"(Sreat Writers." EDITED BY ERIC ROBERTSON AND FRANK T. MARZIALS. LIFE OF THOREAU. FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES, SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK. LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU BY HENRY S. SALT OFTHE UNIVERsr LONDON WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1896 (All rights reserved] 952 OFTHE TYS? UNIVERSITY PREFATORY NOTE. A FEW words of preface are needed to explain the relation of this Life of Thoreciu to the original edition issued by Messrs. Bentley in 1890. In that volume, which was published in England only, and at a time when Thoreau s writings, with the exception of Walden, were compara tively little known, there were included a number of quotations from the Letters, Diaries, Excursions, etc., then inaccessible to the mass of English readers. In the new form of the book, abridged to meet the requirements of a popular series, most of these passages have been omitted; but, on the other hand, I have been able to make some important corrections and additions, thanks to the courtesy of Mr. F. B. Sanborn and other American friends, who have supplied me, during the past five years, with a large amount of information. I am especially indebted to Dr. S. A. Jones, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Mr. A. W. Hosmer, of Concord, from both of whom I have received most friendly aid and encouragement. By his invaluable Bibliography, and other labours full of sympathy and insight, Dr. Jones has earned the gratitude of all to as a acknow Thoreau-students ; and him, slight ledgment of personal obligation, I take the liberty of inscribing this book. 11. S. S. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The artificial and the natural s birth ; Henry Thoreau and the of : its parentage ; village Concord inhabitants, and traditions Thoreau s scenery, climate, ; boyhood ; influences of the heredity and association ; Thoreau his career at : family ; Harvard University character and of : appearance ; opinion college system early tendency* to idealism ; devotion to* Concord . .11 CHAPTER II. Choice of a the profession ; keeps the Concord "Academy ; Transcendental movement ; effect on Thoreau ; abandon ment of professional pursuits; adopts an open-air life;^ self-sacrifice his early writings ; youthful love and ; brother John ;" week on the Concord River ; friendship with R. W. Emerson ; connection with the Dial : the Concord s transcendentalists ; Thoreau residence with the Emersons ; friendship with Alcott, Margaret Fuller, death -of Thoreatt . Ellery Channing ; John- 30 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. i A<;i Influence of Emerson on with Thoreau ; acquaintance Haw thorne ; contributions to the Dial; the "Walk to Wachusett"; solitude and society; life in Emerson s*, in family; tutorship Staten Island; letters to the Emer- ( sons; visits to New York; new acquaintances; the Brook/ Farm Thoreau s individualism for I community; "plans j/" in . living retirement; why he went to Walden . 51 CHAPTER IV. Walden site of Thoreau s hut Pond; ; building and furnishing; mode of life in the woods; simplicity of dress and diet; solitude; visitors from the village; fugitive slaves; refusaj-^* to pay poll-tax; imprisonment: studies in natural history: reasons for Walden value of s leaving ; Thoreau experiment 66 CHAPTER V. Thoreau s of personal appearance ; mode dress ; fitness of and mind of body ; keenness senses ; idealism ; its effect on his dislike of not a friendships ; society ; misanthrope ; * with children a sympathy ; Yankee Stoic ; favourite authors; Oriental books; Greek and Latin classics; Indian studies love of the wild his walks ; ; ; familiarity with wild animals a of his ; post-naturalist ; magnetism character 86 CHAPTER VI. Second residence with the Emersons ; publication of the domestic life at Concord with Week; ; friendship Harrison Blake ; pencil-making, surveying, and lecturing ; meets A. II. a slave of Clough ; fugitive assisted ; publication CONTENTS. 9 PAGF Daniel Walden; new friends, Thomas Cholmondeley, with Walt Whit Ricketson, F. B. Sanborn ; meeting ; " Mr. Ricket- Brown ; visits to Brooklawn ; man ; John son s testimony . ...... .105 CHAPTER VII. the Thoreau s mode of travelling; excursions to Cape Cod; Woods Yankee in Canada ; three excursions to the Maine ; love of mountains ; the White letter to T. W. Higginson ; .122 Mountains; Monadnock . CHAPTER VIII. s ill-health relations with editors ; death of Thoreau Signs of ; " Plea father; the Harper s Ferry incident; Thoreau s " Brown a touchstone of his character ; for John ; appre his confidence in the future ; ciated by his townsmen ; visit to the Civil commencement of illness ; Minnesota ; s last winter his and cheerfulness ; War; Thoreau ; courage " " T burial in Hollow . his death ; Sleepy 34 CHAPTER IX. Thoreau s aversion to idealism with system ; yombined practi- f calness; originality; optimistic nature- worship; views on / dislike religion; insistence on self-culture and self-respect; his -* of "business"; a champion of individuality; gospel - of Simplicity; his attitude towards civilisation, science, and art; misunderstandings of his doctrine; his tenderness; humanitarian views; sympathy with animals; peculiar of observation ideal position among naturalists; powers ; . 