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MUCH do they wrong our Henry wise and kind,
Morose who name thee, cynical to men,
Forsaking manners civil and refined

To build thyself in Walden woods a den, —
Then flout society, flatter the rude hind.

We better knew thee, loyal citizen!

Thou, friendship's all-adventuring pioneer,
Civility itself wouldst civilize:

Whilst braggart boors, wavering 'twixt rage and fear,
Slave hearths lay waste, and Indian huts surprise,
And swift the Martyr's gibbet would uprear:
Thou hail'dst him great whose valorous emprise
Orion's blazing belt dimmed in the sky, —
Then bowed thy unrepining head to die.

A. BRONSON ALCOTT.

CONCORD, January, 1882.

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HENRY D. THOREAU.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND FAMILY.

THERE died in a city of Maine, on the river Penobscot, late in the year 1881, the last member of a family which had been planted in New England a little more than a hundred years before, by a young tradesman from the English island of Jersey, and had here produced one of the most characteristic American and New English men of genius whom the world has yet seen. This lady, Miss Maria Thoreau, was the last child of John Thoreau, the son of Philip Thoreau and his wife, Marie le Galais, who, a hundred years ago, lived in the parish of St. Helier, in Jersey. This John Thoreau was born in that parish, and baptized there in the Anglican church, in April, 1754; he emigrated to New England about 1773,

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