!

he was called judge." As an example of
childish fortitude, it is related that he car
ried his pet chickens for sale to the tavern-
keeper in a basket; whereupon Mr. Wesson
told him to stop a minute,' and, in order
to return the basket promptly, took the
darlings out, and wrung their necks, one by
one, before the boy's eyes, who wept in-
wardly, but did not budge. Having a
knack at whittling, and being asked by a
schoolmate to make him a bow and arrow,
young Henry refused, not deigning to give
the reason,
that he had no knife.
"So
through life," says Channing, "he steadily
declined trying or pretending to do what
he had no means to execute, yet forbore
explanations." He was a sturdy and kindly
playmate, whose mirthful tricks are yet re-
membered by those who frolicked with him,
and he always abounded with domestic af-
fection. While in college he once asked
his mother what profession she would have
him choose. She said, pleasantly, "You
can buckle on your knapsack, dear, and
roam abroad to seek your fortune; but
the thought of leaving home and forsaking
Concord made the tears roll down his

6

cheeks. Then his sister Helen, who was standing by, says Channing, "tenderly put her arm around him and kissed him, saying, No, Henry, you shall not go; you shall stay at home and live with us. And this, indeed, he did, though he made one or two efforts to seek his fortune for a time elsewhere.

999

His reading had been wide and constant while at school, and after he entered college at the age of sixteen. His room in Cambridge was in Hollis Hall; his instructors were such as he found there, but in rhetoric he profited much by the keen intelligence of Professor Channing, an uncle of his future friend and biographer, Ellery Channing. I think he also came in contact, while in college, with that singular poet, Jones Very, of Salem. He was by no means unsocial in college, though he did not form such abiding friendships as do many young men. He graduated in 1837. His expenses at Cambridge, which were very moderate, compared with what a poor scholar must now pay to go through college, were paid in part by his father, in part by his aunts and his elder sister, Helen, who

had already begun to teach school; and for the rest he depended on his own efforts and the beneficiary funds of the college, in which he had some little share. I have understood that he received the income of the same modest endowment which had been given to William and Ralph Waldo Emerson when in college, some years before; and in other ways the generous thought of that most princely man, Waldo Emerson, was not idle in his behalf, though he knew Thoreau then only as the studious son of a townsman, who needed a friend at court. What Mr. Emerson wrote to Josiah Quincy, who was then president of Harvard College, in behalf of Henry Thoreau does not appear, except from the terms of old Quincy's reply; but we may infer it. Thoreau had the resource of school-keeping in the country towns, during the college vacation and the extra vacation that a poor scholar could claim; and this brought him, in 1835, to an acquaintance with that elder scholar, Brownson, who afterwards became a Catholic doctor of theology. He left college one winter to teach school at Canton, near Boston, where he was examined by

Rev. Orestes A. Brownson, then a Protestant minister in Canton. He studied German and boarded with Mr.Brownson while he taught the school. In 1836, he records in his journal that he "went to New York with father, peddling." In his senior year, 1836-37, he was ill for a time, and lost rank with his instructors by his indifference to the ordinary college motives for study. This fact, and also that he was a beneficiary of the college, further appears from the letter of President Quincy to Mr. Emerson, as follows:

"CAMBRIDGE, 25th June, 1837.

"MY DEAR SIR, Your view concerning Thoreau is entirely in consent with that which I entertain. His general conduct has been very satisfactory, and I was willing and desirous that whatever falling off there had been in his scholarship should be attributable to his sickness. He had, however, imbibed some notions concerning emulation and college rank which had a natural tendency to diminish his zeal, if not his exertions. His instructors were impressed with the conviction that he was indifferent, even to a degree that was faulty, and that they could not recommend him, consistent with the rule by which they are usually governed in relation to beneficiaries. I

have always entertained a respect for and interest in him, and was willing to attribute any apparent neglect or indifference to his ill health rather than to wilfulness. I obtained from the instructors the authority to state all the facts to the Corporation, and submit the result to their discretion. This I did, and that body granted twenty-five dollars, which was within ten, or at most fifteen, dollars of any sum he would have received, had no objection been made. There is no doubt that, from some cause, an unfavorable opinion has been entertained, since his return after his sickness, of his disposition to exert himself. To what it has been owing may be doubtful. I appreciate very fully the goodness of his heart and the strictness. of his moral principle; and have done as much for him as, under the circumstances, was possible. Very respectfully, your humble servant,

"Rev. R. W. EMERSON."

"JOSIAH QUINCY.

It is possible the college faculty may have had other grounds of distrust in Thoreau's case. On May 30, 1836, his classmate Peabody wrote him the following letter from Cambridge, — Thoreau being then at home, for some reason, from which we

may infer that the sober youth was not averse to such deeds as are there related: