Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/110

88 these simple verses one must recall that they were designed for a boy of seven years, and belong to the juvenile literature, at that time scanty and prim.

Mingled with the reserve of Thoreau was ever a strong, basal affection and the sentiments of a poet. At this time, when he was twenty-three years old, the heart-sentiment was near the surface and required only cultivation, rather than repression, to cause quite a different development of his entire nature. The years from 1839 to 1842 are very