I am far
away. How can it run heedless to the sea, as if I were there to
countenance it? George Minott, too, looms up considerably,--and many
another old familiar face. These things all look sober and
respectable. They are better than the environs of New York, I assure
you.

I am pleased to think of Channing as an inhabitant of the gray town.
Seven cities contended for Homer dead. Tell him to remain at least
long enough to establish Concord's right and interest in him. I was
beginning to know the man. In imagination I see you pilgrims taking
your way by the red lodge and the cabin of the brave farmer man, so
youthful and hale, to the still cheerful woods. And Hawthorne, too, I
remember as one with whom I sauntered, in old heroic times, along the
banks of the Scamander, amid the ruins of chariots and heroes. Tell
him not to desert, even after the tenth year. Others may say, "Are
there not the cities of Asia?" But what are they? Staying at home is
the heavenly way.

And Elizabeth Hoar, my brave townswoman, to be sung of poets,--if I
may speak of her whom I do not know. Tell Mrs. Brown that I do not
forget her, going her way under the stars through this chilly
world,--I did _not_ think of the wind,--and that I went a little way
with her. Tell her not to despair. Concord's little arch does not span
all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

And least of all are forgotten those walks in the woods in ancient
days,--too sacred to be idly remembered,--when their aisles were
pervaded as by a fragrant atmosphere. They still seem youthful and
cheery to my imagination as Sherwood and Barnsdale,--and of far purer
fame. Those afternoons when we wandered o'er Olympus,--and those
hills, from which the sun was seen to set, while still our day held on
its way.

     "At last he rose and twitched his mantle blue;
     To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new."

I remember these things at midnight, at rare intervals. But know, my
friends, that I a good deal hate you all in my most private thoughts,
as the substratum of the little love I bear you. Though you are a
rare band, and do not make half use enough of one another.

I think this is a noble number of the _Dial_.[28] It perspires thought
and feeling. I can speak of it now a little like a foreigner. Be
assured that it is not written in vain,--it is not for me. I hear its
prose and its verse. They provoke and inspire me, and they have my
sympathy. I hear the sober and the earnest, the sad and the cheery
voices of my friends, and to me it is a long letter of encouragement
and reproof; and no doubt so it is to many another in the land. So
don't give up the ship. Methinks the verse is hardly enough better
than the prose. I give my vote for the "Notes from the Journal of a
Scholar," and wonder you don't print them faster. I want, too, to read
the rest of the "Poet and the Painter." Miss Fuller's is a noble
piece,--rich, extempore writing, talking with pen in hand. It is too
good not to be better, even. In writing, conversation should be folded
many times thick. It is the height of art that, on the first perusal,
plain common sense should appear; on the second, severe truth; and on
a third, beauty; and, having these warrants for its depth and reality,
we may then enjoy the beauty for evermore. The sea-piece is of the
best that is going, if not of the best that is staying. You have
spoken a good word for Carlyle. As for the "Winter's Walk," I should
be glad to have it printed in the _Dial_ if you think it good enough,
and will criticise it; otherwise send it to me, and I will dispose of
it.

I have not been to New York for a month, and so have not seen Waldo
and Tappan. James has been at Albany meanwhile. You will know that I
only describe my personal adventures with people; but I hope to see
more of them, and _judge_ them too. I am sorry to learn that Mrs.
Emerson is no better. But let her know that the Fates pay a compliment
to those whom they make sick, and they have not to ask, "What have I
done?"

Remember me to your mother, and remember me yourself as you are
remembered by

     H. D. T.

I had a friendly and cheery letter from Lane a month ago.


TO HELEN THOREAU (AT ROXBURY).

     STATEN ISLAND, July 21, 1843.

DEAR HELEN,--I am not in such haste to write home when I remember that
I make my readers pay the postage. But I believe I have not taxed you
before.

I have pretty much explored this island, inland and along the shore,
finding my health inclined me to the peripatetic philosophy. I have
visited telegraph stations, Sailors' Snug Harbors, Seaman's Retreats,
Old Elm Trees, where the Huguenots landed, Britton's Mills, and all
the villages on the island. Last Sunday I walked over to Lake Island
Farm, eight or nine miles from here, where Moses Prichard lived, and
found the present occupant, one Mr. Davenport, formerly from
Massachusetts, with three or four men to help him, raising sweet
potatoes and tomatoes by the acre. It seemed a cool and pleasant
retreat, but a hungry soil. As I was coming away, I took my toll out
of the soil in the shape of arrowheads, which may after all be the
surest crop, certainly not affected by drought.

I am well enough situated here to observe one aspect of the modern
world at least. I mean the migratory,--the western movement. Sixteen
hundred immigrants arrived at quarantine ground on the 4th of July,
and more or less every day since I have been here. I see them
occasionally washing their persons and clothes: or men, women, and
children gathered on an isolated quay near the shore, stretching their
limbs and taking the air; the children running races and swinging on
this artificial piece of the land of liberty, while their vessels are
undergoing purification. They are detained but a day or two, and then
go up to the city, for the most part without having _landed_ here.

In the city, I have seen, since I wrote last, W. H. Channing, at whose
home, in Fifteenth Street, I spent a few pleasant hours, discussing
the all-absorbing question "what to do for the race." (He is sadly in
earnest about going up the river to rusticate for six weeks, and
issues a new periodical called _The Present_ in September.) Also
Horace Greeley, editor of the _Tribune_, who is cheerfully in earnest,
at his office of all work, a hearty New Hampshire boy as one would
wish to meet, and says, "Now be neighborly," and believes only, or
mainly, first, in the Sylvania Association, somewhere in Pennsylvania;
and, secondly, and most of all, in a new association to go into
operation soon in New Jersey, with which he is connected. Edward
Palmer came down to see me Sunday before last. As for Waldo and
Tappan, we have strangely dodged one another, and have not met for
some weeks.

I believe I have not told you anything about Lucretia Mott. It was a
good while ago that I heard her at the Quaker Church in Hester Street.
She is a preacher, and it was advertised that she would be present on
that day. I liked all the proceedings very well, their plainly greater
harmony and sincerity than elsewhere. They do nothing in a hurry.
Every one that walks up the aisle in his square coat and expansive hat
has a history, and comes from a house to a house. The women come in
one after another in their Quaker bonnets and handkerchiefs, looking
all like sisters or so many chickadees. At length, after a long
silence,--waiting for the Spirit,--Mrs. Mott rose, took off her
bonnet, and began to utter very deliberately what the Spirit
suggested. Her self-possession was something to see, if all else
failed; but it did not. Her subject was, "The Abuse of the Bible," and
thence she straightway digressed to slavery and the degradation of
woman. It was a good speech,--Transcendentalism in its mildest form.
She sat down at length, and, after a long and decorous silence, in
which some seemed to be really digesting her words, the elders shook
hands, and the meeting dispersed. On the whole, I liked their ways and
the plainness of their meeting-house. It looked as if it was indeed
made for service.

I think that Stearns Wheeler has left a gap in the community not easy
to be filled. Though he did not exhibit the highest qualities of the
scholar, he promised, in a remarkable degree, many of the essential
and rarer ones; and his patient industry and energy, his reverent love
of letters, and his proverbial accuracy, will cause him to be
associated in my memory even with many venerable names of former days.
It was not wholly unfit that so pure a lover of books should have
ended his pilgrimage at the great book-mart of the world. I think of
him as healthy and brave, and am confident that if he had lived he
would have proved useful in more ways than I can describe. He would
have been authority on all matters of fact, and a sort of connecting
link between men and scholars of different walks and tastes. The
literary enterprises he was planning for himself and friends remind me
of an older and more studious time. So much, then, remains for us to
do who survive. Love to all. Tell all my friends in Concord that I do
not send my love, but retain it still.

Your affectionate brother.


TO MRS. THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, August 6, 1843.

DEAR MOTHER,--As Mr. William Emerson is going to Concord on Tuesday, I
must not omit sending a line by him,--though I wish I had something
more weighty for so direct a post. I believe I directed my last letter
to you by mistake; but it must have appeared that it was addressed to
Helen. At any rate, this is to you without mistake.

I am chiefly indebted to your letters for what I have learned of
Concord and family news, and am very glad when I get one. I should
have liked to be in Walden woods with you, but not with the railroad.
I think of you all very often, and wonder if you are still separated
from me only by so many miles of earth, or so many miles of memory.
This life we live is a strange dream, and I don't believe at all any
account men give of it. Methinks I should be content to sit at the
back door in Concord, under the poplar tree, henceforth forever. Not
that I am homesick at all,--for places are strangely indifferent to
me,--but Concord is still a cynosure to my eyes, and I find it hard to
attach it, even in imagination, to the rest of the globe, and tell
where the seam is.

I fancy that this Sunday evening you are pouring over some select
book, almost transcendental perchance, or else "Burgh's Dignity," or
Massillon, or the _Christian Examiner_. Father has just taken one more
look at the garden, and is now absorbed in Chaptelle, or reading the
newspaper quite abstractedly, only looking up occasionally over his
spectacles to see how the rest are engaged, and not to miss any newer
news that may not be in the paper. Helen has slipped in for the fourth
time to learn the very latest item. Sophia, I suppose, is at Bangor;
but Aunt Louisa, without doubt, is just flitting away to some good
meeting, to save the credit of you all.

It is still a cardinal virtue with me to keep awake. I find it
impossible to write or read except at rare intervals, but am,
generally speaking, tougher than formerly. I could make a pedestrian
tour round the world, and sometimes think it would perhaps be better
to do at once the things I _can_, rather than be trying to do what at
present I cannot do well. However, I shall awake sooner or later.

I have been translating some Greek, and reading English poetry, and a
month ago sent a paper to the _Democratic Review_, which, at length,
they were sorry they could not accept; but they could not adopt the
sentiments. However, they were very polite, and earnest that I should
send them something else, or reform that.

I go moping about the fields and woods here as I did in Concord, and,
it seems, am thought to be a surveyor,--an Eastern man inquiring
narrowly into the condition and value of land, etc., here, preparatory
to an extensive speculation. One neighbor observed to me, in a
mysterious and half-inquisitive way, that he supposed I must be pretty
well acquainted with the state of things; that I kept pretty close; he
did n't see any surveying instruments, but perhaps I had them in my
pocket.

I have received Helen's note, but have not heard of Frisbie Hoar
yet.[29] She is a faint-hearted writer, who could not take the
responsibility of blotting one sheet alone. However, I like very well
the blottings I get. Tell her I have not seen Mrs. Child nor Mrs.
Sedgwick.

Love to all from your affectionate son.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, August 7, 1843.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I fear I have nothing to send you worthy of so good
an opportunity. Of New York I still know but little, though out of so
many thousands there are no doubt many units whom it would be worth my
while to know. Mr. James[30] talks of going to Germany soon with his
wife to learn the language. He says he must know it; can never learn
it here; there he may absorb it; and is very anxious to learn
beforehand where he had best locate himself to enjoy the advantage of
the highest culture, learn the language in its purity, and not exceed
his limited means. I referred him to Longfellow. Perhaps you can help
him.

I have had a pleasant talk with Channing; and Greeley, too, it was
refreshing to meet. They were both much pleased with your criticism on
Carlyle, but thought that you had overlooked what chiefly concerned
them in the book,--its practical aim and merits.

I have also spent some pleasant hours with Waldo and Tappan at their
counting-room, or rather intelligence office.

I must still reckon myself with the innumerable army of
invalids,--undoubtedly in a fair field they would rout the
well,--though I am tougher than formerly. Methinks I could paint the
sleepy god more truly than the poets have done, from more intimate
experience. Indeed, I have not kept my eyes very steadily open to the
things of this world of late, and hence have little to report
concerning them. However, I trust the awakening will come before the
last trump,--and then perhaps I may remember some of my dreams.

I study the aspects of commerce at its Narrows here, where it passes
in review before me, and this seems to be beginning at the right end
to understand this Babylon. I have made a very rude translation of the
Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he was
better worth translating. I believe even the best things are not equal
to their fame. Perhaps it would be better to translate fame
itself,--or is not that what the poets themselves do? However, I have
not done with Pindar yet. I sent a long article on Etzler's book to
the _Democratic Review_ six weeks ago, which at length they have
determined not to accept, as they could not subscribe to all the
opinions, but asked for other matter,--purely literary, I suppose.
O'Sullivan wrote me that articles of this kind have to be referred to
the circle who, it seems, are represented by this journal, and said
something about "collective we" and "homogeneity."

Pray don't think of Bradbury & Soden[31] any more,--

     "For good deed done through praiere
     Is sold and bought too dear, I wis,
     To herte that of great valor is."

I see that they have given up their shop here.

Say to Mrs. Emerson that I am glad to remember how she too dwells
there in Concord, and shall send her anon some of the thoughts that
belong to her. As for Edith, I seem to see a star in the east over
where the young child is. Remember me to Mrs. Brown.

       *       *       *       *       *

These letters for the most part explain themselves, with the aid of
several to Thoreau's family, which the purpose of Emerson, in 1865, to
present his friend in a stoical character, had excluded from the
collection then printed. Mention of C. S. Wheeler and his sad death in
Germany had come to him from Emerson, as well as from his own family
at Concord,--of whose occupations Thoreau gives so genial a picture in
the letter of August 6 to his mother. Emerson wrote: "You will have
read and heard the sad news to the little village of Lincoln, of
Stearns Wheeler's death. Such an overthrow to the hopes of his parents
made me think more of them than of the loss the community will suffer
in his kindness, diligence, and ingenuous mind." He died at Leipsic,
in the midst of Greek studies which have since been taken up and
carried farther by a child of Concord, Professor Goodwin of the same
university. Henry James, several times mentioned in the
correspondence, was the moral and theological essayist (father of the
novelist Henry James, and the distinguished Professor James of
Harvard), who was so striking a personality in Concord and Cambridge
circles for many years. W. H. Channing was a Christian Socialist fifty
years ago,--cousin of Ellery Channing, and nephew and biographer of
Dr. Channing. Both he and Horace Greeley were then deeply interested
in the Fourierist scheme of association, one development of which was
going on at Brook Farm, under direction of George Ripley, and another,
differing in design, at Fruitlands, under Bronson Alcott and Charles
Lane. The jocose allusions of Thoreau to his Jones ancestors (the
descendants of the Tory Colonel Jones of Weston) had this foundation
in fact,--that his uncle, Charles Dunbar, soon to be named in
connection with Daniel Webster, suffered from a sort of lethargy,
which would put him to sleep in the midst of conversation. Webster had
been retained in the once famous "Wyman case," of a bank officer
charged with fraud, and had exerted his great forensic talent for a
few days in the Concord court-house. Emerson wrote Thoreau: "You will
have heard of the Wyman trial, and the stir it made in the village.
But the Cliff and Walden knew nothing of that."


TO MRS. THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

     CASTLETON, Tuesday, August 29, 1843.

DEAR MOTHER,--Mr. Emerson has just given me warning that he is about
to send to Concord, which I will endeavor to improve. I am a great
deal more wakeful than I was, and growing stout in other
respects,--so that I may yet accomplish something in the literary
way; indeed, I should have done so before now but for the slowness and
poverty of the "Reviews" themselves. I have tried sundry methods of
earning money in the city, of late, but without success: have rambled
into every bookseller's or publisher's house, and discussed their
affairs with them. Some propose to me to do what an honest man cannot.
Among others, I conversed with the Harpers--to see if they might not
find me useful to them; but they say that they are making $50,000
annually, and their motto is to let well alone. I find that I talk
with these poor men as if I were over head and ears in business, and a
few thousands were no consideration with me. I almost reproach myself
for bothering them so to no purpose; but it is a very valuable
experience, and the best introduction I could have.

We have had a tremendous rain here last Monday night and Tuesday
morning. I was in the city at Giles Waldo's, and the streets at
daybreak were absolutely impassable for the water. Yet the accounts of
the storm that you may have seen are exaggerated, as indeed are all
such things, to my imagination. On Sunday I heard Mr. Bellows preach
here on the island; but the fine prospect over the Bay and Narrows,
from where I sat, preached louder than he,--though he did far better
than the average, if I remember aright. I should have liked to see
Daniel Webster walking about Concord; I suppose the town shook, every
step he took. But I trust there were some sturdy Concordians who were
not tumbled down by the jar, but represented still the upright town.
Where was George Minott? he would not have gone far to see him. Uncle
Charles should have been there,--he might as well have been catching
cat naps in Concord as anywhere.

And then, what a whetter-up of his memory this event would have been!
You'd have had all the classmates again in alphabetical order
reversed,--"and Seth Hunt and Bob Smith--and he was a student of my
father's,--and where's Put now? and I wonder--you--if Henry's been to
see George Jones yet! A little account with Stow,--Balcom,--Bigelow,
poor miserable t-o-a-d,--(sound asleep.) I vow, you,--what noise was
that?--saving grace--and few there be--That's clear as preaching,--Easter
Brooks,--morally deprived,--How charming is divine philosophy,--some
wise and some otherwise,--Heighho! (sound asleep again) Webster's a
smart fellow--bears his age well,--how old should you think he was?
you--does he look as if he were ten years younger than I?"

I met, or rather, was overtaken by Fuller, who tended for Mr. How, the
other day, in Broadway. He dislikes New York very much. The Mercantile
Library,--that is, its Librarian, presented me with a stranger's
ticket, for a month, and I was glad to read the Reviews there, and
Carlyle's last article. I have bought some pantaloons; stockings show
no holes yet. These pantaloons cost $2.25 ready made.

In haste.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, September 14, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--Miss Fuller will tell you the news from these parts, so
I will only devote these few moments to what she does n't know as
well. I was absent only one day and night from the island, the family
expecting me back immediately. I was to earn a certain sum before
winter, and thought it worth the while to try various experiments. I
carried _The Agriculturist_ about the city, and up as far as
Manhattanville, and called at the Croton Reservoir, where, indeed,
they did not want any Agriculturists, but paid well enough in their
way.

Literature comes to a poor market here; and even the little that I
write is more than will sell. I have tried _The Dem. Review_, _The New
Mirror_, and _Brother Jonathan_.[32] The last two, as well as the _New
World_, are overwhelmed with contributions which cost nothing, and are
worth no more. _The Knickerbocker_ is too poor, and only _The Ladies'
Companion_ pays. O'Sullivan is printing the manuscript I sent him some
time ago, having objected only to my want of sympathy with the
Committee.

I doubt if you have made more corrections in my manuscript than I
should have done ere this, though they may be better; but I am glad
you have taken any pains with it. I have not prepared any translations
for the _Dial_, supposing there would be no room, though it is the
only place for them.

I have been seeing men during these days, and trying experiments upon
trees; have inserted three or four hundred buds (quite a Buddhist, one
might say). Books I have access to through your brother and Mr.
McKean, and have read a good deal. Quarles's "Divine Poems" as well as
"Emblems" are quite a discovery.

I am very sorry Mrs. Emerson is so sick. Remember me to her and to
your mother. I like to think of your living on the banks of the Mill
Brook, in the midst of the garden with all its weeds; for what are
botanical distinctions at this distance?


TO HIS MOTHER (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, October 1, 1843.

DEAR MOTHER,--I hold together remarkably well as yet,--speaking of my
outward linen and woolen man; no holes more than I brought away, and
no stitches needed yet. It is marvelous. I think the Fates must be on
my side, for there is less than a plank between me and--Time, to say
the least. As for Eldorado, that is far off yet. My bait will not
tempt the rats,--they are too well fed. The _Democratic Review_ is
poor, and can only afford half or quarter pay, which it _will_ do; and
they say there is a _Ladies' Companion_ that pays,--but I could not
write anything companionable. However, speculate as we will, it is
quite gratuitous; for life, nevertheless and never the more, goes
steadily on, well or ill-fed, and clothed somehow, and "honor bright"
withal. It is very gratifying to live in the prospect of great
successes always; and for that purpose we must leave a sufficient
foreground to see them through. All the painters prefer distant
prospects for the greater breadth of view and delicacy of tint. But
this is no news, and describes no new conditions.

Meanwhile I am somnambulic at least,--stirring in my sleep; indeed,
quite awake. I read a good deal, and am pretty well known in the
libraries of New York. Am in with the librarian (one Dr. Forbes) of
the Society Library, who has lately been to Cambridge to learn
liberality, and has come back to let me take out some un-take-out-able
books, which I was threatening to read on the spot. And Mr. McKean, of
the Mercantile Library, is a true gentleman (a former tutor of mine),
and offers me every privilege there. I have from him a perpetual
stranger's ticket, and a citizen's rights besides,--all which
privileges I pay handsomely for by improving.

A canoe race "came off" on the Hudson the other day, between
Chippeways and New Yorkers, which must have been as moving a sight as
the buffalo hunt which I witnessed. But canoes and buffaloes are all
lost, as is everything here, in the mob. It is only the people have
come to see one another. Let them advertise that there will be a
gathering at Hoboken,--having bargained with the ferryboats,--and
there will be, and they need not throw in the buffaloes.

I have crossed the bay twenty or thirty times, and have seen a great
many immigrants going up to the city for the first time: Norwegians,
who carry their old-fashioned farming-tools to the West with them, and
will buy nothing here for fear of being cheated; English operatives,
known by their pale faces and stained hands, who will recover their
birthright in a little cheap sun and wind; English travelers on their
way to the Astor House, to whom I have done the honors of the city;
whole families of emigrants cooking their dinner upon the
pavement,--all sunburnt, so that you are in doubt where the
foreigner's face of flesh begins; their tidy clothes laid on, and then
tied to their swathed bodies, which move about like a bandaged
finger,--caps set on the head as if woven of the hair, which is still
growing at the roots,--each and all busily cooking, stooping from time
to time over the pot, and having something to drop in it, that so they
may be entitled to take something out, forsooth. They look like
respectable but straitened people, who may turn out to be Counts when
they get to Wisconsin, and will have this experience to relate to
their children.

Seeing so many people from day to day, one comes to have less respect
for flesh and bones, and thinks they must be more loosely joined, of
less firm fibre, than the few he had known. It must have a very bad
influence on children to see so many human beings at once,--mere herds
of men.

I came across Henry Bigelow a week ago, sitting in front of a hotel in
Broadway, very much as if he were under his father's stoop. He is
seeking to be admitted into the bar in New York, but as yet had not
succeeded. I directed him to Fuller's store, which he had not found,
and invited him to come and see me if he came to the island. Tell Mrs.
and Miss Ward that I have not forgotten them, and was glad to hear
from George--with whom I spent last night--that they had returned to
C. Tell Mrs. Brown that it gives me as much pleasure to know that she
thinks of me and my writing as if I had been the author of the piece
in question,--but I did not even read over the papers I sent. The
_Mirror_ is really the most readable journal here. I see that they
have printed a short piece that I wrote to sell, in the _Dem. Review_,
and still keep the review of "Paradise," that I may include in it a
notice of another book by the same author, which they have found, and
are going to send me.

I don't know when I shall come home; I like to keep that feast in
store. Tell Helen that I do not see any advertisement for her, and I
am looking for myself. If I could find a rare opening, I might be
tempted to try with her for a year, till I had paid my debts, but for
such I am sure it is not well to go out of New England. Teachers are
but poorly recompensed, even here. Tell her and Sophia (if she is not
gone) to write to me. Father will know that this letter is to him as
well as to you. I send him a paper which usually contains the
news,--if not all that is stirring, all that has stirred,--and even
draws a little on the future. I wish he would send me, by and by, the
paper which contains the results of the Cattle-Show. You must get
Helen's eyes to read this, though she is a scoffer at honest
penmanship.


TO MRS. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, October 16, 1843.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I promised you some thoughts long ago, but it would
be hard to tell whether these are the ones. I suppose that the great
questions of "Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge absolute," which used to
be discussed at Concord, are still unsettled. And here comes [W. H.]
Channing, with his _Present_ to vex the world again,--a rather
galvanic movement, I think. However, I like the man all the better,
though his schemes the less. I am sorry for his confessions. Faith
never makes a confession.

Have you had the annual berrying party, or sat on the Cliffs a whole
day this summer? I suppose the flowers have fared quite as well since
I was not there to scoff at them; and the hens, without doubt, keep up
their reputation.

I have been reading lately what of Quarles's poetry I could get. He
was a contemporary of Herbert, and a kindred spirit. I think you would
like him. It is rare to find one who was so much of a poet and so
little of an artist. He wrote long poems, almost epics for length,
about Jonah, Esther, Job, Samson, and Solomon, interspersed with
meditations after a quite original plan,--Shepherd's Oracles,
Comedies, Romances, Fancies, and Meditations,--the quintessence of
meditation,--and Enchiridions of Meditation all divine,--and what he
calls his Morning Muse; besides prose works as curious as the rest. He
was an unwearied Christian, and a reformer of some old school withal.
Hopelessly quaint, as if he lived all alone and knew nobody but his
wife, who appears to have reverenced him. He never doubts his genius;
it is only he and his God in all the world. He uses language sometimes
as greatly as Shakespeare; and though there is not much straight grain
in him, there is plenty of tough, crooked timber. In an age when
Herbert is revived, Quarles surely ought not to be forgotten.

I will copy a few such sentences as I should read to you if there.
Mrs. Brown, too, may find some nutriment in them.

How does the Saxon Edith do? Can you tell yet to which school of
philosophy she belongs,--whether she will be a fair saint of some
Christian order, or a follower of Plato and the heathen? Bid Ellen a
good-night or good-morning from me, and see if she will remember where
it comes from; and remember me to Mrs. Brown, and your mother, and
Elizabeth Hoar.


TO R. W. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, October 17, 1843.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I went with my pupil to the Fair of the American
Institute, and so lost a visit from Tappan, whom I met returning from
the Island. I should have liked to hear more news from his lips,
though he had left me a letter and the _Dial_, which is a sort of
circular letter itself. I find Channing's[33] letters full of life,
and I enjoy their wit highly. Lane writes straight and solid, like a
guide-board, but I find that I put off the "social tendencies" to a
future day, which may never come. He is always Shaker fare, quite as
luxurious as his principles will allow. I feel as if I were ready to
be appointed a committee on poetry, I have got my eyes so whetted and
proved of late, like the knife-sharpener I saw at the Fair, certified
to have been "in constant use in a gentleman's family for more than
two years." Yes, I ride along the ranks of the English poets, casting
terrible glances, and some I blot out, and some I spare. McKean has
imported, within the year, several new editions and collections of old
poetry, of which I have the reading, but there is a good deal of chaff
to a little meal,--hardly worth bolting. I have just opened Bacon's
"Advancement of Learning" for the first time, which I read with great
delight. It is more like what Scott's novels _were_ than anything.

I see that I was very blind to send you my manuscript in such a state;
but I have a good _second_ sight, at least. I could still shake it in
the wind to some advantage, if it would hold together. There are some
sad mistakes in the printing. It is a little unfortunate that the
"Ethnical Scriptures" should hold out so well, though it does really
hold out. The Bible ought not to be very large. Is it not singular
that, while the religious world is gradually picking to pieces its old
testaments, here are some coming slowly after, on the seashore,
picking up the durable relics of perhaps older books, and putting them
together again?

Your Letter to Contributors is excellent, and hits the nail on the
head. It will taste sour to their palates at first, no doubt, but it
will bear a sweet fruit at last. I like the poetry, especially the
Autumn verses. They ring true. Though I am quite weather-beaten with
poetry, having weathered so many epics of late. The "Sweep Ho!" sounds
well this way. But I have a good deal of fault to find with your "Ode
to Beauty." The tune is altogether unworthy of the thoughts. You slope
too quickly to the rhyme, as if that trick had better be performed as
soon as possible, or as if you stood over the line with a hatchet, and
chopped off the verses as they came out, some short and some long. But
give us a long reel, and we'll cut it up to suit ourselves. It sounds
like parody. "Thee knew I of old," "Remediless thirst," are some of
those stereotyped lines. I am frequently reminded, I believe, of Jane
Taylor's "Philosopher's Scales," and how the world

     "Flew out with a bounce,"

which

     "Yerked the philosopher out of his cell;"

or else of

     "From the climes of the sun all war-worn and weary."

I had rather have the thought come ushered with a flourish of oaths
and curses. Yet I love your poetry as I do little else that is near
and recent, especially when you get fairly round the end of the line,
and are not thrown back upon the rocks. To read the lecture on "The
Comic" is as good as to be in our town meeting or Lyceum once more.

I am glad that the Concord farmers plowed well this year; it promises
that something will be done these summers. But I am suspicious of that
_Brittonner_, who advertises so many cords of _good_ oak, chestnut,
and maple wood for sale. _Good!_ ay, good for what? And there shall
not be left a stone upon a stone. But no matter,--let them hack away.
The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or
maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of
Irish cabins, and pigs and children reveling in the genial Concord
dirt; and I should still find my Walden Wood and Fair Haven in their
tanned and happy faces.

I write this in the corn-field--it being washing-day--with the
inkstand Elizabeth Hoar gave me;[34] though it is not redolent of
corn-stalks, I fear. Let me not be forgotten by Channing and
Hawthorne, nor our gray-suited neighbor under the hill [Edmund
Hosmer].

       *       *       *       *       *

This letter will be best explained by a reference to the _Dial_ for
October, 1843. The "Ethnical Scriptures" were selections from the
Brahminical books, from Confucius, etc., such as we have since seen in
great abundance. The Autumn verses are by Channing; "Sweep Ho!" by
Ellen Sturgis, afterwards Mrs. Hooper; the "Youth of the Poet and
Painter" also by Channing. The Letter to Contributors, which is headed
simply "A Letter," is by Emerson, and has been much overlooked by his
later readers; his "Ode to Beauty" is very well known, and does not
deserve the slashing censure of Thoreau, though, as it now stands, it
is better than first printed. Instead of

     "Love drinks at thy banquet
     _Remediless_ thirst,"

we now have the perfect phrase,

     "Love drinks at thy _fountain_
     _False waters of thirst_."

"The Comic" is also Emerson's. There is a poem, "The Sail," by William
Tappan, so often named in these letters, and a sonnet by Charles A.
Dana, afterwards of the _New York Sun_.


TO HELEN THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

     STATEN ISLAND, October 18, 1843.

Dear Helen,--What do you mean by saying that "_we_ have written eight
times by private opportunity"? Is n't it the more the better? And am I
not glad of it? But people have a habit of not letting me know it
when they go to Concord from New York. I endeavored to get you _The
Present_ when I was last in the city, but they were all sold; and now
another is out, which I will send, if I get it. I did not send the
_Democratic Review_, because I had no copy, and my piece was not worth
fifty cents. You think that Channing's words would apply to me too, as
living more in the natural than the moral world; but I think that you
mean the world of men and women rather, and reformers generally. My
objection to Channing and all that fraternity is that they need and
deserve sympathy themselves rather than are able to render it to
others. They want faith, and mistake their private ail for an infected
atmosphere; but let any one of them recover hope for a moment, and
right his _particular_ grievance, and he will no longer train in that
company. To speak or do anything that shall concern mankind, one must
speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has
left. This _Present_ book indeed is blue, but the hue of its thoughts
is yellow. I say these things with the less hesitation, because I have
the jaundice myself; but I also know what it is to be well. But do not
think that one can escape from mankind who is one of them, and is so
constantly dealing with them.

I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the
development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be
too cruel. And then, as if looking all this while one way with
benevolence, to walk off another about one's own affairs suddenly!
Something of this kind is an unavoidable objection to that.

I am very sorry to hear such bad news about Aunt Maria; but I think
that the worst is always the least to be apprehended, for nature is
averse to it as well as we. I trust to hear that she is quite well
soon. I send love to her and Aunt Jane. For three months I have not
known whether to think of Sophia as in Bangor or Concord, and now you
say that she is going directly. Tell her to write to me, and establish
her whereabouts, and also to get well directly. And see that she has
something worthy to do when she gets down there, for that's the best
remedy for disease.

     Your affectionate brother,
     H. D. THOREAU.


FOOTNOTES:

[2] He was named David for this uncle; Dr. Ripley was the minister of
the whole town in 1817. The Red House stood near the Emerson house on
the Lexington road; the Woodwards were a wealthy family, afterwards in
Quincy, to which town Dr. Woodward left a large bequest.

[3] John Thoreau, grandfather of Henry, born at St. Helier's, Jersey,
April, 1754, was a sailor on board the American privateer General
Lincoln, November, 1779, and recognized La Sensible, French frigate,
which carried John Adams from Boston to France. See _Journal_, vol. v,
June 11, 1853. This John Thoreau, son of Philip, died in Concord,
1800.

[4] This had been the abode of old Deacon Parkman, a granduncle of the
late Francis Parkman, the historian, and son of the Westborough
clergyman from whom this distinguished family descends. Deacon Parkman
was a merchant in Concord, and lived in what was then a good house. It
stood in the middle of the village, where the Public Library now is.
The "Texas" house was built by Henry Thoreau and his father John; it
was named from a section of the village then called "Texas," because a
little remote from the churches and schools; perhaps the same odd
fancy that had bestowed the name of "Virginia" on the road of
Thoreau's birthplace. The "Yellow House reformed" was a small cottage
rebuilt and enlarged by the Thoreaus in 1850; in this, on the main
street, Henry and his father and mother died.

[5] During the greater part of his college course he signed himself D.
H. Thoreau, as he was christened (David Henry); but being constantly
called "Henry," he put this name first about the time he left college,
and was seldom afterwards known by the former initials.

[6] The impression made on one classmate and former room-mate ("chum")
of Thoreau, by this utterance, will be seen by this fragment of a
letter from James Richardson of Dedham (afterwards Reverend J.
Richardson), dated Dedham, September 7, 1837:--

      "FRIEND THOREAU,--After you had finished your part in the
      Performances of Commencement (the tone and sentiment of
      which, by the way, I liked much, as being of a sound
      philosophy), I hardly saw you again at all. Neither at
      Mr. Quincy's levee, neither at any of our classmates'
      evening entertainments, did I find you; though for the
      purpose of taking a farewell, and leaving you some
      memento of an old chum, as well as on matters of
      business, I much wished to see your face once more. Of
      course you must be present at our October
      meeting,--notice of the time and place for which will be
      given in the newspapers. I hear that you are comfortably
      located, in your native town, as the guardian of its
      children, in the immediate vicinity, I suppose, of one of
      our most distinguished apostles of the future, R. W.
      Emerson, and situated under the ministry of our old
      friend Reverend Barzillai Frost, to whom please make my
      remembrances. I heard from you, also, that Concord
      Academy, lately under the care of Mr. Phineas Allen of
      Northfield, is now vacant of a preceptor; should Mr. Hoar
      find it difficult to get a scholar college-distinguished,
      perhaps he would take up with one, who, though in many
      respects a critical thinker, and a careful philosopher of
      language among other things, has never distinguished
      himself in his class as a regular attendant on college
      studies and rules. If so, could you do me the kindness to
      mention my name to him as of one intending to make
      teaching his profession, at least for a part of his life.
      If recommendations are necessary, President Quincy has
      offered me one, and I can easily get others."

[7] This eldest of the children of John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar was
born October 22, 1812, and died June 14, 1849. Her grandmother, Mary
Jones of Weston, Mass., belonged to a Tory family, and several of the
Jones brothers served as officers in the British army against General
Washington.

[8] White Pond, in the district called "Nine-Acre Corner," is here
meant; the "Lee-vites" were a family then living on Lee's Hill.
Naushawtuck is another name for this hill, where the old Tahatawan
lived at times, before the English settled in Concord in September,
1635. The real date of this letter is November 11-14, 1837, and
between its two dates the Massachusetts State election was held. The
"great council-house" was the Boston State-House, to which the Concord
people were electing deputies; the "Eagle-Beak" named on the next page
was doubtless Samuel Hoar, the first citizen of the town, and for a
time Member of Congress from Middlesex County. He was the father of
Rockwood and Frisbie Hoar, afterwards judge and senator respectively.

[9] A delicate sarcasm on young B., who could not finish his speech in
town-meeting without looking at his notes. The allusion to the
"Medicine whose words are like the music of the mockingbird" is hard
to explain; it may mean Edward Everett, then Governor of
Massachusetts, or, possibly, Emerson, whose lectures began to attract
notice in Boston and Cambridge. It can hardly mean Wendell Phillips,
though his melodious eloquence had lately been heard in attacks upon
slavery.

[10] _Americana_, in this note, is the old _Encyclopedia Americana_,
which had been edited from the German _Conversations-Lexicon_, and
other sources, by Dr. Francis Lieber, T. G. Bradford, and other Boston
scholars, ten years earlier, and was the only convenient book of
reference at Thoreau's hand. The inquiry of John Thoreau is another
evidence of the interest he took, like his brother, in the Indians and
their flint arrowheads. The relics mentioned in the next letter were
doubtless Indian weapons and utensils, very common about Taunton in
the region formerly controlled by King Philip.

[11] Dr. Edward Jarvis, born in Concord (1803), had gone to
Louisville, Ky., in April, 1837, and was thriving there as a
physician. He knew the Thoreaus well, and gave them good hopes of
success in Ohio or Kentucky as teachers. The plan was soon abandoned,
and Henry went to Maine to find a school, but without success. See
Sanborn's _Thoreau_, p. 57.

[12] This was the old monument of the Fight in 1775, for the
dedication of which Emerson wrote his hymn, "By the rude bridge." This
was sung by Thoreau, among others, to the tune of Old Hundred.

[13] For twenty-five years (1866-91) the house of Ellery Channing, and
now of Charles Emerson, nephew of Waldo Emerson.

[14] The steamer Lexington lately burnt on Long Island Sound, with Dr.
Follen on board.

[15] Mrs. Brown was the elder sister of Mrs. R. W. Emerson and of the
eminent chemist and geologist, Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Plymouth and
Boston. She lived for a time in Mrs. Thoreau's family, and Thoreau's
early verses, "Sic Vita," were thrown into her window there by the
young poet, wrapped round a cluster of violets.

[16] This business of pencil-making had become the family
bread-winner, and Henry Thoreau worked at it and kindred arts by
intervals for the next twenty years.

[17] I. T. Williams, who had lived in Concord, but now wrote from
Buffalo, N. Y.

[18] Mrs. Brown, to whom this letter and several others of the years
1841-43 were written, lived by turns in Plymouth, her native place,
and in Concord, where she often visited Mrs. Emerson at the time when
Thoreau was an inmate of the Emerson household. In the early part of
1843 she was in Plymouth, and her sister was sending her newspapers
and other things, from time to time. The incident of the music-box,
mentioned above, occurred at the Old Manse, where Hawthorne was living
from the summer of 1842 until the spring of 1845, and was often
visited by Thoreau and Ellery Channing. In the letter following, this
incident is recalled, and with it the agreeable gift by Richard Fuller
(a younger brother of Margaret Fuller and of Ellen, the wife of Ellery
Channing, who came to reside in Concord about these years, and soon
became Thoreau's most intimate friend), which was a music-box for the
Thoreaus. They were all fond of music, and enjoyed it even in this
mechanical form,--one evidence of the simple conditions of life in
Concord then. The note of thanks to young Fuller, who had been,
perhaps, a pupil of Thoreau, follows this letter to Mrs. Brown, though
earlier in date. Mary Russell afterwards became Mrs. Marston Watson.

[19] Editor of the _Democratic Review_, for which Hawthorne, Emerson,
Thoreau, and Whittier all wrote, more or less.

[20] An interesting fact in connection with Thoreau and Wheeler (whose
home was in Lincoln, four miles southeast of Concord) is related by
Ellery Channing in a note to me. It seems that Wheeler had built for
himself, or hired from a farmer, a rough woodland study near Flint's
Pond, half-way from Lincoln to Concord, which he occupied for a short
time in 1841-42, and where Thoreau and Channing visited him. Mr.
Channing wrote me in 1883: "Stearns Wheeler built a 'shanty' on
Flint's Pond for the purpose of economy, for purchasing Greek books
and going abroad to study. Whether Mr. Thoreau assisted him to build
this shanty I cannot say, but I think he may have; also that he spent
six weeks with him there. As Mr. Thoreau was not too original and
inventive to follow the example of others, if good to him, it is very
probable this undertaking of Stearns Wheeler, whom he regarded (as I
think I have heard him say) a heroic character, suggested his own
experiment on Walden. I believe I visited this shanty with Mr.
Thoreau. It was very plain, with bunks of straw, and built in the
Irish manner. I think Mr. Wheeler was as good a mechanic as Mr.
Thoreau, and built this shanty for his own use. The object of these
two experiments was quite unlike, except in the common purpose of
economy. It seems to me highly probable that Mr. Wheeler's experiment
suggested Mr. Thoreau's, as he was a man he almost worshiped. But I
could not understand what relation Mr. Lowell had to this fact, if it
be one. Students, in all parts of the earth, have pursued a similar
course from motives of economy, and to carry out some special study.
Mr. Thoreau wished to study birds, flowers, and the stone age, just as
Mr. Wheeler wished to study Greek. And Mr. Hotham came next from just
the same motive of economy (necessity) and to study the Bible. The
prudential sides of all three were the same." Mr. Hotham was the young
theological student who dwelt in a cabin by Walden in 1869-70.

[21] An English critic and poetaster. See _Memoir of Bronson Alcott_,
pp. 292-318.

[22] _Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist._ With Memorial Verses. By William
Ellery Channing, New Edition, enlarged, edited by F. B. Sanborn
(Boston: Charles Goodspeed, 1902). This volume, in some respects the
best biography of Thoreau, is no longer rare. Among the Verses are
those written by Channing for his friend's funeral; at which, also,
Mr. Alcott read Thoreau's poem of Sympathy.

[23] Headley died at the age of twenty-three, in 1788. His posthumous
book was edited in 1810 by Rev. Henry Kett, and published in London by
John Sharp.

[24] An allusion to the strange and painful death of John Thoreau, by
lockjaw. He had slightly wounded himself in shaving, and the cut
became inflamed and brought on that hideous and deforming malady, of
which, by sympathy, Henry also partook, though he recovered.

[25] _Past and Present._

[26] Of the publishing house of Bradbury & Soden, in Boston, which had
taken Nathan Hale's _Boston Miscellany_ off his hands, and had
published in it, with promise of payment, Thoreau's "Walk to
Wachusett." But much time had passed, and the debt was not paid; hence
the lack of a "shower of shillings" which the letter laments.
Emerson's reply gives the first news of the actual beginning of
Alcott's short-lived paradise at Fruitlands, and dwells with interest
on the affairs of the rural and lettered circle at Concord.

[27] At Fruitlands with the Alcotts. See Sanborn's _Thoreau_, p. 137,
for this letter.

[28] Emerson also was satisfied with it for once, and wrote to
Thoreau: "Our _Dial_ thrives well enough in these weeks. I print W. E.
Channing's 'Letters,' or the first ones, but he does not care to have
them named as his for a while. They are very agreeable reading."

[29] Afterwards Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, but then in Harvard
College.

[30] Henry James, Senior.

[31] Emerson had written, July 20: "I am sorry to say that when I
called on Bradbury & Soden, nearly a month ago, their partner, in
their absence, informed me that they should not pay you, at present,
any part of their debt on account of the _Boston Miscellany_. After
much talking, all the promise he could offer was 'that within a year
it would probably be paid,'--a probability which certainly looks very
slender. The very worst thing he said was the proposition that you
should take your payment in the form of _Boston Miscellanies_! I shall
not fail to refresh their memory at intervals."

[32] It may need to be said that these were New York weeklies--the
_Mirror_, edited in part by N. P. Willis, and the _New World_ by Park
Benjamin, formerly of Boston, whose distinction it is to have first
named Hawthorne as a writer of genius. "Miss Fuller" was
Margaret,--not yet resident in New York, whither she went to live in
1844.

[33] The allusion here is to Ellery Channing's "Youth of the Poet and
Painter," in the _Dial_,--an unfinished autobiography. The _Present_
of W. H. Channing, his cousin, named above, was a short-lived
periodical, begun September 15, 1843, and ended in April, 1844.
"McKean" was Henry Swasey McKean, who was a classmate of Charles
Emerson at Harvard in 1828, a tutor there in 1830-35, and who died in
1857.

[34] This inkstand was presented by Miss Hoar, with a note dated
"Boston, May 2, 1843," which deserves to be copied:--

DEAR HENRY,--The rain prevented me from seeing you the night before I
came away, to leave with you a parting assurance of good will and good
hope. We have become better acquainted within the two past years than
in our whole life as schoolmates and neighbors before; and I am
unwilling to let you go away without telling you that I, among your
other friends, shall miss you much, and follow you with remembrance
and all best wishes and confidence. Will you take this little inkstand
and try if it will carry ink safely from Concord to Staten Island? and
the pen, which, if you can write with steel, may be made sometimes the
interpreter of friendly thoughts to those whom you leave beyond the
reach of your voice,--or record the inspirations of Nature, who, I
doubt not, will be as faithful to you who trust her in the sea-girt
Staten Island as in Concord woods and meadows. Good-by, and εὖ πράττειν,
which, a wise man says, is the only salutation fit for the wise.

     Truly your friend,     E. HOAR.




II

GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT


This was the golden age of hope and achievement for the Concord poets
and philosophers. Their ranks were not yet broken by death (for
Stearns Wheeler was hardly one of them), their spirits were high, and
their faith in each other unbounded. Emerson wrote thus from Concord,
while Thoreau was perambulating Staten Island and calling on "the
false booksellers:" "Ellery Channing is excellent company, and we walk
in all directions. He remembers you with great faith and hope; thinks
you ought not to see Concord again these ten years--that you ought to
grind up fifty Concords in your mill--and much other opinion and
counsel he holds in store on this topic. Hawthorne walked with me
yesterday afternoon, and not until after our return did I read his
'Celestial Railroad,' which has a serene strength which we cannot
afford not to praise, in this low life."

The Transcendentalists had their quarterly, and even their daily
organ, for Mr. Greeley put the _Tribune_ at their service, and gave
places on its staff to Margaret Fuller and her brother-in-law
Channing, and would gladly have made room for Emerson in its columns,
if the swift utterance of a morning paper had suited his habit of
publication. While in the _Tribune_ office, Ellery Channing thus
wrote to Thoreau, after he had returned home, disappointed with New
York, to make lead pencils in his father's shop at Concord.


ELLERY CHANNING TO THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

     March 5, 1845.

MY DEAR THOREAU,--The handwriting of your letter is so miserable that
I am not sure I have made it out. If I have, it seems to me you are
the same old sixpence you used to be, rather rusty, but a genuine
piece. I see nothing for you in this earth but that field which I once
christened "Briars;" go out upon that, build yourself a hut, and there
begin the grand process of devouring yourself alive. I see no
alternative, no other hope for you. Eat yourself up; you will eat
nobody else, nor anything else. Concord is just as good a place as any
other; there are, indeed, more people in the streets of that village
than in the streets of this. This is a singularly muddy town; muddy,
solitary, and silent.

In your line, I have not done a great deal since I arrived here; I do
not mean the Pencil line, but the Staten Island line, having been
there once, to walk on a beach by the telegraph, but did not visit the
scene of your dominical duties. Staten Island is very distant from No.
30 Ann Street. I saw polite William Emerson in November last, but have
not caught any glimpse of him since then. I am as usual suffering the
various alternations from agony to despair, from hope to fear, from
pain to pleasure. Such wretched one-sided productions as you know
nothing of the universal man; you may think yourself well off.

That baker, Hecker, who used to live on two crackers a day, I have not
seen; nor Black, nor Vethake, nor Danesaz, nor Rynders, nor any of
Emerson's old cronies, excepting James, a little fat, rosy
Swedenborgian amateur with the look of a broker and the brains and
heart of a Pascal. William Channing, I see nothing of him; he is the
dupe of good feelings, and I have all-too-many of these now. I have
seen something of your friends, Waldo and Tappan, and have also seen
our good man McKean, the keeper of that stupid place, the Mercantile
Library.

       *       *       *       *       *

Acting on Channing's hint, and an old fancy of his own, Thoreau, in
the summer of 1845, built his cabin at Walden and retired there; while
Hawthorne entered the Salem custom-house, and Alcott, returning
defeated from his Fruitlands paradise, was struggling with poverty and
discouragement at Concord. Charles Lane, his English comrade, withdrew
to New York or its vicinity, and in 1846 to London, whence he had come
in 1842, full of hope and enthusiasm. A few notes of his, or about
him, may here find place. They were sent to Thoreau at Concord, and
show that Lane continued to value his candid friend. The first,
written after leaving Fruitlands, introduces the late Father Hecker,
who had been one of the family there, to Thoreau. The second and third
relate to the sale of the Alcott-Lane Library, and other matters.

  [Illustration: _Walden Woods_]


CHARLES LANE TO THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

     BOSTON, December 3, 1843.

DEAR FRIEND,--As well as my wounded hands permit, I have scribbled
something for friend Hecker, which if agreeable may be the opportunity
for entering into closer relations with him; a course I think likely
to be mutually encouraging, as well as beneficial to all men. But let
it reach him in the manner most conformable to your own feelings. That
from all perils of a false position you may shortly be relieved, and
landed in the position where you feel "at home," is the sincere wish
of yours most friendly,

     CHARLES LANE.

     MR. HENRY THOREAU,
     Earl House, Coach Office.


     NEW YORK, February 17, 1846.

DEAR FRIEND,--The books you were so kind as to deposit about two years
and a half ago with Messrs. Wiley & Putnam have all been sold, but as
they were left in your name it is needful, in strict business, that
you should send an order to them to pay to me the amount due. I will
therefore thank you to inclose me such an order at your earliest
convenience in a letter addressed to your admiring friend,

     CHARLES LANE,
     Post Office, New York City.


     BOONTON, N. J., March 30, 1846.

DEAR FRIEND,--If the human nature participates of the elemental I am
no longer in danger of becoming suburban, or super-urban, that is to
say, too urbane. I am now more likely to be converted into a
petrifaction, for slabs of rock and foaming waters never so abounded
in my neighborhood. A very Peter I shall become: on this rock _He_ has
built _his church_. You would find much joy in these eminences and in
the views therefrom.

My pen has been necessarily unproductive in the continued motion of
the sphere in which I have lately been moved. You, I suppose, have not
passed the winter to the world's unprofit.

You never have seen, as I have, the book with a preface of 450 pages
and a text of 60. My letter is like unto it.

I have only to add that your letter of the 26th February did its work,
and that I submit to you cordial thanks for the same. Yours truly,

     CHAS. LANE.

I hope to hear occasionally of your doings and those of your compeers
in your classic plowings and diggings.

     TO HENRY D. THOREAU,
     Concord Woods.

Thoreau's letters to Lane have not come into any editor's hands. In
England, before Lane's discovery by Alcott, in 1842, he had been the
editor of the _Mark-Lane Gazette_ (or something similar), which gave
the price-current of wheat, etc., in the English markets. Emerson
found him in Hampstead, London, in February, 1848, and wrote to
Thoreau: "I went last Sunday, for the first time, to see Lane at
Hampstead, and dined with him. He was full of friendliness and
hospitality; has a school of sixteen children, one lady as matron,
then Oldham. That is all the household. They looked just comfortable."

"Lane instructed me to ask you to forward his _Dials_ to him, which
must be done, if you can find them. Three bound volumes are among his
books in my library. The fourth volume is in unbound numbers at J.
Munroe & Co.'s shop, received there in a parcel to my address, a day
or two before I sailed, and which I forgot to carry to Concord. It
must be claimed without delay. It is certainly there,--was opened by
me and left; and they can inclose all four volumes to Chapman for me."

This would indicate that he had not lost interest in the days and
events of his American sojourn,--unpleasant as some of these must have
been to the methodical, prosaic Englishman.

While at Walden, Thoreau wrote but few letters; there is, however, a
brief correspondence with Mr. J. E. Cabot, then an active naturalist,
coöperating with Agassiz in his work on the American fishes, who had
requested Thoreau to procure certain species from Concord. The letters
were written from the cabin at Walden, and it is this same structure
that figures in the letters from Thoreau to Emerson in England, as the
proposed nucleus of the cottage of poor Hugh the gardener, before he
ran away from Concord, as there narrated, on a subsequent page. The
first sending of river-fish was in the end of April, 1847. Then
followed this letter:--


TO ELLIOT CABOT (AT BOSTON).

     CONCORD, May 8, 1847.

DEAR SIR,--I believe that I have not yet acknowledged the receipt of
your notes, and a five-dollar bill. I am very glad that the fishes
afforded Mr. Agassiz so much pleasure. I could easily have obtained
more specimens of the _Sternothærus odoratus_; they are quite numerous
here. I will send more of them ere long. Snapping turtles are perhaps
as frequently met with in our muddy river as anything, but they are
not always to be had when wanted. It is now rather late in the season
for them. As no one makes a business of seeking them, and they are
valued for soups, science may be forestalled by appetite in this
market, and it will be necessary to bid pretty high to induce persons
to obtain or preserve them. I think that from seventy-five cents to a
dollar apiece would secure all that are in any case to be had, and
will set this price upon their heads, if the treasury of science is
full enough to warrant it.

You will excuse me for taking toll in the shape of some, it may be,
impertinent and unscientific inquiries. There are found in the waters
of the Concord, so far as I know, the following kinds of fishes:--

_Pickerel._ Besides the common, fishermen distinguish the brook, or
grass pickerel, which bites differently, and has a shorter snout.
Those caught in Walden, hard by my house, are easily distinguished
from those caught in the river, being much heavier in proportion to
their size, stouter, firmer-fleshed, and lighter-colored. The little
pickerel which I sent last, jumped into the boat in its fright.

_Pouts._ Those in the pond are of different appearance from those that
I have sent.

_Breams._ Some more green, others more brown.

_Suckers._ The horned, which I sent first, and the black. I am not
sure whether the common or Boston sucker is found here. Are the three
which I sent last, which were speared in the river, identical with the
three black suckers, taken by hand in the brook, which I sent before?
I have never examined them minutely.

_Perch._ The river perch, of which I sent five specimens in the box,
are darker-colored than those found in the pond. There are myriads of
small ones in the latter place, and but few large ones. I have counted
ten transverse bands on some of the smaller.

_Lampreys._ Very scarce since the dams at Lowell and Billerica were
built.

_Shiners._ _Leuciscus chrysoleucus_, silver and golden. What is the
difference?

_Roach_ or _Chiverin_ (_Leuciscus pulchellus_, _argenteus_, or what
not). The _white_ and the _red_. The former described by Storer, but
the latter, which deserves distinct notice, not described, to my
knowledge. Are the minnows (called here dace), of which I sent three
live specimens, I believe, one larger and two smaller, the young of
this species?

_Trout._ Of different appearance in different brooks in this
neighborhood.

_Eels._

_Red-finned Minnows_, of which I sent you a dozen alive. I have never
recognized them in any books. Have they any scientific name?

If convenient, will you let Dr. Storer see these brook minnows? There
is also a kind of dace or fresh-water smelt in the pond, which is,
perhaps, distinct from any of the above. What of the above does M.
Agassiz particularly wish to see? Does he want more specimens of kinds
which I have already sent? There are also minks, muskrats, frogs,
lizards, tortoises, snakes, caddice-worms, leeches, muscles, etc., or
rather, _here they are_. The funds which you sent me are nearly
exhausted. Most fishes can now be taken with the hook, and it will
cost but little trouble or money to obtain them. The snapping turtles
will be the main expense. I should think that five dollars more, at
least, might be profitably expended.


TO ELLIOT CABOT (AT BOSTON).

     CONCORD, June 1, 1847.

_Dear Sir_,--I send you 15 pouts, 17 perch, 13 shiners, 1 larger land
tortoise, and 5 muddy tortoises, all from the pond by my house. Also 7
perch, 5 shiners, 8 breams, 4 dace(?), 2 muddy tortoises, 5 painted
do., and 3 land do., all from the river. One black snake, alive, and
one dormouse(?) caught last night in my cellar. The tortoises were all
put in alive; the fishes were alive yesterday, _i. e._, Monday, and
some this morning. Observe the difference between those from the pond,
which is pure water, and those from the river.

I will send the light-colored trout and the pickerel with the longer
snout, which is our large one, when I meet with them. I have set a
price upon the heads of snapping turtles, though it is late in the
season to get them.

If I wrote red-finned eel, it was a slip of the pen; I meant
red-finned minnow. This is their name here; though smaller specimens
have but a slight reddish tinge at the base of the pectorals.

Will you, at your leisure, answer these queries?

Do you mean to say that the twelve banded minnows which I sent are
undescribed, or only one? What are the scientific names of those
minnows which have any? Are the four dace I send to-day identical with
one of the former, and what are they called? Is there such a fish as
the black sucker described,--distinct from the common?


AGASSIZ TO THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

In October, 1849, Agassiz, in reply to a request from Thoreau that he
would lecture in Bangor, sent this characteristic letter:--

"I remember with much pleasure the time when you used to send me
specimens from your vicinity, and also our short interview in the
Marlborough Chapel.[35] I am under too many obligations of your
kindness to forget it. I am very sorry that I missed your visit in
Boston; but for eighteen months I have now been settled in Cambridge.
It would give me great pleasure to engage for the lectures you ask
from me for the Bangor Lyceum; but I find it has been last winter such
a heavy tax upon my health, that I wish for the present to make no
engagements; as I have some hope of making my living this year by
other efforts,--and beyond the necessity of my wants, both domestic
and scientific, I am determined not to exert myself; as all the time I
can thus secure to myself must be exclusively devoted to science. My
only business is my intercourse with nature; and could I do without
draughtsmen, lithographers, etc., I would live still more retired.
This will satisfy you that whenever you come this way I shall be
delighted to see you,--since I have also heard something of your mode
of living."

       *       *       *       *       *

Agassiz had reason indeed to remember the collections made by Thoreau,
since (from the letters of Mr. Cabot) they aided him much in his
comparison of the American with the European fishes. When the first
firkin of Concord fish arrived in Boston, where Agassiz was then
working, "he was highly delighted, and began immediately to spread
them out and arrange them for his draughtsman. Some of the species he
had seen before, but never in so fresh condition; others, as the
breams and the pout, he had seen only in spirits, and the little
tortoise he knew only from the books. I am sure you would have felt
fully repaid for your trouble," adds Mr. Cabot, "if you could have
seen the eager satisfaction with which he surveyed each fin and
scale." Agassiz himself wrote the same day: "I have been highly
pleased to find that the small mud turtle was really the _Sternothærus
odoratus_, as I suspected,--a very rare species, quite distinct from
the snapping turtle. The suckers were all of one and the same species
(_Catastomus tuberculatus_); the female has the tubercles. As I am
very anxious to send some snapping turtles home with my first boxes, I
would thank Mr. T. very much if he could have some taken for me."

Mr. Cabot goes on: "Of the perch Agassiz remarked that it was almost
identical with that of Europe, but distinguishable, on close
examination, by the tubercles on the sub-operculum.... More of the
painted tortoises would be acceptable. The snapping turtles are very
interesting to him as forming a transition from the turtles proper to
the alligator and crocodile.... We have received three boxes from you
since the first." (May 27.) "Agassiz was much surprised and pleased at
the extent of the collections you sent during his absence in New York.
Among the fishes there is one, and probably two, new species. The
fresh-water smelt he does not know. He is very anxious to see the
pickerel with the long snout, which he suspects may be the _Esox
estor_, or Maskalongé; he has seen this at Albany.... As to the minks,
etc., I know they would all be very acceptable to him. When I asked
him about these, and more specimens of what you have sent, he said, 'I
dare not make any request, for I do not know how much trouble I may be
giving to Mr. Thoreau; but my method of examination requires many more
specimens than most naturalists would care for.'" (June 1.) "Agassiz
is delighted to find one, and he thinks two, more new species; one is
a Pomotis,--the bream without the red spot in the operculum, and with
a red belly and fins. The other is the shallower and lighter colored
shiner. The four dace you sent last are _Leuciscus argenteus_. They
are different from that you sent before under this name, but which was
a new species. Of the four kinds of minnow, two are new. There is a
black sucker (_Catastomus nigricans_), but there has been no specimen
among those you have sent, and A. has never seen a specimen. He seemed
to know your mouse, and called it the white-bellied mouse. It was the
first specimen he had seen. I am in hopes to bring or send him to
Concord, to look after new _Leucisci_, etc." Agassiz did afterwards
come, more than once, and examined turtles with Thoreau.

Soon after this scientific correspondence, Thoreau left his retreat by
Walden to take the place of Emerson in his household, while his friend
went to visit Carlyle and give lectures in England. The letters that
follow are among the longest Thoreau ever composed, and will give a
new conception of the writer to those who may have figured him as a
cold, stoical, or selfish person, withdrawn from society and its
duties. The first describes the setting out of Emerson for Europe.


TO SOPHIA THOREAU (AT BANGOR).

     CONCORD, October 24, 1847.

DEAR SOPHIA,--I thank you for those letters about Ktaadn, and hope you
will save and send me the rest, and anything else you may meet with
relating to the Maine woods. That Dr. Young is both young and green
too at traveling in the woods. However, I hope he got "yarbs" enough
to satisfy him. I went to Boston the 5th of this month to see Mr.
Emerson off to Europe. He sailed in the Washington Irving
packet-ship; the same in which Mr. [F. H.] Hedge went before him. Up
to this trip the first mate aboard this ship was, as I hear, one
Stephens, a Concord boy, son of Stephens the carpenter, who used to
live above Mr. Dennis's. Mr. Emerson's stateroom was like a carpeted
dark closet, about six feet square, with a large keyhole for a window.
The window was about as big as a saucer, and the glass two inches
thick, not to mention another skylight overhead in the deck, the size
of an oblong doughnut, and about as opaque. Of course it would be in
vain to look up, if any contemplative promenader put his foot upon it.
Such will be his lodgings for two or three weeks; and instead of a
walk in Walden woods he will take a promenade on deck, where the few
trees, you know, are stripped of their bark. The steam-tug carried the
ship to sea against a head wind without a rag of sail being raised.

I don't remember whether you have heard of the new telescope at
Cambridge or not. They think it is the best one in the world, and have
already seen more than Lord Rosse or Herschel. I went to see Perez
Blood's, some time ago, with Mr. Emerson. He had not gone to bed, but
was sitting in the wood-shed, in the dark, alone, in his astronomical
chair, which is all legs and rounds, with a seat which can be inserted
at any height. We saw Saturn's rings, and the mountains in the moon,
and the shadows in their craters, and the sunlight on the spurs of the
mountains in the dark portion, etc., etc. When I asked him the power
of his glass, he said it was 85. But what is the power of the
Cambridge glass? 2000!!! The last is about twenty-three feet long.

I think you may have a grand time this winter pursuing some
study,--keeping a journal, or the like,--while the snow lies deep
without. Winter is the time for study, you know, and the colder it is
the more studious we are. Give my respects to the whole Penobscot
tribe, and tell them that I trust we are good brothers still, and
endeavor to keep the chain of friendship bright, though I do dig up a
hatchet now and then. I trust you will not stir from your comfortable
winter quarters, Miss Bruin, or even put your head out of your hollow
tree, till the sun has melted the snow in the spring, and "the green
buds, they are a-swellin'."

     From your         BROTHER HENRY.

This letter will explain some of the allusions in the first letter to
Emerson in England. Perez Blood was a rural astronomer living in the
extreme north quarter of Concord, next to Carlisle, with his two
maiden sisters, in the midst of a fine oak wood; their cottage being
one of the points in view when Thoreau and his friends took their
afternoon rambles. Sophia Thoreau, the younger and soon the only
surviving sister, was visiting her cousins in Maine, the "Penobscot
tribe" of whom the letter makes mention, with an allusion to the
Indians of that name near Bangor. His letter to her and those which
follow were written from Emerson's house, where Thoreau lived during
the master's absence across the ocean. It was in the orchard of this
house that Alcott was building that summer-house at which Thoreau,
with his geometrical eye, makes merry in the next letter.


TO R. W. EMERSON (IN ENGLAND).

     CONCORD, November 14, 1847.

DEAR FRIEND,--I am but a poor neighbor to you here,--a very poor
companion am I. I understand that very well, but that need not prevent
my _writing_ to you now. I have almost never written letters in my
life, yet I think I can write as good ones as I frequently see, so I
shall not hesitate to write this, such as it may be, knowing that you
will welcome anything that reminds you of Concord.

I have banked up the young trees against the winter and the mice, and
I will look out, in my careless way, to see when a pale is loose or a
nail drops out of its place. The broad gaps, at least, I will occupy.
I heartily wish I could be of good service to this household. But I,
who have only used these ten digits so long to solve the problem of a
living, how can I? The world is a cow that is hard to milk,--life does
not come so easy,--and oh, how thinly it is watered ere we get it! But
the young bunting calf, he will get at it. There is no way so direct.
This is to earn one's living by the sweat of his brow. It is a little
like joining a community, this life, to such a hermit as I am; and as
I don't keep the accounts, I don't know whether the experiment will
succeed or fail finally. At any rate, it is good for society, so I do
not regret my transient nor my permanent share in it.

Lidian [Mrs. Emerson] and I make very good housekeepers. She is a
very dear sister to me. Ellen and Edith and Eddy and Aunty Brown keep
up the tragedy and comedy and tragic-comedy of life as usual. The two
former have not forgotten their old acquaintance; even Edith carries a
young memory in her head, I find. Eddy can teach us all how to
pronounce. If you should discover any rare hoard of wooden or pewter
horses, I have no doubt he will know how to appreciate it. He
occasionally surveys mankind from my shoulders as wisely as ever
Johnson did. I respect him not a little, though it is I that lift him
up so unceremoniously. And sometimes I have to set him down again in a
hurry, according to his "mere will and good pleasure." He very
seriously asked me, the other day, "Mr. Thoreau, will you be my
father?" I am occasionally Mr. Rough-and-tumble with him that I may
not miss _him_, and lest he should miss _you_ too much. So you must
come back soon, or you will be superseded.

Alcott has heard that I laughed, and so set the people laughing, at
his arbor, though I never laughed louder than when I was on the
ridge-pole. But now I have not laughed for a long time, it is so
serious. He is very grave to look at. But, not knowing all this, I
strove innocently enough, the other day, to engage his attention to my
mathematics. "Did you ever study geometry, the relation of straight
lines to curves, the transition from the finite to the infinite? Fine
things about it in Newton and Leibnitz." But he would hear none of
it,--men of taste preferred the natural curve. Ah, he is a crooked
stick himself. He is getting on now so many _knots_ an hour. There is
one knot at present occupying the point of highest elevation,--the
present highest point; and as many knots as are not handsome, I
presume, are thrown down and cast into the pines. Pray show him this
if you meet him anywhere in London, for I cannot make him hear much
plainer words here. He forgets that I am neither old nor young, nor
anything in particular, and behaves as if I had still some of the
animal heat in me. As for the building, I feel a little oppressed when
I come near it. It has no great disposition to be beautiful; it is
certainly a wonderful structure, on the whole, and the fame of the
architect will endure as long as it shall stand. I should not show you
this side alone, if I did not suspect that Lidian had done complete
justice to the other.

Mr. [Edmund] Hosmer has been working at a tannery in Stow for a
fortnight, though he has just now come home sick. It seems that he was
a tanner in his youth, and so he has made up his mind a little at
last. This comes of reading the New Testament. was n't one of the
Apostles a tanner? Mrs. Hosmer remains here, and John looks stout
enough to fill his own shoes and his father's too.

Mr. Blood and his company have at length seen the stars through the
great telescope, and he told me that he thought it was worth the
while. Mr. Peirce made him wait till the crowd had dispersed (it was a
Saturday evening), and then was quite polite,--conversed with him, and
showed him the micrometer, etc.; and he said Mr. Blood's glass was
large enough for all ordinary astronomical work. [Rev.] Mr. Frost and
Dr. [Josiah] Bartlett seemed disappointed that there was no greater
difference between the Cambridge glass and the Concord one. They used
only a power of 400. Mr. Blood tells me that he is too old to study
the calculus or higher mathematics. At Cambridge they think that they
have discovered traces of another satellite to Neptune. They have been
obliged to exclude the public altogether, at last. The very dust which
they raised, "which is filled with minute crystals," etc., as
professors declare, having to be wiped off the glasses, would ere long
wear them away. It is true enough, Cambridge college is really
beginning to wake up and redeem its character and overtake the age. I
see by the catalogue that they are about establishing a scientific
school in connection with the university, at which any one above
eighteen, on paying one hundred dollars annually (Mr. Lawrence's fifty
thousand dollars will probably diminish this sum), may be instructed
in the highest branches of science,--in astronomy, "theoretical and
practical, with the use of the instruments" (so the great Yankee
astronomer may be born without delay), in mechanics and engineering to
the last degree. Agassiz will ere long commence his lectures in the
zoölogical department. A chemistry class has already been formed under
the direction of Professor Horsford. A new and adequate building for
the purpose is already being erected. They have been foolish enough to
put at the end of all this earnest the old joke of a diploma. Let
every sheep keep but his own skin, I say.

I have had a tragic correspondence, for the most part all on one side,
with Miss ----. She did really wish to--I hesitate to write--marry
me. That is the way they spell it. Of course I did not write a
deliberate answer. How could I deliberate upon it? I sent back as
distinct a _no_ as I have learned to pronounce after considerable
practice, and I trust that this _no_ has succeeded. Indeed, I wished
that it might burst, like hollow shot, after it had struck and buried
itself and made itself felt there. _There was no other way._ I really
had anticipated no such foe as this in my career.

I suppose you will like to hear of my book, though I have nothing
worth writing about it. Indeed, for the last month or two I have
forgotten it, but shall certainly remember it again. Wiley & Putnam,
Munroe, the Harpers, and Crosby & Nichols have all declined printing
it with the least risk to themselves; but Wiley & Putnam will print it
in their series, and any of them anywhere, at _my_ risk. If I liked
the book well enough, I should not delay; but for the present I am
indifferent. I believe this is, after all, the course you advised,--to
let it lie.

I do not know what to say of myself. I sit before my green desk, in
the chamber at the head of the stairs, and attend to my thinking,
sometimes more, sometimes less distinctly. I am not unwilling to think
great thoughts if there are any in the wind, but what they are I am
not sure. They suffice to keep me awake while the day lasts, at any
rate. Perhaps they will redeem some portion of the night ere long.

I can imagine you astonishing, bewildering, confounding, and sometimes
delighting John Bull with your Yankee notions, and that he begins to
take a pride in the relationship at last; introduced to all the stars
of England in succession, after the lecture, until you pine to thrust
your head once more into a genuine and unquestionable nebula, if there
be any left. I trust a common man will be the most uncommon to you
before you return to these parts. I have thought there was some
advantage even in death, by which we "mingle with the herd of common
men."

Hugh [the gardener] still has his eye on the Walden _agellum_, and
orchards are waving there in the windy future for him. That's the
where-I'll-go-next, thinks he; but no important steps are yet taken.
He reminds me occasionally of this open secret of his, with which the
very season seems to labor, and affirms seriously that as to his
wants--wood, stone, or timber--I know better than he. That is a
clincher which I shall have to avoid to some extent; but I fear that
it is a wrought nail and will not break. Unfortunately, the day after
cattle-show--the day after small beer--he was among the missing, but
not long this time. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the
leopard his spots, nor indeed Hugh--his Hugh.

As I walked over Conantum, the other afternoon, I saw a fair column of
smoke rising from the woods directly over my house that was (as I
judged), and already began to conjecture if my deed of sale would not
be made invalid by this. But it turned out to be John Richardson's
young wood, on the southeast of your field. It was burnt nearly all
over, and up to the rails and the road. It was set on fire, no doubt,
by the same Lucifer that lighted Brooks's lot before. So you see that
your small lot is comparatively safe for this season, the back fire
having been already set for you.

They have been choosing between John Keyes and Sam Staples, if the
world wants to know it, as representative of this town, and Staples is
chosen. The candidates for governor--think of my writing this to
you!--were Governor Briggs and General Cushing, and Briggs is elected,
though the Democrats have gained. Ain't I a brave boy to know so much
of politics for the nonce? But I should n't have known it if Coombs
had n't told me. They have had a peace meeting here,--I should n't
think of telling you if I did n't know anything would do for the
English market,--and some men, Deacon Brown at the head, have signed a
long pledge, swearing that they will "treat all mankind as brothers
henceforth." I think I shall wait and see how they treat me first. I
think that Nature meant kindly when she made our brothers few.
However, my voice is still for peace. So good-by, and a truce to all
joking, my dear friend, from

     H. D. T.

Upon this letter some annotations are to be made. "Eddy" was Emerson's
youngest child, Edward Waldo, then three years old and upward,--of
late years his father's biographer. Hugh, the gardener, of whom more
anon, bargained for the house of Thoreau on Emerson's land at Walden,
and for a field to go with it; but the bargain came to naught, and the
cabin was removed three or four miles to the northwest, where it
became a granary for Farmer Clark and his squirrels, near the entrance
to the park known as Estabrook's. Edmund Hosmer was the farming
friend and neighbor with whom, at one time, G. W. Curtis and his
brother took lodgings, and at another time the Alcott family. The book
in question was "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers."

To these letters Emerson replied from England:--


DEAR HENRY,--Very welcome in the parcel was your letter, very precious
your thoughts and tidings. It is one of the best things connected with
my coming hither that you could and would keep the homestead; that
fireplace shines all the brighter, and has a certain permanent glimmer
therefor. Thanks, ever more thanks for the kindness which I well
discern to the youth of the house: to my darling little horseman of
pewter, wooden, rocking, and what other breeds,--destined, I hope, to
ride Pegasus yet, and, I hope, not destined to be thrown; to Edith,
who long ago drew from you verses which I carefully preserve; and to
Ellen, whom by speech, and now by letter, I find old enough to be
companionable, and to choose and reward her own friends in her own
fashions. She sends me a poem to-day, which I have read three times!


TO R. W. EMERSON (IN ENGLAND).

     CONCORD, December 15, 1847.

DEAR FRIEND,--You are not so far off but the affairs of _this_ world
still attract you. Perhaps it will be so when we are dead. Then look
out. Joshua R. Holman, of Harvard, who says he lived a month with
[Charles] Lane at Fruitlands, wishes to _hire_ said Lane's farm for
one or more years, and will pay $125 rent, taking out of the same a
half, if necessary, for repairs,--as for a new bank-wall to the barn
cellar, which he says is indispensable. Palmer is gone, Mrs. Palmer is
going. This is all that is known or that is worth knowing. Yes or no?
What to do?

Hugh's plot begins to thicken. He starts thus: eighty dollars on one
side; Walden, field and house, on the other. How to bring these
together so as to make a garden and a palace?

  [Illustration]

              $80       Field     House

     1st, let $10 go over to unite the two lots.
              $70

               $6 for Wetherbee's rocks to found your palace on.
              $64

              $64--so far, indeed, we have already got.
               $4 to bring the rocks to the field.
              $60

     Save     $20 by all means, to measure the field, and you have left
              $40 to complete the palace, build cellar, and dig well.
                     Build the cellar yourself, and let _well_
                     alone,--and now how does it stand?

