Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/272

242 reality, something to be felt and touched, whose ideas seemed to be dug out of his mind as he digs potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, out of the ground." It required no strained imagination to realize the delight which Thoreau ever found in the companionship of such an invigorating presence, a modern Cato or Varro.

Among the widely quoted thoughts of one of Thoreau's biographers is the statement that Channing, in a measure, was the interpreter between Hawthorne and Thoreau. While both the naturalist and the romancer found a companion in Channing, there is much evidence, both in Hawthorne's notebooks and in the letters of Thoreau, that, from the first appearance of Hawthorne at Concord, there existed a warm sympathy between himself and the poet-naturalist. Thoreau was among the few guests at table at the Old Manse; together they listened to the music-box, sailed upon the river, or sauntered along the wood-paths. For Thoreau, Hawthorne had deep regard both as nature-poet and "as a wholesome and healthy man to know." The famous little boat, in which the brothers had journeyed along the Concord and Merrimack, became the property of the romancer, was rechristened "The Water-Lily," and constantly reminded its owner of the marvelous skill of Thoreau with the