Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/31

 "I am chiefly desirous of enforcing one consideration regarding this man Thoreau, namely: that the brief episode in his life by which he is commonly known—the shanty life at Walden Pond—was not the vagary of an enthusiast. Reared in a family to every member of which 'life was something more than a parade of pretensions, a conflict of ambition or an incessant scramble for the common objects of desire,' Thoreau never lost sight of the high ideal which inspired that humble household.

"While yet an undergraduate he believed that the mere beauty of this world transcended far all the convenience to which luxury would debase it. He then thought 'the order of things should be somewhat reversed; the seventh should be man's day of toil, wherein to earn his living