              $40 to complete the palace somewhat like this.

For when one asks, "Why do you want twice as much room more?" the
reply is, "Parlor, kitchen, and bedroom,--these make the palace."

"Well, Hugh, what will you do? Here are forty dollars to buy a new
house, twelve feet by twenty-five, and add it to the old."

"Well, Mr. Thoreau, as I tell you, I know no more than a child about
it. It shall be just as you say."

"Then build it yourself, get it roofed, and get in.

     "Commence at one end and leave it half done,
     And let time finish what money's begun."

So you see we have forty dollars for a nest egg; sitting on which,
Hugh and I alternately and simultaneously, there may in course of time
be hatched a house that will long stand, and perchance even lay fresh
eggs one day for its owner; that is, if, when he returns, he gives the
young chick twenty dollars or more in addition, by way of "swichin,"
to give it a start in the world.

The _Massachusetts Quarterly Review_ came out the 1st of December, but
it does not seem to be making a sensation, at least not hereabouts. I
know of none in Concord who take or have seen it yet.

We wish to get by all possible means some notion of your success or
failure in England,--more than your two letters have furnished. Can't
you send a fair sample both of young and of old England's criticism,
if there is any printed? Alcott and [Ellery] Channing are equally
greedy with myself.

     HENRY THOREAU.

C. T. Jackson takes the _Quarterly_ (new one), and will lend it to us.
Are you not going to send your wife some news of your good or ill
success by the newspapers?


TO R. W. EMERSON (IN ENGLAND).

     CONCORD, December 29, 1847.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I thank you for your letter. I was very glad to get
it; and I am glad again to write to you. However slow the steamer, no
time intervenes between the writing and the reading of thoughts, but
they come freshly to the most distant port. I am here still, and very
glad to be here, and shall not trouble you with any complaints because
I do not fill my place better. I have had many good hours in the
chamber at the head of the stairs,--a solid time, it seems to me. Next
week I am going to give an account to the Lyceum of my expedition to
Maine. Theodore Parker lectures to-night. We have had Whipple on
Genius,--too weighty a subject for him, with his antithetical
definitions new-vamped,--what it _is_, what it is _not_, but
altogether what it is _not_; cuffing it this way and cuffing it that,
as if it were an India-rubber ball. Really, it is a subject which
should expand, expand, accumulate itself before the speaker's eyes as
he goes on, like the snowballs which the boys roll in the street; and
when it stops, it should be so large that he cannot start it, but must
leave it there. [H. N.] Hudson, too, has been here, with a dark shadow
in the core of him, and his desperate wit, so much indebted to the
surface of him,--wringing out his words and snapping them off like a
dish-cloth; very remarkable, but not memorable. Singular that these
two best lecturers should have so much "wave" in their timber,--their
solid parts to be made and kept solid by shrinkage and contraction of
the whole, with consequent checks and fissures.

Ellen and I have a good understanding. I appreciate her genuineness.
Edith tells me after her fashion: "By and by I shall grow up and be a
woman, and then I shall remember how you exercised me." Eddy has been
to Boston to Christmas, but can remember nothing but the coaches, all
Kendall's coaches. There is no variety of that vehicle that he is not
familiar with. He _did_ try twice to tell us something else, but,
after thinking and stuttering a long time, said, "I don't know what
the word is,"--the _one_ word, forsooth, that would have disposed of
all that Boston phenomenon. If you did not know him better than I, I
could tell you more. He is a good companion for me, and I am glad that
we are all natives of Concord. It is _young Concord_. Look out, World!

Mr. Alcott seems to have sat down for the winter. He has got Plato and
other books to read. He is as large-featured and hospitable to
traveling thoughts and thinkers as ever; but with the same Connecticut
philosophy as ever, mingled with what is better. If he would only
stand upright and toe the line!--though he were to put off several
degrees of largeness, and put on a considerable degree of littleness.
After all, I think we must call him particularly _your_ man.

I have pleasant walks and talks with Channing. James Clark--the
Swedenborgian that was--is at the poorhouse, insane with too large
views, so that he cannot support himself. I see him working with Fred
and the rest. Better than be there and not insane. It is strange that
they will make ado when a man's body is buried, but not when he thus
really and tragically dies, or seems to die. Away with your funeral
processions,--into the ballroom with them! I hear the bell toll hourly
over there.[36]

Lidian and I have a standing quarrel as to what is a suitable state
of preparedness for a traveling professor's visit, or for whomsoever
else; but further than this we are not at war. We have made up a
dinner, we have made up a bed, we have made up a party, and our own
minds and mouths, three several times for your professor, and he came
not. Three several turkeys have died the death, which I myself carved,
just as if he had been there; and the company, too, convened and
demeaned themselves accordingly. Everything was done up in good style,
I assure you, with only the part of the professor omitted. To have
seen the preparation (though Lidian says it was nothing extraordinary)
I should certainly have said he was a-coming, but he did not. He must
have found out some shorter way to Turkey,--some overland route, I
think. By the way, he was complimented, at the conclusion of his
course in Boston, by the mayor moving the appointment of a committee
to draw up resolutions expressive, etc., which was done.

I have made a few verses lately. Here are some, though perhaps not the
best,--at any rate they are the shortest,--on that universal theme,
yours as well as mine, and several other people's:--

     The good how can we trust!
     Only the wise are just.
     The good, we use,
     The wise we cannot choose;
     These there are none above.
     The good, they know and love,
     But are not known again
     By those of lesser ken.
     They do not charm us with their eyes,
     But they transfix with their advice;
     No partial sympathy they feel
     With private woe or private weal,
     But with the universe joy and sigh,
     Whose knowledge is their sympathy.

     Good-night.     HENRY THOREAU.

P. S.--I am sorry to send such a medley as this to you. I have
forwarded Lane's _Dial_ to Munroe, and he tells the expressman that
all is right.


TO R. W. EMERSON (IN ENGLAND).

     CONCORD, January 12, 1848.

It is hard to believe that England is so near as from your letters it
appears; and that this identical piece of paper has lately come all
the way from there hither, begrimed with the English dust which made
you hesitate to use it; from England, which is only historical
fairyland to me, to America, which I have put my spade into, and about
which there is no doubt.

I thought that you needed to be informed of Hugh's progress. He has
moved his house, as I told you, and dug his cellar, and purchased
stone of Sol Wetherbee for the last, though he has not hauled it; all
which has cost sixteen dollars, which I have paid. He has also, as
next in order, run away from Concord without a penny in his pocket,
"crying" by the way,--having had another long difference with strong
beer, and a first one, I suppose, with his wife, who seems to have
complained that he sought other society; the one difference leading to
the other, perhaps, but I don't know which was the leader. He writes
back to his wife from Sterling, near Worcester, where he is chopping
wood, his distantly kind reproaches to her, which I read straight
through to her (not to his bottle, which he has with him, and no doubt
addresses orally). He says that he will go on to the South in the
spring, and will never return to Concord. Perhaps he will not. Life is
not tragic enough for him, and he must try to cook up a more highly
seasoned dish for himself. Towns which keep a barroom and a gun-house
and a reading-room, should also keep a steep precipice whereoff
impatient soldiers may jump. His sun went down, _to me_, bright and
steady enough in the west, but it never came up in the east. Night
intervened. He departed, as when a man dies suddenly; and perhaps
wisely, if he was to go, without settling his affairs. They knew that
that was a thin soil and not well calculated for pears. Nature is rare
and sensitive on the score of nurseries. You may cut down orchards and
grow forests at your pleasure. Sand watered with strong beer, though
stirred with industry, will not produce grapes. He dug his cellar for
the new part too near the old house, Irish like, though I warned him,
and it has caved and let one end of the house down. Such is the state
of his domestic affairs. I laugh with the Parcæ only. He had got the
upland and the orchard and a part of the meadow plowed by Warren, at
an expense of eight dollars, still unpaid, which of course is no
affair of yours.

I think that if an honest and small-familied man, who has no affinity
for moisture in him, but who has an affinity for sand, can be found,
it would be safe to rent him the shanty as it is, and the land; or you
can very easily and simply let nature keep them still, without great
loss. It may be so managed, perhaps, as to be a home for somebody, who
shall in return serve you as fencing stuff, and to fix and locate your
lot, as we plant a tree in the sand or on the edge of a stream;
without expense to you in the meanwhile, and without disturbing its
possible future value.

I read a part of the story of my excursion to Ktaadn to quite a large
audience of men and boys, the other night, whom it interested. It
contains many facts and some poetry. I have also written what will do
for a lecture on "Friendship."

I think that the article on you in _Blackwood's_ is a good deal to get
from the reviewers,--the first purely literary notice, as I remember.
The writer is far enough off, in every sense, to speak with a certain
authority. It is a better judgment of posterity than the public had.
It is singular how sure he is to be mystified by any uncommon sense.
But it was generous to put Plato into the list of mystics. His
confessions on this subject suggest several thoughts, which I have not
room to express here. The old word _seer_,--I wonder what the reviewer
thinks that means; whether that _he_ was a man who could _see more
than himself_.

I was struck by Ellen's asking me, yesterday, while I was talking with
Mrs. Brown, if I did not use "_colored_ words." She said that she
could tell the color of a great many words, and amused the children at
school by so doing. Eddy climbed up the sofa, the other day, _of his
own accord_, and kissed the picture of his father,--"right on his
shirt, I did."

I had a good talk with Alcott this afternoon. He is certainly the
youngest man of his age we have seen,--just on the threshold of life.
When I looked at his gray hairs, his conversation sounded pathetic;
but I looked again, and they reminded me of the gray dawn. He is
getting better acquainted with Channing, though he says that, if they
were to live in the same house, they would soon sit with their backs
to each other.[37]

You must excuse me if I do not write with sufficient directness to
yourself, who are a far-off traveler. It is a little like shooting on
the wing, I confess.

     Farewell.     HENRY THOREAU.


TO R. W. EMERSON (IN ENGLAND).

     CONCORD, February 23, 1848.

DEAR WALDO,--For I think I have heard that that is your name,--my
letter which was put last into the leathern bag arrived first.
Whatever I may _call_ you, I know you better than I know your name,
and what becomes of the fittest name if in any sense you are here with
him who _calls_, and not there simply to be called?

I believe I never thanked you for your lectures, one and all, which I
heard formerly read here in Concord. I _know_ I never have. There was
some excellent reason each time why I did not; but it will never be
too late. I have that advantage, at least, over you in my education.

Lidian is too unwell to write to you; so I must tell you what I can
about the children and herself. I am afraid she has not told you how
unwell she is,--or to-day perhaps we may say has been. She has been
confined to her chamber four or five weeks, and three or four weeks,
at least, to her bed, with the jaundice. The doctor, who comes once a
day, does not let her read (nor can she now) nor _hear_ much reading.
She has written her letters to you, till recently, sitting up in bed,
but he said he would not come again if she did so. She has Abby and
Almira to take care of her, and Mrs. Brown to read to her; and I also,
occasionally, have something to read or to say. The doctor says she
must not expect to "take any comfort of her life" for a week or two
yet. She wishes me to say that she has written two long and full
letters to you about the household economies, etc., which she hopes
have not been delayed. The children are quite well and full of
spirits, and are going through a regular course of picture-seeing,
with commentary by me, every evening, for Eddy's behoof. All the
Annuals and "Diadems" are in requisition, and Eddy is forward to
exclaim, when the hour arrives, "Now for the demdems!" I overheard
this dialogue when Frank [Brown] came down to breakfast the other
morning.

_Eddy._ "Why, Frank, I am astonished that you should leave your boots
in the dining-room."

_Frank._ "I guess you mean _surprised_, don't you?"

_Eddy._ "No, boots!"

"If Waldo were here," said he, the other night, at bedtime, "we'd be
four going upstairs." Would he like to tell papa anything? No, not
anything; but finally, yes, he would,--that one of the white horses in
his new barouche is broken! Ellen and Edith will perhaps speak for
themselves, as I hear something about letters to be written by them.

Mr. Alcott seems to be reading well this winter: Plato, Montaigne, Ben
Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sir Thomas Browne, etc., etc. "I
believe I have read them all now, or nearly all,"--those English
authors. He is rallying for another foray with his pen, in his latter
years, not discouraged by the past, into that crowd of unexpressed
ideas of his, that undisciplined Parthian army, which, as soon as a
Roman soldier would face, retreats on all hands, occasionally firing
backwards; easily routed, not easily subdued, hovering on the skirts
of society. Another summer shall not be devoted to the raising of
vegetables (Arbors?) which rot in the cellar for want of consumers;
but perchance to the arrangement of the material, the brain-crop which
the winter has furnished. I have good talks with him. His respect for
Carlyle has been steadily increasing for some time. He has read him
with new sympathy and appreciation.

I see Channing often. He also goes often to Alcott's, and confesses
that he has made a discovery in him, and gives vent to his admiration
or his confusion in characteristic exaggeration; but between this
extreme and that you may get a fair report, and draw an inference if
you can. Sometimes he will ride a broomstick still, though there is
nothing to keep him, or it, up but a certain centrifugal force of
whim, which is soon spent, and there lies your stick, not worth
picking up to sweep an oven with now. His accustomed path is strewn
with them. But then again, and perhaps for the most part, he sits on
the Cliffs amid the lichens, or flits past on noiseless pinion, like
the barred owl in the daytime, as wise and unobserved. He brought me a
poem the other day, for me, on Walden Hermitage: not remarkable.[38]

Lectures begin to multiply on my desk. I have one on Friendship which
is new, and the materials of some others. I read one last week to the
Lyceum, on The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to
Government,--much to Mr. Alcott's satisfaction.

Joel Britton has failed and gone into chancery, but the woods continue
to fall before the axes of other men. Neighbor Coombs[39] was lately
found dead in the woods near Goose Pond, with his half-empty jug,
after he had been rioting a week. Hugh, by the last accounts, was
still in Worcester County. Mr. Hosmer, who is himself again, and
living in Concord, has just hauled the rest of your wood, amounting to
about ten and a half cords.

The newspapers say that they have printed a pirated edition of your
Essays in England. Is it as bad as they say, and undisguised and
unmitigated piracy? I thought that the printed scrap would entertain
Carlyle, notwithstanding its history. If this generation will see out
of its hind-head, why then you may turn your back on its
forehead. Will you forward it to him for me?

  [Illustration: _The Hosmer House_]

This stands written in your day-book: "September 3d. Received of
Boston Savings Bank, on account of Charles Lane, his deposit with
interest, $131.33. 16th. Received of Joseph Palmer, on account of
Charles Lane, three hundred twenty-three 36/100 dollars, being the
balance of a note on demand for four hundred dollars, with interest,
$323.36."

If you have any directions to give about the trees, you must not
forget that spring will soon be upon us.

Farewell. From your friend,

     HENRY THOREAU.

Before a reply came to this letter, Thoreau had occasion to write to
Mr. Elliot Cabot again. The allusions to the "Week" and to the Walden
house are interesting.


TO ELLIOT CABOT.

     CONCORD, March 8, 1848.

DEAR SIR,--Mr. Emerson's address is as yet, "R. W. Emerson, care of
Alexander Ireland, Esq., Examiner Office, Manchester, England." We had
a letter from him on Monday, dated at Manchester, February 10, and he
was then preparing to go to Edinburgh the next day, where he was to
lecture. He thought that he should get through his northern journeying
by the 25th of February, and go to London to spend March and April,
and if he did not go to Paris in May, then come home. He has been
eminently successful, though the papers this side of the water have
been so silent about his adventures.

My book,[40] fortunately, did not find a publisher ready to undertake
it, and you can imagine the effect of delay on an author's estimate of
his own work. However, I like it well enough to mend it, and shall
look at it again directly when I have dispatched some other things.

I have been writing lectures for our own Lyceum this winter, mainly
for my own pleasure and advantage. I esteem it a rare happiness to be
able to _write_ anything, but there (if I ever get there) my concern
for it is apt to end. Time & Co. are, after all, the only quite honest
and trustworthy publishers that we know. I can sympathize, perhaps,
with the barberry bush, whose business it is solely to _ripen_ its
fruit (though that may not be to sweeten it) and to protect it with
thorns, so that it holds on all winter, even, unless some hungry crows
come to pluck it. But I see that I must get a few dollars together
presently to manure my roots. Is your journal able to pay anything,
provided it likes an article well enough? I do not promise one. At any
rate, I mean always to spend only words enough to purchase silence
with; and I have found that this, which is so valuable, though many
writers do not prize it, does not cost much, after all.

I have not obtained any more of the mice which I told you were so
numerous in my cellar, as my house was removed immediately after I
saw you, and I have been living in the village since.

However, if I should happen to meet with anything rare, I will forward
it to you. I thank you for your kind offers, and will avail myself of
them so far as to ask if you can anywhere borrow for me for a short
time the copy of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ containing a notice of
Mr. Emerson. I should like well to read it, and to read it to Mrs.
Emerson and others. If this book is not easy to be obtained, do not by
any means trouble yourself about it.


TO R. W. EMERSON.[41]

     CONCORD, March 23, 1848.

DEAR FRIEND,--Lidian says I must write a sentence about the children.
Eddy says he cannot sing,--"not till mother is a-going to be well." We
shall hear his voice very soon, in that case, I trust. Ellen is
already thinking what will be done when you come home; but then she
thinks it will be some loss that I shall go away. Edith says that I
shall come and see them, and always at tea-time, so that I can play
with her. Ellen thinks she likes father best because he jumps her
sometimes. This is the latest news from

     Yours, etc.,     HENRY.

P. S.--I have received three newspapers from you duly which I have not
acknowledged. There is an anti-Sabbath convention held in Boston
to-day, to which Alcott has gone.

       *       *       *       *       *

That friend to whom Thoreau wrote most constantly and fully, on all
topics, was Mr. Harrison Blake of Worcester, a graduate of Harvard two
years earlier than Thoreau, in the same class with two other young men
from Concord,--E. R. Hoar and H. B. Dennis. This circumstance may have
led to Mr. Blake's visiting the town occasionally, before his intimacy
with its poet-naturalist began, in the year 1848. At that time, as
Thoreau wrote to Horace Greeley, he had been supporting himself for
five years wholly by the labor of his hands; his Walden hermit life
was over, yet neither its record nor the first book had been
published, and Thoreau was known in literature chiefly by his papers
in the _Dial_, which had then ceased for four years. In March, 1848,
Mr. Blake read Thoreau's chapter on Persius in the _Dial_ for July,
1840,--and though he had read it before without being much impressed
by it, he now found in it "pure depth and solidity of thought." "It
has revived in me," he wrote to Thoreau, "a haunting impression of
you, which I carried away from some spoken words of yours.... When I
was last in Concord, you spoke of retiring farther from our
civilization. I asked you if you would feel no longings for the
society of your friends. Your reply was in substance, 'No, I am
nothing.' That reply was memorable to me. It indicated a depth of
resources, a completeness of renunciation, a poise and repose in the
universe, which to me is almost inconceivable; which in you seemed
domesticated, and to which I look up with veneration. I would know of
that soul which can say 'I am nothing.' I would be roused by its words
to a truer and purer life. Upon me seems to be dawning with new
significance the idea that God is here; that we have but to bow before
Him in profound submission at every moment, and He will fill our souls
with his presence. In this opening of the soul to God, all duties seem
to centre; what else have we to do?... If I understand rightly the
significance of your life, this is it: You would sunder yourself from
society, from the spell of institutions, customs, conventionalities,
that you may lead a fresh, simple life with God. Instead of breathing
a new life into the old forms, you would have a new life without and
within. There is something sublime to me in this attitude,--far as I
may be from it myself.... Speak to me in this hour as you are
prompted.... I honor you because you abstain from action, and open
your soul that you may _be_ somewhat. Amid a world of noisy, shallow
actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply _be_.' Could
I plant myself at once upon the truth, reducing my wants to their
minimum, ... I should at once be brought nearer to nature, nearer to
my fellow-men,--and life would be infinitely richer. But, alas! I
shiver on the brink."

Thus appealed to by one who had so well attained the true
Transcendental shibboleth,--"God working in us, both to will and to
do,"--Thoreau could not fail to make answer, as he did at once, and
thus:--


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

[The first of many letters.]

     CONCORD, March 27, 1848.

I am glad to hear that any words of mine, though spoken so long ago
that I can hardly claim identity with their author, have reached you.
It gives me pleasure, because I have therefore reason to suppose that
I have uttered what concerns men, and that it is not in vain that man
speaks to man. This is the value of literature. Yet those days are so
distant, in every sense, that I have had to look at that page again,
to learn what was the tenor of my thoughts then. I should value that
article, however, if only because it was the occasion of your letter.

I do believe that the outward and the inward life correspond; that if
any should succeed to live a higher life, others would not know of it;
that difference and distance are one. To set about living a true life
is to go a journey to a distant country, gradually to find ourselves
surrounded by new scenes and men; and as long as the old are around
me, I know that I am not in any true sense living a new or a better
life. The outward is only the outside of that which is within. Men are
not concealed under habits, but are revealed by them; they are their
true clothes. I care not how curious a reason they may give for their
abiding by them. Circumstances are not rigid and unyielding, but our
habits are rigid. We are apt to speak vaguely sometimes, as if a
divine life were to be grafted on to or built over this present as a
suitable foundation. This might do if we could so build over our old
life as to exclude from it all the warmth of our affection, and addle
it, as the thrush builds over the cuckoo's egg, and lays her own atop,
and hatches that only; but the fact is, we--so thin is the
partition--hatch them both, and the cuckoo's always by a day first,
and that young bird crowds the young thrushes out of the nest. No.
Destroy the cuckoo's egg, or build a new nest.

Change is change. No new life occupies the old bodies;--they decay.
_It_ is born, and grows, and flourishes. Men very pathetically inform
the old, accept and wear it. Why put up with the almshouse when you
may go to heaven? It is embalming,--no more. Let alone your ointments
and your linen swathes, and go into an infant's body. You see in the
catacombs of Egypt the result of that experiment,--that is the end of
it.

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many
trivial affairs even the wisest man thinks he must attend to in a day;
how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician
would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all
incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the
problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the
earth to see where your main roots run. I would stand upon facts. Why
not see,--use our eyes? Do men know nothing? I know many men who, in
common things, are not to be deceived; who trust no moonshine; who
count their money correctly, and know how to invest it; who are said
to be prudent and knowing, who yet will stand at a desk the greater
part of their lives, as cashiers in banks, and glimmer and rust and
finally go out there. If they _know_ anything, what under the sun do
they do that for? Do they know what _bread_ is? or what it is for? Do
they know what life is? If they _knew_ something, the places which
know them now would know them no more forever.

This, our respectable daily life, on which the man of common sense,
the Englishman of the world, stands so squarely, and on which our
institutions are founded, is in fact the veriest illusion, and will
vanish like the baseless fabric of a vision; but that faint glimmer of
reality which sometimes illuminates the darkness of daylight for all
men, reveals something more solid and enduring than adamant, which is
in fact the cornerstone of the world.

Men cannot conceive of a state of things so fair that it cannot be
realized. Can any man honestly consult his experience and say that it
is so? Have we any facts to appeal to when we say that our dreams are
premature? Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life
faithfully and singly toward an object and in no measure obtained it?
If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try
heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no
advantage in them? that it was a vain endeavor? Of course we do not
expect that our paradise will be a garden. We know not what we ask. To
look at literature;--how many fine thoughts has every man had! how few
fine thoughts are expressed! Yet we never have a fantasy so subtle and
ethereal, but that _talent merely_, with more resolution and faithful
persistency, after a thousand failures, might fix and engrave it in
distinct and enduring words, and we should see that our dreams are the
solidest facts that we know. But I speak not of dreams.

What can be expressed in words can be expressed in life.

My actual life is a fact, in view of which I have no occasion to
congratulate myself; but for my faith and aspiration I have respect.
It is from these that I speak. Every man's position is in fact too
simple to be described. I have sworn no oath. I have no designs on
society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be
that. I _live_ in the _present_. I only remember the past, and
anticipate the future. I love to live. I love reform better than its
modes. There is no history of how bad became better. I believe
something, and there is nothing else but that. I know that I am. I
know that another is who knows more than I, who takes interest in me,
whose creature, and yet whose kindred, in one sense, am I. I know that
the enterprise is worthy. I know that things work well. I have heard
no bad news.

As for positions, combinations, and details,--what are they? In clear
weather, when we look into the heavens, what do we see but the sky and
the sun?

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not
care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.

Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does
his master's chaise. Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at
it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. Do not be too moral. You
may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not
simply good; be good for something. All fables, indeed, have their
morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. Let nothing come between you
and the light. Respect men and brothers only. When you travel to the
Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask
to see God,--none of the servants. In what concerns you much, do not
think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.

Thus I write at random. I need to see you, and I trust I shall, to
correct my mistakes. Perhaps you have some oracles for me.

     HENRY THOREAU.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, May 2, 1848

"We must have our bread." But what is our bread? Is it baker's bread?
Methinks it should be very _home-made_ bread. What is our meat? Is it
butcher's meat? What is that which we _must_ have? Is that bread which
we are now earning sweet? Is it not bread which has been suffered to
sour, and then been sweetened with an alkali, which has undergone the
vinous, the acetous, and sometimes the putrid fermentation, and then
been whitened with vitriol? Is this the bread which we must have? Man
must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, truly, but also by the
sweat of his brain within his brow. The body can feed the body only. I
have tasted but little bread in my life. It has been mere grub and
provender for the most part. Of bread that nourished the brain and the
heart, scarcely any. There is absolutely none on the tables even of
the rich.

There is not one kind of food for all men. You must and you will feed
those faculties which you exercise. The laborer whose body is weary
does not require the same food with the scholar whose brain is weary.
Men should not labor foolishly like brutes, but the brain and the body
should always, or as much as possible, work and rest together, and
then the work will be of such a kind that when the body is hungry the
brain will be hungry also, and the same food will suffice for both;
otherwise the food which repairs the waste energy of the overwrought
body will oppress the sedentary brain, and the degenerate scholar will
come to esteem all food vulgar, and all getting a living drudgery.

How shall we earn our bread is a grave question; yet it is a sweet and
inviting question. Let us not shirk it, as is usually done. It is the
most important and practical question which is put to man. Let us not
answer it hastily. Let us not be content to get our bread in some
gross, careless, and hasty manner. Some men go a-hunting, some
a-fishing, some a-gaming, some to war; but none have so pleasant a
time as they who in earnest seek to earn their bread. It is true
actually as it is true really; it is true materially as it is true
spiritually, that they who seek honestly and sincerely, with all their
hearts and lives and strength, to earn their bread, do earn it, and it
is sure to be very sweet to them. A very little bread,--a very few
crumbs are enough, if it be of the right quality, for it is
infinitely nutritious. Let each man, then, earn at least a crumb of
bread for his body before he dies, and know the taste of it,--that it
is identical with the bread of life, and that they both go down at one
swallow.

Our bread need not ever be sour or hard to digest. What Nature is to
the mind she is also to the body. As she feeds my imagination, she
will feed my body; for what she says she means, and is ready to do.
She is not simply beautiful to the poet's eye. Not only the rainbow
and sunset are beautiful, but to be fed and clothed, sheltered and
warmed aright, are equally beautiful and inspiring. There is not
necessarily any gross and ugly fact which may not be eradicated from
the life of man. We should endeavor practically in our lives to
correct all the defects which our imagination detects. The heavens are
as deep as our aspirations are high. So high as a tree aspires to
grow, so high it will find an atmosphere suited to it. Every man
should stand for a force which is perfectly irresistible. How can any
man be weak who dares _to be_ at all? Even the tenderest plants force
their way up through the hardest earth and the crevices of rocks; but
a man no material power can resist. What a wedge, what a beetle, what
a catapult, is an _earnest_ man! What can resist him?

It is a momentous fact that a man may be _good_, or he may be _bad_;
his life may be _true_, or it may be _false_; it may be either a shame
or a glory to him. The good man builds himself up; the bad man
destroys himself.

But whatever we do we must do confidently (if we are timid, let us,
then, act timidly), not expecting more light, but having light enough.
If we confidently expect more, then let us wait for it. But what is
this which we have? Have we not already waited? Is this the beginning
of time? Is there a man who does not see clearly beyond, though only a
hair's breadth beyond where he at any time stands?

If one hesitates in his path, let him not proceed. Let him respect his
doubts, for doubts, too, may have some divinity in them, That we have
but little faith is not sad, but that we have but little faithfulness.
By faithfulness faith is earned. When, in the progress of a life, a
man swerves, though only by an angle infinitely small, from his proper
and allotted path (and this is never done quite unconsciously even at
first; in fact, that was his broad and scarlet sin,--ah, he knew of it
more than he can tell), then the drama of his life turns to tragedy,
and makes haste to its fifth act. When once we thus fall behind
ourselves, there is no accounting for the obstacles which rise up in
our path, and no one is so wise as to advise, and no one so powerful
as to aid us while we abide on that ground. Such are cursed with
_duties_, and the _neglect of their duties_. For such the decalogue
was made, and other far more voluminous and terrible codes.

These departures,--who have not made them?--for they are as faint as
the parallax of a fixed star, and at the commencement we say they are
nothing,--that is, they originate in a kind of sleep and forgetfulness
of the soul when it is naught. A man cannot be too circumspect in
order to keep in the straight road, and be sure that he sees all that
he may at any time see, that so he may distinguish his true path.

You ask if there is no doctrine of sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute
sorrow I suppose that I know comparatively little. My saddest and most
genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets. The place of
sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a certain hard and proportionately
barren indifference. I am of kin to the sod, and partake largely of
its dull patience,--in winter expecting the sun of spring. In my
cheapest moments I am apt to think that it is n't my business to be
"seeking the spirit," but as much its business to be seeking me. I
know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a
chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much
patience of this kind. I am too easily contented with a slight and
almost animal happiness. My happiness is a good deal like that of the
woodchucks.

Methinks I am never quite committed, never wholly the creature of my
moods, but always to some extent their critic. My only integral
experience is in my vision. I see, perchance, with more integrity than
I feel.

But I need not tell you what manner of man I am,--my virtues or my
vices. You can guess if it is worth the while; and I do not
discriminate them well.

I do not write this at my hut in the woods. I am at present living
with Mrs. Emerson, whose house is an old home of mine, for company
during Mr. Emerson's absence.

You will perceive that I am as often talking to myself, perhaps, as
speaking to you.

       *       *       *       *       *

Here is a confession of faith, and a bit of self-portraiture worth
having; for there is little except faithful statement of the fact. Its
sentences are based on the questions and experiences of his
correspondent; yet they diverge into that atmosphere of humor and
hyperbole so native to Thoreau; in whom was the oddest mixture of the
serious and the comic, the literal and the romantic. He addressed
himself also, so far as his unbending personality would allow, to the
mood or the need of his correspondent; and he had great skill in
fathoming character and describing in a few touches the persons he
encountered; as may be seen in his letters to Emerson, especially, who
also had, and in still greater measure, this "fatal gift of
penetration," as he once termed it. This will be seen in the contrast
of Thoreau's correspondence with Mr. Blake, and that he was holding at
the same time with Horace Greeley,--persons radically unlike.

In August, 1846, Thoreau sent to Greeley his essay on Carlyle, asking
him to find a place for it in some magazine. Greeley sent it to R. W.
Griswold, then editing _Graham's Magazine_ in Philadelphia, who
accepted it and promised to pay for it, but did not publish it till
March and April, 1847; even then the promised payment was not
forthcoming. On the 31st of March, 1848, a year and a half after it
had been put in Griswold's possession, Thoreau wrote again to Greeley,
saying that no money had come to hand. At once, and at the very time
when Mr. Blake was opening his spiritual state to Thoreau (April 3,
1848), the busy editor of the _Tribune_ replied: "It saddens and
surprises me to know that your article was not paid for by Graham;
and, since my honor is involved, I will see that you are paid, and
that at no distant day." Accordingly, on May 17, he adds: "To-day I
have been able to lay my hand on the money due you. I made out a
regular bill for the contribution, drew a draft on G. R. Graham for
the amount, gave it to his brother in New York for collection, and
received the money. I have made Graham pay you seventy-five dollars,
but I only send you fifty dollars," having deducted twenty-five
dollars for the advance of that sum he had made a month before to
Thoreau for his "Ktaadn and the Maine Woods," which finally came out
in _Sartain's Union Magazine_ of Philadelphia, late in 1848. To this
letter and remittance of fifty dollars Thoreau replied, May 19, 1848,
substantially thus:--


TO HORACE GREELEY (AT NEW YORK).

     CONCORD, May 19, 1848.

MY FRIEND GREELEY,--I have to-day received from you fifty dollars. It
is five years that I have been maintaining myself entirely by manual
labor,--not getting a cent from any other quarter or employment. Now
this toil has occupied so few days,--perhaps a single month, spring
and fall each,--that I must have had more leisure than any of my
brethren for study and literature. I have done rude work of all kinds.
From July, 1845, to September, 1847, I lived by myself in the forest,
in a fairly good cabin, plastered and warmly covered, which I built
myself. There I earned all I needed, and kept to my own affairs.
During that time my weekly outlay was but seven and twenty cents; and
I had an abundance of all sorts. Unless the human race perspire more
than I do, there is no occasion to live by the sweat of their brow. If
men cannot get on without money (the smallest amount will suffice),
the truest method of earning it is by working as a laborer at one
dollar per day. You are least dependent so; I speak as an expert,
having used several kinds of labor.

Why should the scholar make a constant complaint that his fate is
specially hard? We are too often told of "the pursuit of knowledge
under difficulties,"--how poets depend on patrons and starve in
garrets, or at last go mad and die. Let us hear the other side of the
story. Why should not the scholar, if he is really wiser than the
multitude, do coarse work now and then? Why not let his greater wisdom
enable him to do without things? If you say the wise man is unlucky,
how could you distinguish him from the foolishly unfortunate?

My friend, how can I thank you for your kindness? Perhaps there is a
better way,--I will convince you that it is felt and appreciated. Here
have I been sitting idle, as it were, while you have been busy in my
cause, and have done so much for me. I wish you had had a better
subject; but good deeds are no less good because their object is
unworthy.

Yours was the best way to collect money,--but I should never have
thought of it; I might have waylaid the debtor perchance. Even a
business man might not have thought of it,--and I cannot be called
that, as business is understood usually,--not being familiar with the
routine. But your way has this to commend it also,--if you make the
draft, you decide how much to draw. You drew just the sum suitable.

The Ktaadn paper can be put in the guise of letters, if it runs best
so; dating each part on the day it describes. Twenty-five dollars more
for it will satisfy me; I expected no more, and do not hold you to pay
that,--for you asked for something else, and there was delay in
sending. So, if you use it, send me twenty-five dollars now or after
you sell it, as is most convenient; but take out the expenses that I
see you must have had. In such cases carriers generally get the most;
but you, as carrier here, get no money, but risk losing some, besides
much of your time; while I go away, as I must, giving you unprofitable
thanks. Yet trust me, my pleasure in your letter is not wholly a
selfish one. May my good genius still watch over me and my added
wealth!

P. S.--My book grows in bulk as I work on it; but soon I shall get
leisure for those shorter articles you want,--then look out.

       *       *       *       *       *

The "book," of course, was the "Week," then about to go through the
press; the shorter articles were some that Greeley suggested for the
Philadelphia magazines. Nothing came of this, but the correspondence
was kept up until 1854, and led to the partial publication of "Cape
Cod" and "The Yankee in Canada" in the newly launched _Putnam's
Magazine_, of which G. W. Curtis was editor. But he differed with
Thoreau on a matter of style or opinion (the articles appearing as
anonymous, or editorial), and the author withdrew his MS. The letters
of Greeley in this entertaining series are all preserved; but Greeley
seems to have given Thoreau's away for autographs; and the only one
accessible as yet is that just paraphrased.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT MILTON).

     CONCORD, August 10, 1849.

MR. BLAKE,--I write now chiefly to say, before it is too late, that I
shall be glad to see you in Concord, and will give you a chamber,
etc., in my father's house, and as much of my poor company as you can
bear.

I am in too great haste this time to speak to your, or out of my,
condition. I might say,--you might say,--comparatively speaking, be
not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe
may be securely invested. What a pity if we do not live this short
time according to the laws of the long time,--the eternal laws! Let us
see that we stand erect here, and do not lie along by our _whole
length_ in the dirt. Let our meanness be our footstool, not our
cushion. In the midst of this labyrinth let us live a _thread_ of
life. We must act with so rapid and resistless a purpose in _one_
direction, that our vices will necessarily trail behind. The nucleus
of a comet is almost a star. Was there ever a genuine dilemma? The
laws of earth are for the feet, or inferior man; the laws of heaven
are for the head, or superior man; the latter are the former sublimed
and expanded, even as radii from the earth's centre go on diverging
into space. Happy the man who observes the heavenly and the
terrestrial law in just proportion; whose every faculty, from the
soles of his feet to the crown of his head, obeys the law of its
level; who neither stoops nor goes on tiptoe, but lives a balanced
life, acceptable to nature and to God.

These things I say; other things I do.

I am sorry to hear that you did not receive my book earlier. I
directed it and left it in Munroe's shop to be sent to you
immediately, on the twenty-sixth of May, before a copy had been sold.

Will you remember me to Mr. Brown, when you see him next: he is well
remembered by

     HENRY THOREAU.

I still owe you a worthy answer.


TO HARRISON BLAKE.

     CONCORD, November 20, 1849.

MR. BLAKE,--I have not forgotten that I am your debtor. When I read
over your letters, as I have just done, I feel that I am unworthy to
have received or to answer them, though they are addressed, as I would
have them, to the ideal of me. It behooves me, if I would reply, to
speak out of the rarest part of myself.

At present I am subsisting on certain wild flavors which nature wafts
to me, which unaccountably sustain me, and make my apparently poor
life rich. Within a year my walks have extended themselves, and almost
every afternoon (I read, or write, or make pencils in the forenoon,
and by the last means get a living for my body) I visit some new hill,
or pond, or wood, many miles distant. I am astonished at the
wonderful retirement through which I move, rarely meeting a man in
these excursions, never seeing one similarly engaged, unless it be my
companion, when I have one. I cannot help feeling that of all the
human inhabitants of nature hereabouts, only we two have leisure to
admire and enjoy our inheritance.

"Free in this world as the birds in the air, disengaged from every
kind of chains, those who have practiced the _yoga_ gather in Brahma
the certain fruit of their works."

Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice
the _yoga_ faithfully.

"The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to
creation: he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things.
Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and, united to the
nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original
matter."

To some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a yogi.

I know little about the affairs of Turkey, but I am sure that I know
something about barberries and chestnuts, of which I have collected a
store this fall. When I go to see my neighbor, he will formally
communicate to me the latest news from Turkey, which he read in
yesterday's mail,--"Now Turkey by this time looks determined, and Lord
Palmerston"--Why, I would rather talk of the bran, which,
unfortunately, was sifted out of my bread this morning, and thrown
away. It is a fact which lies nearer to me. The newspaper gossip with
which our hosts abuse our ears is as far from a true hospitality as
the viands which they set before us. We did not need them to feed our
bodies, and the news can be bought for a penny. We want the inevitable
news, be it sad or cheering, wherefore and by what means they are
extant this _new_ day. If they are well, let them whistle and dance;
if they are dyspeptic, it is their duty to complain, that so they may
in any case be _entertaining_. If words were invented to conceal
thought, I think that newspapers are a great improvement on a bad
invention. Do not suffer your life to be taken by newspapers.

I thank you for your hearty appreciation of my book. I am glad to have
had such a long talk with you, and that you had patience to listen to
me to the end. I think that I had the advantage of you, for I chose my
own mood, and in one sense your mood too,--that is, a quiet and
attentive reading mood. Such advantage has the writer over the talker.
I am sorry that you did not come to Concord in your vacation. Is it
not time for another vacation? I am here yet, and Concord is here.

You will have found out by this time who it is that writes this, and
will be glad to have you write to him, without his subscribing himself

     HENRY D. THOREAU.

P. S.--It is so long since I have seen you, that, as you will
perceive, I have to speak, as it were, _in vacuo_, as if I were
sounding hollowly for an echo, and it did not make much odds what kind
of a sound I made. But the gods do not hear any rude or discordant
sound, as we learn from the echo; and I know that the nature toward
which I launch these sounds is so rich that it will modulate anew and
wonderfully improve my rudest strain.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT MILTON).

     CONCORD, April 3, 1850.

MR. BLAKE,--I thank you for your letter, and I will endeavor to record
some of the thoughts which it suggests, whether pertinent or not. You
speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are
rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the
appearance and not the reality? Why should the appearance _appear_?
Are we well acquainted, then, with the reality? There is none who does
not lie hourly in the respect he pays to false appearance. How sweet
it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they
are! We wonder that the sinner does not confess his sin. When we are
weary with travel, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So,
when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this
load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be
refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us
not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies
we cease to support them; we recline on the lap of earth. So, when we
would rest our spirits, we must recline on the Great Spirit. Let
things alone; let them weigh what they will; let them soar or fall. To
succeed in letting only one thing alone in a winter morning, if it be
only one poor frozen-thawed apple that hangs on a tree, what a
glorious achievement! Methinks it lightens through the dusky universe.
What an infinite wealth we have discovered! God reigns, _i. e._, when
we take a liberal view,--when a liberal view is presented us.

Let God alone if need be. Methinks, if I loved him more, I should keep
him--I should keep myself rather--at a more respectful distance. It is
not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and
leaving him alone, that I discover that God is. I say, God. I am not
sure that that is the name. You will know whom I mean.

If for a moment we make way with our petty selves, wish no ill to
anything, apprehend no ill, cease to be but as the crystal which
reflects a ray,--what shall we not reflect! What a universe will
appear crystallized and radiant around us!

I should say, let the Muse lead the Muse,--let the understanding lead
the understanding, though in any case it is the farthest forward which
leads them both. If the Muse accompany, she is no muse, but an
amusement. The Muse should lead like a star which is very far off; but
that does not imply that we are to follow foolishly, falling into
sloughs and over precipices, for it is not foolishness, but
understanding, which is to follow, which the Muse is appointed to
lead, as a fit guide of a fit follower?

Will you live? or will you be embalmed? Will you live, though it be
astride of a sunbeam; or will you repose safely in the catacombs for a
thousand years? In the former case, the worst accident that can
happen is that you may break your neck. Will you break your heart,
your soul, to save your neck? Necks and pipe-stems are fated to be
broken. Men make a great ado about the folly of demanding too much of
life (or of eternity?), and of endeavoring to live according to that
demand. It is much ado about nothing. No harm ever came from that
quarter. I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and
significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which
it is. I shall be sorry to remember that I was there, but noticed
nothing remarkable,--not so much as a prince in disguise; lived in the
golden age a hired man; visited Olympus even, but fell asleep after
dinner, and did not hear the conversation of the gods. I lived in
Judæa eighteen hundred years ago, but I never knew that there was such
a one as Christ among my contemporaries! If there is anything more
glorious than a congress of men a-framing or amending of a
constitution going on, which I suspect there is, I desire to see the
morning papers. I am greedy of the faintest rumor, though it were got
by listening at the keyhole. I will dissipate myself in that
direction.

I am glad to know that you find what I have said on Friendship worthy
of attention. I wish that I could have the benefit of your criticism;
it would be a rare help to me. Will you not communicate it?


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT MILTON).

     CONCORD, May 28, 1850.

MR. BLAKE,--"I never found any contentment in the life which the
newspapers record,"--anything of more value than the cent which they
cost. Contentment in being covered with dust an inch deep! We who walk
the streets, and hold time together, are but the refuse of ourselves,
and that life is for the shells of us,--of our body and our mind,--for
our scurf,--a thoroughly _scurvy_ life. It is coffee made of
coffee-grounds the twentieth time, which was only coffee the first
time,--while the living water leaps and sparkles by our doors. I know
some who, in their charity, give their coffee-grounds to the poor! We,
demanding news, and putting up with _such_ news! Is it a new
convenience, or a new accident, or, rather, a new perception of the
truth that we want!

You say that "the serene hours in which friendship, books, nature,
thought, seem alone primary considerations, visit you but faintly." Is
not the attitude of expectation somewhat divine?--a sort of home-made
divineness? Does it not compel a kind of sphere-music to attend on it?
And do not its satisfactions merge at length, by insensible degrees,
in the enjoyment of the thing expected?

What if I should forget to write about my not writing? It is not worth
the while to make that a theme. It is as if I had written every day.
It is as if I had never written before. I wonder that you think so
much about it, for not writing is the most like writing, in my case,
of anything I know.

Why will you not relate to me your dream? That would be to realize it
somewhat. You tell me that you dream, but not what you dream. I can
_guess_ what comes to pass. So do the frogs dream. Would that I knew
what. I have never found out whether they are awake or asleep,--whether
it is day or night with them.

I am preaching, mind you, to bare walls, that is, to myself; and if
you have chanced to come in and occupy a pew, do not think that my
remarks are directed at you particularly, and so slam the seat in
disgust. This discourse was written long before these exciting times.

Some absorbing employment on your higher ground,--your upland
farm,--whither no cart-path leads, but where you mount alone with your
hoe,--where the life everlasting grows; there you raise a crop which
needs not to be brought down into the valley to a market; which you
barter for heavenly products.

Do you separate distinctly enough the support of your body from that
of your essence? By how distinct a course commonly are these two ends
attained! Not that they should not be attained by one and the same
means,--that, indeed, is the rarest success,--but there is no half and
half about it.

I shall be glad to read my lecture to a small audience in Worcester
such as you describe, and will only require that my expenses be paid.
If only the parlor be large enough for an echo, and the audience will
embarrass themselves with hearing as much as the lecturer would
otherwise embarrass himself with reading. But I warn you that this is
no better calculated for a promiscuous audience than the last two
which I read to you. It requires, in every sense, a concordant
audience.

I will come on next Saturday and spend Sunday with you if you wish it.
Say so if you do.

"Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

Be not deterred by melancholy on the path which leads to immortal
health and joy. When they tasted of the water of the river over which
they were to go, they thought it tasted a little bitterish to the
palate, but it proved sweeter when it was down.

     H. D. T.

      NOTE.--The "companion" of his walks, mentioned by Thoreau
      in November, 1849, was Ellery Channing; the neighbor who
      insisted on talking of Turkey was perhaps Emerson, who,
      after his visit to Europe in 1848, was more interested in
      its politics than before. Pencil-making was Thoreau's
      manual work for many years; and it must have been about
      this time (1849-53) that he "had occasion to go to New
      York to peddle some pencils," as he says in his journal
      for November 20, 1853. He adds, "I was obliged to
      manufacture one thousand dollars' worth of pencils, and
      slowly dispose of, and finally sacrifice them, in order
      to pay an assumed debt of one hundred dollars." This debt
      was for the printing of the _Week_, published in 1849,
      and finally paid for in 1855. Thoreau's pencils have sold
      (in 1893) for 25 cents each. For other facts concerning
      his debt to James Munroe, see Sanborn's _Thoreau_, pp.
      230, 235.


FOOTNOTES:

[35] Where Agassiz was giving a course of Lowell lectures.

[36] The town almshouse was across the field from the Emerson house.

[37] At this date Alcott had passed his forty-eighth year, while
Channing and Thoreau were still in the latitude of thirty. Hawthorne
had left Concord, and was in the Salem custom-house, the Old Manse
having gone back into the occupancy of Emerson's cousins, the Ripleys,
who owned it.

[38] See Sanborn's _Thoreau_, p. 214, and Channing's _Thoreau_, New
Edition, pp. 207-210, for this poem.

[39] This is the political neighbor mentioned in a former letter.

[40] From England Emerson wrote: "I am not of opinion that your book
should be delayed a month. I should print it at once, nor do I think
that you would incur any risk in doing so that you cannot well afford.
It is very certain to have readers and debtors, here as well as there.
The Dial is absurdly well known here. We at home, I think, are always
a little ashamed of it,--I am,--and yet here it is spoken of with the
utmost gravity, and I do not laugh."

[41] This letter was addressed, "R. Waldo Emerson, care of Alexander
Ireland, Esq., Manchester, England, _via_ New York and Steamer
Cambria, March 25." It was mailed in Boston, March 24, and received in
Manchester, April 19.




III

FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS


TO R. W. EMERSON[42] (AT CONCORD).

     FIRE ISLAND BEACH,
     Thursday morning, July 25, 1850.

DEAR FRIEND,--I am writing this at the house of Smith Oakes, within
one mile of the wreck. He is the one who rendered most assistance,
William H. Channing came down with me, but I have not seen Arthur
Fuller, nor Greeley, nor Marcus Spring. Spring and Charles Sumner were
here yesterday, but left soon. Mr. Oakes and wife tell me (all the
survivors came, or were brought, directly to their house) that the
ship struck at ten minutes after four A. M., and all hands, being
mostly in their nightclothes, made haste to the forecastle, the water
coming in at once. There they remained; the passengers _in_ the
forecastle, the crew above it, doing what they could. Every wave
lifted the forecastle roof and washed over those within. The first man
got ashore at nine; many from nine to noon. At flood-tide, about half
past three o'clock, when the ship broke up entirely, they came out of
the forecastle, and Margaret sat with her back to the foremast, with
her hands on her knees, her husband and child already drowned. A great
wave came and washed her aft. The steward (?) had just before taken
her child and started for shore. Both were drowned.

The broken desk, in a bag, containing no very valuable papers; a large
black leather trunk, with an upper and under compartment, the upper
holding books and papers; a carpetbag, probably Ossoli's, and one of
his shoes (?) are all the Ossoli effects known to have been found.
Four bodies remain to be found: the two Ossolis, Horace Sumner, and a
sailor. I have visited the child's grave. Its body will probably be
taken away to-day. The wreck is to be sold at auction, excepting the
hull, to-day.

The mortar would not go off. Mrs. Hasty, the captain's wife, told Mrs.
Oakes that she and Margaret divided their money, and tied up the
halves in handkerchiefs around their persons; that Margaret took sixty
or seventy dollars. Mrs. Hasty, who can tell all about Margaret up to
eleven o'clock on Friday, is said to be going to Portland, New
England, to-day. She and Mrs. Fuller must, and probably will, come
together. The cook, the last to leave, and the steward (?) will know
the rest. I shall try to see them. In the meanwhile I shall do what I
can to recover property and obtain particulars hereabouts. William H.
Channing--did I write it?--has come with me. Arthur Fuller[43] has
this moment reached the house. He reached the beach last night. We got
here yesterday noon. A good part of the wreck still holds together
where she struck, and something may come ashore with her fragments.
The last body was found on Tuesday, three miles west. Mrs. Oakes dried
the papers which were in the trunk, and she says they appeared to be
of various kinds. "Would they cover that table?" (a small round one).
"They would if spread out. Some were tied up." There were twenty or
thirty books "in the same half of the trunk. Another smaller trunk,
empty, came ashore, but there was no mark on it." She speaks of
Paulina as if she might have been a sort of nurse to the child. I
expect to go to Patchogue, whence the pilferers must have chiefly
come, and advertise, etc.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (IN MILTON).

     CONCORD August 9, 1850.

MR. BLAKE,--I received your letter just as I was rushing to Fire
Island beach to recover what remained of Margaret Fuller, and read it
on the way. That event and its train, as much as anything, have
prevented my answering it before. It is wisest to speak when you are
spoken to. I will now endeavor to reply, at the risk of having nothing
to say.

I find that actual events, notwithstanding the singular prominence
which we all allow them, are far less real than the creations of my
imagination. They are truly visionary and insignificant,--all that we
commonly call life and death,--and affect me less than my dreams. This
petty stream which from time to time swells and carries away the
mills and bridges of our habitual life, and that mightier stream or
ocean on which we securely float,--what makes the difference between
them? I have in my pocket a button which I ripped off the coat of the
Marquis of Ossoli, on the seashore, the other day. Held up, it
intercepts the light,--an actual button,--and yet all the life it is
connected with is less substantial to me, and interests me less, than
my faintest dream. Our thoughts are the epochs in our lives: all else
is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here.

I say to myself, Do a little more of that work which you have
confessed to be good. You are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with
yourself, without reason. Have you not a thinking faculty of
inestimable value? If there is an experiment which you would like to
try, try it. Do not entertain doubts if they are not agreeable to you.
Remember that you need not eat unless you are hungry. Do not read the
newspapers. Improve every opportunity to be melancholy. As for health,
consider yourself well. Do not engage to find things as you think they
are. Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else. It
is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity.
We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like the
tortoise, somewhat helplessly; yet there is more than philosophy in
that.

Do not waste any reverence on my attitude. I merely manage to sit up
where I have dropped. I am sure that my acquaintances mistake me. They
ask my advice on high matters, but they do not know even how poorly
on 't I am for hats and shoes. I have hardly a shift. Just as shabby
as I am in my outward apparel, ay, and more lamentably shabby, am I in
my inward substance. If I should turn myself inside out, my rags and
meanness would indeed appear. I am something to him that made me,
undoubtedly, but not much to any other that he has made.

Would it not be worth while to discover nature in Milton? be native to
the universe? I, too, love Concord best, but I am glad when I
discover, in oceans and wildernesses far away, the material of a
million Concords: indeed, I am lost, unless I discover them. I see
less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly. It is a
swamp, however, too dismal and dreary even for me, and I should be
glad if there were fewer owls, and frogs, and mosquitoes in it. I
prefer ever a more cultivated place, free from miasma and crocodiles.
I am so sophisticated, and I will take my choice.

As for missing friends,--what if we do miss one another? have we not
agreed on a rendezvous? While each wanders his own way through the
wood, without anxiety, ay, with serene joy, though it be on his hands
and knees, over rocks and fallen trees, he cannot but be in the right
way. There is no wrong way to him. How can he be said to miss his
friend, whom the fruits still nourish and the elements sustain? A man
who missed his friend at a turn, went on buoyantly, dividing the
friendly air, and humming a tune to himself, ever and anon kneeling
with delight to study each little lichen in his path, and scarcely
made three miles a day for friendship. As for conforming outwardly,
and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let
not your right hand know what your left hand does in that line of
business. It will prove a failure. Just as successfully can you walk
against a sharp steel edge which divides you cleanly right and left.
Do you wish to try your ability to resist distension? It is a greater
strain than any soul can long endure. When you get God to pulling one
way, and the devil the other, each having his feet well braced,--to
say nothing of the conscience sawing transversely,--almost any timber
will give way.

I do not dare invite you earnestly to come to Concord, because I know
too well that the berries are not thick in my fields, and we should
have to take it out in viewing the landscape. But come, on every
account, and we will see--one another.

       *       *       *       *       *

No letters of the year 1851 have been found by me. On the 27th of
December, 1850, Mr. Cabot wrote to say that the Boston Society of
Natural History, of which he was secretary, had elected Thoreau a
corresponding member, "with all the _honores_, _privilegia_, _etc._,
_ad gradum tuum pertinentia_, without the formality of paying any
entrance fee, or annual subscription. Your duties in return are to
advance the interests of the Society by communications or otherwise,
as shall seem good." This is believed to be the only learned body
which honored itself by electing Thoreau. The immediate occasion of
this election was the present, by Thoreau, to the Society, of a fine
specimen of the American goshawk, caught or shot by Jacob Farmer,
which Mr. Cabot acknowledged, December 18, 1849, saying: "It was first
described by Wilson; lately Audubon has identified it with the
European goshawk, thereby committing a very flagrant blunder. It is
usually a very rare species with us. The European bird is used in
hawking; and doubtless ours would be equally _game_. If Mr. Farmer
skins him now, he will have to take second cut; for his skin is
already off and stuffed,--his remains dissected, measured, and
deposited in alcohol."


TO T. W. HIGGINSON (AT BOSTON).

     CONCORD, April 2-3, 1852.

DEAR SIR,--I do not see that I can refuse to read another lecture, but
what makes me hesitate is the fear that I have not another available
which will _entertain_ a large audience, though I have thoughts to
offer which I think will be quite as worthy of their attention.
However, I will try; for the prospect of earning a few dollars is
alluring. As far as I can foresee, my subject would be "Reality"
rather transcendentally treated. It lies still in "Walden, or Life in
the Woods." Since you are kind enough to undertake the arrangements, I
will leave it to you to name an evening of next week, decide on the
most suitable room, and advertise,--if this is not taking you too
literally at your word.

If you still think it worth the while to attend to this, will you let
me know as soon as may be what evening will be most convenient? I
certainly do not feel prepared to offer myself as a lecturer to the
Boston _public_, and hardly know whether more to dread a small
audience or a large one. Nevertheless, I will repress this
squeamishness, and propose no alteration in your arrangements. I shall
be glad to accept your invitation to tea.

       *       *       *       *       *

This lecture was given, says Colonel Higginson, "at the Mechanics'
Apprentices Library in Boston, with the snow outside, and the young
boys rustling their newspapers among the Alcotts and Blakes." Or,
possibly, this remark may apply to a former lecture in the same year,
which was that in which Thoreau first lectured habitually away from
Concord. He commenced by accepting an invitation to speak at Leyden
Hall, in Plymouth, where his friends the Watsons had organized Sunday
services, that the Transcendentalists and Abolitionists might have a
chance to be heard at a time when they were generally excluded from
the popular "Lyceum courses" throughout New England. Mr. B. M. Watson
says:--

"I have found two letters from Thoreau in answer to my invitation in
1852 to address our congregation at Leyden Hall on Sunday
mornings,--an enterprise I undertook about that time. I find among the
distinguished men who addressed us the names of Thoreau, Emerson,
Ellery Channing, Alcott, Higginson, Remond, S. Johnson, F. J.
Appleton, Edmund Quincy, Garrison, Phillips, J. P. Lesley, Shackford,
W. F. Channing, N. H. Whiting, Adin Ballou, Abby K. Foster and her
husband, J. T. Sargent, T. T. Stone, Jones Very, Wasson, Hurlbut, F.
W. Holland, and Scherb; so you may depend we had some fun."

These letters were mere notes. The first, dated February 17, 1852,
says: "I have not yet seen Mr. Channing, though I believe he is in
town,--having decided to come to Plymouth myself,--but I will let him
know that he is expected. Mr. Daniel Foster wishes me to say that he
accepts your invitation, and that he would like to come Sunday after
next. I will take the Saturday afternoon train. I shall be glad to get
a winter view of Plymouth Harbor, and see where your garden lies under
the snow."

The second letter follows:--


TO MARSTON WATSON (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, December 31, 1852.

MR. WATSON,--I would be glad to visit Plymouth again, but at present I
have nothing to read which is not severely heathenish, or at least
secular,--which the dictionary defines as "relating to affairs of the
present world, not holy,"--though not necessarily unholy; nor have I
any leisure to prepare it. My writing at present is profane, yet in a
good sense, and, as it were, sacredly, I may say; for, finding the air
of the temple too close, I sat outside. Don't think I say this to get
off; no, no! It will not do to read such things to hungry ears. "If
they ask for bread, will you give them a stone?" When I have something
of the right kind, depend upon it I will let you know.

       *       *       *       *       *

Up to 1848, when he was invited to lecture before the Salem Lyceum by
Nathaniel Hawthorne, then its secretary, Thoreau seems to have spoken
publicly very little except in Concord; nor did he extend the circuit
of his lectures much until his two books had made him known as a
thinker. There was little to attract a popular audience in his manner
or his matter; but it was the era of lectures, and if one could once
gain admission to the circle of "lyceum lecturers," it did not so much
matter what he said; a lecture was a lecture, as a sermon was a
sermon, good, bad, or indifferent. But it was common to exclude the
antislavery speakers from the lyceums, even those of more eloquence
than Thoreau; this led to invitations from the small band of reformers
scattered about New England and New York, so that the most unlikely of
platform speakers (Ellery Channing, for example) sometimes gave
lectures at Plymouth, Greenfield, Newburyport, or elsewhere. The
present fashion of parlor lectures had not come in; yet at Worcester
Thoreau's friends early organized for him something of that kind, as
his letters to Mr. Blake show. In default of an audience of numbers,
Thoreau fell into the habit of lecturing in his letters to this
friend; the most marked instance being the thoughtful essay on Love
and Chastity which makes the bulk of his epistle dated September,
1852. Like most of his serious writing, this was made up from his
daily journal, and hardly comes under the head of "familiar letters;"
the didactic purpose is rather too apparent. Yet it cannot be spared
from any collection of his epistles,--none of which flowed more
directly from the quickened moral nature of the man.


TO SOPHIA THOREAU (AT BANGOR).

     CONCORD, July 13, 1852.

DEAR SOPHIA,--I am a miserable letter-writer, but perhaps if I should
say this at length and with sufficient emphasis and regret it would
make a letter. I am sorry that nothing transpires here of much moment;
or, I should rather say, that I am so slackened and rusty, like the
telegraph wire this season, that no wind that blows can extract music
from me.

I am not on the trail of any elephants or mastodons, but have
succeeded in trapping only a few ridiculous mice, which cannot feed my
imagination. I have become sadly scientific. I would rather come upon
the vast valley-like "spoor" only of some celestial beast which this
world's woods can no longer sustain, than spring my net over a bushel
of moles. You must do better in those woods where you are. You must
have some adventures to relate and repeat for years to come, which
will eclipse even mother's voyage to Goldsborough and Sissiboo.

They say that Mr. Pierce, the presidential candidate, was in town last
5th of July, visiting Hawthorne, whose college chum he was; and that
Hawthorne is writing a life of him, for electioneering purposes.

Concord is just as idiotic as ever in relation to the spirits and
their knockings. Most people here believe in a spiritual world which
no respectable junk bottle, which had not met with a slip, would
condescend to contain even a portion of for a moment,--whose
atmosphere would extinguish a candle let down into it, like a well
that wants airing; in spirits which the very bullfrogs in our meadows
would blackball. Their evil genius is seeing how low it can degrade
them. The hooting of owls, the croaking of frogs, is celestial wisdom
in comparison. If I could be brought to believe in the things which
they believe, I should make haste to get rid of my certificate of
stock in this and the next world's enterprises, and buy a share in the
first Immediate Annihilation Company that offered. I would exchange my
immortality for a glass of small beer this hot weather. Where _are_
the heathen? Was there ever any superstition before? And yet I suppose
there may be a vessel this very moment setting sail from the coast of
North America to that of Africa with a missionary on board! Consider
the dawn and the sunrise,--the rainbow and the evening,--the words of
Christ and the aspiration of all the saints! Hear music! see, smell,
taste, feel, hear,--anything,--and then hear these idiots, inspired by
the cracking of a restless board, humbly asking, "Please, Spirit, if
you cannot answer by knocks, answer by tips of the table." ! ! ! ! ! !
!


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, July 21, 1852.

MR. BLAKE,--I am too stupidly well these days to write to you. My life
is almost altogether outward,--all shell and no tender kernel; so that
I fear the report of it would be only a nut for you to crack, with no
meat in it for you to eat. Moreover, you have not cornered me up, and
I enjoy such large liberty in writing to you, that I feel as vague as
the air. However, I rejoice to hear that you have attended so
patiently to anything which I have said heretofore, and have detected
any truth in it. It encourages me to say more,--not in this letter, I
fear, but in some book which I may write one day. I am glad to know
that I am as much to any mortal as a persistent and consistent
scarecrow is to a farmer,--such a bundle of straw in a man's clothing
as I am, with a few bits of tin to sparkle in the sun dangling about
me, as if I were hard at work there in the field. However, if this
kind of life saves any man's corn,--why, he is the gainer. I am not
afraid that you will flatter me as long as you know what I am, as well
as what I think, or aim to be, and distinguish between these two, for
then it will commonly happen that if you praise the last you will
condemn the first.

I remember that walk to Asnebumskit very well,--a fit place to go to
on a Sunday; one of the true temples of the earth. A temple, you know,
was anciently "an open place without a roof," whose walls served
merely to shut out the world and direct the mind toward heaven; but a
modern _meeting-house_ shuts out the heavens, while it crowds the
world into still closer quarters. Best of all is it when, as on a
mountain-top, you have for all walls your own elevation and deeps of
surrounding ether. The partridge-berries, watered with mountain dews
which are gathered there, are more memorable to me than the words
which I last heard from the pulpit at least; and for my part, I would
rather look toward Rutland than Jerusalem. Rutland,--modern
town,--land of ruts,--trivial and worn,--not too sacred,--with no
holy sepulchre, but profane green fields and dusty roads, and
opportunity to live as holy a life as you can,--where the sacredness,
if there is any, is all in yourself and not in the place.

I fear that your Worcester people do not often enough go to the
hilltops, though, as I am told, the springs lie nearer to the surface
on your hills than in your valleys. They have the reputation of being
Free-Soilers.[44] Do they insist on a free atmosphere, too, that is,
on freedom for the head or brain as well as the feet? If I were
consciously to join any party, it would be that which is the most free
to entertain thought.

All the world complain nowadays of a press of trivial duties and
engagements, which prevents their employing themselves on some higher
ground they know of; but, undoubtedly, if they were made of the right
stuff to work on that higher ground, provided they were released from
all those engagements, they would now at once fulfill the superior
engagement, and neglect all the rest, as naturally as they breathe.
They would never be caught saying that they had no time for this, when
the dullest man knows that this is all that he has time for. No man
who acts from a sense of duty ever puts the lesser duty above the
greater. No man has the desire and the ability to work on high things,
but he has also the ability to build himself a high staging.

As for passing _through_ any great and glorious experience, and rising
_above_ it, as an eagle might fly athwart the evening sky to rise into
still brighter and fairer regions of the heavens, I cannot say that I
ever sailed so creditably; but my bark ever seemed thwarted by some
side wind, and went off over the edge, and now only occasionally tacks
back toward the centre of that sea again. I have outgrown nothing
good, but, I do not fear to say, fallen behind by whole continents of
virtue, which should have been passed as islands in my course; but I
trust--what else can I trust? that, with a stiff wind, some Friday,
when I have thrown some of my cargo overboard, I may make up for all
that distance lost.

Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back
and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman
that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others
that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new
timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds
of light and life, where our friends are.

Write again. There is one respect in which you did not finish your
letter: you did not write it with ink, and it is not so good,
therefore, against or for you in the eye of the law, nor in the eye of

     H. D. T.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     September, 1852.

MR. BLAKE,--Here come the sentences which I promised you. You may keep
them, if you will regard and use them as the disconnected fragments of
what I may find to be a completer essay, on looking over my journal,
at last, and may claim again.

I send you the thoughts on Chastity and Sensuality with diffidence
and shame, not knowing how far I speak to the condition of men
generally, or how far I betray my peculiar defects. Pray enlighten me
on this point if you can.

LOVE.

What the essential difference between man and woman is, that they
should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily
answered. Perhaps we must acknowledge the justness of the distinction
which assigns to man the sphere of wisdom, and to woman that of love,
though neither belongs exclusively to either. Man is continually
saying to woman, Why will you not be more wise? Woman is continually
saying to man, Why will you not be more loving? It is not in their
wills to be wise or to be loving; but, unless each is both wise and
loving, there can be neither wisdom nor love.

All transcendent goodness is one, though appreciated in different
ways, or by different senses. In beauty we see it, in music we hear
it, in fragrance we scent it, in the palatable the pure palate tastes
it, and in rare health the whole body feels it. The variety is in the
surface or manifestation; but the radical identity we fail to express.
The lover sees in the glance of his beloved the same beauty that in
the sunset paints the western skies. It is the same daimon, here
lurking under a human eyelid, and there under the closing eyelids of
the day. Here, in small compass, is the ancient and natural beauty of
evening and morning. What loving astronomer has ever fathomed the
ethereal depths of the eye?

The maiden conceals a fairer flower and sweeter fruit than any calyx
in the field; and, if she goes with averted face, confiding in her
purity and high resolves, she will make the heavens retrospective, and
all nature humbly confess its queen.

Under the influence of this sentiment, man is a string of an æolian
harp, which vibrates with the zephyrs of the eternal morning.

There is at first thought something trivial in the commonness of love.
So many Indian youths and maidens along these banks have in ages past
yielded to the influence of this great civilizer. Nevertheless, this
generation is not disgusted nor discouraged, for love is no
individual's experience; and though we are imperfect mediums, it does
not partake of our imperfection; though we are finite, it is infinite
and eternal; and the same divine influence broods over these banks,
whatever race may inhabit them, and perchance still would, even if the
human race did not dwell here.

Perhaps an instinct survives through the intensest actual love, which
prevents entire abandonment and devotion, and makes the most ardent
lover a little reserved. It is the anticipation of change. For the
most ardent lover is not the less practically wise, and seeks a love
which will last forever.

Considering how few poetical friendships there are, it is remarkable
that so many are married. It would seem as if men yielded too easy an
obedience to nature without consulting their genius. One may be drunk
with love without being any nearer to finding his mate. There is more
of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.
But the good nature must have the counsel of the good spirit or
Intelligence. If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages
would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few
marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!

Our love may be ascending or descending. What is its character, if it
may be said of it,--

     "We must _respect_ the souls above,
     But only _those below we love_."

Love is a severe critic. Hate can pardon more than love. They who
aspire to love worthily, subject themselves to an ordeal more rigid
than any other.

Is your friend such a one that an increase of worth on your part will
surely make her more your friend? Is she retained--is she attracted by
more nobleness in you,--by more of that virtue which is peculiarly
yours; or is she indifferent and blind to that? Is she to be flattered
and won by your meeting her on any other than the ascending path? Then
duty requires that you separate from her.

Love must be as much a light as a flame.

Where there is not discernment, the behavior even of the purest soul
may in effect amount to coarseness.

A man of fine perceptions is more truly feminine than a merely
sentimental woman. The heart is blind; but love is not blind. None of
the gods is so discriminating.

In love and friendship the imagination is as much exercised as the
heart; and if either is outraged the other will be estranged. It is
commonly the imagination which is wounded first, rather than the
heart,--it is so much the more sensitive.

_Comparatively_, we can excuse any offense against the heart, but not
against the imagination. The imagination knows--nothing escapes its
glance from out its eyry--and it controls the breast. My heart may
still yearn toward the valley, but my imagination will not permit me
to jump off the precipice that debars me from it, for it is wounded,
its wings are clipt, and it cannot fly, even descendingly. Our
"blundering hearts!" some poet says. The imagination never forgets; it
is a re-membering. It is not foundationless, but most reasonable, and
it alone uses all the knowledge of the intellect.

Love is the profoundest of secrets. Divulged, even to the beloved, it
is no longer Love. As if it were merely I that loved you. When love
ceases, then it is divulged.

In our intercourse with one we love, we wish to have answered those
questions at the end of which we do not raise our voice; against which
we put no interrogation-mark,--answered with the same unfailing,
universal aim toward every point of the compass.

I require that thou knowest everything without being told anything. I
parted from my beloved because there was one thing which I had to tell
her. She _questioned_ me. She should have known all by sympathy. That
I had to tell it her was the difference between us,--the
misunderstanding.

A lover never hears anything that he is _told_, for that is commonly
either false or stale; but he hears things taking place, as the
sentinels heard Trenck[45] mining in the ground, and thought it was
moles.

The relation may be profaned in many ways. The parties may not regard
it with equal sacredness. What if the lover should learn that his
beloved dealt in incantations and philters! What if he should hear
that she consulted a clairvoyant! The spell would be instantly broken.

If to chaffer and higgle are bad in trade, they are much worse in
Love. It demands directness as of an arrow.

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely,
while considering what she is to us alone.

The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just.

     Canst thou love with thy mind,
       And reason with thy heart?
     Canst thou be kind,
       And from thy darling part?

     Canst thou range earth, sea, and air,
     And so meet me everywhere?
     Through all events I will pursue thee,
     Through all persons I will woo thee.

I need thy hate as much as thy love. Thou wilt not repel me entirely
when thou repellest what is evil in me.

     Indeed, indeed, I cannot tell,
     Though I ponder on it well,
     Which were easier to state,
     All my love or all my hate.
     Surely, surely, thou wilt trust me
     When I say thou doth disgust me.

     O, I hate thee with a hate
     That would fain annihilate;
     Yet, sometimes, against my will,
     My dear Friend, I love thee still.
     It were treason to our love,
     And a sin to God above,
     One iota to abate
     Of a pure, impartial hate.

It is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out
high purposes to be truthful about.

It must be rare, indeed, that we meet with one to whom we are prepared
to be quite ideally related, as she to us. We should have no reserve;
we should give the whole of ourselves to that society; we should have
no duty aside from that. One who could bear to be so wonderfully and
beautifully exaggerated every day. I would take my friend out of her
low self and set her higher, infinitely higher, and _there_ know her.
But, commonly, men are as much afraid of love as of hate. They have
lower engagements. They have near ends to serve. They have not
imagination enough to be thus employed about a human being, but must
be coopering a barrel, forsooth.

What a difference, whether, in all your walks, you meet only
strangers, or in one house is one who knows you, and whom you know. To
have a brother or a sister! To have a gold mine on your farm! To find
diamonds in the gravel heaps before your door! How rare these things
are! To share the day with you,--to people the earth. Whether to have
a god or a goddess for companion in your walks, or to walk alone with
hinds and villains and carles. Would not a friend enhance the beauty
of the landscape as much as a deer or hare? Everything would
acknowledge and serve such a relation; the corn in the field, and the
cranberries in the meadow. The flowers would bloom, and the birds
sing, with a new impulse. There would be more fair days in the year.

The object of love expands and grows before us to eternity, until it
includes all that is lovely, and we become all that can love.


CHASTITY AND SENSUALITY.

The subject of sex is a remarkable one, since, though its phenomena
concern us so much, both directly and indirectly, and, sooner or
later, it occupies the thoughts of all, yet all mankind, as it were,
agree to be silent about it, at least the sexes commonly one to
another. One of the most interesting of all human facts is veiled more
completely than any mystery. It is treated with such secrecy and awe
as surely do not go to any religion. I believe that it is unusual even
for the most intimate friends to communicate the pleasures and
anxieties connected with this fact,--much as the external affair of
love, its comings and goings, are bruited. The Shakers do not
exaggerate it so much by their manner of speaking of it as all mankind
by their manner of keeping silence about it. Not that men should speak
on this or any subject without having anything worthy to say; but it
is plain that the education of man has hardly commenced,--there is so
little genuine intercommunication.

In a pure society, the subject of marriage would not be so often
avoided,--from shame and not from reverence, winked out of sight, and
hinted at only; but treated naturally and simply,--perhaps simply
avoided, like the kindred mysteries. If it cannot be spoken of for
shame, how can it be acted of? But, doubtless, there is far more
purity, as well as more impurity, than is apparent.

Men commonly couple with their idea of marriage a slight degree at
least of sensuality; but every lover, the world over, believes in its
inconceivable purity.

