Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/96

 In fifteen different instances two words are written without taking the pen from the paper, in eight others three are thus continuously written, and in one line there are four impetuously chained together. There is nothing of this in the other five holographs. But, curiously, the signature to this last is the largest, boldest, clearest, and by far the best of them all. It reminds one of John Hancock's sign-manual on the Declaration of Independence. Surely, Massachusetts writes a fine hand on occasion!

There remained for Thoreau only two years and a half of his Lehrjahre: then he was "translated." Translated? Do they not say that of a Bishop when he is exalted? Even so; but is not Thoreau also a "bishop of souls"? There is now no