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 This perception came early to Thoreau, and was expressed in some unpublished verses dating from his long, solitary rambles, by night and day, on the seashore at Staten Island, where he first learned the sombre magnificence of Ocean.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 lea
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?

66

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 relicts 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.

The profile-portrait engraved 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.

CONCORD, MASS., March 1, 1894.

F. B. S.

FAMILIAR LETTERS OF THOREAU.

I. YEARS OF DISCIPLINE.

Ir 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-flow

ing 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