If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in
marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It is the
virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must
give place to loftier delights. They who meet as superior beings
cannot perform the deeds of inferior ones. The deeds of love are less
questionable than any action of an individual can be, for, it being
founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly
stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which
they are associated must be pure and noble indeed, for innocence and
purity can have no equal. In this relation we deal with one whom we
respect more religiously even than we respect our better selves, and
we shall necessarily conduct as in the presence of God. What presence
can be more awful to the lover than the presence of his beloved?

If you seek the warmth even of affection from a similar motive to that
from which cats and dogs and slothful persons hug the fire,--because
your temperature is low through sloth,--you are on the downward road,
and it is but to plunge yet deeper into sloth. Better the cold
affection of the sun, reflected from fields of ice and snow, or his
warmth in some still, wintry dell. The warmth of celestial love does
not relax, but nerves and braces its enjoyer. Warm your body by
healthful exercise, not by cowering over a stove. Warm your spirit by
performing independently noble deeds, not by ignobly seeking the
sympathy of your fellows who are no better than yourself. A man's
social and spiritual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must
lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed.
He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear
sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must
daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy
of friends.

Can love be in aught allied to dissipation? Let us love by refusing,
not accepting one another. Love and lust are far asunder. The one is
good, the other bad. When the affectionate sympathize by their higher
natures, there is love; but there is danger that they will sympathize
by their lower natures, and then there is lust. It is not necessary
that this be deliberate, hardly even conscious; but, in the close
contact of affection, there is danger that we may stain and pollute
one another; for we cannot embrace but with an entire embrace.

We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our
purest and holiest thoughts alone. When there is impurity, we have
"descended to meet," though we knew it not.

The _luxury_ of affection,--there's the danger. There must be some
nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning. In the religion
of all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain
to. We may love and not elevate one another. The love that takes us as
it finds us degrades us. What watch we must keep over the fairest and
purest of our affections, lest there be some taint about them! May we
so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!

There is to be attributed to sensuality the loss to language of how
many pregnant symbols! Flowers, which, by their infinite hues and
fragrance, celebrate the marriage of the plants, are intended for a
symbol of the open and unsuspected beauty of all true marriage, when
man's flowering season arrives.

Virginity, too, is a budding flower, and by an impure marriage the
virgin is deflowered. Whoever loves flowers, loves virgins and
chastity. Love and lust are as far asunder as a flower-garden is from
a brothel.

J. Biberg, in the "Amoenitates Botanicae," edited by Linnæus, observes
(I translate from the Latin): "The organs of generation, which, in the
animal kingdom, are for the most part concealed by nature, as if they
were to be ashamed of, in the vegetable kingdom are exposed to the
eyes of all; and, when the nuptials of plants are celebrated, it is
wonderful what delight they afford to the beholder, refreshing the
senses with the most agreeable color and the sweetest odor; and, at
the same time, bees and other insects, not to mention the hummingbird,
extract honey from their nectaries, and gather wax from their effete
pollen." Linnæus himself calls the calyx the _thalamus_, or bridal
chamber; and the corolla the _aulaeum_, or tapestry of it, and
proceeds to explain thus every part of the flower.

Who knows but evil spirits might corrupt the flowers themselves, rob
them of their fragrance and their fair hues, and turn their marriage
into a secret shame and defilement? Already they are of various
qualities, and there is one whose nuptials fill the lowlands in June
with the odor of carrion.

The intercourse of the sexes, I have dreamed, is incredibly beautiful,
too fair to be remembered. I have had thoughts about it, but they are
among the most fleeting and irrecoverable in my experience. It is
strange that men will talk of miracles, revelation, inspiration, and
the like, as things past, while love remains.

A true marriage will differ in no wise from illumination. In all
perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible
delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed virgin. The
ultimate delights of a true marriage are one with this.

No wonder that, out of such a union, not as end, but as accompaniment,
comes the undying race of man. The womb is a most fertile soil.

Some have asked if the stock of men could not be improved,--if they
could not be bred as cattle. Let Love be purified, and all the rest
will follow. A pure love is thus, indeed, the panacea for all the ills
of the world.

The only excuse for reproduction is improvement. Nature abhors
repetition. Beasts merely propagate their kind; but the offspring of
noble men and women will be superior to themselves, as their
aspirations are. By their fruits ye shall know them.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, February 27, 1853.

MR. BLAKE,--I have not answered your letter before, because I have
been almost constantly in the fields surveying of late. It is long
since I have spent many days so profitably in a pecuniary sense; so
unprofitably, it seems to me, in a more important sense. I have earned
just a dollar a day for seventy-six days past; for, though I charge at
a higher rate for the days which are seen to be spent, yet so many
more are spent than appears. This is instead of lecturing, which has
not offered, to pay for that book which I printed.[46] I have not only
cheap hours, but cheap weeks and months; that is, weeks which are
bought at the rate I have named. Not that they are quite lost to me,
or make me very melancholy, alas! for I too often take a cheap
satisfaction in so spending them,--weeks of pasturing and browsing,
like beeves and deer,--which give me animal health, it may be, but
create a tough skin over the soul and intellectual part. Yet, if men
should offer my body a maintenance for the work of my head alone, I
feel that it would be a dangerous temptation.

As to whether what you speak of as the "world's way" (which for the
most part is my way), or that which is shown me, is the better, the
former is imposture, the latter is truth. I have the coldest
confidence in the last. There is only such hesitation as the
appetites feel in following the aspirations. The clod hesitates
because it is inert, wants _animation_. The one is the way of death,
the other of life everlasting. My hours are not "cheap in such a way
that _I_ doubt whether the world's way would not have been better,"
but cheap in such a way that I doubt whether the world's way, which I
have adopted for the time, could be worse. The whole enterprise of
this nation, which is not an upward, but a westward one, toward
Oregon, California, Japan, etc., is totally devoid of interest to me,
whether performed on foot, or by a Pacific railroad. It is not
illustrated by a thought; it is not warmed by a sentiment; there is
nothing in it which one should lay down his life for, nor even his
gloves,--hardly which one should take up a newspaper for. It is
perfectly heathenish,--a filibustering _toward_ heaven by the great
western route. No; they may go their way to their manifest destiny,
which I trust is not mine. May my seventy-six dollars, whenever I get
them, help to carry me in the other direction! I see them on their
winding way, but no music is wafted from their host,--only the
rattling of change in their pockets. I would rather be a captive
knight, and let them all pass by, than be free only to go whither they
are bound. What end do they propose to themselves beyond Japan? What
aims more lofty have they than the prairie dogs?

As it respects these things, I have not changed an opinion one iota
from the first. As the stars looked to me when I was a shepherd in
Assyria, they look to me now, a New-Englander. The higher the
mountain on which you stand, the less change in the prospect from
year to year, from age to age. Above a certain height there is no
change. I am a Switzer on the edge of the glacier, with his advantages
and disadvantages, goitre, or what not. (You may suspect it to be some
kind of swelling at any rate.) I have had but one _spiritual_ birth
(excuse the word), and now whether it rains or snows, whether I laugh
or cry, fall farther below or approach nearer to my standard; whether
Pierce or Scott is elected,--not a new scintillation of light flashes
on me, but ever and anon, though with longer intervals, the same
surprising and everlastingly new light dawns to me, with only such
variations as in the coming of the natural day, with which, indeed, it
is often coincident.

As to how to preserve potatoes from rotting, your opinion may change
from year to year; but as to how to preserve your soul from rotting, I
have nothing to learn, but something to practice.

Thus I declaim against them; but I in my folly am the world I condemn.

I very rarely, indeed, if ever, "feel any itching to be what is called
useful to my fellow-men." Sometimes--it may be when my thoughts for
want of employment fall into a beaten path or humdrum--I have dreamed
idly of stopping a man's horse that was running away; but, perchance,
I wished that he might run, in order that I might stop him;--or of
putting out a fire; but then, of course, it must have got well
a-going. Now, to tell the truth, I do not dream much of acting upon
horses before they run, or of preventing fires which are not yet
kindled. What a foul subject is this of doing good! instead of
minding one's life, which should be his business; doing good as a dead
carcass, which is only fit for manure, instead of as a living
man,--instead of taking care to flourish, and smell and taste sweet,
and refresh all mankind to the extent of our capacity and quality.
People will sometimes try to persuade you that you have done something
from that motive, as if you did not already know enough about it. If I
ever _did_ a man any good, in their sense, of course it was something
exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I
am constantly doing by being what I am. As if you were to preach to
ice to shape itself into burning-glasses, which are sometimes useful,
and so the peculiar properties of ice be lost. Ice that merely
performs the office of a burning-glass does not do its duty.

The problem of life becomes, one cannot say by how many degrees, more
complicated as our material wealth is increased,--whether that needle
they tell of was a gateway or not,--since the problem is not merely
nor mainly to get life for our bodies, but by this or a similar
discipline to get life for our souls; by cultivating the lowland farm
on right principles, that is, with this view, to turn it into an
upland farm. You have so many more talents to account for. If I
accomplish as much more in spiritual work as I am richer in worldly
goods, then I am just as worthy, or worth just as much, as I was
before, and no more. I see that, in my own case, money _might_ be of
great service to me, but probably it would not be; for the difficulty
now is, that I do not improve my opportunities, and therefore I am
not prepared to have my opportunities increased. Now, I warn you, if
it be as you say, you have got to put on the pack of an upland farmer
in good earnest the coming spring, the lowland farm being cared for;
ay, you must be selecting your seeds forthwith, and doing what winter
work you can; and, while others are raising potatoes and Baldwin
apples for you, you must be raising apples of the Hesperides for them.
(Only hear how he preaches!) No man can suspect that he is the
proprietor of an upland farm,--upland in the sense that it will
produce nobler crops, and better repay cultivation in the long
run,--but he will be perfectly sure that he ought to cultivate it.

Though we are desirous to earn our bread, we need not be anxious to
_satisfy_ men for it,--though we shall take care to pay them,--but
God, who alone gave it to us. Men may in effect put us in the debtors'
jail for that matter, simply for paying our whole debt to God, which
includes our debt to them, and though we have His receipt for it,--for
His paper is dishonored. The cashier will tell you that He has no
stock in his bank.

How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies; how
slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our _souls_! Indeed, we
would-be practical folks cannot use this word without blushing because
of our infidelity, having starved this substance almost to a shadow.
We feel it to be as absurd as if a man were to break forth into a
eulogy on _his dog_, who has n't any. An ordinary man will work every
day for a year at shoveling dirt to support his body, or a family of
bodies; but he is an extraordinary man who will work a whole day in a
year for the support of his soul. Even the priests, the men of God, so
called, for the most part confess that they work for the support of
the body. But he alone is the truly enterprising and practical man who
succeeds in _maintaining_ his soul here. Have not we our everlasting
life to get? and is not that the only excuse at last for eating,
drinking, sleeping, or even carrying an umbrella when it rains? A man
might as well devote himself to raising pork as to fattening the
bodies, or temporal part merely, of the whole human family. If we made
the true distinction we should almost all of us be seen to be in the
almshouse for souls.

I am much indebted to you because you look so steadily at the better
side, or rather the true centre of me (for our true centre may, and
perhaps oftenest does, lie entirely aside from us, and we are in fact
eccentric), and, as I have elsewhere said, "give me an opportunity to
live." You speak as if the image or idea which I see were reflected
from me to you; and I see it again reflected from you to me, because
we stand at the right angle to one another; and so it goes zigzag to
what successive reflecting surfaces, before it is all dissipated or
absorbed by the more unreflecting, or differently reflecting,--who
knows? Or, perhaps, what you see directly, you refer to me. What a
little shelf is required, by which we may impinge upon another, and
build there our eyry in the clouds, and all the heavens we see above
us we refer to the crags around and beneath us. Some piece of mica, as
it were, in the face or eyes of one, as on the Delectable Mountains,
slanted at the right angle, reflects the heavens to us. But, in the
slow geological upheavals and depressions, these mutual angles are
disturbed, these suns set, and new ones rise to us. That ideal which I
worshiped was a greater stranger to the mica than to me. It was not
the hero I admired, but the reflection from his epaulet or helmet. It
is nothing (for us) permanently inherent in another, but his attitude
or relation to what we prize, that we admire. The meanest man may
glitter with micacious particles to his fellow's eye. These are the
spangles that adorn a man. The highest union,--the only _un_-ion
(don't laugh), or central oneness, is the coincidence of visual rays.
Our club-room was an apartment in a constellation where our visual
rays met (and there was no debate about the restaurant). The way
between us is over the mount.

Your words make me think of a man of my acquaintance whom I
occasionally meet, whom you, too, appear to have met, one Myself, as
he is called. Yet, why not call him _Your_self? If you have met with
him and know him, it is all I have done; and surely, where there is a
mutual acquaintance, the _my_ and _thy_ make a distinction without a
difference.

I do not wonder that you do not like my Canada story. It concerns me
but little, and probably is not worth the time it took to tell it. Yet
I had absolutely no design whatever in my mind, but simply to report
what I saw. I have inserted all of myself that was implicated, or made
the excursion. It has come to an end, at any rate; they will print no
more, but return me my MS. when it is but little more than half done,
as well as another I had sent them, because the editor[47] requires
the liberty to omit the heresies without consulting me,--a privilege
California is not rich enough to bid for.

I thank you again and again for attending to me; that is to say, I am
glad that you hear me and that you also are glad. Hold fast to your
most indefinite, waking dream. The very green dust on the walls is an
organized vegetable; the atmosphere has its fauna and flora floating
in it; and shall we think that dreams are but dust and ashes, are
always disintegrated and crumbling thoughts, and not dust-like
thoughts trooping to their standard with music,--systems beginning to
be organized? These expectations,--these are roots, these are nuts,
which even the poorest man has in his bin, and roasts or cracks them
occasionally in winter evenings,--which even the poor debtor retains
with his bed and his pig, i. e., his idleness and sensuality. Men go
to the opera because they hear there a faint expression in sound of
this news which is never quite distinctly proclaimed. Suppose a man
were to sell the hue, the least amount of coloring matter in the
superficies of his thought, for a farm,--were to exchange an absolute
and infinite value for a relative and finite one,--to gain the whole
world and lose his own soul!

Do not wait as long as I have before you write. If you will look at
another star, I will try to supply my side of the triangle.

Tell Mr. Brown that I remember him, and trust that he remembers me.

P. S.--Excuse this rather flippant preaching, which does not cost me
enough; and do not think that I mean you _always_, though your letter
_requested_ the subjects.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, April 10, 1853.

MR. BLAKE,--Another singular kind of spiritual football,--really
nameless, handleless, homeless, like myself,--a mere arena for
thoughts and feelings; definite enough outwardly, indefinite more than
enough inwardly. But I do not know why we should be styled "misters"
or "masters:" we come so near to being anything or nothing, and seeing
that we are mastered, and not wholly sorry to be mastered, by the
least phenomenon. It seems to me that we are the mere creatures of
thought,--one of the lowest forms of intellectual life, we men,--as
the sunfish is of animal life. As yet our thoughts have acquired no
definiteness nor solidity; they are purely molluscous, not vertebrate;
and the height of our existence is to float upward in an ocean where
the sun shines,--appearing only like a vast soup or chowder to the
eyes of the immortal navigators. It is wonderful that I can be here,
and you there, and that we can correspond, and do many other things,
when, in fact, there is so little of us, either or both, anywhere. In
a few minutes, I expect, this slight film or dash of vapor that I am
will be what is called asleep,--resting! forsooth from what? Hard
work? and thought? The hard work of the dandelion down, which floats
over the meadow all day; the hard work of a pismire that labors to
raise a hillock all day, and even by moonlight. Suddenly I can come
forward into the utmost apparent distinctness, and speak with a sort
of emphasis to you; and the next moment I am so faint an entity, and
make so slight an impression, that nobody can find the traces of me. I
try to hunt myself up, and find the little of me that is discoverable
is falling asleep, and then I assist and tuck it up. It is getting
late. How can _I_ starve or feed? Can _I_ be said to sleep? There is
not enough of me even for that. If you hear a noise,--'t ain't I,--'t
ain't I,--as the dog says with a tin kettle tied to his tail. I read
of something happening to another the other day: how happens it that
nothing ever happens to me? A dandelion down that never
alights,--settles,--blown off by a boy to see if his mother wanted
him,--some divine boy in the upper pastures.

Well, if there really is another such a meteor sojourning in these
spaces, I would like to ask you if you know whose estate this is that
we are on? For my part I enjoy it well enough, what with the wild
apples and the scenery; but I should n't wonder if the owner set his
dog on me next. I could remember something not much to the purpose,
probably; but if I stick to what I do know, then--

It is worth the while to live respectably unto ourselves. We can
possibly _get along_ with a neighbor, even with a bedfellow, whom we
respect but very little; but as soon as it comes to this, that we do
not respect ourselves, then we do not get along at all, no matter how
much money we are paid for halting. There are old heads in the world
who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and
satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to
elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life. It is
better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are, if
indeed you cannot get it above them, than to breathe the clearer
atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

Once you were in Milton[48] doubting what to do. To live a better
life,--this surely can be done. Dot and carry one. Wait not for a
clear sight, for that you are to get. What you see clearly you may
omit to do. Milton and Worcester? It is all Blake, Blake. Never mind
the rats in the wall; the cat will take care of them. All that men
have said or are is a very faint rumor, and it is not worth the while
to remember or refer to that. If you are to meet God, will you refer
to anybody out of that court? How shall men know how I succeed, unless
they are in at the life? I did not see the _Times_ reporter there.

Is it not delightful to provide one's self with the necessaries of
life,--to collect dry wood for the fire when the weather grows cool,
or fruits when we grow hungry?--not till then. And then we have all
the time left for thought!

Of what use were it, pray, to get a little wood to burn, to warm your
body this cold weather, if there were not a divine fire kindled at the
same time to warm your spirit?

         "Unless above himself he can
     Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"

I cuddle up by my stove, and there I get up another fire which warms
fire itself. Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout
ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting. Is it absolutely
necessary, then, that we should do as we are doing? Are we chiefly
under obligations to the devil, like Tom Walker? Though it is late to
leave off this wrong way, it will seem early the moment we begin in
the right way; instead of mid-afternoon, it will be early morning with
us. We have not got half-way to dawn yet.

As for the lectures, I feel that I have something to say, especially
on Traveling, Vagueness, and Poverty; but I cannot come now. I will
wait till I am fuller, and have fewer engagements. Your suggestions
will help me much to write them when I am ready. I am going to
Haverhill[49] to-morrow, surveying, for a week or more. You met me on
my last errand thither.

I trust that you realize what an exaggerator I am,--that I lay myself
out to exaggerate whenever I have an opportunity,--pile Pelion upon
Ossa, to reach heaven so. Expect no trivial truth from me, unless I am
on the witness-stand. I will come as near to lying as you can drive a
coach and four. If it is n't thus and so with me, it is with
something. I am not particular whether I get the shells or meat, in
view of the latter's worth.

I see that I have not at all answered your letter, but there is time
enough for that.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, December 19, 1853.

MR. BLAKE,--My debt has accumulated so that I should have answered
your last letter at once, if I had not been the subject of what is
called a press of engagements, having a lecture to write for last
Wednesday, and surveying more than usual besides. It has been a kind
of running fight with me,--the enemy not always behind me I trust.

True, a man cannot lift himself by his own waistbands, because he
cannot get out of himself; but he can expand himself (which is better,
there being no up nor down in nature), and so split his waistbands,
being already within himself.

You speak of doing and being, and the vanity, real or apparent, of
much doing. The suckers--I think it is they--make nests in our river
in the spring of more than a cart-load of small stones, amid which to
deposit their ova. The other day I opened a muskrat's house. It was
made of weeds, five feet broad at base, and three feet high, and far
and low within it was a little cavity, only a foot in diameter, where
the rat dwelt. It may seem trivial, this piling up of weeds, but so
the race of muskrats is preserved. We must heap up a great pile of
doing, for a small diameter of being. Is it not imperative on us that
we _do_ something, if we only work in a treadmill? And, indeed, some
sort of revolving is necessary to produce a centre and nucleus of
being. What exercise is to the body, employment is to the mind and
morals. Consider what an amount of drudgery must be performed,--how
much humdrum and prosaic labor goes to any work of the least value.
There are so many layers of mere white lime in every shell to that
thin inner one so beautifully tinted. Let not the shellfish think to
build his house of that alone; and pray, what are its tints to him? Is
it not his smooth, close-fitting shirt merely, whose tints _are not_
to him, being in the dark, but only when he is gone or dead, and his
shell is heaved up to light, a wreck upon the beach, do they appear.
With him, too, it is a Song of the Shirt, "Work,--work,--work!" And
the work is not merely a police in the gross sense, but in the higher
sense a discipline. If it is surely the means to the highest end we
know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be
elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

How admirably the artist is made to accomplish his self-culture by
devotion to his art! The wood-sawyer, through his effort to do his
work well, becomes not merely a better wood-sawyer, but measurably a
better _man_. Few are the men that can work on their navels,--only
some Brahmins that I have heard of. To the painter is given some paint
and canvas instead; to the Irishman a hog, typical of himself. In a
thousand apparently humble ways men busy themselves to make some right
take the place of some wrong,--if it is only to make a better paste
blacking,--and they are themselves _so much_ the better morally for
it.

You say that you do not succeed much. Does it concern you enough that
you do not? Do you work hard enough at it? Do you get the benefit of
discipline out of it? If so, persevere. Is it a more serious thing
than to walk a thousand miles in a thousand successive hours? Do you
get any corns by it? Do you ever think of hanging yourself on account
of failure?

If you are going into that line,--going to besiege the city of
God,--you must not only be strong in engines, but prepared with
provisions to starve out the garrison. An Irishman came to see me
to-day, who is endeavoring to get his family out to this New World. He
rises at half past four, milks twenty-eight cows (which has swollen
the joints of his fingers), and eats his breakfast, without any milk
in his tea or coffee, before six; and so on, day after day, for six
and a half dollars a month; and thus he keeps his virtue in him, if he
does not add to it; and he regards me as a gentleman able to assist
him; but if I ever get to be a gentleman, it will be by working after
my fashion harder than he does. If my joints are not swollen, it must
be because I deal with the teats of celestial cows before breakfast
(and the milker in this case is always allowed some of the milk for
his breakfast), to say nothing of the flocks and herds of Admetus
afterward.

It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works
is scrubbing in some part.

If the work is high and far,

     You must not only aim aright,
     But draw the bow with all your might.

You must qualify yourself to use a bow which no humbler archer can
bend.

     "Work,--work,--work!"

Who shall know it for a bow? It is not of yew tree. It is straighter
than a ray of light; flexibility is not known for one of its
qualities.


     December 22.

So far I had got when I was called off to survey. Pray read the life
of Haydon the painter, if you have not. It is a small revelation for
these latter days; a great satisfaction to know that he has lived,
though he is now dead. Have you met with the letter of a Turkish cadi
at the end of Layard's "Ancient Babylon"? that also is refreshing, and
a capital comment on the whole book which precedes it,--the Oriental
genius speaking through him.

Those Brahmins "put it through." They come off, or rather stand still,
conquerors, with some withered arms or legs at least to show; and they
are said to have cultivated the faculty of abstraction to a degree
unknown to Europeans. If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will
sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls,
and there are night owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while
about its business.

Might you not find some positive work to do with your back to Church
and State, letting your back do all the rejection of them? Can you not
_go_ upon your pilgrimage, Peter, along the winding mountain path
whither you face? A step more will make those funereal church bells
over your shoulder sound far and sweet as a natural sound.

     "Work,--work,--work!"

Why not make a _very large_ mud pie and bake it in the sun! Only put
no Church nor State into it, nor upset any other pepper-box that way.
Dig out a woodchuck,--for that has nothing to do with rotting
institutions. Go ahead.

Whether a man spends his day in an ecstasy or despondency, he must do
some work to show for it, even as there are flesh and bones to show
for him. We are superior to the joy we experience.

Your last two letters, methinks, have more nerve and will in them than
usual, as if you had erected yourself more. Why are not they good
work, if you only had a hundred correspondents to tax you?

Make your failure tragical by the earnestness and steadfastness of
your endeavor, and then it will not differ from success. Prove it to
be the inevitable fate of mortals,--of one mortal,--if you can.

You said that you were writing on Immortality. I wish you would
communicate to me what you know about that. You are sure to live while
that is your theme.

Thus I write on some text which a sentence of your letters may have
furnished.

I think of coming to see you as soon as I get a new coat, if I have
money enough left. I will write to you again about it.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, January 21, 1854.

MR. BLAKE,--My coat is at last done, and my mother and sister allow
that I am _so far_ in a condition to go abroad. I feel as if I had
gone abroad the moment I put it on. It is, as usual, a production
strange to me, the wearer,--invented by some Count D'Orsay; and the
maker of it was not acquainted with any of my real depressions or
elevations. He only measured a peg to hang it on, and might have made
the loop big enough to go over my head. It requires a not quite
innocent indifference, not to say insolence, to wear it. Ah! the
process by which we get our coats is not what it should be. Though the
Church declares it righteous, and its priest pardons me, my own good
genius tells me that it is hasty, and coarse, and false. I expect a
time when, or rather an integrity by which, a man will get his coat as
honestly and as perfectly fitting as a tree its bark. Now our garments
are typical of our conformity to the ways of the world, _i. e._, of
the devil, and to some extent react on us and poison us, like that
shirt which Hercules put on.

I think to come and see you next week, on Monday, if nothing hinders.
I have just returned from court at Cambridge, whither I was called as
a witness, having surveyed a water-privilege, about which there is a
dispute, since you were here.

Ah! what foreign countries there are, greater in extent than the
United States or Russia, and with no more souls to a square mile,
stretching away on every side from every human being with whom you
have no sympathy. Their humanity affects me as simply monstrous.
Rocks, earth, brute beasts, comparatively are not so strange to me.
When I sit in the parlors and kitchens of some with whom my business
brings me--I was going to say in contact--(business, like misery,
makes strange bedfellows), I feel a sort of awe, and as forlorn as if
I were cast away on a desolate shore. I think of Riley's Narrative[50]
and his sufferings. You, who soared like a merlin with your mate
through the realms of æther, in the presence of the unlike, drop at
once to earth, a mere amorphous squab, divested of your air-inflated
pinions. (By the way, excuse this writing, for I am using the stub of
the last feather I chance to possess.) You travel on, however, through
this dark and desert world; you see in the distance an intelligent and
sympathizing lineament; stars come forth in the dark, and oases appear
in the desert.

But (to return to the subject of coats), we are well-nigh smothered
under yet more fatal coats, which do not fit us, our whole lives long.
Consider the cloak that our employment or station is; how rarely men
treat each other for what in their true and naked characters they are;
how we use and tolerate pretension; how the judge is clothed with
dignity which does not belong to him, and the trembling witness with
humility that does not belong to him, and the criminal, perchance,
with shame or impudence which no more belong to him. It does not
matter so much, then, what is the fashion of the cloak with which we
cloak these cloaks. Change the coat; put the judge in the
criminal-box, and the criminal on the bench, and you might think that
you had changed the men.

No doubt the thinnest of all cloaks is conscious deception or lies;
it is sleazy and frays out; it is not close-woven like cloth; but its
meshes are a coarse network. A man can afford to lie only at the
intersection of the threads; but truth puts in the filling, and makes
a consistent stuff.

I mean merely to suggest how much the station affects the demeanor and
self-respectability of the parties, and that the difference between
the judge's coat of cloth and the criminal's is insignificant compared
with, or only partially significant of, the difference between the
coats which their respective stations permit them to wear. What airs
the judge may put on over his coat which the criminal may not! The
judge's opinion (_sententia_) of the criminal _sentences_ him, and is
read by the clerk of the court, and published to the world, and
executed by the sheriff; but the criminal's opinion of the judge has
the weight of a sentence, and is published and executed only in the
supreme court of the universe,--a court not of common pleas. How much
juster is the one than the other? Men are continually _sentencing_
each other; but, whether we be judges or criminals, the sentence is
ineffectual unless we continue ourselves.

I am glad to hear that I do not always limit your vision when you look
this way; that you sometimes see the light through me; that I am here
and there windows, and not all dead wall. Might not the community
sometimes petition a man to remove himself as a nuisance, a darkener
of the day, a too large mote?


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, August 8, 1854.

MR. BLAKE,--Methinks I have spent a rather unprofitable summer thus
far. I have been too much with the world, as the poet might say.[51]
The completest performance of the highest duties it imposes would
yield me but little satisfaction. Better the neglect of all such,
because your life passed on a level where it was impossible to
recognize them. Latterly, I have heard the very flies buzz too
distinctly, and have accused myself because I did not still this
superficial din. We must not be too easily distracted by the crying of
children or of dynasties. The Irishman erects his sty, and gets drunk,
and jabbers more and more under my eaves, and I am responsible for all
that filth and folly. I find it, as ever, very unprofitable to have
much to do with men. It is sowing the wind, but not reaping even the
whirlwind; only reaping an unprofitable calm and stagnation. Our
conversation is a smooth, and civil, and never-ending speculation
merely. I take up the thread of it again in the morning, with very
much such courage as the invalid takes his prescribed Seidlitz
powders. Shall I help you to some of the mackerel? It would be more
respectable if men, as has been said before, instead of being such
pigmy desperates, were Giant Despairs. Emerson says that his life is
so unprofitable and shabby for the most part, that he is driven to all
sorts of resources, and, among the rest, to men. I tell him that we
differ only in our resources. Mine is to get away from men. They very
rarely affect me as grand or beautiful; but I know that there is a
sunrise and a sunset every day. In the summer, this world is a mere
watering-place,--a Saratoga,--drinking so many tumblers of Congress
water; and in the winter, is it any better, with its oratorios? I have
seen more men than usual, lately; and, well as I was acquainted with
one, I am surprised to find what vulgar fellows they are. They do a
little business commonly each day, in order to pay their board, and
then they congregate in sitting-rooms and feebly fabulate and paddle
in the social slush; and when I think that they have sufficiently
relaxed, and am prepared to see them steal away to their shrines, they
go unashamed to their beds, and take on a new layer of sloth. They may
be single, or have families in their _faineancy_. I do not meet men
who can have nothing to do with me because they have so much to do
with themselves. However, I trust that a very few cherish purposes
which they never declare. Only think, for a moment, of a man about his
affairs! How we should respect him! How glorious he would appear! Not
working for any corporation, its agent, or president, but fulfilling
the end of his being! A man about _his business_ would be the cynosure
of all eyes.

The other evening I was determined that I would silence this shallow
din; that I would walk in various directions and see if there was not
to be found any depth of silence around. As Bonaparte sent out his
horsemen in the Red Sea on all sides to find shallow water, so I sent
forth my mounted thoughts to find deep water. I left the village and
paddled up the river to Fair Haven Pond. As the sun went down, I saw
a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews
seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was smoothed with an
infinite stillness. I got the world, as it were, by the nape of the
neck, and held it under in the tide of its own events, till it was
drowned, and then I let it go down-stream like a dead dog. Vast hollow
chambers of silence stretched away on every side, and my being
expanded in proportion, and filled them. Then first could I appreciate
sound, and find it musical.[52]

But now for your news. Tell us of the year. Have you fought the good
fight? What is the state of your crops? Will your harvest answer well
to the seed-time, and are you cheered by the prospect of stretching
cornfields? Is there any blight on your fields, any murrain in your
herds? Have you tried the size and quality of your potatoes? It does
one good to see their balls dangling in the lowlands. Have you got
your meadow hay before the fall rains shall have set in? Is there
enough in your barns to keep your cattle over? Are you killing weeds
nowadays? or have you earned leisure to go a-fishing? Did you plant
any Giant Regrets last spring, such as I saw advertised? It is not a
new species, but the result of cultivation and a fertile soil. They
are excellent for sauce. How is it with your marrow squashes for
winter use? Is there likely to be a sufficiency of fall feed in your
neighborhood? What is the state of the springs? I read that in your
county there is more water on the hills than in the valleys. Do you
find it easy to get all the help you require? Work early and late, and
let your men and teams rest at noon. Be careful not to drink too much
sweetened water, while at your hoeing, this hot weather. You can bear
the heat much better for it.


TO MARSTON WATSON (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, September 19, 1854.

DEAR SIR,--I am glad to hear from you and the Plymouth men again. The
world still holds together between Concord and Plymouth, it seems. I
should like to be with you while Mr. Alcott is there, but I cannot
come next Sunday. I will come Sunday after next, that is, October 1st,
if that will do; and look out for you at the depot. I do not like to
promise more than one discourse. Is there a good precedent for two?

       *       *       *       *       *

The first of Thoreau's many lecturing visits to Worcester, the home of
his friend Blake, was in April, 1849, and from that time onward he
must have read lectures there at least annually, until his last
illness, in 1861-62. By 1854, the lecturing habit, in several places
besides Concord, had become established; and there was a constant
interchange of visits and excursions with his friends at Worcester,
Plymouth, New Bedford, etc. Soon after the publication of "Walden," in
the summer of 1854, Thoreau wrote these notes to Mr. Blake, touching
on various matters of friendly interest.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, September 21, 1854.

BLAKE,--I have just read your letter, but do not mean now to answer
it, solely for want of time to say what I wish. I directed a copy of
"Walden" to you at Ticknor's, on the day of its publication, and it
should have reached you before. I am encouraged to know that it
interests you as it now stands,--a printed book,--for you apply a very
severe test to it,--you make the highest demand on me. As for the
excursion you speak of, I should like it right well,--indeed I thought
of proposing the same thing to you and Brown, some months ago. Perhaps
it would have been better if I had done so then; for in that case I
should have been able to enter into it with that infinite margin to my
views,--spotless of all engagements,--which I think so necessary. As
it is, I have agreed to go a-lecturing to Plymouth, Sunday after next
(October 1) and to Philadelphia in November, and thereafter to the
West, _if they shall want me_; and, as I have prepared nothing in that
shape, I feel as if my hours were spoken for. However, I think that,
after having been to Plymouth, I may take a day or two--if that date
will suit you and Brown. _At any rate_ I will write to you then.


     CONCORD, October 5, 1854.

After I wrote to you, Mr. Watson postponed my going to Plymouth one
week, _i. e._, till next Sunday; and now he wishes me to carry my
instruments and survey his grounds, to which he has been adding. Since
I want a little money, though I contemplate but a short excursion, I
do not feel at liberty to decline this work. I do not know exactly how
long it will detain me,--but there is plenty of time yet, and I will
write to you again--perhaps from Plymouth.

There is a Mr. Thomas Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumly), a young
English author, staying at our house at present, who asks me to teach
him _botany_--_i. e._, anything which I know; and also to make an
excursion to some mountain with him. He is a well-behaved person, and
_possibly_ I may propose his taking that run to Wachusett with us--if
it will be agreeable to you. Nay, if I do not hear any objection from
you, I will consider myself _at liberty_ to invite him.

     CONCORD, Saturday P. M., October 14, 1854.

I have just returned from Plymouth, where I have been detained
surveying much longer than I expected. What do you say to visiting
Wachusett next Thursday? I will start at 7¼ A. M. _unless there is a
prospect of a stormy day_, go by cars to Westminster, and thence on
foot five or six miles to the mountain-top, where I may engage to meet
you, at (or before) 12 M. If the weather is unfavorable, I will try
again, on Friday,--and again on Monday. If a storm comes on after
starting, I will seek you at the tavern at Princeton centre, as soon
as circumstances will permit. I shall expect an answer at once, to
clinch the bargain.

       *       *       *       *       *

The year 1854 was a memorable one in Thoreau's life, for it brought
out his most successful book, "Walden," and introduced him to the
notice of the world, which had paid small attention to his first book,
the "Week," published five years earlier. This year also made him
acquainted with two friends to whom he wrote much, and who loved to
visit and stroll with him around Concord, or in more distant
places,--Thomas Cholmondeley, an Englishman from Shropshire, and
Daniel Ricketson, a New Bedford Quaker, of liberal mind and cultivated
tastes,--an author and poet, and fond of corresponding with poets, as
he did with the Howitts and William Barnes of England, and with
Bryant, Emerson, Channing, and Thoreau, in America. Few of the letters
to Cholmondeley are yet found, being buried temporarily in the mass of
family papers at Condover Hall, an old Elizabethan mansion near
Shrewsbury, which Thomas Cholmondeley inherited, and which remains in
his family's possession since his own death at Florence in 1864. But
the letters of the Englishman, recently printed in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ (December, 1893), show how sincere was the attachment of
this ideal friend to the Concord recluse, and how well he read that
character which the rest of England, and a good part of America, have
been so slow to recognize for what it really was.

Thomas Cholmondeley was the eldest son of Rev. Charles Cowper
Cholmondeley, rector of Overleigh, Cheshire, and of a sister to
Reginald Heber, the celebrated bishop of Calcutta. He was born in
1823, and brought up at Hodnet, in Shropshire, where his father, a
cousin of Lord Delamere, had succeeded his brother-in-law as rector,
on the departure of Bishop Heber for India, in 1823. The son was
educated at Oriel College, Oxford,--a friend, and perhaps pupil of
Arthur Hugh Clough, who gave him letters to Emerson in 1854. Years
before, after leaving Oxford, he had gone with some relatives to New
Zealand, and before coming to New England he had published a book,
"Ultima Thule," describing that Australasian colony of England, where
he lived for part of a year. He had previously studied in Germany, and
traveled on the Continent. He landed in America the first time in
August, 1854, and soon after went to Concord, where, at the suggestion
of Emerson, he became an inmate of Mrs. Thoreau's family. This made
him intimate with Henry Thoreau for a month or two, and also brought
him into acquaintance with Ellery Channing, then living across the
main street of Concord, in the west end of the village, and furnishing
to Thoreau a landing-place for his boat under the willows at the foot
of Channing's small garden. Alcott was not then in Concord, but
Cholmondeley made his acquaintance in Boston, and admired his
character and manners.[53]

  [Illustration: _Thoreau's Boat-landing, Concord River_]

With Channing and Thoreau the young Englishman visited their nearest
mountain, Wachusett, and in some of their walks the artist Rowse, who
had made the first portrait of Thoreau, joined, for he was then in
Concord, late in 1854, engraving the fine head of Daniel Webster from
a painting by Ames, and this engraving he gave both to Thoreau and to
Cholmondeley. In December the Englishman, whose patriotism was roused
by the delays and calamities of England in her Crimean war, resolved
to go home and raise a company, as he did, first spending some weeks
in lodgings at Boston (Orange Street) in order to hear Theodore Parker
preach and visit Harvard College, of which I was then a student, in
the senior class. He visited me and my classmate, Edwin Morton, and
called on some of the Cambridge friends of Clough. In January, 1855,
he sailed for England, and there received the letter of Thoreau
printed on pages 249-251.

The acquaintance with Mr. Ricketson began by letter before
Cholmondeley reached Concord, but Thoreau did not visit him until
December, 1854. Mr. Ricketson says, "In the summer of 1854 I
purchased, in New Bedford, a copy of 'Walden.' I had never heard of
its author, but in this admirable and most original book I found so
many observations on plants, birds, and natural objects generally in
which I was also interested, that I felt at once I had found a
congenial spirit. During this season I was rebuilding a house in the
country, three miles from New Bedford, and had erected a small
building which was called my 'shanty;' and my family being then in my
city house, I made this building my temporary home. From it I
addressed my first letter to the author of 'Walden.' In reply he
wrote, 'I had duly received your very kind and frank letter, but
delayed to answer it thus long because I have little skill as a
correspondent, and wished to send you something more than my thanks. I
was gratified by your prompt and hearty acceptance of my book. Yours
is the only word of greeting I am likely to receive from a dweller in
the woods like myself,--from where the whip-poor-will and cuckoo are
heard, and there are better than moral clouds drifting over, and real
breezes blow.' From that year until his death in 1862 we exchanged
visits annually, and letters more frequently. He was much interested
in the botany of our region, finding here many marine plants he had
not before seen. When our friendship began, the admirers of his only
two published books were few; most prominent among them were Emerson,
Alcott, and Channing of Concord, Messrs. Blake and T. Brown of
Worcester, Mr. Marston Watson of Plymouth, and myself. Many accused
him of being an imitator of Emerson; others thought him unsocial,
impracticable, and ascetic. Now he was none of these; a more original
man never lived, nor one more thoroughly personifying civility; no man
could hold a finer relationship with his family than he."

In reply to Mr. Ricketson's first letter (August 12, 1854) above
mentioned, Thoreau sent, after six weeks' delay, the reply of October
1, the beginning of which was just quoted. Continuing, Thoreau said:--

"Your account excites in me a desire to see the Middleborough ponds,
of which I had already heard somewhat; as also some very beautiful
ponds on the Cape, in Harwich, I think, near which I once passed. I
have sometimes also thought of visiting that remnant of _our_ Indians
still living near you. But then, you know, there is nothing like one's
native fields and lakes. The best news you send me is, not that Nature
with you is so fair and genial, but that there is one there who likes
her so well. That proves all that was asserted.

"Homer, of course, you include in your list of lovers of Nature; and,
by the way, let me mention here--for this is 'my thunder'
lately--William Gilpin's long series of books on the Picturesque, with
their illustrations. If it chances that you have not met with these, I
cannot just now frame a better wish than that you may one day derive
as much pleasure from the inspection of them as I have.

"Much as you have told me of yourself, you have still, I think, a
little the advantage of me in this correspondence, for I have told you
still more in my book. You have therefore the broadest mark to fire
at.

"A young English author, Thomas Cholmondeley, is just now waiting for
me to take a walk with him; therefore excuse this very barren note
from

     "Yours, hastily at last."

Between the letter just quoted and Thoreau's next, of December 19,
1854, a letter is obviously missing. Mr. Ricketson had answered
(October 12), the first letter, and on December 14 had written again
to convey an invitation from Mr. Mitchell that Thoreau should lecture
at New Bedford, the 26th, on his way to Nantucket for the 28th.
Probably Thoreau had replied to the letter of October 12, and to the
invitation to bring Cholmondeley with him in the pleasant October
season. In this reply he had said something which called forth from
Ricketson an expression of sympathy, as well as the December
invitation; for Thoreau thus replied to the letter of December 14:--


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, December 19, 1854.

DEAR SIR,--I wish to thank you for your sympathy. I had counted on
seeing you when I came to New Bedford, though I did not know exactly
how near to it you permanently dwelt; therefore I gladly accept your
invitation to stop at your house. I am going to lecture at Nantucket
the 28th, and as I suppose I must improve the earliest opportunity to
get there from New Bedford, I will endeavor to come on Monday, that I
may see yourself and New Bedford before my lecture.

I should like right well to see your ponds, but that is hardly to be
thought of at present. I fear that it is impossible for me to combine
such things with the business of lecturing. You cannot serve God and
Mammon. However, perhaps I shall have time to see something of your
country. I am aware that you have not so much snow as we; there has
been excellent sleighing here since the 5th inst.

Mr. Cholmondeley has left us, so that I shall come alone. Will you be
so kind as to warn Mr. Mitchell that I accept at once his invitation
to lecture on the 26th of this month, for I do not know that he has
got my letter. Excuse this short note.[54]


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, December 19, 1854.

MR. BLAKE,--I suppose you have heard of my truly providential meeting
with Mr. [T.] Brown; providential because it saved me from the
suspicion that my words had fallen altogether on stony ground, when it
turned out that there was some Worcester soil there. You will allow me
to consider that I correspond with him through you.

I confess that I am a very bad correspondent, so far as promptness of
reply is concerned; but then I am sure to answer sooner or later. The
longer I have forgotten you, the more I remember you. For the most
part I have not been idle since I saw you. How does the world go with
you? or rather, how do you get along without it? I have not yet
learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very
soon. I find, however, that in the long run things correspond to my
original idea,--that they correspond to nothing else so much; and thus
a man may really be a true prophet without any great exertion. The day
is never so dark, nor the night even, but that the laws at least of
light still prevail, and so may make it light in our minds if they are
open to the truth. There is considerable danger that a man will be
crazy between dinner and supper; but it will not directly answer any
good purpose that I know of, and it is just as easy to be sane. We
have got to know what both life and death are, before we can begin to
live after our own fashion. Let us be learning our a-b-c's as soon as
possible. I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled
through a mud-puddle; he comes out honor-bright from behind every
storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much
leisure. Let us not put all we prize into a football to be kicked,
when a bladder will do as well.

When an Indian is burned, his body may be broiled, it may be no more
than a beefsteak. What of that? They may broil his _heart_, but they
do not therefore broil his _courage_,--his principles. Be of good
courage! That is the main thing.

If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the
greatest evil that can be inflicted on him, he would find suddenly
that there was no such evil to bear; his brave back would go
a-begging. When Atlas got his back made up, that was all that was
required. (In this case _a priv._, not _pleon._, and τλῆμι.)
The world rests on principles. The wise gods will never make
underpinning of a man. But as long as he crouches, and skulks, and
shirks his work, every creature that has weight will be treading on
his toes, and crushing him; he will himself tread with one foot on the
other foot.

The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly
monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.

Have no idle disciplines like the Catholic Church and others; have
only positive and fruitful ones. Do what you know you ought to do. Why
should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a neighbor's
advice? There is a nearer neighbor within us incessantly telling us
how we should behave. But we wait for the neighbor without to tell us
of some false, easier way.

They have a census-table in which they put down the number of the
insane. Do you believe that they put them all down there? Why, in
every one of these houses there is at least one man fighting or
squabbling a good part of his time with a dozen pet demons of his own
breeding and cherishing, which are relentlessly gnawing at his vitals;
and if perchance he resolve at length that he will courageously combat
them, he says, "Ay! ay! I will attend to you after dinner!" And, when
that time comes, he concludes that he is good for another stage, and
reads a column or two about the _Eastern War_! Pray, to be in earnest,
where is Sevastopol? Who is Menchikoff? and Nicholas behind there? who
the Allies? Did not we fight a little (little enough to be sure, but
just enough to make it interesting) at Alma, at Balaclava, at
Inkermann? We love to fight far from home. Ah! the Minié musket is the
king of weapons. Well, let us get one then.

I just put another stick into my stove,--a pretty large mass of white
oak. How many men will do enough this cold winter to pay for the fuel
that will be required to warm them? I suppose I have burned up a
pretty good-sized tree to-night,--and for what? I settled with Mr.
Tarbell for it the other day; but that was n't the final settlement. I
got off cheaply from him. At last, one will say, "Let us see, how much
wood did you burn, sir?" And I shall shudder to think that the next
question will be, "What did you do while you were warm?" Do we think
the ashes will pay for it? that God is an ash-man? It is a fact that
we have got to render an account for the deeds done in the body.

Who knows but we shall be better the next year than we have been the
past? At any rate, I wish you a really _new_ year,--commencing from
the instant you read this,--and happy or unhappy, according to your
deserts.


TO HARRISON BLAKE.

     CONCORD, December 22, 1854.

MR. BLAKE,--I will lecture for your Lyceum on the 4th of January next;
and I hope that I shall have time for that good day out of doors. Mr.
Cholmondeley is in Boston, yet _perhaps_ I may invite him to
accompany me. I have engaged to lecture at New Bedford on the 26th
inst., stopping with Daniel Ricketson, three miles out of town; and at
Nantucket on the 28th, so that I shall be gone all next week. They say
there is some danger of being weather-bound at Nantucket; but I see
that others run the same risk. You had better acknowledge the receipt
of this at any rate, though you should write nothing else; otherwise I
shall not know whether you get it; but perhaps you will not wait till
you have seen me, to answer my letter (of December 19). I will tell
you what I think of lecturing when I see you. Did you see the notice
of "Walden" in the last _Anti-Slavery Standard_? You will not be
surprised if I tell you that it reminded me of you.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the Christmas Day that Thoreau reached New Bedford, he had left
home in the forenoon, as usual in his Cambridge visits, spent some
time at Harvard College, and gone on by the train in the afternoon,
which accounted for his delay. His host, who then saw him for the
first time, says:--

"I had expected him at noon, but as he did not arrive, I had given him
up for the day. In the latter part of the afternoon I was clearing off
the snow from my front steps, when, looking up, I saw a man walking up
the carriage-road, bearing a portmanteau in one hand and an umbrella
in the other. He was dressed in a long overcoat of dark color, and
wore a dark soft hat. I had no suspicion it was Thoreau, and rather
supposed it was a peddler of small wares."

This was a common mistake to make. When Thoreau ran the gantlet of the
Cape Cod villages,--"feeling as strange," he says, "as if he were in a
town in China,"--one of the old fishermen could not believe that he
had not something to sell. Being finally satisfied that it was not a
peddler with his pack, the old man said, "Wal, it makes no odds what
't is you carry, so long as you carry Truth along with ye." Mr.
Ricketson came to the same conclusion about his visitor, and in the
early September of 1855 returned the visit.

On the 4th of January, 1855, Ricketson wrote, saying, "Your visit,
short as it was, gave us all at Brooklawn much satisfaction;" adding
that he might visit Concord late in January, when he expected to be in
Boston. Thoreau replied:--


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, January 6, 1855.

MR. RICKETSON,--I am pleased to hear from the shanty, whose inside and
occupant I have seen. I had a very pleasant time at Brooklawn, as you
know, and thereafter at Nantucket. I was obliged to pay the usual
tribute to the sea, but it was more than made up to me by the
hospitality of the Nantucketers. Tell Arthur that I can now compare
notes with him; for though I went neither before nor behind the mast,
since we had n't any, I went with my head hanging over the side all the
way.

In spite of all my experience, I persisted in reading to the Nantucket
people the lecture which I read at New Bedford, and I found them to be
the very audience for me. I got home Friday night, after being lost
in the fog off Hyannis.[55] I have not yet found a new jackknife, but
I had a glorious skating with Channing the other day, on the skates
found long ago.

Mr. Cholmondeley sailed for England direct, in the America, on the 3d,
after spending a night with me. He thinks even to go to the East and
enlist. Last night I returned from lecturing in Worcester.

I shall be glad to see you when you come to Boston, as will also my
mother and sister, who know something about you as an abolitionist.
Come directly to our house. Please remember me to Mrs. Ricketson, and
also to the young folks.

       *       *       *       *       *

After writing that he expected to be at the anti-slavery meetings in
Boston, January 24 and 25, ill health and a snow-storm detained
Ricketson at Brooklawn, whereupon Thoreau wrote:--


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, February 1, 1855.

DEAR SIR,--I supposed, as I did not see you on the 24th or 25th, that
some track or other was obstructed; but the solid earth still holds
together between New Bedford and Concord, and I trust that as this
time you stayed away, you may live to come another day.

I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize
with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the
last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for
staying at home.

I have been looking of late at Bewick's tail-pieces in the
"Birds,"--all they have of him at Harvard. Why will he be a little
vulgar at times? Yesterday I made an excursion up our river,--skated
some thirty miles in a few hours, if you will believe it. So with
reading and writing and skating the night comes round again.

       *       *       *       *       *

The early part of 1855 was spent by Thomas Cholmondeley in a tiresome
passage to England, whence he wrote (January 27) to say to Thoreau
that he had reached Shropshire, and been commissioned captain in the
local militia, in preparation for service at Sevastopol, but reminding
his Concord friend of a half promise to visit England some day. To
this Thoreau made answer thus:--


TO THOMAS CHOLMONDELEY (AT HODNET).

     CONCORD, Mass., February 7, 1855.

DEAR CHOLMONDELEY,--I am glad to hear that you have arrived safely at
Hodnet, and that there is a solid piece of ground of that name which
can support a man better than a floating plank, in that to me as yet
purely historical England. But have I not seen you with my own eyes, a
piece of England herself, and was not your letter come out to me
thence? I have now reason to believe that Salop is as real a place as
Concord; with at least as good an underpinning of granite, floating on
liquid fire. I congratulate you on having arrived safely at that
floating isle, after your disagreeable passage in the steamer America.
So are we not all making a passage, agreeable or disagreeable, in the
steamer Earth, trusting to arrive at last at some less undulating
Salop and brother's house?

I cannot say that I am surprised to hear that you have joined the
militia, after what I have heard from your lips; but I am glad to
doubt if there will be occasion for your volunteering into the line.
Perhaps I am thinking of the saying that it "is always darkest just
before day." I believe it is only necessary that England be fully
awakened to a sense of her position, in order that she may right
herself, especially as the weather will soon cease to be her foe. I
wish I could believe that the cause in which you are embarked is the
cause of the people of England. However, I have no sympathy with the
idleness that would contrast this fighting with the teachings of the
pulpit; for, perchance, more true virtue is being practiced at
Sevastopol than in many years of peace. It is a pity that we seem to
require a war, from time to time, to assure us that there is any
manhood still left in man.

I was much pleased with [J. J. G.] Wilkinson's vigorous and telling
assault on Allopathy, though he substitutes another and perhaps no
stronger _thy_ for that. Something as good on the whole conduct of the
war would be of service. Cannot Carlyle supply it? We will not require
him to provide the remedy. Every man to his trade. As you know, I am
not in any sense a politician. You, who live in that snug and compact
isle, may dream of a glorious commonwealth, but I have some doubts
whether I and the new king of the Sandwich Islands shall pull
together. When I think of the gold-diggers and the Mormons, the slaves
and the slaveholders and the flibustiers, I naturally dream of a
glorious private life. No, I am not patriotic; I shall not meddle with
the Gem of the Antilles. General Quitman[56] cannot count on my aid,
alas for him! nor can General Pierce.[57]

I still take my daily walk, or skate over Concord fields or meadows,
and on the whole have more to do with nature than with man. We have
not had much snow this winter, but have had some remarkably cold
weather, the mercury, February 6, not rising above 6° below zero
during the day, and the next morning falling to 26°. Some ice is still
thirty inches thick about us. A rise in the river has made uncommonly
good skating, which I have improved to the extent of some thirty miles
a day, fifteen out and fifteen in.

Emerson is off westward, enlightening the Hamiltonians [in Canada] and
others, mingling his thunder with that of Niagara. Channing still sits
warming his five wits--his sixth, you know, is always limber--over
that stove, with the dog down cellar. Lowell has just been appointed
Professor of Belles-Lettres in Harvard University, in place of
Longfellow, resigned, and will go very soon to spend another year in
Europe, before taking his seat.

I am from time to time congratulating myself on my general want of
success as a lecturer; apparent want of success, but is it not a real
triumph? I do my work clean as I go along, and they will not be likely
to want me anywhere again. So there is no danger of my repeating
myself, and getting to a barrel of sermons, which you must upset, and
begin again with.

My father and mother and sister all desire to be remembered to you,
and trust that you will never come within range of Russian bullets. Of
course, I would rather think of you as settled down there in
Shropshire, in the camp of the English people, making acquaintance
with your men, striking at the root of the evil, perhaps assaulting
that rampart of cotton bags that you tell of. But it makes no odds
where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.

Let me hear from you, wherever you are, and believe me yours ever in
the good fight, whether before Sevastopol or under the wreken.

       *       *       *       *       *

While Cholmondeley's first letter from England was on its way to
Concord, Thoreau was one day making his occasional call at the Harvard
College Library (where he found and was allowed to take away volumes
relating to his manifold studies), when it occurred to him to call at
my student-chamber in Holworthy Hall, and there leave a copy of his
"Week." I had never met him, and was then out; the occasion of his
call was a review of his two books that had come out a few weeks
earlier in the _Harvard Magazine_, of which I was an editor and might
be supposed to have had some share in the criticism. The volume was
left with my classmate Lyman, accompanied by a message that it was
intended for the critic in the Magazine. Accordingly, I gave it to
Edwin Morton, who was the reviewer, and notified Thoreau by letter of
that fact, and of my hope to see him soon in Cambridge or Concord.[58]
To this he replied in a few days as below:--


TO F. B. SANBORN (AT HAMPTON FALLS, N. H.).

     CONCORD, February 2, 1855.

DEAR SIR,--I fear that you did not get the note which I left with the
Librarian for you, and so will thank you again for your politeness. I
was sorry that I was obliged to go into Boston almost immediately.
However, I shall be glad to see you whenever you come to Concord, and
I will suggest nothing to discourage your coming, so far as I am
concerned; trusting that you know what it is to take a partridge on
the wing. You tell me that the author of the criticism is Mr. Morton.
I had heard as much,--and indeed guessed more. I have latterly found
Concord nearer to Cambridge than I believed I should, when I was
leaving my Alma Mater; and hence you will not be surprised if even I
feel some interest in the success of the _Harvard Magazine_.

     Believe me yours truly,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.

At this time I was under engagement with Mr. Emerson and others in
Concord to take charge of a small school there in March; and did so
without again seeing the author of "Walden" in Cambridge. Soon after
my settlement at Concord, in the house of Mr. Channing, just opposite
Thoreau's, he made an evening call on me and my sister (April 11,
1855), but I had already met him more than once at Mr. Emerson's, and
was even beginning to take walks with him, as frequently happened in
the next six years. In the following summer I began to dine daily at
his mother's table, and thus saw him almost every day for three years.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, June 27, 1855.

MR. BLAKE,--I have been sick and good for nothing but to lie on my
back and wait for something to turn up, for two or three months. This
has _compelled me_ to postpone several things, among them writing to
you, to whom I am so deeply in debt, and inviting you and Brown to
Concord,--not having brains adequate to such an exertion. I should
feel a little less ashamed if I could give any name to my
disorder,--but I cannot, and our doctor cannot help me to it,--and I
will not take the name of any disease in vain. However, there is one
consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may
recover to a better state than you were ever in before. I expected in
the winter to be deep in the woods of Maine in my canoe, long before
this; but I am so far from this that I can only take a languid walk in
Concord streets.

I do not know how the mistake arose about the Cape Cod excursion. The
nearest I have come to that with anybody is this: About a month ago
Channing proposed to me to go to Truro on Cape Cod with him, and board
there a while,--but I declined. For a week past, however, I have been
a little inclined to go there and sit on the seashore a week or more;
but I do not venture to propose myself as the companion of him or of
any peripatetic man. Not that I should not rejoice to have you and
Brown or C. sitting there also. I am not sure that C. really wishes to
go now; and as I go simply for the medicine of it, I should not think
it worth the while to notify him when I am about to take my bitters.
Since I began this, or within five minutes, I have begun to think that
I will start for Truro next Saturday morning, the 30th. I do not know
at what hour the packet leaves Boston, nor exactly what kind of
accommodation I shall find at Truro.

I should be singularly favored if you and Brown were there at the same
time; and though you speak of the 20th of July, I will be so bold as
to suggest your coming to Concord Friday night (when, by the way,
Garrison and Phillips hold forth here), and going to the Cape with me.
Though we take short walks together there, we can have _long_ talks,
and you and Brown will have time enough for your own excursions
besides.

I received a letter from Cholmondeley last winter, which I should like
to show you, as well as his book.[59] He said that he had "accepted
the offer of a captaincy in the Salop Militia," and was hoping to take
an active part in the war before long.

I thank you again and again for the encouragement your letters are to
me. But I must stop this writing, or I shall have to pay for it.


     NORTH TRURO, July 8, 1855.

There being no packet, I did not leave Boston till last Thursday,
though I came down on Wednesday, and Channing with me. There is no
public house here; but we are boarding in a little house attached to
the Highland Lighthouse with Mr. James Small, the keeper. It is true
the table is not so clean as could be desired, but I have found it
much superior in that respect to a Provincetown hotel. They are what
are called "good livers." Our host has another larger and very good
house, within a quarter of a mile, unoccupied, where he says he can
accommodate several more. He is a very good man to deal with,--has
often been the representative of the town, and is perhaps the most
intelligent man in it. I shall probably stay here as much as ten days
longer. Board $3.50 per week. So you and Brown had better come down
forthwith. You will find either the schooner Melrose or another, or
both, leaving Commerce Street, or else T Wharf, at 9 A. M. (it
commonly means 10), Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays,--if not other
days. We left about 10 A. M., and reached Provincetown at 5 P. M.,--a
very good run. A stage runs up the Cape every morning but Sunday,
starting at 4½ A. M., and reaches the post-office in North Truro,
seven miles from Provincetown, and one from the lighthouse, about 6
o'clock. If you arrive at P. before night, you can walk over, and
leave your baggage to be sent. You can also come by cars from Boston
to Yarmouth, and thence by stage forty miles more,--through every day,
but it costs much more, and is not so pleasant. Come by all means, for
it is the best place to see the ocean in the States.... I _hope_ I
shall be worth meeting.


     July 14.

You say that you hope I will excuse your frequent writing. I trust you
will excuse my infrequent and curt writing until I am able to resume
my old habits, which for three months I have been compelled to
abandon. Methinks I am beginning to be better. I think to leave the
Cape next Wednesday, and so shall not see you here; but I shall be
glad to meet you in Concord, though I may not be able to go _before
the mast_, in a boating excursion. This is an admirable place for
coolness and sea-bathing and retirement. You must come prepared for
cool weather and fogs.

P. S.--There is no mail up till Monday morning.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the spring and early summer of 1855, Thoreau was much occupied
with his home duties, or was ill,--the earlier approaches of that
disease of which he languished, taking medical advice in 1860-61. This
must have prevented an earlier visit to Concord by his friend
Ricketson than September, 1855, and I find no letters intervening,
although there must have been one or two, to arrange the visit. He
reached Concord about September 20, and found me living in the lower
stories of Channing's house, while the owner chiefly occupied the
attic, where, no doubt, as in the old Hunt house, Ricketson smoked
with him. They went together to call on Edmund Hosmer, and it was at
the sight of this old house that Ricketson formed the plan of
occupying a chamber there. It stood a half-mile down the river, a
little below where the Assabet runs into the main channel. Writing to
Thoreau, Sunday, September 23, Ricketson said:--

"How charmingly you, Channing, and I dovetailed together! Few men
smoke such pipes as we did,--the real Calumet; the tobacco that we
smoked was free labor produce. I haven't lost sight of Solon Hosmer,
the wisest-looking man in Concord, and a real _feelosofer_. I want you
to see him, and tell him not to take down the old house where the
_feelosofers_ met. I think I should like to have the large chamber
for an occasional sojourn in Concord. It can be easily tinkered up so
as to be a comfortable roost for a _feelosofer_,--a few old chairs, a
table, bed, etc., would be all-sufficient; then you and Channing could
come over in your punt and rusticate."

The "punt" was Thoreau's boat, in which he sometimes set up a small
mast and sail, and which he kept at the foot of Channing's garden,
where, that summer, my heavy four-oared boat also lay, when my pupils
were not rowing in it. In his letter to Blake of September 26, Thoreau
described Ricketson, and the next day he answered Ricketson's letter.
Cholmondeley in the meantime, the war being not yet over, was making
his way to the Crimea through southern Europe.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, September 26, 1855.

MR. BLAKE,--The other day I thought that my health must be
better,--that I gave at last a sign of vitality,--because I
experienced a slight chagrin. But I do not see how strength is to be
got into my legs again. These months of feebleness have yielded few,
if any, thoughts, though they have not passed without serenity, such
as our sluggish Musketaquid suggests. I hope that the harvest is to
come. I trust that you have at least warped up the stream a little
daily, holding fast by your anchors at night, since I saw you, and
have kept my place for me while I have been absent.

Mr. Ricketson of New Bedford has just made me a visit of a day and a
half, and I have had a quite good time with him. He and Channing have
got on particularly well together. He is a man of very simple tastes,
notwithstanding his wealth; a lover of nature; but, above all,
singularly frank and plain-spoken. I think that you might enjoy
meeting him.

Sincerity is a great but rare virtue, and we pardon to it much
complaining, and the betrayal of many weaknesses. R. says of himself,
that he sometimes thinks that he has all the infirmities of genius
without the genius; is wretched without a hair pillow, etc.; expresses
a great and awful uncertainty with regard to "God," "Death," his
"immortality;" says, "If I only knew," etc. He loves Cowper's "Task"
better than anything else; and thereafter perhaps, Thomson, Gray, and
even Howitt. He has evidently suffered for want of sympathizing
companions. He says that he sympathizes with much in my books, but
much in them is naught to him,--"namby-pamby,"--"stuff,"--"mystical."
Why will not I, having common sense, write in plain English always;
_teach_ men in detail how to live a simpler life, etc.; not go off
into ----? But I say that I have no scheme about it,--no designs on
men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the
fruit, and not with the manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at
all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?--and so
all our lives be _simplified_ merely, like an algebraic formula? Or
not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live
more worthily and profitably? I would fain lay the most stress forever
on that which is the most important,--imports the most to me,--though
it were only (what it is likely to be) a vibration in the air. As a
preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get
their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which
_that_ is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a
skillful economist at once. He'll not waste much time in earning
those. Don't spend your time in drilling soldiers, who may turn out
hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a _country_ to
fight for. The schools begin with what they call the elements, and
where do they end?

I was glad to hear the other day that Higginson and ---- were gone to
Ktaadn; it must be so much better to go to than a Woman's Rights or
Abolition Convention; better still, to the delectable primitive mounts
within you, which you have dreamed of from your youth up, and seen,
perhaps, in the horizon, but never climbed.

But how do _you_ do? Is the air sweet to you? Do you find anything at
which you can work, accomplishing something solid from day to day?
Have you put sloth and doubt behind, considerably?--had one redeeming
dream this summer? I dreamed, last night, that I could vault over any
height it pleased me. That was _something_; and I contemplated myself
with a slight satisfaction in the morning for it.

Methinks I will write to you. Methinks you will be glad to hear. We
will stand on solid foundations to one another,--I a column planted on
this shore, you on that. We meet the same sun in his rising. We were
built slowly, and have come to our bearing. We will not mutually fall
over that we may meet, but will grandly and eternally guard the
straits. Methinks I see an inscription on you, which the architect
made, the stucco being worn off to it. The name of that ambitious
worldly king is crumbling away. I see it toward sunset in favorable
lights. Each must read for the other, as might a sailer-by. Be sure
you are star-y-pointing still. How is it on your side? I will not
require an answer until you think I have paid my debts to you.

I have just got a letter from Ricketson, urging me to come to New
Bedford, which possibly I may do. He says I can wear my old clothes
there.

Let me be remembered in your quiet house.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, September 27, 1855.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I am sorry that you were obliged to leave Concord
without seeing more of it,--its river and woods, and various pleasant
walks, and its worthies. I assure you that I am none the worse for my
walk with you, but on all accounts the better. Methinks I am regaining
my health; but I would like to know first what it was that ailed me.

I have not yet conveyed your message to Mr. Hosmer,[60] but will not
fail to do so. That idea of occupying the old house is a good
one,--quite feasible,--and you could bring your hair pillow with you.
It is an _inn_ in Concord which I had not thought of,--a philosopher's
inn. That large chamber might make a man's idea expand proportionately.
It would be well to have an interest in some old chamber in a deserted
house in every part of the country which attracted us. There would be
no such place to receive one's guests as that. If old furniture is
fashionable, why not go the whole house at once? I shall endeavor to
make Mr. Hosmer believe that the old house is the chief attraction of
his farm, and that it is his duty to preserve it by all honest
appliances. You might take a lease of it _in perpetuo_, and done with
it.

I am so wedded to my way of spending a day,--require such broad
margins of leisure, and such a complete wardrobe of old clothes,--that
I am ill fitted for going abroad. Pleasant is it sometimes to sit at
home, on a single egg all day, in your own nest, though it may prove
at last to be an egg of chalk. The old coat that I wear is Concord; it
is my morning robe and study gown, my working dress and suit of
ceremony, and my nightgown after all. Cleave to the simplest ever.
Home,--home,--home. _Cars_ sound like _cares_ to me.

I am accustomed to think very long of going anywhere,--am slow to
move. I hope to hear a response of the oracle first. However, I think
that I will try the effect of your talisman on the iron horse next
Saturday, and dismount at Tarkiln Hill. Perhaps your sea air will be
good for me. I conveyed your invitation to Channing, but he apparently
will not come.

Excuse my not writing earlier; but I had not decided.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, October 12, 1855.

MR. RICKETSON,--I fear that you had a lonely and disagreeable ride
back to New Bedford through the Carver woods and so on,--perhaps in
the rain, too, and I am in part answerable for it. I feel very much in
debt to you and your family for the pleasant days I spent at
Brooklawn. Tell Arthur and Walton[61] that the shells which they gave
me are spread out, and make quite a show to inland eyes. Methinks I
still hear the strains of the piano, the violin, and the flageolet
blended together. Excuse _me_ for the noise which I believe drove you
to take refuge in the shanty. That shanty is indeed a favorable place
to expand in, which I fear I did not enough improve.

On my way through Boston I inquired for Gilpin's works at Little,
Brown & Co.'s, Munroe's, Ticknor's, and Burnham's. They have not got
them. They told me at Little, Brown & Co.'s that his works (not
complete), in twelve vols., 8vo, were imported and sold in this
country five or six years ago for about fifteen dollars. Their terms
for importing are ten per cent on the cost. I copied from the "London
Catalogue of Books, 1846-51," at their shop, the following list of
Gilpin's Works:--

  Gilpin (Wm.), Dialogues on Various Subjects. 8vo. 9_s._      Cadell.

  ---- Essays on Picturesque Subjects. 8vo. 15_s._             Cadell.

  ---- Exposition of the New Testament. 2 vols. 8vo. 16_s._   Longman.

  ---- Forest Scenery, by Sir T. D. Lauder. 2 vols. 8vo. 18_s._
                                                            Smith & E.

  ---- Lectures on the Catechism. 12mo. 3_s._ 6_d._           Longman.

  ---- Lives of the Reformers. 2 vols. 12mo. 8_s._          Rivington.

  ---- Sermons Illustrative and Practical. 8vo. 12_s._       Hatchard.

  ---- Sermons to Country Congregations. 4 vols. 8vo. £1 16_s._
                                                              Longman.

  ---- Tour in Cambridge, Norfolk, etc. 8vo. 18_s._            Cadell.

  ---- Tour of the River Wye. 12mo. 4s. With plates. 8vo. 17_s._
                                                               Cadell.

  Gilpin (W. S. (?)), Hints on Landscape Gardening. Royal 8vo. £1.
                                                               Cadell.

Beside these, I remember to have read one volume on "Prints;" his
"Southern Tour" (1775); "Lakes of Cumberland," two vols.; "Highlands
of Scotland and West of England," two vols.--_N. B._ There _must_ be
plates in every volume.

I still see an image of those Middleborough ponds in my mind's eye, broad
shallow lakes, with an iron mine at the bottom,--comparatively unvexed
by sails,--only by Tom Smith and his squaw Sepit's "sharper." I find
my map of the State to be the best I have seen of that district. It is
a question whether the islands of Long Pond or Great Quitticus offer
the greatest attractions to a Lord of the Isles. That plant which I
found on the shore of Long Pond chances to be a rare and beautiful
flower,--the _Sabbatia chloroides_,--referred to Plymouth.

In a Description of Middleborough in the Hist. Coll., vol. iii, 1810,
signed Nehemiah Bennet, Middleborough, 1793, it is said: "There is on
the easterly shore of Assawampsitt Pond, on the shore of Betty's Neck,
two rocks which have curious marks thereon (supposed to be done by the
Indians), which appear like the steppings of a person with naked feet
which settled into the rocks; likewise the prints of a hand on several
places, with a number of other marks; also there is a rock on a high
hill a little to the eastward of the old stone fishing wear, where
there is the print of a person's hand in said rock."

It would be well to look at those rocks again more carefully; also at
the rock on the hill.

I should think that you would like to explore Snipatuit Pond in
Rochester,--it is so large and near. It is an interesting fact that
the alewives used to ascend to it,--if they do not still,--both from
Mattapoisett and through Great Quitticus.

There will be no trouble about the chamber in the old house, though,
as I told you, Mr. Hosmer _may_ expect some compensation for it. He
says, "Give my respects to Mr. Ricketson, and tell him that I cannot
be at a large expense to preserve an antiquity or curiosity. Nature
must do its work." "But," says I, "he asks you only not to assist
nature."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was on October 1 that Thoreau made this visit to New Bedford,
spending the best part of a week with his friends there. They sailed
about the bay and visited the ponds in Middleborough, and on Saturday,
October 6, he parted with Ricketson at Plymouth, and returned home. At
that time Ricketson proposed to return Thoreau's visit before October
20, but, in a note now lost, Thoreau sent him word that Channing had
left Concord, "perhaps for the winter." The visit was then given
up,--which accounts for the tone of Thoreau's next letter, of October
16.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, October 16, 1855.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I have got both your letters at once. You must not
think Concord so barren a place when Channing[62] is away. There are
the river and fields left yet; and I, though ordinarily a man of
business, should have some afternoons and evenings to spend with you,
I trust,--that is, if you could stand so much of me. If you can spend
your time profitably here, or without _ennui_, having an occasional
ramble or _tête-à-tête_ with one of the natives, it will give me
pleasure to have you in the neighborhood. You see I am preparing you
for our awful unsocial ways,--keeping in our dens a good part of the
day,--sucking our claws perhaps. But then we make a religion of it,
and that you cannot but respect.

If you know the taste of your own heart, and like it, come to Concord,
and I'll warrant you enough here to season the dish with,--aye, even
though Channing and Emerson and I were all away. We might paddle
quietly up the river. Then there are one or two more ponds to be seen,
etc.

I should very much enjoy further rambling with you in your vicinity,
but must postpone it for the present. To tell the truth, I am planning
to get seriously to work after these long months of inefficiency and
idleness. I do not know whether you are haunted by any such demon
which puts you on the alert to pluck the fruit of each day as it
passes, and store it safely in your bin. True, it is well to live
abandonedly from time to time; but to our working hours that must be
as the spile to the bung. So for a long season I must enjoy only a low
slanting gleam in my mind's eye from the Middleborough ponds far away.

Methinks I am getting a little more strength into those knees of mine;
and, for my part, I believe that God _does_ delight in the strength of
a man's legs.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, December 9, 1855.

MR. BLAKE,--Thank you! thank you for going a-wooding with me,--and
enjoying it,--for being warmed by my wood fire. I have indeed enjoyed
it much alone. I see how I might enjoy it yet more with company,--how
we might help each other to live. And to be admitted to Nature's
hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have
only to push aside the curtain.

I am glad to hear that you were there too. There are many more such
voyages, and longer ones, to be made on that river, for it is the water
of life. The Ganges is nothing to it. Observe its reflections,--no
idea but is familiar to it. That river, though to dull eyes it seems
terrestrial wholly, flows through Elysium. What powers bathe in it
invisible to villagers! Talk of its shallowness,--that hay-carts can
be driven through it at midsummer; its depth passeth my understanding.
If, forgetting the allurements of the world, I could drink deeply
enough of it; if, cast adrift from the shore, I could with complete
integrity float on it, I should never be seen on the Mill-Dam
again.[63] If there is any depth in me, there is a corresponding depth
in it. It is the cold blood of the gods. I paddle and bathe in their
artery.

