Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/176



Page 121, note 1. A month after the death of his friend, Mr. Emerson wrote in his journal:—

“Henry Thoreau remains erect, calm, self-subsistent before me, and I read him, not only truly in his Journal, but he is not long out of mind when I walk, and, as to-day, row upon the Pond. He chose wisely, no doubt, for himself to be the bachelor of thought and nature that he was—how near to the old monks in their ascetic religion! He had no talent for wealth, and knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inelegance. Perhaps he fell—all of us do—into his way of living without forecasting it much, but approved and confirmed it with later wisdom.”

A little later Thoreau's family put his Journals into Mr. Emerson's hands for him to read. Their truth and beauty were a delight to him, and he felt that his friend had fully justified