Henry David Thoreau

“ The immediate cause of this withdrawal of allegiance on the part of one who was in reality American to the backbone in his sympathies and predilections was the iniquity, as he conceived it, of the war then being waged by the United States on Mexico, in pursuance of their policy of annexing Texas, and fostering territorial disputes–an iniquity which made him declare that under such a Government the only place for an honest man was in prison. "Henry, why are you here?" said Emerson, in astonishment, when he visited his friend in the village prison. "Why are you not here?" ”

“ In his fine essay on "Life without Principle," he re-enforces those salutary though unpopular lessons of integrity and hardihood which form the moral of Walden, pointing out, with all the incisiveness of speech and felicity of illustration for which his style is conspicuous, the follies and sophisms which underlie the worldly wisdom on which much of our civilized life is based—the useless toil which is dignified with the name of industry; the degradation and loss of freedom by which a so-called "independency" is too often purchased ”

“ He unhesitatingly asserts the entire independence of the individual, in all matters where conscience is concerned, as opposed to those of mere expediency. "Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? ”

“ The further notion that the Walden experiment was designed to be "an entire independency of mankind," owes its origin not to Thoreau himself, but to the inventiveness of certain of his critics, who, being minded to prove him a fool, found it convenient to invest him gratuitously with the insignia of folly. ”

“ The conclusion of the whole matter brings us back to the lesson which Thoreau is never tired of repeating—the need of individuality and real personal development. "It is for want of a man," he tells us, in one of his epigrammatic, paradoxical utterances, "that there are so many men." Thoreau's gospel of social reform may perhaps be not unfairly summed up in one word—simplicity. ”

“ It is important to emphasize the fact that it is not civilization in general, but the particular vices incidental to civilization, against which his censure is directed. While recognising that the civilized state is preferable to the uncivilized, he yet maintains that the latter is free from certain evils by which the former is afflicted, and urges that "we may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage" of organized society. ”

“ But in reality there is no such conflict between simplicity of living and the higher civilization—indeed, a true refinement will never be realized until men have learned the wisdom and pleasure of the course which Thoreau inculcates. ”

“ I have lived for the last month—and I think that every man in Massachusetts capable of the sentiment of patriotism must have had a similar experience—with the sense of having suffered a vast and indefinite loss. ”

“ Thoreau deals with this question in his essay on "Slavery in Massachusetts," which was read as a lecture at Framingham on July 4th, 1854, and afterwards printed in the Liberator, the organ of abolition, which had been established by William Lloyd Garrison at Boston in 1831. In burning words, which retain their freshness and significance long after the details they treat of are forgotten, he denounces the selfishness and folly of those citizens of Massachusetts who could celebrate the national Independence Day a week after the rendition of an innocent man to slavery. ”

“ I think we should be men first, and subjects afterwards. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right." ”

“ Thoreau's anarchist principles, which play so important a part in the "Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers," were a direct outcome of this natural individualism. When quite a young man, he had been brought into collision, as he tells us in his essay on "Civil Disobedience," with that power of which he always remained a sworn enemy—the State—his refusal to pay the church-rate, enforced by the Massachusetts Government on the members of the various religious congregations, being the cause of the disagreement. ”

“ The charge of indifferentism is therefore a perfectly vague and pointless one, unless it be shown that the indifference complained of relates to matters of real and vital import; to be unconcerned about trifles is one thing, to neglect matters of conscience is another. Now Thoreau, as we learn from the statements of those who knew him intimately, was absolutely indifferent to many things which the man of the world holds dear ”

“ After a brief experience of school-keeping, he supported himself by pencil-making, land-surveying, and various odd pieces of handicraft, his singular aptness and dexterity enabling him to satisfy the few wants of his existence (for he deliberately minimised his wants in order to secure greater leisure and personal liberty) by a very small outlay of remunerative labour, and so to devote himself more freely to what he considered the real business of his life, the study of wild nature, which earned him the appropriate title of the "poet-naturalist." ”

“ The fate of the country does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning." At the same time it must be noted that he admits that many reforms are needed, and while asserting anarchism as the ideal of the future, does not deny that wise legislation may be advisable in the present. ”

“ He died at Concord, in 1862, of pulmonary consumption, the result of a cold caught while botanizing in severe winter weather.
Thoreau's singular personality has thus been described by Emerson. "Henry was homely in appearance, a rugged stone hewn from the cliff. I believe it is accorded to all men to be moderately homely. But he surpassed sex. He had a beautiful smile, and an earnest look. His character reminds me of Massillon. One could jeopard anything on him. A limpid man, a realist with caustic eyes that looked through all words and shows and bearing with terrible perception!" ”

“ Thoreau's anarchism is, in brief, the claim for the individual man of the right of free growth and natural development from within—the same claim that has been advanced in other words by Whitman, and Tolstoi, and Ibsen, and William Morris, and other prophets of democracy in the old world and the new. ”

“ Furthermore, there is good reason to suppose that the hut at Walden was used as a station on that great "Underground Railroad," by which so many slaves were assisted in their flight from the southern States to Canada. Thoreau himself mentions "one real runaway slave, whom he had helped to forward toward the north star," and his friend and biographer, Ellery Channing, has recorded that "not one slave alone was expedited to Canada by Thoreau's personal assistance." ”

“ His neighbors in the village thought him odd and whimsical, but his practical skill as a surveyor and in woodcraft was known to them. No man was his enemy, and some of the best were his fastest friends. ”

“ The character and opinions of Henry David Thoreau have for the most part been a stumbling-block to the judgment of his critics. As the early naturalists were puzzled to account for the peculiar structure of the bat, which did not readily adapt itself to their established system of classification, so the literary critics have been perplexed and baffled by the elusive qualities of this unique personality, who flits unclassified along the confines of civilization and wildness. One who was "bred to no profession; who never married ”

“ It was his opinion that "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone"; and his general attitude on this point may be gathered from that typical reply of his, when he was asked which dish he would prefer at table—"The nearest." ”

“ This essay, which was written after Brown's execution on Dec. 2nd, 1859 (on which day a memorial service was held in the Concord Town Hall by Emerson, Alcott, Sanborn, Thoreau, and other abolitionists [9] ) , is supplementary to the "Plea," and is of especial interest to students of Thoreau's character as clearly demonstrating the fallacy of regarding him as one whose affections were wholly devoted to nature to the exclusion of man. "For my part," he says, in reference to Brown's death, "I commonly attend more to nature than to man ”