Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes to a Mr. Hawkins (The Correspondence (2013, Princeton), 1:34).
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau also writes to David Greene Haskins (The Correspondence (2013, Princeton), 1:34-5; MS, Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature. Firestone Library, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.).
Thoreau writes to his brother 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” 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 skilled workman may make a thousand a day.
So much for the “Americana.” Dr. Jacob Bigelow in his “Technology” says, “Gun-flints are formed by a skillful workman, who breaks them out with a hammer, a roller, and small chisel, with small repeated strokes.”
Your ornithological commission shall be executed. When are you coming home?
Your affectionate brother,
Henry D. Thoreau
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Is a summer round (Journal, 1:30).
Thoreau writes in his journal:
He [Goethe] jogs along at a snail’s pace, but ever mindful that the earth is beneath and the heavens above him. His Italy is not merely the fatherland of lazzaroni and maccaroui but a solid turf-clad soil, daily illumined by a genial sun and nightly gleaming in the still moonshine,—to say nothing of the frequent showers which are so faithfully recorded. That sail to Palermo was literally a plowing through of the waves from Naples to Trinacria,—the sky overhead, and the sea, with its isles on either hand.
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal to prepare a lecture at the Concord Lyceum on 11 April.
Every proverb in the newspapers originally stood for a truth. Thus the proverb that man was made for society, so long as it was not allowed to conflict with another important truth, deceived no one; but, now that the same words have come to stand for another thing, it maybe for a lie, we are obliged, in order to preserve its significance, to write it anew, so that properly it will read, Society was made for man . . .
Let not society be the element in which you swim, or are tossed about at the mercy of the waves, but be rather a strip of firm land running out into the sea, whose base is daily washed by the tide, but whose summit only the spring tide can reach . . .
Thoreau writes to his brother 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 onto 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 entire circumference. But it availed not. Taunton herring would not be smelled. So we e’en proce[e]ded to open it vi et chisel. What an array of nails! Four nails make a quarter four quarters a yard,—i faith this isn’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 a hoist. Aye! W’ell [sic] pare his nails for him. Well done old fellow there’s a breathing hole for you. “Drive it in,” cries one, “rip 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 enumerated nearly a dozen schools which I could have—all such as would suit you equally well. I wish you would write soon about this. It is high season to start. The canals are now open, and travelling 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 eig[h]th 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 -38, if you are in Concord, othe[rw]ise, he says, you need not trouble you[rse]lf about it at present. [H]e 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. E[merson] has put up the bluebird box in due form.
All send their love. From
Y’r aff. brother
H. D. Thoreau
Josiah Quincy writes a letter of recommendation for Thoreau:
I certify that Henry D. Thoreau, of Concord in this State of Massachusetts, graduated at this seminary in August, 1837; that his rank was high as a scholar in all branches, and his morals and general conduct unexceptionable and exemplary. He is recommended as well qualified as an instructor, for employment in any public or private school or private family.
Josiah Quincy, President of Harvard University
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Lidian Jackson Emerson writes to her sister Lucy Jackson Brown:
Ralph Waldo Emerson loans Thoreau $100 (Ralph Waldo Emerson journals and notebooks (MS Am 1280H, Series I, 112; Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.).
Thoreau writes his poem “Friendship” in his journal:
Love is to me a world,
Sole meat and sweetest drink,
And close connecting link
’Tween heaven and earth.
I only know it is, not how or why,
My greatest happiness;
However hard I try,
Not if I were to die,
Can I explain . . .
Thoreau delivers his first lecture for the Concord Lyceum at the Mason’s Hall. The subject was “Society” (Concord Lyceum records. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library; “Society“).
Josiah Quincy writes to Thoreau about a possible teaching position:
The School is at Alexandria; the students are said to be young men well advanced in ye knowledge of ye Latin and Greek classics; the requisitions are, qualification and a person who has had experience in school keeping. Salary $600. a year, besides washing and Board; duties to be entered on ye 5th or 6th of May. If you choose to apply, I will write as soon as I am informed of it. State to me your experience in school keeping.