2 ism the secret of his creed . I5 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER f- AU EJ Thoreau s of disregard "style"; combination of literary work and manual ; conscientious workmanship ; idealisation of common themes and ; poetical images metaphors : his love of concentration and ; his humour paradox ; open-air sketches; essays; diaries; letters; poems . 170 XT. , - of J Uniqueness Thoreau s personality; compared with o naturalists; erroneous criticisms of his doctrines by Lowell and others; their true significance; final estimate of hi character IXDEX BIBLIOGRAPHY HENRY DAVID THOREAU. CHAPTER I. the various perils which beset the path of our modern civilisation, none perhaps are more subtle and dangerous than those which may be summed up under the term artificiality. As life becomes more com plex, and men of culture are withdrawn farther and farther from touch with wild nature, there is a corre sponding sacrifice of hardihood and independence there is less individuality, less mastery over circumstance, less probity of conduct and candour of speaking, less faith in one s self and in the leading of one s destiny. These may be but incidental disadvantages, outweighed by the in the condition of the race general improvement ; yet they are serious enough to demand thoughtful recog nition, and to make us welcome any signs of a contrary tendency. The enormous increase which the present age has witnessed in material wealth and mechanical invention has accentuated both the magnitude of the evil and the necessity of relieving it. A century ago, it might have 12 LIFE OF occurred to those who were living on the threshold of the new era, and who foresaw (as some must have foreseen) the coming rush of civilisation, with its fretful hurry and bustle of innumerable distractions, to wonder whether the very prevalence of the malady would work out its own reformation. Must society ever be divorced from simplicity ? Must intellect and wildness be incompatible? Must we lose in the deterioration of the physical senses what we gain in mental culture ? Must perfect com munion with Nature be impossible ? Or would there arise a man capable of showing us in his own character whatever its shortcomings and limitations that it is still possible and profitable to live, as the Stoics strove to live, in accordance with Nature, with absolute serenity and self-possession; to follow out one s own ideal, in spite of every obstacle, with unfaltering devotion; and so to simplify one s life, and clarify one s senses, as to master many of the inner secrets of that book of Nature which to most men remains unintelligible and unread. Such anticipation if we may imagine it to have been entertained was amply fulfilled in the life and character of Henry David Thoreau. In the year 1823 there was living in the village of Concord, Massachusetts, with his wife and four children, one John Thoreau, a pencil-maker by employment, whose father, a younger son in a well-to-do Jersey family of French extraction, had emigrated from St. Helier to New England in 1773, married a Scotch wife, established a mercantile business in Boston, and died at Concord in iSoi. 1 John Thoreau, who at the time of which I speak 1 It is said that the name Thoreau was common in the annals of Tours several hundred years ago. The earliest known ancestors THOREAU. 13 was thirty-six years old, had begun life as a merchant, but having failed in business and lost whatever property he inherited from his father, he had recently turned his attention to pencil-making, a trade which had been in troduced into Concord some ten or twelve years earlier, from which he not only derived a competent livelihood, but gained distinction by the excellence of his workman ship. He is described by those who knew him as a small, quiet, plodding, unobtrusive man, thoroughly genuine and reliable, occupying himself for the most r part in his ow n business, though he could be friendly and sociable when occasion invited. His wife, whose 1 maiden name was Cynthia Dunbar, was very different in character, being remarkable, like the other members of her family, for her keen dramatic humour and intellectual she was she sprightliness ; tall, handsome, quick-witted; had a good voice and sang well, and often monopolised the conversation by her unfailing flow of talk. Henry David Thoreau, the third child of these parents, was bom at Concord, i2th July 1817, in a quaint, old- fashioned house on the Virginia Road, surrounded by pleasant orchards and peat-meadows, and close to an " extensive tract known as Bedford levels." In this of Henry Thoreau are his great-grandparents, Philip Thoreau and Marie .le Calais, the parents of the emigrant above mentioned.