Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/64

 enough if the book were written for him alone: is not every true book written for only him who can understand its message?"

Froude had written, "I congratulate you on the age in which your work is cast." Never did any compliment go farther astray. Thoreau had been obliged to publish at his own risk, and he had gone deeply into debt for the edition of one thousand volumes. Little heed did the 'age' take of his 'cast.'

Four years after the date of Froude's assuring letter, Thoreau wrote in his journal: "For a year or two past my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers still on hand, and at last suggesting