I do not want a stick of wood for so trivial a use as to burn even,
but they get it overnight, and carve and gild it that it may please my
eye. What persevering lovers they are! What infinite pains to attract
and delight us! They will supply us with fagots wrapped in the
daintiest packages, and freight paid; sweet-scented woods, and
bursting into flower, and resounding as if Orpheus had just left
them,--these shall be our fuel, and we still prefer to chaffer with
the wood-merchant!

The jug we found still stands draining bottom up on the bank, on the
sunny side of the house. That river,--who shall say exactly whence it
came, and whither it goes? Does aught that flows come from a higher
source? Many things drift downward on its surface which would enrich a
man. If you could only be on the alert all day, and every day! And the
nights are as long as the days.

Do you not think you could contrive thus to get woody fibre enough to
bake your wheaten bread with? Would you not perchance have tasted the
sweet crust of another kind of bread in the meanwhile, which ever
hangs ready baked on the bread-fruit trees of the world?

Talk of burning your smoke after the wood has been consumed! There is
a far more important and warming heat, commonly lost, which precedes
the burning of the wood. It is the smoke of industry, which is
incense. I had been so thoroughly warmed in body and spirit, that when
at length my fuel was housed, I came near selling it to the ash-man,
as if I had extracted all its heat.

You should have been here to help me get in my boat. The last time I
used it, November 27th, paddling up the Assabet, I saw a great round
pine log sunk deep in the water, and with labor got it aboard. When I
was floating this home so gently, it occurred to me why I had found
it. It was to make wheels with to roll my boat into winter quarters
upon. So I sawed off two thick rollers from one end, pierced them for
wheels, and then of a joist which I had found drifting on the river in
the summer I made an axletree, and on this I rolled my boat out.

Miss Mary Emerson[64] is here,--the youngest person in Concord, though
about eighty,--and the most apprehensive of a genuine thought; earnest
to know of your inner life; most stimulating society; and exceedingly
witty withal. She says they called her old when she was young, and she
has never grown any older. I wish you could see her.

My books[65] did not arrive till November 30th, the cargo of the Asia
having been complete when they reached Liverpool. I have arranged them
in a case which I made in the meanwhile, partly of river boards. I
have not dipped far into the new ones yet. One is splendidly bound and
illuminated. They are in English, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanscrit.
I have not made out the significance of this godsend yet.

Farewell, and bright dreams to you!


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, December 25, 1855.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--Though you have not shown your face here, I trust
that you did not interpret my last note to my disadvantage. I remember
that, among other things, I wished to break it to you, that, owing to
engagements, I should not be able to show you so much attention as I
could wish, or as you had shown to me. How we did scour over the
country! I hope your horse will live as long as one which I hear just
died in the south of France at the age of forty. Yet I had no doubt
you would get quite enough of me. Do not give it up so easily. The old
house is still empty, and Hosmer is easy to treat with.

Channing was here about ten days ago. I told him of my visit to you,
and that he too must go and see you and your country.[66] This may
have suggested his writing to you.

That island lodge, especially for some weeks in a summer, and new
explorations in your vicinity, are certainly very alluring; but _such
are my engagements to myself_, that I dare not promise to wend your
way, but will for the present only heartily thank you for your kind
and generous offer. When my vacation comes, then look out.

My legs have grown considerably stronger, and that is all that ails
me.

But I wish now above all to inform you,--though I suppose you will not
be particularly interested,--that Cholmondeley has gone to the Crimea,
"a complete soldier," with a design, when he returns, if he ever
returns, to buy a cottage in the South of England, and tempt me over;
but that, before going, he busied himself in buying, and has caused to
be forwarded to me by Chapman, a royal gift, in the shape of
twenty-one distinct works (one in nine volumes,--forty-four volumes in
all), almost exclusively relating to ancient Hindoo literature, and
scarcely one of them to be bought in America.[67] I am familiar with
many of them, and know how to prize them. I send you information of
this as I might of the birth of a child.

Please remember me to all your family.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the date of Thoreau's letter of December 25, 1855, another event
occurred, of some note in these annals of friendship. Channing, from
his Dorchester abode, suddenly showed himself at Ricketson's door. "I
had just written his name when old Ranger announced him.... He arrived
on Christmas day" (as Thoreau had done the year before) "and his first
salutation on meeting me at the front door of my house was, 'That's
your shanty,' pointing towards it. He is engaged with the editor of
the N. B. _Mercury_, and boards in town, but whereabout I have not yet
[February 26, 1856] discovered. He usually spends Saturday and a part
of Sunday with me." In replying to this information, Thoreau gives
that admirable character of his poet neighbor which has often been
quoted.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, March 5, 1856.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I have been out of town, else I should have
acknowledged your letter before. Though not in the best mood for
writing, I will say what I can now. You plainly have a rare, though a
cheap, resource in your shanty. Perhaps the time will come when every
country-seat will have one,--when every country-seat will _be one_. I
would advise you to see that shanty business out, though you go
shanty-mad. Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a
broader one; so that Channing shall stand before your shanty, and say,
"That is your house."

This has indeed been a grand winter for me, and for all of us. I am
not considering how much I have enjoyed it. What matters it how happy
or unhappy we have been, if we have minded our business and advanced
our affairs? I have made it a part of my business to wade in the snow
and take the measure of the ice. The ice on one of our ponds was just
two feet thick on the first of March; and I have to-day been surveying
a wood-lot, where I sank about two feet at every step.

It is high time that you, fanned by the warm breezes of the Gulf
Stream, had begun to "_lay_" for even the Concord hens have, though
one wonders where they find the raw material of egg-shell here. Beware
how you put off your laying to any later spring, else your cackling
will not have the inspiring early spring sound.

I was surprised to hear the other day that Channing was in New
Bedford. When he was here last (in December, I think), he said, like
himself, in answer to my inquiry where he lived, "that he did not know
the name of the place;" so it has remained in a degree of obscurity to
me. As you have made it certain to me that he is in New Bedford,
perhaps I can return the favor by putting you on the track to his
boarding-house there. Mrs. Arnold told Mrs. Emerson where it was; and
the latter thinks, though she may be mistaken, that it was at a Mrs.
Lindsay's.

I am rejoiced to hear that you are getting on so bravely with him and
his verses. He and I, as you know, have been old cronies,[68]--

     "Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill,
     Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
     Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
     We drove afield, and both together heared," etc.

"But O, the heavy change," now he is gone. The Channing you have seen
and described is the real Simon Pure. You have seen him. Many a good
ramble may you have together! You will see in him still more of the
same kind to attract and to puzzle you. How to serve him most
effectually has long been a problem with his friends. Perhaps it is
left for you to solve it. I suspect that the most that you or any one
can do for him is to appreciate his genius,--to buy and read, and
cause others to buy and read, his poems. That is the hand which he has
put forth to the world,--take hold of that. Review them if you
can,--perhaps take the risk of publishing something more which he may
write. Your knowledge of Cowper will help you to know Channing. He
will accept sympathy and aid, but he will not bear questioning, unless
the aspects of the sky are particularly auspicious. He will ever be
"reserved and enigmatic," and you must deal with him at arm's length.

I have no secrets to tell you concerning him, and do not wish to call
obvious excellences and defects by far-fetched names. I think I have
already spoken to you more, and more to the purpose, on this theme,
than I am likely to write now; nor need I suggest how witty and poetic
he is, and what an inexhaustible fund of good fellowship you will find
in him.

As for visiting you in April, though I am inclined enough to take some
more rambles in your neighborhood, especially by the seaside, I dare
not engage myself, nor allow you to expect me. The truth is, I have my
enterprises now as ever, at which I tug with ridiculous feebleness,
but admirable perseverance, and cannot say when I shall be
sufficiently fancy-free for such an excursion.

You have done well to write a lecture on Cowper. In the expectation of
getting you to read it here, I applied to the curators of our
Lyceum;[69] but, alas, our Lyceum has been a failure this winter for
want of funds. It ceased some weeks since, with a debt, they tell me,
to be carried over to the next year's account. Only one more lecture
is to be read by a Signor Somebody, an Italian, paid for by private
subscription, as a deed of charity to the lecturer. They are not rich
enough to offer you your expenses even, though probably a month or two
ago they would have been glad of the chance.

However, the old house has not failed yet. That offers you lodging for
an indefinite time after you get into it; and in the meanwhile I offer
you bed and board in my father's house,--always excepting hair pillows
and new-fangled bedding.

Remember me to your family.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, March 13, 1856.

MR. BLAKE,--It is high time I sent you a word. I have not heard from
Harrisburg since offering to go there, and have not been invited to
lecture anywhere else the past winter. So you see I am fast growing
rich. This is quite right, for such is my relation to the
lecture-goers, I should be surprised and alarmed if there were any
great call for me. I confess that I am considerably alarmed even when
I hear that an individual wishes to meet me, for my experience teaches
me that we shall thus only be made certain of a mutual strangeness,
which otherwise we might never have been aware of.

I have not yet recovered strength enough for such a walk as you
propose, though pretty well again for circumscribed rambles and
chamber work. Even now, I am probably the greatest walker in
Concord,--to its disgrace be it said. I remember our walks and talks
and sailing in the past with great satisfaction, and trust that we
shall have more of them ere long,--have more woodings-up,--for even in
the spring we must still seek "fuel to maintain our fires."

As you suggest, we would fain value one another for what we are
absolutely, rather than relatively. How will this do for a symbol of
sympathy?

                  / *  *  *  * \
                 /   *  *  *    \
                /      *  *      \
               A                  B

As for compliments, even the stars praise me, and I praise them. They
and I sometimes belong to a mutual admiration society. Is it not so
with you? I know you of old. Are you not tough and earnest to be
talked at, praised, or blamed? Must _you_ go out of the room because
you are the subject of conversation? Where will you go to, pray? Shall
we look into the "Letter Writer" to see what compliments are
admissible? I am not afraid of praise, for I have practiced it on
myself. As for my deserts, I never took an account of that stock, and
in this connection care not whether I am deserving or not. When I hear
praise coming, do I not elevate and arch myself to hear it like the
sky, and as impersonally? Think I appropriate any of it to my weak
legs? No. Praise away _till all is blue_.

I see by the newspapers that the season for making sugar is at hand.
Now is the time, whether you be rock, or white maple, or hickory. I
trust that you have prepared a store of sap-tubs and sumach spouts,
and invested largely in kettles. Early the first frosty morning, tap
your maples,--the sap will not run in summer, you know. It matters not
how little juice you get, if you get all you can, and boil it down. I
made just one crystal of sugar once, one twentieth of an inch cube,
out of a pumpkin, and it sufficed. Though the yield be no greater than
that, this is not less the season for it, and it will be not the less
sweet, nay, it will be infinitely the sweeter.

Shall, then, the maple yield sugar, and not man? Shall the farmer be
thus active, and surely have so much sugar to show for it, before this
very March is gone,--while I read the newspaper? While he works in his
sugar-camp let me work in mine,--for sweetness is in me, and to sugar
it shall come,--it shall not all go to leaves and wood. Am I not a
_sugar maple_ man, then? Boil down the sweet sap which the spring
causes to flow within you. Stop not at syrup,--go on to sugar, though
you present the world with but a single crystal,--a crystal not made
from trees in your yard, but from the new life that stirs in your
pores. Cheerfully skim your kettle, and watch it set and crystallize,
making a holiday of it if you will. Heaven will be propitious to you
as to him.

Say to the farmer: There is your crop; here is mine. Mine is a sugar
to sweeten sugar with. If you will listen to me, I will sweeten your
whole load,--your whole life.

Then will the callers ask, Where is Blake? He is in his sugar-camp on
the mountainside. Let the world await him. Then will the little boys
bless you, and the great boys too, for such sugar is the origin of
many condiments,--Blakians in the shops of Worcester, of new form,
with their mottoes wrapped up in them. Shall men taste only the
sweetness of the maple and the cane the coming year?

A walk over the crust to Asnebumskit, standing there in its inviting
simplicity, is tempting to think of,--making a fire on the snow under
some rock! The very poverty of outward nature implies an inward wealth
in the walker. What a Golconda is he conversant with, thawing his
fingers over such a blaze! But--but--

Have you read the new poem, "The Angel in the House"? Perhaps you will
find it good for you.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, May 21, 1856.

MR. BLAKE,--I have not for a long time been _putting such thoughts
together_ as I should like to read to the company you speak of. I have
enough of that sort to say, or even read, but not time now to arrange
it. Something I have prepared might prove for their entertainment or
refreshment perchance; but I would not like to have a hat carried
round for it. I have just been reading some papers to see if they
would do for your company; but though I thought pretty well of them as
long as I read them to myself, when I got an auditor to try them on, I
felt that they would not answer. How could I let you drum up a company
to hear them? In fine, what I have is either too scattered or loosely
arranged, or too light, or else is too scientific and matter-of-fact
(I run a good deal into that of late) for so hungry a company.

I am still a learner, not a teacher, feeding somewhat omnivorously,
browsing both stalk and leaves; but I shall perhaps be enabled to
speak with the more precision and authority by and by,--if philosophy
and sentiment are not buried under a multitude of details.

I do not refuse, but accept your invitation, only changing the time. I
consider myself invited to Worcester once for all, and many thanks to
the inviter. As for the Harvard excursion,[70] will you let me suggest
another? Do you and Brown come to Concord on Saturday, if the weather
promises well, and spend the Sunday here on the river or hills, or
both. So we shall save some of our money (which is of next importance
to our souls), and lose--I do not know what. You say you _talked_ of
coming here before; now _do_ it. I do not propose this because I think
that I am worth your spending time with, but because I hope that we
may prove flint and steel to one another. It is at most only an hour's
ride farther, and you can at any rate do what you please when you get
here.

Then we will see if we have any apology to offer for our existence. So
come to Concord,--come to Concord,--come to Concord! or--your suit
shall be defaulted.

As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is
impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a
mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top. Of course you will
be glad of all the society you can get to go up with. Will you go to
glory with me? is the burden of the song. I love society so much that
I swallowed it all at a gulp,--that is, all that came in my way. It is
not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do
soar, the company grows thinner and thinner till there is none at all.
It is either the _Tribune_[71] on the plain, a sermon on the mount, or
a very private ecstasy still higher up. We are not the less to aim at
the summits, though the multitude does not ascend them. Use all the
society that will abet you. But perhaps I do not enter into the spirit
of your talk.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the spring of 1856, Mr. Alcott, then living in Walpole, N. H.,
visited Concord, and while there suggested to Thoreau that the upper
valley of the Connecticut, in which Walpole lies, was good
walking-ground, and that he would be glad to see him there. When
autumn began to hover in the distance, Thoreau recalled this
invitation, and sent the letter below.


TO BRONSON ALCOTT (AT WALPOLE, N. H.).

     CONCORD, SEPTEMBER 1, 1856.

MR. ALCOTT,--I remember that, in the spring, you invited me to visit
you. I feel inclined to spend a day or two with you and on your hills
at this season, returning, perhaps, by way of Brattleboro. What if I
should take the cars for Walpole next Friday morning? Are you at home?
And will it be convenient and agreeable to you to see me then? I will
await an answer.

I am but poor company, and it will not be worth the while to put
yourself out on my account; yet from time to time I have some thoughts
which would be the better for an airing. I also wish to get some hints
from September on the Connecticut to help me understand that season on
the Concord; to snuff the musty fragrance of the decaying year in the
primitive woods. There is considerable cellar-room in my nature for
such stores; a whole row of bins waiting to be filled, before I can
celebrate my Thanksgiving. Mould is the richest of soils, yet _I_ am
not mould. It will always be found that one flourishing institution
exists and battens on another mouldering one. The Present itself is
parasitic to this extent.

     Your fellow-traveler,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.

As fortune would have it, Mr. Alcott was then making his arrangements
for a conversational tour in the vicinity of New York; but he renewed
the invitation for himself, while repeating it in the name of Mrs.
Alcott and his daughters. Thoreau made the visit, I believe, and some
weeks later, at the suggestion of Mr. Alcott, he was asked by Marcus
Spring of New York to give lectures and survey their estate for a
community at Perth Amboy, N. J., in which Mr. Spring and his friends,
the Birneys, Welds, Grimkés, etc., had united for social and
educational purposes. It was a colony of radical opinions and
old-fashioned culture; the Grimkés having been bred in Charleston, S.
C., which they left by reason of their opposition to negro slavery,
and the elder Birney having held slaves in Alabama until his
conscience bade him emancipate them, after which he, too, could have
no secure home among slaveholders. He was the first presidential
candidate of the voting Abolitionists, as Lincoln was the last; and
his friend, Theodore Weld, who married Miss Grimké, had been one of
the early apostles of emancipation in Ohio. Their circle at Eagleswood
appealed to Thoreau's sense of humor, and is described by him in a
letter soon to be given.

       *       *       *       *       *

In June, 1856, Thoreau made a long visit at Brooklawn. In August, Mr.
Ricketson, who had proposed a summer visit to Concord, found himself
prevented by feeble health, and received the two following letters
from Thoreau:--


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, September 2, 1856.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--My father and mother regret that your indisposition
is likely to prevent your coming to Concord at present. It is as well
that you do not, if you depend on seeing me, for I expect to go to New
Hampshire the latter part of the week. I shall be glad to see you
afterward, if you are prepared for and can endure my unsocial habits.

I would suggest that you have one or two of the teeth which you can
best spare extracted at once, for the sake of your general, no less
than particular health. This is the advice of one who has had quite
his share of toothache in this world. I am a trifle stouter than when
I saw you last, yet far, far short of my best estate.

I thank you for two newspapers which you have sent me; am glad to see
that you have studied out the history of the ponds, got the Indian
names straightened,--which means made more crooked,--etc., etc. I
remember them with great satisfaction. They are all the more
interesting to me for the lean and sandy soil that surrounds them.
Heaven is not one of your fertile Ohio bottoms, you may depend on it.
Ah, the Middleborough ponds!--Great Platte lakes. Remember me to the
perch in them. I trust that I may have some better craft than that
oarless pumpkin-seed[72] the next time I navigate them.

From the size of your family I infer that Mrs. Ricketson and your
daughters have returned from Franconia. Please remember me to them,
and also to Arthur and Walton; and tell the latter that if, in the
course of his fishing, he should chance to come across the shell of a
terrapin, and will save it for me, I shall be exceedingly obliged to
him.

Channing dropped in on us the other day, but soon dropped out again.


     CONCORD, September 23, 1856.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I have returned from New Hampshire, and find myself
_in statu quo_. My journey proved one of business purely. As you
suspected, I saw Alcott, and I spoke to him of you, and your good will
toward him; so now you may consider yourself introduced. He would be
glad to hear from you about a conversation in New Bedford. He was
about setting out on a conversing tour to Fitchburg, Worcester, and,
three or four weeks hence, Waterbury, Ct., New York, Newport (?) or
Providence (?). You may be sure that you will not have occasion to
repent of any exertions which you may make to secure an audience for
him. I send you one of his programmes, lest he should not have done so
himself.

You propose to me teaching the following winter. I find that I cannot
entertain the idea. It would require such a revolution of all my
habits, I think, and would sap the very foundations of me. I am
engaged to Concord and my own private pursuits by 10,000 ties, and it
would be suicide to rend them. If I were weaker, and not somewhat
stronger, physically, I should be more tempted. I am so busy that I
cannot even think of visiting you. The days are not long enough, or I
am not strong enough to do the work of the day, before bedtime.

Excuse my paper. It chances to be the best I have.

       *       *       *       *       *

In October, 1856, Mr. Spring, whom Mr. Alcott was then visiting, wrote
to Thoreau inviting him to come to Eagleswood, give lectures, and
survey two hundred acres of land belonging to the community, laying
out streets and making a map of the proposed village. Thoreau accepted
the proposal, and soon after wrote the following letter, which Miss
Thoreau submitted to Mr. Emerson for publication, with other letters,
in the volume of 1865; but he returned it, inscribed, "Not printable
at present." The lapse of time has removed this objection.


TO SOPHIA THOREAU.

     [Direct] EAGLESWOOD, PERTH AMBOY, N. J.,
     Saturday eve, November 1, 1856.

DEAR SOPHIA,--I have hardly had time and repose enough to write to you
before. I spent the afternoon of Friday (it seems some months ago) in
Worcester, but failed to see [Harrison] Blake, he having "gone to the
horse-race" in Boston; to atone for which I have just received a
letter from him, asking me to stop at Worcester and lecture on my
return. I called on [Theo.] Brown and [T. W.] Higginson; in the
evening came by way of Norwich to New York in the steamer
Commonwealth, and, though it was so windy inland, had a perfectly
smooth passage, and about as good a sleep as usually at home. Reached
New York about seven A. M., too late for the John Potter (there was n't
any Jonas), so I spent the forenoon there, called on Greeley (who was
not in), met [F. A. T.] Bellew in Broadway and walked into his
workshop, read at the Astor Library, etc. I arrived here, about thirty
miles from New York, about five P. M. Saturday, in company with Miss
E. Peabody, who was returning in the same covered wagon from the
Landing to Eagleswood, which last place she has just left for the
winter.

This is a queer place. There is one large long stone building, which
cost some forty thousand dollars, in which I do not know exactly who
or how many work (one or two familiar places and more familiar names
have turned up), a few shops and offices, an old farmhouse, and Mr.
Spring's perfectly private residence, within twenty rods of the main
building. The city of Perth Amboy is about as big as Concord, and
Eagleswood is one and a quarter miles southwest of it, on the Bay
side. The central fact here is evidently Mr. [Theodore] Weld's school,
recently established, around which various other things revolve.
Saturday evening I went to the schoolroom, hall, or what not, to see
the children and their teachers and patrons dance. Mr. Weld, a
kind-looking man with a long white beard, danced with them, and Mr.
[E. J.] Cutler, his assistant (lately from Cambridge, who is
acquainted with Sanborn), Mr. Spring, and others. This Saturday
evening dance is a regular thing, and it is thought something strange
if you don't attend. They take it for granted that you want society!

Sunday forenoon I attended a sort of Quaker meeting at the same place
(the Quaker aspect and spirit prevail here,--Mrs. Spring says, "Does
thee not?"), where it was expected that the Spirit would move me (I
having been previously spoken to about it); and it, or something else,
did,--an inch or so. I said just enough to set them a little by the
ears and make it lively. I had excused myself by saying that I could
not adapt myself to a particular audience; for all the speaking and
lecturing here have reference to the children, who are far the greater
part of the audience, and they are not so bright as New England
children. Imagine them sitting close to the wall, all around a hall,
with old Quaker-looking men and women here and there. There sat Mrs.
Weld [Grimké] and her sister, two elderly gray-headed ladies, the
former in extreme Bloomer costume, which was what you may call
remarkable; Mr. Arnold Buffum, with broad face and a great white
beard, looking like a pier-head made of the cork-tree with the bark
on, as if he could buffet a considerable wave; James G. Birney,
formerly candidate for the presidency, with another particularly white
head and beard; Edward Palmer, the anti-money man (for whom
communities were made), with his ample beard somewhat grayish. Some of
them, I suspect, are very worthy people. Of course you are wondering
to what extent all these make one family, and to what extent twenty.
Mrs. Kirkland[73] (and this a name only to me) I saw. She has just
bought a lot here. They all know more about your neighbors and
acquaintances than you suspected.

On Monday evening I read the moose story to the children, to their
satisfaction. Ever since I have been constantly engaged in surveying
Eagleswood,--through woods, salt marshes, and along the shore, dodging
the tide, through bushes, mud, and beggar-ticks, having no time to
look up or think where I am. (It takes ten or fifteen minutes before
each meal to pick the beggar-ticks out of my clothes; burs and the
rest are left, and rents mended at the first convenient opportunity.)
I shall be engaged perhaps as much longer. Mr. Spring wants me to help
him about setting out an orchard and vineyard, Mr. Birney asks me to
survey a small piece for him, and Mr. Alcott, who has just come down
here for the third Sunday, says that Greeley (I left my name for him)
invites him and me to go to his home with him next Saturday morning
and spend the Sunday.

It seems a twelvemonth since I was not here, but I hope to get settled
deep into my den again ere long. The hardest thing to find here is
solitude--and Concord. I am at Mr. Spring's house. Both he and she and
their family are quite agreeable.

I want you to write to me immediately (just left off to talk French
with the servant man), and let father and mother put in a word. To
them and to Aunts, love from

     HENRY.

The date of this visit to Eagleswood is worthy of note, because in
that November Thoreau made the acquaintance of the late Walt Whitman,
in whom he ever after took a deep interest. Accompanied by Mr. Alcott,
he called on Whitman, then living at Brooklyn; and I remember the calm
enthusiasm with which they both spoke of Whitman upon their return to
Concord. "Three men," said Emerson, in his funeral eulogy of Thoreau,
"have of late years strongly impressed Mr. Thoreau,--John Brown, his
Indian guide in Maine, Joe Polis, and a third person, not known to
this audience." This last was Whitman, who has since become well known
to a larger audience.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     EAGLESWOOD, N. J., November 19, 1856.

MR. BLAKE,--I have been here much longer than I expected, but have
deferred answering you, because I could not foresee when I should
return. I do not know yet within three or four days. This uncertainty
makes it impossible for me to appoint a day to meet you, until it
should be too late to hear from you again. I think, therefore, that I
must go straight home. I feel some objection to reading that "What
shall it profit" lecture again in Worcester; but if you are quite sure
that it will be worth the while (it is a grave consideration), I will
even make an independent journey from Concord for that purpose. I have
read three of my old lectures (that included) to the Eagleswood
people, and, unexpectedly, with rare success,--_i. e._, I was aware
that what I was saying was silently taken in by their ears.

You must excuse me if I write mainly a business letter now, for I am
sold for the time,--am merely Thoreau the surveyor here,--and
solitude is scarcely obtainable in these parts.

Alcott has been here three times, and, Saturday before last, I went
with him and Greeley, by invitation of the last, to G.'s farm,
thirty-six miles north of New York. The next day A. and I heard
Beecher preach; and what was more, we visited Whitman the next morning
(A. had already seen him), and were much interested and provoked. He
is apparently the greatest democrat the world has seen. Kings and
aristocracy go by the board at once, as they have long deserved to. A
remarkably strong though coarse nature, of a sweet disposition, and
much prized by his friends. Though peculiar and rough in his exterior,
his skin (all over (?)) red, he is essentially a gentleman. I am still
somewhat in a quandary about him,--feel that he is essentially strange
to me, at any rate; but I am surprised by the sight of him. He is very
broad, but, as I have said, not fine. He said that I misapprehended
him. I am not quite sure that I do. He told us that he loved to ride
up and down Broadway all day on an omnibus, sitting beside the driver,
listening to the roar of the carts, and sometimes gesticulating and
declaiming Homer at the top of his voice. He has long been an editor
and writer for the newspapers,--was editor of the _New Orleans
Crescent_ once; but now has no employment but to read and write in the
forenoon, and walk in the afternoon, like all the rest of the
scribbling gentry.

I shall probably be in Concord next week; so you can direct to me
there.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, December 6, 1853.

MR. BLAKE,--I trust that you got a note from me at Eagleswood, about a
fortnight ago. I passed through Worcester on the morning of the 25th
of November, and spent several hours (from 3.30 to 6.20) in the
travelers' room at the depot, as in a dream, it now seems. As the
first Harlem train unexpectedly connected with the first from
Fitchburg, I did not spend the forenoon with you as I had anticipated,
on account of baggage, etc. If it had been a seasonable hour, I should
have seen you,--_i. e._, if you had not gone to a horse-race. But
think of making a call at half past three in the morning! (would it
not have implied a three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage in both you
and me?) as it were, ignoring the fact that mankind are really not at
home,--are not out, but so deeply in that they cannot be seen,--nearly
half their hours at this season of the year.

I walked up and down the main street, at half past five, in the dark,
and paused long in front of Brown's store, trying to distinguish its
features; considering whether I might safely leave his _Putnam_ in the
door-handle, but concluded not to risk it. Meanwhile a watchman (?)
seemed to be watching me, and I moved off. Took another turn around
there, and had the very earliest offer of the _Transcript_[74] from an
urchin behind, whom I actually could not see, it was so dark. So I
withdrew, wondering if you and B. would know if I had been there. You
little dream who is occupying Worcester when you are all asleep.
Several things occurred there that night which I will venture to say
were not put into the _Transcript_. A cat caught a mouse at the depot,
and gave it to her kitten to play with. So that world-famous tragedy
goes on by night as well as by day, and nature is _emphatically_
wrong. Also I saw a young Irishman kneel before his mother, as if in
prayer, while she wiped a cinder out of his eye with her tongue; and I
found that it was never too late (or early?) to learn something. These
things transpired while you and B. were, to all practical purposes,
nowhere, and good for nothing,--not even for society,--not for
horse-races,--nor the taking back of a _Putnam's Magazine_. It is
true, I might have recalled you to life, but it would have been a
cruel act, considering the kind of life you would have come back to.

However, I would fain write to you now by broad daylight, and report
to you some of my life, such as it is, and recall you to your life,
which is not always lived by you, even by daylight. Blake! Brown! are
you awake? are you aware what an ever-glorious morning this is,--what
long-expected, never-to-be-repeated opportunity is now offered to get
life and knowledge?

For my part, I am trying to wake up,--to wring slumber out of my
pores; for, generally, I take events as unconcernedly as a
fence-post,--absorb wet and cold like it, and am pleasantly tickled
with lichens slowly spreading over me. Could I not be content, then,
to be a cedar post, which lasts twenty-five years? Would I not rather
be that than the farmer that set it? or he that preaches to the
farmer? and go to the heaven of posts at last? I think I should like
that as well as any would like it. But I should not care if I sprouted
into a living tree, put forth leaves and flowers, and bore fruit.

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It
is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite,--only a
sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this
for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think
of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that
there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet
to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague, indefinite riches. No
run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but
enjoyment.

What are all these years made for? and now another winter comes, so
much like the last? Can't we satisfy the beggars once for all?

Have you got in your wood for this winter? What else have you got in?
Of what use a great fire on the hearth, and a confounded little fire
in the heart? Are you prepared to make a decisive campaign,--to pay
for your costly tuition,--to pay for the suns of past summers,--for
happiness and unhappiness lavished upon you?

Does not Time go by swifter than the swiftest equine trotter or
racker?

Stir up Brown. Remind him of his duties, which outrun the date and
span of Worcester's years past and to come. Tell him to be sure that
he is on the main street, however narrow it may be, and to have a lit
sign, visible by night as well as by day.

Are they not patient waiters,--they who wait for us? But even they
shall not be losers.


     December 7.

That Walt Whitman, of whom I wrote to you, is the most interesting
fact to me at present. I have just read his second edition (which he
gave me), and it has done me more good than any reading for a long
time. Perhaps I remember best the poem of Walt Whitman, an American,
and the Sun-Down Poem. There are two or three pieces in the book which
are disagreeable, to say the least; simply sensual. He does not
celebrate love at all. It is as if the beasts spoke. I think that men
have not been ashamed of themselves without reason. No doubt there
have always been dens where such deeds were unblushingly recited, and
it is no merit to compete with their inhabitants. But even on this
side he has spoken more truth than any American or modern that I know.
I have found his poem exhilarating, encouraging. As for its
sensuality,--and it may turn out to be less sensual than it
appears,--I do not so much wish that those parts were not written, as
that men and women were so pure that they could read them without
harm, that is, without understanding them. One woman told me that no
woman could read it,--as if a man could read what a woman could not.
Of course Walt Whitman can communicate to us no experience, and if we
are shocked, whose experience is it that we are reminded of?

On the whole, it sounds to me very brave and American, after whatever
deductions. I do not believe that all the sermons, so called, that
have been preached in this land put together are equal to it for
preaching.

We ought to rejoice greatly in him. He occasionally suggests something
a little more than human. You can't confound him with the other
inhabitants of Brooklyn or New York. How they must shudder when they
read him! He is awfully good.

To be sure I sometimes feel a little imposed on. By his heartiness and
broad generalities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind prepared to
see wonders,--as it were, sets me upon a hill or in the midst of a
plain,--stirs me well up, and then--throws in a thousand of brick.
Though rude, and sometimes ineffectual, it is a great primitive
poem,--an alarum or trumpet-note ringing through the American camp.
Wonderfully like the Orientals, too, considering that when I asked him
if he had read them, he answered, "No: tell me about them."

I did not get far in conversation with him,--two more being
present,--and among the few things which I chanced to say, I remember
that one was, in answer to him as representing America, that I did not
think much of America or of politics, and so on, which may have been
somewhat of a damper to him.

Since I have seen him, I find that I am not disturbed by any brag or
egoism in his book. He may turn out the least of a braggart of all,
having a better right to be confident.

He is a great fellow.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is in Alcott's diary an account of this interview with Whitman,
and the Sunday morning in Ward Beecher's Brooklyn church, from which a
few passages may be taken. Hardly any person met by either of these
Concord friends in their later years made so deep an impression on
both as did this then almost unknown poet and thinker, concerning whom
Cholmondeley wrote to Thoreau in 1857: "Is there actually such a man
as Whitman? Has any one seen or handled him? His is a tongue 'not
understanded' of the English people. I find _the gentleman_ altogether
left out of the book. It is the first book I have ever seen which I
should call a 'new book.'"

Mr. Alcott writes under date of November 7, 1856, in New York: "Henry
Thoreau arrives from Eagleswood, and sees Swinton, a wise young
Scotchman, and Walt Whitman's friend, at my room (15 Laight
Street),--Thoreau declining to accompany me to Mrs. Botta's parlors,
as invited by her. He sleeps here. (November 8.) We find Greeley at
the Harlem station, and ride with him to his farm, where we pass the
day, and return to sleep in the city,--Greeley coming in with us;
Alice Cary, the authoress, accompanying us also. (Sunday, November 9.)
We cross the ferry to Brooklyn, and hear Ward Beecher at the Plymouth
Church. It was a spectacle,--and himself the preacher, if preacher
there be anywhere now in pulpits. His auditors had to weep, had to
laugh, under his potent magnetism, while his doctrine of justice to
all men, bond and free, was grand. House, entries, aisles, galleries,
all were crowded. Thoreau called it pagan, but I pronounced it good,
very good,--the best I had witnessed for many a day, and hopeful for
the coming time. At dinner at Mrs. Manning's. Miss M. S. was there,
curious to see Thoreau. After dinner we called on Walt Whitman
(Thoreau and I), but finding him out, we got all we could from his
mother, a stately, sensible matron, believing absolutely in Walter,
and telling us how good he was, and how wise when a boy; and how his
four brothers and two sisters loved him, and still take counsel of the
great man he has grown to be. We engaged to call again early in the
morning, when she said Walt would be glad to see us. (Monday, 10th.)
Mrs. Tyndale of Philadelphia goes with us to see Walt,--Walt the
satyr, the Bacchus, the very god Pan. We sat with him for two hours,
and much to our delight; he promising to call on us at the
International at ten in the morning to-morrow, and there have the rest
of it." Whitman failed to call at his hour the next day.


TO B. B. WILEY (AT CHICAGO).

     CONCORD, December 12, 1856.

MR. WILEY,[75]--It is refreshing to hear of your earnest purpose with
respect to your culture, and I can send you no better wish than that
you may not be thwarted by the cares and temptations of life. Depend
on it, _now_ is the accepted time, and probably you will never find
yourself better disposed or freer to attend to your culture than at
this moment. When _They_ who inspire us with the idea are ready, shall
not we be ready also?

I do not remember anything which Confucius has said directly
respecting man's "origin, purpose, and destiny." He was more practical
than that. He is full of wisdom applied to human relations,--to the
private life,--the family,--government, etc. It is remarkable that,
according to his own account, the sum and substance of his teaching
is, as you know, to do as you would be done by.

He also said (I translate from the French), "Conduct yourself suitably
towards the persons of your family, then you will be able to instruct
and to direct a nation of men."

"To nourish one's self with a little rice, to drink water, to have
only his bended arm to support his head, is a state which has also its
satisfaction. To be rich and honored by iniquitous means is for me as
the floating cloud which passes."

"As soon as a child is born he must respect its faculties: the
knowledge which will come to it by and by does not resemble at all its
present state. If it arrive at the age of forty or fifty years without
having learned anything, it is no more worthy of any respect." This
last, I think, will speak to your condition.

But at this rate I might fill many letters.

Our acquaintance with the ancient Hindoos is not at all personal. The
full names that can be relied upon are very shadowy. It is, however,
tangible works that we know. The best I think of are the Bhagvat Geeta
(an episode in an ancient heroic poem called the Mahabarat), the
Vedas, the Vishnu Purana, the Institutes of Menu, etc.

I cannot say that Swedenborg has been directly and practically
valuable to me, for I have not been a reader of him, except to a
slight extent; but I have the highest regard for him, and trust that I
shall read his works in some world or other. He had a wonderful
knowledge of our interior and spiritual life, though his illuminations
are occasionally blurred by trivialities. He comes nearer to
answering, or attempting to answer, literally, your questions
concerning man's origin, purpose, and destiny, than any of the
worthies I have referred to. But I think that that is not _altogether_
a recommendation; since such an answer to these questions cannot be
discovered any more than perpetual motion, for which no reward is now
offered. The noblest man it is, methinks, that knows, and by his life
suggests, the most about these things. Crack away at these nuts,
however, as long as you can,--the very exercise will ennoble you, and
you may get something better than the answer you expect.


TO B. B. WILEY (AT CHICAGO).

     CONCORD, April 26, 1857.

MR. WILEY,--I see that you are turning a broad furrow among the books,
but I trust that some very private journal all the while holds its own
through their midst. Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as
often as they do us this service we lay them aside. I should say, read
Goethe's autobiography, by all means, also Gibbon's, Haydon the
painter's, and our Franklin's of course; perhaps also Alfieri's,
Benvenuto Cellini's, and De Quincey's "Confessions of an
Opium-Eater,"--since you like autobiography. I think you must read
Coleridge again, and further, skipping all his theology, _i. e._, if
you value precise definitions and a discriminating use of language. By
the way, read De Quincey's Reminiscences of Coleridge and Wordsworth.

How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get
the language with which to describe our various lives out of a common
mint. If others have their losses which they are busy repairing, so
have I mine, and their hound and horse may _perhaps_ be the symbols of
some of them.[76] But also I have lost, or am in danger of losing, a
far finer and more ethereal treasure which commonly no loss, of which
they are conscious, will symbolize. This I answer hastily and with
some hesitation, according as I now understand my words....

Methinks a certain polygamy with its troubles is the fate of almost
all men. They are married to two wives: their genius (a celestial
muse), and also to some fair daughter of the earth. Unless these two
were fast friends before marriage, and so are afterward, there will be
but little peace in the house.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, December 31, 1856.

MR. BLAKE,--I think it will not be worth the while for me to come to
Worcester to lecture at all this year. It will be better to wait till
I am--perhaps unfortunately--more in that line. My writing has not
taken the shape of lectures, and therefore I should be obliged to read
one of three or four old lectures, the best of which I have read to
some of your auditors before. I carried that one which I call
"Walking, or the Wild," to Amherst, N. H., the evening of that cold
Thursday,[77] and I am to read another at Fitchburg, February 3. I am
simply their hired man. This will probably be the extent of my
lecturing hereabouts.

I must depend on meeting Mr. Wasson some other time.

Perhaps it always costs me more than it comes to to lecture before a
promiscuous audience. It is an irreparable injury done to my modesty
even,--I become so indurated.

O solitude! obscurity! meanness! I never triumph so as when I have the
least success in my neighbor's eyes. The lecturer gets fifty dollars a
night; but what becomes of his winter? What consolation will it be
hereafter to have fifty thousand dollars for living in the world? I
should like not to exchange _any_ of my life for money.

These, you may think, are reasons for not lecturing, when you have no
great opportunity. It is even so, perhaps. I could lecture on dry oak
leaves; I could, but who could hear me? If I were to try it on any
large audience, I fear it would be no gain to them, and a positive
loss to me. I should have behaved rudely toward my rustling
friends.[78]

I am surveying, instead of lecturing, at present. Let me have a
skimming from your "pan of unwrinkled cream."

       *       *       *       *       *

The proposition about Mr. Alcott in Thoreau's letter of September 23,
1856, to Mr. Ricketson took effect in the spring of 1857, and early in
April he went to visit the Ricketsons in New Bedford, going down from
Walpole, and there met his younger friends Channing and Thoreau.
Anticipating Mr. Alcott's visit, Thoreau wrote thus:--


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, March 28, 1857.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--If it chances to be perfectly agreeable and
convenient to you, I will make you a visit next week (say Wednesday or
Thursday), and we will have some more rides to Assawampset and the
seashore. Have you got a boat on the former yet? Who knows but we may
camp out on the island? I propose this now, because it will be more
novel to me at this season, and I should like to see your early birds,
etc.

Your historical papers have all come safely to hand, and I thank you
for them. I see that they will be indispensable _mémoires pour
servir_. By the way, have you read Church's "History of Philip's War,"
and looked up the localities? It should make part of a chapter.

I had a long letter from Cholmondeley lately, which I should like to
show you,

I will expect an answer to this straightway,--but be sure you let your
own convenience and inclinations rule it. Please remember me to your
family.

       *       *       *       *       *

He was welcomed, of course, and went down April 2, as indicated in
the letter of the day before. But he had not been informed that Alcott
was already there, writing in his Diary of April 1, this sketch of
Brooklawn and its occupants:--

"A neat country residence, surrounded by wild pastures and low
woods,--the little stream Acushnet flowing east of the house, and into
Fairhaven Bay. The hamlet of Acushnet at the 'Head of the River' lies
within half a mile of Ricketson's house. His tastes are pastoral,
simple even to wildness; and he passes a good part of his day in the
fields and woods,--or in his rude 'Shanty' near his house, where he
writes and reads his favorite authors, Cowper having the first place.
He is in easy circumstances, and has the manners of an English
gentleman,--frank, hospitable, and with positive persuasions of his
own; mercurial, perhaps, and wayward a little sometimes, but full of
kindness and sensibility to suffering."


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, April 1, 1857.

DEAR RICKETSON,--I got your note of welcome night before last.
Channing is not here; at least I have not seen nor heard of him, but
depend on meeting him in New Bedford. I expect, if the weather is
favorable, to take the 4.30 train from Boston to-morrow, Thursday, P.
M., for I hear of no noon train, and shall be glad to find your wagon
at Tarkiln Hill, for I see it will be rather late for going across
lots.

Alcott was here last week, and will probably visit New Bedford within
a week or two.

I have seen all the spring signs you mention, and a few more, even
here. Nay, I heard one frog peep nearly a week ago,--methinks the very
first one in all this region. I wish that there were a few more signs
of spring in myself; however, I take it that there _are_ as many
within us as we think we hear _without_ us. I am decent for a steady
pace, but not yet for a race. I have a little cold at present, and you
speak of rheumatism about the head and shoulders. Your frost is not
quite out. I suppose that the earth itself has a little cold and
rheumatism about these times; but all these things together produce a
very fair general result. In a concert, you know, we must sing our
parts feebly sometimes, that we may not injure the general effect. I
should n't wonder if my two-year-old invalidity had been a positively
charming feature to some amateurs favorably located. Why not a blasted
man as well as a blasted tree, on your lawn?

If you should happen not to see me by the train named, do not go
again, but wait at home for me, or a note from

     Yours,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.

On that Thursday, April 2, Alcott wrote in his Diary, "Henry Thoreau
comes to tea, also Ellery Channing, and we talk till into the evening
late." This visit of Thoreau was his longest, lasting until April 15,
and it was during the fortnight that he sang "Tom Bowling" and danced
with vigor in the Brooklawn drawing-room, a scene which Alcott loved
to describe. Sophia Thoreau, writing in 1862, said: "I have so often
witnessed the like that I can easily imagine how it was, and I
remember that Henry gave me some account. I recollect he said that he
did not scruple to tread on Mr. Alcott's toes."


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, April 17, 1857.

MR. BLAKE,--I returned from New Bedford night before last. I met
Alcott there, and learned from him that probably you had gone to
Concord. I am very sorry that I missed you. I had expected you
earlier, and at last thought that I should get back before you came;
but I ought to have notified you of my absence. However, it would have
been too late, after I had made up my mind to go. I hope you lost
nothing by going a little round.

I took out the celtis seeds at your request, at the time we spoke of
them, and left them in the chamber on some shelf or other. If you have
found them, very well; if you have not found them, very well; but tell
Hale[79] of it, if you see him. My mother says that you and Brown and
Rogers and Wasson (titles left behind) talk of coming down on me some
day. Do not fail to come, one and all, and within a week or two, if
possible; else I may be gone again. Give me a short notice, and then
come and spend a day on Concord River,--or say that you will come if
it is fair, unless you are confident of bringing fair weather with
you. Come and be Concord, as I have been Worcestered.

Perhaps you came nearer to me for not finding me at home; for trains
of thought the more connect when trains of cars do not. If I had
actually met you, you would have gone again; but now I have not yet
dismissed you. I hear what you say about personal relations with joy.
It is as if you had said: "I value the best and finest part of you,
and not the worst. I can even endure your very near and real approach,
and prefer it to a shake of the hand." This intercourse is not subject
to time or distance.

I have a very long new and faithful letter from Cholmondeley which I
wish to show you. He speaks of sending me more books!!

If I were with you now, I could tell you much of Ricketson, and my
visit to New Bedford; but I do not know how it will be by and by. I
should like to have you meet R., who is the frankest man I know.
Alcott and he get along very well together. Channing has returned to
Concord with me,--probably for a short visit only.

Consider this a business letter, which you know _counts_ nothing in
the game we play. Remember me particularly to Brown.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, June 6, 1857, 3 P. M.

MR. BLAKE,--I have just got your note, but I am sorry to say that I
this very morning sent a note to Channing, stating that I would go
with him to Cape Cod next week on an excursion which we have been
talking of for some time. If there were time to communicate with you,
I should ask you to come to Concord on Monday, before I go; but as it
is, I must wait till I come back, which I think will be about ten days
hence. I do not like this delay, but there seems to be a fate in it.
Perhaps Mr. Wasson will be well enough to come by that time. I will
notify you of my return, and shall depend on seeing you all.

June 23d. I returned from Cape Cod last evening, and now take the
first opportunity to invite you men of Worcester to this quiet
_Mediterranean_ shore. Can you come this week on Friday, or next
Monday? I mention the earliest days on which I suppose you can be
ready. If more convenient, name some other time _within ten days_. I
shall be rejoiced to see you, and to act the part of skipper in the
contemplated voyage. I have just got another letter from Cholmondeley,
which may interest you somewhat.


TO MARSTON WATSON (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, August 17, 1857.

MR. WATSON,--I am much indebted to you for your glowing communication
of July 20th. I had that very day left Concord for the wilds of Maine;
but when I returned, August 8th, two out of the six worms remained
nearly, if not quite, as bright as at first, I was assured. In their
best estate they had excited the admiration of many of the inhabitants
of Concord. It was a singular coincidence that I should find these
worms awaiting me, for my mind was full of a phosphorescence which I
had seen in the woods. I have waited to learn something more about
them before acknowledging the receipt of them. I have frequently met
with glow-worms in my night walks, but am not sure they were the same
kind with these. Dr. Harris once described to me a larger kind than I
had found, "nearly as big as your little finger;" but he does not name
them in his report.

The only authorities on Glow-worms which I chance to have (and I am
pretty well provided) are Kirby and Spence (the fullest), Knapp
("Journal of a Naturalist"), "The Library of Entertaining Knowledge"
(Rennie), a French work, etc., etc.; but there is no minute,
scientific description of any of these. This is apparently a female of
the genus _Lampyris_; but Kirby and Spence say that there are nearly
two hundred species of this genus alone. The one commonly referred to
by English writers is the _Lampyris noctiluca_; but judging from Kirby
and Spence's description, and from the description and plate in the
French work, this is not that one, for, besides other differences,
both say that the light proceeds from the abdomen. Perhaps the worms
exhibited by Durkee (whose statement to the Boston Society of Natural
History, second July meeting, in the _Traveller_ of August 12, 1857, I
send you) were the same with these. I do not see how they could be the
_L. noctiluca_, as he states.

I expect to go to Cambridge before long, and if I get any more light
on this subject I will inform you. The two worms are still alive.

I shall be glad to receive the drosera at any time, if you chance to
come across it. I am looking over Loudon's "Arboretum," which we have
added to our library, and it occurs to me that it was written
expressly for you, and that you cannot avoid placing it on your own
shelves.

I should have been glad to see the whale, and might perhaps have done
so, if I had not at that time been seeing "the elephant" (or moose) in
the Maine woods. I have been associating for about a month with one
Joseph Polis, the chief man of the Penobscot tribe of Indians, and
have learned a great deal from him, which I should like to tell you
some time.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, August 18, 1857.

DEAR SIR,--Your Wilson Flagg[80] seems a serious person, and it is
encouraging to hear of a contemporary who recognizes Nature so
squarely, and selects such a theme as "Barns." (I would rather "Mount
Auburn" were omitted.) But he is not alert enough. He wants stirring
up with a pole. He should practice turning a series of somersets
rapidly or jump up and see how many times he can strike his feet
together before coming down. Let him make the earth turn round now the
other way, and whet his wits on it, whichever way it goes, as on a
grindstone; in short, see how many ideas he can entertain at once.

His style, as I remember, is singularly vague (I refer to the book),
and, before I got to the end of the sentences, I was off the track. If
you indulge in long periods, you must be sure to have a snapper at the
end. As for style of writing, if one has anything to say, it drops
from him simply and directly, as a stone falls to the ground. There
are no two ways about it, but down it comes, and he may stick in the
points and stops wherever he can get a chance. New ideas come into
this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an
explosion, and perhaps somebody's castle-roof perforated. To try to
polish the stone in its descent, to give it a peculiar turn, and make
it whistle a tune, perchance, would be of no use, if it were possible.
Your polished stuff turns out not to be meteoric, but of this earth.
However, there is plenty of time, and Nature is an admirable
schoolmistress.

Speaking of correspondence, you ask me if I "cannot turn over a new
leaf in that line." I certainly could if I were to receive it; but
just then I looked up and saw that your page was dated "May 10,"
though mailed in August, and it occurred to me that I had seen you
since that date this year. Looking again, it appeared that your note
was written in '56!! However, it was a _new_ leaf to me, and I _turned
it over_ with as much interest as if it had been written the day
before. Perhaps you kept it so long in order that the manuscript and
subject-matter might be more in keeping with the old-fashioned paper
on which it was written.

I traveled the length of Cape Cod on foot, soon after you were here,
and, within a few days, have returned from the wilds of Maine, where I
have made a journey of three hundred and twenty-five miles with a
canoe and an Indian, and a single white companion,--Edward Hoar, Esq.,
of this town, lately from California,--traversing the head waters of
the Kennebec, Penobscot, and St. John.

Can't you extract any advantage out of that depression of spirits you
refer to? It suggests to me cider-mills, wine-presses, etc., etc. All
kinds of pressure or power should be used and made to turn some kind
of machinery.

Channing was just leaving Concord for Plymouth when I arrived, but
said he should be here again in two or three days.

Please remember me to your family, and say that I have at length
learned to sing "Tom Bowlin" according to the notes.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, September 9, 1857.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I thank you for your kind invitation to visit you,
but I have taken so many vacations this year,--at New Bedford, Cape
Cod, and Maine,--that any more relaxation--call it rather
dissipation--will cover me with shame and disgrace. I have not earned
what I have already enjoyed. As some heads cannot carry much wine, so
it would seem that I cannot bear so much society as you can. I have an
immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I
don't get enough of it this year, I shall cry all the next.

My mother's house is full at present; but if it were not, I would
have no right to invite you hither, while entertaining such designs as
I have hinted at. However, if you care to storm the town, I will
engage to take some afternoon walks with you,--retiring into
profoundest solitude the most sacred part of the day.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ricketson had written to invite Thoreau to visit him again, saying
among other things, "Walton's small sailboat is now on Assawampset
Pond." After visiting Concord that autumn, he proposed another visit
in December, saying (December 11, 1857), "I long to see your long
beard. Channing says it is terrible to behold, but improves you
mightily." This fixes the date, late in that year, when Thoreau first
wore his full beard, as shown in his latest portraits.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, August 18, 1857.

MR. BLAKE,--Fifteenthly. It seems to me that you need some absorbing
pursuit. It does not matter much what it is, so it be honest. Such
employment will be favorable to your development in more
characteristic and important directions. You know there must be
impulse enough for steerageway, though it be not toward your port, to
prevent your drifting helplessly on to rocks or shoals. Some sails are
set for this purpose only. There is the large fleet of scholars and
men of science, for instance, always to be seen standing off and on
every coast, and saved thus from running on to reefs, who will at last
run into their proper haven, we trust.

It is a pity you were not here with Brown and Wiley. I think that in
this case, _for a rarity_, the more the merrier.

You perceived that I did not entertain the idea of our going together
to Maine on such an excursion as I had planned. The more I thought of
it, the more imprudent it appeared to me. I did think to have written
you before going, though not to propose your going also; but I went at
last very suddenly, and could only have written a business letter, if
I had tried, when there was no business to be accomplished. I have now
returned, and think I have had a quite profitable journey, chiefly
from associating with an intelligent Indian. My companion, Edward
Hoar, also found his account in it, though he suffered considerably
from being obliged to carry unusual loads over wet and rough
"carries,"--in one instance five miles through a swamp, where the
water was frequently up to our knees, and the fallen timber higher
than our heads. He went over the ground three times, not being able to
carry all his load at once. This prevented his ascending Ktaadn. Our
best nights were those when it rained the hardest, on account of the
mosquitoes. I speak of these things, which were not unexpected, merely
to account for my not inviting you.

Having returned, I flatter myself that the world appears in some
respects a little larger, and not, as usual, smaller and shallower,
for having extended my range. I have made a short excursion into the
new world which the Indian dwells in, or is. He begins where we leave
off. It is worth the while to detect new faculties in man,--he is so
much the more divine; and anything that fairly excites our admiration
expands us. The Indian, who can find his way so wonderfully in the
woods, possesses so much intelligence which the white man does
not,--and it increases my own capacity, as well as faith, to observe
it. I rejoice to find that intelligence flows in other channels than I
knew. It redeems for me portions of what seemed brutish before.

It is a great satisfaction to find that your oldest convictions are
permanent. With regard to essentials, I have never had occasion to
change my mind. The aspect of the world varies from year to year, as
the landscape is differently clothed, but I find that the _truth_ is
still _true_, and I never regret any emphasis which it may have
inspired. Ktaadn is there still, but much more surely my old
conviction is there, resting with more than mountain breadth and
weight on the world, the source still of fertilizing streams, and
affording glorious views from its summit, if I can get up to it again.
As the mountains still stand on the plain, and far more unchangeable
and permanent,--stand still grouped around, farther or nearer to my
maturer eye, the ideas which I have entertained,--the everlasting
teats from which we draw our nourishment.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, November 16, 1857.

MR. BLAKE,--You have got the start again. It was I that owed you a
letter or two, if I mistake not.

They make a great ado nowadays about hard times;[81] but I think that
the community generally, ministers and all, take a wrong view of the
matter, though some of the ministers preaching according to a formula
may pretend to take a right one. This general failure, both private
and public, is rather occasion for rejoicing, as reminding us whom we
have at the helm,--that justice is always done. If our merchants did
not most of them fail, and the banks too, my faith in the old laws of
the world would be staggered. The statement that ninety-six in a
hundred doing such business surely break down is perhaps the sweetest
fact that statistics have revealed,--exhilarating as the fragrance of
sallows in spring. Does it not say somewhere, "The Lord reigneth, let
the earth rejoice"? If thousands are thrown out of employment, it
suggests that they were not well employed. Why don't they take the
hint? It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are
you industrious about?

The merchants and company have long laughed at transcendentalism,
higher laws, etc., crying, "None of your moonshine," as if they were
anchored to something not only definite, but sure and permanent. If
there was any institution which was presumed to rest on a solid and
secure basis, and more than any other represented this boasted common
sense, prudence, and practical talent, it was the bank; and now those
very banks are found to be mere reeds shaken by the wind. Scarcely one
in the land has kept its promise.... It would seem as if you only need
live forty years in any age of this world, to see its most promising
government become the government of Kansas, and banks nowhere. Not
merely the Brook Farm and Fourierite communities, but now the
community generally has failed. But there is the moonshine still,
serene, beneficent, and unchanged. Hard times, I say, have this value,
among others, that they show us what such promises are worth,--where
the _sure_ banks are. I heard some Mr. Eliot praised the other day
because he had paid some of his debts, though it took nearly all he
had (why, I've done as much as that myself many times, and a little
more), and then gone to board. What if he has? I hope he's got a good
boarding-place, and can pay for it. It's not everybody that can.
However, in my opinion, it is cheaper to keep house,--_i. e._, if you
don't keep too big a one.

Men will tell you sometimes that "money's hard." That shows it was not
made to eat, I say. Only think of a man in this new world, in his log
cabin, in the midst of a corn and potato patch, with a sheepfold on
one side, talking about money being hard! So are flints hard; there is
no alloy in them. What has that got to do with his raising his food,
cutting his wood (or breaking it), keeping indoors when it rains, and,
if need be, spinning and weaving his clothes? Some of those who sank
with the steamer the other day found out that money was _heavy_ too.
Think of a man's priding himself on this kind of wealth, as if it
greatly enriched him. As if one struggling in mid-ocean with a bag of
gold on his back should gasp out, "I am worth a hundred thousand
dollars." I see them struggling just as ineffectually on dry land,
nay, even more hopelessly, for, in the former case, rather than sink,
they will finally let the bag go; but in the latter they are pretty
sure to hold and go down with it. I see them swimming about in their
greatcoats, collecting their rents, really _getting their dues_,
drinking bitter draughts which only increase their thirst, becoming
more and more water-logged, till finally they sink plumb down to the
bottom. But enough of this.

Have you ever read Ruskin's books? If not, I would recommend [you] to
try the second and third volumes (not parts) of his "Modern Painters."
I am now reading the fourth, and have read most of his other books
lately. They are singularly good and encouraging, though not without
crudeness and bigotry. The themes in the volumes referred to are
Infinity, Beauty, Imagination, Love of Nature, etc.,--all treated in a
very living manner. I am rather surprised by them. It is remarkable
that these things should be said with reference to painting chiefly,
rather than literature. The "Seven Lamps of Architecture," too, is
made of good stuff; but, as I remember, there is too much about art in
it for me and the Hottentots. We want to know about matters and things
in general. Our house is as yet a hut.

You must have been enriched by your solitary walk over the mountains.
I suppose that I feel the same awe when on their summits that many do
on entering a church. To see what kind of earth that is on which you
have a house and garden somewhere, perchance! It is equal to the lapse
of many years. You must ascend a mountain to learn your relation to
matter, and so to your own body, for _it_ is at home there, though
_you_ are not. It might have been composed there, and will have no
farther to go to return to dust there, than in your garden; but your
spirit inevitably comes away, and brings your body with it, if it
lives. Just as awful really, and as glorious, is your garden. See how
I can play with my fingers! They are the funniest companions I have
ever found. Where did they come from? What strange control I have over
them! _Who_ am I? What are they?--those little peaks--call them
Madison, Jefferson, Lafayette. What is _the matter_? _My_ fingers, do
I say? Why, ere long, they may form the topmost crystal of Mount
Washington. I go up there to see my body's cousins. There are some
fingers, toes, bowels, etc., that I take an interest in, and therefore
I am interested in all their relations.

Let me suggest a theme for you: to state to yourself precisely and
completely what that walk over the mountains amounted to for
you,--returning to this essay again and again, until you are satisfied
that all that was important in your experience is in it. Give this
good reason to yourself for having gone over the mountains, for
mankind is ever going over a mountain. Don't suppose that you can tell
it precisely the first dozen times you try, but at 'em again,
especially where, after a sufficient pause, you suspect that you are
touching the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows
there, and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that the story
need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. It did
not take very long to get over the mountain, you thought; but have you
got over it indeed? If you have been to the top of Mount Washington,
let me ask, what did you find there? That is the way they prove
witnesses, you know. Going up there and being blown on is nothing. We
never do much climbing while we are there, but we eat our luncheon,
etc., very much as at home. It is after we get home that we really go
over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the
mountain do?

I keep a mountain anchored off eastward a little way, which I ascend
in my dreams both awake and asleep. Its broad base spreads over a
village or two, which does not know it; neither does it know them, nor
do I when I ascend it. I can see its general outline as plainly now in
my mind as that of Wachusett. I do not invent in the least, but state
exactly what I see. I find that I go up it when I am light-footed and
earnest. It ever smokes like an altar with its sacrifice. I am not
aware that a single villager frequents it or knows of it. I keep this
mountain to ride instead of a horse.

Do you not mistake about seeing Moosehead Lake from Mount Washington?
That must be about one hundred and twenty miles distant, or nearly
twice as far as the Atlantic, which last some doubt if they can see
thence. Was it not Umbagog?

Dr. Solger[82] has been lecturing in the vestry in this town on
Geography, to Sanborn's scholars, for several months past, at five P.
M. Emerson and Alcott have been to hear him. I was surprised when the
former asked me, the other day, if I was not going to hear Dr. Solger.
What, to be sitting in a meeting-house cellar at that time of day,
when you might possibly be outdoors! I never thought of such a thing.
What was the sun made for? If he does not prize daylight, I do. Let
him lecture to owls and dormice. He must be a wonderful lecturer
indeed who can keep me indoors at such an hour, when the night is
coming in which no man can walk.

Are you in want of amusement nowadays? Then play a little at the game
of getting a living. There never was anything equal to it. Do it
temperately, though, and don't sweat. Don't let this secret out, for I
have a design against the Opera. OPERA!! Pass along the exclamations,
devil.[83]

Now is the time to become conversant with your wood-pile (this comes
under Work for the Month), and be sure you put some warmth into it by
your mode of getting it. Do not consent to be passively warmed. An
intense degree of that is the hotness that is threatened. But a
positive warmth within can withstand the fiery furnace, as the vital
heat of a living man can withstand the heat that cooks meat.

       *       *       *       *       *

After returning from the last of his three expeditions to the Maine
woods (in 1846, 1853, and 1857), Thoreau was appealed to by his friend
Higginson, then living in Worcester, for information concerning a
proposed excursion from Worcester into Maine and Canada, then but
little visited by tourists, who now go there in droves. He replied in
this long letter, with its minute instructions and historical
references. The Arnold mentioned is General Benedict Arnold, who in
1775-76 made a toilsome march through the Maine forest with a small
New England army for the conquest of Canada, while young John Thoreau,
Henry's grandfather, was establishing himself as a merchant in Boston
(not yet evacuated by British troops), previous to his marriage with
Jane Burns.


TO T. W. HIGGINSON (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, January 28, 1858.

DEAR SIR,--It would be perfectly practicable to go to the Madawaska
the way you propose. As for the route to Quebec, I do not find the
Sugar Loaf Mountains on my maps. The most direct and regular way, as
you know, is substantially Montresor's and Arnold's and the younger
John Smith's--by the Chaudière; but this is less wild. If your object
is to see the St. Lawrence River below Quebec, you will probably
strike it at the Rivière du Loup. (_Vide_ Hodge's account of his
excursion thither _via_ the Allegash,--I believe it is the second
Report on the Geology of the Public Lands of Maine and Massachusetts
in '37.) I think that our Indian last summer, when we talked of going
to the St. Lawrence, named another route, near the Madawaska,--perhaps
the St. Francis,--which would save the long portage which Hodge made.

I do not know whether you think of ascending the St. Lawrence in a
canoe; but if you should, you might be delayed not only by the
current, but by the waves, which frequently run too high for a canoe
on such a mighty stream. It would be a grand excursion to go to Quebec
by the Chaudière, descend the St. Lawrence to the Rivière du Loup, and
return by the Madawaska and St. John to Fredericton, or
farther,--almost all the way _down-stream_--a very important
consideration.

I went to Moosehead in company with a party of four who were going
a-hunting down the Allegash and St. John, and thence by some other
stream over into the Restigouche, and down that to the Bay of
Chaleur,--to be gone six weeks. Our northern terminus was an island in
Heron Lake on the Allegash. (_Vide_ Colton's railroad and township map
of Maine.)

The Indian proposed that we should return to Bangor by the St. John
and Great Schoodic Lake, which we had thought of ourselves; and he
showed us on the map where we should be each night. It was then noon,
and the next day night, continuing down the Allegash, we should have
been at the Madawaska settlements, having made only one or two
portages; and thereafter, on the St. John there would be but one or
two more falls, with short carries; and if there was not too much
wind, we could go down that stream one hundred miles a day. It is
settled all the way below Madawaska. He knew the route well. He even
said that this was easier, and would take but little more time, though
much farther, than the route we decided on,--_i. e._, by Webster
Stream, the East Branch, and main Penobscot to Oldtown; but he may
have wanted a longer job. We preferred the latter, not only because it
was shorter, but because, as he said, it was wilder.

We went about three hundred and twenty-five miles with the canoe
(including sixty miles of stage between Bangor and Oldtown); were out
twelve nights, and spent about $40 apiece,--which was more than was
necessary. We paid the Indian, who was a very good one, $1.50 per day
and 50 cents a week for his canoe. This is enough in ordinary seasons.
I had formerly paid $2 for an Indian and for white batteau-men.

If you go to Madawaska in a leisurely manner, supposing no delay on
account of rain or the violence of the wind, you may reach Mt. Kineo
by noon, and have the afternoon to explore it. The next day you may
get to the head of the lake before noon, make the portage of two and a
half miles over a wooden railroad, and drop down the Penobscot half a
dozen miles. The third morning you will perhaps walk half a mile about
Pine Stream Falls, while the Indian runs down,--cross the head of
Chesuncook, reach the junction of the Caucomgomock and Umbazookskus by
noon, and ascend the latter to Umbazookskus Lake that night. If it is
low water, you may have to walk and carry a little on the Umbazookskus
before entering the lake. The fourth morning you will make the carry
of two miles to Mud Pond (Allegash water),--and a very wet carry it
is,--and reach Chamberlain Lake by noon, and Heron Lake, perhaps, that
night, after a couple of very short carries at the outlet of
Chamberlain. At the end of two days more you will probably be at
Madawaska. Of course the Indian _can_ paddle twice as far in a day as
he commonly does.

Perhaps you would like a few more details. We used (three of us)
exactly twenty-six pounds of hard bread, fourteen pounds of pork,
three pounds of coffee, twelve pounds of sugar (and could have used
more), besides a little tea, Indian meal, and rice,--and plenty of
berries and moose-meat. This was faring very luxuriously. I had not
formerly carried coffee, sugar, or rice. But for solid food, I decide
that it is not worth the while to carry anything but hard bread and
pork, whatever your tastes and habits may be. These wear best, and you
have no time nor dishes in which to cook anything else. Of course you
will take a little Indian meal to fry fish in; and half a dozen lemons
also, if you have sugar, will be very refreshing,--for the water is
warm.[84]

To save time, the sugar, coffee, tea, salt, etc., should be in
separate water-tight bags, labeled, and tied with a leathern string;
and all the provisions and blankets should be put into two large
india-rubber bags, if you can find them water-tight. Ours were not. A
four-quart tin pail makes a good kettle for all purposes, and tin
plates are portable and convenient. Don't forget an india-rubber
knapsack, with a large flap,--plenty of dish-cloths, old newspapers,
strings, and twenty-five feet of strong cord. Of india-rubber
clothing, the most you can wear, if any, is a very light coat,--and
that you cannot work in. I could be more particular,--but perhaps have
been too much so already.


TO MARSTON WATSON (AT PLYMOUTH).

     CONCORD, April 25, 1858.

DEAR SIR,--Your unexpected gift of pear trees reached me yesterday in
good condition, and I spent the afternoon in giving them a good
setting out; but I fear that this cold weather may hurt them. However,
I am inclined to think they are insured, since you have looked on
them. It makes one's mouth water to read their names only. From what I
hear of the extent of your bounty, if a reasonable part of the trees
succeed, this transplanting will make a new era for Concord to date
from.

Mine must be a lucky star, for day before yesterday I received a box
of mayflowers from Brattleboro, and yesterday morning your pear trees,
and at evening a hummingbird's nest from Worcester. This looks like
fairy housekeeping.

I discovered two new plants in Concord last winter, the Labrador tea
(_Ledum latifolium_), and yew (_Taxis baccata_).

By the way, in January I communicated with Dr. Durkee, whose report on
glow-worms I sent you, and it appeared, as I expected, that he (and by
his account Agassiz, Gould, Jackson, and others to whom he showed
them) did not consider them a distinct species, but a variety of the
common, or _Lampyris noctiluca_, some of which you got in Lincoln.
Durkee, at least, has never seen the last. I told him that I had no
doubt about their being a distinct species. His, however, were
luminous throughout every part of the body, as those which you sent me
were not, while I had them.

Is nature as full of vigor to your eyes as ever, or do you detect some
falling off at last? Is the mystery of the hog's bristle cleared up,
and with it that of our life? It is the question, to the exclusion of
every other interest.

I am sorry to hear of the burning of your woods, but, thank Heaven,
your great ponds and your sea cannot be burnt. I love to think of your
warm, sandy wood-roads, and your breezy island out in the sea. What a
prospect you can get every morning from the hilltop east of your
house![85] I think that even the heathen that I am could say, or
sing, or dance, morning prayers there of some kind.

Please remember me to Mrs. Watson, and to the rest of your family who
are helping the sun shine yonder.

       *       *       *       *       *

Of his habits in mountain-climbing, Channing says:[86] "He ascended
such hills as Monadnoc by his own path; would lay down his map on the
summit and draw a line to the point he proposed to visit
below,--perhaps forty miles away on the landscape, and set off bravely
to make the 'short-cut.' The lowland people wondered to see him
scaling the heights as if he had lost his way, or at his jumping over
their cow-yard fences,--asking if he had fallen from the clouds. In a
walk like this he always carried his umbrella; and on this Monadnoc
trip, when about a mile from the station [in Troy, N. H.], a torrent
of rain came down; without the umbrella his books, blankets, maps, and
provisions would all have been spoiled, or the morning lost by delay.
On the mountain there being a thick, soaking fog, the first object was
to camp and make tea. He spent five nights in camp, having built
another hut, to get varied views. Flowers, birds, lichens, and the
rocks were carefully examined, all parts of the mountain were visited,
and as accurate a map as could be made by pocket compass was
carefully sketched and drawn out, in the five days spent there,--with
notes of the striking aerial phenomena, incidents of travel and
natural history. The outlook across the valley over to Wachusett, with
its thunder-storms and battles in the cloud; the farmers' back-yards
in Jaffrey, where the family cotton can be seen bleaching on the
grass, but no trace of the pigmy family; the dry, soft air all night,
the lack of dew in the morning; the want of water,--a pint being a
good deal,--these, and similar things make up some part of such an
excursion."

The Monadnock excursion above mentioned began June 3d, and continued
three days. It inspired Thoreau to take a longer mountain tour with
his neighbor and friend Edward Hoar, to which these letters relate,
giving the ways and means of the journey,--a memorable one to all
concerned.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, June 29, 1858, 8 A. M.

MR. BLAKE,--Edward Hoar and I propose to start for the White Mountains
in a covered wagon, with one horse, on the morning of Thursday the 1st
of July, intending to explore the mountain-tops botanically, and camp
on them at least several times. Will you take a seat in the wagon with
us? Mr. Hoar prefers to hire the horse and wagon himself. Let us hear
by express, as soon as you can, whether you will join us here by the
earliest train on Thursday morning, or Wednesday night. Bring your map
of the mountains, and as much _provision_ for the road as you
can,--hard bread, sugar, tea, meat, etc.,--for we intend to live like
gipsies; also, a blanket and some thick clothes for the mountain-top.

       *       *       *       *       *

July 1st. Last Monday evening Mr. Edward Hoar said that he thought of
going to the White Mountains. I remarked casually that I should like
to go well enough if I could afford it. Whereupon he declared that if
I would go with him, he would hire a horse and wagon, so that the ride
would cost me nothing, and we would explore the mountain-tops
_botanically_, camping on them many nights. The next morning I
suggested you and Brown's accompanying us in another wagon, and we
could all camp and cook, gipsy-like, along the way,--or, perhaps, if
the horse could draw us, you would like to bear half the expense of
the horse and wagon, and take a seat with us. He liked either
proposition, but said that if you would take a seat with us, he would
prefer to hire the horse and wagon himself. You could contribute
something else if you pleased. Supposing that Brown would be confined,
I wrote to you accordingly, by _express_ on Tuesday morning, _via_
Boston, stating that we should start to-day, suggesting provision,
thick clothes, etc., and asking for an answer; but I have not received
one. I have just heard that you _may_ be at Sterling, and now write to
say that we shall still be glad if you will join us at Senter Harbor,
where we expect to be next Monday morning. In any case, will you
please direct a letter to us there _at once_?


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, June 30, 1858.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I am on the point of starting for the White
Mountains in a wagon with my neighbor Edward Hoar, and I write to you
now rather to apologize for not writing, than to answer worthily your
three notes. I thank you heartily for them. You will not care for a
little delay in acknowledging them, since your date shows that you can
afford to wait. Indeed, my head has been so full of company, etc.,
that I could not reply to you fitly before, nor can I now.

As for preaching to men these days in the Walden strain, is it of any
consequence to preach to an audience of men who _can_ fail, or who can
be _revived_? There are few beside. Is it any success to interest these
parties? If a man has _speculated_ and _failed_, he will probably do
these things again, in spite of you or me. I confess that it is rare
that I rise to sentiment in my relations to men,--ordinarily to a mere
patient, or may be wholesome, good-will. I can imagine something more,
but the truth compels me to regard the ideal and the actual as two
things.

Channing has come, and as suddenly gone, and left a short poem, "Near
Home," published (?) or printed by Munroe, which I have hardly had
time to glance at. As you may guess, I learn nothing of you from him.

You already foresee my answer to your invitation to make you a summer
visit: I am bound for the mountains. But I trust that you have
vanquished, ere this, those dusky demons that seem to lurk around the
Head of the River.[87] You know that this warfare is nothing but a
kind of nightmare, and it is our thoughts alone which give those
_un_worthies any body or existence.

I made an excursion with Blake, of Worcester, to Monadnock, a few
weeks since. We took our blankets and food, spent two nights on the
mountain, and did not go into a house.

Alcott has been very busy for a long time repairing an old shell of a
house, and I have seen very little of him.[88] I have looked more at
the houses which birds build. Watson made us all very generous
presents from his nursery in the spring. Especially did he remember
Alcott.

Excuse me for not writing any more at present, and remember me to your
family.

