Thoreau on “Sir Walter Raleigh”

One of the unique treasures in the Walden Woods Project Collection is the original “second draft” manuscript of Thoreau’s early essay, “Sir Walter Raleigh.” Although cited and in part transcribed by Franklin Sanborn in 1905, this draft has been considered by some as an invention on Sanborn’s part or to have disappeared without a trace. But it was neither invented nor lost. It is one of the many rich resources housed at the Thoreau Institute’s Library.

                Below is a transcription from the final two manuscript leaves. The last sentence may sound familiar to readers of Thoreau’s “The Service” and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

 

  

But alas! What is truth? That which we know not — What is Beauty? That which we see not — What is heroism? That which we are not. It is in vain to hang out flags on a day of rejoicing, fresh bunting bright and whole, better the soiled and torn remnant which has been borne in the wars.  We have considered a fair specimen of an English man in the 16^th century but it behooves us to be fairer specimens of American men in the 19^th. The Gods have given man no constant gift but the power and liberty to act greatly.

                How many wait for health and warm weather to be heroic and noble! We are apt to think there is a kind of virtue, which need not be heroic and brave — but in fact virtue is the deed of the bravest -- and only the hardy souls venture upon it -- for it deals with what we have no experience; — and alone does the rude pioneer work of the world. In winter is its campaign — and it never goes into quarters. “Sit not down,” said Sir Thomas Browne, “in the popular seats and common level of virtues, but endeavor to make them heroical. Offer not only peace offerings but holocausts unto God.”

                In a lonely chamber at night, we are thrilled by some far off serenade within the mind, and see & hear the clarion sound, and clang of corselet and buckler from many a silent hamlet of the soul, though actually it may be but the rattling of some farmer’s wagon rolling to market against the morrow.

 

 

Some Recent Additions to the Collections:

 

Brown, Amy Belding Mr. Emerson’s Wife (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005)

Clark, Jill Morgan Henry David Thoreau: The Darwinian Naturalist (Masters Thesis, Rollins College, 2005)

Dolis, John Tracking Thoreau: Double-Crossing Nature and Technology (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, c2005)

Ostrow, Judy The House that Jill Built: A Woman’s Guide to Home Building (Layton, UT: Gibbs, Smith, Publisher, 2004)

Pinder, Eric North to Katahdin (Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2005)

Shattuck, Lemuel A History of the Town of Concord, Middlesex County, Massachusetts: From its Earliest Settlement to 1832 (Oceanport, NJ: Digital Editions, 2004)

 

For more information about these and other titles,
go to Thoreau Institute Library Catalog

 

Library Programs

 

Thoreau wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach.”

Learn about Thoreau’s life and writings through items on display in the Thoreau Institute Library. Find out what it means to live deliberately. Gallery talks and informal discussions are led by the Curator of Collections, Jeffrey S. Cramer, award-winning editor and Thoreau scholar. Program can be adjusted to the needs and interest of the visiting group.

 

Please call the library at 781-259-4730
or e-mail curator@walden.org for more information.

For other programs, check our Education Department and our calendar

 

 

A.L.S. (autograph letter signed) of Josiah Quincy, President of Harvard University, confirming Thoreau’s graduation from Harvard and recommending him for a teaching position “in any public or private school, or private family.”

From the Thoreau Society Collections (Raymond Adams Collection)

 

Upcoming events:

 

Philip Cafaro, author of Thoreau’s Living Ethics

 
October 27, 2005, 7:00pm – 9:00pm

 as part of the 2005 Concord Festival of Authors