Thoreau submits an essay on the prompt “Speak of the characteristics which, whether humorously or reproachfully, we are in the habit of ascribing to the people of different sections of our own country,” for an assignment given him on 3 February (Thoreau’s Harvard Years, part 2:13; Early Essays and Miscellanies, 83-86; MS, Abernethy Collection of American Literature. Middlebury College Special Collections, Middlebury, Vt.).