Henry D. Thoreau 1

Henry D. Thoreau 1

Henry D. Thoreau

 

Author: F. B. Sanborn

PREFACE

When, in 1879, I was asked by my friend Charles Dudley Warner to write

the biography of Thoreau which follows, I was by no means unprepared.

I had known this man of genius for the last seven years of his too

short life; had lived in his family, and in the house of his neighbor

across the way, Ellery Channing, his most intimate friend outside

of that family; and had assisted Channing in the preparation and

publication of his "Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist,"--the first full

biography which appeared. Not very long after Thoreau's death Channing

had written me these sentences, with that insight of the future which

he often displayed:

 

"That justice can be done to our deceased brother by me, of

course I do not think. But to you and to me is intrusted

the care of his immediate fame. I feel that my part is not

yet done, and cannot be without your aid. My little sketch

must only serve as a note and advertisement that such a

man lived,--that he did brave work, which must yet be given

to the world. In the midst of all the cold and selfish men

who knew this brave and devoted scholar and genius, why

should not you be called on to make some sacrifices, even

if it be to publish my sketch?"

 

This I was ready to do in 1864; and it was through my means that the

volume, then much enlarged by Channing, was published in 1873, and

again, with additions and corrections, in 1902.

 

I had also the great advantage of hearing from the mother and sister

of Henry the affectionate side of his domestic life,--which indeed I

had witnessed, both in his health and in his long mortal illness. From

Emerson, who had a clear view of Thoreau's intellect and his moral

nature, I derived many useful suggestions, though not wholly agreeing

with him in some of his opinions. In March, 1878, after hearing

Emerson read a few unpublished notes on Thoreau, made years before, I

called on him one evening, and thus entered the event in my journal:--

 

"I was shown several of Thoreau's early papers; one a

commentary on Emerson's 'Sphinx,' and another from his own

translation of 'The Seven Against Thebes,' written at

William Emerson's house on Staten Island in 1843. Of this

episode in Thoreau's life (his tutorship for six months

of William Emerson's three sons), Emerson told me that

his brother and Henry were not men that could get along

together: 'each would think whatever the other did was

out of place.' This was said to imply that Thoreau's poem

'The Departure' could not have been written on his leaving

Castleton in Staten Island. I had shown Emerson these

verses (first printed by me, at Sophia Thoreau's wish, in

the Boston 'Commonwealth' of 1863), whereupon he said:--

 

"I think Thoreau had always looked forward to authorship

as his work in life, and finding that he could write prose

well, he soon gave up writing verse, in which he was not

willing to be patient enough to make the lines smooth and

flowing. These verses are smoother than he usually wrote;

but I have now no recollection of seeing them before, nor

of any circumstances in which they may have been written.'

Alluding to Judge Hoar's marked dislike of Thoreau, Emerson

said, 'There was no _bow_ in Henry; he never sought to

please his hearers or his friends.' Thomas Cholmondeley,

the nephew of Scott's friend Richard Heber, meeting Henry

at dinner at Emerson's, to whom Cholmondeley had letters in

1854, and expressing to his host the wish to see more of

him, Emerson said he told the Englishman, 'If you wish to

see Thoreau, go and board at his mother's house; she will

be glad to take you in, and there you can meet him every

day. He did so,' added Emerson, 'and you know the result.'

... This led to further mention of Mrs. Thoreau, who,

Emerson said, 'was a person of sharp and malicious wit,' of

whose sayings he read me some instances from his Journals.

Among these was her remark to Mrs. Emerson, 'Henry is very

_tolerant_'; adding 'Mr. Emerson has been talking so much

with Henry that he has learnt Henry's way of thinking and

talking.' Emerson went on to me:--

 

"'I had known Henry slightly when in college; the

scholarship from which he drew an income while there (a

farm at Pullen Point in Chelsea) was the one that I and

my brothers, William and Edward, had enjoyed while we

were at college. But my first intimate acquaintance with

Henry began after his graduation in 1837. Mrs. Brown, my

wife's sister, who then boarded with the Thoreau family in

the Parkman house, where the Library now stands, used to

bring me his verses (the "Sic Vita" and others), and tell

me of his entries in his Journal. Here is the Index to my

Journals, in which Thoreau's name appears perhaps fifty

times, perhaps more.'"

 

Thus far my Journal of 1878.

