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Emerson read a few unpublished notes on Thoreau, made years before, I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