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No. 12.

DECEMBER 15, 1890.

VOL. I.

THOREAU.

HOREAU has been derided as a man of affectations and egregious egotism. Certainly some of his acts and words suggest the poseur. A man who sets up as hermit less than two miles from his native town, and near a highway, who aggressively declares his personal relations with Nature to be of more interest than his relations with human society, is liable to the charge of playing for effect.

He was, however, in the main lines of his conduct, of singular sincerity. Incidentally (by self-confession an uncurbed lover of paradox) it may be allowed it pleased him to make people stare. As for his egotism, it must be remembered that the only certainty which a transcendentalist recognises is "the ego."

Henry David Thoreau was born at Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817. He was of mixed French, Scotch, and English ancestry. His father was a pencil maker. He himself learned how to make pencils, and after his father's death carried on the business in a fashion. He also practised surveying. But his attention to business was occasional only. He, early in life, definitely decided that Nature was the mistress he must serve, and as a few peas and beans and water sufficed his bodily desires, his mistress had little cause for jealousy. Thoreau maintained that six weeks' labour produced enough for a year's need.

He habitually avoided the society of his fellow-men and was. under little obligation to others for his intellectual equipment. To this, however, an (exception, and it is a large one), must be made. He and Emerson were great friends, and the seed of Emerson's sowing fell on friendly soil. For some time in his earlier manhood he lived in Emerson's house. During this visit Emerson wrote to Carlyle: "Henry Thoreau is full of melodies and inventions.”