 

I was myself introduced to Thoreau by Emerson, March 28, 1855, in

the Concord Town Hall, one evening, just before a lecture there by

Emerson. From that time until Henry's death, May 6, 1862, I saw

him every few days, unless he or I was away from Concord, and for

more than two years I dined with him daily at his mother's table,

in the house opposite to Ellery Channing's. I thus came to know all

the surviving members of his kindred,--his eccentric uncle, Charles

Dunbar, his two aunts on each side, Jane and Maria Thoreau, and Louisa

and Sophia Dunbar (both older than Mrs. Thoreau), and the descendants

in Maine of his aunt Mrs. Billings, long since dead. His sister Helen

and his brother John I never knew, but learned much about them from

their mother and sister; for neither Henry nor his father often spoke

of them. Sophia also placed in my hands after Henry's death several of

his poems, which I printed in the "Commonwealth," and Emerson gave me

other manuscripts of Thoreau which had lodged with him while he was

editing the "Dial." He had urged Sophia to leave all the MSS. with

me, but her pique against Channing at the time prevented this,--she

knowing him to be intimate with me.

 

With all this preparation, I received from Mr. Blake, to whom Sophia

had bequeathed them in 1876, the correspondence of Thoreau and his

college essays, with some other papers of Henry's and his own, but

without the replies from the family to Henry's affectionate letters.

Even his own to his mother and sisters had been withheld from

publication by Emerson in 1865, when a small collection of Thoreau's

Letters and Poems was edited by Emerson. This omission Sophia

regretted, as she told me; and finding them now in my hands, though I

made use of their contents in writing the biography, I withheld them

from full publication, foreseeing that I should probably have occasion

to edit the letters in full at some later time; and I made but sparing

use of the early essays.

 

On the other hand, I perceived that the character and genius of

Thoreau could not be well understood unless some knowledge was had

of the Concord farmers, scholars, and citizens, among whom he had

spent his days, and who have furnished a background for that scene

of authorship which the small town of Concord has presented for now

more than seventy years. Therefore, having access to the records and

biographies of the Concord "Social Circle," then in preparation for

the public, and to many other records of the past in New England, I

sketched therefrom the character of our interesting community, which

gave color and tone to the outlines of this thoughtful scholar's

career. But I held back for the "Familiar Letters" the more intimate

details of Thoreau's self-devoted life, and did not draw heavily on

the thirty-odd volumes of the Journals, to which, at Worcester, Mr.

Blake gave me free access. It was then his purpose to bring out these

Journals much earlier and more fully than was done, until Messrs.

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. published their admirable edition in fourteen

volumes, a few years ago, after Mr. Blake's death.

 

The success of my biography, written under these limitations, has

more than justified reasonable expectations. It was popular from the

first, and is still widely read, and called for by a generation of

readers quite distinct from those for whom it was originally written.

Since the spring of 1882, when it was published, many details of

Thoreau's life and that of his ancestors have become known by an

examination of his copious manuscripts, of the papers of his Loyalist

ancestors, and his father's relatives in the island of Jersey; and

by the publication of some twenty-five volumes from Thoreau's own

hand. He never employed an amanuensis, and he seems to have carefully

preserved the large mass of his manuscripts which accumulated during

his literary life of some twenty-five years. The exceptions to this

remark were the copies of his earlier verses, which he told me, in his

last illness, he had destroyed, because they did not meet Emerson's

approval, and those pages of his Journals which he had issued in

printed books or magazine articles. Fragments of his youthful verses

were kept, however, by some of his family, and still exist. From all

these sources many things have come to light concerning his ancestry

and the minor events of his life, which I hope eventually to give the

world in a final biography that will serve as a sequel to this one.

The greatly enhanced reputation which Thoreau now enjoys, as compared

with his fame in 1882, seems to warrant a detail which was not then

needful, and which even the "Familiar Letters" does not furnish.

Much misconception of his character and the facts of his life still

prevails; and singular statements have been made in text-books, as to

his origin and training. One authority described Thoreau as descended

from "farmer folk" in Connecticut, who were recent immigrants from

France. So far as I know, not a single ancestor of his ever dwelt in

Connecticut; they were all merchants; and though his Thoreau ancestors

spoke French, or a patois of it, in Jersey, there is no evidence that

any of them had lived in France for more than five centuries.

 

This initial authentic biography, with its few errors corrected, now

comes forth in a new edition, which will long be found useful, in the

manner indicated, and I hope, may be received as the earlier edition

has been, with all the favor which its modest aim deserves.