THOREAU, HENRY DAVID ( 1817-186z) , American re cluse, naturalist and writer, was born at Concord (Mass.), July 12, 1817. To Thoreau this Concord country contained all of beauty and even grandeur that was necessary to the worshipper of nature; he once journeyed to Canada; he went west on one occasion ; he sailed and explored a few rivers ; for the rest, he haunted Concord and its neighbourhood as faithfully as the stork its ancestral nest.
As a boy, Henry drove his mother's cow to the pastures, and thus early became enamoured of certain aspects of nature and of certain delights of solitude. At school and at Harvard University he in nowise distinguished himself, though he was an intelligently receptive student and read widely. He was, however, proficient enough in Greek, Latin, and the more general acquirements to en able him to act for a time as a teacher. But long before this he had become apprenticed to the learning of nature : when only 12 he had made collections for Agassiz, who had then just arrived in America. Thoreau gave up teaching and became a lecturer and author, though it was the labour of his hands which mainly sup ported him through many years : professionally he was a surveyor.
He had arrived at the conviction that the less labour a man did, over and above the positive demands of necessity, the better for him and for the community at large; he would have had the order of the week reversed—six days of rest for one of labour. In he made the famous experiment of Walden. Desirous of proving to himself and others that man could be as independent of his kind as the nest-building bird, Thoreau retired to a hut of his own con struction on the pine slope over against the shores of Walden pond —a hut which he built, furnished and kept in order entirely by the labour of his own hands. During his two years in Walden woods he lived by the exercise of a little surveying, a little job-work and the tillage of a few acres of ground which produced him his beans and potatoes. He read considerably, wrote abundantly, thought actively if not widely, and came to know beasts, birds and fishes with an intimacy more extraordinary than was the case with St. Francis of Assisi. Birds came at his call, and forgot their heredi tary fear of man ; beasts lipped and caressed him ; the very fish in lake and stream would glide, unf earful, between his hands. His Walden (1854), the record of this fascinating two years' expe rience, must always remain a production of great interest.
Some years before Thoreau took to Walden woods he made the chief friendship of his life, that with Emerson. He became one of the famous circle of the transcendentalists, always keenly preserv ing his own individuality amongst such more or less potent natures as Emerson, Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller. From Emerson he gained more than from any man, alive or dead; and, though the older philosopher both enjoyed and learned from the association with the younger, it cannot be said that the gain was equal. There
was nothing electrical in Thoreau's intercourse with his fellow men ; although he absorbed intensely he gave off no spiritual sparks. With children he was affectionate and gentle, with old people and strangers considerate. He loved his kind as animals, but did not seem to find them as interesting as those furred and feathered. In 1847 Thoreau left Walden lake abruptly, and for a time occupied himself with lead-pencil making, the parental trade. He never married, thus further fulfilling his policy of what one of his essayist-biographers has termed "indulgence in fine re nouncements." At the comparatively early age of 45 he died, May 6, 1862. His grave is in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery at Concord.
Thoreau's fame will rest on Walden; or, Life in the Woods (Boston, 1854) and the Excursions (Boston, 1863), though he wrote nothing which is not deserving of notice. Up to his 30th year he dabbled in verse, but he had little ear for metrical music, and he lacked the spiritual impulsiveness of the true poet. His weakness as a philosopher is his tendency to base the laws of the universe on the experience-born, thought-produced convictions of one man—himself. His weakness as a writer is the too frequent striving after antithesis and paradox. If he had had all his own originality without the itch of appearing original, he would have made his fascination irresistible. As it is, Thoreau holds a unique place. He was a naturalist, but absolutely devoid of the pedantry of science; a keen observer, but no retailer of dis jointed facts. He thus holds sway over two domains : he had the adherence of the lovers of fact and of the children of fancy. He must always be read, whether lovingly or interestedly, for he has all the variable charm, the strange saturninity, the contradictions, austerities and delightful surprises of Nature herself.
The standard editions of his works are The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Riverside ed. (II vol., Boston, 1894-95), and Manuscript ed. (zo vol., 1906).