HENRY D. TE (1817-1-65 BY JOHN BULK front of the second orge uch as possible; he was ve was born in Concord Mass ay the year round in field or e an, who carried a journal insta t home only such game as fa' ben complained that Fu »i over a fu'ch wider nld t was more offirmative, ad in spettare fot e. In 's Me, I' was my has possible; he v Is and ambiti 1s, and secmed i Threat was born in Concord A ged there in May 18 2, of co: sant , and probably spent more o Aretican man of letters. The br sante, ng, as he preferred to ca of e h day the year round in sorts nan, who carried a journ brought home only such game as ་་ HENRY D. THOREAU (1817-1862) BY JOHN BURROUGHS N THE front of the second order of American authors we must place Henry D. Thoreau. He had many qualities which would seem to entitle him to a place in the first order, with Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, Whitman; but he lacked at least one thing which these men possessed- he lacked breadth his sympathies were narrow; he did not touch his fellows at many points. It has been complained that Emerson was narrow too; but Emerson looked over a much wider field than Thoreau, had many more interests, was more affirmative, and in every way was a larger, more helpful spiritual force. In his life, Thoreau isolated himself from his fellows as much as possible; he was very scornful of ordinary human ends and ambitions, and seemed to set slight value upon the ordinary human affections. Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, July 12th, 1817, and died there in May 1862, of consumption; having seen forty-five years of life, and probably spent more of it in the open air than any other American man of letters. The business of his life was walking,- or sauntering, as he preferred to call it, and he aimed to spend half of each day the year round in field or wood. He was a new kind of sportsman, who carried a journal instead of a gun or trap, and who brought home only such game as falls to the eye of the poet and seer. Thoreau was of French extraction on his father's side, and English on his mother's. His intellectual traits were evidently from the former source, his moral traits from the latter. That love of the wild and savage, that crispness and terseness of expression, that playful exaggeration, and that radical revolutionary cry, were French; while his English blood showed itself more in his love of the homely, the austere, and his want of sociability. His grandfather, John Thoreau, was born in the isle of Guernsey, was a merchant in Boston; and died in Concord of consumption, in 1801. His father, also named John, after an unsuccessful mercantile career became a lead-pencil maker in Concord in 1823; and from that date to the time of his death in 1859, says Henry's biographer, "led a plodding, unambitious, and respectable life." Henry Thoreau |