Yours,
Josiah Quincy
Prudence Ward writes to her sister Caroline Ward Sewall:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal on 26 April:
Thoreau writes his poem “The Bluebirds” in his journal:
We planted a bluebird box.
And we hoped before the summer was o’er
A transient pair to coax.
One warm summer’s day the bluebirds came
And lighted on our tree,
But at first the wand’rers were not so tame
But they were afraid of me.
They seemed to come from the distant south
Just over the Walden wood,
And they skimmed it along with open mouth
Close by where the bellows stood . . .
Ezra Ripley writes a letter of recommendation for Thoreau for possible teaching positions in Maine:
Ezra Ripley,
Senior Pastor of the First Church in Concord, Mass.
Thoreau borrows $10 from Ralph Waldo Emerson to travel to Maine in search of a teaching position (Ralph Waldo Emerson journals and notebooks (MS Am 1280H, Series I, 112). Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.).
Emerson also writes a letter of recommendation for Thoreau to take on his Maine job search:
Prudence Ward writes to her sister, Caroline Ward Sewall:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
What, indeed, is this earth to us of New England but a field for Yankee speculation? The Nantucket whaler goes a-fishing round it, and so knows it,-wl
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes his poem “May Morning” in his journal:
Scorning to live so rare a day by rule.
So mild the air a pleasure ’twas to breathe,
For what seems heaven above was earth beneath.
Soured neighbors chatted by the garden pale,
Nor quarrelled who should drive the needed nail;
The most unsocial made new friends that day,
As when the sun shines husbandmen make hay.
How long I slept I know not, but at last
I felt my consciousness returning fast . . .
Thoreau writes to Henry Vose (The Correspondence (2013, Princeton), 1:43; MS, Clifton Waller Barrett collection (6345). Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.).
Thoreau writes his poem “Walden” in his journal:
Only the practiced ear can catch the surging words
That break and die upon thy pebbled lips.
Thy flow of thought is noiseless as the lapse of thy own
waters,
Wafted as is the morning mist up from thy surface,
So that the passive Soul doth breathe it in,
And is infected with the truth thou wouldst express . . .
Thoreau writes his poem “Truth, Goodness, Beauty,—those celestial thrins” in his journal:
Continually are born; e’en nowthe Universe,
With thousand throats, and eke with greener smiles,
Its joy confesses at their recent birth.
Strange that so many fickle gods, as fickle as the weather,
Throughout Dame Nature’s provinces should always pull together.
Thoreau, with his brother John, starts a private school at the Thoreau house (The Life of Henry David Thoreau (1917), 201).
Thoreau writes his poem “In the busy streets, domains of trade” in his journal:
Man is a surly porter, or a vain and hectoring bully,
Who can claim no nearer kindredship with me
Than brotherhood by law.
Prudence Ward writes to her brother Dennis:
J’s school is flourishing—There are four boys from Boston boarding with us. I don’t doubt it would have been very pleasant to Ellen on several accounts to have passed the summer with you—but I am not surprised she couldn’t be spared. I want she should make us a visit of [a] week or two . . .
Tell little Mary that we have a black kitten, & that the martins have driven away the bluebirds & taken possession of their box.
Thoreau writes his poem “Cliffs” in his journal:
Is the wood’s whisper; ’tis, when we choose to list,
Audible sound, and when we list not,
It is calm profound.
Tongues were provided
But to vex t1le ear with superficial thoughts.
Wien deeper thoughts upswell, the jarring discord
Of harsh speech is flushed, and senses seem
As little as may be to share the ecstasy.