       *       *       *       *       *

In explanation of the next letter (October 31, 1858), it may be said
that Ricketson had formed a plan for visiting Europe, which he gave
up, and had recommended an "English Australian" who proposed to see
Concord. In Thoreau's reply, he mentions Mr. Hoar, who was not only
his companion in later journeys, but, while in college or the Harvard
Law School, had assisted Thoreau in that accidental forest fire,
mentioned in the Journal, which brought both the young men into much
disrepute among the Concord farmers and owners of wood-lots. At the
date of the letter, Channing was flitting between New Bedford and
Concord, and soon returned to spend the rest of his days in Thoreau's
town, where he died, December 23, 1901, the last survivor of the group
of friends to whom these letters relate.

In July, 1858, as mentioned in this letter to Mr. Ricketson, Thoreau
journeyed from Concord to the White Mountains, first visited with his
brother John in 1839. His later companion was Edward Hoar, a botanist
and lover of nature, who had been a magistrate in California, and in
boyhood a comrade of Thoreau in shooting excursions on the Concord
meadows. They journeyed in a wagon and Thoreau disliked the loss of
independence in choice of camping-places involved in the care of a
horse. He complained also of the magnificent inns ("mountain houses")
that had sprung up in the passes and on the plateaus since his first
visit. "Give me," he said, "a spruce house made in the rain," such as
he and Channing afterward (1860) made on Monadnock in his last trip to
that mountain. The chief exploit in the White Mountain trip was a
visit to Tuckerman's Ravine on Mt. Washington, of which Mr. Hoar, some
years before his death (in 1893), gave me an account, containing the
true anecdote of Thoreau's finding the arnica plant when he needed it.

On their way to this rather inaccessible chasm, Thoreau and his
comrade went first to what was then but a small tavern on the
"tip-top" of Mt. Washington. It was a foggy day; and when the landlord
was asked if he could furnish a guide to Tuckerman's Ravine, he
replied, "Yes, my brother is the guide; but if he went to-day he could
never find his way back in this fog." "Well," said Thoreau, "if we
cannot have a guide we will find it ourselves;" and he at once
produced a map he had made the day before at a roadside inn, where he
had found a wall map of the mountain region, and climbed on a table to
copy that portion he needed. With this map and his pocket compass he
"struck a bee-line," said Mr. Hoar, for the ravine, and soon came to
it, about a mile away. They went safely down the steep stairs into the
chasm, where they found the midsummer iceberg they wished to see. But
as they walked down the bed of the Peabody River, flowing from this
ravine, over boulders five or six feet high, the heavy packs on their
shoulders weighed them down, and finally, Thoreau's foot slipping, he
fell and sprained his ankle. He rose, but had not limped five steps
from the place where he fell, when he said, "Here is the arnica,
anyhow,"--reached out his hand and plucked the _Arnica mollis_, which
he had not before found anywhere. Before reaching the mountains they
had marked in their botany books forty-six species of plants they
hoped to find there, and before they came away they had found
forty-two of them.

When they reached their camping-place, farther down, Thoreau was so
lame he could not move about, and lay there in the camp several days,
eating the pork and other supplies they had in their packs, Mr. Hoar
going each day to the inn at the mountain summit. This camp was in a
thicket of dwarf firs at the foot of the ravine, where, just before
his accident, by carelessness in lighting a fire, some acres of the
mountain woodland had been set on fire; but this proved to be the
signal for which Thoreau had told his Worcester friends to watch, if
they wished to join him on the mountain. "I had told Blake," says
Thoreau in his Journal, "to look out for a smoke and a white tent. We
had made a smoke sure enough. We slept five in the tent that night,
and found it quite warm." Mr. Hoar added: "In this journey Thoreau
insisted on our carrying heavy packs, and rather despised persons who
complained of the burden. He was chagrined, in the Maine woods, to
find his Indian, Joe Polis (whom, on the whole, he admired), excited
and tremulous at sight of a moose, so that he could scarcely load his
gun properly. Joe, who was a good Catholic, wanted us to stop
traveling on Sunday and hold a meeting; and when we insisted on going
forward, the Indian withdrew into the woods to say his prayers,--then
came back and picked up the breakfast things, and we paddled on. As to
Thoreau's courage and manliness, nobody who had seen him among the
Penobscot rocks and rapids--the Indian trusting his life and his canoe
to Henry's skill, promptitude, and nerve--would ever doubt it."

Channing says:[89] "In his later journeys, if his companion was
footsore or loitered, he steadily pursued his road. Once, when a
follower was done up with headache and incapable of motion, hoping his
associate would comfort him and perhaps afford him a sip of tea, he
said, 'There are people who are sick in that way every morning, and go
about their affairs,' and then marched off about his. In such limits,
so inevitable, was he compacted.... This tone of mind grew out of no
insensibility; or, if he sometimes looked coldly on the suffering of
more tender natures, he sympathized with their afflictions, but could
do nothing to admire them. He would not injure a plant unnecessarily.
At the time of the John Brown tragedy, Thoreau was driven sick. So the
country's misfortunes in the Union war acted on his feelings with
great force: he used to say he 'could never recover while the war
lasted.'" Hawthorne had an experience somewhat similar, though he,
too, was of stern stuff when need was, and had much of the old Salem
sea-captains in his sensitive nature.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, October 31, 1858.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I have not seen anything of your English author
yet. Edward Hoar, my companion in Maine and at the White Mountains,
his sister Elizabeth, and a Miss Prichard, another neighbor of ours,
went to Europe in the Niagara on the 6th. I told them to look out for
you under the Yardley Oak, but it seems they will not find you there.

I had a pleasant time in Tuckerman's Ravine at the White Mountains in
July, entertaining four beside myself under my little tent through
some soaking rains; and more recently I have taken an interesting walk
with Channing about Cape Ann. We were obliged to "dipper it" a good
way, on account of the scarcity of fresh water, for we got most of our
meals by the shore. Channing is understood to be here for the winter,
but I rarely see him.

I should be pleased to see your face here in the course of the Indian
summer, which may still be expected, if any authority can tell us when
that phenomenon _does_ occur. We would like to hear the story of your
travels; for if you have not been fairly intoxicated with Europe, you
have been half-seas-over, and so can probably tell more about it.

       *       *       *       *       *

This alludes to the fact that Ricketson got as far as Halifax in his
attempt at Europe; and in his reply (November 3, 1858) he gave Thoreau
an account of his short voyage, on which the next letter comments.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, November 6, 1858.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I was much pleased with your lively and lifelike
account of your voyage. You were more than repaid for your trouble
after all. The coast of Nova Scotia, which you sailed along from
Windsor westward, is particularly interesting to the historian of
this country, having been settled earlier than Plymouth. Your "Isle of
Haut" is properly "Isle Haute," or the High Island of Champlain's map.
There is another off the coast of Maine. By the way, the American elk
of _American authors_ (_Cervus Canadensis_) is a distinct animal from
the moose (_Cervus alces_), though the latter is called elk by many.

You drew a very vivid portrait of the Australian,--short and stout,
with a pipe in his mouth, and his book inspired by beer, Pot First,
Pot Second, etc. I suspect that he must be potbellied withal. Methinks
I see the smoke going up from him as from a cottage on the moor. If he
does not quench his genius with his beer, it may burst into a clear
flame at last. However, perhaps he intentionally adopts the low style.

What do you mean by that ado about smoking, and my "purer tastes"? I
should like his pipe as well as his beer at least. Neither of them is
so bad as to be "highly connected," which you say he is,
unfortunately. No! I expect nothing but pleasure in "smoke from _your_
pipe."

You and the Australian must have put your heads together when you
concocted those titles,--with pipes in your mouths over a pot of beer.
I suppose that your chapters are, Whiff the First, Whiff the Second,
etc. But of course it is a more modest expression for "Fire from my
Genius."

You must have been very busy since you came back, or before you
sailed, to have brought out your History, of whose publication I had
not heard. I suppose that I have read it in the _Mercury_. Yet I am
curious to see how it looks in a volume, with your name on the
title-page.

I am more curious still about the poems. Pray put some sketches into
the book: your shanty for frontispiece; Arthur and Walton's boat (if
you can) running for Cuttyhunk in a tremendous gale; not forgetting
"Be honest boys," etc., near by; the Middleborough ponds with a
certain island looming in the distance; the Quaker meeting-house, and
the Brady house, if you like; the villagers catching smelts with
dip-nets in the twilight, at the Head of the River, etc., etc. Let it
be a local and villageous book as much as possible. Let some one make
a characteristic selection of mottoes from your shanty walls, and
sprinkle them in an irregular manner, at all angles, over the
fly-leaves and margins, as a man stamps his name in a hurry; and also
canes, pipes, and jackknives, of all your patterns, about the
frontispiece. I can think of plenty of devices for tail-pieces.
Indeed, I should like to see a hair pillow, accurately drawn, for one;
a cat, with a bell on, for another; the old horse, with his age
printed in the hollow of his back; half a cocoanut-shell by a spring;
a sheet of blotted paper; a settle occupied by a settler at full
length, etc., etc., etc. Call all the arts to your aid.

Don't wait for the Indian summer, but bring it with you.

P. S.--Let me ask a favor. I am trying to write something about the
autumnal tints, and I wish to know how much our trees differ from
English and European ones in this respect. Will you observe, or learn
for me, what English or European trees, if any, still retain their
leaves in Mr. Arnold's garden (the gardener will supply the true
names); and also if the foliage of any (and what) European or foreign
trees there have been brilliant the past month. If you will do this
you will greatly oblige me. I return the newspaper with this.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, November 22, 1858.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I thank you for your "History."[90] Though I have
not yet read it again, I have looked far enough to see that I like the
homeliness of it; that is, the good, old-fashioned way of writing, as
if you actually lived where you wrote. A man's interest in a single
bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and
flora of a town. It is also a considerable advantage to be able to say
at any time, "If D. R. is not here, here is his book." Alcott being
here, and inquiring after you (whom he has been expecting), I lent the
book to him almost immediately. He talks of going West the latter part
of this week. Channing is here again, as I am told, but I have not
seen him.

I thank you also for the account of the trees. It was to my purpose,
and I hope you got something out of it too. I suppose that the cold
weather prevented your coming here. Suppose you try a winter walk on
skates. Please remember me to your family.

       *       *       *       *       *

Late in November, 1858, Cholmondeley, who had not written for a year
and six months, suddenly notified Thoreau from Montreal that he was in
Canada, and would visit Concord the next week. Accordingly he arrived
early in December, and urged his friend to go with him to the West
Indies. John Thoreau, the father, was then in his last illness, and
for that and other reasons Thoreau could not accept the invitation;
but he detained Cholmondeley in Concord some days, and took him to New
Bedford, December 8th, having first written this note to Mr.
Ricketson:--

"Thomas Cholmondeley, my English acquaintance, is here, on his way to
the West Indies. He wants to see New Bedford, a whaling town. I tell
him I would like to introduce him to you there,--thinking more of his
seeing you than New Bedford. So we propose to come your way to-morrow.
Excuse this short notice, for the time is short. If on any account it
is inconvenient to see us, you will treat us accordingly."

Of this visit and his English visitor, Mr. Ricketson wrote in his
journal the next day:--

"We were all much pleased with Mr. Cholmondeley. He is a tall spare
man, thirty-five years of age, of fair and fresh complexion, blue
eyes, light-brown and fine hair, nose small and Roman, beard light and
worn full, with a mustache. A man of fine culture and refinement of
manners, educated at Oriel College, Oxford, of an old Cheshire family
by his father, a clergyman. He wore a black velvet sack coat, and
lighter-colored trousers,--a sort of genteel traveling suit; perhaps a
cap, but by no means a fashionable 'castor.' He reminded me of our
dear friend, George William Curtis." Few greater compliments could
this diarist give than to compare a visitor to Curtis, the lamented.

Mr. Cholmondeley left Concord for the South, going as far as to
Virginia, in December and January; then came back to Concord the 20th
of January, 1859, and after a few days returned to Canada, and thence
to England by way of Jamaica. He was in London when Theodore Parker
reached there from Santa Cruz, in June, and called on him, with offers
of service; but does not seem to have heard of Parker's death till I
wrote him in May, 1861. At my parting with him in Concord, he gave me
money with which to buy grapes for the invalid father of Thoreau,--an
instance of his constant consideration for others; the Thoreaus hardly
affording such luxuries as hothouse grapes for the sick. Sophia
Thoreau, who perhaps was more appreciative of him than her more
stoical brother, said after his death, "We have always had the truest
regard for him, as a person of rare integrity, great benevolence, and
the sincerest friendliness." This well describes the man whose
every-day guise was literally set down by Mr. Ricketson.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, January 1, 1859.

MR. BLAKE,--It may interest you to hear that Cholmondeley has been
this way again, _via_ Montreal and Lake Huron, going to the West
Indies, or rather to Weiss-nicht-wo, whither he urges me to accompany
him. He is rather more demonstrative than before, and, on the whole,
what would be called "a good fellow,"--is a man of principle, and
quite reliable, but very peculiar. I have been to New Bedford with
him, to show him a whaling town and Ricketson. I was glad to hear that
you had called on R. How did you like him? I suspect that you did not
see one another fairly.

I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude, where
we meet our friends continually, and can imagine the outside world
also to be peopled. Yet some of my acquaintance would fain hustle me
into the almshouse for _the sake of society_, as if I were pining for
that diet, when I seem to myself a most befriended man, and find
constant employment. However, they do not believe a word I say. They
have got a club, the handle of which is in the Parker House at Boston,
and with this they beat me from time to time, expecting to make me
tender or minced meat, so fit for a club to dine off.

     "Hercules with his club
     The Dragon did drub;
     But More of More Hall
     With nothing at all,
     He slew the Dragon of Wantley."

Ah! that More of More Hall knew what fair play was. Channing, who
wrote to me about it once, brandishing the club vigorously (being set
on by another, probably), says _now_, seriously, that he is sorry to
find by my letters that I am "absorbed in politics," and adds, begging
my pardon for his plainness, "Beware of an extraneous life!" and so he
does his duty, and washes his hands of me. I tell him that it is as
if he should say to the sloth, that fellow that creeps so slowly along
a tree, and cries _ai_ from time to time, "Beware of dancing!"

The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society.
Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering
at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was
indigestion of the society I got.

As for the Parker House, I went there once, when the Club[91] was
away, but I found it hard to see through the cigar smoke, and men were
deposited about in chairs over the marble floor, as thick as legs of
bacon in a smoke-house. It was all smoke, and no salt, Attic or other.
The only room in Boston which I visit with alacrity is the Gentlemen's
Room at the Fitchburg Depot, where I wait for the cars, sometimes for
two hours, in order to get out of town. It is a paradise to the Parker
House, for no smoking is allowed, and there is far more retirement. A
large and respectable club of us hire it (Town and Country Club), and
I am pretty sure to find some one there whose face is set the same
way as my own.

My last essay, on which I am still engaged, is called "Autumnal
Tints." I do not know how readable (_i. e._, by me to others) it will
be.

I met Mr. James the other night at Emerson's, at an Alcottian
conversation, at which, however, Alcott did not talk much, being
disturbed by James's opposition. The latter is a hearty man enough,
with whom you can differ very satisfactorily, on account of both his
doctrines and his good temper. He utters _quasi_ philanthropic dogmas
in a metaphysic dress; but they are for all practical purposes very
crude. He charges society with all the crime committed, and praises
the criminal for committing it. But I think that all the remedies he
suggests out of his head--for he goes no farther, hearty as he
is--would leave us about where we are now. For, of course, it is not
by a gift of turkeys on Thanksgiving Day that he proposes to convert
the criminal, but by a true sympathy with each one,--with him, among
the rest, who lyingly tells the world from the gallows that he has
never been treated kindly by a single mortal since he was born. But it
is not so easy a thing to sympathize with another, though you may have
the best disposition to do it. There is Dobson over the hill. Have not
you and I and all the world been trying, ever since he was born, to
sympathize with him? (as doubtless he with us), and yet we have got no
farther than to send him to the house of correction once at least; and
he, on the other hand, as I hear, has sent us to another place several
times. This is the real state of things, as I understand it, at least
so far as James's remedies go. We are now, alas! exercising what
charity we actually have, and new laws would not give us any more.
But, perchance, we might make some improvements in the house of
correction. You and I are Dobson; what will James do for us?

Have you found at last in your wanderings a place where the solitude
is sweet?

What mountain are you camping on nowadays? Though I had a good time at
the mountains, I confess that the journey did not bear any fruit that
I know of. I did not expect it would. The mode of it was not simple
and adventurous enough. You must first have made an infinite demand,
and not unreasonably, but after a corresponding outlay, have an
all-absorbing purpose, and at the same time that your feet bear you
hither and thither, travel much more in imagination.

To let the mountains slide,--live at home like a traveler. It should
not be in vain that these things are shown us from day to day. Is not
each withered leaf that I see in my walks something which I have
traveled to find?--traveled, who can tell how far? What a fool he must
be who thinks that his El Dorado is anywhere but where he lives!

We are always, methinks, in some kind of ravine, though our bodies may
walk the smooth streets of Worcester. Our souls (I use this word for
want of a better) are ever perched on its rocky sides, overlooking
that lowland. (What a more than Tuckerman's Ravine is the body itself,
in which the "soul" is encamped, when you come to look into it!
However, eagles always have chosen such places for their eyries.)

Thus is it ever with your fair cities of the plain. Their streets may
be paved with silver and gold, and six carriages roll abreast in them,
but the real _homes_ of the citizens are in the Tuckerman's Ravines
which ray out from that centre into the mountains round about, one
from each man, woman, and child. The masters of life have so ordered
it. That is their _beau-ideal_ of a country-seat. There is no danger
of being _tuckered_ out before you get to it.

So we live in Worcester and in Concord, each man taking his exercise
regularly in his ravine, like a lion in his cage, and sometimes
spraining his ankle there. We have very few clear days, and a great
many small plagues which keep us busy. Sometimes, I suppose, you hear
a neighbor halloo (Brown, maybe) and think it is a bear. Nevertheless,
on the whole, we think it very grand and exhilarating, this ravine
life. It is a capital advantage withal, living so high, the excellent
drainage of that city of God. Routine is but a shallow and
insignificant sort of ravine, such as the ruts are, the conduits of
puddles. But these ravines are the source of mighty streams,
precipitous, icy, savage, as they are, haunted by bears and
loup-cerviers; there are born not only Sacos and Amazons, but prophets
who will redeem the world. The at last smooth and fertilizing water at
which nations drink and navies supply themselves begins with melted
glaciers, and burst thunder-spouts. Let us pray that, if we are not
flowing through some Mississippi valley which we fertilize,--and it is
not likely we are,--we may know ourselves shut in between grim and
mighty mountain walls amid the clouds, falling a thousand feet in a
mile, through dwarfed fir and spruce, over the rocky insteps of
slides, being exercised in our minds, and so developed.

     CONCORD, January 19, 1859.

MR. BLAKE,--If I could have given a favorable report as to the
skating, I should have answered you earlier. About a week before you
wrote there was good skating; there is now none. As for the lecture, I
shall be glad to come. I cannot now say when, but I will let you know,
I think within a week or ten days at most, and will then leave you a
week clear to make the arrangements in. I will bring something else
than "What shall it profit a Man?" My father is very sick, and has
been for a long time, so that there is the more need of me at home.
This occurs to me, even when contemplating so short an excursion as to
Worcester.

I want very much to see or hear your account of your adventures in the
Ravine,[92] and I trust I shall do so when I come to Worcester.
Cholmondeley has been here again, returning from Virginia (for he went
no farther south) to Canada; and will go thence to Europe, he thinks,
in the spring, and never ramble any more. (January 29.) I am expecting
daily that my father will die, therefore I cannot leave home at
present. I will write you again within ten days.

       *       *       *       *       *

The death of John Thoreau (who was born October 8, 1787) occurred
February 3d, and Thoreau gave his lecture on "Autumnal Tints" at
Worcester, February 22, 1859. Mrs. Thoreau survived all her children
except Sophia, and died in 1872.

At his fathers death, Thoreau sent a newspaper announcement of it to
Ricketson, who had already seen it mentioned by Channing in the
_Mercury_. Ricketson at once wrote, to pay his tribute to the
character of the elder Thoreau, saying: "I have rarely met a man who
inspired me with more respect. I remember with pleasure a ramble I
took with him about Concord some two or three years ago, at a time
when you were away from home; on which occasion I was much impressed
with his good sense, his fine social nature, and his genuine
hospitality." Of this remark Thoreau took notice in his interesting
reply.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, 12th February, 1859.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I thank you for your kind letter. I sent you the
notice of my father's death as much because you knew him as because
you knew me. I can hardly realize that he is dead. He had been sick
about two years, and at last declined rather rapidly, though steadily.
Till within a week or ten days before he died he was hoping to see
another spring, but he then discovered that this was a vain
expectation, and, thinking that he was dying, he took his leave of us
several times within a week before his departure. Once or twice he
expressed a slight impatience at the delay. He was quite conscious to
the last, and his death was so easy that, though we had all been
sitting around the bed for an hour or more expecting that event (as we
had sat before), he was gone at last, almost before we were aware of
it.

I am glad to read what you say of his social nature. I think I may say
that he was wholly unpretending; and there was this peculiarity in his
aim, that though he had pecuniary difficulties to contend with the
greater part of his life, he always studied how to make a _good_
article, pencil or other (for he practiced various arts), and was
never satisfied with what he had produced. Nor was he ever disposed in
the least to put off a poor one for the sake of pecuniary gain,--as if
he labored for a higher end.

Though he was not very old, and was not a native of Concord, I think
that he was, on the whole, more identified with Concord street than
any man now alive, having come here when he was about twelve years
old, and set up for himself as a merchant here, at the age of
twenty-one, fifty years ago. As I sat in a circle the other evening
with my mother and sister, my mother's two sisters, and my father's
two sisters, it occurred to me that my father, though seventy-one,
belonged to the youngest four of the eight who recently composed our
family.

How swiftly at last, but unnoticed, a generation passes away! Three
years ago I was called with my father to be a witness to the signing
of our neighbor Mr. Frost's will. Mr. Samuel Hoar, who was there
writing it, also signed it. I was lately required to go to Cambridge
to testify to the genuineness of the will, being the only one of the
four who could be there, and now I am the only one alive.

My mother and sister thank you heartily for your sympathy. The latter,
in particular, agrees with you in thinking that it is communion with
still living and healthy nature alone which can restore to sane and
cheerful views. I thank you for your invitation to New Bedford, but I
feel somewhat confined here for the present.

I did not know but we should see you the day after Alger was here. It
is not too late for a winter walk in Concord. It does me good to hear
of spring birds, and singing ones too,--for spring seems far away from
Concord yet. I am going to Worcester to read a parlor lecture on the
22d, and shall see Blake and Brown. What if you were to meet me there,
or go with me from here? You would see them to good advantage.
Cholmondeley has been here again, after going as far south as
Virginia, and left for Canada about three weeks ago. He is a good
soul, and I am afraid I did not sufficiently recognize him.

Please remember me to Mrs. Ricketson, and to the rest of your family.

       *       *       *       *       *

A long silence had passed on Thoreau's part before he wrote again to
Ricketson,--nearly two years, in fact,--and his friend complained of
it. He had followed the public utterances of Thoreau with entire
sympathy, although much in advance, in 1859-60, of public opinion
respecting John Brown and slavery, and he had sent him letters and
complimentary verses. Finally, he almost implored Thoreau to renew the
bond of friendship. This will explain the tenor of Thoreau's reply.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON, (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, November 4, 1860.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I thank you for the verses. They are quite too good
to apply to me. However, I know what a poet's license is, and will not
get in the way.

But what do you mean by that prose? Why will you waste so many regards
on me, and not know what to think of my silence? Infer from it what
you might from the silence of a dense pine wood. It is its natural
condition, except when the winds blow, and the jays scream, and the
chickadee winds up his clock. My silence is just as inhuman as that,
and no more. You know that I never promised to correspond with you,
and so, when I do, I do more than I promised.

Such are my pursuits and habits that I rarely go abroad; and it is
quite a habit with me to decline invitations to do so. Not that I
could not enjoy such visits, if I were not otherwise occupied. I have
enjoyed very much my visits to you, and my rides in your neighborhood,
and am sorry that I cannot enjoy such things oftener; but life is
short, and there are other things also to be done. I admit that you
are more social than I am and far more attentive to "the common
courtesies of life;" but this is partly for the reason that you have
fewer or less exacting private pursuits.

Not to have written a note for a year is with me a very venial
offense. I think that I do not correspond with any one so often as
once in six months.

I have a faint recollection of your invitation referred to; but I
suppose that I had no new nor particular reason for declining, and so
made no new statement. I have felt that you would be glad to see me
almost whenever I got ready to come; but I only offer myself as a rare
visitor, and a still rarer correspondent.

I am very busy, after my fashion, little as there is to show for it,
and feel as if I could not spend many days nor dollars in traveling;
for the shortest visit must have a fair margin to it, and the days
thus affect the weeks, you know. Nevertheless, we cannot forego these
luxuries altogether. You must not regard me as a regular diet, but at
most only as acorns, which, too, are not to be despised,--which, at
least, we love to think are edible in a bracing walk. We have got
along pretty well together in several directions, though we are such
strangers in others.

I hardly know what to say in answer to your letter. Some are
accustomed to write many letters, others very few. I am one of the
last. At any rate, we are pretty sure, if we write at all, to send
those thoughts which we cherish, to that one who, we believe, will
most religiously attend to them.

This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction. I do not feel
addressed by this letter of yours. It suggests only misunderstanding.
Intercourse may be good; but of what use are complaints and apologies?
Any complaint _I_ have to make is too serious to be uttered, for the
evil cannot be mended.

Turn over a new leaf.

My outdoor harvest this fall has been one Canada lynx, a
fierce-looking fellow, which, it seems, we have hereabouts; eleven
barrels of apples from trees of my own planting; and a large crop of
white oak acorns, which I did not raise.

Please remember me to your family. I have a very pleasant recollection
of your fireside, and I trust that I shall revisit it;--also of your
shanty and the surrounding regions.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, September 26, 1859.

MR. BLAKE,--I am not sure that I am in a fit mood to write to you, for
I feel and think rather too much like a business man, having some very
irksome affairs to attend to these months and years on account of my
family.[93] This is the way I am serving King Admetus, confound him!
If it were not for my relations, I would let the wolves prey on his
flocks to their bellies' content. Such fellows you have to deal with!
herdsmen of some other king, or of the same, who tell no tale, but in
the sense of counting their flocks, and then lie drunk under a hedge.
How is your grist ground? Not by some murmuring stream, while you lie
dreaming on the bank; but, it seems, you must take hold with your
hands, and shove the wheel round. You can't depend on streams, poor
feeble things! You can't depend on worlds, left to themselves; but
you've got to oil them and goad them along. In short, you've got to
carry on two farms at once,--the farm on the earth and the farm in
your mind. Those Crimean and Italian battles were mere boys'
play,--they are the scrapes into which truants get. But what a battle
a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts,
and march with them in orderly array through the always hostile
country! How many enemies there are to sane thinking! Every soldier
has succumbed to them before he enlists for those other battles. Men
may sit in chambers, seemingly safe and sound, and yet despair, and
turn out at last only hollowness and dust within, like a Dead Sea
apple. A standing army of numerous, brave, and well-disciplined
thoughts, and you at the head of them, marching straight to your
goal,--how to bring this about is the problem, and Scott's Tactics
will not help you to it. Think of a poor fellow begirt only with a
sword-belt, and no such staff of athletic thoughts! his brains
rattling as he walks and _talks_! These are your prætorian guard. It
is easy enough to maintain a family, or a state, but it is hard to
maintain these children of your brain (or say, rather, these guests
that trust to enjoy your hospitality), they make such great demands;
and yet, he who does only the former, and loses the power to _think_
originally, or as only he ever can, fails miserably. Keep up the fires
of thought, and all will go well.

Zouaves?--pish! How you can overrun a country, climb any rampart, and
carry any fortress, with an army of _alert_ thoughts!--thoughts that
send their bullets home to heaven's door,--with which you can _take_
the whole world, without paying for it, or robbing anybody. See, the
conquering hero comes! You _fail_ in your thoughts, or you _prevail_
in your thoughts only. Provided you _think_ well, the heavens falling,
or the earth gaping, will be the music for you to march by. No foe can
ever see you, or you him; you cannot so much as _think_ of him. Swords
have no edges, bullets no penetration, for such a contest. In your
mind must be a liquor which will dissolve the world whenever it is
dropt in it. There is no universal solvent but this, and all things
together cannot saturate it. It will hold the universe in solution,
and yet be as translucent as ever. The vast machine may indeed roll
over our toes, and we not know it, but it would rebound and be staved
to pieces like an empty barrel, if it should strike fair and square on
the smallest and least angular of a man's thoughts.

You seem not to have taken Cape Cod the right way. I think that you
should have persevered in walking on the beach and on the bank, even
to the land's end, however soft, and so, by long knocking at Ocean's
gate, have gained admittance at last,--better, if separately, and in a
storm, not knowing where you would sleep by night, or eat by day. Then
you should have given a day to the sand behind Provincetown, and
ascended the hills there, and been blown on considerably. I hope that
you like to remember the journey better than you did to make it.

I have been confined at home all this year, but I am not aware that I
have grown any rustier than was to be expected. One while I explored
the bottom of the river pretty extensively. I have engaged to read a
lecture to Parker's society on the 9th of October next.

I am off--a-barberrying.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, October 31, 1859.

MR. BLAKE,--I spoke to my townsmen last evening on "The Character of
Captain Brown, now in the Clutches of the Slaveholder." I should like
to speak to any company at Worcester who may wish to hear me; and will
come if only my expenses are paid. I think we should express ourselves
at once, while Brown is alive. The sooner the better. Perhaps
Higginson may like to have a meeting. Wednesday evening would be a
good time. The people here are deeply interested in the matter. Let me
have an answer as soon as may be.

P. S.--I may be engaged toward the end of the week.

     HENRY D. THOREAU.

This address on John Brown was one of the first public utterances in
favor of that hero; it was made up mainly from the entries in
Thoreau's journals, since I had introduced Brown to him, and he to
Emerson, in March, 1857; and especially from those pages that Thoreau
had written after the news of Brown's capture in Virginia had reached
him. It was first given in the vestry of the old parish church in
Concord (where, in 1774, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts had
met to prepare for armed resistance to British tyranny); was repeated
at Worcester the same week, and before a great audience in Boston, the
following Sunday,--after which it was published in the newspapers, and
had a wide reading. Mr. Alcott in his diary mentions it under date of
Sunday, October 30, thus: "Thoreau reads a paper on John Brown, his
virtues, spirit, and deeds, this evening, and to the delight of his
company,--the best that could be gathered at short notice,--and among
them Emerson. (November 4.) Thoreau calls and reports about the
reading of his lecture on Brown at Boston and Worcester. He has been
the first to speak and celebrate the hero's courage and magnanimity;
it is these that he discerns and praises. The men have much in
common,--the sturdy manliness, straightforwardness, and independence.
(November 5.) Ricketson from New Bedford arrives; he and Thoreau take
supper with us. Thoreau talks freely and enthusiastically about
Brown,--denouncing the Union, the President, the States, and Virginia
particularly; wishes to publish his late speech, and has seen Boston
publishers, but failed to find any to print it for him." It was soon
after published, along with Emerson's two speeches in favor of Brown,
by a new Boston publishing house (Thayer & Eldridge), in a volume
called "Echoes of Harper's Ferry," edited by the late James Redpath,
Brown's first biographer. In the following summer, Thoreau sent a
second paper on Brown (written soon after his execution) to be read at
a commemoration of the martyr, beside his grave among the Adirondack
Mountains. This is mentioned in his letter to Sophia Thoreau, July 8,
1860. He took an active part in arranging for the funeral service in
honor of Brown, at Concord, the day of his death, December 2, 1859.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, May 20, 1860.

MR. BLAKE,--I must endeavor to pay some of my debts to you. To begin
where we left off, then.

The presumption is that _we_ are always the same; our opportunities,
and Nature herself, fluctuating. Look at mankind. No great difference
between two, apparently; perhaps the same height, and breadth, and
weight; and yet, to the man who sits most east, this life is a
weariness, routine, dust and ashes, and he drowns his imaginary
_cares_ (!) (a sort of friction among his vital organs) in a bowl. But
to the man who sits most west, his _contemporary_ (!), it is a field
for all noble endeavors, an elysium, the dwelling-place of heroes and
demigods. The former complains that he has a thousand affairs to
attend to; but he does not realize that his affairs (though they may
be a thousand) and he are one.

Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make _men_ of
themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well
housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks
in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a
tolerable planet to put it on?--if you cannot tolerate the planet it
is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great
things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you
show him (of course _you_ cannot put him anywhere, nor show him
anything), he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition
of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself,--How sweet this
crust is! If he despairs of himself, then Tophet is his
dwelling-place, and he is in the condition of a sick man who is
disgusted with the fruits of finest flavor.

Whether he sleeps or wakes,--whether he runs or walks,--whether he
uses a microscope or a telescope, or his naked eye,--a man never
discovers anything, never overtakes anything, or leaves anything
behind, but himself. Whatever he says or does, he merely reports
himself. If he is in love, he _loves_; if he is in heaven, he
_enjoys_; if he is in hell, he _suffers_. It is his condition that
determines his locality.

The principal, the only, thing a man makes, is his condition of fate.
Though commonly he does not know it, nor put up a sign to this effect,
"My own destiny made and mended here." (Not _yours_.) He is a master
workman in the business. He works twenty-four hours a day at it, and
gets it done. Whatever else he neglects or botches, no man was ever
known to neglect this work. A great many pretend to make _shoes_
chiefly, and would scout the idea that they make the hard times which
they experience.

Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature
consists and coöperates, and therefore it is not in vain. But alas!
each relaxing and desperation is an instinct too. To be active, well,
happy, implies rare courage. To be ready to fight in a duel or a
battle implies desperation, or that you hold your life cheap.

If you take this life to be simply what old religious folks pretend (I
mean the effete, gone to seed in a drought, mere human galls stung by
the devil once), then all your joy and serenity is reduced to grinning
and bearing it. The fact is, you have got to take the world on your
shoulders like Atlas, and "put along" with it. You will do this for an
idea's sake, and your success will be in proportion to your devotion
to ideas. It may make your back ache occasionally, but you will have
the satisfaction of hanging it or twirling it to suit yourself.
Cowards suffer, heroes enjoy. After a long day's walk with it, pitch
it into a hollow place, sit down and eat your luncheon. Unexpectedly,
by some immortal thoughts, you will be compensated. The bank whereon
you sit will be a fragrant and flowery one, and your world in the
hollow a sleek and light gazelle.

Where is the "unexplored land" but in our own untried enterprises? To
an adventurous spirit any place--London, New York, Worcester, or his
own yard--is "unexplored land," to seek which Frémont and Kane travel
so far. To a sluggish and defeated spirit even the Great Basin and the
Polaris are trivial places. If they can get there (and, indeed, they
are there now), they will want to sleep, and give it up, just as they
always do. These are the regions of the Known and of the Unknown. What
is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder
in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into
the Unknown. That is what you have your board and clothes for. Why do
you ever mend your clothes, unless that, wearing them, you may mend
your ways? Let us sing.


TO SOPHIA THOREAU (AT CAMPTON, N. H.).

     CONCORD, July 8, 1860.

DEAR SOPHIA,--Mother reminds me that I must write to you, if only a
few lines, though I have sprained my thumb, so that it is questionable
whether I can write legibly, if at all. I can't "bear on" much. What
is worse, I believe that I have sprained my brain too--that is, it
sympathizes with my thumb. But that is no excuse, I suppose, for
writing a letter in such a case is like sending a newspaper, only a
hint to let you know that "all is well,"--but my thumb.

I hope that you begin to derive some benefit from that more
mountainous air which you are breathing. Have you had a distinct view
of the Franconia Notch Mountains (blue peaks in the northern horizon)?
which I told you you could get from the road in Campton, probably from
some other points nearer. Such a view of the mountains is more
memorable than any other. Have you been to Squam Lake or overlooked
it? I should think that you could make an excursion to some mountain
in that direction from which you could see the lake and mountains
generally. Is there no friend of N. P. Rogers who can tell you where
the "lions" are?

Of course I did not go to North Elba,[94] but I sent some
reminiscences of last fall. I hear that John Brown, Jr., has now come
to Boston for a few days. Mr. Sanborn's case, it is said, will come on
after some murder cases have been disposed of here.

I have just been invited formally to be present at the annual picnic
of Theodore Parker's society (that was), at Waverley, next Wednesday,
and to make some remarks. But that is wholly out of my line. I do not
go to picnics, even in Concord, you know.

Mother and Aunt Sophia rode to Acton in time yesterday. I suppose that
you have heard that Mr. Hawthorne has come home. I went to meet him
the other evening and found that he has not altered, except that he
was looking quite brown after his voyage. He is as simple and
childlike as ever.

I believe that I have fairly scared the kittens away, at last, by my
pretended fierceness, which was. I will consider my thumb--and your
eyes.

     HENRY.


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, August 3, 1860.

MR. BLAKE,--I some time ago asked Channing if he would not spend a
week with me on Monadnock; but he did not answer decidedly. Lately he
has talked of an excursion somewhere, but I said that _now_ I must
wait till my sister returned from Plymouth, N. H. She has
returned,--and accordingly, on receiving your note this morning, I
made known its contents to Channing, in order to see how far I was
engaged with him. The result is that he decides to go to Monadnock
to-morrow morning;[95] so I must defer making an excursion with you
and Brown to another season. Perhaps you will call as you pass the
mountain. I send this by the earliest mail.

P. S.--That was a very insufficient visit which you made here the last
time. My mother is better, though far from well; and if you should
chance along here any time after your journey, I trust that we shall
all do better.

       *       *       *       *       *

The mention by Thoreau of John Brown and my "case" recalls to me an
incident of those excited days which followed the attack by Brown on
slavery in Virginia. The day after Brown's death, but before the
execution of his comrades, I received a message from the late Dr.
David Thayer of Boston, implying, as I thought, that a son of Brown
was at his house, whither I hurried to meet him. Instead, I found
young F. J. Merriam of Boston, who had escaped with Owen Brown from
Harper's Ferry, and was now in Boston to raise another party against
the slaveholders. He was unfit to lead or even join in such a
desperate undertaking, and we insisted he should return to safety in
Canada,--a large reward being offered for his seizure. He agreed to go
back to Canada that night by the Fitchburg Railroad; but in his
hot-headed way he took the wrong train, which ran no farther than
Concord,--and found himself in the early evening at my house, where my
sister received him, but insisted that I should not see him, lest I
might be questioned about my guest. While he had supper and went to
bed, I posted down to Mr. Emerson's and engaged his horse and covered
wagon, to be ready at sunrise,--he asking no questions. In the same
way I engaged Mr. Thoreau to drive his friend's horse to South Acton
the next morning, and there put on board the first Canadian train a
Mr. Lockwood, whom he would find at my house. Thoreau readily consented,
asked no questions, walked to the Emerson stable the next morning,
found the horse ready, drove him to my door, and took up Merriam,
under the name of Lockwood,--neither knowing who the other was.
Merriam was so flighty that, though he had agreed to go to Montreal,
and knew that his life might depend on getting there early, he declared
he must see Mr. Emerson, to lay before him his plan for invading the
South, and consult him about some moral questions that troubled his
mind. His companion listened gravely,--and hurried the horse towards
Acton. Merriam grew more positive and suspicious,--"Perhaps YOU are
Mr. Emerson; you look somewhat like him."[96] "No, I am not," said
Thoreau, and drove steadily away from Concord. "Well, then, I am going
back," said the youth, and flung himself out of the wagon. How Thoreau
got him in again, he never told me; but I suspected some judicious
force, accompanying the grave persuasive speech natural to our friend.
At any rate, he took his man to Acton, saw him safe on the train, and
reported to me that "Mr. Lockwood had taken passage for Canada," where
he arrived that night. Nothing more passed between us until, more than
two years after, he inquired one day, in his last illness, who my
fugitive was. Merriam was then out of danger in that way, and had been
for months a soldier in the Union army, where he died. I therefore
said that "Lockwood" was the grandson of his mother's old friend,
Francis Jackson, and had escaped from Maryland. In return he gave me
the odd incidents of their drive, and mentioned that he had spoken of
the affair to his mother only since his illness. So reticent and
practically useful could he be; as Channing says, "He made no useless
professions, never asked one of those questions which destroy all
relation; but he was on the spot at the time, he meant friendship,
and meant nothing else, and stood by it without the slightest
abatement."


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, November 4, 1860.

MR. BLAKE,--I am glad to hear any particulars of your excursion. As
for myself, I looked out for you somewhat on that Monday, when, it
appears, you passed Monadnock; turned my glass upon several parties
that were ascending the mountain half a mile on one side of us. In
short, I came as near to seeing you as you to seeing me. I have no
doubt that we should have had a good time if you had come, for I had,
all ready, two good spruce houses, in which you could stand up,
complete in all respects, half a mile apart, and you and B. could have
lodged by yourselves in one, if not with us.

We made an excellent beginning of our mountain life.[97] You may
remember that the Saturday previous was a stormy day. Well, we went up
in the rain,--wet through,--and found ourselves in a cloud there at
mid-afternoon, in no situation to look about for the best place for a
camp. So I proceeded at once, through the cloud, to that memorable
stone, "chunk yard," in which we made our humble camp once, and there,
after putting our packs under a rock, having a good hatchet, I
proceeded to build a substantial house, which Channing declared the
handsomest he ever saw. (He never camped out before, and was, no
doubt, prejudiced in its favor.) This was done about dark, and by that
time we were nearly as wet as if we had stood in a hogshead of water.
We then built a fire before the door, directly on the site of our
little camp of two years ago, and it took a long time to burn through
its remains to the earth beneath. Standing before this, and turning
round slowly, like meat that is roasting, we were as dry, if not
drier, than ever, after a few hours, and so at last we "turned in."

This was a great deal better than going up there in fair weather, and
having no adventure (not knowing how to appreciate either fair weather
or foul) but dull, commonplace sleep in a useless house, and before a
comparatively useless fire,--such as we get every night. Of course we
thanked our stars, when we saw them, which was about midnight, that
they had seemingly withdrawn for a season. We had the mountain all to
ourselves that afternoon and night. There was nobody going up that day
to engrave his name on the summit, nor to gather blueberries. The
genius of the mountains saw us starting from Concord, and it said,
There come two of our folks. Let us get ready for them. Get up a
serious storm, that will send a-packing these holiday guests. (They
may have their say another time.) Let us receive them with true
mountain hospitality,--kill the fatted cloud. Let them know the value
of a spruce roof, and of a fire of dead spruce stumps. Every bush
dripped tears of joy at our advent. Fire did its best, and received
our thanks. What could fire have done in fair weather? Spruce roof got
its share of our blessings. And then, such a view of the wet rocks,
with the wet lichens on them, as we had the next morning, but did not
get again!

We and the mountain had a sound season, as the saying is. How glad we
were to be wet, in order that we might be dried! How glad we were of
the storm which made our house seem like a new home to us! This day's
experience was indeed lucky, for we did not have a thunder-shower
during all our stay. Perhaps our host reserved this attention in order
to tempt us to come again.

Our next house was more substantial still. One side was rock, good for
durability; the floor the same; and the roof which I made would have
upheld a horse. I stood on it to do the shingling.

I noticed, when I was at the White Mountains last, several nuisances
which render traveling thereabouts unpleasant. The chief of these was
the mountain houses. I might have supposed that the main attraction of
that region, even to citizens, lay in its wildness and unlikeness to
the city, and yet they make it as much like the city as they can
afford to. I heard that the Crawford House was lighted with gas, and
had a large saloon, with its band of music, for dancing. But give me a
spruce house made in the rain.

  [Illustration: _From the Summit of Monadnock_]

An old Concord farmer tells me that he ascended Monadnock once, and
danced on the top. How did that happen? Why, he being up there, a
party of young men and women came up, bringing boards and a fiddler;
and, having laid down the boards, they made a level floor, on which
they danced to the music of the fiddle. I suppose the tune was
"Excelsior." This reminds me of the fellow who climbed to the top of a
very high spire, stood upright on the ball, and hurrahed for--what?
Why, for Harrison and Tyler. That's the kind of sound which most
ambitious people emit when they culminate. They are wont to be
singularly frivolous in the thin atmosphere; they can't contain
themselves, though our comfort and their safety require it; it takes
the pressure of many atmospheres to do this; and hence they helplessly
evaporate there. It would seem that as they ascend, they breathe
shorter and shorter, and, at each _expiration_, some of their wits
leave them, till, when they reach the pinnacle, they are so
light-headed as to be fit only to show how the wind sits. I suspect
that Emerson's criticism called "Monadnoc" was inspired, not by
remembering the inhabitants of New Hampshire as they are in the
valleys, so much as by meeting some of them on the mountain-top.

After several nights' experience, Channing came to the conclusion that
he was "lying outdoors," and inquired what was the largest beast that
might nibble his legs there. I fear that he did not improve all the
night, as he might have done, to sleep. I had asked him to go and
spend a week there. We spent five nights, being gone six days, for C.
suggested that six working days made a week, and I saw that he was
ready to _decamp_. However, he found his account in it as well as I.

We were seen to go up in the rain, grim and silent, like two genii of
the storm, by Fassett's men or boys; but we were never identified
afterward, though we were the subject of some conversation which we
overheard. Five hundred persons at least came on to the mountain while
we were there, but not one found our camp. We saw one party of three
ladies and two gentlemen spread their blankets and spend the night on
the top, and heard them converse; but they did not know that they had
neighbors who were comparatively old settlers. We spared them the
chagrin which that knowledge would have caused them, and let them
print their story in a newspaper accordingly.

Yes, to meet men on an honest and simple footing, meet with rebuffs,
suffer from sore feet, as you did,--ay, and from a sore heart, as
perhaps you also did,--all that is excellent. What a pity that that
young prince[98] could not enjoy a little of the legitimate experience
of traveling--be dealt with simply and truly, though rudely. He might
have been invited to some hospitable house in the country, had his
bowl of bread and milk set before him, with a clean pinafore; been
told that there were the punt and the fishing-rod, and he could amuse
himself as he chose; might have swung a few birches, dug out a
woodchuck, and had a regular good time, and finally been sent to bed
with the boys,--and so never have been introduced to Mr. Everett at
all. I have no doubt that this would have been a far more memorable
and valuable experience than he got.

The snow-clad summit of Mt. Washington must have been a very
interesting sight from Wachusett. How wholesome winter is, seen far or
near; how good, above all mere sentimental, warm-blooded,
short-lived, soft-hearted, _moral_ goodness, commonly so called. Give
me the goodness which has forgotten its own deeds,--which God has seen
to be good, and let be. None of your _just made perfect_,--pickled
eels! All that will save them will be their picturesqueness, as with
blasted trees. Whatever is, and is not ashamed to be, is good. I value
no moral goodness or greatness unless it is good or great, even as
that snowy peak is. Pray, how could thirty feet of bowels improve it?
Nature is goodness crystallized. You looked into the land of promise.
Whatever beauty we behold, the more it is distant, serene, and cold,
the purer and more durable it is. It is better to warm ourselves with
ice than with fire.

Tell Brown that he sent me more than the price of the book, viz., a
word from himself, for which I am greatly his debtor.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thoreau began to be more seriously ill than he had been for some
years, early in December, 1860. He exposed himself unduly in one of
his walks, while counting the rings on stumps of trees, amid snow. He
ceased much of his small activity of letter-writing; but, in
addressing Ricketson the next spring, he took the unusual pains of
writing him a letter of some length which he never sent. It was found
among his papers after death,--the first draft of it, which ran as
follows, but was left a fragment:--


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     Concord, March 19, 1861.

FRIEND R,--Your letter reached me in due time, but I had already heard
the bluebirds. They were here on the 26th of February at least,--but
not yet do the larks sing or the flickers call, with us. The bluebirds
come again, as does the same spring, but it does not find the same
mortals here to greet it. You remember Minott's cottage on the
hillside,--well, it finds some change there, for instance. The little
gray hip-roofed cottage was occupied at the beginning of February,
this year, by George Minott and his sister Mary, respectively 78 and
80 years old, and Miss Potter, 74. These had been its permanent
occupants for many years. Minott had been on his last legs for some
time,--at last off his legs, expecting weekly to take his
departure,--a burden to himself and friends,--yet dry and natural as
ever. His sister took care of him, and supported herself and family
with her needle, as usual. He lately willed his little property to
her, as a slight compensation for her care. Feb. 13 their sister, 86
or 87, who lived across the way, died. Miss Minott had taken cold in
visiting her, and was so sick that she could not go to her funeral.
She herself died of lung fever[99] on the 18th (which was said to be
the same disease that her sister had),--having just willed her
property back to George, and added her own mite to it. Miss Potter,
too, had now become ill,--too ill to attend the funeral,--and she died
of the same disease on the 23d. All departed as gently as the sun
goes down, leaving George alone.

I called to see him the other day,--the 27th of February, a remarkably
pleasant spring day,--and as I was climbing the sunny slope to his
strangely deserted house, I heard the first bluebirds upon the elm
that hangs over it. They had come as usual, though some who used to
hear them were gone. Even Minott had not heard them, though the door
was open,--for he was thinking of other things. Perhaps there will be
a time when the bluebirds themselves will not return any more.

I hear that George, a few days after this, called out to his niece,
who had come to take care of him, and was in the next room, to know if
she did not feel lonely? "Yes, I do," said she. "So do I," added he.
He said he was like an old oak, all shattered and decaying. "I am
sure, Uncle," said his niece, "you are not much like an oak!" "I
mean," said he, "that I am like an oak or any other tree, inasmuch as
I cannot stir from where I am."

       *       *       *       *       *

Either this topic was too pathetic for Thoreau to finish the letter,
or perchance he thought it not likely to interest his friend; for he
threw aside this draft for three days, and then, with the same
beginning, wrote a very different letter. The Minotts were old
familiar acquaintance, and related to that Captain Minott whom
Thoreau's grandmother married as a second husband. George was his "old
man of Verona," who had not left Concord for more than forty years,
except to stray over the town bounds in hunting or wood-ranging; and
Mary was the "tailoress" who for years made Thoreau's garments.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, March 22, 1861.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--The bluebird was here the 26th of February, at
least, which is one day earlier than you date; but I have not heard of
larks nor pigeon woodpeckers. To tell the truth, I am not on the alert
for the signs of spring, not having had any winter yet. I took a
severe cold about the 3d of December, which at length resulted in a
kind of bronchitis, so that I have been confined to the house ever
since, excepting a very few experimental trips as far as the
post-office in some particularly fine noons. My health otherwise has
not been affected in the least, nor my spirits. I have simply been
imprisoned for so long, and it has not prevented my doing a good deal
of reading and the like.

Channing has looked after me very faithfully; says he has made a study
of my case, and knows me better than I know myself, etc., etc. Of
course, if I knew how it began, I should know better how it would end.
I trust that when warm weather comes I shall begin to pick up my
crumbs. I thank you for your invitation to come to New Bedford, and
will bear it in mind; but at present my health will not permit my
leaving home.

The day I received your letter, Blake and Brown arrived here, having
walked from Worcester in two days, though Alcott, who happened in soon
after, could not understand what pleasure they found in walking
across the country in this season, when the ways were so unsettled. I
had a solid talk with them for a day and a half--though my pipes were
not in good order--and they went their way again.

You may be interested to hear that Alcott is at present, perhaps, the
most successful man in the town. He had his second annual exhibition
of all the schools in the town, at the Town Hall last Saturday; at
which all the masters and misses did themselves great credit, as I
hear, and of course reflected some on their teachers and parents. They
were making their little speeches from one till six o'clock P. M., to
a large audience, which patiently listened to the end. In the
meanwhile, the children made Mr. Alcott an unexpected present of a
fine edition of "Pilgrim's Progress" and Herbert's Poems, which, of
course, overcame all parties. I inclose an order of exercises.[100]

We had, last night, an old-fashioned northeast snow-storm, far worse
than anything in the winter; and the drifts are now very high above
the fences. The inhabitants are pretty much confined to their houses,
as I was already. All houses are one color, white, with the snow
plastered over them, and you cannot tell whether they have blinds or
not. Our pump has another pump, its ghost, as thick as itself,
sticking to one side of it. The town has sent out teams of eight oxen
each, to break out the roads; and the train due from Boston at 8½ A.
M. has not arrived yet (4 P. M.). All the passing has been a train
from above at 12 M., which also was due at 8½ A. M. Where are the
bluebirds now, think you? I suppose that you have not so much snow at
New Bedford, if any.


TO PARKER PILLSBURY (AT CONCORD N. H.).

     CONCORD, April 10, 1861.

FRIEND PILLSBURY,--I am sorry to say that I have not a copy of
"Walden" which I can spare; and know of none, unless possibly Ticknor
& Fields may have one. I send, nevertheless, a copy of "The Week," the
price of which is one dollar and twenty-five cents, which you can pay
at your convenience.

As for your friend, my prospective reader, I hope he ignores Fort
Sumter, and "Old Abe," and all that; for that is just the most fatal,
and, indeed, the only fatal weapon you can direct against evil, ever;
for, as long as you _know of it_, you are _particeps criminis_. What
business have you, if you are an "angel of light," to be pondering
over the deeds of darkness, reading the _New York Herald_, and the
like?

I do not so much regret the present condition of things in this
country (provided I regret it at all), as I do that I ever heard of
it. I know one or two, who have this year, for the first time, read a
President's Message; but they do not see that this implies a _fall_
in themselves, rather than a _rise_ in the President. Blessed were the
days before you read a President's Message. Blessed are the young, for
they do not read the President's Message. Blessed are they who never
read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and, through her, God.

But, alas! _I_ have heard of Sumter and Pickens, and even of Buchanan
(though I did not read his Message). I also read the _New York
Tribune_; but then, I am reading Herodotus and Strabo, and Blodget's
"Climatology," and "Six Years in the Desert of North America," as hard
as I can, to counterbalance it.

By the way, Alcott is at present our most popular and successful man,
and has just published a volume in size, in the shape of the Annual
School Report, which I presume he has sent to you.

Yours, for remembering all good things,

     HENRY D. THOREAU.

Parker Pillsbury, to whom this letter went, was an old friend of the
Thoreau family, with whom he became intimate in the antislavery
agitation, wherein they took part, while he was a famous orator,
celebrated by Emerson in one of his essays. Mr. Pillsbury visited
Thoreau in his last illness, when he could scarcely speak above a
whisper, and, having made to him some remark concerning the future
life, Thoreau replied, "My friend, one world at a time." His petulant
words in this letter concerning national affairs would hardly have
been said a few days later, when, at the call of Abraham Lincoln, the
people rose to protect their government, and every President's Message
became of thrilling interest, even to Thoreau.

Arrangements were now making for the invalid, about whose health his
friends had been anxious for some years, to travel for a better
climate than the New England spring affords, and early in May Thoreau
set out for the upper Mississippi. He thus missed the last letter sent
to him by his English friend Cholmondeley, which I answered, then
forwarded to him at Redwing, in Minnesota. It is of interest enough to
be given here.


T. CHOLMONDELEY TO THOREAU (IN MINNESOTA).

     SHREWSBURY [England], April 23, 1861.

MY DEAR THOREAU,--It is now some time since I wrote to you or heard
from you, but do not suppose that I have forgotten you, or shall ever
cease to cherish in my mind those days at dear old Concord. The last I
heard about you all was from Morton,[101] who was in England about a
year ago; and I hope that he has got over his difficulties and is now
in his own country again. I think he has seen rather more of English
country life than most Yankee tourists; and appeared to find it
_curious_, though I fear he was dulled by our ways; for he was too
full of ceremony and compliments and bows, which is a mistake here;
though very well in Spain. I am afraid he was rather on pins and
needles; but he made a splendid speech at a volunteer supper, and
indeed the _very best_, some said, ever heard in this part of the
country.

We are here in a state of alarm and apprehension, the world being so
troubled in East and West and everywhere. Last year the harvest was
bad and scanty. This year our trade is beginning to feel the events in
America. In reply to the northern tariff, of course we are going to
smuggle as much as we can. The supply of cotton being such a necessity
to us, we must work up India and South Africa a little better. There
is war even in old New Zealand, but not in the same island where my
people are! Besides, we are certainly on the eve of a continental
blaze, _so we are making merry and living while we can_; not being
sure where we shall be this time a year.

Give my affectionate regards to your father, mother, and sister, and
to Mr. Emerson and his family, and to Channing, Sanborn, Ricketson,
Blake, and Morton and Alcott and Parker. A thought arises in my mind
whether I may not be enumerating some dead men! Perhaps Parker is!

These rumors of wars make me wish that we had got done with this
brutal stupidity of war altogether; and I believe, Thoreau, that the
human race will at last get rid of it, though perhaps not in a
creditable way; but such _powers_ will be brought to bear that it will
become monstrous even to the French. Dundonald declared to the last
that he possessed secrets which from their tremendous character would
make war impossible. So peace may be begotten from the machinations of
evil.

Have you heard of any good books lately? I think "Burnt Njal" good,
and believe it to be genuine. "Hast thou not heard" (says Steinrora to
Thangbrand) "how Thor challenged Christ to single combat, and how he
did not dare to fight with Thor?" When Gunnar brandishes his sword,
three swords are seen in air. The account of Ospah and Brodir and
Brian's battle is the only historical account of that engagement,
which the Irish talk so much of; for I place little trust in
O'Halloran's authority, though the outline is the same in both.

Darwin's "Origin of Species" may be fanciful, but it is a move in the
right direction. Emerson's "Conduct of Life" has done me good; but it
will not go down in England for a generation or so. But _these_ are
some of them already a year or two old. The book of the season is Du
Chaillu's "Central Africa," with accounts of the Gorilla, of which you
are aware that you have had a skeleton at Boston for many years. There
is also one in the British Museum; but they have now several stuffed
specimens at the Geographical Society's rooms in Town. I suppose you
will have seen Sir Emerson Tennent's "Ceylon," which is perhaps as
complete a book as ever was published; and a better monument to a
governor's residence in a great province was never made.

We have been lately astonished by a foreign Hamlet, a supposed
impossibility; but Mr. Fechter does real wonders. No doubt he will
visit America, and then you may see the best actor in the world. He
has carried out Goethe's idea of Hamlet as given in the "Wilhelm
Meister," showing him forth as a fair-haired and fat man. I suppose
you are not got fat yet?

     Yours ever truly,
     THOS. CHOLMONDELEY.[102]


TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

     CONCORD, May 3, 1861.

MR. BLAKE,--I am still as much an invalid as when you and Brown were
here, if not more of one, and at this rate there is danger that the
cold weather may come again, before I get over my bronchitis. The
doctor accordingly tells me that I must "clear out" to the West
Indies, or elsewhere,--he does not seem to care much where. But I
decide against the West Indies, on account of their muggy heat in the
summer, and the South of Europe, on account of the expense of time and
money, and have at last concluded that it will be most expedient for
me to try the air of Minnesota, say somewhere about St. Paul's. I am
only waiting to be well enough to start. Hope to get off within a week
or ten days.

The inland air may help me at once, or it may not. At any rate, I am
so much of an invalid that I shall have to study my comfort in
traveling to a remarkable degree,--stopping to rest, etc., etc., if
need be. I think to get a through ticket to Chicago, with liberty to
stop frequently on the way, making my first stop of consequence at
Niagara Falls, several days or a week, at a private boarding-house;
then a night or day at Detroit; and as much at Chicago as my health
may require. At Chicago I can decide at what point (Fulton, Dunleith,
or another) to strike the Mississippi, and take a boat to St. Paul's.

I trust to find a private boarding-house in one or various agreeable
places in that region, and spend my time there. I expect, and shall be
prepared, to be gone three months; and I would like to return by a
different route,--perhaps Mackinaw and Montreal.

I have thought of finding a companion, of course, yet not seriously,
because I had no right to offer myself as a companion to anybody,
having such a peculiarly private and all-absorbing but miserable
business as _my_ health, and not altogether _his_, to attend to,
causing me to stop here and go there, etc., etc., unaccountably.

Nevertheless, I have just now decided to let you know of my intention,
thinking it barely possible that you might like to make a part or the
whole of this journey at the same time, and that perhaps your own
health may be such as to be benefited by it.

Pray let me know if such a statement offers any temptations to you. I
write in great haste for the mail, and must omit all the moral.


TO F. B. SANBORN (AT CONCORD).

     REDWING, MINNESOTA, June 26, 1861.

MR. SANBORN,--I was very glad to find awaiting me, on my arrival here
on Sunday afternoon, a letter from you. I have performed this journey
in a very dead and alive manner, but nothing has come so near waking
me up as the receipt of letters from Concord. I read yours, and one
from my sister (and Horace Mann, his four), near the top of a
remarkable isolated bluff here, called Barn Bluff, or the Grange, or
Redwing Bluff, some four hundred and fifty feet high, and half a mile
long,--a bit of the main bluff or bank standing alone. The top, as you
know, rises to the general level of the surrounding country, the river
having eaten out so much. Yet the valley just above and below this (we
are at the head of Lake Pepin) must be three or four miles wide.

I am not even so well informed as to the progress of the war as you
suppose. I have seen but one Eastern paper (that, by the way, _was_
the _Tribune_) for five weeks. I have not taken much pains to get
them; but, necessarily, I have not seen any paper at all for more
than a week at a time. The people of Minnesota have _seemed_ to me
more cold,--to feel less implicated in this war than the people of
Massachusetts. It is apparent that Massachusetts, for one State at
least, is doing much more than her share in carrying it on. However, I
have dealt partly with those of Southern birth, and have seen but
little way beneath the surface. I was glad to be told yesterday that
there was a good deal of weeping here at Redwing the other day, when
the volunteers stationed at Fort Snelling followed the regulars to the
seat of the war. They do not weep when their children go _up_ the
river to occupy the deserted forts, though they _may_ have to fight
the Indians there.

I do not even know what the attitude of England is at present.

The grand feature hereabouts is, of course, the Mississippi River. Too
much can hardly be said of its grandeur, and of the beauty of this
portion of it (from Dunleith, and probably from Rock Island to this
place). St. Paul is a dozen miles below the Falls of St. Anthony, or
near the head of uninterrupted navigation on the main stream, about
two thousand miles from its mouth. There is not a "rip" below that,
and the river is almost as wide in the upper as the lower part of its
course. Steamers go up the Sauk Rapids, above the Falls, near a
hundred miles farther, and then you are fairly in the pine woods and
lumbering country. Thus it flows from the pine to the palm.

The lumber, as you know, is sawed chiefly at the Falls of St. Anthony
(what is not rafted in the log to ports far below), having given rise
to the towns of St. Anthony, Minneapolis, etc., etc. In coming up the
river from Dunleith, you meet with great rafts of sawed lumber and of
logs, twenty rods or more in length, by five or six wide, floating
down, all from the pine region above the Falls. An old Maine lumberer,
who has followed the same business here, tells me that the sources of
the Mississippi were comparatively free from rocks and rapids, making
easy work for them; but he thought that the timber was more knotty
here than in Maine.

It has chanced that about half the men whom I have spoken with in
Minnesota, whether travelers or settlers, were from Massachusetts.

After spending some three weeks in and about St. Paul, St. Anthony,
and Minneapolis, we made an excursion in a steamer, some three hundred
or more miles up the Minnesota (St. Peter's) River, to Redwood, or the
Lower Sioux Agency, in order to see the plains, and the Sioux, who
were to receive their annual payment there. This is eminently _the_
river of Minnesota (for she shares the Mississippi with Wisconsin),
and it is of incalculable value to her. It flows through a very
fertile country destined to be famous for its wheat; but it is a
remarkably winding stream, so that Redwood is only half as far from
its mouth by land as by water. There was not a straight reach a mile
in length as far as we went,--generally you could not see a quarter of
a mile of water, and the boat was steadily turning this way or that.
At the greater bends, as the Traverse des Sioux, some of the
passengers were landed, and walked across to be taken in on the other
side. Two or three times you could have thrown a stone across the
neck of the isthmus, while it was from one to three miles around it.
It was a very novel kind of navigation to me. The boat was perhaps the
largest that had been up so high, and the water was rather low (it had
been about fifteen feet higher). In making a short turn, we repeatedly
and designedly ran square into the steep and soft bank, taking in a
cart-load of earth,--this being more effectual than the rudder to
fetch us about again; or the deeper water was so narrow and close to
the shore, that we were obliged to run into and break down at least
fifty trees which overhung the water, when we did not cut them off,
repeatedly losing a part of our outworks, though the most exposed had
been taken in. I could pluck almost any plant on the bank from the
boat. We very frequently got aground, and then drew ourselves along
with a windlass and a cable fastened to a tree, or we swung round in
the current, and completely blocked up and blockaded the river, one
end of the boat resting on each shore. And yet we would haul ourselves
round again with the windlass and cable in an hour or two, though the
boat was about one hundred and sixty feet long, and drew some three
feet of water, or, often, water and sand. It was one consolation to
know that in such a case we were all the while damming the river, and
so raising it. We once ran fairly on to a concealed rock, with a shock
that aroused all the passengers, and rested there, and the mate went
below with a lamp, expecting to find a hole, but he did not. Snags and
sawyers were so common that I forgot to mention them. The sound of the
boat rumbling over one was the ordinary music. However, as long as
the boiler did not burst, we knew that no serious accident was likely
to happen. Yet this was a singularly navigable river, more so than the
Mississippi above the Falls, and it is owing to its very crookedness.
Ditch it straight, and it would not only be very swift, but soon run
out. It was from ten to fifteen rods wide near the mouth, and from
eight to ten or twelve at Redwood. Though the current was swift, I did
not see a "rip" on it, and only three or four rocks. For three months
in the year I am told that it can be navigated by small steamers about
twice as far as we went, or to its source in Big Stone Lake; and a
former Indian agent told me that at high water it was thought that
such a steamer might pass into the Red River.

In short, this river proved so very _long_ and navigable, that I was
reminded of the last letter or two in the voyage of the Baron la
Hontan (written near the end of the seventeenth century, I _think_),
in which he states, that, after reaching the Mississippi (by the
Illinois or Wisconsin), the limit of previous exploration westward, he
voyaged up it with his Indians, and at length turned up a great river
coming in from the west, which he called "La Rivière Longue;" and he
relates various improbable things about the country and its
inhabitants, so that this letter has been regarded as pure fiction,
or, more properly speaking, a lie. But I am somewhat inclined now to
reconsider the matter.

The Governor of Minnesota (Ramsay), the superintendent of Indian
affairs in this quarter, and the newly appointed Indian agent were on
board; also a German band from St. Paul, a small cannon for salutes,
and the money for the Indians (ay, and the gamblers, it was said, who
were to bring it back in another boat). There were about one hundred
passengers, chiefly from St. Paul, and more or less recently from the
northeastern States; also half a dozen young educated Englishmen.
Chancing to speak with one who sat next to me, when the voyage was
nearly half over, I found that he was the son of the Rev. Samuel
May,[103] and a classmate of yours, and had been looking for us at St.
Anthony.

The last of the little settlements on the river was New Ulm, about one
hundred miles this side of Redwood. It consists wholly of Germans. We
left them one hundred barrels of salt, which will be worth something
more when the water is lowest than at present.

Redwood is a mere locality,--scarcely an Indian village,--where there
is a store, and some houses have been built for them. We were now
fairly on the great plains, and looking south; and, after walking that
way three miles, could see no tree in that horizon. The buffalo were
said to be feeding within twenty-five or thirty miles.

A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their
ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter,
quite in the described mode,--the Indians, as usual, having the
advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of
eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were
quite dissatisfied with the white man's treatment of them, and
probably have reason to be so. This council was to be continued for
two or three days,--the payment to be made the second day; and another
payment to other bands a little higher up, on the Yellow Medicine (a
tributary of the Minnesota), a few days thereafter.

In the afternoon, the half-naked Indians performed a dance, at the
request of the Governor, for our amusement and their own benefit; and
then we took leave of them, and of the officials who had come to treat
with them.

Excuse these pencil marks, but my inkstand is _unscrewable_, and I can
only direct my letter at the bar. I could tell you more, and perhaps
more interesting things, if I had time. I am considerably better than
when I left home, but still far from well.

Our faces are already set toward home. Will you please let my sister
know that we shall _probably_ start for Milwaukee and Mackinaw in a
day or two (or as soon as we hear from home) _via_ Prairie du Chien,
and not La Crosse.

I am glad to hear that you have written Cholmondeley,[104] as it
relieves me of some _responsibility_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The tour described in this long letter was the first and last that
Thoreau ever made west of the Mohawk Valley, though his friend
Channing had early visited the great prairies, and lived in log cabins
of Illinois, or sailed on the chain of great lakes, by which Thoreau
made a part of this journey. It was proposed that Channing should
accompany him this time, as he had in the tour through Lower Canada,
and along Cape Cod, as well as in the journeys through the Berkshire
and Catskill mountains, and down the Hudson; but some misunderstanding
or temporary inconvenience prevented. The actual comrade was young
Horace Mann, eldest son of the school-reformer and statesman of that
name,--a silent, earnest, devoted naturalist, who died early. The
place where his party met the Indians--only a few months before the
Minnesota massacre of 1862--was in the county of Redwood, in the
southwest of the State, where now is a thriving village of 1500
people, and no buffaloes within five hundred miles. Red Wing, whence
the letter was written, is below St. Paul, on the Mississippi, and was
even then a considerable town,--now a city of 7000 people. The Civil
War had lately begun, and the whole North was in the first flush of
its uprising in defense of the Union,--for which Thoreau, in spite of
his earlier defiance of government (for its alliance with slavery),
was as zealous as any soldier. He returned in July, little benefited
by the journey, of which he did not take his usual sufficiency of
notes, and to which there is little allusion in his books. Nor does it
seem that he visited on the way his correspondent since January,
1856,--C. H. Greene, of Rochester, Michigan, who had never seen him in
Concord. The opinion of Thoreau himself concerning this journey will
be found in his next letter to Daniel Ricketson.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, August 15, 1861.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--When your last letter was written I was away in the
far Northwest, in search of health. My cold turned to bronchitis,
which made me a close prisoner almost up to the moment of my starting
on that journey, early in May. As I had an incessant cough, my doctor
told me that I must "clear out,"--to the West Indies, or
elsewhere,--so I selected Minnesota. I returned a few weeks ago, after
a good deal of steady traveling, considerably, yet not essentially,
better; my cough still continuing. If I don't mend very quickly, I
shall be obliged to go to another climate again very soon.

My ordinary pursuits, both indoors and out, have been for the most
part omitted, or seriously interrupted,--walking, boating, scribbling,
etc. Indeed, I have been sick so long that I have almost forgotten
what it is to be well; and yet I feel that it is in all respects only
my envelope. Channing and Emerson are as well as usual; but Alcott, I
am sorry to say, has for some time been more or less confined by a
lameness, perhaps of a neuralgic character, occasioned by carrying too
great a weight on his back while gardening.

On returning home, I found various letters awaiting me; among others,
one from Cholmondeley, and one from yourself.

Of course I am sufficiently surprised to hear of your conversion;[105]
yet I scarcely know what to say about it, unless that, judging by
your account, it appears to me a change which concerns yourself
peculiarly, and will not make you more valuable to mankind. However,
perhaps I must see you before I can judge.

Remembering your numerous invitations, I write this short note now,
chiefly to say that, if you are to be at home, and it will be quite
agreeable to you, I will pay you a visit next week, and take such
rides or sauntering walks with you as an invalid may.

       *       *       *       *       *

The visit was made, and we owe to it the preservation of the latest
portraiture of Thoreau, who, at his friend's urgency, sat to a
photographer in New Bedford; and thus we have the full-bearded
likeness of August, 1861; from which, also, and from personal
recollection, Mr. Walton Ricketson made the fine profile medallion
reproduced in photogravure for this volume.


TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, October 14, 1861.

FRIEND RICKETSON,--I think that, on the whole, my health is better
than when you were here; but my faith in the doctors has not
increased. I thank you all for your invitation to come to New Bedford,
but I suspect that it must still be warmer here than there; that,
indeed, New Bedford is warmer than Concord only in the winter, and so
I abide by Concord.

September was pleasanter and much better for me than August, and
October has thus far been quite tolerable. Instead of riding on
horseback, I ride in a wagon about every other day. My neighbor, Mr.
E. R. Hoar, has two horses, and he, being away for the most part this
fall, has generously offered me the use of one of them; and, as I
notice, the dog throws himself in, and does scouting duty.

I am glad to hear that you no longer chew, but eschew, sugar-plums.
One of the worst effects of sickness is, that it may get one into the
_habit_ of taking a little something--his bitters, or sweets, as if
for his bodily good--from time to time, when he does not need it.
However, there is no danger of this if you do not dose even when you
are sick.

I went with a Mr. Rodman, a young man of your town, here the other
day, or week, looking at farms for sale, and rumor says that he is
inclined to buy a particular one. Channing says that he received his
book, but has not got any of yours.

It is easy to talk, but hard to write.

From the worst of all correspondents,

     HENRY D. THOREAU.

No later letter than this was written by Thoreau's own hand; for he
was occupied all the winter of 1861-62, when he could write, in
preparing his manuscripts for the press. Nothing appeared before his
death, but in June, 1862, Mr. Fields, then editing the _Atlantic_,
printed "Walking,"--the first of three essays which came out in that
magazine the same year. Nothing of Thoreau's had been accepted for the
_Atlantic_ since 1858, when he withdrew the rest of "Chesuncook," then
coming out in its pages, because the editor (Mr. Lowell) had made
alterations in the manuscript. In April, just before his death, the
_Atlantic_ printed a short and characteristic sketch of Thoreau by
Bronson Alcott, and in August, Emerson's funeral oration, given in the
parish church of Concord. During the last six months of his illness,
his sister and his friends wrote letters for him, as will be seen by
the two that follow.


SOPHIA THOREAU TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, December 19, 1861.

     MR. RICKETSON:

_Dear Sir_,--Thank you for your friendly interest in my dear brother.
I wish that I could report more favorably in regard to his health.
Soon after your visit to Concord, Henry commenced riding, and almost
every day he introduced me to some of his familiar haunts, far away in
the thick woods, or by the ponds; all very new and delightful to me.
The air and exercise which he enjoyed during the fine autumn days were
a benefit to him; he seemed stronger, had a good appetite, and was
able to attend somewhat to his writing; but since the cold weather has
come, his cough has increased, and he is able to go out but seldom.
Just now he is suffering from an attack of pleurisy, which confines
him wholly to the house. His spirits do not fail him; he continues in
his usual serene mood, which is very pleasant for his friends as well
as himself. I am hoping for a short winter and early spring, that the
invalid may again be out of doors.

