Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/210

184 been cumulative during recent years. With authentic emphasis this public interest is revealed in a letter from Miss Sophia Thoreau to the woman whom her brother had loved in quiet, steadfast repression. This excerpt is now, by kind permission, first published: ", December 20th, 1868.

"Many are the friends who have risen up to do honor to the life and genius of our dear Henry. We have been wonderfully blessed and comforted by tokens of the most sincere appreciation and affection from utter strangers. At first when Henry left us, I felt that few knew him, but was consoled by the thought that the good God who made him and helped him to live so truthful, so pure and noble a life, would not let it be wasted. Now I am greatly surprised to learn the extent of his influence. I do believe it is rare in one's own generation to receive so much homage. Strangers have passed our house with bared heads in a spirit of reverence for the departed. Men and women have come from afar in summer and in winter, to gather a blossom or dried leaf as a memento from the site of the hut on the shore of Walden. One, whose name we never learned, sent ten dollars to mother and myself as a token of respect for Henry. It is really