The Life of Henry David Thoreau |
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Alcott already American appearance Atlantic Monthly birds Blake Boston brother civilisation Concord Concord river course death Dial diary doctrines early Ellery Channing Emerson England essay excursions expressed eyes F. B. Sanborn favourite feel forest friends genius Greeley habit Hawthorne Hawthorne's hear Henry David Thoreau Henry Thoreau Horace Greeley human humour Indian John Brown journal labour lecture less letter literary live Magazine Maine Woods Margaret Fuller Massachusetts miles mind mystic Nathaniel Hawthorne nature never night occasion passages perhaps philosopher poems poet poetry Putnam's Magazine R. L. Stevenson recognised record remarked Richard Jefferies Ricketson river Sanborn says Channing says Thoreau seemed seen sense sister society spirit spring strong summer sympathy tell things Thoreau's character thought tion tone took transcendental transcendentalist true village volume Walden Pond walk Week wild words writings wrote
Popular passages
Page 34 - Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high, As I can now discern with this clear eye. And next in value, which thy kindness lends, That I may greatly disappoint my friends, Howe'er they think or hope that it may be, They may not dream how thou'st distinguished me. That my weak hand may equal my firm faith, And my life practise more than my tongue saith; That my low conduct may not show, Nor my relenting lines, That I thy purpose...
Page 236 - Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity ! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand ; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.
Page 195 - It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him.
Page 91 - Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness...
Page 245 - There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
Page 26 - I have thoroughly tried schoolkeeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure.
Page 39 - So was I taken unawares by this, I quite forgot my homage to confess; Yet now am forced to know, though hard it is, I might have loved him had I loved him less.
Page 44 - By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When...
Page 100 - I never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the evening sounds of the village ; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles...
Page 251 - His power of observation seemed to indicate additional senses. He saw as with microscope, heard as with eartrumpet, and his memory was a photographic register of all he saw and heard.