Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/265

Rh Brown borrowed the journal to show to her brother-in-law and thus laid the foundation for that famous literary friendship. For Mrs. Brown, as for her sister, Thoreau felt that romantic and reverential friendship which many a young man of poetic mind entertains for matrons of intellect and gracious character. Mrs. Brown especially encouraged Thoreau's poetic aspirations. Into her window he threw the copy of those early self-revelatory lines, perchance his best work in verse, "Sic Vita," beginning,—

&quot;I am a parcel of vain strivinga, tied

By a chance bond together.&quot;

With the poetry of gracious act as well as words, he placed this scrap of verse about a bunch of violets, a delicate and romantic deed for the stoic and hermit! To her he wrote, ("Familiar Letters," p. 44,) "Just now I am in the mid-sea of verses, and they actually rustle around me as the leaves would round the head of Autumnus himself should he thrust it up through some vales which I know; but alas! many of them are but crisped and yellow leaves like his, I fear, and will deserve no better fate than to make mould for new harvests." During these years of young manhood, Thoreau confided to this friend his ideals, his dreams, and his rare delight in