Page:The personality of Thoreau by Sanborn, F. B..djvu/11

 THE PERSONALITY OF THOREAU

As I recall the seven years and a month during which I knew Henry Thoreau; seeing him every day during much of that period, from March 25, 1855, to his death in early May, 1862, unless he or I were absent from Concord, and visiting with him many of those spots in the wide town ship which his pen has pictured for the delight of many readers; a great regret is felt that no written record was made of those conversations and walks. But it did not occur to his friends in those years before the Civil War that he would so soon pass from our sight; nor, in fact, did many of us then appreciate, to the full, his re markable gifts and their rare and original qual ity. We had come to know him first, perhaps, from Emerson s description of his younger friend ; at any rate, we had earlier and more affection ately admired Emerson; and some of us were not free from that delusion, sedulously propa-