I am sorry to hear of your indisposition, and trust that you will be
well again soon. It would give me pleasure to see some of your
newspaper articles, since you possess a hopeful spirit. My patience is
nearly exhausted. The times look _very_ dark. I think the next soldier
who is shot for sleeping on his post should be Gen. McClellan. Why
does he not do something in the way of fighting? I despair of ever
living under the reign of Sumner or Phillips.


BRONSON ALCOTT TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

     CONCORD, January 10, 1862.

DEAR FRIEND,--You have not been informed of Henry's condition this
winter, and will be sorry to hear that he grows feebler day by day,
and is evidently failing and fading from our sight. He gets some
sleep, has a pretty good appetite, reads at intervals, takes notes of
his readings, and likes to see his friends, conversing, however, with
difficulty, as his voice partakes of his general debility. We had
thought this oldest inhabitant of our Planet would have chosen to stay
and see it fairly dismissed into the Chaos (out of which he has
brought such precious jewels,--gifts to friends, to mankind generally,
diadems for fame to coming followers, forgetful of his own claims to
the honors) before he chose simply to withdraw from the spaces and
times he has adorned with the truth of his genius. But the masterly
work is nearly done for us here. And our woods and fields are
sorrowing, though not in sombre, but in robes of white, so becoming to
the piety and probity they have known so long, and soon are to miss.
There has been none such since Pliny, and it will be long before there
comes his like; the most sagacious and wonderful Worthy of his time,
and a marvel to coming ones.

I write at the suggestion of his sister, who thought his friends would
like to be informed of his condition to the latest date.

Ever yours and respectfully,

     A. BRONSON ALCOTT.

The last letter of Henry Thoreau, written by the hand of his sister,
was sent to Myron Benton, a young literary man then living in Dutchess
County, New York, who had written a grateful letter to the author of
"Walden" (January 6, 1862), though quite unacquainted with him. Mr.
Benton said that the news of Thoreau's illness had affected him as if
it were that "of a personal friend whom I had known a long time," and
added: "The secret of the influence by which your writings charm me is
altogether as intangible, though real, as the attraction of Nature
herself. I read and reread your books with ever fresh delight. Nor is
it pleasure alone; there is a singular spiritual healthiness with
which they seem imbued,--the expression of a soul essentially sound,
so free from any morbid tendency." After mentioning that his own home
was in a pleasant valley, once the hunting-ground of the Indians, Mr.
Benton said:--

"I was in hope to read something more from your pen in Mr. Conway's
_Dial_,[106] but only recognized that fine pair of Walden twinlets.
Of your two books, I perhaps prefer the 'Week'--but after all,
'Walden' is but little less a favorite. In the former, I like
especially those little snatches of poetry interspersed throughout. I
would like to ask what progress you have made in a work some way
connected with natural history,--I think it was on Botany,--which Mr.
Emerson told me something about in a short interview I had with him
two years ago at Poughkeepsie.... If you should feel perfectly able at
any time to drop me a few lines, I would like much to know what your
state of health is, and if there is, as I cannot but hope, a prospect
of your speedy recovery."

Two months and more passed before Thoreau replied; but his habit of
performing every duty, whether of business or courtesy, would not
excuse him from an answer, which was this:--


TO MYRON B. BENTON (AT LEEDSVILLE, N. Y.).

     CONCORD, March 21, 1862.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for your very kind letter, which, ever since I
received it, I have intended to answer before I died, however briefly.
I am encouraged to know, that, so far as you are concerned, I have not
written my books in vain. I was particularly gratified, some years
ago, when one of my friends and neighbors said, "I wish you would
write another book,--write it for me." He is actually more familiar
with what I have written than I am myself.

The verses you refer to in Conway's _Dial_ were written by F. B.
Sanborn of this town. I never wrote for that journal.

I am pleased when you say that in the "Week" you like especially
"those little snatches of poetry interspersed through the book," for
these, I suppose, are the least attractive to most readers. I have not
been engaged in any particular work on Botany, or the like, though, if
I were to live, I should have much to report on Natural History
generally.

You ask particularly after my health. I _suppose_ that I have not many
months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add
that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

     Yours truly,
     HENRY D. THOREAU,
     by SOPHIA E. THOREAU.

He died May 6, 1862; his mother died March 12, 1872, and his sister
Sophia, October, 1876. With the death of his aunt, Maria Thoreau,
nearly twenty years after her beloved nephew, the last person of the
name in America (or perhaps in England) passed away.


FOOTNOTES:

[42] It will readily be seen that this letter relates to the shipwreck
on Fire Island, near New York, in which Margaret Fuller, Countess
Ossoli, with her husband and child, was lost. A letter with no date of
the year, but probably written February 15, 1840, from Emerson to
Thoreau, represents them both as taking much trouble about a house in
Concord for Mrs. Fuller, the mother of Margaret, who had just sold her
Groton house, and wished to live with her daughter near Emerson.

[43] Rev. A. B. Fuller, then of Manchester, N. H., afterward of
Boston; a brother of Margaret, who died a chaplain in the Civil War.

[44] The name of a political party, afterwards called "Republicans."

[45] Baron Trenck, the famous prisoner.

[46] The _Week_.

[47] Of _Putnam's Magazine_.

[48] A town near Boston.

[49] A Massachusetts town, the birthplace of Whittier.

[50] An American seaman, wrecked on the coast of Arabia,--once a
popular book.

[51] "The world is too much with us."--_Wordsworth._

[52] A lady who made such a night voyage with Thoreau, years before,
says: "How wise he was to ask the elderly lady with a younger one for
a row on the Concord River one moonlit night! The river that night was
as deep as the heavens above; serene stars shone from its depths, as
far off as the stars above. Deep answered unto deep in our souls, as
the boat glided swiftly along, past low-lying fields, under
overhanging trees. A neighbor's cow waded into the cool water,--she
became at once a Behemoth, a river-horse, hippopotamus, or river-god.
A dog barked,--he was Diana's hound, he waked Endymion. Suddenly we
were landed on a little isle; our boatman, our boat glided far off in
the flood. We were left alone, in the power of the river-god; like two
white birds we stood on this bit of ground, the river flowing about
us; only the eternal powers of nature around us. Time for a prayer,
perchance,--and back came the boat and oarsman; we were ferried to our
homes,--no question asked or answered. We had drank of the cup of the
night,--had left the silence and the stars."

[53] See Memoir of Bronson Alcott, pp. 485-494. The remark of Emerson
quoted on p. 486, that Cholmondeley was "the son of a Shropshire
squire," was not strictly correct, his father being a Cheshire
clergyman of a younger branch of the ancient race of Cholmondeley. But
he was the _grandson_ of a Shropshire squire (owner of land), for his
mother was daughter and sister of such gentlemen, and it was her
brother Richard who presented Reginald Heber and Charles Cholmondeley
to the living of Hodnet, near Market Drayton.

[54] Mr. Ricketson's immediate reply was received by Thoreau before he
wrote to Blake on the 22d. He set out from Concord for Cambridge on
Christmas Day, and reached Brooklawn, the country-house of his friend,
towards evening of that short day, on foot, with his umbrella and
traveling-bag, and he made so striking a figure in the eyes of
Ricketson that he sketched it roughly in his shanty-book. His children
have engraved it in their pleasing volume _Daniel Ricketson and his
Friends_, from the pages of which several of these letters are taken.
It is by no means a bad likeness of the plain and upright Thoreau.

[55] Hyannis was once a port for the sailing of the steamers to
Nantucket, where probably Thoreau was to land on his return. He had
visited the Cape before, but never Nantucket. Thomas Cholmondeley went
home with the distinct purpose of going to the Crimean war, and did
so. The subject of the New Bedford lecture was "Getting a Living."

Channing, his wife and children having left him, was living by himself
in his house opposite to Thoreau. Late in 1855 he rejoined Mrs.
Channing, in a household near Dorchester, and became one of the
editors of the New Bedford _Mercury_, residing in that city in
1856-57, after the death of Mrs. Channing.

[56] Quitman, aided perhaps by Laurence Oliphant, was aiming to
capture Cuba with "filibusters" (flibustiers).

[57] Then President of the United States, whose life Hawthorne had
written in 1852.

[58] I had been visiting Emerson occasionally for a year or two, and
knew Alcott well at this time; was also intimate with Cholmondeley in
the autumn of 1854, but had never seen Thoreau, a fact which shows how
recluse were then his habits. The letter below, and the long one
describing his trip to Minnesota, were the only ones I received from
him in a friendship of seven years. See Sanborn's _Thoreau_, pp.
195-200. Edwin Morton was my classmate. See pp. 286, 353, 440.

[59] The book was _Ultima Thule_, describing New Zealand.

[60] This was Edmund Hosmer, a Concord farmer, before mentioned as a
friend of Emerson, who was fond of quoting his sagacious and often
cynical remarks. He had entertained George Curtis and the Alcotts at
his farm on the "Turnpike," southeast of Emerson's; but now was living
on a part of the old manor of Governor Winthrop, which soon passed to
the ownership of the Hunts; and this house which Mr. Ricketson
proposed to lease was the "old Hunt farmhouse,"--in truth built for
the Winthrops two centuries before. It was soon after torn down.

[61] Sons of Mr. Ricketson; the second, a sculptor, modeled the
medallion head of Thoreau reproduced in photogravure for the
frontispiece of this volume.

[62] Mr. Channing had gone, October, 1855, to live in New Bedford, and
help edit the _Mercury_ there.

[63] The centre of Concord village, where the post-office and shops
are,--so called from an old mill-dam where now is a street.

[64] The aunt of R. W. Emerson, then eighty-one years old, an admirer
of Thoreau, as her notes to him show. For an account of her see
Emerson's _Lectures and Biographical Sketches_, Centenary Ed., pp.
397-433; Riverside Ed., pp. 371-404.

[65] The books on India, Egypt, etc., sent by Cholmondeley. See p.
271. They were divided between the Concord Public Library and the
libraries of Alcott, Blake, Emerson, Sanborn, etc.

[66] Mr. Channing became a frequent visitor at Brooklawn in the years
of his residence at New Bedford, 1856-58. See p. 274.

[67] These books were ordered by Cholmondeley in London, and sent to
Boston just as he was starting for the Crimean War, in October, 1855,
calling them "a nest of Indian books." They included Mill's _History
of British India_, several translations of the sacred books of India,
and one of them in Sanscrit; the works of Bunsen, so far as then
published, and other valuable books. In the note accompanying this
gift, Cholmondeley said, "I think I never found so much kindness in
all my travels as in your country of New England." In return, Thoreau
sent his English friend, in 1857, his own _Week_, Emerson's Poems,
Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_, and F. L. Olmsted's book on the
Southern States (then preparing for the secession which they attempted
four years later). This was perhaps the first copy of Whitman seen in
England, and when Cholmondeley began to read it to his stepfather,
Rev. Z. Macaulay, at Hodnet, that clergyman declared he would not hear
it, and threatened to throw it in the fire. On reading the _Week_ (he
had received _Walden_ from Thoreau when first in America),
Cholmondeley wrote me, "Would you tell dear Thoreau that the lines I
admire so much in his _Week_ begin thus:--

     'Low-anchored cloud,
     Newfoundland air,' etc.

In my mind the best thing he ever wrote."

[68] Ellery Channing is mentioned, though not by name, in the _Week_
(pp. 169, 378), and in _Walden_ (p. 295). He was the comrade of
Thoreau in Berkshire, and on the Hudson, in New Hampshire, Canada, and
Cape Cod, and in many rambles nearer Concord. He was also a companion
of Hawthorne in his river voyages, as mentioned in the _Mosses_.

[69] The Concord Lyceum, founded in 1829, and still extant, though not
performing its original function of lectures and debates. See pp. 51,
154, etc.

[70] This was the town of Harvard, not the college. Perhaps the
excursion was to visit Fruitlands, where Alcott and Lane had
established their short-lived community, in a beautiful spot near
Still River, an affluent of the Nashua, and half-way from Concord to
Wachusett. "Asnebumskit," mentioned in a former letter, is the highest
hill near Worcester, as "Nobscot" is the highest near Concord. Both
have Indian names.

[71] The New York newspaper.

[72] An odd boat.

[73] Mrs. Caroline Kirkland, wife of Prof. William Kirkland, then of
New York,--a writer of wit and fame at that time.

[74] A Worcester newspaper.

[75] B. B. Wiley, then of Providence, since of Chicago (deceased), had
written to Thoreau, September 4, for the _Week_, which the author was
then selling on his own account, having bought back the unsalable
first edition from his publisher, Munroe. In a letter of October 31,
to which the above is a reply, he mentions taking a walk with Charles
Newcomb, then of Providence, since of London and Paris, now dead,--a
_Dial_ contributor, and a special friend of Emerson; then inquires
about Confucius, the Hindoo philosophers, and Swedenborg.

[76] When, in 1855 or 1856, Thoreau started to wade across from
Duxbury to Clark's Island, and was picked up by a fishing-boat in the
deep water, and landed on the "back side" of the island (see letter to
Mr. Watson of April 25, 1858), Edward Watson ("Uncle Ed") was "saggin'
round" to see that everything was right alongshore, and encountered
the unexpected visitor. "How did _you_ come here?" "Oh, from Duxbury,"
said Thoreau, and they walked to the old Watson house together. "You
say in one of your books," said Uncle Ed, "that you once lost a horse
and a hound and a dove,--now I should like to know what you meant by
that?" "Why, everybody has met with losses, haven't they?"
"H'm,--pretty way to answer a fellow!" said Mr. Watson; but it seems
this was the usual answer. In the long dining-room of the old house
that night he sat by the window and told the story of the Norse
voyagers to New England,--perhaps to that very island and the Gurnet
near by,--as Morton fancies in his review of Thoreau in the _Harvard
Magazine_ (January, 1855).

[77] This was when he spoke in the vestry of the Calvinistic church,
and said, on his return to Concord, "that he hoped he had done
something to upheave and demolish the structure above,"--the vestry
being beneath the church.

[78] Notwithstanding this unwillingness to lecture, Thoreau did speak
at Worcester, February 13, 1857, on "Walking," but scrupulously added
to his consent (February 6), "I told Brown it had not been much
altered since I read it in Worcester; but now I think of it, much of
it must have been new to you, because, having since divided it into
two, I am able to read what before I omitted. Nevertheless, I should
like to have it understood by those whom it concerns, that I am
invited to read in public (if it be so) what I have already read, in
part, to a private audience." This throws some light on his method of
preparing lectures, which were afterwards published as essays; they
were made up from his journals, and new entries expanded them.

[79] Rev. Edward E. Hale, then pastor at Worcester. Others mentioned
in the letter are Rev. David A. Wasson and Dr. Seth Rogers,--the
latter a physician with whom Mr. Wasson was living in Worcester.

[80] A writer on scenery and natural history, who outlived Thoreau,
and never forgave him for the remark about "stirring up with a pole,"
which really might have been less graphic.

[81] The panic of 1857,--the worst since 1837.

[82] Reinhold Solger, Ph. D.,--a very intellectual and well-taught
Prussian, who was one of the lecturers for a year or two at my
"Concord School," the successor of the Concord "Academy," in which the
children of the Emerson, Alcott, Hawthorne, Hoar, and Ripley families
were taught. At this date the lectures were given in the vestry of the
parish church, which Thoreau playfully termed "a meeting-house
cellar." It was there that Louisa Alcott acted plays.

[83] Exclamation points and printer's devil.

[84] Channing says (_Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist_, new ed., pp. 41,
42): "He made for himself a knapsack, with partitions for his books
and papers,--india-rubber cloth (strong and large and spaced, the
common knapsacks being unspaced).... After trying the merit of cocoa,
coffee, water, and the like, tea was put down as the felicity of a
walking '_travail_,'--tea plenty, strong, with enough sugar, made in a
tin pint cup.... He commended every party to carry 'a junk of heavy
cake' with plums in it, having found by long experience that after
toil it was a capital refreshment."

[85] Marston Watson, whose uncle, Edward Watson, with his nephews,
owned the "breezy island" where Thoreau had visited his friends
(Clark's Island, the only one in Plymouth Bay), had built his own
house, "Hillside," on the slope of one of the hills above Plymouth
town, and there laid out a fine park and garden, which Thoreau
surveyed for him in the autumn of 1854, Alcott and Mr. Watson carrying
the chain. For a description of Hillside, see Channing's _Wanderer_
(Boston, 1871) and Alcott's _Sonnets and Canzonets_ (Boston: Roberts,
1882). It was a villa much visited by Emerson, Alcott, Channing,
Thoreau, George Bradford, and the Transcendentalists generally. Mr.
Watson graduated at Harvard two years after Thoreau, and in an old
diary says, "I remember Thoreau in the college yard (1836) with
downcast thoughtful look intent, as if he were searching for
something; always in a green coat,--green because the authorities
required black, I suppose." In a letter he says: "I have always heard
the 'Maiden in the East' was Mrs. Watson,--Mary Russell Watson,--and I
suppose there is no doubt of it. I may be prejudiced, but I have
always thought it one of his best things,--and I have highly valued
his lines. I find in my _Dial_, No. 6, I have written six new stanzas
in the margin of Friendship, and they are numbered to show how they
should run. I think Mrs. Brown gave them to me."

[86] _Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist_, new ed., pp. 42-45.

[87] Near which, at New Bedford, Mr. Ricketson lived.

[88] This was the "Orchard House," near Hawthorne's "Wayside." The
estate on which it stands, now owned by Mrs. Lothrop, who also owns
the "Wayside," was surveyed for Mr. Alcott by Thoreau in October,
1857.

[89] Channing's _Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist_, new ed., pp. 6, 15,
16. Channing himself was, no doubt, the "follower" and "companion"
here mentioned; no person so frequently walked with Thoreau in his
long excursions. They were together in New Boston, N. H., when the
minister mentioned in the _Week_ reproved Thoreau for not going to
meeting on Sunday. When I first lived in Concord (March, 1855), and
asked the innkeeper what Sunday services the village held, he replied,
"There's the Orthodox, an' the Unitarian, an' th' Walden Pond
Association,"--meaning by the last what Emerson called "the
Walkers,"--those who rambled in the Walden woods on Sundays.

[90] Of New Bedford, first published in the _Mercury_ of that city,
while Channing was one of the editors, and afterwards in a volume.

[91] The club with which Thoreau here makes merry was the Saturday
Club, meeting at Parker's Hotel in Boston the last Saturday in each
month, of which Emerson, Agassiz, Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Henry
James, and other men of letters were members. Thoreau, though invited,
never seems to have met with them, as Channing did, on one memorable
occasion, at least, described by Mr. James in a letter cited in the
_Memoir of Bronson Alcott_, who also occasionally dined with this
club. The conversation at Emerson's next mentioned was also memorable
for the vigor with which Miss Mary Emerson, then eighty-four years
old, rebuked Mr. James for what she thought his dangerous Antinomian
views concerning the moral law.

[92] This was Tuckerman's Ravine at the White Mountains, where Thoreau
met with his mishap in the preceding July.

[93] He was looking after the manufacture of fine plumbago for the
electrotypers, which was the family business after pencil-making grew
unprofitable. The Thoreaus had a grinding-mill in Acton, and a
packing-shop attached to their Concord house. "Parker's society,"
mentioned at the close of the letter, was the congregation of Theodore
Parker, then in Italy, where he died in May, 1860.

[94] He was invited to a gathering of John Brown's friends at the
grave in the Adirondack woods. "Mr. Sanborn's case" was an indictment
and civil suit against Silas Carleton _et als._ for an attempt to
kidnap F. B. Sanborn, who had refused to accept the invitation of the
Senate at Washington to testify in the John Brown investigation.

[95] This is the excursion described by Thoreau in a subsequent
letter,--lasting six days, and the first that Channing had made which
involved "camping out." It was also Thoreau's last visit to this
favorite mountain; but Channing continued to go there after the death
of his friend; and some of these visits are recorded in his poem "The
Wanderer." The last one was in September, 1869, when I accompanied
him, and we again spent five nights on the plateau where he had camped
with Thoreau. At that time, one of the "two good spruce houses, half a
mile apart," mentioned by Thoreau, was still standing, in ruins,--the
place called by Channing "Henry's Camp," and thus described:--

           We built our fortress where you see
     Yon group of spruce-trees, sidewise on the line
     Where the horizon to the eastward bounds,--
     A point selected by sagacious art,
     Where all at once we viewed the Vermont hills,
     And the long outline of the mountain-ridge,
     Ever renewing, changeful every hour.

     See _The Wanderer_ (Boston, 1871), p. 61.


[96] See Thoreau's _Journal_, Dec. 3, 1859. Merriam mentioned
Thoreau's name to him, but never guessed who his companion was.

[97] This was Thoreau's last visit to Monadnock, and the one mentioned
in the note of August 3, and in Channing's _Wanderer_.

[98] The Prince of Wales (now King Edward VII), then visiting America
with the Duke of Newcastle.

[99] Now termed pneumonia.

[100] In April, 1859, Mr. Alcott was chosen superintendent of the
public schools of Concord, by a school committee of which Mr. Bull,
the creator of the Concord grape, and Mr. Sanborn, were members, and
for some years he directed the studies of the younger pupils, to their
great benefit and delight. At the yearly "exhibitions," songs were
sung composed by Louisa Alcott and others, and the whole town
assembled to see and hear. The stress of civil war gradually checked
this idyllic movement, and Mr. Alcott returned to his garden and
library. It was two years after this that Miss Alcott had her severe
experience as hospital nurse at Washington.

[101] Edwin Morton of Plymouth, Mass., a friend of John Brown and
Gerrit Smith, who went to England in October, 1859, to avoid
testifying against his friends.

[102] A word may be said of the after life of this magnanimous
Englishman, who did not long survive his Concord correspondent. In
March, 1863, being then in command of a battalion of Shropshire
Volunteers, which he had raised, he inherited Condover Hall and the
large estate adjacent, and took the name of Owen as a condition of the
inheritance. A year later he married Miss Victoria Cotes, daughter of
John and Lady Louisa Cotes (Co. Salop), a godchild of the Queen, and
went to Italy for his wedding tour. In Florence he was seized with a
malignant fever, April 10, 1864, and died there April 20,--not quite
two years after Thoreau's death. His brother Reginald, who had met him
in Florence, carried back his remains to England, and he is buried in
Condover churchyard. Writing to an American friend, Mr. R.
Cholmondeley said: "The whole county mourned for one who had made
himself greatly beloved. During his illness his thoughts went back
very much to America and her great sufferings. His large heart felt
for your country as if it were his own." It seems that he did not go
to New Zealand with the "Canterbury Pilgrims," as suggested in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ (December, 1893), but in the first of Lord
Lyttelton's ships (the Charlotte Jane), having joined in Lord L.'s
scheme for colonizing the island, where he remained only six months,
near Christchurch.

[103] Rev. Joseph May, a cousin of Louisa Alcott.

[104] I had answered T. Cholmondeley's last letter, explaining that
Thoreau was ill and absent.

[105] A return to religious Quakerism, of which his friend had written
enthusiastically.

[106] This was a short-lived monthly, edited at Cincinnati (1861-62)
by Moncure D. Conway, since distinguished as an author, who had
resided for a time in Concord, after leaving his native Virginia. He
wrote asking Thoreau and all his Concord friends to contribute to this
new _Dial_, and several of them did so.




APPENDIX


The letters of Thoreau, early or late, which did not reach me in time
to be used in the original edition of this book, and have since
appeared in print here and there, are included either in order of
their date in the preceding pages (in the case of the additional
Ricketson letters) or in this Appendix. I owe the right to use the
following correspondence to Mr. E. H. Russell of Worcester and to Dr.
S. A. Jones of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who first obtained from the family
of Calvin H. Greene of Rochester, Michigan, the Greene letters, five
in number, all short, but characteristic. Dr. Jones printed these in a
small edition at Jamaica, N. Y., and along with them some letters of
Miss Sophia Thoreau to Mr. Greene, and portions of Greene's Diary
during his two visits to Concord in September, 1863, and August, 1874.
In these papers he left initials, or letters commonly used for unknown
quantities, to stand for certain names occurring there. "X." and "X.
Y. Z." in this Diary, and in Miss Thoreau's letters, signify Ellery
Channing, to whom in March, 1863, Mr. Greene had sent the manzanita
cane, headed with buffalo-horn and tipped with silver, which he had
made with his own hands and intended for Thoreau, and which Mr.
Channing gave to me, as the mutual friend of the two Concord poets. In
the Diary I am "Mr. S." This Diary and the letters of Miss Thoreau
supply some useful facts for a Thoreau biography, which this
collection of Familiar Letters was meant to be,--a biography largely
in the words of its subject. Notice is taken of such facts in
footnotes.

The earlier letters to Isaac Hecker, afterwards known as Father Hecker
of New York, grew out of an acquaintance formed with him while he was
living at Mrs. Thoreau's, and taking lessons of the late George
Bradford, brother of Mrs. Ripley. They were subsequent to Hecker's
brief stay at Brook Farm and Fruitlands, and when he was studying to
be a Catholic priest. He cherished the vain hope of converting Thoreau
to his own newly acquired faith, amid the influences of Catholic
Europe. The brief correspondence is printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_
for September, 1902.

Isaac Hecker, born in December, 1819, two and a half years after
Thoreau, was the son of a German baker in New York city, and of little
education until he came to Massachusetts at the age of twenty-three,
as the disciple and friend of Dr. Brownson, then a Protestant preacher
and social democrat. In January, 1843, he entered the Brook Farm
community, not as a member, but as a worker and student, making the
bread for the family and taking lessons of George Ripley, George
Bradford, Charles Dana, and John S. Dwight,--all friends of the
Concord circle of authors. But he was restless, and yearned for a more
ascetic life, and before he had been at Brook Farm a month he was
writing to Bronson Alcott about entering the as yet unopened
Fruitlands convent, between which and Brook Farm Concord was a
half-way station, both physically and spiritually. Hecker tried all
three; was at Brook Farm, off and on, for six months, at Fruitlands
two weeks (from July 11 to July 25, 1843), and at Concord two months
(from April 22 to June 20, 1844). Then, August 1, he was baptized in
the Catholic faith at New York. The day before this final step,
towards which he had been tending for a year, he wrote to Thoreau,
proposing a journey through Europe on foot and without money. During
his brief Concord life he had been a lodger at the house of John
Thoreau (the Parkman house, where now the Public Library stands), and
had seen Henry Thoreau daily. Hecker thus describes his room, his
rent, and his landlady, who was Thoreau's mother:

"All that is needed for my comfort is here,--a room of good size, very
good people, furnished and to be kept in order for 75 cents a week,
including lights,--wood is extra pay; a good straw bed, a large table,
carpet, wash-stand, bookcase, stove, chairs, looking-glass,--all, all
that is needful. The lady of the house, Mrs. Thoreau, is a _woman_.
The only fear I have about her is that she is too much like dear
mother,--she will take too much care of me. If you were to see her,
Mother, you would be perfectly satisfied that I have fallen into good
hands, and met a second mother, if that is possible. I have just
finished my dinner,--unleavened bread from home, maple-sugar, and
apples which I purchased this morning. Previous to taking dinner I
said my first lesson to Mr. Bradford in Greek and Latin."

Hecker "boarded himself," but no doubt often partook of Mrs. Thoreau's
hospitality, and took long walks with Thoreau. Writing to him three
months after the first meeting at Concord, Hecker said: "I have formed
a certain project which your influence has no slight share in forming.
It is, to work our passage to Europe, and to walk, work, and beg, if
need be, as far, when there, as we are inclined to do."


TO ISAAC HECKER (AT NEW YORK).

     CONCORD, August 14, 1844.

FRIEND HECKER,--I am glad to hear your voice from that populous city,
and the more so for the tenor of its discourse. I have but just
returned from a pedestrian excursion somewhat similar to that you
propose, _parvis componere magna_, to the Catskill Mountains, over the
principal mountains of this State, subsisting mainly on bread and
berries, and slumbering on the mountain-tops. As usually happens, I
now feel a slight sense of dissipation. Still, I am strongly tempted
by your proposal, and experience a decided schism between my outward
and inward tendencies. Your method of traveling, especially,--to live
along the road, citizens of the world, without haste or petty
plans,--I have often proposed this to my dreams, and still do. But the
fact is, I cannot so decidedly postpone exploring the _Farther
Indies_, which are to be reached, you know, by other routes and other
methods of travel. I mean that I constantly return from every external
enterprise with disgust, to fresh faith in a kind of Brahminical,
Artesian, Inner Temple life. All my experience, as yours probably,
proves only this reality. Channing wonders how I can resist your
invitation, I, a single man--unfettered--and so do I. Why, there are
Roncesvalles, the Cape de Finisterre, and the Three Kings of Cologne;
Rome, Athens, and the rest, to be visited in serene, untemporal hours,
and all history to revive in one's memory, as he went by the way, with
splendors too bright for this world,--I know how it is. But is not
here, too, Roncesvalles with greater lustre? Unfortunately, it may
prove dull and desultory weather enough here, but better trivial days
with faith than the fairest ones lighted by sunshine alone. Perchance,
my _Wanderjahr_ has not arrived, but you cannot wait for that. I hope
you will find a companion who will enter as heartily into your schemes
as I should have done.

I remember you, as it were, with the whole Catholic Church at your
skirts. And the other day, for a moment, I think I understood your
relation to that body; but the thought was gone again in a twinkling,
as when a dry leaf falls from its stem over our heads, but is
instantly lost in the rustling mass at our feet.

I am really sorry that the Genius will not let me go with you, but I
trust that it will conduct to other adventures, and so, if nothing
prevents, we will compare notes at last.

       *       *       *       *       *

When this invitation reached Concord, Thoreau was absent on a tour
with Channing to the Berkshire Mountains and the Catskills,--Channing
coming up the Hudson from New York (where he then lived, aiding Horace
Greeley in the _Tribune_ office), and meeting his friend at the foot
of the Hoosac Mountain. On its summit Thoreau had spent the night,
sleeping under a board near the observatory tower built by the
Williams College students, as related by him in the _Week_. They then
crossed the Hudson and journeyed on to the Catskills, returning
together to Concord.[107] Meantime Hecker had got impatient, and wrote
again, to which Thoreau replied, August 17, thus briefly:--


TO ISAAC HECKER (AT NEW YORK).

I improve the occasion of my mother's sending to acknowledge the
receipt of your stirring letter. You have probably received mine by
this time. I thank you for not anticipating any vulgar objections on
my part. _Far_ travel, very _far_ travel, or travail, comes near to
the worth of staying at home. Who knows whence his education is to
come! Perhaps I may drag my anchor at length, or rather, when the
_winds_ which blow _over_ the deep fill my sails, may stand away for
distant parts,--for now I seem to have a firm _ground_ anchorage,
though the harbor is low-shored enough, and the traffic with the
natives inconsiderable. I may be away to Singapore by the next tide.

I like well the ring of your last maxim, "It is only the fear of death
makes us reason of impossibilities." And but for fear, death itself is
an impossibility.

Believe me, I can hardly let it end so. If you do not go soon, let me
hear from you again.

     Yrs. in great haste,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.

Hecker did not in fact go to Europe till a year later, and when he
walked over a part of central Europe, it was in company with one or
two young Catholic priests,--men very unlike Thoreau.

The short correspondence with Calvin Greene (longer than that with
Hecker) occurred at intervals, a dozen years and more after the
Fruitlands period, when the Walden experience had been lived through
and recorded, and the friendship with the Ricketson family was in its
earlier stages. Mr. Greene, when he called on me at his first visit to
the Thoreau family in 1863, mentioned that he had just read Thoreau's
poem, "The Departure," which at Sophia's request I had lately printed
in the Boston _Commonwealth_, a weekly that I had been editing since
Moncure Conway had left Concord for London, in the winter of 1862-63.
Greene was a plain, sincere man, never in New England before, who
amused Channing by saying he had "taken a boat-ride on the Atlantic."
He came once more in 1874, and spent an evening with me in the house
where Thoreau lived and died,--Mrs. Thoreau then being dead, and
Sophia at Bangor, where she died in 1876.


TO CALVIN H. GREENE (AT ROCHESTER, MICH.).

     CONCORD, January 18, 1856.

DEAR SIR,--I am glad to hear that my "Walden" has interested
you,--that perchance it holds some truth still as far off as Michigan.
I thank you for your note.

The "Week" had so poor a publisher that it is quite uncertain whether
you will find it in any shop. I am not sure but authors must turn
booksellers themselves. The price is $1.25. If you care enough for it
to send me that sum by mail (stamps will do for change), I will
forward you a copy by the same conveyance.

As for the "more" that is to come, I cannot speak definitely at
present, but I trust that the mine--be it silver or lead--is not yet
exhausted. At any rate, I shall be encouraged by the fact that you are
interested in its yield.

     Yours respectfully,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


     CONCORD, February 10, 1856.

DEAR SIR,--I forwarded to you by mail on the 31st of January a copy of
my "Week," post paid, which I trust that you have received. I thank
you heartily for the expression of your interest in "Walden" and hope
that you will not be disappointed by the "Week." You ask how the
former has been received. It has found an audience of excellent
character, and quite numerous, some 2000 copies having been
dispersed.[108] I should consider it a greater success to interest one
wise and earnest soul, than a million unwise and frivolous.

You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that
I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blundering
clod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an
infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I
have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?

I like the name of your county.[109] May it grow men as sturdy as its
trees! Methinks I hear your flute echo amid the oaks. Is not yours,
too, a good place to study theology? I hope that you will ere long
recover your turtle-dove, and that it may bring you glad tidings out
of that heaven in which it disappeared.

     Yours sincerely,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


     CONCORD, May 31, 1856.

DEAR SIR,--I forwarded by mail a copy of my "Week," post paid to James
Newberry, Merchant, Rochester, Oakland Co., Mich., according to your
order, about ten days ago, or on the receipt of your note.

I will obtain and forward a copy of "Walden" and also of the "Week" to
California, to your order, post paid, for $2.60. The postage will be
between 60 and 70 cents.

I thank you heartily for your kind intentions respecting me. The West
has many attractions for me, particularly the lake country and the
Indians, yet I do [not] foresee what my engagements may be in the
fall. I have once or twice come near going West a-lecturing, and
perhaps some winter may bring me into your neighborhood, in which case
I should probably see you. Yet lecturing has commonly proved so
foreign and irksome to me, that I think I could only use it to acquire
the means with which to make an independent tour another time.

As for my pen, I can say that it is not altogether idle, though I have
finished nothing new in the book form. I am drawing a rather long bow,
though it may be a feeble one, but I pray that the archer may receive
new strength before the arrow is shot.

     With many thanks, yours truly,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


     CONCORD, Saturday, June 21, 1856.

DEAR SIR,--On the 12th I forwarded the two books to California,
observing your directions in every particular, and I trust that Uncle
Sam will discharge his duty faithfully. While in Worcester this week I
obtained the accompanying daguerreotype,[110] which my friends think
is pretty good, though better-looking than I.

     Books and postage           $2.64
     Daguerreotype                 .50
     Postage                       .16
                                  ----
                                  3.30

          5.00 You will accordingly
          3.30
          ----
     find 1.70 enclosed with my shadow.

     Yrs.,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


     CONCORD, July 8, 1857.

DEAR SIR,--You are right in supposing that I have not been Westward. I
am very little of a traveler. I am gratified to hear of the interest
you take in my books; it is additional encouragement to write more of
them. Though my pen is not idle, I have not published anything for a
couple of years at least. I like a private life, and cannot bear to
have the public in my mind.

You will excuse me for not responding more heartily to your notes,
since I realize what an interval there always is between the actual
and imagined author and feel that it would not be just for _me_ to
appropriate the sympathy and good will of my unseen readers.

Nevertheless, I should like to meet you, and if I ever come into your
neighborhood shall endeavor to do so. Can't you tell the world of your
life also? Then I shall know you, at least as well as you me.

     Yours truly,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


     CONCORD, November 24, 1859.

DEAR SIR,--The lectures which you refer to were reported in the
newspapers, _after a fashion_,--the last one in some half-dozen of
them,--and if I possessed one, or all, I would send them to you, bad
as they are. The best, or at least longest one of the Boston lectures
was in the Boston _Atlas and Bee_ of November 2d,--maybe half the
whole. There were others in the _Traveller_, the _Journal_, etc., of
the same date.

I am glad to know that you are interested to see my things, and I wish
I had them in printed form to send to you. I exerted myself
considerably to get the last discourse printed and sold for the
benefit of Brown's family, but the publishers are afraid of pamphlets,
and it is now too late.[111]

I return the stamps which I have not used.

I shall be glad to see you if I ever come your way.

     Yours truly,
     HENRY D. THOREAU.


FOOTNOTES:

[107] Channing more than once described to me Thoreau's disheveled
appearance as he came down the mountain the next morning, after rather
a comfortless night. He was carrying for valise a green leather
satchel that had been Charles Emerson's, having but recently been the
guest of both William and Waldo Emerson. In depicting the scene from
the Berkshire mountain, he recurred (in the _Week_) to the homesteads
of the Huguenots on Staten Island, where he had rambled the year
before this Berkshire experience, while living at William Emerson's
and giving lessons to his sons.

[108] This was ten times as many in eighteen months as the _Week_ sold
in five years.

[109] Mr. Greene lived in Oakland County.

[110] This fixes the date of the Worcester portrait,--June, 1856, two
years after the Rowse crayon.

[111] This "last discourse" was the long one on John Brown, now
included in Thoreau's _Miscellanies_, and formerly in the volume
beginning with "A Yankee in Canada."




GENERAL INDEX

The following are the titles of the volumes covered by this index and
the numbers by which they are designated:--

     1. A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS.
     2. WALDEN.
     3. THE MAINE WOODS.
     4. CAPE COD, AND MISCELLANIES.
     5. EXCURSIONS, AND POEMS.
     6. FAMILIAR LETTERS.




GENERAL INDEX

[The titles of chapters and general divisions are set in SMALL
CAPITALS.]


"A finer race and finer fed," verse, =1=, 407.

Abbot (Me.), =3=, 97.

Abby and Almira (Mrs. Miner and Mrs. Small), =6=, 152.

Abercrombie, =6=, 26.

Abolitionist Journal, an, =4=, 306-310; convention, =6=, 260.

Aboljacarmegus Falls, =3=, 58, 82; meaning of the name, 157.

Aboljacarmegus Lake, =3=, 51.

Aboljacknagesic Stream, =3=, 51, 58, 59, 62.

Absence, from Concord, =6=, 50, 67-121, 233; in love and friendship,
74, 187.

"Abuse of the Bible," Mrs. Mott's, =6=, 97.

Academy at Concord, =6=, 72.

Acclimation, =6=, 73, 78.

Achilles, The Youth of, translation, =5=, 385.

Acorns, =6=, 354, 355.

Acre, an, as long measure, =5=, 60.

ACROSS THE CAPE, =4=, 129-149.

Action and Being, =6=, 159, 163, 178, 179, 210, 221.

Acton (Mass.), =2=, 136; =5=, 136; =6=, 355, 364, 366, 367.

Adams, John, =6=, 5, note.

Adams' Latin Grammar, =6=, 25.

Adirondacks, =6=, 360, 364, note.

Admetus, =6=, 39, 44, 45, 223, 355.

Admiration, =6=, 153, 214, 337.

Adolescentula, E. White, =6=, 29, 32.

Adoration of Nature, =6=, 36, 37, 64.

Advertisements, the best part of newspapers, =1=, 194.

Advice, =6=, 25, 26, 66, 67, 121, 134, 143, 144, 178, 186.

Æolian harp, =6=, 199.

Aerial effects, =6=, 88.

Aerial rivers, =6=, 58.

_Aes alienum_, another's brass, a very ancient slough, =2=, 7.

Æschylus, The Prometheus Bound of, translation, =5=, 337-375.

Æschylus, translated, =6=, 60, 102.

Æsculapius, that old herb-doctor, =2=, 154.

Æsculapius, translation, =5=, 380.

AFTER THE DEATH OF JOHN BROWN, =4=, 451-454.

Agassiz, Louis, =1=, 26, 31; and T., =6=, 125-132; mentioned, 138,
147, 328.

Age and youth, =2=, 9.

Age of achievement, =6=, 120-182.

Agiocochook, =1=, 335; =6=, 107.

Agriculture, the new, =4=, 291; the task of Americans, =5=, 229-231;
newspaper, =6=, 107.

"Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din," verse, =1=, 15.

Aims in life, =6=, xi, 47, 59, note, 67, 88, 89, 118, 159, 164, 173,
187, 242, 260, 278.

Aitteon, Joe, =3=, 94, 99, 100, 210, 233, 313.

Ajax, The Treatment of, translation, =5=, 387.

Alcott, A. Bronson (b. 1799, d. 1888), =6=, 50, 52, 60, 61, 62-65, 83,
note, 104, 124, 134, 136, 144, 146, 151, 153, 154, 158, 190, 238, 252,
note, 281, 289, 306, 328, 333, 341, 346, 359, 379, 381, 397;
acquaintance with Thoreau, 50, 52, 64, 136, 137, 151; at home in
Fruitlands, 64, 83, 84; in Boston, 236, 237; in Walpole, 281; in
Concord, at Orchard House, 333, 376; builds Emerson's summer-house,
134-137; in Concord jail, 52; chosen school superintendent, 377; diary
of, 297; holds conversations in Concord, 52, 64, 346; in Eagleswood, N.
J., 291; in New York, 282, 283, 297; dines with Thoreau, 52; visits
with Thoreau in New Bedford, 306, 307; in Plymouth, 328, note; in
Brooklyn, 298; describes Walt Whitman, 298; at Thoreau's funeral, 65,
note; letter from, 397; letter to, 282.

Alcott, Mrs. A. B., =6=, 283.

Alcott, Louisa May, =6=, 321, note, 377, note.

Alewives, =1=, 32.

Alexander the Great, =6=, x.

"All things are current found," verse, =1=, 415.

ALLEGASH AND EAST BRANCH, THE, =3=, 174-327.

Allegash Lakes, the, =3=, 78, 175, 250, 257.

Allegash River, the, =3=, 40, 80, 161, 178, 233, 250, 254-257, 260,
270.

Allen, Phineas, =6=, 10, note.

Alms-House Farm, =2=, 283.

Alms-House (of Concord), =6=, 34, 77, 146.

Alphonse, Jean, quoted, =4=, 238; and Falls of Montmorenci, =5=, 38,
39; quoted, 91.

Ambejijis Falls, =3=, 50; portage round, 52, 84.

Ambejijis Lake, =3=, 45-47, 49, 50, 84, 291.

Ambejijis Stream, =3=, 50.

America, the only true, =2=, 228; the newness of, =3=, 90; not truly
free, =4=, 476, 477; provincialism of, 477; superiorities of, =5=,
220-224.

American, money in Quebec, =5=, 24; the, and government, 82, 83, =6=,
8-10.

American privateer, General Lincoln, =6=, 5.

Amherst (N. H.), =6=, 302.

_Amoenitates Botanicae_, =6=, 207.

"Amok" against T., society running, =2=, 190.

Amonoosuck, the, =1=, 334.

Amoskeag Falls, =1=, 259, 260, 337.

Amoskeag (N. H.), =1=, 261, 262, 271, 273, 307.

Amphiaraus, The death of, translation, =5=, 387.

Amusements, games and, despair concealed under, =2=, 8, 9.

"An early unconverted saint," verse, =1=, 42.

Anacreon, =1=, 238-240; translations from, 240-244; quoted, =5=, 108,
109, 110.

Anawan, an Indian, =6=, 15.

Anchors, dragging for, =4=, 162.

Ancients, wisdom of the, =6=, 114, 299, 300.

Andover (Mass.), =1=, 124.

Andropogons, or beard-grasses, =5=, 225-258.

Ange Gardien Parish, =5=, 42; church of, 46.

Angler's Souvenir, the, =5=, 119.

Animal food, objections to, =2=, 237.

Animal labor, man better without the help of, =2=, 62, 63.

Animal life and heat nearly synonymous, =2=, 14.

Animals, man's duty to the lower, =4=, 283-286.

Annihilation Company, =6=, 194.

Anti-Sabbath Convention, =6=, 157, 158.

Anti-Slavery meetings, =6=, 255, 358, 359.

Anti-Slavery Standard, The, =6=, 46, 245.

Antiquities, =1=, 264, 265-267.

Ants, battle of the, =2=, 253-257.

Apmoojenegamook Lake, =3=, 244, 260; meaning of, 250; a storm on, 263,
264; hard paddling on, 267.

Apollo, translation, =5=, 383.

Appearances, =6=, 177, 227, 228.

Apple, history of the tree, =5=, 290-298; the wild, 299, 300; the
crab, 301, 302; growth of the wild, 302-308; cropped by cattle,
303-307; the fruit and flavor of the, 308-314; beauty of the, 314,
315; naming of the, 315-317; last gleaning of the, 317-319; the
frozen-thawed, 319, 320; dying out of the wild, 321, 322.

Apple-howling, =5=, 298.

Apples, the world eating, green =2=, 86; Baldwin, =6=, 213; Dead Sea,
356; frozen-thawed, 177, 178; of Hesperides, 213; planted by T., 355.

"Apple-tree, Elisha's," =1=, 380.

Apple trees, Cape Cod, =4=, 32-34.

Apprentices, the abundance of, =1=, 129.

Archer, Gabriel, quoted, =4=, 244.

Architecture, need of relation between man, truth and, =2=, 51, 52;
American, =4=, 28, 29; the new, 293.

"Architecture, Seven Lamps of" (Ruskin), 319.

Aristotle, quoted, =1=, 133, 386.

Arm-chairs for fishermen, =1=, 91.

Arnica mollis, =6=, 334, 335.

Arnold, Benedict, =6=, 323.

Arnold, Mr., =6=, 341.

Aroostook (Me.), road, =3=, 3, 13, 14; river, 4; wagon, an, 14;
valley, 23; sleds of the, 261.

Armies, =6=, 260, 323, 356.

Arpent, the, =5=, 60.

Arrowheads, =1=, 18; =6=, 19, note, 96.

Art, Nature and, =1=, 339; works of, 9; =6=, 94, 319.

Ashburnham (Mass.), =5=, 3; with a better house than any in Canada,
100.

Ash trees, =5=, 6.

Asiatic, Russia, Mme. Pfeiffer in, =2=, 25.

Asnebumskit, =6=, 195, 279, 280.

Assabet (or North) River, the, =1=, 4; =5=, 136; =6=, viii, 269.

Assawampsitt, =6=, 265.

Asters, =3=, 97.

Astronomy, =1=, 411-413; at Cambridge, =6=, 133, 137, 138; at Concord,
133.

Atlantic Monthly, =6=, 235, 395, 396.

Atlantides, The, verse, =1=, 278.

Atlas, =2=, 93.

Atlas, the General, =3=, 95; =6=, 243, 362.

Atropos, as name for engine, =2=, 131.

Aubrey, John, quoted, =1=, 112.

Auction, of a deacon's effects, =2=, 75; or increasing, 75.

Audubon, John James, reading, =5=, 103; 109, note; 112, note.

Aulus Persius Flaccus, =6=, 6, 158.

Aurora of Guido, The, verse, =5=, 399.

Australia, gold-hunters in, =4=, 465, 466.

Autumn, the coming of, =1=, 356; flowers of, 377-379; 403; landscape
near Provincetown, =4=, 193-195; foliage, brightness of, =5=, 249-252;
a poem on, =6=, 115; delights of, 37, 38, 282.

AUTUMNAL TINTS, =5=, 249-289.

Autumnal tints, =6=, 340, 350.

Autumnus, =6=, 38.

Average ability, man's success in proportion to his, =1=, 133; the law
of, in nature and ethics, =2=, 321.

"Away! away! away! away!" verse, =1=, 186.

_Axy_, a Bible name, =4=, 95.


Baboosuck Brook, =1=, 232.

Babylon, ancient, =6=, 224.

Babylon (N. Y.), =6=, 102.

Bacchus, Whitman compared to, =6=, 298.

Background, all lives want a, =1=, 45.

Bailey, Prof. J. W., =3=, 4.

BAKER FARM, =2=, 223-231.

Baker Farm, =2=, 307.

Baker's barn, =2=, 286.

Baker's River, =1=, 87, 268.

Ball's Hill, =1=, 19, 37, 43.

Bands of music in distance, =2=, 177, 178.

Bangor (Me.), =3=, 3, 4, 9, 12; =6=, 119, 132, 325; passage to, =3=,
16; 23, 36, 38, 74, 86, 91, 94-98; the deer that went a-shopping in,
154; 160, 161, 166, 167, 174, 175; House, the, 177; 250, 251, 256,
257, 290, 307.

Bank swallow, the, =4=,164.

Banks, =6=, 162, failures of, 317, 318; stock in, 162, 213, 317, 318.

Barberries, =6=, 156, 175, 358.

Barber's Historical Collections, quoted, =4=, 222.

Barnstable (Mass.), =4=, 22.

Bartlett, Dr. Josiah (H. U. 1816), =6=, 137, 138, 152, 254.

Bartlett, Robert (H. U. 1836), =6=, 58.

Bartram, William, quoted, =2=, 75; =5=, 199.

Bascom, Rev. Jonathan, =4=, 55.

Baskets, strolling Indian selling, =2=, 20, 21.

Bass-tree, the, =1=, 166.

Bathing, sea, =4=, 16, 17; feet in brooks, =5=, 140.

Batteaux, =3=, 6, 35.

Battle-ground, first, of the Revolution, =1=, 14.

Battles, =6=, 356; in the clouds, 330.

Bayberry, the, =4=, 102, 103.

BEACH, THE, =4=, 57-78.

BEACH AGAIN, THE, =4=, 102-128.

Beaches, Cape Cod the best of Atlantic, =4=, 269-271.

Beach-grass, =4=, 200, 201, 204-209.

Beach-plums, =1=, 381.

BEAN-FIELD, THE, =2=, 171-184.

Beard-grasses, Andropogons or, =5=, 255-258.

Bears, abundance of, =3=, 235.

Beaumont, Francis, quoted, =1=, 69.

Beauport (Que.), and _le Chemin de_, =5=, 30; getting lodgings in,
35-38; church in, 69; Seigniory of, 96.

Beaupré, Seigniory of the Côte de, =5=, 41.

Beauties of Ancient English Poetry, =6=, 66.

Beauty, =6=, 198, 199; Emerson's Ode to, 115-117; Ruskin on, 319.

Beaver River, =1=, 92.

Bed, a cedar-twig, =3=, 60; of arbor-vitæ twigs, 265; the primitive,
by all rivers, 317.

Bedford (Mass.), =1=, 4, 37; petition of planters of, 50; 53, 62; =2=,
136.

Bedford (N. H.), =1=, 247, 248, 251, 252.

Beecher, Henry Ward, =6=, 291.

Bees, the keeping of, =4=, 284, 285.

Beggar-ticks, =6=, 289.

Behavior, repentance for good, =2=, 11.

Behemoth, =6=, 231.

"Behold, how Spring appearing," verse, =5=, 109.

Belknap, Jeremy, quoted, =1=, 91, 127, 189, 201.

Bellamy, the pirate, wrecked off Wellfleet, =4=, 160, 161.

Bellew, F., an artist, =6=, 287.

Bellows, Rev. H. W. (H. U. 1832), =6=, 105.

Bellows, valley called the, =1=, 189.

Bellows Falls (Vt.), =1=, 91; =5=, 5.

Bells, the sound of Sabbath, =1=, 78; of Lincoln, Acton, Bedford,
Concord, the, =2=, 136.

Bemis, George, Concord printer, =6=, 18.

Benjamin, Park, =6=, 107, note.

Benton, Myron B., =6=, 398. _See_ Letters.

"Best room," the pine wood behind house, =2=, 157.

Betty's Neck, Middleborough, =6=, 265.

Bewick, Thomas, =6=, 248.

Beverley, Robert, History of Virginia, quoted, =4=, 15, 102, 103.

Bhagvat-Geeta, the, quoted, =1=, 140; pure thought of the, 142; beauty
of the, 148; 153.

Biberg, J. (naturalist), quoted, =6=, 207.

Bible, =6=, 63, 98, 114.

Bibles of several nations, the, =1=, 72; of mankind, 72; =2=, 118,
119.

Bigelow, Dr. J., =6=, 19.

Billerica (Mass.), =1=, =4=, 32, 36, 38, 43; age of the town of, 49;
51, 53, 62, 119, 391.

Billingsgate, part of Wellfleet called, =4=, 82.

Billingsgate Island, =4=, 89.

Biography, autobiography the best, =1=, 163.

Birch, yellow, =5=, 6.

Birds, =6=, 21, 23, 30, 42, 75; living with the, =2=, 95; in the
wilderness, =3=, 118; about Moosehead Lake, 186; about Mud Pond Carry,
237; near Chamberlain Lake, 240, 241; on Heron Lake, 255; on East
Branch, 309; on Cape Cod, =4=, 113, 114, 131, 164; and mountains, =5=,
149. See under names of species.

Birney, James G., =6=, 283, 288.

Biscuit Brook, =1=, 380.

Bittern (Ardea minor, stake-driver), =1=, 249; booming of the, =5=,
111.

Black Knight, The, verse, =5=, 415, note.

Black, Mrs., =6=, 82.

Black Sam, =2=, 29, 31.

Blackfish, driven ashore in storm, =4=, 142-147.

Black flies, protection against, =3=, 236, 246.

Blake, Harrison Gray Otis (H. U. 1835), =6=, 158, 159, 190, 233, 279;
letter from, 158, 159; letters to, 160, 164, 173, 174, 177, 179, 185,
194, 197, 209, 217, 221, 225, 229, 241, 244, 253-261, 267, 276-281,
290-296, 302, 307, 308, 314-322, 343, 358, 360-368, 383; tours with,
195, 234, 333; visits from, 158, 253, 267.

Blakians, sugar candy, =6=, 279.

Blood, Perez, =6=, 133, 134, 137.

Blueberries, =3=, 66, 298; =6=, 23, 369; and milk, supper of, =5=,
144.

Bluebird, the, =5=, 110; =6=, 14, 21, 22, 341, 374-376.

Blue-eyed grass, =6=, 36.

Boat, T.'s, =1=, 12; hints for making a, 13.

Boat-building, =1=, 228.

Boatmen, the pleasant lives of, =1=, 220-226.

Bobolink, the, =5=, 113.

Bodæus, quoted, =5=, 317.

Body, a temple, man's, =2=, 245; and soul, 164, 165, 181, 213, 214.

Bogs with hard bottom, =2=, 363.

Bolton (Mass.), =5=, 137.

Bonaparte, anecdote of, =6=, 270.

Bonsecours Market (Montreal), =5=, 11.

Books, the reading and writing of, =1=, 93-112; how to read, =2=, 112;
the inheritance of nations, 114; catalogue of, =6=, 59, 63, 263; T.'s
gift of, 264; on natural history, reading, =5=, 103-105.

Boots, Canadian, =5=, 51;

Borde, Sieur de la, quoted, =4=, 156.

Boston (Mass.), countrified minds in towns about, =3=, 24; a big
wharf, =4=, 268; newspapers of, 398-400; =5=, 3, 7, 9; Agassiz in,
=6=, 125-132; Alcott in, 190, 236, 237; clubs ridiculed, 345; "Dial"
mentioned, 38, 58-63, 75, 78, 84, 87, 94, 108, 113-117, 129; lectures
and lecturers, 189, 190, 192, 358; Miscellany, 83, note, 87, 102;
packet for Cape Cod, 255, 256; publishers, 83, 102, 139, 182, 233,
263, 332, 395.

Botany, T.'s skill in, =6=, 3, 234, 238.

Botta, Mrs. Anne Lynch, =6=, 297.

Botta, Paul Emile, quoted, =1=, 107, 130.

Boucher, quoted, =5=, 91.

Boucherville (Que.), =5=, 20.

Bouchette, Topographical Description of the Canadas, quoted, =5=, 41,
42, 63, 64, 89, 92, 94, 95.

Bound Rock, =1=, 5.

Bout de l'Isle, =5=, 20.

Bowlin Stream, =3=, 308.

Box, living in a, =2=, 32.

Boys, Provincetown, =4=, 218.

Bradbury and Soden, =6=, 83, 102.

Bradford (N. H.), =1=, 380.

Bradford, George P. (H. U. 1825), =6=, 63, 328, 404, 405.

Bradford, T. G. (H. U. 1822), =6=, 19, note.

Brahm, the bringing to earth of, =1=, 141.

Brahman, virtue of the, =1=, 146.

Brahmins, =6=, 224, 299, 300; their forms of conscious penance, =2=,
4, 5; Walden ice makes T. one with the, 329.

Brand's Popular Antiquities, quoted, =5=, 297, 298.

Brave man and the coward, the, =4=, 277-279.

Bravery of science, the, =5=, 106, 107.

Bread without yeast, =2=, 68-70; discourse on, =6=, 121, 164-166, 260,
268.

Breakers, =4=, 58, 209.

Bream, =1=, 24-26.

Breed's hut, =2=, 285.

Brereton, John, quoted, =4=, 245.

Brewster (Mass.), =4=, 22, 28, 29.

Briars, a field near Walden, =6=, 170, 171.

Bricks, mortar growing harder on, =2=, 266.

Bride and bridegroom, =6=, 199, 200, 207, 302.

Bridgewater (Mass.), =4=, 19.

Brighton--or Bright-town, =2=, 148.

Brister's Hill, =2=, 252, 283, 284, 289, 294.

Brister's Spring, =2=, 289, 291.

Britania's Pastorals, quoted, =1=, 121.

Broadway, New York, =6=, 70, 85, 287, 291.

Brook Farm, =6=, 318, 404.

Brook Island in Cohasset, =4=, 4.

Brooklawn, New Bedford, =6=, 263, 271, 305.

Brooklyn, N. Y., =6=, 70, 290, 296, 297.

"Brother, where dost thou dwell?" verse, =5=, 403; =6=, 74.

Brown, Deacon Reuben, =6=, 141.

Brown, John, the truth about, =4=, 409; the Kansas troubles, 410,
413-416; occupation, descent, and character, 410-414; newspaper
opinions of, 416-425; absurdly called insane, 426-428; small following
of, 432; example of death of, 434, 435; feeling of divine appointment,
436, 437; why guilty of death, 437; quoted, 439, 440; last days of,
441-450; effect of the words of, 444; editors' opinions of, 445; not
dead, 449, 450; T.'s speech in Concord after the death of, 451-454;
=6=, 290; 337, 359, 364; comes to Concord, 358, 359; his capture and
execution, 358-360; is eulogized by T., 359; his companions, 365-367.

Brown, John, Jr., son of preceding, visits North Elba and Boston, =6=,
364.

Brown, Mrs. See Jackson.

Brown, Theo., of Worcester, =6=, 238, 254, 280, 286, 292, 294, 307,
315, 331.

Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, =1=, 69; =4=, 157, 158.

Brownson, O. A., =6=, 5, 404.

BRUTE NEIGHBORS, =2=, 247-262.

Buckland, Francis T., Curiosities of Natural History, =4=, 84.

Buddha and Christ, =1=, 68.

Buddhist, =6=, 108.

Buffaloes, =6=, 14, 17, 109.

Buffum, Arnold, =6=, 288.

Bug from an egg in table of apple wood, the, =2=, 366.

Building one's own house, significance of, =2=, 50, 51.

Bull, E. W. (Concord grape), =6=, 377, note.

Bulwer, Lord Lytton, =6=, 28, 30.

Buried money, =1=, 208.

Burlington (Vt.), =5=, 7, 99.

Burnham, a Boston bookseller, =6=, 263.

Burns, T.'s grandmother, =6=, 7.

Burns, Anthony, =4=, 405.

Burnt Land, the, =3=, 29, 77.

"Burntibus," =3=, 319.

Burton, Sir Richard Francis, =5=, 228.

Business habits indispensable, strict, =2=, 21, 22; remarks on, =6=,
8, 9, 107, 169-171, 317, 318, 355, 356.

Busk, Indian feast of first fruits, =2=, 75.

"But since we sailed," verse, =1=, 16.

"Butternuts," in New York, =6=, 18.

Butternut tree, =5=, 6.

Buttrick's Plain, =1=, 51.


Cabmen of New York, =6=, 69, 70.

Cabot, the discoveries of, =4=, 232, 233.

Cabot, J. Elliot (H. U. 1840), =6=, 125, 130, 188; letters to,
126-129, 155; letters from, 130, 131, 188.

Cabs, Montreal, =5=, 18; Quebec, 69, 70.

Cactus, =6=, 29, 32.

Caddis-worms, =5=, 170.

Caen, Emery de, quoted, =5=, 52.

Caleche, the (see Cabs), =5=, 69, 70.

Calf, the young hunting, =6=, 135.

Calidas, the Sacontala, quoted, =1=, 183; =2=, 351.

California, the rush to, =4=, 463-465; =6=, 210, 216.

Calling, choice of a, =6=, 66, 67, 108, 109, 121, 156, 163, 168, 171,
174, 175, 181, 195, 211, 219.

Calyx, =6=, 199; the thalamus, or bridal chamber, 208.

Cambria, steamer, aground, =4=, 93.

Cambridge, college room rent compared with T.'s, =2=, 55; crowded
hives of, 150; =6=, 5, 7, 8, 10, note, 45, 66-68, 109, 129, 133, 138,
226, 237, 252, 253, 287, 311; observatory, 133, 137.

Camp, loggers', =3=, 20; reading matter in a, 37, 38; on side of
Ktaadn, a, 68; the routine for making, 210-212; darkness about a, 303,
304.

Camping out, =6=, 365, 368, 369, 371.

Camp-meetings, Eastham, =4=, 46-48; _versus_ Ocean, 67.

Canaan (N. H.), =1=, 263.

Canada, apparently older than the United States, =5=, 80, 81;
population of, 81, 82; the French in, a nation of peasants, 82;
mentioned, =6=, 215, 251, 323, 324.

_Canadense_, _Iter_, and the word, =5=, 101.

Canadian, woodchopper, a, =2=, 159-166; boat-song, =3=, 42; a blind,
234; French, =5=, 9; horses, 34; women, 34; atmosphere, 34; love of
neighborhood, 42, 43; houses, 44, 59; clothes, 45; salutations, 47;
vegetables and trees, 47, 48; boots, 51; tenures, 63, 64.

Canal, an old, =1=, 62.

Canal-boat, appearance of a, =1=, 150; passing a, in fog, 200; later
and early thoughts about a, 221-226; with sails, 273, 274.

Candor, in friendship, =6=, 57, 80, 137.

Cane, a straight and a twisted, =5=, 184, 185.

Canoe, water-logged in Walden Pond, =2=, 212; a birch, =3=, 106; used
in third excursion to Maine woods, 181; shipping water in a, 189;
crossing lakes in a, 206; carrying a, 207, 208; running rapids in a,
275-277, 279, 280; =6=, 109, 254, 324, 325.

"Canst thou love with thy mind," verse, =6=, 202.

Canton, Mass., T.'s school at, =6=, 5.

Cap aux Oyes, =5=, 93.

Cape Cod, T.'s various visits to, =4=, 3; derivation of name of, 4;
formation of, 4, 20; barrenness of, 36-38; the real, 65; houses, 80;
landscape, a, 132-137; men, the Norse quality of, 140; western shore
of, 142; changes in the coast-line of, 151-155; clothes-yard, a, 220;
and its harbors, various names for, 226-229; Gosnold's discovery of,
242-247; people, 257, 258; =6=, 246, 255, 256, 312, 313; T.'s
excursions to, 254, 255, 309, 312, 357.

"Cape Cod Railroad," the, =4=, 19.

Cape Diamond, =5=, 22, 40; signal-gun on, 85; the view from, 88.

Cape Rosier, =5=, 92.

Cape Rouge, =5=, 21, 95.

Cape Tourmente, =5=, 41, 89, 96.

Carbuncle Mountain, =3=, 291.

Cardinals, =1=, 18.

Cards left by visitors, =2=, 143, 144.

Cares, =6=, 262, 360.

Carew, Thomas, quoted, =2=, 89.

Caribou Lake, =3=, 216.

Carlisle (Mass.), =1=, 4, 37, 50, 53; =6=, 16, 18, 134.

Carlisle Bridge, =1=, 20, 37.

Carlton House, New York, =6=, 55.

CARLYLE, THOMAS, AND HIS WORKS, =4=, 316-355.

Carlyle, Thomas, circumstances of his life, =4=, 316-320; his books,
320-322; not a German nor a mystic, 322-325; English style of,
324-333; quoted, upon Richter, 331, 338; humor of, 333-337, as critic
and looker-on, 339-343; not blithe enough for a poet, 343, 344;
sympathy with the Reformer class, 344-346; compared with Emerson, 345;
a philosopher of action, 346-349; objections to, 349; a typical
specimen from, on Heroes, 350-352; his exaggeration, 352-354; quoted,
on the writing of history, 354; pointing to the summits of humanity,
355; mentioned, =6=, 49, 62, 81, 94, 101, 154, 169, 250; reviewed by
Emerson, 94, 101; by Thoreau, 169.

Carnac, =1=, 267.

Carry, Indian's method with canoe at a, =3=, 207, 208; a wet, 235-244;
berries at each, 305, 306; race at a, 314, 315.

Cartier, Jacques, =5=, 7; and the St. Lawrence, 89-91; quoted, 97; 98,
99.

Caryatides, gossips leaning against barn like, =2=, 186.

Cascade, Silver, =6=, 39.

Cases in court, Wyman's, =6=, 104; Sanborn's, =6=, 364; other cases,
226.

Castleton, Staten Island, =6=, 68, 71-73, 76, 78, 84, 104.

Castor and Pollux, translation, =5=, 388.

Cat, the Collins's, =2=, 48; in the woods, domestic and "winged," 257,
258.

Catacombs, =6=, 161, 178.

_Catastomus tuberculatus_, =6=, 131.

Catherine, a Concord family, =6=, 4.

Catholic Church, =6=, 243, 406.

Cat-naps, =6=, 106.

Cato, Major, quoted, =2=, 70, 93, 183, 268.

Cattle-show, the Concord, =1=, 358-361; men at, =5=, 184.

Caucomgomoc Lake, meaning of the name, =3=, 156; 222, 223.

Caucomgomoc Mountain, =3=, 233.

Caucomgomoc Stream, =3=, 142, 147, 219, 229, 247, 297; =6=, 325.

Caves, birds do not sing in, =2=, 31.

Cedar-post, life of, =6=, 293.

Cedar tea, arbor-vitæ, or, =3=, 60.

Celebrating, men, a committee of arrangements, always, =2=, 363.

Celestial Cows, =6=, 223.

Celestial Empire, conditions of successful trade with, =2=, 22; =6=,
89.

"Celestial Railroad," =6=, 120.

Cellar, a burrow to which house is but a porch, =2=, 49.

Cellini, Benvenuto, quoted, =2=, 224, 225.

Cemetery of fallen leaves, =5=, 269, 270.

Chairs for society, three, =2=, 155.

Chaleur, Bay of, =3=, 178; =5=, 90; =6=, 324.

Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, in criticism of Coleridge, =5=, 324.

Chamberlain Farm, the, =3=, 245, 264, 265.

Chamberlain, Lake, =3=, 101, 145, 161, 233, 237, 239, 240;
Apmoojenegamook or, 244; dams about, 251; 262, 267; =6=, 325.

Chambers of Silence, =6=, 231.

Chambly (Que.), =5=, 11.

Champlain, Samuel, quoted, =4=, 85; records and maps of, 227-233;
quoted, =5=, 8; whales in map of, 91.

Change of air, =2=, 352.

Channing, Ellen Fuller, wife of Ellery, =6=, 43, note.

Channing, W. E., quoted, =1=, 42; =2=, 225; =6=, 43, note, 58, note,
65, 79, 92-94, 104, 113, 117, 120-122, 146, 151, 153, 190, 192,
235-238, 251, 253, 254, 257, 259, 266, 270, 272, 273-275, 308, 326,
note, 328, 334, 336, 341, 344, 345, 406, 407; quoted, ix, x, 3, 65,
note, 121.

Channing, Rev. William Henry (H. U. 1829), cousin of Ellery, =6=, 81,
96, 104, 118, 183, 184.

Channing, William Francis (son of Dr. W. E. Channing, and cousin of
the two named above), mentioned, =6=, 190.

Chapin, Rev. E. H. (H. U. 1845), =6=, 61.

Chapman, George, quoted, =2=, 37.

Chapman, John, London publisher, =6=, 271.

Charity, cold, =4=, 78.

Charles I, the only martyr in Church of England liturgy, =4=, 446.

Charleston, S. C., =6=, 283.

Charlevoix, quoted, =5=, 52, 91.

Chastity, the flowering of man, =2=, 242, 243; and sensuality, =6=,
192, 204-209, 295.

Château, Richer, church of, =5=, 46; 49; lodgings at, 59.

Chateaubriand, quoted, =1=, 137.

Chatham (Mass.), =4=, 26.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, quoted, =1=, 293, 352, 353; in praise of, 391-400;
quoted, =2=, 234; quoted, =5=, 159, 160, =6=, 103; mentioned, 76.

Chaudière River, the, =5=, 21; Falls of the, 69, 70.

Cheap men, =5=, 29, 30.

Checkerberry-Tea Camp, =3=, 301.

Chelmsford (Mass.), =1=, 53, 63, 81, 85, 88, 92, 113, 268, 384, 391.

Cherries, =6=, 23, 71.

Cherry-stones, transported by birds, =5=, 188.

CHESUNCOOK, =3=, 93-173.

Chesuncook Deadwater, =3=, 217.

Chesuncook Lake, =3=, 5, 11, 36, 73, 80, 86, 94, 104, 105, 117, 119,
136, 137; meaning of the word, 156; 176; going to church on, 214; 234,
250, 254; mentioned, =6=, 325, 395.

Chicago, visited by T., =6=, 384; by B. B. Wiley, 298.

Chickadee, coming of the, =2=, 304; =5=, 108; =6=, 253.

Chief end of man, =2=, 9.

Chien, La Rivière au, =5=, 56.

Child, Mrs. Lydia Maria, =6=, 100.

China, =6=, 89, 246.

Chippeway Indians, =6=, 109.

Chivin, Dace, Roach or Cousin Trout, =1=, 27; =3=, 59; 312; =6=, 127,
131, 132.

Cholmondeley, Rev. Charles, =6=, 236.

Cholmondeley, Thomas, =6=, 234-237, 240, 241, 247-249, 252, 258, 271,
297, 308, 342-344, 349, 352, 380-383; books sent by, 270, 271; letter
from, 272, 297, 380; letter to, 249-251.

Christ, =6=, 179, 194.

Christian, the modern, =4=, 420; being a, 445; the prayer of a, =6=,
89.

"Christian Examiner," =6=, 99.

Christianity, practical and radical, =1=, 141; adopted as an improved
method of _agri_-culture, =2=, 41.

Church of England, prayer for a martyr, =4=, 446.

Churches, Catholic and Protestant, =5=, 12-14; =6=, 79, 97, 195, 224,
226, 243; roadside, 46.

Cigar-smoke, the gods not to be appeased with, =4=, 42.

Circulating library, =2=, 116, 117.

Cities, as wharves, =4=, 268; American, =6=, 69, 79, 187, 287, 297,
345.

City and country opinions, =4=, 396, 397.

City and Swamp, =6=, 187.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, =4=, 356-387.

Civilization, not all a success, =2=, 34; and landscape, =3=, 171-173.

_Claire Fontaine_, _La_, =5=, 26.

Clams, Cape Cod, =4=, 35, 36; large, 72; or quahogs, catching birds
86; stones shaped like, 109.

Clark, Farmer, =6=, 141.

Clark's Island, =6=, 301, note, 328, note.

Clark, the Swedenborgian, =6=, 146.

Classics, study of the, =1=, 238; =2=, 111-113; must be read in the
original, 115.

Clay Pounds, the, =4=, 132; why so called, 158; the Somerset wrecked
on, 162.

Clothes, =6=, 227, 228, 245, 255, 256, 262, 363; bad-weather, =5=, 28;
Canadian, 45.

Clothing, a necessary of life, =2=, 13, 14; not always procured for
true utility, 23; new and old, 25, 26.

Cloud, entering a, =3=, 70; factory, a, 70.

Clouds. _See_ Rain.

Clover, tree. _See_ Melilot.

Club at Parker House, =6=, 345; Town and Country, 345, 346.

Coat-of-arms, a Concord, =1=, 7.

Cock-crowning, the charms of, =2=, 140-142.

Codman place, the, =2=, 286.

Coffee-grounds, =6=, 180.

Cohass Brook, =1=, 238.

Cohasset, the Indian, =1=, 251.

Cohasset (Mass.), the wreck at, =4=, 5-13; Rocks, sea-bathing at, 16,
17.

Cold Friday, dating from, =2=, 280.

Cold Stream Pond, =3=, 9.

Cold weather, =6=, 14, 27-32, 250.

Collins, James, Irishman whose shanty T. bought, =2=, 47.

Colors, names and joy of, =5=, 273-275. _See_ Autumnal Tints, Clouds,
etc.

Colton's Map of Maine, =3=, 104, 308.

Comet, nucleus of, =6=, 173.

Commerce, =1=, 224; in praise of, =2=, 131-136, =6=, 102.

Common sense, uncommon and, =1=, 414; the sense of men asleep, =2=,
357, 358.

Compost, better part of man soon plowed into soil for, =2=, 6.

Conantum, =1=, 374; =6=, 140.

Concord (Mass.), settlement of, =1=, 3; historian of, quoted, 3; 5;
coat-of-arms for, 7; territory of, in 1831, 8; described by Johnson,
8; meadows, 9; a port of entry, 12; 14; poet, a, 14; 36, 43, 49, 51,
61, 64, 82, 124; History of, quoted, 125; 169; Cliffs, 170; 227, 345;
Cattle-show in, 358-361; return to, 420; Walden Pond in =2=, 3;
traveled a good deal in 4; the farmers of, 35; house surpassing the
luxury of, 54; little fresh meal and corn sold in, 70; Battle Ground,
95; effect of a fire bell on people living near, 103, 104; culture,
117, 118, wiser men than produced by soil of, 119; hired man of, 120;
liberal education in, 121; "its soothing sound is--," 127; sign of a
trader in, 133; bells of, 136; two-colored waters of, 195; Walden
bequeathed to, 214, 215; fight of ants, 255; D. Ingraham, Esq., of,
283; "to the rescue," 286; 291, 308; =3=, 1, 24, 76, 117; meaning of
Indian name for, 157, 187; 214, 268; the Assabet in; 278; the
_trainers_ of, =4=, 392; =5=, 3, 6, 8; History of, quoted, 115; 133,
149, 152; its academy, =6=, 10, 24, 49; aspect of, 14, 38, 67, 92,
104; cliffs of, 28, 30, 104; Lyceum, 6, 52, 53, 61, 145, 154, 156,
275; people and houses, 4-7, 14, 17, 18, 21, 34, 35, 42, 43, 48-50,
52-54, 64, 65, 92, 93; schools, 5, 6, 10, 22, 23, 48, 49, 321, 322;
T's fondness for, 285.

