It is like cutting a tree from its roots. Wasson had many a hard
argument with him on this point, and tried to show him that customs are
the good logic of the human race: but it was too late. However, logic is
one thing and character another.
The best eulogy of Thoreau is to be found in Emerson's poetry. He is
evidently the subject of the beautiful little poem called "Forbearance."
The opening lines,
"Thou who hast named the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk;
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse;--"
This describes the hermit of blue Walden exactly. A large portion of
"Woodnotes" is devoted to an account of his pilgrimage in the forests
of Maine; and the ode to "Friendship" must have been inspired either
by him or Carlyle.
"I fancied he was fled--
And after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness,
Like daily sunrise there."
He delivered a lecture one winter before the Concord lyceum on wild
apple-trees. The subject made his audience laugh, but their laughter
was of short duration. The man who had lived there so long unknown was
at last revealed before them, It was the best lecture of the season,
and at its close there was long continued applause.
HAWTHORNE.
The literary celebrities of Concord, with the exception of Thoreau, were
not indigenous. Emerson may have gone there from an hereditary tendency,
but more likely because his cousins the Ripleys dwelt there.
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