Henry D. Thoreau, Isaac T. Hecker

“ The selfsame quality in Hecker, on the contrary, took the subtle and illusive shape of obedience to an Inward Voice, never suspected of being his own, always projected as a Brocken spectre upon the clouds, not unlike the dæmon of Socrates, and which thus wore the guise of self-effacement and pious submission to the immediate and almost articulate behests of a divine authority. ”

“ I prefer at least to go this way before going farther in the woods. The past let us take with us; we reverence, we love it; but forget not that our eyes are in our face, set to the beautiful unimagined future. ”

“ It would be folly to sit still and starve from mere emptiness, but to leave behind the casement in battling for some hidden idea is an altitude beyond conception, a monument more durable than the chisel can sculpture. ”

“ Nature was his heaven, and the present moment his immortality. Hear what he writes in his Journal, under date of November 1, 1858, less than four years before his death: "There is no more tempting novelty than this new November. No going to Europe or to another world is to be named with it. Give eo the old familiar walk, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith which does not know when it is beaten. We'll go nutting once more. We'll pluck the nut of the world and crack it in the winter evenings. ”

“ At first thought, and in the light of later years, which revealed such a wide difference in the characters and careers of these two remarkable men, it seems surprising that Henry Thoreau and Isaac Hecker could ever have got into any personal relation whatever. But at the time of this little correspondence they were both young; and youth, no less than misery, acquaints us sometimes with strange bedfellows. ”

“ It is, to work our passage to Europe, and to walk, work, and beg if needs be, as far when there as we are inclined to do. We wish to see how it looks, and to court difficulties; for we feel an unknown depth of untried virgin strength which we know of no better way at the present time to call into activity and so dispose of. ”

“ But I find that in every man there are certain things within him which are beyond the ken and counsel of others. The age is so effeminate that it is too timid to give heroic counsel. It neither will enter the kingdom of heaven nor have others to do so. I feel, and believe you feel so too, that to doubt the ability to realize such a thought is only worthy of a smile and pity. We feel ourself mean in conceiving such a feasible thing, and would keep it silent. This is not sufficient self-abandonment for our being, scarce enough to affect it. To die is easy, scarce worth a thought ”

“ The conceivable is possible; it is in harmony with the inconceivable we should act. Our true life is in the can-not. To do what we can do is to do nothing, is death. Silence is much more respectable than repetition. ”

“ It will inevitably be judged from opposite points of view. It is idle to talk of more or less where the difference is one not of degree but of kind.
However, with aims and means so diverse and exclusive as to be distinctly antagonistic, Thoreau and Hecker possessed in common one predominant characteristic, namely, a redoubtable egoism—using the term in no disparaging sense, something that suggests what is called in physics the hydrostatic paradox, in virtue of which the smallest single drop of water holds its own against the ocean. ”

“ If, though, I am inclined to bow more lowly to the spiritual hero than to the exhibition of great physical strength, still not all of that primitive heroic blood of our forefathers has been lost before it reached our veins. ”

“ They see the comet from the northwest coast just as plainly as we do, and the same stars through its tail. Take the shortest way round and stay at home. A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx, like an acorn in its cup. ”

“ We desire to go without purse or staff, depending upon the all-embracing love of God, Humanity, and the spark of courage imprisoned in us. Have we the will, we have the strong arms, hard hands to work with, and sound feet to stand upon and walk with. ”

“ I like well the ring of your last maxim—"It is only the fear of death makes us reason of impossibilities." And but for fear, death itself is an impossibility.
Believe me, I can hardly let it end so. If you do not go soon let me hear from you again.
Yrs. in great haste,
Henry D. Thoreau. (Subjoined note, apparently in Hecker's handwriting:—"The proposition made to Thoreau was to take nothing with us, work our passage across the Atlantic, and so through England, France, Germany and Italy. I. T. H.")
It was not permitted the youthful enthusiasts to "compare notes at last." ”

“ The heavens shall be our vaulted roof, and the green earth beneath our bed and for all other furniture purposes. These are free and may be so used. What can hinder us from going, but our bodies, and shall they do it? ”

“ Theatres and all other sight-seeing are puppet shows in comparison. I will take another walk to the cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, lie out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. ”

“ Hecker to Thoreau.
Henry Thoreau: It was not altogether the circumstance of our immediate physical nearness, though this may have [been] the consequence of a higher affinity, that inclined us to commune with each other. This I am fully sensible [of] since our separation. Oftentimes we observe ourselves to be passive or co-operative agents of profounder principles than we at the time even dream of. ”