"Henry Thoreau came in after my hours with the children, and we had a good deal of talk on the modes of popular influence. He read me a manuscript essay of his on 'Friendship,' which he has just written, and which I thought superior to anything I had heard."
To the same period or a little later belong those verses called "The Departure," which declare, under a similitude, Thoreau's relations with one family of his friends.
In 1843, when he first met Henry James, Lucretia Mott, and others who have since been famous, in the pleasant seclusion of Staten Island, he wrote a translation of the "Seven Against Thebes," which has never been printed, some translations from Pindar, printed in the "Dial," in 1844, and two articles for the New York "Democratic Review," called "Paradise to be Regained," and "The Landlord."
Thoreau left "a vast amount of manuscript," in the words of his sister, who was his literary executor until her death in 1876, when she committed her trust to his Worcester friend, Mr. Harrison Blake. She was aided in the revision and publication of the "Excursions," "Maine Woods," "Letters," and other volumes which she issued from 1862 to 1866, by Mr. Emerson, Mr. Channing, and other friends,—Mr. Emerson having undertaken that selection of letters and poems from his mass of correspondence and his preserved verses, which appeared in 1865. His purpose, as he said to Miss Thoreau, was to exhibit in that volume "a most perfect piece of stoicism," and he fancied that she had "marred his classic statue" by inserting some tokens of natural affection which the domestic letters showed. Miss Thoreau said that "it did not seem quite honest to Henry" to leave out such passages; Mr. Fields, the publisher, agreed with her, and a few of them were retained. His correspondence, as a whole, is much more affectionate, and less pugnacious than would appear from the published volume. He was fond of dispute, but those who knew him best loved him most.
Of his last illness his sister said:—
"It was not possible to be sad in his presence. No shadow of gloom attaches to anything in my mind connected with my precious brother. He has done much to strengthen the faith of his friends. Henry's whole life impresses me as a grand miracle."
Walking once with Mr. Alcott, soon after he passed his eightieth birth day, as we faced the lovely western sky in December, the old Pythagorean said, "I always think of Thoreau when I look at a sunset;" and I then remembered it was at that hour Thoreau usually walked along the village street, under the arch of trees, with the sunset sky seen through their branches. "He said to me in his last illness," added Alcott, "'I shall leave the world without a regret,'—that was the saying either of a grand egotist or of a deeply religious soul." Thoreau was both, and both his egotism and his devotion offended many of those who met him. His aversion to the companionship of men was partly religious—a fondness for the inward life—and partly egotism and scorn for frivolity.
"Emerson says his life is so unprofitable and shabby for the most part," writes Thoreau in 1854, "that he is driven to all sorts of resources,—and among the rest to men. I tell him we differ only in our resources: mine is to get away from men. They very rarely affect me as grand or beautiful; but I know that there is a sunrise and a sunset every day. I have seen more men than usual lately; and well as I was acquainted with one, I am surprised to find what vulgar fellows they are."
In 1859 he wrote to Mr. Blake:—