Octavius Brooks Frothingham

“ Thoreau afterward led a literary life, writing, lecturing, reading, and meeting his modest physical needs by surveying, pencil-making, engineering, and carpentering. He was never married, and never left Concord except for a lecturing-tour, or a pedestrian excursion. Cities he disliked; civilization he did not believe in. Nature was his passion, and the wilder it was the more he loved it. ”

“ In English poetry he preferred Milton to Shakespeare, and was more familiar with the writers of the 17th century than with modern men. He was no mean poet himself; in fact, he possessed the essential quality of the poet — a soaring imagination. He possessed an eye and an ear for beauty, and had he been gifted with the power of musical expression, would have been distinguished. No complete collection of his pieces has ever been made or could be, but fragments are exquisite. Emerson said that his poem on “Smoke” surpassed any by Simonides. ”

“ But for extraordinary strength in youth, a buoyant temperament, love of fun and jest, fondness for work, moderation in eating and drinking, sufficient sleep, exercise in the open air, and capacity for natural enjoyment, such excessive labor must have exhausted even his vitality. ”

“ He built on Emerson's land, though he had wished to build elsewhere. The house had no lock to the door, no curtain to the window. It belonged to nature as much as to man, and to all men as much as to any one. When Thoreau left it, it was bought by a Scotch gardener, who carried it off a little way and used it as a cottage. Then a farmer bought it, moved it still farther away, and converted it into a tool-house. A pile of stones marks the site of Thoreau's hut. ”

“ Besides his work as a critic, in which he endeavored to raise the level of literary achievement and encourage talent, George Ripley was the friend of aspiring young men, poets, prose-writers, thinkers, without regard to creed or nationality. ”

“ Watts's hymns, even when he was writing philosophical articles for the “Tribune,” and worshipping in New York with an independent society of the most liberal type. He was graduated at Harvard in 1823, the first scholar in a class that included men of some intellectual distinction. His only rival was John P. Robinson, who might have outstripped him, but was suspended for the part he took in a “rebellion,” and so lost his degree. At Cambridge young Ripley was known as an excellent scholar, especially in languages and literature. ”

“ No doubt he was helped by the reform movements of the time, the love of poverty played its part, the natural sympathy with an outcast centred on him, the passion for controversy drew many, and the heretics saw their opportunity. ”

“ John Parker, commanded the company of minute-men that were fired on by the British troops on 19 April, 1775. Theodore was the youngest of eleven children. From the father, a Unitarian and Federalist, he inherited independence of mind, courage, and love of speculation; from his mother, depth of religious feeling. The family were poor, and the boy was brought up to labor on the farm. At the age of six he was sent to the district school, which was then taught by young students from Harvard. ”

“ Ripley's death, and lives in Agen, France. The union with Mr. Ripley was entirely happy; the new life was bright and prosperous. He travelled abroad, saw many people, lived in the world, did a vast amount of literary labor, was hearty and cheerful, the honored centre of a brilliant intellectual circle. ”

“ Here he gradually became known as an iconoclast. He was at West Roxbury about seven years, until February, 1845. During that time the Unitarian controversy was begun, the overworked student had passed a year in Europe, examining, meditating, resolving, clearing his purpose, and making sure of his calling, and the future career of the “heresiarch” was pretty well marked out. In January, 1845, a small company of gentlemen met and passed a resolution “that the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be heard in Boston.” ”

“ He knew about them as he knew about everything, but his power was moral and religious, and it was inseparable from his temperament, which was human and practical on the side of social experiment. He bequeathed his library of 13,000 volumes to the Boston public library. He was a prolific author, publishing books, pamphlets, sermons, essays without number, but never with a literary, always with a philanthropic, intention. His publications include “Miscellaneous Writings” (Boston, 1843) ; “Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and Popular Theology” (1852) ; “Occasional Sermons and Speeches” (2 vols., 1852) ”

“ The family being in humble circumstances, the father was assisted in paying his small expenses by the boy's aunts, his elder sister, who was then teaching, the beneficiary fund of the college, and Henry's own exertions at school-keeping. ”

“ There was the same earnestness in the cause of humanity, but now his aim was to elevate the intellectual standard, refine the taste, purify the sentiments of the community. In 1865 he married Augusta Schlossberger, a young widow, German by birth, Parisian by education. ”

“ In March, 1831, he became assistant teacher in a private school in Boston, and toiled ten hours a day. In 1832 he undertook a private school at Watertown. There he remained ten years, becoming intimate with Convers Francis, the large-minded Unitarian minister there, reading his books, teaching in his Sunday-school with Lydia Cabot, whom he afterward married, and working his way toward the ministry. ”