Log Search Results

3 June 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  6 A.M.—River three and three sixteenth inches above summer level . . .

  2 P.M.—To bayberry . . . (Journal, 13:326).

3 June 1861. Minneapolis, Minn.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  To Minneapolis. Lead plant. To Lake Calhoun & Harriet . . .

  A boy shot a S. Franklinii with peas. A horned lark soared very high over prairie at 3 ½ p.m. & sang the same twittering note (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 14).

3 March 1835. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau checks out The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, volume 3 from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 287).

3 March 1837. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau submits a college essay on the prompt “Compare some of the Methods of gaining or exercising public Influence: as, Lectures, the Pulpit, Associations, the Press, Political Office,” for a class assignment given him on 17 February (Thoreau’s Harvard Years, part 2:13; Early Essays and Miscellanies, 86-88; MS, Abernethy Collection of American Literature. Middlebury College Special Collections, Middlebury, Vt.).

3 March 1838. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Three thousand years and the world so little changed! The Iliad seems like a natural sound which has reverberated to our days. Whatever in it is still freshest in the memories of men was most childlike in the poet (Journal, 1:31).
3 March 1839. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  He must be something more than natural, even supernatural. Nature will not speak through but along with him. (Journal, 1:74-75).
3 March 1840. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to Margaret Fuller:

  Henry Thoreau has given me lately to read a fine critique on Persius. It is well worthy of Weeks Jordan & Co. if he will surrender it (The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2:259).
3 March 1841. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  I hear a man blowing a horn this still evening – and it sounds like the plaint of nature in these times (Journal, 1:226-227).

Thoreau is probably invited to join Brook Farm around this time. He writes in his journal on 3 March:

  As for these communities, I think I had rather keep bachelor’s hall in hell than go board in heaven (Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, 100-3; Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia, 133-4; Journal, 1:227).
3 March 1849. Salem, Mass.

The Salem Observer reviews Thoreau’s lecture of 28 February:

  Mr. Thoreau, of Concord, delivered a second lecture on Wednesday evening upon his life in the woods. The first was upon the economy of that life; this was upon its object and some of its enjoyments. Judging from some of the remarks which we have heard concerning it, Mr. Thoreau was less even successful this time in suiting all, than on the former occasion. The diversity of opinion was quite amusing. Some persons are unwilling to speak of his lectures as nay better than “tom-foolery and nonsense,” while others think they perceived, beneath the outward sense of his remarks, something wise and valuable. It is undoubtedly true that Mr. Thoreau’s style is rather too allegorical for a popular audience. He “peoples the solitudes” of the woods too profusely, and gives voices to their “dim aisles” not recognized by the larger part of common ears.

  Some parts of this lecture—which on the whole we thought less successful than the former one—were generally admitted to be excellent. He gave a well-considered defence of classical literature, in connection with some common sense remarks upon books; and also some ingenious speculations suggested by the inroads of railroad enterprise upon the quiet and seclusion of Walden Pond; and told how he found nature a counsellor and companion, furnishing

“Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

  We take the purpose of Mr. T.’s lecture to have been, the elucidation of the poetical view of life—showing how life may be made poetical, the apprehensive imagination clothing all things with divine forms, and gathering from them a divine language.

“He went to the gods of the wood
To bring their word to men.”

  And here we may remark that the public are becoming more critical. The standard of Lyceum lectures has been raised very considerably within a few years, and lecturers who would have given full satisfaction not long since, are “voted bores” at present. This is certainly a good indication, and shows that Lyceums have accomplished an important work. We doubt if twenty years ago such lecturers as Professors [Louis Rodolphe] Agassiz, Guyon, and Rogers, would have been appreciated by popular audiences.—But now they instruct and delight great multitudes.

  In regard to Mr. Thoreau, we are glad to hear that he is about issuing a book, which will contain these lectures, and will enable us to judge better their merit.

(Transcendental Log, 37; Studies in the American Renaissance, 1995, 166-167)
3 March 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau completes the survey of 27 February (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Surveys in the Concord Free Public Library, 11; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).

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