Nathaniel Hawthorne writes in his journal:
Hawthorne also writes in his journal on 8 April:
The New-York Daily Tribune publishes a letter to the editor from a “Timothy Thorough”:
How to Live—Mr. Thoreau’s Example.
To the Editor of the Tribune:
I notice in your paper of this morning a strong commendation of one Mr. Thoreau for going out into the woods and living in a hut all by himself at the rate of about $45 per annum, in order to illustrate the value of the soul. Having always found in The Tribune a friend of sociability and neighborly helping-each-other-along, I felt a little surprise at seeing such a performance held up as an example for the young men of this country, and supposed I must have mistaken the sense of your article. Accordingly I called in my wife, Mrs. Thorough, and we studied it over together, and came to the conclusion that you really believed the Concord hermit had done a fine thing. Now I am puzzled, and write in a friendly way to ask for a little light on this peculiar philosophy. Mrs. T. is more clear in her mind than I am. She will have it that the young man is either a whimsy or else a good-for-nothing, selfish, crab-like sort of chap, who tries to shirk the duties whose hearty and honest discharge is the only thing that in her view entitles a man to be regarded as a good example. She declares that nobody has a right to live for himself alone, away from the interests, the affections, and the sufferings of his kind. Such a way of going on, she says, is not living, but a cold and snailish kind of existence, which, as she maintains, is both infernal and internally stupid.
Yours, truly, TIMOTHY THOROUGH.
Le Roy Place, April 2, 1849.
Reply.
Mr. Thorough is indeed in a fog—in fact, we suspect there is a mistake in his name, and that he must have been changed at nurse for another boy whose true name was Shallow. Nobody has proposed or suggested that it becomes everybody to go off into the woods, each build himself a hut and live hermit-like, on the vegetable products of his very moderate labor. But there is a large class of young men who aspire to Mental Culture through Study, Reading, Reflection, &c. These are too apt to sacrifice their proper independence in the pursuit of their object—to run in debt, throw themselves on the tender mercies of some patron, relative, Education Society, or something of the sort, or to descend into the lower deep of roping out a thin volume of very thin poems, to be inflicted on a much-enduring public, or to importune some one for a sub-Editorship or the like. Now it does seem to us that Mr. Thoreau has set all his brother aspirants to self-culture, a very wholesome example, and shown them how, by chastening their physical appetites, they may preserve thier proper independence without starving their souls. When they shall have conned that lesson, we trust, with Mr. Thorough otherwise Shallow’s permission, he will give them another. [Ed. Trib.
Thoreau writes in his journal:
10 A. M.—Down river in boat to Bedford, with C. [William Ellery Channing] A windy, but clear, sunny day; cold wind from northwest . . . River has risen from last rains, and we cross the Great Meadows, scaring up many ducks at a great distance . . . A hawk above Ball’s Hill . . . Walk in and about Tarbell’s Swamp . . . Crossed to Bedford side to see where [they] had been digging out (probably) a woodchuck. How handsome the river from those hills! The river southwest of the Great Meadows a sheet of sparkling molten silver, with broad lagoons parted from it by curving lines of low bushes; to the right or northward now, at 2 or 3 P. M., a dark blue, with small smooth, light edgings, firm plating, under the lee of the shore . . . Approach near to Simon Brown’s ducks, on river . . . As we stand on Nawshawtuct at 5 P. M., looking over the meadows, I doubt if there is a town more adorned by its river than ours.
Concord, Mass. William Ellery Channing writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
Thoreau writes in his journal:
I skinned my duck yesterday and stuffed it to-day. It is wonderful that a man, having undertaken such an enterprise, ever persevered in it to the end, and equally wonderful that he succeeded. To skin a bird, drawing backward, wrong side out, over the legs and wings down to the base of the mandibles! Who would expect to see a smooth feather again? This skin was very tender on the breast. I should have done better had I stuffed it at once or turned it back before the skin became stiff. Look out not to cut the ear and eyelid.
Thoreau writes in his journal:
P.M.—Up river in boat.
The first boats I have seen are out to-day, after muskrats, etc. Saw one this morning breaking its way far through the meadow, in the ice that had formed in the night. How independent they look who have come forth for a day’s excursion! . . . At the Hubbard Bridge, we hear the incessant note of the phoebe,—pevet, pe-e-vet, pevee’,—its innocent, somewhat impatient call . . .
