Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/156

 with as much triumph as I point to my Guido when they praise half poets and half painters.” [Carlyle had sent to Mr. and Mrs. Emerson a fine engraving of The Aurora.]

Three years later, the older friend was more exacting in his praise of the younger. In November, 1842, he wrote: “Henry Thoreau wrote me verses which pleased, if not by beauty of particular lines, yet by the honest truth, and by the length of flight and strength of wing, for most of our poets are only writers of lines or of epigrams. These of Henry's at least have rude strength, and we do not come to the bottom of the mine. Their fault is that the gold does not yet flow pure, but is drossy and crude. The thyme and marjoram are not yet made into honey.” Page 27, note 1. Thoreau wrote soon after little Waldo's death to Mrs. Emerson's sister: —

“As for Waldo, he died as the mist rises from the brook which the sun will soon dart his rays through. Do not the flowers die every autumn? He had not even taken root here. I was not startled to hear that he was dead; it seemed the most natural thing that could happen. His fine organization demanded it, and Nature gently yielded his request. It would have been strange if he had lived.” Page 30, note 1. In 1843, after he had lived more than a year with the Emersons, Thoreau went to Staten Island as tutor to one of Mr.