Concord (N.H.), =1=, 88, 89; =2=, 68, 308; entertained in, and origin
of, 322.

CONCORD RIVER, =1=, 3-11.

Concord River, =1=, 3; course of, 3; gentleness of, 7; 10, 11, 19, 20,
62, 90, 113; a canal-boat on, and Fair Haven, 222-224; Conantum on
the, 374; reaching the, 391; =2=, 215, 219; =3=, 229, 278, 299; =5=,
115, 139; =6=, 3, 92, 262.

Condover, England, =6=, 235, 383.

Conduct, regulation of, =6=, ix, 9, 10, 33, 34, 57, 76, 88, 89, 118,
161, 162, 166, 167, 177, 186, 187, 205.

Confucius, quoted, =1=, 288, 299; =2=, 12, 149; =6=, 299.

Connecticut River, the, =1=, 87, 88, 89, 212, 263; =5=, 5, 145, 147;
=6=, 282.

"Conscience is instinct bred in the house," verse, =1=, 75.

Conscience, the, =1=, 75, 138; the chief of conservatives, 140.

Conservatism, the wisest, =1=, 140.

Contoocook, =1=, 87.

Conversation, the shallowness of most, =4=, 471; =6=, 64, 65, 346.

Conway, Moncure Daniel (H. U. 1854), =6=, 398.

Cooking, =1=, 237.

Coombs, Neighbor, =6=, 141, 154.

Coöperation, difficulties of, =2=, 79, 80.

Coos Falls, =1=, 248, 353.

Coreopsis, =1=, 18.

Corn, great crops of, =4=, 37-39.

Cost, the amount of life exchanged for a thing, =2=, 34; of house,
items of, 54; of food for eight months, 65, 66; total, of living, 66;
bean-field, 179, 180.

Cotes, Lady Louisa, =6=, 383.

Cotton, Charles, quoted, =1=, 249.

Country and city opinions, =4=, 396, 397.

_Coureurs de bois_ and _de risques_, =5=, 43.

Cousin Trout. _See_ Chivin.

Cowper, William, quoted, =2=, 92; =6=, 254, 275.

Cows fed on fishes' heads, =4=, 214, 215.

Cranberries, mountain, =3=, 27; tree, 147.

Cranberry Island, =1=, 6.

Cranks, the turning of, =4=, 297.

Crantz, account of Greenland, quoted, =4=, 60, 149.

Crickets, the creaking of, =5=, 108.

Crimea, =6=, 266; war in the, 237, 244, 251.

Criticism, =1=, 401.

Cromwell's Falls, =1=, 88; story of Cromwell and, 206, 207.

Crooked River, the Souhegan or, =1=, 231.

Crookneck squash seeds, Quebec, =5=, 87.

Crosses in the wilderness, =3=, 50; roadside, =5=, 45, 46.

Crow, the, =5=, 108; not imported from Europe, 113.

Crusoe, Robinson, among the Arabs, =1=, 60.

Crystalline botany, =5=, 126, 127.

Cuckoo characters, =6=, 161.

Culm, bloom in the, =5=, 253.

Cultivation, wildness, and, =1=, 55.

Cummings, slave of Squire, =2=, 284.

Cupid Wounded, verse, =1=, 244.

Curing moose meat and hide, =3=, 149, 150, 208.

Curtis, George William, =6=, 142, 256, note, 343.

Custom, the grave of, =1=, 136; immemorial, 140.

Cutler, E. J. (H. U. 1853), =6=, 287.

_Cytherea choros ducit_, =6=, 27.


Dace. _See_ Chivin.

Damodara, quoted, =2=, 97.

Dana, Charles, =6=, 404.

Danesaz, =6=, 122.

Daniel, Samuel, quoted, =1=, 106, 132, 407; =6=, 219.

Darby, William, quoted, =5=, 93, 94.

Darien, Isthmus of, robbing graveyards, on the, =4=, 467.

Darwin, Charles R., quoted, =2=, 14; =4=, 122; =6=, 382.

Davenant, Sir William Gondibert, quoted, =2=, 286.

Davis, Josiah, of Concord, his house, =6=, 5.

Day, deliberately, like nature, spending one, =2=, 108; and right,
=6=, 242, 292, 293, 310.

Day-dreams, =6=, 38-40, 92, 93, 121, 122, 180, 181.

D. D.'s and chickadee-dees, =4=, 469.

Dead body on the shore, a, =4=, 107, 108.

De Bry's _Collectio Peregrinationum_, =3=, 149.

Debt, getting in and out of, =2=, 7.

Decalogue, for whom made, =6=, 167.

Deep Cove, =3=, 45, 84.

Deer, =3=, 154.

Deer Island, =3=, 100, 183, 185, 188.

Delay, verse, =5=, 418.

Delay, in life, =6=, 196; in dying, 350.

Demons, =6=, 91, 243, 267, 333.

De Monts, Sieur, quoted, =1=, 42; Champlain and, =4=, 228.

Dennis (Mass.), =4=, 22; described, 25, 26.

Departure, The, verse, =5=, 414.

Desperation, mass of men lead lives of quiet, =2=, 8, 9.

Destiny, =6=, 44; our own work, 361.

Devil, =6=, 188, 220; the printer's, 322.

Dew of sixpences, =6=, 44.

"Dial," quarterly magazine, =6=, 38, 58-63, 78, 84, 87, 94, 108,
113-117, 125, 156, 158.

Dialect, abominable, =6=, 63.

Dialogue between Hermit and Poet, =2=, 247-249.

"Die and be buried who will," verse, =3=, 90.

Digby, Sir Kenelm, quoted, =2=, 179.

Ding Dong, verse, =5=, 417.

Diogenes, =6=, x.

Diploma, =6=, 138.

Dippers, a brood of, =3=, 184.

Discipline, =6=, 212, 243.

Discontented, speaking mainly to the, =2=, 17, 18.

Discovery, inner, =1=, 409.

Dissipation, not allied to love, =6=, 206; to be shunned by T., =6=,
313.

Divinity in man! Look at the teamster, =2=, 8.

Doane, Heman, verses by, on Thomas Prince's pear tree, =4=, 44, 45.

Doane, John, =4=, 45.

Dobson, the criminal, and Henry James, =6=, 346, 347.

Doctrine of Sorrow, =6=, 168; of Happiness, 173, 174; of letting
alone, 177, 178.

Dog, in the woods, a village Bose, =2=, 257; a troublesome, =3=, 177;
at the churn, a, =4=, 285.

Dog-barking, =1=, 40.

Dogmas, =6=, 346.

Dogs on the seashore, =4=, 185, 186; in harness, =5=, 30.

Doing and Being, =6=, 221, 230.

Doing-good, a crowded profession, =2=, 81.

"Dong, sounds the brass in the East," verse, =1=, 50.

Donne, Dr. John, quoted, =1=, 315, 356.

Double Top Mountain, =3=, 49.

Douglass, Frederick, Wendell Phillips on, =4=, 313.

Dracut (Mass.), =1=, 81.

Drake, Sir Francis, quoted, =5=, 325.

Dream of fishing, a, =3=, 61.

Dreams, =1=, 119, 315; =6=, 216.

Dress, of Cholmondeley, =6=, 342; of the Quakers, 97, 288; of T., 226.

Driftwood, Cape Cod and Greenland, =4=, 59-61.

Drosera, =6=, 310.

Du Chaillu, =6=, 382.

Drum, sound of a, by night, =1=, 181.

Drummond of Hawthornden, William, quoted, =2=, 219.

Dubartas, quoted, translation of Sylvester, =5=, 328, 329.

Ducks, on Walden Pond, =2=, 262.

Dug-out houses of American colonists, =2=, 42, 43.

Duke of Newcastle, and Prince of Wales, =6=, 372.

Dunbar, Rev. Asa (H. U. 1767), T.'s grandfather, =6=, 7.

Dunbar, Charles (uncle of T.), =6=, 5, 106.

Dunbar, Louisa, =6=, 99.

Dunbar, Mary, =6=, 12, note.

Dundees, a nickname, =6=, 14, 16.

Dunstable (Mass.), =1=, 64, 114, 123, 124, 174, 175, 177, 208, 227;
History of, 175; quoted, 113, 126.

Durkee, Dr., a naturalist, =6=, 310, 327.

Dustan, Hannah, escape with nurse and child from Indians, =1=,
341-345.

Duties, =6=, 162, 167, 222, 223, 229.

Duty, sense of, =6=, 196.

Duxbury (Mass.), =6=, 301 note.

Dwelling-house, what not to make it, =2=, 31.

Dwight, John S., =6=, 404.

Dwight, Timothy, quoted, =4=, 212, 225.

Dying, real, =4=, 434, 435.


"Each summer sound," verse, =5=, 112.

Eagle-Beak, =6=, 15, note, 16.

Eagle Lake, =3=, 101, 161; road, 261.

Eagleswood, =6=, 286-291.

Earth, probing of, =6=, 194.

EAST BRANCH, THE ALLEGASH AND, =3=, 174-327.

East Branch, mouth of the, =3=, 19; 23, 161, 175, 176, 249, 256, 257,
268; Hunt's house on the, 269, 270, 273, 274, 288, 289, 298, 312, 315,
316.

East Harbor Village, in Truro, =4=, 137.

East Main, Labrador and, health in the words, =5=, 104.

Easterbrooks Country, =5=, 299, 303.

"Easter Brooks," =6=, 106.

Eastern Mountain anchored, =6=, 321.

Eastham (Mass.), the history of, =4=, 43-56; ministers of, 45-55;
Table-Lands of, 62; the Pilgrims, 256.

Echo, in nature, =6=, 176, 177.

"Echoes of Harper's Ferry," =6=, 359.

ECONOMY, =2=, 3-89.

Edda, the Prose, quoted, =5=, 291.

Edith, the Saxon (daughter of Emerson), =6=, 113.

Education, tuition bills pay for the least valuable part of, =2=, 55,
56.

Eel, the common, the Lamprey, =1=, 31.

Eel River, =3=, 256.

Eggs, a master in cooking, =5=, 61, 62.

Egotism in writers, =2=, 3, 4.

Election-birds, =1=, 56.

Elegy in a Country Churchyard, =3=, 19, quoted, 19.

Eliot, John, =1=, 82.

Elm, the, =5=, 263, 264, 276.

Eloquence a transient thing, =2=, 113.

Elysian life, summer makes possible, =2=, 15.

Elysium, translation, =5=, 375.

Emerson, Charles Chauncy (H. U. 1828), his Notes from the Journal of a
Scholar, =6=, 94.

Emerson, Charles (H. U. 1863), =6=, 24, note.

Emerson, Edith (Mrs. W. H. Forbes), =6=, 51, 54, 55, 103, 136, 145,
157.

Emerson, Edward Waldo (H. U. 1866), =6=, 136, 145, 152, 157.

Emerson, Ellen Tucker, =6=, 51, 53, 113, 136, 142, 145, 150, 153, 157.

Emerson, Haven (son of William), =6=, 78.

Emerson, George B., quoted, =5=, 200.

Emerson, Miss Mary Moody (aunt of R. W. E.), =6=, 269, 345, note.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (H. U. 1821), quoted =1=, 3, 14, 103, 104, 317;
Carlyle compared with, =4=, 345, 346; =6=, vii, ix, 6, 10, note, 17,
note, 48, 120, 125, 132, 151, 155, 157, 183, 190, 229, 236, 238, 251,
252, note, 253, 269, 322, 328, 337, note, 345, 346, 358, 359, 366,
367; children of, 51, 53-55, 136, 142, 145, 152, 153, 157; and Alcott,
63, 80, 83, 84, note, 136, 322, 328, 346; and Charles Lane, 62, 124,
125; and the "Dial," 58-63, 75, 78, 84, 94, 113-115; letters from, 48,
49, 58, 78, 94, 102, note, 104, 120, 125, 142, 155; letters to (from
Thoreau), 50-58, 59-64, 78-84, 92-95, 101-103, 107, 108, 113-116,
135-155, 157, 169; quoted, 22, 115, 229, 237, note, 286, 290.

Emerson, Mrs. R. W. (Lidian Jackson, of Plymouth), =6=, 35, 42, note,
46, 53, 55, 64, 75, 95, 103, 135, 136, 152, 157; letter from, 64, 65;
letters to, 75-78, 87-89, 112, 113.

Emerson, Madam Ruth (mother of William, Ralph, and Charles), =6=, 54,
78, 95.

Emerson, Waldo (son of R. W. E.), =6=, 22, 35, 42; death of, 22.

Emerson, William (H. U. 1818), of Staten Island, =6=, 50, 83, 98, 104.

Emersonian influences, =6=, 10, 49.

Employment, =6=, 15, 35, 39, 83, 107, 135, 181, 221, 222, 267, 315.

End of Nature's creatures, the, =1=, 236.

Enfield (Me.), =3=, 9.

England, last news from, =2=, 105; home of ancestors, =6=, 5, note,
Emerson in, 124, 125, 148, 150, 154, 155.

English and French in the New World, =5=, 66, 67.

Englishmen, =6=, 50, 110, 125, 162, 235-238, 383, note.

Entomology, the study of, =5=, 107, 108; =6=, 90, 309, 310, 327, 328.

Epidermis, our outside clothes, =2=, 26.

Epigrams of Thoreau, =6=, 20, 26, 28, 41, 52, 56, 57, 60, 66, 67, 69,
76, 77, 83, 88, 93, 94, 118, 149, 156, 160, 161, 163, 173, 176, 178,
186, 199, 200, 201, 208.

Epistles of Thoreau, =6=, xii; Latin and English, 27-32; take the
place of lectures, 192.

Epitaphs, =1=, 177, 178.

Epitome of the year, the day, =2=, 332.

Errington, Miss, a teacher, =6=, 73, 86.

Eternal life, =6=, 160, 161, 164, 173, 174, 194, 225.

Eternity, =6=, 178, 179, 204, 260, 261.

Etesian winds, news simmers through men like, =2=, 186.

Ethnical Scriptures, =6=, 114, 117.

Etymologies, =6=, 33, 34, 243.

Etzler, J. H., review of The Paradise within the Reach of all Men, by,
=4=, 280-305; quoted, 280, 281, 292-300; "Mechanical System," 286,
292, 300, 303; merits and faults of the books, 301-304; criticised,
=6=, 102.

Evelyn, John, quoted, =2=, 10, 179; quoted, =5=, 310, 311.

Everett, Edward (H. U. 1811), =6=, 372.

Everlasting (life-everlasting), the pearly, =3=, 97.

Evil spirits, =6=, 208, 226.

_Ex Oriente Lux: ex Occidente Frux_, =5=, 221.

Exaggeration, the need of, =4=, 352, 353.

Excursions, in Concord, =6=, 16, 18, 28, 49, 50, 59, note, 121, 126,
146, 230, 245, 250, 261, 267, 280, 281, 309; elsewhere in
Massachusetts, 191, 196, 233, 234, 237, 244, 245, 255, 263, 279; to
Maine, 254, 309, 315, 322-327; to Monadnoc, 329, 332, 364, 368-372; to
New Hampshire (White Mountains), 6, 330-336, 349; to New York and New
Jersey, 68-73, 77-80, 82-86, 95-97, 107-110, 183, 286-291, 295-298; to
the West and Northwest, 380, 383, 391; estimate of, =6=, 170, 171;
reducing, 171, 182, 262.

Expenses, farm, =2=, 60, 61; outgo and income, bean-field, 179-181.
_See_ Cost.

Experiences, the paucity of men's, =5=, 241, 242.

Exploration, of one's self, =2=, 353-355.

Extemporaneous living, =1=, 332.

_Extra Vagance_, depends on how you are yarded, =2=, 357.

Extravagance in living, =6=, 213, 214, 317-319, 348.

Eyes, movement of the, =1=, 80, the sight of different men's, =5=,
285-288; and insight, =6=, 161, 162.


Fable, the universal appeal of, =1=, 58; the Christian, 67.

"Fabulate and paddle in the social slush," =6=, 230.

Face, imaginary formation by thawing of the, =2=, 339, 340.

Factory system, not best mode of supplying clothing, =2=, 29.

Failure or success, =6=, 188, 225.

Faineancy, =6=, 230.

Fair Cities of the plain, =6=, 348.

Fair Haven, a canal-boat on, =1=, 224; =2=, 205, 219, 225, 274, 300,
307, 330; huckleberries on hill, 190, 192; ledges, 308; late ice on
pond, 335; =6=, 28, 30, 50, 116, 231.

Faith, =6=, 47, 57, 167, 169, 226; phases of, 56, 57, 81, 112, 118,
159, 173, 174, 178, 214, 215, 224, 242, 243, 379.

Fall. _See_ Autumn.

Fall of the Leaf, the verse, =5=, 407.

Fallen Leaves, =5=, 264-270.

Falls, a drug of, =5=, 58.

Fama Marcelli, =6=, viii.

Fame, translation, =5=, 378.

Fame, to be distrusted, =4=, 403; =6=, vii, 66, 67, 92, 93.

"Fame cannot tempt the bard," verse, =6=, viii.

Family ancestry, =6=, 3, 7, 11, 104; demon of sleep, 91, 106.

Farm, the Hollowell, =2=, 92; a model, 218.

Farmer, John, reflections of, =2=, 245.

Farmer, visits from a long-headed, =2=, 294.

Farmers, interesting in proportion as they are poor, =2=, 218.

Farms in Concord, =6=, 256, note; in Staten Island, 86, 95; at
Chappaqua, 297.

Farwell of Dunstable, =1=, 174-176, 208.

Fashion, worship of, =2=, 28.

Fate, what a man thinks of himself, his, =2=, 8; =6=, 39, 77, 112,
361; the Fates, 74, 108, 149.

Father Hecker, =6=, 122, 123, 404, 405, 408.

Father tongue, written language our, =2=, 112.

Feeling, acute, =6=, 35; indifferent, 168.

Fellowship, =6=, 268.

Feminine traits, =6=, 198, 201.

Fences in Truro, =4=, 138, 139.

Fenda, wife of "Sippio Brister," =2=, 284.

Fenwick, Bishop, =3=, 323.

Field, John, an Irishman, story of, =2=, 226.

Finch, =6=, 75.

Fine art, no place for a work of, =2=, 41, 42.

Fire, purification by, =2=, 75; "my housekeeper," 279; man and, 280;
an alarm of, 285; a camp, =3=, 43, 115, 116; =6=, 28, 30, 294, 333,
334, 373; of driftwood, 268; on Mt. Washington, 336; on Monadnoc, 369.

Fire Island, =6=, 183, 185.

Fire-weed, =3=, 95, 282.

Fish, A Religious, newspaper clipping, =4=, 116; uses of, in
Provincetown, 212-215; spearing, =5=, 119, 121-123. _See_ Bream, Eel,
Pickerel, Pout, Shiner.

Fisher, the pickerel, =5=, 180, 181.

Fisherman, the, =1=, 21; Account Current of a, 33.

Fishes, the nature of, =1=, 23; schools of, in Walden Pond, =2=, 210,
211; of thought, 297; driven ashore by storm, =4=, 143-147; described
in Massachusetts Report, =5=, 118.

Fish-hawk, the, =1=, 205; =5=, 110.

Fishing, with silent man, =2=, 192; at night, 194; alone detains
citizens at Walden Pond, 235, 236; impossible to T. without loss of
self-respect, 236, 237; in winter, 313, 314; =3=, 58; in the
Caucomgomoc, 226, 227; for bass, =4=, 117; mackerel, 179-184, 189,
190.

Fish stories, ancient, =4=, 215, 216.

Fitchburg (Mass.), going to, =2=, 59; =5=, 3; =6=, 292, 302.

Fitchburg Railroad, =2=, 127; depot in Boston, =6=, 345; in Acton,
366.

Fitzwilliam (N. H.), =5=, 4.

Five Islands, the, =3=, 11, 31, 87, 320.

Flagg, Wilson, =6=, 311.

Flat, the weak person, =4=, 278.

Flea, deserts made by bite of a, =1=, 209.

Flesh and bones, =6=, 110.

Fletcher, Giles, quoted, =1=, 199, 202.

Fletcher, Phineas, quoted, =1=, 414 ("By them went Fido").

Flint's Pond, =2=, 201, 223, 330-333; or Sandy, in Lincoln, 216-219;
covered with snow, like Baffin's Bay, 299.

Floating in a skiff, =1=, 48.

Flowers, autumn, =1=, 377.

Fog, early morning, =1=, 188, 200, 201; picturesque effect of, 201,
202; =6=, 257, 329, 334, 335. _See_ Clouds, Haze, Mist.

Follen, Dr. Charles, =6=, 30.

Food, a necessary of life, =2=, 13; the fuel of man's body, 14;
general consideration of, 60-72; objections to animal, 237;
desirability of simple, 238-241; =6=, 164, 165, 175, 216, 218.

Football, spiritual, =6=, 217.

Foreign country, quickly in a, =5=, 31.

Forests, nations preserved by, =5=, 229.

FORMER INHABITANTS, AND WINTER VISITORS, =2=, 282-298.

Fortifications, ancient and modern, =5=, 77, 78.

Fort Sumter, =6=, 378, 379.

Fourier, communities of, =6=, 81, 96, 97, 104, 318.

Fowler, Thomas, sheltered and joined by, =3=, 29-34.

Fox, shooting a, =2=, 307; starting up a, =4=, 148; the, =5=, 117.

Fox Island, =1=, 43.

Foxes outside T.'s house, =2=, 301.

Fragrance, of flowers and political life, =4=, 408.

Framingham (Mass.), =1=, 4, 53.

Franconia (N. H.), =1=, 89.

Franklin, wreck of the ship, =4=, 73; wreckage from the, 92, 114, 115.

Fredericton (N. B.), =3=, 16.

Freedom, of one's time, =4=, 460, 461; advantages of, =6=, 8, 12, 33,
34; for the scholar, 171, 174, 175.

Freeman, "Sippio Brister," =2=, 284.

Free-Soilers, =6=, 196.

Frémont, J. C., =6=, 362.

French, coin found on beach at Wellfleet, =4=, 161; explorers in and
about New England, 227-242; difficulties in talking, =5=, 35-37, 47;
strange, 50; pure, 52; in the New World, English and, 66-68; in
Canada, 81, 82; the, spoken in Quebec streets, 86, 87.

Freshet, on the Merrimack, =1=, 379; the Great, =3=, 58.

Fresh-Water or River Wolf, =1=, 29.

FRIDAY, =1=, 356-420.

Friend, office of a, =6=, 44, 53, 80, 93, 94, 135.

Friends, =1=, 275-307; =6=, 56, 187, 206; their uses, 56, 57; estimate
of, 186, 187; and followers, 183-464.

Friends, The Value of, translation, =5=, 387.

Friendship, offense against, =6=, 56-58; advantages of, =6=, 57, 93,
94, 171, 187, 203; and love, 203, 302; verses on, 38, 329, note;
accord in, 57, 201, 260, 261.

Fringilla, _Fring. Melod._, =6=, 23.

Frogs, _troonk_ of bull-, =2=, 139, 140. _See_ Toad.

Froissart, good place to read, =5=, 23.

Frontier houses, =3=, 144.

Frontiers, wherever men front, =1=, 323.

Frost, Rev. Barzillai (H. U. 1830), =6=, 10, note, 137.

Frost-smoke, =5=, 166.

Fruitlands (farm of Alcott and Lane), =6=, 64, 90, 122, 142, 155, 404.

Fruits, gathering autumn, =2=, 263.

Fruit trees, paucity of, in Cape towns, =4=, 34.

Fuel, a necessary of life, =2=, 13, 14; of man's body, food, 14.

Fugitive Slave Law, the, =4=, 388, 389, 401-403, 426.

Fuller, Rev. Arthur (H. U. 1843), =6=, 184.

Fuller, Ellen (Mrs. Channing), =6=, 43.

Fuller, Margaret (Countess Ossoli), =6=, 39, 94, 107, 120, 183-186.

Fuller, Richard E. (H. U. 1844), =6=, 43, 45, 65.

Fuller, Thomas, quoted, =1=, 265, 414.

Fundy, Bay of, =3=, 254.

Funeral Bell, The, verse, =5=, 405.

Funeral processions, =6=, 146.

Fur Countries, inspiring neighborhood of the, =5=, 105.

"_Furdustrandas_," =4=, 187, 191.

Furniture, generally considered, =2=, 72-76; moved out of doors, 125.


Galway, Ireland, the wrecked brig from, =4=, 6.

Game, woodland, =6=, 16, 336, 339.

Ganges, =6=, 267.

Gardens, Emerson's, =6=, 35, 77, 135, 149, 150; Thoreau's, 86, 355.

Garget, poke or, =5=, 253-255.

Garrison, W. L., =6=, 255.

Gazette, news of political parties, not of nature, printed in the,
=2=, 19.

Gazetteer, reading the, =1=, 92; quoted, 206, 207, 259, 260, 269-271;
=4=, 25, 28.

Geese, first flock of, =5=, 110.

Genius, order in the development of, =1=, 329; the Man of, 350; a man
and his, 362; of the mountain, =6=, 369; of the storm, 369.

Gerard, the English herbalist, quoted, =4=, 206.

Gerardia, purpurea (purple gerardia), =1=, 18.

Gesner, Konrad, von, quoted, =1=, 389; =5=, 318.

Gifts, =6=, 22.

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, =4=, 123.

Gilpin, William, quoted, =2=, 276, 317; =4=, 119; =6=, 239, 263, 264.

God, T.'s idea of, =1=, 65, 66; men's impertinent knowledge of, 70,
71; the personality of, 79; clothes fit to worship, in, =2=, 25; =6=,
159, 163, 174, 188, 259; ask to see, 164; city of, 164; 223; not an
ash man, 244; reigns, 178, 317.

"God's Drop," proposed as name for Walden Pond, =2=, 215.

Goethe, =1=, 347-350; quoted, 351-353; =6=, 62, 168, 301.

Goff's Falls, =1=, 251.

Goffstown (N. H.), =1=, 205, 260, 271, 274.

Gold craze, California and Australia, =4=, 463-467.

Goldenrod, =3=, 97.

Good deeds, =6=, 171.

Good Genius, advice of T.'s, =2=, 230.

Good and Wise, verse, =6=, 147.

Goodwin, Prof. William Watson (H. U. 1851), =6=, 103.

Gookin, Daniel, quoted, =1=, 82, 114, 175, 176, 267; =2=, 32.

Goose, stray, cackling like spirit of the fog, =2=, 46; honking of,
300, 345. _See_ Geese.

Goose Pond, =2=, 219; muskrats in, 299.

Gorilla, =6=, 382.

Goshawk, American, =6=, 188, 189.

Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew, =4=, 4; discovery of Cape Cod by,
242-247.

Gosse, P. A., Canadian Naturalist, =5=, 91.

Gossip, stroll to village to hear, =2=, 185.

Government, the best, =4=, 356; the American, 356-360; resistance to,
360-362, 365-381; T. and the, 381-387; good and bad, 405; a
representative, 429; the small business of, 478-480; too much, =5=,
82, 83; =6=, 154, 359, 378, 379.

Governor, a Massachusetts, =4=, 389, 390.

Gower, John, quoted, =1=, 57, 121.

Grampus Rock, in Cohasset, =4=, 7, 11.

Grand Falls of the Penobscot, =3=, 31; portage to avoid the, 32.

Grand Lake, =3=, 268; Indian name for, 295; 297, 307.

Grand Portage, the, =3=, 80.

Grange Bluff, =6=, 385.

Grape Island, =1=, 43.

Grass-ground River, =1=, 3, 32.

Graves, Indian, =1=, 251.

Graveyard, a Cape Cod, =4=, 148.

Graveyards, monuments and, =1=, 177.

Great Brook, =5=, 137.

Great Fields, the, =5=, 257.

"Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf," verse, =5=, 418.

Great Meadows, =1=, 3, 16.

Great Quitticus, =6=, 264.

Great River, the, or St. Lawrence, =5=, 89, 90, 91, 92.

Greece, verse, =5=, 404.

Greece, The Freedom of, translation, =5=, 390.

"Greece, who am I that should remember thee," verse, =1=, 54.

Greeley, Horace, =6=, 68, 96, 101, 104, 158, 169-172, 291, 297, 407.

Green Mountains, the, =5=, 6, 100, 145, 147.

Greenbush (Me.), =3=, 324.

Greene, Calvin H., =6=, 392, 403, 409; letters to, 408-412.

Greenland, driftwood in, =4=, 60.

Greenleaf's Map of Maine, =3=, 16.

Greenville (Me.), =3=, 99, 101, 188, 194, 209.

Grey, Mrs., =6=, 82.

Grey, the traveler, quoted, =5=, 94.

Grief, cause of, =6=, 41, 47, 48, 75, 89, 118, 168; remedy for, 41,
43, 48.

Griffith's Falls, =1=, 257.

Grimké sisters, =6=, 283, 288.

Grippling for apples, =5=, 309.

Groton (Mass.), =1=, 169; =5=, 139, 152.

Ground-nuts, the, =2=, 263-265.

Gulls, methods of catching, =4=, 71, 72; =5=, 110.

Gunnar (Norse hero), =6=, 382.

Guns, sound of distant big, =2=, 176.

Guyot, Arnold, =5=, 93; quoted, 93, 94, 220, 221.


Habington, William, quoted, =1=, 56, 102.

HABITS, ill, remedy for, =6=, 148, 149, 208, 226, 227.

Hafiz, quoted, =1=, 415.

Hale, Rev. Edward Everett (H. U. 1839), =6=, 307.

Hale, Nathan (H. U. 1838), =6=, 83, note.

Half lives, how the other, =1=, 227.

Hall, Leyden, at Plymouth, =6=, 190; Masonic, at Concord, 6; Music,
Boston, 359.

Hamlet, Fechter's, =6=, 382.

Hampstead (N. H.), =1=, 185, 202.

Hard times, =6=, 317, 318.

Hare, the, =2=, 309, 310.

Harebell, the, =1=, 92.

Harivansa, the, quoted, =2=, 95.

Harper & Brothers, =6=, 105.

Harrison and Tyler, =6=, 371.

Harvard (Mass.), =5=, 151, 152; =6=, 45, 280.

Harvard College, =6=, 4, 10, 65, 104, 138, 237, 252.

Hastings, Warren, quoted, =1=, 142, 143.

Hasty, Captain, =6=, 184.

Hasty-pudding, friends flee approach of, =2=, 271.

Hate, =6=, 202; and love, 93, 199, 200.

Haverhill (Mass.), =1=, 87, 89, 185, 202; historian of, quoted, 322;
342.

"Have you not seen," verse, =5=, 413.

Hawk, fish, =5=, 110.

Hawk, watching a, =2=, 348, 349. _See_ Nighthawk.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, =6=, vii, 42, note, 51, 93, 107, 120, 364.

Hawthorne, Sophia, =6=, 45.

Haydon (English painter), =6=, 224, 301.

Haystack, the, =1=, 86.

Haze, =1=, 229. _See_ Fog.

Head, Sir Francis, quoted, =5=, 47, 221, 222.

Head of the River, New Bedford, =6=, 332, 333, 340.

Headley, Henry, =6=, 65.

Hearts, =6=, 200, 201, 294.

Heathenish, =6=, 191, 210.

Heaven, =1=, 405-409; =6=, 87, 163, 179, 196, 220, 284; admission to,
164, 220, 223.

Hebe, a worshiper of, =2=, 154.

Hecker, Isaac, =6=, 122, 123; letters to, 405, 407.

Hedgehog, shooting a, =3=, 130.

Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma, =1=, 153.

Height of Glory, The, translation, =5=, 384.

Hell, living in Massachusetts, or, =4=, 405, 406.

Henry, Alexander, Adventures of, =1=, 228, 230, 231; Wawatam's
friendship with, 291.

Hens, =6=, 38, 63, 273.

HERALD OF FREEDOM, =4=, 306-310.

Heraud, John A., =6=, 61.

Herbert, George, =6=, 113, 377.

Hercules, labors of, trifling compared with those of T.'s neighbors,
=2=, 5; =6=, 226, 344.

Hercules names the Hill of Kronos, translation, =5=, 377.

Hercules' Prayer concerning Ajax, son of Telamon, translation, =5=,
390.

Herds, the keepers of men, =2=, 62.

Hermit. _See_ Dialogue.

Hermitage, Walden, =6=, 154.

Hermit-life, =6=, 135, 158.

Herndon, William Lewis, quoted, =4=, 479, 480.

Heron, =1=, 416.

Heron Lake, =3=, 254, 255; =6=, 325.

Herrick, Robert, =5=, 298.

Herring River, =4=, 80.

Hesiod, quoted, =1=, 64.

Hester Street, meeting at, =6=, 97.

Hibiscus, =1=, 19.

Hickory, the, =5=, 264, 265.

Hide, stretching a, =3=, 147, 148; sale of a moose, 152.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth (H. U. 1841), =6=, 189, 190, 260, 323-327.

HIGHER LAWS, =2=, 232-246.

HIGHLAND LIGHT, THE, =4=, 150-175.

Highland Light, =4=, 132, 150; description and stories of, 167-175;
=6=, 255.

Highlanders in Quebec, =5=, 25-27, 28, 29, 79.

"Highlands" between the Penobscot and St. John, =3=, 238.

Hilton's clearing, =3=, 105.

Hindoos, =6=, 89, 271, 299, 300.

Hippocrates, on cutting the nails, =2=, 10, 11.

"His steady sails he never furls," verse, =5=, 109.

History, the reading and the antiquity of, =1=, 161-163; reading, =3=,
87.

Hoar family, =6=, 15, note, 321.

Hoar-frost, =5=, 126, 127.

Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood (H. U. 1835), =6=, 15, 75, 78, 395.

Hoar, Edward Sherman (H. U. 1844), =6=, 75, 313, 330, 332-336.

Hoar, Elizabeth, =6=, 51, 75, 93, 116.

Hoar, George Frisbie (H. U. 1846), =6=, 15, note, 100.

Hoar, Samuel (H. U. 1802), =6=, 15, note, 351.

Hobble-bush, wayfarer's tree or, =3=, 96.

Hoboken (N.J.), =6=, 109.

Hochelaga, =5=, 89, 97, 99.

Hodge, assistant geologist, quoted, =3=, 29, 80.

Hodnet, England, =6=, 236, 237, note, 249, 272, note.

Hog Island, inside of Hull, =4=, 15.

Hog, the, =6=, 222, 328.

Holland, the King of, in his element, =3=, 239.

Hollowell place, the, =2=, 91, 92.

Home, =6=, ix, 50, 63; affection of T. for, 99, 262.

Homer, =1=, 97, 394; Iliad, =2=, 111; never yet printed in English,
115; quoted, 160; =5=, 181; =6=, 92, 197, 239, 291.

Hontan, French explorer, =6=, 389.

Hood's "Song of the Shirt," =6=, 224.

Hooksett (N. H.), =1=, 225, 251, 260, 273, 274, 308, 309, 335;
Pinnacle, 318; Falls, 322.

Hoosac Mountain, T.'s ascent of, =1=, 189-200.

Hoosac Mountains, =5=, 147.

Hop, culture of the, =5=, 136, 137.

Hope, =6=, 20.

Hopeful, Sachem (John Thoreau), =6=, 13, 35.

Hopkinton (Mass.), =1=, 4, 32.

Horace, quoted, =6=, 27, 30.

Horns, uses for deer's, =3=, 97, 98.

Hornstone, =3=, 194.

Horses, to hang clothes on, wooden, =2=, 23, 24; men's work for, =4=,
286; Canadian, =5=, 34; =6=, 136, 142, 153, 294, 321, 334, 340.

"Horses have the mark," verse, =1=, 243.

Horse-race, =6=, 286, 293.

Horseshoe Interval, the, =1=, 126, 377.

_Hortus siccus_, nature in winter a, =5=, 179.

Hosmer, Edmund (the "farmer-man"), =6=, 93, 137, 154, 257, 261, 265,
270.

Hosmer, Solon, =6=, 257.

_Hospitalality_, not hospitality but, =2=, 168.

Hotham, Edmund Stuart, =6=, 59, note.

Hottentots and Ruskin, =6=, 319.

Houlton (Me.), road, the, =3=, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13.

Hounds hunting woods in winter, =2=, 305-309.

House, every spot possible site for a, =2=, 90; the ideal, 266-271;
the perfect, =5=, 153.

Household, of Emerson, =6=, 35, 53, 54, 64, 135, 136, 142, 147, 152;
of the Dunbars and Thoreaus, 4-7, 24, 27-32, 99, 104-106, 351.

House-raising at Walden Pond, =2=, 49, 50.

Houses, superfluities in our, =2=, 39; Canadian, =5=, 44, 59; American
compared with Canadian, 100; lived in by Thoreau, =6=, 4-7, 24, 58,
141, 143, 144, 148-150; 369.

HOUSE-WARMING, =2=, 263-281.

Housework, a pleasant pastime, =2=, 125.

Howitt, William, =4=, 465; quoted on Australian gold-diggings, 467;
=6=, 84, 235.

Huckleberries never reach Boston, =2=, 192.

Hudson (N. H.), =1=, 151, 152, 153, 169.

Hudson, Rev. Henry N., described, =6=, 145.

Hudson River, =6=, 70, 109, 392.

Huguenots of Staten Island, =1=, 190.

Hull (Mass.), =4=, 15.

Humane Society, huts of the, =4=, 63, 74-78.

Human nature, =6=, 8, 9, 37, 47, 96, 110, 160, 163, 166, 180, 196,
203, 208, 209.

Humboldt, Alexander von, quoted, =4=, 121; =5=, 92, 93.

Humor, the quality of, =4=, 335-337; T.'s sense of, =6=, xi, xii.

Hunt family, =6=, 106, 256, note.

Hunt House, the old, =5=, 201.

Hunter, a "gentlemanly," =3=, 178, 179; Indian, with hides, 231;
enviable life of a, 269, 270.

Hunters, boys to be made first sportsmen, then, =2=, 234.

Hunting, the degradation of, =3=, 132-134.

Hut for shipwrecked sailors, =4=, 63, 74-78; in the woods, =6=, 58,
59, note, 125, 168.

Hyde, Tom, the tinker, quoted, =2=, 360, 361.

Hygeia, no worshiper of, =2=, 154.

Hypseus' Daughter Cyrene, translation, =5=, 383.


I, the first person, retained in this book, =2=, 3, 4.

"I am a parcel of vain strivings tied," verse, =1=, 410.

"I am bound, I am bound for a distant shore," verse, =1=, 2.

"I am the autumnal sun," verse, =1=, 404.

"I hearing get, who had but ears," verse, =1=, 392.

"I make ye an offer," verse, =1=, 69.

"I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind," verse, =1=, 2.

"I see the civil sun drying earth's tears," verse, =5=, 120.

"I've searched my faculties around," verse, =5=, 418.

"I wish to sing the Atridæ," verse, =1=, 240.

Ice, looking through the, on Walden Pond, =2=, 272; whooping of the,
301; cutting through, to get water, 312, 313; cutting on Walden Pond,
323-329; beauty of Walden, 327; booming of the, 333; =5=, 176; =6=,
206, 212, 250, 251, 273.

Iceberg, =6=, 335.

Ice formations in a river-bank, =5=, 128, 129.

Idle hours, =6=, 18, 47, 209, 254, 267.

"If I am poor," verse, =5=, 412.

"If thou wilt but stand by my ear," verse, =5=, 418.

"If with light head erect I sing," verse, =5=, 396.

Ignorance, Society for the Diffusion of Useful, =5=, 239.

Imagination, not exercised, =6=, 26; discussed by Ruskin, 319.

Imitations of charette-drivers, Yankee, =5=, 99.

Immigrants, =6=, 96, 110.

Immortality, =6=, 194, 225.

"In the East fames are won," verse, =4=, 346.

"In this roadstead I have ridden," verse, =5=, 414.

"In two years' time 't had thus," verse, =5=, 303.

"In vain I see the morning rise," verse, =1=, 366.

"Indeed, indeed, I cannot tell," verse, =6=, 202.

Independence, verse, =5=, 415.

India, books on, Cholmondeley's gift of, =6=, 270, note, 271.

Indian, crowding out of the, by whites, =1=, 53; civilizing the, 55;
conversion of the, 82-85; capture of two Dunstable men, 174; attacks,
letters to governor about expected, 232, 233; captivity, escape of
Hannah Dustan and others from, 341-345; houses in Massachusetts
Colony, =2=, 32, 33; extinction, =3=, 7; guides secured, 11; belief
that river ran two ways, 35; words for some birds and animals, 108;
camp, an, 146-159; language, 151; words for Maine waters, 155-157;
houses at Oldtown, 161; relics, 166; speech, 187; singing, 198;
methods of guiding, 204-206; manner of carrying canoes, 207, 208;
inscription, an, 220; wardrobe, 249, 250; failure to understand
avoidance of settlers, 258; medicines, 259; travel, 260, 261; as
umpire, 267; skill in retracing steps, 277; relics and geographical
names, 297; good manners, 300; devil (or cougar), the, 306; reticence
and talkativeness, 318, 319; sickness, 319, 320; indifference, 326,
habitation, signs of previous, =4=, 84, 85; =6=, 311, 315, 316, 336.

Indian Island, =3=, 92, 174, 326, 327.

Indian summer, =6=, 38, 340.

Indoors, living, =5=, 207-209.

Infidelity, the real, =1=, 77.

Ingraham, Cato, slave of Duncan, =2=, 283.

Inherited property a misfortune, =2=, 5.

Injustice, =6=, 228.

Inn, inscription on wall of Swedish, =5=, 141.

Insect foes, =3=, 246.

Inspector of storms, self-appointed, =2=, 19, 20.

Inspiration, quatrain, =5=, 418.

Inspiration, verse, =5=, 396.

Institutions, the burden of, =1=, 135, 136.

Invertebrate Animals, report on quoted, =5=, 129.

Inward Morning, The, verse, =1=, 313.

Iolaus, and hydra's head, =2=, 5.

Ireland, Alexander, =6=, 155, 157.

Irish, physical condition of the poor, =2=, 38, 39.

Irishmen, =6=, 116, 149.

Islands, =1=, 257, 258; Clark's, =6=, 301, 328; Staten, xi, 65, 68,
117.

"It doth expand my privacies," verse, =1=, 182.

"It is no dream of mine," verse, =2=, 215.

Italian discoverers, =4=, 234, 235.


Jackson, Dr. Charles T., =3=, 4, 10; quoted, regarding altitude of
Ktaadn, 72; on Moosehead Lake, 104; sketches in Reports of, 120;
quoted, regarding hornstone on Mount Kineo, 194, 195; =6=, 35, note,
144.

Jackson, Miss Lidian (Mrs. R. W. Emerson.) _See_ Emerson.

Jackson, Miss Lucy (Mrs. Brown), =6=, 35, note, 42, note, 49, 50, 113,
136, 329, note; letters to, 35-49.

Jaffrey (N. H.), =6=, 330.

Jail in Concord, =6=, 52.

Jamblichus, quoted, =1=, 184.

James, Henry, Sr., meets T., =6=, 68, 80; mentioned, 85, 101; his
sons, 103, 122, 346, 347.

Jarvis, Dr. Edward (H. U. 1826), =6=, 21.

Jaundice, =6=, 118, 152.

Jays, arrival of the, =2=, 303, 304; =5=, 108, 199.

Jeremiah's Gutter, =4=, 36.

Jerusalem Village (Mass.), =4=, 16.

Jesuit Relations, quoted, =5=, 96.

Jesuits, and Indian torture, =2=, 83; early in New England, =4=, 232;
Barracks, the, in Quebec, =5=, 24.

Jesus Christ, the effect of the story of, =1=, 67; prince of Reformers
and Radicals, 142; liberalizing influence of, =2=, 120.

Joe Merry Lakes, the, =3=, 45.

Joe Merry Mountain, =3=, 38, 51, 218.

Joel, the prophet, quoted, =5=, 322.

Johnson, Edward, quoted, =1=, 8; =2=, 42, 43.

Jones, Dr. S. A., =6=, 403.

Jones family, =6=, 12, note, 91, 104.

Jones, Sir William, =1=, 154.

Jonson, Ben, quoted, =5=, 226.

Josselyn, John, =1=, 27, 29; quoted, =3=, 156, 164; =4=, 98; quoted,
=5=, 2.

Judge and criminal, =6=, 227, 228.

Justice, the administration of, =4=, 395, 396.


Kalm, Travels in North America, quoted, =4=, 126, 201; =5=, 21, 30,
39, 65; on sea-plants near Quebec, 93.

Kalmiana. _See_ Nuphar.

Kane, Dr. E. K., =6=, 362.

Katepskonegan Falls, =3=, 52; Carry, 81.

Katepskonegan Lake, =3=, 50, 57.

Katepskonegan Stream, =3=, 50.

Kearsage, =1=, 86.

Keene (N. H.) Street, =5=, 4; heads like, 4.

Kelp, =4=, 67-70.

Kenduskeag, meaning of, =3=, 156.

Kennebec River, the, =3=, 5, 40, 103, 183, 188, 233, 272.

Kent, the Duke of, property of, =5=, 38.

Khoung-tseu, =2=, 105.

Kieou-he-yu, =2=,105.

Killington Peak, =5=, 6.

Kineo, Mount, =3=, 101-103, 156, 183, 186, 189; Indian tradition of
origin of, 190; hornstone on, 194; 196, 203, 260, 299; =6=, 325.

Kirby, William, and Spence, quoted, =2=, 237, 256.

Kirkland, Mrs. Caroline, =6=, 288.

Kittlybenders, let us not play at, =2=, 363.

Knife, an Indian, =3=, 156.

Knots of the Alcott arbor, =6=, 136, 137.

Knowledge, the slow growth of, =5=, 181; Society for the Diffusion of
Useful, 239; true, 240.

Kossuth, the excitement about, =4=, 470, 471.

Kreeshna, teachings of, =1=, 144-146.

KTAADN, =3=, 3-90.

Ktaadn, Mount, =3=, 1; ascents of, 3-5; view of, 23; first view of,
36; 38; the flat summit of, 49; 58, 61; T.'s ascent of, 63-76;
altitude of, 72; 96, 121, 136, 167, 215, 218, 249, 257, 260, 297, 312,
313; =6=, 132, 255.


LABOR, uses of, =6=, 63, 116, 170, 171, 221, 222; results of, 165,
166, 170, 171, 182, note.

Laborer, choosing occupation of a day, =2=, 77; falling in pond with
many clothes on, 83.

Laboring man has no time to be anything but a machine, the, =2=, 6, 7.

Labrador and East Main, health in the words, =5=, 104.

Labrador tea, =6=, 327.

Ladies'-tresses, =1=, 18.

"Lady's Companion," a magazine, =6=, 107, 108.

Laing, Samuel, quoted, =2=, 29, 30.

Lake, the earth's eye, a, =2=, 206; country of New England, the, =3=,
40; a woodland, in winter, =5=, 174, 175.

Lake Champlain, Long Wharf to, =2=, 132; =5=, 6-8.

Lake St. Peter, =5=, 96, 97.

Lalemant, Hierosme, quoted, =5=, 22.

Lamentations, =6=, 41, 42, 179, 180, 213, 214, 226, 229.

Lamprey eel, =1=, 31; =6=, 127.

_Lampyris noctiluca_, =6=, 310, 327, 328.

Lancaster (Mass.), =1=, 169; =5=, 138, 139, 149.

Land and water, =6=, xi, 14, 69, 83, 267, 268, 301.

LANDLORD, THE, =5=, 153-162.

Landlord, qualities of the, =5=, 153-162.

Lane, Charles (English reformer), =6=, 52, 58, 64, 90, 104, 125;
writes for the "Dial," 59-63.

La Prairie (Que.), =5=, 11, 18, 99.

Lar, =6=, 67.

Larch, extensive wood of, =3=, 231.

Lark, the, =5=, 109, 110.

LAST DAYS OF JOHN BROWN, THE, =4=, 441-450.

"Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy," verse, =1=, 276.

Latin, grammars, =6=, 25; epistle, 27-29; pronunciation, 25; writers
mentioned or quoted, viii, xi, 27, 28.

Lawrence (Mass.), =1=, 89.

Laws, beautiful, =6=, 177; eternal, 173.

"Leach-hole" in Walden Pond, =2=, 322.

Lead, rain of, =5=, 26.

Leaf, resemblance of sand-formation to a, =2=, 338.

Leaves, fallen, =5=, 264-270; scarlet oak, 278-281.

Lectures, by T., =6=, 6, 145, 150, 154, 189-192, 232, 233, 244, 251,
276, 289, 303, 349.

Ledum (Labrador tea), =6=, 327.

Lee's Hill, =6=, 15, note; alias Nashawtuc or Naushawtuck, =6=, 15,
27, 30.

Lee-vites, a nickname, =6=, 15, note.

Legs, the, as compasses, =4=, 88.

Lescarbot, quoted, regarding abundance of fishes, =3=, 60; =4=, 240,
249.

"Let such pure hate still underprop," verse, =1=, 305.

_Leuciscus (argenteus, pulchellus)_, =6=, 127, 131.

Letters: From Louis Agassiz, =6=, 129. From A. B. Alcott, =6=, 397; to
him, 282. From H. G. O. Blake, =6=, 158, 159; to him, 160, 164, 173,
174, 177, 179, 185, 194, 197, 209, 217, 221, 225, 229, 258, 292, 302,
307, 308, 314, 330, 343, 349, 358, 360, 364, 368, 383. From Myron B.
Benton, =6=, 398; to him, 399. To Mrs. Lucy Cotton Brown, =6=, 35, 37,
40, 43, 46. From J. E. Cabot, =6=, 130, 131; to him, 126, 128, 155.
From Ellery Channing, =6=, 121, 271. From Thomas Cholmondeley, =6=,
380; to him, 245. From R. W. Emerson, =6=, 49, 58, 83, note, 94, note,
102, 104, 120, 125, 142, 155; to him, 50, 54, 59, 62, 78, 80, 92, 101,
107, 113, 135, 142, 144, 148, 151, 157, 183. From Mrs. R. W. Emerson,
=6=, 64; to her, 76, 87, 112. To Calvin H. Greene, =6=, 408-412. To
Isaac Hecker, =6=, 405, 407. To T. W. Higginson, =6=, 189, 323. From
Miss Elizabeth Hoar, =6=, 116. To Parker Pillsbury, =6=, 378. From
James Richardson, =6=, 10, note. From Daniel Ricketson, =6=, 238, 246,
257; to him, 239, 240, 246, 261, 263, 266, 270, 273, 284, 285, 304,
311, 313, 337, 341, 350, 353, 376. To F. B. Sanborn, =6=, 249, 385. To
Cynthia Thoreau, =6=, 68, 84, 89, 98, 104, 108. To Helen Thoreau, =6=,
12, 25, 27, 32, 74, 95, 117. To John Thoreau, Jr., =6=, 13, 19, 23. To
Sophia Thoreau, =6=, 31, 71, 132, 193, 286, 363. From B. M. Watson,
=6=, 190, 327; to him, 6, 191, 309, 327. To B. B. Wiley, =6=, 298,
300.

Lexington (Mass.), =2=, 306.

Libraries, at Cambridge, =6=, 252; at Concord, 270; at New York, 81,
106, 109, 114, 122.

Liebig, J. F. von, quoted, 2, 14.

Life, the world and, =1=, 310-316; cares and labors of, =2=, 6, 7; an
experiment, 10; students not to play or study, but to live, 56, 57;
purposes of, 100, 101; one has imagined living the, 356; live your,
however mean, 361; in us, like the water in the river, 366; emptiness
of ordinary, =6=, 161, 162, 179, 209, 210, 213, 214, 230; eternal,
161, 164, 173, 174, 194, 225; facts of, 44, 162, 212; labyrinth of,
173; mean aspects of, 79, 82, 229; phenomena of, xi, xii, 40, 47, 199,
203, 204, 216, 221, 222, 268, 328; qualifications for practical, 7,
11, 34, 59, 135, 171; spiritual and material, 9, 88, 160, 214, 227.

LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE, =4=, 455-482.

Light. _See_ Moonlight and Sunset.

"Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird," verse, =2=, 279.

Lilac, growing by deserted houses, =2=, 290.

Lily, the yellow, =3=, 209, 291; roots, gathering, 309; roots, soup
of, 317.

Lily Bay, =3=, 97, 99.

Limits of living, =2=, 7.

Lincoln, Abraham, =6=, 283, 378, 380.

Lincoln (Me.), =3=, 9, 85, 260, 319, 321, 322.

Lincoln (Mass.), =1=, 5; =2=, 95, 136, 173, 282; owls in woods of,
138, 139; Flint's Pond in, 216; chestnut woods of, 263;
burying-ground, 284, 299; =5=, 282, 283.

Lining of beauty for houses, =2=, 44.

Linnæus (Linné, Karl von), quoted, =5=, 222; =6=, 207, 208.

Litchfield (N. H.), =1=, 204, 206, 227.

Little Reading, =2=, 116.

Little Schoodic River, the, =3=, 23.

Living, getting a, =4=, 457-462. _See_ Life.

Lobster Pond, =3=, 106, 210.

Lobster Stream, =3=, 105, 210.

Lockwood. _See_ F. J. Merriam.

Locusts, =3=, 254; =6=, 90.

Log house, a, =3=, 138.

Loggers, camps of, =3=, 20; a gang of, 38.

Logs, from woods to market, sending, =3=, 46-49.

London, =6=, 137, 155, 343, 362.

Londonderry (N. H.), =1=, 92, 268.

Loneliness, desirable, =2=, 147, 151, 152.

Long Pond, =6=, 264.

Long River (La Rivière Longue), =6=, 389.

Long Wharf, taking a place at, =4=, 267.

Longfellow, H. W., =6=, 101, 251, 345, note.

Longueuil (Que.), =5=, 20.

Loon, hunting, and a game with the, =2=, 258-262; Indian word for, =3=,
182; cry of the, 247, 248.

Loring, E. G., =4=, 389, 393, 394.

Lost, in the lakes, experienced woodmen. =3=, 41; in the woods, T.'s
companion, 285-290.

Lost dove, horse, and hound, =6=, 301.

Loudon, John Claudius, quoted, =5=, 197, 200, 291, 292, 310.

Louisa, Aunt (Dunbar), =6=, 99.

Love, the power of, =4=, 304, 305; charms of, 198-200, 204, 205, 206,
208; corrupted, 199, 206, 208; potency of, 201, 203, 204; and
marriage, 198-209, 302. _See_ Friendship.

"Love once among roses," verse, =1=, 244.

"Love walking swiftly," verse, =1=, 242.

"Lovely dove," verse, =1=, 241.

Lovewell, Captain, and his Indian fight, =1=, 123; John, father of,
168, 176; =3=, 245.

"Low-anchored cloud," verse, =1=, 201.

"Low in the eastern sky," verse, =1=, 46; =5=, 400.

Lowell, James Russell (H. U. 1838), =6=, 61, 251, 345, 395.

Lowell (Mass.), =1=, 4, 31, 32, 39, 85, 87, 89, 115, 117, 225, 251,
264.

Lowell, Mrs., =6=, 24.

Lucretius, =6=, xi.

Luxury, fruit of a life of, =2=, 16.

Lyceum, the, =1=, 102; =2=, 121, 122; =6=, 6, 49, 51, 52, 61, 115,
145, 150, 154, 275; at Salem, 191; at Worcester, 303.

Lydgate, John, quoted, =1=, 57.

Lyman, Benjamin Smith (H. U. 1855), =6=, 252.

Lynx, Canada, =6=, 355.

Lyttelton, Lord, =6=, 383.


Macaulay, Rev. Zachary, =6=, 272, note.

McCauslin, or "Uncle George," weather-bound at farm of, =3=, 23-29;
good services as guide by, 40-42.

McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary, quoted, =5=, 49.

McGaw's Island, =1=, 245.

McKean, Henry Swasey (H. U. 1828), =6=, 109, 114, 122.

Mackerel, fishing for, =4=, 179-184, 189, 190; =6=, 229; fleet, the,
198, 261.

McTaggart, John, quoted, =5=, 94.

MacTavish, Simon, =5=, 98.

Mad River, =1=, 87.

Madawaska, the, =3=, 80; =6=, 323-326.

Mahabarat, =6=, 300.

Maiden in the East, =6=, 329, note.

Maine, mountainous region of, =3=, 4; intelligence of backwoodsmen in,
24; view of, 73; the forest of, 88; =6=, 6, 132, 145, 254, 311, 315,
322, 324-326.

Make-a-Stir, Squire, =2=, 8.

Male and female, =6=, 198, 207.

Mallet for flints, =6=, 19.

Man, =6=, 12, 31, 37; his activity, 167, 173, 213, 214; his bread,
164, 165; his duty, 167, 186; his education, 178, 221, 222; his
freedom, 175, 188, 196; his generation, 208; his immortality, 259,
294; his meanness, 179, 226.

Man, translation, =5=, 383.

Man, The Divine in, translation, =5=, 386.

Manchester (N. H.), =1=, 89, 225, 250, 251; Mfg. Co., 259, 260; 264,
268, 274.

Manilla hemp, =2=, 132.

Mankind, =6=, 8, 9, 31, 80, 136, 209, 210.

Mann, Horace, Jr., =6=, 385, 392.

"Man's little acts are grand," verse, =1=, 224.

Manse, the Old, =6=, 42, 51.

Map, of the Public Lands of Maine and Massachusetts, =3=, 17, 101,
104, 308; drawing, on kitchen table, =5=, 60; of Canada, inspecting a,
95.

Maple, the red and sugar, =5=, 6; the red, 258-263, 265; the sugar,
261, 271-278.

Maple sugar, =6=, 278.

Maples, autumn colors of, =2=, 265; =5=, 6, 258-263, 265, 271-278.

Maps of Cape Cod, and New England, =4=, 227-231, 234; of walking
tours, =6=, 329, 335.

Marañon, the river, =5=, 93.

Maria, Aunt (Thoreau's), =6=, 118.

Mark-Lane Gazette, =6=, 124.

Marlborough (Mass.), =5=, 214.

Marlborough Chapel, =6=, 129.

Marriage, a sign of, =3=, 232; =6=, 139, 199, 200, 204, 205, 207-209,
302.

Mars' Hill, =3=, 8.

Marston, John, of Taunton, =6=, 21.

Marston-Watson, Benjamin (H. U. 1839), =6=, 43. _See_ Watson.

Marvell, Andrew, quoted, =4=, 451.

Massabesic, Lake, =1=, 89; Pond, 250.

Massachusetts, T.'s wish not to be associated with, =1=, 135; the
attitude of, towards slavery, =4=, 362, 363; duty of the Abolitionists
in, 369; slavery in, 388; the governor of, 389-392; judges, 401, 402;
unworthy to be followed, 403-406; the share of, in Harper's Ferry,
430, 431; election in, =6=, 16, 18, 141.

Massachusetts Bay, shallowness of, =4=, 124.

Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections of the, =4=, 20.

Massachusetts Quarterly Review, =6=, 144.

Massasoit, visited by Winslow, =2=, 158.

Matahumkeag, =3=, 107; meaning of the word, 157; 210.

Matanancook River, the, =3=, 321.

Mathematics, =1=, 386.

Mattaseunk, =3=, 18.

Mattawamkeag, the, =3=, 12, 13, 16; meaning of the name, 157; 256.

Mattawamkeag Point, =3=, 4, 11, 38, 88, 316, 319.

Matungamook Lake, =3=, 295.

Maturing, no need of haste towards, =2=, 359.

Maxims. _See_ Aphorisms.

May, Rev. Joseph, (H. U. 1857), =6=, 451.

May, Rev. Samuel Joseph, (H. U. 1818), =6=, 390.

Meadow River, Musketaquid or, =1=, 8.

Meadows, of Concord, =6=, 36, 92, 250, 334; birds in the, 14;
cranberries in, 204.

Meanness complained of, =6=, 88, 173, 175, 176, 187.

Meat and drink, =6=, 164, 165.

Medicine, =6=, 15-17.

Medicine, Yellow-river, =6=, 391.

Meeting-houses, =6=, 195, 336, 359; meeting-house cellar, 322.

Melancholy, =6=, 41, 182, 209.

Melon, buying a, =1=, 335; =6=, ix.

Memorial Verses, by Channing, =6=, 65, note.

Memory, =6=, 26, 41, 42, 93, 106; of former life, 179, 210, 211.

Men, in crowds, =6=, 79, 82, 83; of God, 214.

"Men are by birth equal in this, that given," verse, =1=, 311.

"Men dig and dive but cannot my wealth spend," verse, =1=, 373.

Mencius, quoted, =1=, 280; =2=, 242, 243.

Mending, =6=, 108, 363.

Menhaden, schools of, =4=, 120.

Mentors, of little use, =2=, 10.

Menu, the laws of, =1=, 154-161.

Merit and demerit, =6=, 87, 88, 97, 98, 145, 161, 162.

Merlin, =6=, 227.

Merriam, Francis Jackson, =6=, 366-368.

Merrimack (N. H.), =1=, 225, 227, 251, 353, 357, 391.

Merrimack River, =1=, 8, 19, 62, 63, 80, 81; origin and course of the,
85-92; 113, 122, 150, 169, 170, 174, 177, 181, 189, 200, 202, 203,
204; the Gazetteer quoted, 206, 207, 209, 210, 225, 226, 227, 232,
251, 259, 260, 263, 269, 271, 309, 321, 345, 354; freshet on the, 379,
383, 391; =5=, 147; =6=, 6.

Message, the President's, =6=, 379.

Methods of action, =6=, 8, 9, 33, 47, 56, 67, 88, 89, 108, 118.

Mice, visited by, on Hoosac Mountain, =1=, 196; sent to Agassiz, =6=,
128, 132.

Michaux on lumbering, quoted, =3=, 48.

Michaux, André, quoted, =5=, 269.

Michaux, François André, quoted, =5=, 220, 261, 301.

Microscope, =6=, 361.

Middleborough, Bennet's Account of, =6=, 264, 265.

Middlesex (Mass.), =1=, 62, 80, 226, 385.

Middlesex Cattle Show, =2=, 36.

Midnight, exploring the, =5=, 323.

Mikania, the climbing, =1=, 43.

Milford (Me.), =3=, 7.

Milky Way? Is not our planet in the, =2=, 147.

Miller, a crabbed, =5=, 69.

Millinocket Lake, =3=, 29, 41, 73, 260.

Millinocket River, =3=, 29, 31, 86-88, 223.

Mill's "British India," =6=, 271, note.

Milne, Alexander, quoted, =5=, 193, 194.

Milton, John, quoted, =6=, 274.

Milton, the town, =6=, 219.

Minding his business, till ineligible as town officer, T., =2=, 20.

Minerva, Momus objects to house of, =2=, 37.

Ministers, on Monday morning, =1=, 123; with, on Ktaadn, =3=, 214;
salaries of country, =4=, 45; some old Cape Cod, 48-55.

Minnesota, Indians of, =6=, 389, 390; rivers of, 386-389; trip to,
252, note, 380, 384-386.

Minnows, =6=, 127, 128, 131, 132.

Minot's Ledge, the light on, =4=, 262, 263.

Minott, George, =6=, 52, 91, 92, 106, 374, 375.

Minott, Mary, =6=, 374, 376.

Mîr Camar Uddin Mast, quoted, =2=, 111.

Mirabeau, on highway robbery, quoted, =2=, 355.

Mirages on sand and sea, =4=, 190-193.

Mirror, New York Weekly, =6=, 107, 111.

Misanthropy, not a trait of T., =6=, xii, 238.

Miscellany, Boston, =6=, 83, note, 102, note.

Mission, verse, =5=, 418.

Mississippi, discovery of the, =5=, 90; extent of the, 93; a panorama
of the, 224; =6=, 384, 386, 389.

Missouri Compromise, =4=, 408.

Mizzling of sixpences, =6=, 83.

Model farm, a, =2=, 218.

"Modern improvements," an illusion about, =2=, 57, 58.

"Modern Painters," =6=, 319.

Mohawk Rips, the, =3=, 322.

Mohawk traditions, =3=, 154.

Moisture in Cape Cod air, =4=, 165.

Molasses, Molly, =3=, 174.

Molunkus (Me.), =3=, 13, 15.

Momus, objection to Minerva's house by, =2=, 37.

Monadnock Mountain, =1=, 173; =5=, 4, 143, 145, 147; =6=, 329, 330,
364, 365, 368-372.

MONDAY, =1=, 121-187.

Money, making, the evil of, =4=, 458-461; =6=, 161, 162, 318, 332;
hard, 318.

Monhegan Island, =3=, 94.

Monson (Me.), =3=, 97, 98, 161.

Montcalm, Wolfe and, monument to, =5=, 73, 74.

Montmorenci County, =5=, 62; the habitans of, 64-68.

Montmorenci, Falls of, =5=, 29, 37-39.

Montreal (Que.), =5=, 9, 11; described, 14-16; the mixed population
of, 17, 18; from Quebec to, 96, 97; and its surroundings, beautiful
view of, 98; the name of, 98.

Monuments, graveyards and, =1=, 177; descendants more dead than, 269;
good sense worth more than, =2=, 64; at Concord, =6=, 24.

Moon, The, verse, =5=, 406.

MOONLIGHT, NIGHT AND, =5=, 323-333.

Moonlight, reading by, =5=, 145.

Moonshine, =5=, 324, 325.

Moore, Thomas, =5=, 98.

Moore's Falls, =1=, 245.

Moose, sign of, =3=, 58, 65, 108; carcass of a, 109; night expedition
in vain hunt for, 110-115; shooting at and wounding a, 122-124; found,
measured, and skinned, 125-130; Indian ideas about, 153; Indian
tradition of evolution of, from the whale, 163; shooting and skinning
a, on Second Lake, 292-295; =6=, 311, 326, 336, 339.

Moose River, =3=, 189.

Moose wardens, laxness of, =3=, 231.

Moose-flies, =3=, 246.

Moosehead Lake, =3=, 45, 46, 73, 95, 97, 99, 100; steamers and
sail-boats on, 104, 108, 117, 145, 150, 152, 155; Indian name for,
159, 175, 176, 181, 183; extent of, 184, 188, 193, 231, 252, 255;
dragon-fly on, 272, 299, 322; =6=, 321, 324.

Moosehillock, =1=, 86.

Moosehorn Deadwater, =3=, 109.

Moosehorn Stream, the, =3=, 111, 113, 117, 118, 145, 216.

Moose-wood, =3=, 65; phosphorescent light in, 199.

Morning, impressions of, =1=, 42; work, a man's, =2=, 40; renewal of,
98-100; work in the early, 172, 173; winter, early, =5=, 163-166.
_See_ Sunrise.

Morrison, John, head of a lumber-gang, =3=, 38.

Mortgages, abundance of, in Concord, =2=, 35, 36.

Morton, Edwin (H. U. 1855), =6=, 252, 301, note, 380.

Morton, Thomas, =5=, 2.

Mosquitoes, =3=, 246, 310, 311.

Mott, Mrs. Lucretia, =6=, 97.

Mount Ararat in Provincetown, =4=, 190.

Mount Monadnock. _See_ Monadnock.

Mount Royal (Montreal), =5=, 11.

Mount Washington, =6=, 320, 321, 334.

Mountain-ash, =3=, 94.

Mountain-tops, =3=, 71.

Mountains, the use of, =5=, 148, 149; and plain, influence of the,
150, 151; =6=, 195, 196, 215, 316, 319, 323, 329, 330, 334-336, 347,
360, 363, 368, 369.

Mourt's Relation, quoted, =4=, 38, 94, 251.

Mouse, in T.'s house, =2=, 249, 250; the wild, 309.

Mud Pond, =3=, 233, 237, 238, 240, 243, 244; =6=, 325.

Mud-puddle, the sun in a, =6=, 242.

Munroe, James, publisher, =6=, 61, 125, 182, 332.

Murch Brook, =3=, 58, 64, 74.

Muse, The Venality of the, translation =5=, 389.

Muses, =6=, 45, 178.

Music, the suggestions of, =1=, 183-209; =6=, 41, 42, note, 45, 46,
75, 193, 231, 263. _See_ Earth-song, Sounds.

Musketaquid, Grass-ground, Prairie, or Concord River, the, =1=, 3, 8;
=5=, 115; =6=, 13, 60, 258.

Muskrat (musquash), a colony, =2=, 185; in Goose Pond, 299; calling a,
=3=, 227; =5=, 114-117; house of, =6=, 221.

Musquash. _See_ Muskrat.

Mussel, the, =5=, 129.

"My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read," verse, =1=, 320.

"My life has been the poem I would have writ," verse, =1=, 365.

"My life is like a stroll upon the beach," verse, =1=, 255.

"My life more civil is and free," verse, =5=, 415.

"My love must be as free," verse, =1=, 297.

Myself and Yourself, =6=, 215, 361.

Mystics, =6=, 150.

Mythology, ancient history, =1=, 60.


Nahant (Mass.), =3=, 170.

Names, of places, longing for English, =1=, 54; poetry in, =5=, 20; of
places, French, 56, 57; men's, 236, 237; of colors, 273, 574.

Nantasket (Mass.), =4=, 16.

Nashua (N. H.), =1=, 87, 89, 115, 116, 126, 151, 152, 169, 170, 173,
179, 391.

Nashua River, the, =1=, 375.

Nashville (N. H.), =1=, 175, 179.

Naticook Brook, =1=, 227.

NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS, =5=, 103-131.

Natural history, reading books of, =5=, 103, 105.

Natural life, the, =1=, 405.

Nature, adorned, =1=, 18, 19; laws of, for man, 34; indifference of,
117; provisions of, for end of her creatures, 236; tame and wild, 337;
and Art, 339; composing her poem Autumn, 403; adapted to our weakness
as to our strength, =2=, 12; a liberty in, 143; no melancholy or
solitude in the midst of, 145-147; the medicines of, 153; known only
as a robber by the farmer, 183; men who become a part of, 232, 233;
questions and answers of, 312; our knowledge of the laws of, 320;
helping lay the keel of, 334; principle of operations of, 340; man's
need of, 350; the earth as made by, =3=, 77, 78; always young, 89, 90;
the coarse use of, 133; health to be found in, =5=, 105; man's work
the most natural compared with that of, 119; the hand of, upon her
children, 124, 125; different methods of work, 125; the civilized look
of, 141; the winter purity of, 167; a _hortus siccus_ in, 179; men's
relation to, 241, 242; love of, =6=, 3, 37, 64, 231, 277; objects of,
9, 36, 37, 71, 74, 75, 83, 87, 93.

Nature, verse, =5=, 395.

"Nature doth have her dawn each day," verse, =1=, 302.

"Nature has given horns," verse, =1=, 242.

Nauset Harbor, in Orleans, =4=, 31, 64.

Nauset Lights, =4=, 41.

Nawshawtuct Hill, =5=, 384.

Nebraska Bill, the, =4=, 403.

Necessaries of life, =2=, 12, 13.

Necessity, a seeming fate, commonly called, =2=, 6.

Negro slavery, =2=, 8.

Neighborhood, avoiding a bad, ourselves, =2=, 37.

Neptune, Louis, =3=, 10, 86; a call on governor, 162, 163; the old
chief, 174.

Neptune, the god, =6=, 28; the planet, 138.

Nerlumskeechticook Mountain, =3=, 249, 260, 291, 297, 298, 301.

Nesenkeag, =1=, 206.

Nests, fishes', =1=, 24, 25; =6=, 63, 161.

Neva marshes at Walden Pond, no, =2=, 23.

New Bedford, =6=, 235-240, 258, 261, 263, 265, 271, 274, 313, 333,
341, 342, 352, 359, 396.

New clothes, beware of all enterprises requiring, =2=, 26.

Newcomb, Charles, =6=, 298, note.

New England, Arcadian element in the life of, =1=, 256; "Walden" of
and for people of, =2=, 4; hardships endured that men may die in, 15;
wealth causes respect in, 25; mean life lived by inhabitants of, 107;
can hire all the wise men of the world to teach her, 122; natural
sports of, 233; Rum, 285; Night's entertainment, a, 297.

New Hampshire, =1=, 85; for the Antipodes, leaving, 151; man, a, 211;
line, crossing the, 377; =6=, 329, 331, 334-336, 363, 365.

New Hollander, naked when European shivers in clothes, =2=, 14.

New Jersey, =6=, 70, 283-290.

New Netherland, Secretary of Province, quoted, =2=, 43.

"New Orleans Crescent" and Whitman, =6=, 291.

New Testament, the, =1=, 72-75, 142; practicalness of, 146; =6=, 137.

New things to be seen near home, =5=, 211, 212.

Newbury (Mass.), =1=, 87.

Newbury port (Mass.), =1=, 87-89.

Newfound Lake, =1=, 87, 89.

News, getting the, from ocean steamers, =1=, 253; "What's the," =2=,
104; futility of the, 104.

Newspapers, reading, on Hoosac Mountain, =1=, 194; influence and
servility of Boston, =4=, 398-400; and John Brown, 416, 417; evils of
reading the, 471-476; =6=, 175, 176, 180, 186.

Newton, Sir Isaac, =6=, 136.

"New World," =6=, 107, note.

New York, =6=, 18, 35, 50, 53, 62, 68, 70, 72, 78-80, 83-87, 90, 95,
101, 107, note, 109, 117, 121, 283, 287, 291, 296, 297.

New Zealand, =6=, 236, 255, 381, 383, note.

Niagara, =6=, 384.

Nicketow (Me.) =3=, 7, 19, 260, 316, 319.

Niebuhr, Barthold George, quoted, =5=, 290.

Niepce, Joseph Nicéphore, quoted, =5=, 238.

Night, thoughts in the, =1=, 354; walking the woods by, =2=, 187-190;
in the woods, a, =3=, 43-45; thoughts by a stream at, 131; sounds in
the woods at, 247, 248; on Wachusett, =5=, 146; the senses in the,
=5=, 327, 328; on the mountain, =6=, 371; on the river, 231. _See_
Sunset.

NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT, =5=, 323-333.

Nightfall, =1=, 37-40, 117.

Nilometer. _See_ Realometer.

Nine Acre Corner, =1=, 5; White Pond in, =2=, 199.

Nix's mate, story of, =4=, 267.

"No Admittance," never painted on T.'s gate, =2=, 18.

"No generous action can delay," verse, =5=, 418.

Noah's dove, =6=, 48.

Nobscot Hill, =5=, 303, 304; =6=, 280.

Noliseemack, Shad Pond or, =3=, 29.

