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INTRODUCTORY. 
-♦— 
Henry David Thoreatt was born in Con¬ 
cord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817, and died 
there May 6, 1862. Most of his life was spent 
in that town, and most of the localities referred 
to in this volume are to be found there. His 
Journal, from which the following selections 
were made, was bequeathed to me by his sister 
Sophia, who died October 7, 1876, at Bangor, 
Maine. Before it came into my possession I 
had been in the habit of borrowing volumes of 
it from time to time, and thus continuing an 
intercourse with its author which I had en¬ 
joyed, through occasional visits and correspond¬ 
ence, for many years before his death, and 
which I regard as perhaps the highest privilege 
of my life. 
In reading the Journal for my own satisfac¬ 
tion, I had sometimes been wont to attend each 
day to what had been written on the same day 
of the month in some other year; desiring 
thus to be led to notice, in my walks, the 
phenomena which Thoreau noticed, so to be 
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