Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/254

224 with Emerson and residence in his home. The time is past, however, to accept the theory that his genius was reflected light from Emerson or that his fame has been due to the association of the two names.

By those who would thus regard Thoreau as imitator of Emerson, much stress was laid upon the resemblances in manner and voice, and this was construed as conscious or unconscious expression of the dominant influence of Emerson upon his younger friend. The words of Rev. David Haskins, a college classmate of Thoreau and a cousin of Emerson, have been widely quoted;—"Not long after I happened to meet Thoreau in Mr. Emerson's study at Concord the first time we had come together since leaving college. I was quite startled by the transformation that had taken place in him. His short figure and general cast of countenance were of course unchanged; but in his manners, in the tones of his voice, in his mode of expression, even in the hesitations and pauses of his speech, he had become the counter part of Mr. Emerson." Though such statement is extreme, according to the testimony of many Concord friends, there did exist strange resemblances of manner as well as of mind, but they were largely coincidal. To both, nature had given musical,