North Adams (Mass.), =1=, 185.

North Bridge, =1=, 14, 16, 33.

North River (Assabet), =1=, 4.

North Twin Lake, =3=, 39, 80, 84.

Northeaster, a, =4=, 204, 209-211.

Norumbega, =4=, 239; =5=, 90.

Norwegian immigrants, =6=, 110.

No-see-em, midge called, =3=, 245, 246.

"Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head," verse, =5=, 144.

Notes from the Journal of a Scholar (Charles Emerson), =6=, 94.

Notre Dame (Montreal), =5=, 11; a visit to, 12-14.

Notre Dame des Anges, Seigniory of, =5=, 96.

Nova Scotia, =6=, 338.

Novel-reading, =2=, 116, 117.

"Now chiefly is my natal hour," verse, =1=, 182.

Nuptials, of plants, =6=, 207; of mankind, 204, 205.

Nurse-plants, =5=, 193.

Nuthatch, the, =5=, 108.

Nuts, =6=, 3, 216, 300.

Nuttall, Thomas, quoted, =5=, 111, 112.

Nutting, in Lincoln woods, =2=, 263, 264.

Nutting, Sam, an old hunter, =2=, 308.


Oak, succeeding pine, and vice versa, =5=, 185, 187, 189; the scarlet,
278-281; leaves, scarlet, 278-280.

Oak Hall hand-bill and carry, =3=, 55, 83.

Observatory on Hoosac Mountain, the, =1=, 197.

Ocean, calm, rough, and fruitful, =4=, 124-128; beaches across the,
177, 178; its phenomena, =6=, xi, 70, 133.

October, the best season for visiting the Cape, =4=, 272.

Ode to Beauty, Emerson's, =6=, 115-117.

"Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o'er," verse, =1=, 384.

Ogilby, America of 1670, quoted, =5=, 91.

Olamon Mountains, =3=, 323.

Olamon River, the, and meaning of word, =3=, 324.

Olata, the swift-sailing yacht, =4=, 265.

Old Fort Hill, =3=, 166.

Old Marlborough Road, The, verse, =5=, 214.

Oldtown (Me.), =3=, 4, 6, 7, 9, 88, 142, 152, 153, 160, 161, 166, 167,
174, 192, 202, 204, 222, 226, 259, 272, 274, 313, 320, 322, 323,
325-327.

Olympia, =6=, 55.

Olympia at Evening, translation, =5=, 378.

Olympus, the outside of the earth, everywhere, =2=, 94; =6=, 93.

Omnipresence, verse, =5=, 417.

"O nature! I do not aspire," verse, =5=, 395.

On a Silver Cup, verse, =1=, 240.

On Himself, =1=, 241.

On His Lyre, verse, =1=, 240.

On Love, verse, =1=, 242.

On Lovers, verse, =1=, 243.

"On Ponkawtasset, since we took our way," verse, =1=, 16.

On Women, verse, =1=, 242.

"One more is gone," verse, =5=, 405.

Opera, =6=, 216, 322.

Opposition to society, =2=, 355.

Oracles of Quarles, =6=, 112.

Orchard House, =6=, 333, note.

Orchis, the great round-leaved, =3=, 240.

Organ-grinders on the Cape, =4=, 30.

Oriel College, Oxford, =6=, 236, 342.

Oriental, Occidental and, =1=, 147; exclusion of the, in Western
learning, 148, 149; quality in New England life, the, 256, 257.

Origin of Rhodes, translation, =5=, 376.

"Origin of Species," Darwin's, =6=, 382.

Orinoco, the river, =5=, 93.

Orleans (Mass.), =4=, 22; Higgins's tavern at, 29.

Orleans, Isle of, =5=, 41, 42.

Ornaments, significance of architectural, =2=, 52.

Orono (Me.), =3=, 92.

Orsinora, =5=, 90.

Ortelius, _Theatrum Orbis Terrarum_, =5=, 89.

Osborn, Rev. Samuel, =4=, 52, 53.

Osier, red, Indian word for, =3=, 188.

Osprey, =6=, 46.

Ossian, =1=, 366-571, 393; quoted, =5=, 332.

Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, =6=, 183-186.

Ossoli, Marquis of, =6=, 184-186.

O'Sullivan, =6=, 51, 102, 107.

Ottawa River, the, =5=, 41, 94, 98.

Otternic Pond, =1=, 169.

_Oui_, the repeated, =5=, 60.

"Our unenquiring corpses lie more low," verse, =1=, 227.

Overseer, yourself the worst, =2=, 8.

Ovid, quoted, =1=, 2, 228; =2=, 6, 346, 348.

Owl, winged brother of the cat, watching an, =2=, 293.

Owls, wailing of, =2=, 138-140; in Walden woods in winter, 300, 301;
=6=, 77, 154.


"Packed in my mind lie all the clothes," verse, =1=, 313.

Packs, of tourists, =6=, 335, 336, 368.

Paddling, a lesson in, =3=, 325, 326.

Painted-cup, =6=, 71.

Paley, William, on Duty of Submission to Civil Government, quoted,
=4=, 361, 362.

Palladius, quoted, =5=, 294, 308.

Palmer, Edward, =6=, 82, 97.

Palmer, Joseph, at Fruitlands, =6=, 143, 155.

Pamadumcook Lakes, the, =3=, 30, 45, 47, 84; meaning of the word, 156;
260.

Pamet River, =4=, 134.

Pan, not dead, =1=, 65; and Whitman, =6=, 298.

Pandora's box, =6=, 20.

Pantaloons, not to be mended like legs, =2=, 24.

PARADISE (TO BE) REGAINED, =4=, 280-305.

Paradise, =6=, 10, 111, 162.

Parcæ, the, =6=, 149.

Parker House, =6=, 344, 345.

Parker, Theodore, =6=, 53, 237, 343, 355.

Parkman, Deacon, =6=, 6, note.

Parkman, Francis, =6=, 6.

Parkman house, =6=, 6.

Parliament, provinciality of the English, =4=, 477, 478.

Parlor lectures, =6=, 192, 352.

Partheanna, =6=, 55.

Parthian army, =6=, 153.

Partridge, the, =2=, 250-252, 304, 311; =6=, 60.

Partridge-berries, =6=, 195.

Pasaconaway, =1=, 267, 269.

Pascal and Henry James, =6=, 122.

Passadumkeag River, the, =3=, 8, 9, 323, 324.

Passamagamet Falls, =3=, 51; "warping up," 53; 84.

Passamagamet Lake, =3=, 50, 51.

Passamagamet Stream, =3=, 50, 51.

Passamaquoddy River, the, =3=, 5, 91.

"Past and Present," =6=, 81, 101.

Past, darkness of the, =1=, 163.

Patent Office, seeds sent by the, =5=, 203.

Patmore, Coventry, his "Angel in the House," =6=, 279.

Pauper, visit from half-witted, =2=, 167.

Pawtucket Falls, the lock-keeper at, =1=, 80; Dam, 88; Canal,
deepening the, 263.

Pea, beach, =4=, 90, 206, 207.

Peabody (a classmate of T.), =6=, 24.

Peabody, Miss Elizabeth Palmer, =6=, 61, 287.

Peace, lecture on, =6=, 52; remarks on, 141, 249, 250.

Peaked Mountain, =3=, 254.

Pear tree, the, planted by Thomas Prince, =4=, 43.

Peddler, T., taken for, =6=, 245.

Peetweets, Indian word for, =3=, 182.

Pehlvi, dialect, =6=, 54.

Pekin, =6=, 89.

Peleus and Cadmus, translation, =5=, 381

Pelham (N. H.), =1=, 92.

Pellico, Silvio, =6=, 53.

Pembroke (N. H.), =1=, 124.

Pemigewasset, the, =1=, 85, 86, 88, 333; Basin, on the, 261.

Penacook, now Concord (N. H.), founding of, =1=, 322.

Penance, people of Concord doing, =2=, 4.

Pencil-making, =6=, 6, 174, 182, note, 335, note.

Penhallow, Samuel, History, quoted, =4=, 235.

Penichook Brook, =1=, 179, 202, 374.

Penna, how pronounced, =6=, 25.

Pennsylvania, =6=, 96, 276, 281.

Pennyroyal, =1=, 272.

Penobscot County, =3=, 73.

Penobscot Indians, living in cotton tents, =2=, 31; sociability of,
=3=, 321; use of muskrat-skins by, =5=, 116, 117.

Penobscot River, the, =3=, 3, 5, 6; Indian islands in the, 7; 17, 18,
24, 29, 31, 32, 40, 41, 54, 77, 80, 87, 91, 95, 96, 103-105, 107, 108;
between Moosehead and Chesuncook Lakes, described, 117; 145, 148;
meaning of the word, 157, 158, 161 166, 176, 193, 202; West Branch of,
203, 208, 209, 233, 234, 238, 270-272; main boom of the, 329.

Pepin Lake.

Perch, the common, =1=, 26; =5=, 123; =6=, 134, 311, 322, 325, 336.

Perfection, artist of Kouroo who strove after, =2=, 359.

Persius Flaccus, Aulus, =1=, 327-333; =6=, 6, 158.

Petrel, the storm, =4=, 114.

Pfeiffer, Mme. Ida, quoted, =2=, 25.

Phar-ra-oh (noise of locusts), =6=, 90.

Phenomenal and real, =6=, 57, 58, 88, 89, 146, 321, 347, 348.

Philanthropy, generally considered, =2=, 82-86; =6=, 118, 192, 212,
283, 346.

Phillips, Wendell, before the Concord Lyceum, =4=, 311; qualities of,
as reformer and orator, 311-315; =6=, 255, 397.

Philosopher, what he is and is not, =2=, 16; visits from a, 295-298.

Philosophers, ancient, poor in outward, rich in inward riches, =2=,
15, 16; =6=, 11, 26, 52, 64, 65, 153, 299, 300.

"Philosopher's Scales," =6=, 115.

Philosophy, Asiatic, =1=, 140, 141; loftiness of the Oriental, 142,
143; Stoical, =6=, x; mental, =6=, 25-27; Transcendental, 81, 159;
114, 270, 296, 299, 300.

Phoebe, the, =5=, 112.

Phoebus Apollo, =6=, 44.

Phosphorescence, =6=, 309, 310.

Phosphorescent wood, =3=, 199-201.

Physician, priest and, =1=, 272.

Pickerel, the, =1=, 29; Walden, =2=, 204, 205, 314; =6=, 126-128, 131.

Pickerel-fisher, the, =5=, 180, 181.

Pickerel-weed (pontederia), =1=, 18.

Picturesque, =6=, 239, 264.

Pierce, President Franklin, =6=, 193, 211, 250.

Pies, no, in Quebec, =5=, 86.

Piety, =6=, 37, 42, 89.

Pigeons, =1=, 235; =6=, 21.

Pilgrims, arrival of the, =4=, 251-257.

Pilgrims, verse, =5=, 413.

Pilgrims, Canterbury, =6=, 383.

Pilgrim's Progress, the best sermon, =1=, 72; =6=, 377.

Pillsbury, Parker, =6=, 378-380.

_Pinbéna_, the, =5=, 48.

Pindar, quoted, =1=, 259; =6=, 102.

Pindar, Translations from, =5=, 375.

Pine, felling a, =2=, 47; oak succeeding, and _vice versa_, =5=, 185,
187, 189; family a, 243, 244.

Pine, pitch, tracts of, =4=, 22.

Pine, white, =3=, 160; forests, 169; red, 268; Labrador and red, 296.

Pine cone, stripped by squirrels, =5=, 196.

Pine Stream, =3=, 122, 136, 216.

Pine Stream Deadwater, =3=, 121.

Pine Stream Falls, =3=, 136, 216.

Pinnacle, Hooksett, =1=, 318, 321.

Pioneers, old and new, =1=, 124.

Piracy, =6=, 154.

Piscataqua, the, =1=, 202.

Piscataquis Falls, =3=, 322.

Piscataquis River, the, =3=, 101; meaning of the word, 157, 179, 260,
327.

Piscataquoag, =1=, 87, 259.

Pismire, and his hillock, =6=, 218.

Pitching a canoe, =3=, 105.

Plain and mountain, life of the, =5=, 151.

PLAINS OF NAUSET, THE, =4=, 31-56.

Plaistow (N. H.), =1=, 185.

Plants, the nobler valued for their fruit in air and light, =2=, 17;
abundance of strange, by Moosehead Lake, =3=, 103, 104, 188; observed
on Mount Kineo, 195; about camp on the Caucomgomoc, 223; along the
Umbazookskus, 229, 230; in cedar swamp by Chamberlain Lake, 239-241;
on East Branch, 302; on Cape Cod beach, =4=, 111; about Highland
Light, 135, 167; about the Clay Pounds, 165; on Cape Diamond, Quebec,
=5=, 27.

Plato, =2=, 119; definition of a man, 165; =6=, 150.

PLEA FOR JOHN BROWN, A, =4=, 409-440.

Pleasant Cove, in Cohasset, =4=, 18.

Pleasant Meadow, adjunct to Baker Farm, =2=, 225.

Plicipennes, =5=, 170.

Pliny, the Elder, quoted, =5=, 292.

Plover, the piping of, =4=, 71; the, =5=, 112.

Plum, beach, =5=, 201.

Plum Island, =1=, 86, 88, 210.

Plutarch, quoted, =1=, 183.

"Ply the oars! away! away!" verse, =1=, 1, 88.

Plymouth (Mass.), =6=, 35, 42, 190, 192, 232-234, 238, 301, note, 328,
380.

Plymouth (N. H.), =1=, 89.

Plymouth Church, =6=, 297.

Pockwockomus Falls, =3=, 56, 57, 83.

Pockwockomus Lake, =3=, 50.

POEMS, =5=, 393-419.

Poet, poems and the, =1=, 362-366; 400-403; visits from a, =2=, 295.

Poetry, the nature of, =1=, 93-98; the mysticism of mankind, 350; of
the "Dial," =6=, 38, 60, 115, 124; Greek, 60; English, 65, 66,
112-114, 153, 235, 259, 275.

Poets, never yet read by mankind, =2=, 115, 116; =6=, xi, 27, 93.

Poet's Delay, The, verse, =1=, 366.

Point Allerton, =4=, 15.

Point Levi, by ferry to, =5=, 70; a night at, 71; 89.

Pointe aux Trembles, =5=, 20, 21.

Poke, or garget, the, =5=, 253-255.

Poke-logan, a, =3=, 56.

Polaris, =6=, 362.

Pole, stirring up with, =6=, 311.

Poling a batteau, =3=, 34, 35, 53, 54.

Polis, Joe, =3=, 174; secured as guide, 175; puzzled about white men's
law, 192; travels and opinions of, 217, 218; calls upon Daniel
Webster, 279; as a boy, hard experience in traveling of, 308; good-by
to, 327; =6=, 290, 311, 323, 336.

Politics, the unimportance of, =4=, 480-482; =6=, 17, 18, 141, 283,
359.

Political conditions and news, =1=, 133.

Politicians, country, =3=, 9.

Poluphloisboios Thalassa, the Rev., =4=, 67.

Polygamy, =6=, 302.

Polygonum, =1=, 18.

_Pommettes_, =5=, 39.

Pomotis, =6=, 131.

POND IN WINTER, THE, =2=, 312-329.

Pond Village, =4=, 142.

PONDS THE, =2=, 192-222.

Ponds, in Wellfleet, =4=, 89. _See_ Flint's, Goose, Loring's, Walden,
White's Ponds.

Pongoquahem Lake, =3=, 260.

Ponkawtasset, =1=, 16.

Poor, houses of the, =2=, 37, 38.

"Poor bird! destined to lead thy life," verse, =5=, 411.

Poplar Hill, =1=, 16, 51.

Portage, a rough, =3=, 33; round Ambejijis Falls, 51.

Post-office, easily dispensed with, =2=, 104; the domestic, =4=, 24.

Postel, _Charte Géographíque_, quoted, =4=, 249.

Potherie, quoted, =5=, 52.

Pot-holes, various, =1=, 261-263.

Pout, the horned, =1=, 29, 30; =6=, 127, 128.

Poverty, =6=, 170, 171, 303.

Poverty, verse, =5=, 412.

Poverty-grass, =4=, 25; as the Barnstable coat-of-arms, 135.

Practicalness, the triviality of, =1=, 145.

Prairie River, Musketaquid or, =5=, 115.

Prayer, verse, =5=, 418.

Preaching, =6=, 192, 213.

Precipice for suicides, =6=, 149.

Preëxistence, =6=, 179, 185, 186; recollections of, 210, 211.

Present, moment, meeting of two eternities, past and future, =2=, 18.

"Present, The" (the periodical), =6=, 112, 117, 118.

Press, influence and servility of the, =4=, 397-400.

Priest, physician and, =1=, 272.

Prince, Thomas, =4=, 43.

Prince of Wales in New England, =6=, 372.

Pring, Martin, New England discoveries of, =4=, 228, 229, 246, 247.

Prison, a, the true place for just men, =4=, 370; T. in Concord,
374-380.

Professor, the traveling (Agassiz), =6=, 147.

Prometheus Bound of Æschylus, The, translation, =5=, 337.

Prose, a poem in, =1=, 404.

Province man, a green, =3=, 16.

PROVINCETOWN, =4=, 212-273.

Provincetown (Mass.), walking to, =4=, 31, 57, 58; Bank, T. suspected
of robbing, 176, 177; approach to, 193; described, 195-197; fish,
212-215; boys, 218; Harbor, 225.

Provinciality, American and English, =4=, 477, 478.

Public opinion, compared with private, =2=, 8.

Pumpkin, sitting alone on a, =2=, 41; none so poor that he need sit on
a, 72.

Purana, the, quoted, =5=, 327.

Purple Grasses, The, =5=, 252-258.

Purple Sea, the, =4=, 119.

Purslane, dinner of, =2=, 68.

Pythagoras, quoted, =1=, 338.


Quail, a white, =5=, 109, note.

Quakers, dress of, =6=, 97; meetings, 98, 288, 340; at Eagleswood,
288; at New Bedford, 340, 393; at New York, 97.

Quakish Lake, =3=, 33, 36, 85.

Quarles, Francis, quoted, =1=, 12, 407, 414; =6=, 108, 112.

Quarterly of the Transcendentalists, =6=, 120; its fame in England,
156, note.

Quebec (Que.), meaning of the word, =3=, 157; 257; =5=, 3, 20, 21;
approach to, 22; harbor and population of, 22; mediævalism of, 23, 26;
the citadel, 27-30; 76-80; fine view of, 49; reëntering, through St.
John's Gate, 69; lights in the Lower Town, 71; landing again at, 72;
walk round the Upper Town, 72-76; the walls and gates, 74, 75;
artillery barracks, 75; mounted guns, 76; restaurants, 85, 86; scenery
of, 87-89; origin of word, 88; departure from, 95.

Questioning to be avoided, =6=, 201, 275.

Quincy, Josiah (H. U. 1790), President of Harvard University, =6=, 10.

Quitticus in Middleborough, =6=, 264.

Quoil, Hugh, an Irishman, =2=, 288.


Rabbit, the, =2=, 310.

Rabbit Island, =1=, 113.

Race characteristics, =6=, 149, 222, 229.

Race Point, =4=, 64, 193, 200.

Ragmuff Stream, =3=, 118, 121, 145, 216.

Railroad, car, growing luxuries in, =2=, 41; slowness and heedlessness
of, 58, 59; men overridden by, 102, 103; listening with praise to
sound of, 127-136; Iron, Trojan Horse ruining Walden, 213, 214.

Rain, enjoyment of, =2=, 147; =3=, 33, 265, 266.

Rainbow, standing in light of, =2=, 224; in the Falls of the
Chaudière, =5=, 70, 71.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, as a master of style, =1=, 106; quoted, =2=, 6;
"The Soul's Errand" attributed to, =4=, 452; quoted, =5=, 329.

Rapids, shooting, =3=, 81.

Rasles, Father, Dictionary of the Abenaki Language, =3=, 154.

READING, =2=, 110-122.

Reading, =6=, 28, 31, 65, 66, 112-114, 153, 300, 301, 379, 382.

Read's Ferry, =1=, 245.

Reality, finding, =2=, 108, 109.

Realometer, not Nilometer, but a, =2=, 109.

Recluse, habits of a, =6=, 18, 36, 37, 59, note, 79, 122, 159, 170,
195, 238, 252, note, 266, 328.

Red shirts, =3=, 31, 145.

Reformers, =1=, 130; objection to, 118.

Reforms in mechanics and ethics, =4=, 281-286.

Religion, ligature and, =1=, 64, 79; =6=, 9, 10, 89, 99, 114, 159,
164, 179, 191, 195, 213, 214, 243, 297, 393.

Rent, annual tax that would buy a village of wigwams, =2=, 33.

_Repaired_ road, a, =3=, 98.

Reporter, with labor for pains, =2=, 19.

Reports on the natural history of Massachusetts, =5=, 103, 114, 118,
123, 129, 130.

Resignation, confirmed desperation, =2=, 8.

Respectability, =6=, 79.

Restigouche River, the, =3=, 178; =6=, 324.

Return of Spring, verse, =5=, 109.

Review, Democratic, =6=, 51, note, 100, 102, 108, 118; Massachusetts
Quarterly, =6=, 144, 156.

Review, of Carlyle by Emerson, =6=, 94, 101; of Emerson in Revue des
Deux Mondes, 157.

Rhexia, =1=, 18; =5=, 252.

Rice, story of the mountaineer, =1=, 212-220.

Richardson, Rev. James (H. U. 1837), =6=, 10.

Richelieu, Isles of, =5=, 96.

Richelieu or St. John's River, =5=, 8.

Richelieu Rapids, the, =5=, 21.

Richter, Jean Paul, quoted, =5=, 330, 331.

Ricketson, Daniel, described, =6=, 235, 239, 305; letters from, 237,
246, 257; letters to, 239, 240, 246, 248, 261, 266, 270, 273, 284,
285, 304, 305, 311, 313, 337, 341, 350, 368, 374, 376, 393, 396, 397;
mentioned, 237, 245, 257, 261, 265, 308, 342, 359, 381; visited by T.,
265; plans trip abroad, 333; conversion of, 393.

Ricketson, Walton, sculptor, =6=, xiii, 263, 485.

Ripley, Rev. Ezra, D. D. (H. U. 1776), =6=, 4.

Ripley, George, =6=, 404.

Ripogenus Portage, =3=, 80.

River, the flow of a, =5=, 178.

River-bank, ice formations, in a, =5=, 128, 129.

River Wolf, Fresh-Water or, =1=, 29.

Rivers, of history, the famous, =1=, 10.

Rivière du Loup, =6=, 323.

Rivière du Sud, the, =5=, 92.

Rivière more meandering than River, =5=, 56.

Roach. _See_ Chivin.

Roaches, silvery, =3=, 59.

Road, a supply, =3=, 212; recipe for making a, 244.

Roberval, Sieur de, =5=, 95, 96.

Robin, the evening, =2=, 344; =5=, 109; a white, 109, note.

Robin Hood Ballads, quoted, =1=, 121, 174, 175; =5=, 150, 207.

Rock-Ebeeme, =3=, 20.

Rock hills, singular, =3=, 282.

Rogers, Nathaniel P., editor of "Herald of Freedom," =4=, 306-308;
quoted, 308-310.

Romans, vestiges of the, =1=, 264.

Room for thoughts, =2=, 156.

Roots of spruce, as thread, =3=, 225, 226.

Ross, Sir James Clark, quoted, =1=, 390.

Rowlandson, Mrs., =5=, 149.

Roxbury, Mass., mentioned, =6=, 22, 24.

Ruff, the, =1=, 24-26.

Rumors from an Æolian Harp, verse, =1=, 184.

Runaway slave, =2=, 168, 169.

Rural life, =6=, 38, 67, 93, 115, 116, 121, 135.

Russell, E. H., =6=, 403.

Russell Stream, =3=, 104.

"Rut," the, a sound before a change of wind, =4=, 97, 98.

Rynders, =6=, 122.


Sabbatia chloroides, =6=, 264.

Sabbath-keeping, =6=, 99, 195, 336.

Sachem Tahatawan, =6=, 13, 18.

Saddle-back Mountain, =1=, 189.

Sadi of Shiraz, Sheik, quoted, =2=, 87.

Sadness, =6=, 41, 43, 47, 75, 89, 397.

Saguenay River, =5=, 91, 94.

St. Anne, the Falls of, =5=, 40; Church of _La Bonne_, 49; lodgings in
village of, 49-51; interior of the church of _La Bonne_, 51, 52; Falls
of, described, 52-55.

St. Ann's of Concord voyageurs, Ball's Hill, the, =1=, 19.

St. Charles River, the, =5=, 30.

St. Francis Indian, =3=, 146, 208.

St. George's Bank, =4=, 123, 124.

St. Helen's Island (Montreal), =5=, 11.

St. John, the wrecked brig, =4=, 6.

St. John River, the, =3=, 5, 40, 80, 101, 137, 176, 178, 203, 233,
238, 251, 256, 257, 270, 271, 274.

St. John's (Que.), =5=, 9, 10.

St. John's River, =5=, 8.

St. Lawrence River, =3=, 80, 233, 238; =5=, 11; cottages along the,
21; banks of the, above Quebec, 40, 41; breadth of, 49; or Great
River, 89-95; old maps of, 89, 90, 92; compared with other rivers, 90,
92-95; =6=, 323.

St. Maurice River, =5=, 94.

Saint Vitus' dance, =2=, 103.

Salmon, =1=, 32.

Salmon Brook, =1=, 167, 168, 375; Lovewell's house on, 345.

"Salmon Brook," verse, =1=, 375.

Salmon River, =3=, 19.

Salop (Shropshire), =6=, 249, 383.

Salt, as manufactured by Captain John Sears, =4=, 27, 28; works, 218,
219.

Salutations, Canadian, =5=, 47.

"Sam," a cat, =6=, 29, 31.

Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin (H. U. 1855), letters to, =6=, 58, 59,
note, 252, 385-392; his Life of Thoreau, 22, 61, 90, 154, note, 252;
his Memoir of Alcott cited, 61, note, 237, note, 252, note, 345;
mentioned, 252, 287, 364, 365, 377, 381, 400; his school, 253, 322;
his version of T.'s Latin, 29-32.

Sand, tract of, near Nashua, =1=, 152, 209, 210; blowing, =4=, 204;
inroads of the, 204, 205; Provincetown, 220-223.

Sandbar Island, =3=, 100, 188, 189.

Sand cherry, tasted out of compliment to Nature, =2=, 126.

Sand formations due to thaw, =2=, 336-340.

Sandwich (Mass.), =4=, 19; described, 20-22.

Sandwich (N. H.), =1=, 86.

Sandy Hook, =6=, 70, 72, 83.

Sanjay, quoted, =1=, 147.

Sanscrit books, =6=, 270, 271, note, 300.

Sap of sugar maple, =6=, 278, 279.

Sarah, Aunt (Dunbar), =6=, 5.

Sardanapalus, at best houses traveler considered a, =2=, 40.

Sargent, John Turner (H. U. 1827), =6=, 190.

Satire, poetry and, =1=, 328-330.

SATURDAY, =1=, 12-40.

Saturn, =6=, 133.

Sault à la Puce, Rivière du, =5=, 48, 58.

Sault Norman, =5=, 11.

Sault St. Louis, =5=, 11.

Saunter, derivation of the word, =5=, 205, 206.

Savage, instinct, the, =1=, 55; his advantage over civilized men, =2=,
35; life, instinct towards, 231.

Scarecrow taken for man whose clothes it wears, =2=, 24.

Scarlet Oak, The, =5=, 278-285.

Scene-shifter, the, =1=, 118.

Scholars, their complaints, =6=, 171, 211, 229, 230, 259; their
duties, 98, 171; their qualities, 98, 103, 145, 175, 262, 280.

Schoodic Lake, =3=, 256.

School, the _uncommon_, =2=, 122; question, the, among Indians, =3=,
323, 324.

Schoolhouse, a Canadian, =5=, 46.

Schooner, origin of word, =4=, 199.

Science, =1=, 386-391; the bravery of, =5=, 106, 107; =6=, 193, 280.

Scotchman, dissatisfied with Canada, a, =5=, 75.

Scott, Sir Walter, =6=, 114.

Scriptures, of the world, =1=, 150; Hebrew, inadequacy of, regarding
winter, =5=, 183.

"Sea and land are but his neighbors," verse, =1=, 279.

SEA AND THE DESERT, THE, =4=, 176-211.

Sea, the roar of the, =4=, 40, 66; remoteness of the bottom of the,
123; and land, =6=, xi, 14, 69, 79, 83, 183, 184, 254-256, 301.

Sea-fleas, =4=, 113.

Sea-plants near Quebec, =5=, 93.

Sears, Captain John, and salt manufacture, =4=, 27, 28.

Seashore, verses, =6=, xi; walks, 312, 328, 457.

Sebago Lake, =6=, 38.

Seboois Lakes, =3=, 222, 261, 310.

Second Lake, =3=, 274, 276, 281; beauty of, 290-292, 297.

Seeds, the use of, =1=, 129; of virtues, not beans, =2=, 181; the
transportation of, by wind, =5=, 186, 187; by birds, 187-189; by
squirrels, 190-200; the vitality of, 200-203.

Seeing, individual, =5=, 285-288.

Seeming and being, =6=, 44, 88, 161, 214, 217, 218, 227, 228, 321.

Selenites, =5=, 323.

Sensuality, in eating and other appetites, =2=, 241-246; =6=, 204,
216, 295.

Serenade, like the music of the cow, =2=, 137.

Serenity and cheerfulness, =6=, 40, 41, 97, 278, 396.

SERVICE, THE, QUALITIES OF THE RECRUIT, =4=, 277-279.

Seven against Thebes, =6=, 102.

Sewing, work you may call endless, =2=, 25; circle in Concord, =6=,
29, 32.

Sex and marriage, =6=, 198-200, 204, 207.

Shackford, Rev. Charles Chauncy, (H. U. 1835), =6=, 190.

Shad, =1=, 32, 35, 36; train-band nicknamed the, 33.

Shad-flies, ephemeræ or, =3=, 255.

Shad Pond, or Noliseemack, =3=, 29, 30, 86.

Shadows, =1=, 375. _See_ Moonlight.

Shakers, =6=, 114, 204.

Shakespeare, =6=, x, 44, 197.

Shame, =6=, 166, 197, 198, 208, 295.

Shank-Painter Swamp, =4=, 200, 217.

Shanty, purchase of Collins's, =2=, 47, 48.

Sharks, =4=, 112, 113.

Shawmut (Boston), =6=, 16.

Sheep, alarm of a flock of, =1=, 317.

Shelburne Falls, =1=, 261.

Sheldrakes, Indian word for, =3=, 182; 254, 274, 276.

Shellfish on Cape Cod, beach, =4=, 110, 111.

Shelter, a necessary of life, =2=, 13; how it became a necessary, 29,
30; generally considered, 29-45.

Sherman's Bridge, =1=, 4.

Shiners, =1=, 28; =6=, 127-131.

Shingles of thought, whittling, =2=, 297.

SHIPWRECK, THE, =4=, 3-18.

Shirts, our liber, or true bark, =2=, 26.

Short's Falls, =1=, 257.

Sign language, =5=, 61.

Signals, old clothes as, =4=, 22.

Silence, =1=, 417-420; and speech, =6=, 54, 156, 230; of the woods,
353.

Sillery (Que.), =5=, 22.

Silliman, Benjamin, quoted, =5=, 98.

Simpkins, the Rev. John, quoted, =4=, 30.

Simplicity of life, =2=, 101, 102; =6=, 161, 212, 213, 299.

Sims case, the, =4=, 390, 391.

"Since that first 'Away! Away!'" verse, =1=, 200.

Singing, =3=, 41, 42.

Skating, =5=, 177, 178; =6=, 250, 349.

Sincerity, a rare virtue, =6=, 259.

Skies, the, =1=, 383.

Skins, sale of, =2=, 308.

Slavery, Massachusetts and, =4=, 362, 363; what it is, 394; how to
deal with, 433, 434; =6=, 97, 283, 358-360, 366, 392.

SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS, =4=, 388-408.

Sleepers, railroad, =2=, 102, 103.

Sloth, =6=, 205, 222, 243; the animal, 345.

Small, James, of Truro, =6=, 255.

Smith, Ansell, clearing and settlement of, =3=, 137-145.

Smith, Captain John, quoted, =1=, 91, 92; =4=, 180, 255; map of New
England by, 229.

Smith, Captain, =6=, 86.

Smith's River, =1=, 87.

Smoke, winter morning, =5=, 165; seen from a hilltop, 173, 174.

Smoothness of ocean, =4=, 125.

Snake, under water in torpid state, =2=, 45, 46; the, =5=, 123, 124.

Snake-head, =1=, 18.

Snipe-shooting grounds, =5=, 48.

Snow, walking in the, =2=, 292; =5=, 181, 182; not recognized in
Hebrew Scriptures, 183; -storm, =6=, 27, 29, 377, 378.

Snow, the Great, =2=, 132, 142, 292; dating from, 280.

Snowberry, creeping, used as tea, =3=, 227.

Snowbird, the, =5=, 109.

Snow's Hollow, =4=, 61.

Soapwort gentian, the, =1=, 18.

Society, commonly too cheap, =2=, 151; health not to be found in, =5=,
105; lecture on, =6=, 6, 158, 164, 229, 230, 281, 313, 346; pretences
of, 213, 274.

Society Islanders, gods of, =1=, 55, 66.

Society of Natural History, =6=, 188, 189.

Soldier, a young, =1=, 334.

Soldiers, English, in Canada, =5=, 9, 10, 16, 17; in Quebec, 24-27,
79, 80.

Solitude, =2=, 143-154.

Solitude, =6=, 76, 83, 174, 175, 231, 319.

Solomon, quoted, =5=, 291.

"Some tumultuous little rill," verse, =1=, 62.

Somebody & Co., =3=, 14.

Somerset, British ship of war, wrecked on Clay Pounds, =4=, 162.

"Sometimes I hear the veery's clarion," verse, =5=, 112.

Sophocles, the Antigone of, quoted, =1=, 139.

Sorel River, =5=, 8.

Sorrow, doctrine of, =6=, 41, 167.

Soucook, =1=, 87.

Souhegan, =1=, 87, 357; or Crooked River, 231.

Soul, and body, =6=, 164, 165, 174, 175, 180, 193, 194, 213, 214, 219;
nurture of, 164, 165, 174, 175.

SOUNDS, =2=, 123-142.

Sounds, winter morning, =5=, 163, 164.

Souneunk Mountains, the, =3=, 218, 260.

South, laborers a staple production of the, =2=, 39.

South Adams (Mass.), =1=, 192.

South Twin Lake, =3=, 39.

Southborough (Mass.), =1=, 3, 5.

Sowadnehunk Deadwater, =3=, 58.

Sowadnehunk River, the, =3=, 31, 79.

Spain, specimen news from, =2=, 105.

Spanish discoverers, =4=, 234, 235.

Sparrow, the first, of spring, =2=, 342.

Sparrow, the rush, =6=, 23.

Sparrow, the song, =5=, 109; =6=, 14.

Sparrow, the white-throated, =3=, 213, 249, 262.

Spaulding's farm, =5=, 243.

Spearing fish, =5=, 121-123.

Spectator, the part of man which is, =2=, 149, 150.

Speech, country, =5=, 137.

Spencer Bay Mountain, =3=, 183.

Spencer Mountains, =3=, 108.

Spenser, Edmund, quoted, =1=, 356; =2=, 158.

Spirit, motions of the, =6=, 97, 288; the Great, 14, 17, 177; Bad, of
the Indians, 15.

"Spokelogan," =3=, 268.

Sportsmen, making boys, =2=, 234.

SPRING, =2=, 330-351.

Spring, coming of the, =2=, 333, 334; morning, moral effect of a, 346,
347; on the Concord River, =5=, 119-121; signs of, =6=, 21, 28, 30,
71, 306, 376.

Spring, Marcus, =6=, 183, 283, 286-289.

Springer, J. S., Forest Life, quoted, =3=, 21, note; on lumbering,
quoted, 48, note; on the spruce tree, quoted, 75; about the digging of
a canal, quoted, 270, 271.

Springs, river-feeding, =1=, 203; cool, =3=, 280.

Spruce, the, =3=, 104; Indian words for black and white, 209;
difference between black and white, 225.

Spruce beer, a draught of, =3=, 30.

Squam (N. H.), =1=, 86, 87, 89.

Squash, the large yellow, =5=, 203.

Squaw Mountain, =3=, 183.

Squire Make-a-stir, =2=, 8.

Squirrel, red, =1=, 206; watching, =2=, 301-303; in spring, coming of,
342; =3=, 241; burying nuts, =5=, 190, 191; with nuts under snow, 195;
pine cones stripped by the, 196.

Squirrel, striped, chipping, or ground, =1=, 205, 206; with filled
cheek-pouches, =5=, 198.

Staff, the artist's, which became the fairest creation of Brahma, =2=,
359.

STAGE-COACH VIEWS, =4=, 19-30.

Staples, Samuel, constable and sheriff, =6=, 50, 52, 141.

Stark, General John, =1=, 268.

Stars, known to Indian, =3=, 247; =5=, 328, 329.

State and Church, =6=, 52, 224, 225.

Staten Island, view from, =1=, 190; looking at ships from, 253; =6=,
6, 50, 65, 68, 71-73, 77, 83, 86, 95, 100, 116, 120, 121.

Statistics. _See_ Cost.

Sternothærus, =6=, 126, 131.

Stillriver Village (Mass.), =5=, 151.

Stillwater (Me.), =3=, 4, 167.

Stillwater, the, =5=, 140, 142.

Stoicism, =6=, x, 47, 48, 123, 132, 170, 171, 238, 239, 337.

Stone, nations' pride in hammered, =2=, 63.

Stone, the Rev. Nathan, =4=, 55.

Stones, rarity of, on Cape Cod, =4=, 223-225.

Storm, in New York, =6=, 105; on Monadnock, 370.

Stove, disadvantages of cooking, =2=, 280, 281.

Stow (Mass.), =5=, 136.

Stratten, now the Almshouse Farm, =2=, 283; family, homestead of, 284.

Students, poor, Walden addressed to, =2=, 4; their economy, =6=, 58,
59, note; of Greek, 58, 102, 103; of law, 17, 106.

Sturgeon River, Merrimack or, =1=, 85, 117.

Style, literary, =4=, 325, 326, 330, 331; a man's, in writing, =6=, x,
67, 94, 311, 312.

Success in life, =6=, 70, 79, 85, 96, 109, 123, 124, 159, 164, 173,
178, 216, 294, 318, 362.

SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES, THE, =5=, 184-204.

"Such near aspects had we," verse, =1=, 253.

"Such water do the gods distil," verse, =1=, 86.

Suckers, common and horned, =1=, 30; =6=, 127, 130-132, 221.

Sudbury (Mass.), =1=, 3, 4, 5, 36, 53; early church of, described by
Johnson, 9; =2=, 97, 335; =5=, 303.

Sudbury River, =1=, 4.

Suet, in Dennis (Mass.), =4=, 27.

Sugar, =6=, 278, 279.

Sugar Island, =3=, 101, 183, 194; near Olamon River, 324.

Sugar Maple, The, =5=, 271-278.

Sumach growing by T.'s house, =2=, 126.

Summer life, =6=, 23, 63, 93.

Sumner, Charles, (H. U. 1830), =6=, 183.

Sumner, Horace, lost at sea, =6=, 184.

Sun, in a mud-puddle, =6=, 242.

Suncook, =1=, 87.

SUNDAY, =1=, 42-120.

Sunday, the keeping of, =1=, 63, 64, 76, 77; an Indian's, =3=, 201,
202, 214, 215, 223, 229; in Provincetown, =4=, 252, 253; discourses,
=6=, 79, 97, 190, 233, 289, 291, 297.

Sun-fish, bream, or ruff, the fresh-water, =1=, 24-26.

Sunkhaze, the, =3=, 8, 325, 326.

Sunrise on Hoosac Mountain, =1=, 198. _See_ Morning.

Sunset, =1=, 416-418; a remarkable, =5=, 246-248.

Sunshine, the power of, =4=, 290, 291.

Sun-squall, sea-jellies called, =4=, 70.

Survey of Walden Pond, =2=, 315-324.

Surveying, =6=, 100, 209, 220, 234, 289, 291, 328, note, 333.

Surveyor of forest paths and across-lot routes, =2=, 20.

Suttle, Mr., of Virginia, =4=, 392.

Sutton (Mass.), =2=, 292.

Swamp, the luxury of standing in a, =1=, 319.

"Swampers," =3=, 242.

Swedenborg, Emanuel, =1=, 68; =6=, 300.

"Sweet cakes," =3=, 12.


Table-lands of Eastham, =4=, 62.

Tacitus, translation by T. from, =4=, 452-454.

"Tactics" of Scott, =6=, 356.

Tahatawan, =6=, 13-18.

Talking, =6=, 54, 106, 175, 176, 230, 255, 301.

Tamias, the steward squirrel, =5=, 198.

Tansy, =1=, 18.

Tappan, William, of New York, =6=, 72, 73, 79, 81, 82, 95, 97, 101,
113, 117, 122.

Tarbell, Deacon, =6=, 244.

Tarkiln Hill, New Bedford, =6=, 262, 305.

Taunton, =6=, 13, 17-19.

Tavern, the gods' interest in the, =5=, 153; compared with the church,
the, 161, 162.

Taxes, T.'s experience with, =4=, 369, 370; in jail for refusal to
pay, 374-381.

Taxpaying, =6=, 50, 52.

Taylor, Jane, =6=, 115.

Tching-thang, quoted, =2=, 98.

Tea, varieties of forest, =3=, 227; hemlock, its value, =6=, 326.

Teaching, =6=, 6, 10, 23-27, 83.

Teats, =6=, 223.

Telasinis Lake, =3=, 267.

Telos Lake, =3=, 235, 245, 264, 267; Indian name for, 270, 274, 281,
290, 299.

Temperature, of pond water in spring, =2=, 330.

Temple, defined, =6=, 195; too close, 191.

Tent, description of, =3=, 196, 197.

Tenures, Canadian, =5=, 63.

Tests, our lives tried by a thousand simple, =2=, 11.

"Thank God, who seasons thus the year," verse, =5=, 407.

Thanksgivings, cattle-shows and so-called, =2=, 183; emotion of, =6=,
294; the festival, 282, 346.

"That Phaeton of our day," =1=, 103.

Thaw, sand formations due to, =2=, 336; Thor and, 341.

Thaw, The, verse, =5=, 409.

"The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray," verse, =5=, 406.

"The god of day his car rolls up the slopes," verse, =5=, 399.

"The Good how can we trust?" verse, =1=, 298; =6=, 177.

"The needles of the pine," verse, =5=, 133.

"The rabbit leaps," verse, =5=, 410.

"The respectable folks," verse, =1=, 7.

"The river swelleth more and more," verse, =5=, 120.

"The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell," verse, =5=, 165.

"The smothered streams of love, which flow," verse, =1=, 278.

"The waves slowly beat," verse, =1=, 229.

"The western wind came lumbering in," verse, =1=, 180.

"Then idle Time ran gadding by," verse, =1=, 181.

"Then spend an age in whetting thy desire," verse, =1=, 111.

Theophrastus, =5=, 292.

"There is a vale which none hath seen," verse, =1=, 184.

"Therefore a torrent of sadness deep," verse, =1=, 183.

"They," an authority impersonal as the Fates, =2=, 27.

Thieving, practiced only where property is unevenly divided, =2=, 191.

Thinking, =6=, 139, 162, 356, 357.

"This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome," verse, =1=, 267.

Thistle, the Canada, =3=, 96.

Thomson, James, quoted, =5=, 249.

Thor and Thaw, =2=, 341.

Thoreau, Cynthia (Dunbar), mother of Henry, =6=, 4, 11, 29, 68, 193,
225, 236, 251, 253, 289, 350, 351, 363, 364, 365, 381, 400, 405. _See
under_ Letters.

Thoreau, Helen, sister of Henry, =6=, 4, 11, 21, 23, 29, 32, 49, 52,
73, 74, 86, 92, 95, 98, 100, 111, 117. _See under_ Letters.

Thoreau, Henry David, starts on Concord and Merrimack journey, =1=,
12; ascent of Hoosac Mountain, 189-200; experience with an uncivil
mountain man, 214-220; invited to do various sorts of work, 324;
begins return voyage, 335; goes to live by Walden Pond, =2=, 3;
prefers to talk in the first person singular, 3, 4; beginning in the
woods, 45; purchase of Collins's shanty, 47; begins to occupy house,
49; plants beans, 60; earnings and spendings, 65-67; making bread, 68;
declines offer of a mat, 74; imaginary purchase of Hollowell farm, 92;
situation of house, 95, 126; purpose in going to woods, 100, 101; hoed
beans, did not read books, 123; listening to various sounds, 127-142;
friendship with Canadian woodchopper, 159-166; devotion to husbandry,
179; earnings and spendings on bean-field, 180, 181; put in jail for
not paying taxes, 190; fishing in Walden Pond, 192-195; boiling
chowder about 1824, 200; earliest days on Walden Pond, 212, 213; first
begins to inhabit house in cold weather, 268; finishes house with
plastering, 271; surveys Walden Pond, 315; leaves Walden, Sept. 6,
1847, 351; leaves Concord for Maine, Aug. 31, 1846, =3=, 3; starts "up
river" from Bangor, 4; strikes into the wilderness, 15; starts for
summit of Ktaadn, 61, 62; begins descent, 72; leaves Boston by steamer
for Bangor, Sept. 13, 1853, 93; takes Moosehead Lake steamer for
return home, 159; starts on third excursion to Maine Woods, July 20,
1857, 174; reaches farthest northern point, 259; lands at Oldtown, the
journey finished, 326; various visits to Cape Cod, =4=, 3; starts for
Cape Cod, Oct. 9, 1849, 5; goes on a mackerel cruise, 182; takes leave
of Cape Cod, 257; experience with taxes, 368, 370; in jail for unpaid
taxes, 374-381; leaves Concord for Canada, Sept. 25, 1850, =5=, 3;
traveling outfit of, 31-34; leaves Quebec for Montreal on return trip,
95; leaves Montreal for Boston, 99; total expense of Canada excursion
100, 101; walk from Concord to Wachusett and back, 133-152;
observation of a red squirrel, 190, 191; experience with government
squash seed, 203; his fame increasing, =6=, vii, 398, 399; his
character, ix, xii; industry of, ix, 11, 34, 170, 171, 289, 368, 369;
his affection for his family, ix, 33, 34, 68, 98, 99, 118, 119; for
his brother John, 35, 41, 74; for the Emersons, 50, 53, 93, 103, 135,
136, 142, 157; French elegance of, x; jesting habit of, x; birth and
death, 3; ancestry and early days, 3-7; epochs in his life, 5, 6, 11,
12, note, 35, 50, 160; affairs of, 6, 7, 23, 34-38, 105, 107, 108,
126-132, 135, 169-172, 209, 355; books written by, 6, 7, 139, 156,
233, 238, 252, 272; college "part," 7-10; philosophic mind of, 11, 26;
Emerson's view of, 11; exaggeration by, 11, 203, 220, 224; Indian
dialect of, 13-18; tastes of, 18, 23, 33, 34, 36, 37, 44, 45, 47, 49,
58, 64, 79, 82, 93, 114, 115, 193; his Indian relics, 19, 20; wish to
go West, 20; habits, 23, 24, 34, 135, 192, 326, 366-369; school, 23,
24; advises Helen, 25-31; a Transcendental brother, 32-34;
acquaintance with Emerson, 34, 35, 48, 49; with Mrs. Brown, 35-42
(_see_ Letters); with R. F. Fuller, 45 (_see_ Letters); love of music,
41, 45, 46; writes to Emerson, 49 (_see_ Letters); at Emerson's house,
35, 50; intimate with Hawthorne, 51; with Alcott, 52, 64, 136, 146,
151, 153, 238, 281, 291, 297, 307, 328, note; with Emerson's children,
54, 136, 150, 152, 153; with Mrs. Emerson, 53 (_see_ Letters); with C.
S. Wheeler, 58, 59, note; edits "Dial," 59-63; admirers of, 65, 138,
139, 158, 235, 238, 239, 298, 397, 398; his college life, 5, 7, 8, 10,
58, 67, 328; college professors and tutors, 58, 109, 137, 145; college
studies, 65-67; goes to Staten Island, 68; meets Horace Greeley, Henry
James, etc., 68; describes New York, 69-72, 78, 79, 82, etc.; verses
on his brother John, 74; describes James, Channing, and Brisbane, 80,
81; and other friends, 82; at W. Emerson's, 85, 86; his pursuits,
84-91; criticises Concord and the "Dial," 92-94; describes
immigration in 1843, 96, 109, 110; hears Lucretia Mott, 97; laments
Stearns Wheeler, 97, 98; regrets Concord and separation, 99; writes
for magazines, 100, 102, 107, 108, 109; mentions Channing, Greeley,
James, Longfellow, 101; translates Greek, 102; sees publishers, 105;
mentions Webster and C. Dunbar, 105; reads Quarles, 113; criticises
Ellery Channing and Lane, 113, 114; Emerson too, 115; likes the Irish,
116; objection to W. H. Channing, 118; hears from Emerson, 120; and
Ellery Channing, 121; lives by Walden, 122, 125; hears from Lane,
122-125; sends fish to Agassiz, 125-132; returns to Emerson's house,
132; writes to Sophia, 132 (_see_ Letters); cares for the Emerson
family, 135; helps Alcott with the summer-house of Emerson, 136;
describes Scientific School, 138; refuses marriage, 138, 139; finds no
publisher, 139, 156; his account of Hugh Whelan, 140, 143, 144, 148,
149; hears from Emerson, 142 (_see_ Letters); hears Parker, Whipple,
and Hudson at Lyceum, 145; describes a dinner, 147; sends verses, 147;
describes the Emerson household, 152, 153; and W. E. Channing, 153;
reads lectures, 6, 55, 154; writes to J. E. Cabot, 155 (_see_
Letters); his mode of writing, 156; meets H. G. O. Blake, 158; their
correspondence, 158-383 (_see_ Letters); believed in simplicity, 161;
defines his life, 163, 168, 174, 175, 178, 179, 186; lectures on
bread, 164-166; on duties, 167; corresponds with Greeley, 169;
fathoming character, 169; lives by hand-labor, 170, 171; writes for
"Graham" and "Putnam," 169, 172; his debts, 219, note, 221; visits
Fire Island, 183; elected to Boston Society of Natural History, 188;
lectures in Boston, 190; in Plymouth, Salem, etc., 190-192; satirizes
spiritism, 193, 194; will be a scarecrow, 195; his temples, 195, 196;
essay on Chastity, 197-209; goes land-surveying, 209; on "doing good,"
211; reflects on life, 212-215; differs with G. W. Curtis, 216;
moralizes, 217-223; feebleness of, 217, 218, 275; reads Haydon and
Layard, 224; gets a new coat, 225; lessons therefrom, 226-228; finds
fault with men, 229; paddles up river by night, 230, 231; lectures in
Worcester, 232, 233, 303, 349, 358; publishes "Walden," 233; meets
Ricketson and T. Cholmondeley, 235; geniality of, 238, 239, 274, 301;
visits Nantucket and New Bedford, 240, 245, 247; moralizes to Blake,
241-244; writes to Cholmondeley, 249; to Sanborn, 252, 385; prefers
home to city, 248; visits Cape Cod, 254-257; incipient disease, 257;
his boat, 258; describes Ricketson, 259; deals with E. Hosmer for an
old house, 261, 262; praises Gilpin, 263; visits New Bedford, 265,
283; gathers driftwood, 267-269; meets Mary Emerson, 269; receives
books from Cholmondeley, 270, 271; the greatest walker in Concord,
277; idealizes sugar-making, 278; visits Alcott in New Hampshire, 282,
283, 285; invited to teach, 285; fondness for home, 285; the
Eagleswood community described, 287-289; meets Walt Whitman, 291;
visits Greeley, 291; his morning in Worcester, 292, 293; describes
Whitman, 295-297; hears H. W. Beecher, 297; quotes Confucius to Wiley,
299 (_see_ Letters); lands on Clark's Island, 301, note; meets Alcott
and Channing in New Bedford, 306, 307; goes to Cape Cod with Channing,
308; analyzes glow-worms for M. Watson, 309 (_see_ Letters); praises
Hillside, 328, 329; criticises W. Flagg, 311; in Maine woods, 312,
315, 322-326 (_see_ Letter to Higginson); his camp outfit, 326, 327;
habit in touring, 329, 330; visits White Mountains (in 1858), 330-336;
goes to Monadnock, 333, 368; finds the arnica in Tuckerman's Ravine,
335; his camp on Mt. Washington, 335, 336; writes on autumn tints,
340; is visited by Cholmondeley in 1858-59, 342; ridicules Boston
clubs, 344, 345; criticises H. James, 346; his parable of the
mountain ravine, 347, 348; his father dies, 350; returns to
hand-labor, 355, 356; praises John Brown, 358; his speech published,
with Emerson's, by Redpath, 359; reflections on man and fate, 360-362;
invited to John Brown's grave, 363; goes with Channing to Monadnock,
364; speeds Frank Merriam to Canada, 366, 367; explains his silence to
Ricketson, 354; gets a Canada lynx, 355; describes life on Monadock,
371, 372; hints for the Prince of Wales, 372; is visited by Blake and
Brown, 376; mentions Alcott's success, 377; writes to P. Pillsbury,
378; falls ill and goes to Minnesota, 373, 380-384, 385-391; his last
letter from Cholmondeley, 380; describes his illness, 393; sits for his
portrait in New Bedford, 394; writes for the "Atlantic Monthly," 395;
grows worse, 396; writes his last letter, 399; dies, 400; expedition
to Catskills and Berkshires, 406, 407; visited by Greene, 409;
self-criticism, 410; lecturing irksome, 411; daguerreotype taken, 411.

Thoreau, Jane (aunt), mentioned, =6=, 120.

Thoreau, John (father of Henry), =6=, 4-7, 11, 21, 68, 73, 99, 111,
289, 342, 349; day-book of, 5; lines to, 87; described by Thoreau,
350; dies, 350, 351.

Thoreau, John (grandfather of Henry), =6=, 5, note, 323.

Thoreau, John, brother, lines to, =1=, 2, 12; brings Nathan, a country
boy, to the boat, 308; =6=, 4, 7, 13, 14, 17-24, 32, 35; his death,
41, 74, 75; his bluebird-box, 21, 22. _See_ Letters.

Thoreau, Maria, =6=, 118.

Thoreau, Philip (great-grandfather of Henry), =6=, 5.

Thoreau, Sophia (sister of Henry), =6=, 4, 24, 25, 29, 31, 34, 71,
111, 119, 132, 193, 286, 363, 396, 398, 400; dies, 400. _See_ Letters.

Thor-finn, and Thor-eau, =4=, 191, 192; voyage of, 247, 248.

Thorhall, the disappointment of, =4=, 187.

Thorn-apple, the, =4=, 14, 15.

Thornton's Ferry, =1=, 174, 227, 232.

Thorwald, voyage of, =4=, 247, 248.

"Thou dusky spirit of the wood," verse, =5=, 113.

"Thou, indeed, dear swallow," verse, =1=, 240.

"Thou sing'st the affairs of Thebes," verse, =1=, 241.

"Though all the fates should prove unkind," verse, =1=, 151.

Thoughts, sell your clothes and keep your, =2=, 361.

"Thracian colt, why at me," verse, =1=, 243.

Thrasher, brown, =2=, 175.

Three Rivers (Que.), =5=, 21, 93.

Three-o'clock courage, =5=, 208, 209.

Thrush, wood, Indian word for, =3=, 186; =6=, 75.

Thseng-tseu, quoted, =2=, 241.

Thunder-storm, violent, =3=, 261, 262.

THURSDAY, =1=, 317-355.

"Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter," verse, =1=, 247.

Tide and waves, power of, =4=, 288-290.

Tierra del Fuego, =2=, 14.

Timber, =3=, 18; land, best in Maine, 235.

Time, measurement of the world's, =1=, 346; but a stream to fish in,
=2=, 109.

Tintinnabulum from without, the noise of contemporaries, =2=, 362.

To a Colt, verse, =1=, 243.

To a Dove, verse, =1=, 241.

To a Stray Fowl, verse, =5=, 411.

To a Swallow, verse, =1=, 240, 243.

To Aristoclides, Victor at the Nemean Games, translation, =5=, 384.

To Asopichus, or Orchomenos, on his Victory in the Stadic Course,
translation, =5=, 378.

To My Brother, verse, =5=, 403.

To the Maiden in the East, verse, =5=,400.

To the Lyre, translation, =5=, 379.

Toil, translation, =5=, 389.

"Tom Bowling," sung by T., =6=, 313.

Tomhegan Stream, =3=, 203.

Tools, men the tools of their, =2=, 41.

Tortoise, mud, =6=, 128.

Tortoise, painted, =6=, 128.

"Trainers" in Concord, =4=, 392.

TRANSLATIONS, =5=, 337-392.

Translations from Pindar, =5=, 375-392.

"Transcript," Worcester, =6=, 292, 293.

Trappers, =5=, 115.

Traps, a find of steel, =3=, 302.

Travelers, good humor of, =4=, 23.

Traveling, the profession of, =1=, 325; outfit, the best, =5=, 31-34.
_See_ Walking.

"Traveller," Boston, =6=, 310.

Traverse, the, =5=, 92.

Treat, Rev. Samuel, =4=, 48-52.

Tree, fall of a, at night, =3=, 115; a dangerous, 221.

Trees, visits to particular, =2=, 223; varieties of, =3=, 22, 116;
along the Penobscot, 107, 120; about camp on the Caucomgomoc, 223;
along the Umbazookskus, 231; on island in Heron Lake, farthest
northern point, 259; on East Branch, 302; on Cape Cod, =4=, 129-131;
disappearance of, 254, 255; Canadian, =5=, 48; the suggestions of,
125; the natural planting of, 186-202; a town's need of, 272-278; for
seasons, 276. _See_ Leaves, Woods, and under names of species.

Tree-tops, a walk over, =3=, 67; appearance of various, 121; things
seen and found on, =5=, 245, 246.

"Tribune," New York, =6=, 46, 68, 120, 169, 281.

Trinity, the, =1=, 70.

Trout, true and cousin, =3=, 59.

Trout Stream, =3=, 235, 269; Indian name for, 295.

Troy (N. H.), =5=, 4.

Trumpet-weed, =1=, 18.

Truro (Mass.), =4=, 104, 137-139; the wrecks of, 159; =6=, 254, 256,
357.

Trust, =6=, 56.

Truth, contact with, =1=, 310; to be preferred to all things, =2=,
364.

"Truth along with ye," =6=, 246.

Tuckerman's Ravine, =6=, 334, 348, 349.

TUESDAY, =1=, 188-248.

Tulip-trees, =6=, 71, 77, 90.

"Turning the silver," verse, =1=, 240.

Turkey, the country, =6=, 147, 175; the fowl, 147.

Turpentine-makers, Indian capture of, =1=, 174.

Turtles, land and sea, =4=, 202. _See_ Tortoise.

Turtle, the snapping, =5=, 124.

Turtle-dove, long ago lost hound, bay horse, and, =2=, 18, 19.

Tyngsborough (Mass.), origin of, =1=, 113; 114, 118, 123, 126, 152,
170, 325, 377, 379, 382, 384.

Tyndale, Mrs., =6=, 298.


ULTIMA THULE, =6=, 236, 255.

Umbagog Lake, =6=, 321.

Umbazookskus Lake, =3=, 233, 238.

Umbazookskus River, =3=, 219, 222; Much Meadow River, 229; 230, 232;
=6=, 325.

Unappropriated Land, the, =1=, 334.

Uncannunuc, =1=, 169, 205, 271, 308, 318, 321, 335.

Uncivil mountain farmer, an, =1=, 212-220.

"Uncle Bill," somebody's (or everybody's), =4=, 141.

Union Canal, the, =1=, 245.

"Union Magazine," =6=, 170.

Union, War for the, =6=, 380, 386, 392, 397.

Universalist Church, =6=, 52.

"Upon the lofty elm tree sprays," verse, =5=, 112.

Usnea lichen, Indian word for, =3=, 186.


_Vaches, Ranz des_, =6=, 51.

Val Cartier (Que.), =5=, 89.

Valhalla's kitchen, =6=, 44.

Vallandigham, Clement L., quoted, =4=, 415, 428, 429.

Vandalic verses, =6=, 39.

Varennes, the church of, =5=, 97, 98.

Varro, Marcus Terentius, quoted, =1=, 382; =2=, 183.

Veazie's mills, =3=, 166.

Vedas, the, quoted, =2=, 99, 240; and Zendavestas, 115.

Veery, the, =5=, 112; =6=, 300.

"Veeshnoo Sarma," quoted, =4=, 303.

Vegetable-made bones, oxen with, =2=, 10.

Vegetables in the oysterman's garden, =4=, 100.

Vegetation, the type of all growth, =5=, 128.

Vergennes (Vt.), =5=, 7.

Vessels seen from Cape Cod, =4=, 105, 106, 118, 120-123.

Vestry, of church, =6=, 302, note, 322, 359.

View, the point of, =1=, 372.

VILLAGE, THE, =2=, 185-191.

Village, should play part of a nobleman as patron of art, =2=, 121,
122; a great news-room, 185; running the gantlet in the, 186; a
continuous, =5=, 42, 43; the, 213; trees in a, 275-278.

Virgil, quoted, =1=, 93; =6=, viii, 28; reading, =5=, 138, 143, 144.

Virginia Road, =6=, 4, 6, note.

Virginity, =6=, 207.

Virid Lake as a name for White Pond, =2=, 219.

Vishnu Purana, the, quoted, =2=, 298; =6=, 300.

VISITORS, =2=, 155-170.

Von Hammer, =6=, 61.

Vose, Henry (H. U. 1837), =6=, 18.

Voting, =4=, 363, 364, 402, 403; =6=, 15, 18, 141.

Voyageurs, Canadian, =3=, 6.

Vulcan, =6=, 28, 31, 39.


Wachusett Mountain, =1=, 169, 173; a view of, =5=, 138; range, the,
139; ascent of, 142; birds or vegetation on summit of, 143; night on,
145, 146; an observatory, 147; =6=, 83, 234, 237, 280, 321, 330, 372.

Wagon journey to White Mountains, =6=, 330, 334.

Waite's farm, =3=, 23.

"Walden," the book, =6=, 233, 238, 272, note, 274, note, 378, 399.

Walden Pond, house on the shore of, =2=, 3; purpose in living by, to
transact private business, 21; advantages of, as a place of business,
23; March, 1845, went to woods by, 45; of their own natures, fishing
in the, 145; no more lonely than, 152; old settler who dug, 152;
bottomless as, 166; scenery of, 195-216; origin of paving of, 202;
temperature of water in, 203, 204; animals in, 204-206; purity of,
214; fishing alone detains citizens at, 235; ducks on, 262; first ice
on, 272; dates of first freezing over, 275; 291; bare of snow, 299;
fox on thin ice of, 306; pickerel of, 314; surveying and sounding,
315-324; cutting ice on, 323-329; breaking up of ice in, 329-334; =6=,
7, 28, 30, 59, note, 104, 122, 125, 132, 135-141.

Walden road, snow in, =2=, 294.

Walden vale, giving notice, by smoke, to inhabitants of, 279; making
amends for silence to, 295.

Walden Woods, geese alighting in, =2=, 274; Cato Ingraham living in,
283; Zilpha living in, 283; Hugh Quoil living in, 288; owl's hooting
the _lingua vernacula_ of, 300; fox-hunting in, 306; =6=, 116, 133,
140, 158, 337, note.

Waldenses, pickerel, =2=, 315.

Waldo, Giles, =6=, 72, 79, 82, 84, 97, 105.

WALK TO WACHUSETT, A, =5=, 133-152.

Walkers, the order of, =5=, 206, 207; =6=, 337.

WALKING, =5=, 205-248.

"Walking," a lecture on, =6=, 302, 395.

Walks, not on beaten paths, =5=, 213, 214; the direction of, 216-219;
adventurous, 285; by night, 326; =6=, 84.

Walls, Quebec and other, =5=, 74.

Walpole (N. H.), =6=, 281.

Walton of Concord River, the, =1=, 22.

Wamesit, =1=, 82.

"Wanderer, The," =6=, 328, note, 365, note.

Wannalancet, =1=, 268, 269.

War, =6=, 91; stupidity of, 381; Crimean, 237, 244, 251, 271;
Revolutionary, 323, 359; of 1861, 380, 386, 392, 397.

Ward, George, =6=, 72, 84.

Ward, Mrs., =6=, 52, 73.

Warmth, bodily and spiritual, =6=, 205, 219, 244, 269.

"Warping up," =3=, 57.

Washing in a lake, =3=, 249.

Wasps, visits from, =2=, 265.

Wassataquoik River, the, =3=, 312.

Wasson, D. A., =6=, 307, 309.

Watatic Mountain, =5=, 137, 147.

Water, colors of, =2=, 195-197; transparency of, 197-199; Cape Cod,
=4=, 225.

Water-lily, the white, =1=, 19.

Water-troughs, =3=, 97.

Watson, Edward, =6=, 301, note, 328, note.

Watson, B. M., =6=, 190, 191, 234, 238, 309, 327-329, 333.

Watson, Mrs. Mary, =6=, 43, 329.

Waves on the shore, =4=, 155-158.

Wawatam, the friendship of, =1=, 291.

Wayfarer's-tree, or hobble-bush, =3=, 96.

Wayland (Mass.), =1=, 3, 4, 5, 36, 37; =2=, 173.

"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada," verse, =5=, 108.

"We see the _planet_ fall," verse, =1=, 390.

Wealth, folly of accumulating, =6=, 161, 162, 318, 319.

Webb, Rev. Benjamin, =4=, 54, 55.

Webb's Island, the lost, =4=, 152.

Webster, Daniel, Joe Polis's call upon, =3=, 279; quoted, =4=, 125;
the power of, 384, 385; quoted, 385; and the Fugitive Slave Law, 395;
mentioned, =6=, 105, 237.

Webster Pond, =3=, 270, 273; Indian name for, 273.

Webster Stream, =3=, 161, 264, 273; Indian name for, 275, 289, 297,
299, 300.

WEDNESDAY, =1=, 249-316.

Weeds, destruction of various, =2=, 178.

"Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, A," =6=, 139, 336, note,
378, 399, 400, 409-111; refused by publishers, 156, 172; debt for,
182, 209; cited, 274.

"Welcome, Englishmen!" =2=, 170.

Weld, Theodore, =6=, 283, 287.

Weld, Mrs. (Grimké), =6=, 283.

Well Meadow, =2=, 307.

Wellfleet (Mass.), oysters, =4=, 82; Bellamy wrecked off, 160; a good
headquarters for visitors to the Cape, 271.

WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN, THE, =4=, 79-102.

WENDELL PHILLIPS BEFORE THE CONCORD LYCEUM, =4=, 311-315.

West, walking towards the, =5=, 217-220; general tendency towards the,
219-224; T. would go to, =6=, 20, 21; a friend in, 36; immigrants to,
96, 110; T.'s tour in, 380, 384-392.

West Branch, tramp up the, =3=, 17; 20, 31, 32, 291, 316.

West Indies, =6=, 342, 383.

West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination, =2=, 8.

Westborough (Mass.), =1=, 3, 32.

Westford (Mass.), =1=, 113.

Westmoreland, etymology of, =5=, 6.

Weston (Mass.), =2=, 308.

Whales, in the St. Lawrence, =5=, 91.

"What dost thou wish me to do to thee?" verse, =1=, 243.

"What's the railroad to me?" verse, =2=, 135, 136.

"Whate'er we leave to God, God does," verse, =5=, 396.

Wheeler, Charles Stearns (H. U. 1837), =6=, 58, 59, note, 60, 91, 97,
103.

Whelan, Hugh, the gardener, =6=, 77, 140, 143, 144, 148, 154.

"When descends on the Atlantic," Longfellow, quoted, =4=, 69.

"When life contracts into a vulgar span," verse, =5=, 404.

"When the world grows old by the chimney-side," verse, =5=, 417.

"When Winter fringes every bough," verse, =5=, 176.

"Where gleaming fields of haze," verse, =1=, 234.

WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR, =2=, 90-109.

"Where they once dug for money," verse, =5=, 214.

"Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me," verse, =1=, 2.

Whetstone Falls, =3=, 313.

Whim, centrifugal force of, =6=, 154.

Whipple, Edwin Percy, =6=, 145.

Whip-poor-wills, singing of, =2=, 137.

White, Miss E., =6=, 29, 32.

White Mountains, the, =1=, 85, 89; =3=, 4; =6=, 320, 330, 332, 334,
347, 348, 370.

White Pond, =2=, 199, 201, 219, 221; plan of, 320; =6=, 15.

Whitehead, near Cohasset, =4=, 10.

Whitehead Island, =3=, 94.

Whitman, Walt, =6=, 272, note; seen by T., 290, 291, genius of, 295,
296; brag of, 297; seen by Alcott, 298.

Whitney, Peter, quoted, =5=, 312.

Whittier, John Greenleaf, =6=, 51, note.

"Who equaleth the coward's haste," verse, =5=, 417.

"Who sleeps by day and walks by night," verse, =1=, 41.

"Whoa," the crying of, to mankind, =5=, 235.

Wicasuck Island, =1=, 113, 115, 381, 382.

Wigwam, in Indian gazettes, symbol of a day's march, =2=, 30.

Wild, the, a lecture on, =6=, 302; T.'s love of, 16, 36, 37, 121, 174,
175.

WILD APPLES, =5=, 290-322.

Wilderness, the need of, =1=, 179.

Wildness, cultivation and, =1=, 55; the necessity of, =5=, 224-236; in
literature, 230-233; in domestic animals, 234-236.

Wiley, B. B., =6=, 298-302. _See_ Letters.

Williams, I. T., =6=, 40.

Williamstown (Mass.), =1=, 192, 197, 244.

Willow, the narrow-leaved, =1=, 18; the water, 43.

Willow, golden leaves, =5=, 266.

Wind, power of the, =4=, 286-288.

Windham (N. H.), =1=, 92.

Windmills, Cape Cod, =4=, 34, 35.

Windows in Cape Cod houses, =4=, 79, 80.

Windsor, N. S., =6=, 338.

Winnepiseogee, Lake, =1=, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91.

Winslow, Edward, quoted, =2=, 158.

Winter, warmth in, =5=, 167, 168; the woods in, 168, 169; nature a
_hortus siccus_ in, 179; as represented in the almanac, 182; ignored
in Hebrew revelation, 183; evening, 183.

WINTER ANIMALS, =2=, 299-311.

Winter Scene, A, verse, =5=, 410.

WINTER VISITORS, FORMER INHABITANTS AND, =2=, 282-298.

WINTER WALK, A, =5=, 163-183.

"Winter Walk, A," the essay, =6=, 94.

Winthrop, Gov., quoted, =4=, 236; his Concord house, =6=, 261, note.

Wisconsin, =6=, 110, 387.

Wise, Henry A., quoted, =4=, 428.

Wise man, the, =4=, 462, 463.

Wisdom, of the ancients, =6=, 114, 299, 300; of the Indian, 311, 316.

"With frontier strength ye stand your ground," verse, =1=, 170; =5=,
133.

"Within the circuit of this plodding life," verse, =5=, 103.

Wolfe and Montcalm, monument to, =5=, 73.

Wolfe's Cove, =5=, 22.

Wolff, Joseph, quoted, =1=, 60, 131.

Wolofs, the, =1=, 109, 138.

Woman, her quarrel with man, =6=, 198; her beauty, 198, 199; a merely
sentimental, 200.

Women, pinched up, =4=, 24; Canadian, =5=, 34.

Wood, gathering, =2=, 275; relative value of in different places, 277.

Wood, William, quoted, =4=, 85.

Wood End, wreck at, =4=, 259, 260.

Woodbine, =5=, 3, 4, 276.

Woodchopper, a Canadian, =2=, 159-166; winter represented as a, =5=,
182.

Woodchuck, eating a, =2=, 66; =6=, 168, 372.

Woodman, hut and work of a, =5=, 172, 173. _See_ Woodchopper.

Wood-pile, the, =2=, 278.

Woods, turning face to the, =2=, 21; wetness of the, =3=, 22;
characteristics of Maine, and uses of all, 167-173; destruction of
the, 252-254; in winter, the, =5=, 168, 169. _See_ Trees.

Woodstock (N. B.), =3=, 256.

"Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze," verse, =1=, 229.

Worcester, =6=, 158, 160; T. lectures at, 181, 192, 232; visits, 286,
292, 308.

Wordsworth, =5=, 143, 144; reading, =6=, 229.

Work, quiet, =1=, 110; exaggerated importance of our, =2=, 12; our
excess of, =4=, 456.

World, a cow that is hard to milk, =6=, 135; must look out, 146; noble
to stand aside from, 159; idly complaining, 196; its way, 209; and
Atlas, 243; no match for a thought, 357; pitch it into a hollow place,
sit down and eat your luncheon, 362; one world at a time, 379.

Worms, glow (_Lampyris noctiluca_), =6=, 310, 327.

Wreck, of the Franklin, =4=, 73; of Bellamy, the pirate, 160, 161; of
the British ship of war Somerset, 162; story of a man from a, 259,
260.

Wreckage, =4=, 115-117.

Wrecker, a Cape Cod, =4=, 59, 60.

Wrecks, Truro, =4=, 159; the consequences of, 163, 164.

Writing, grace and power in, =1=, 108-111; correct, =6=, 94, 156;
remarks on, ix, 26, 28, 38, 67, 94, 156, 311, 312, 354.

Wyman, the potter, =2=, 288.

Wyman trial, the, =6=, 104.


YANKEE IN CANADA, A, =5=, 1-101.

"Yankee in Canada, A," publication of, =6=, 172, 215.

Yankees, how first called, =1=, 53.

Yarmouth (Mass.), =4=, 22; =6=, 256.

Yellow house, =6=, 7.

Yellow Medicine, river, =6=, 391.

Yellow Pine Lake, =2=, 219.

Yoga (Hindoo observance), =6=, 175.

Yogi, =6=, 175.

"Yorrick," the, =5=, 1, 12, note.

Young, Arthur, =2=, 61.

Youth, and age, =2=, 9.

"Youth of the Poet and Painter," Channing's, =6=, 94, 113, note, 117.


Zendavestas, Vedas and, =2=, 115.

Zilpha, a colored woman, =2=, 283.

Zoroaster, let the hired man commune with, =2=, 120.




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