New Bedford, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal:
From Woodlawn, New Bedford, Amos Bronson Alcott writes to his wife:
Chicago, Illinois. Benjamin B. Wiley writes to Thoreau:
In January I was in Providence a short time and had a walls with Newcomb at Narragansett Bay. Since you heard from me I have learned more of him and I find your statements fall short of the truth. He has thrown light on doubts with which I was wrestling. Reading is useful but it may be long before one finds what he is in search of and when a man or a saint appears who can help us solve the problem we cannot be too grateful. This acquaintance is one of the results of my pregnant Concord visit. Then Emerson told me that if we needed each other we should be brought together. I have had some illustrations of this and perhaps accept the remark as irrefrangably true.
I want in this material atmosphere some breath from the hills of Concord. Will you favor me with a copy of the “Wild & Walking” Do not disappoint me. I want it for my own reading mainly, though I may sometimes read it to friends. I of course do not want it for publication. I trust I shall have a copy in your own hand
I have read much Plato; some of it with almost a wild delight. Many of the biographies I have read with equal or perhaps greater interest. I like to have principles illustrated by actual life. He (Carlyle) is a wondrous clear & reverent thinker. S for an obscure faulty style in him, I have yet to discover it.
Leaves of Grass I read and I appreciate Walt’s pure freedom & humanity
Plutarch’s Morals I have more recently commenced. This I shall take in gradually as I did the Iliad. I could have wished that in the letter those good enough fellows had been less ready to annihilate each other with big stones “such as two men could not now lift.” The morning of the 1st we had a hard storm of the Lake and I walked along the “much—resounding sea” for a long distance seeing it dash grandly against the pier. I wish you had been there with me.
Heroes & Hero Worship I intend to read soon. Montaigne I have read with much interest. I have given you those names to inquire whether you think of any other valuable books not too abstruse for me. Books of a half biographical character have great charm for me. I have read none of the German authors. I think Wilhelm Meister may be full of meaning to me. I hope Goethe is that great universal man that Carlyle accounts him. His auto-biography I suppose is valuable. Dont think I am reading at random. I have a place for all true thoughts on my own subjects. Now and then I return and read again and again my leading books so that they become my intimate friends and help me to test my own life. If it be not unfair to ask an author what he means I would inquire what I am to understand when in your list of employments given in Walden you say “I long ago lost a hound a bay-horse and a turtle-dove.” If I transgress let the question pass unnoticed.
For myself I make fictitious employments. I am not satisfied with much that I do. Exultingly should I hail that wherein I could give exercise to my best powers for an end of unquestionable value.
With one and only one here do I have really valuable hours. Rev R R Shippen. He is a true man—working, living, hoping, strong. I have not been to his church yet, wicked rebel that I am, but I may soon attend, though again I amy not In private however he tells me of his sermons and necessarily speaks to me as he could not in an assembly. He tells me that lately from “we are members one of another” he told the of their duties as members of a Christian church and threatened if he were not more zealously seconded to “shake off the dust from his feet and depart out of their city.” I am sorry that this is not mere rhetorical flourish. He will probably leave in the Fall as he must at any rate have rest.
Among other works you recommended some of Coleridge. I took up his books, but was so repelled by the Trinitarian dogmas that I read almost none. I am very sensitive to that theological dist. As a child I was kept in too much
Please give my love to Emerson. I trust he carried home pleasanter experiences than the measles
Your friend
B B Wiley
Thoreau writes in his journal:
P.M.—Up Assabet with Pratt.
Standing under the north side of the hill, I hear the rather innocent phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe of a fish hawk (for it is not a scream, but a rather soft and innocent note), and, looking up, see one come sailing from over the hill. The body looks quite short in proportion to the spread of the wings, which are quite dark or blackish above. IIe evidently has something in his talons. We soon after disturb him again, and, at length, after circling around over the hill and adjacent fields, he alights in plain sight on one of the half-dead white oaks on the top of the hill, where probably he sat before. As I look through my glass, he is perched on a large dead limb and is evidently standing on a fish (I had noticed something in his talons as lie flew), for he stands high and uneasily, finding it hard to keep his balance in the wind . . .
Thoreau writes in his journal:
As we were ascending the hill in the road beyond College Meadow, we saw the dust, etc., in the middle of the road at the top of the hill taken up by a small whirlwind . . .
Thoreau writes in his journal:
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