(Rat ute IRotes: 
Ube Selbome Society’s flbaga3tne 
No. 12. DECEMBER 15, 1890. Vol. I. 
THOREAU. 
HOREAU has been derided as a man of affectations, 
and egregious egotism. Certainly some of his acts and 
words suggest the poseur. A man who sets up as 
hermit less than two miles from his native town, and 
near a highway, who aggressively declares his personal relations 
with Nature to be of more interest than his relations with human 
society, is liable to the charge of playing for effect. 
He was, however, in the main lines of his conduct, of singular 
sincerity. Incidentally (by self-confession an uncurbed lover of 
paradox) it may be allowed it pleased him to make people 
stare. As for his egotism, it must be remembered that the only 
certainty which a transcendentalist recognises is “ the ego.” 
Henry David Thoreau was born at Concord, Massachusetts,, 
in 1817. He was of mixed French, Scotch, and English an- 
cestry. His father was a pencil maker. He himself learned 
how to make pencils, and after his father’s death carried on 
the business in a fashion. He also practised surveying. But 
his attention to business was occasional only. He, early in life, 
definitely decided that Nature was the mistress he must serve, 
and as a few peas and beans and water sufficed his bodily 
desires, his mistress had little cause for jealousy. Thoreau 
maintained that six weeks’ labour produced enough for a year’s 
need. 
He habitually avoided the society of his fellow-men and was 
under little obligation to others for his intellectual equipment. 
To this, however, an (exception, and it is a large one), must be 
made. He and Emerson were great friends, and the seed of Emer- 
son’s sowing fell on friendly soil. For sometime in his earlier man- 
hood he lived in Emerson’s house. During this visit Emerson wrote 
to Carlyle : “ Henry Thoreau is full of melodies and inventions.” 
