Page:Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/337

Rh Channing placed several inscriptions, among them this, &quot;Hail to thee, O man! who hast come from the transitory place to the imperishable.&quot; This sentiment may stand as faintly marking Thoreau's deep, vital conviction of immortality, of which he never had entertained a doubt in his life. There was in his view of the world and its Maker no room for doubt; so that when he was once asked, superfluously, what he thought of a future world and its compensations, he replied, &quot;Those were voluntaries I did not take,&quot;—having confined himself to the foreordained course of things. He is buried in the village cemetery, quaintly named &quot;Sleepy Hollow,&quot; with his family and friends about him; one of whom, surviving him for a few years, said, as she looked upon his low head-stone on the hillside, &quot;Concord is Henry's monument, covered with suitable inscriptions by his own hand.&quot;