274 



THE FEENCH BLOOD IN AMEEICA 



A Self-Char- 

 acterization 



A Pen 

 Portrait 



Poem on the 

 Sea 



mercautile part of it was begun by myself alone. I am a 

 Schoolmaster, a private Tutor, a Surveyor, a Gardener, a 

 Farmer, a Painter (I mean a House Painter), a Carpen- 

 ter, a Mason, a Day-labourer, a Pencil-maker, a Writer, 

 and sometimes a Poetaster. . . . My steadiest em- 

 ployment is to keep myself at the top of my condition, 

 and ready for whatever may turn up in heaven or ou 

 earth." 



Thoreau maintained sincerity to be chief of all virtues, 

 and may be called a Yankee stoic. He held the old 

 stoical maxim that all places are the same to the wise 

 man, and that 'Hhe best place for each is where he 

 stands." On the same principle, being asked at table 

 what dish he preferred, he is said to have answered, 

 "The nearest." He was a radical abolitionist, and a 

 patriotic American. His writings have given him high 

 rank among literary men, and his influence abides. 

 Ellery Channing, an intimate friend, thus describes his 

 appearance : 



"His face, once seen, could not be forgotten. The 

 features were quite marked : the nose aquiline, or very 

 Eoman, like one of the portraits of Csesar ; large, over- 

 hanging brow above the deepest-set blue eyes that could 

 be seen, in certain lights, and in other gray — eyes ex- 

 pressive of all shades of feeling, but never weak or near- 

 sighted ; the forehead not unusually broad or high, full 

 of concentrated energy or purpose ; the mouth with 

 prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and thought 

 when silent, and giving out when open a stream of the 

 most varied and unusual and instructive sayings. His 

 whole figure had an active earnestness, as if he had no 

 moment to waste." New England and America needed 

 just such an influence as this scholar and genius of French 

 descent exerted. 



Space forbids quotations that would show Thoreau' s 

 pithy and witty prose style, and we can give but a single 



