Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/94

 convictions; one man God-appointed to show a nation its way as the darkness was gathering around it and not a politician had the courage to strike a match to light the flickering tallow-dip of Policy.

The Western man read accounts of this one fearless voice, and wrote to Thoreau asking for the words he alone had dared to speak.

Concord, Nov. 24th, '59.

Dear Sir:

The lectures which you refer to were reported in the newspapers, after a fashion. ''The last one in some half dozen of them, and if I possessed one, or all, I would send them to you, bad as they are. The best, or at least longest one of the Boston Lecture was in the Boston "Atlas and Bee" of Nov. 2nd.—may be''