Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/135

 that when the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson (later, a Colonel in the Northern Army), heading the rush on the United States Court House in Boston to rescue the fugitive slave, looked back for his following at the Court-room door, only the apostolic philosopher was there, cane in hand.

But Thoreau had qualities which the Platonist lacked. Emerson, writing of Mother-wit, says, — “Doctor Johnson, Milton, Chaucer and Burns had it. Aunt Mary Moody Emerson has it, and can write scrap letters. Who has it need never write anything but scraps. Henry Thoreau has it.”

When “Walden” appeared Mr. Emerson seems to have felt as much pleasure as if his brother had written it. But when the Thoreau family, after Henry's death, submitted the journals to his friend's consideration, he, coming from