Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/160

 I have written to you. It does not follow at all. You would not naturally make so long a speech to me here in a month as a letter would be. Yet if some time it should be perfectly easy and pleasant to you, I shall be very glad to have a sentence. &ensp; Page 34, note 1. This passage in Mr. Emerson's journal in 1834 carries us back to the young mechanic period: “Henry Thoreau said he knew but one secret, which was, to do one thing at a time, and, though he has his evenings for study, if he was in the day inventing machines for sawing his plumbago, he invents wheels all the evening and night also; and if this week he has some good reading and thoughts before him his brain runs on that all day whilst pencils pass through his hands.”

Page 35, note 1. In 1890, I talked with Mr. Warren Miles of Concord, who, having worked with the Munroes, earlier pencil-makers of Concord, came into the employ of John Thoreau, Sr. He told me that the graphite came from the Tudor Mine at Sturbridge for many years, until that mine was closed. Later, it was procured from Canada, but was not so good. It seems that the Germans got their lead, such as is used in the Fabers' pencil, from Ceylon, Miles suggested the improvement of stones,