Thoreau also writes to his brother John:
We heard from Helen today 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 mine 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 a 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 blue[e]berries, three kinds of low—thimble and rasp-berries, 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 of late to my stock of ornithological information—is in the shape, not of a Fring. Melod. but surely a melodious Fringilla—the F. Iuncorum, or rush sparrow. I had long known him by his 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. Mrs. Lowell and children are at Aunt’s. Peabody walked up last Wednesday—spent the night, and took a stroll in the woods. Sophia says I mu[st] leave off and pen a few lines for her to Helen. S[o] Good bye. Love from all and among them yr
aff’ brother
H D T
James Russell Lowell writes to George Bailey Loring:
David Greene Haskins writes of Thoreau:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Ralph Waldo Emerson includes Thoreau in a list of people to whom he sends his Divinity College Address (The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 12:180).
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to his aunt Mary Moody Emerson:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:
“In need of work and looking for it, Thoreau joined with his brother John to open a private school for small boys. It was housed for a short time on the site of the present Concord Public Library. Henry taught the children classics, mathematics, and nature study.”
Thoreau places this advertisement in the Concord Freeman:
The advertisement also runs in the Yeoman’s Gazette 22 and 29 September.
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes to his sister 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 “Cleavelands 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, &c. 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 (hominēse) dominos (dominōse) or in English Johnny Vose. For information see Adam’s Latin Grammar—before the Rudiments This is all law and gospel to 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 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 already in her possession. If she do not believe it, then she should have bespoken a better in another world, and not have expected to find one at “Little and 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 nonpluss a surveyor of Eastern Lands—making Imagination and Memory to lie still in their respective apartments, like ink stand and wafers in a la[dy’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 Abercrombie, 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 Advantages or disadvantages—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
Yr affectionate brother,
H D T
I learn from my brother and sister, who were recently employed as teachers in your vicinity, that you are at present in quest of some one to fill the vacancy in your high school, occasioned by Mr. Bellows’ withdrawal. As my present school, which consists of a small number of well advanced pupils, is not sufficiently lucrative, I am advised to make application for the station now vacant. I was graduated at Cambridge in —37, and have since had my share of experience in school-keeping.
I can refer you to the President and Faculty of Harvard College-to Rev. Dr. Ripley, or Rev. R. W. Emerson-of this town, or to the parents of my present pupils, among whom I would mention—Hon. Samuel Hoar—Hon. John Keyes—& Hon. Nathan Brooks. Written recommendations by these gentlemen will be procured if desired.
If you will trouble yourself to answer this letter immediately, you will much oblige your humble Servant,
Henry D. Thoreau
Thoreau writes his poems “My Boots”:
The dewy nectar with a natural thirst,
Or wet their leathern lungs where cranberries lurk,
With sweeter wine than Chian, Lesbian, or Falernian far.
Theirs was the inward lustre that bespeaks
An open sole—unknowing to exclude
The cheerful day—a worthier glory far
Than that which gilds the outmost rind with darkness visible—
Virtues that fast abide through lapse of years
Rather rubbed in than off.
Thoreau is elected secretary of the Concord Lyceum (Concord Lyceum records. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau is elected curator of the Concord Lyceum (Concord Lyceum records. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes to Charles Stearns Wheeler (The Correspondence (2013, Princeton), 1:51).
Ralph Waldo Emerson includes Thoreau in a list of people to whom he gives tickets to his “Human Life” lecture series, which was delivered at the Masonic Temple in Boston from 5 December 1838 to 20 February 1839 (The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 12:65-7).
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes his poem “Fair-Haven” in his journal:
With his fantastic wreath,
And puts the seal of silence now
Upon the leaves beneath;
When every stream in its penthouse
Goes gurgling on its way,
And in his gallery the mouse nibbleth the meadow hay;
MethinKs the summer still is nigh,
And lurketh there below,
As that same meadow mouse doth lie
snug underneath the snow . . .
Thoreau writes his essay “Sound and Silence” in his journal:
Love once among roses
A sleeping bcc
Did not see, but was stung;
And, being wounded in the finger
Of his hand, cried for pain.
Running as well as flying
To the beautiful Venus,
I am killed, mother, said he,
I am killed, and I die.
A little serpent has stung me,
Winged, which they call
A bee,—the husbandmen.
And she said, If the sting
Of a bee afflicts you,
How, think you, are they afflicted,
Love, whom you smite?