Diary of Amos Bronson Alcott: December 2, 1859

Ellen Emerson sends me her fair copy of the Martyr Service. At 2 P. M. we meet at the Town Hall, our own townspeople present mostly, and many from the adjoining towns. Simon Brown is chairman; the readings are by Thoreau, Emerson, C. Bowers, and Alcott; and Sanborn's “Dirge” is sung by the company standing. The bells are not rung. I think not more than one or two of Brown's friends wished them to be; I did not. It was more fitting to signify our sorrow in the subdued way, and silently, than by any clamor of steeples or the awakening of angry feelings or any conflict, as needless as unamiable, between neighbors. The services are affecting and impressive, distinguished by modesty, simplicity, and earnestness, — worthy alike of the occasion and of the man.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 629-30

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, January29, 1862

January 29, 1862

. . . “Snow” [an essay of Higginson's in the “Atlantic”] seems quite popular and Thoreau likes it, the only critic whom I should regard as really formidable on such a subject. By the way, he is fatally ill with hereditary consumption and may not live to another summer. It is probably aggravated by neglect and exposure.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 114

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, about 1858

Mr. Emerson is bounteous and gracious, but thin, dry, angular, in intercourse as in person. Garrison is the only solid moral reality I have ever seen incarnate, the only man who would do to tie to, as they say out West; and he is fresher and firmer every day, but wanting in intellectual culture and variety. Wendell Phillips is always graceful and gay, but inwardly sad, under that bright surface. Whittier is the simplest and truest of men, beautiful at home, but without fluency of expression, and with rather an excess of restraint. Thoreau is pure and wonderfully learned in nature's things and deeply wise, and yet tedious in his monologues and cross-questionings. Theodore Parker is as wonderfully learned in books, and as much given to monologue, though very agreeable and various it is, still egotistical, dogmatic, bitter often, and showing marked intellectual limitations. Mr. Alcott is an innocent charlatan, full of inspired absurdities and deep strokes, maunders about nature, and when outdoors has neither eyes, ears, nor limbs. Lowell is infinitely entertaining, but childishly egotistical and monopolizing.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 93-4

Henry David Thoreau to Harrison Blake,* October 30, 1859

Concord, Oct. 31 [1859].

Mr. Blake, — I spoke to my townsmen last evening, on “The Character of Captain Brown, now in the Clutches of the Slaveholder.” I should like to speak to any company in Worcester who may wish to hear me: and will come if only my expenses are paid. I think that we should express ourselves at once, while Brown is alive. The sooner, the better. Perhaps Higginson may like to have a meeting. Wednesday evening would be a good time. The people here are deeply interested in the matter. Let me have an answer as soon as may be.

Henry D. Thoreau.

P. S. I may be engaged toward the end of the week.

_______________

* Thoreau’s editor.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 506

Amos Bronson Alcott, Saturday, November 5, 1859

Dine with Sanborn. He suggests that I should go to Virginia and get access to Brown if I can, and Governor Wise; thinks I have some advantages to fit me for the adventure. I might ascertain whether Brown would accept a rescue from any company we might raise. Ricketson, from New Bedford, arrives. He and Thoreau take supper with us. Thoreau talks freely and enthusiastically about Brown, denouncing the Union, the President, the States, and Virginia particularly; wishes to publish his late speech, and has seen Boston publishers, but failed to find any to print it for him.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 506-7

Amos Bronson Alcott, Friday, November 4, 1859

Thoreau calls and reports about the reading of his lecture on Brown at Boston and Worcester. Thoreau has good right to speak fully his mind concerning Brown, and has been the first to speak and celebrate the hero's courage and magnanimity. It is these which ho discerns and praises. The men have much in common, — the sturdy manliness, straightforwardness, and independence. It is well they met, and that Thoreau saw what he sets forth as none else can. Both are sons of Anak and dwellers in Nature, — Brown taking more to the human side, and driving straight at institutions, while Thoreau contents himself with railing at and letting them otherwise alone. He is the proper panegyrist of the virtues he owns himself so largely, and so comprehends in another.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 506

Amos Bronson Alcott, October 30, 1859

Concord, Sunday, Oct. 30, 1859.

Thoreau reads a paper of his on John Brown, his virtues, spirit, and deeds, at the vestry this evening, and to the delight of his company, I am told, — the best that could be gathered on short notice, and among them Emerson. I am not informed in season, and have my meeting at the same time. I doubt not of its excellence and eloquence, and wish he may have opportunities of reading it elsewhere.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 506

Amos Bronson Alcott, May 8, 1859

Concord, May 8, 1859.

This evening I hear Captain Brown speak at the town hall on Kansas affairs, and the part taken by him in the late troubles there. He tells his story with surpassing simplicity and sense, impressing us all deeply by his courage and religious earnestness. Our best people listen to his words, — Emerson, Thoreau, Judge Hoar, my wife; and some of them contribute something in aid of his plans without asking particulars, such confidence does he inspire in his integrity and abilities. I have a few words with him after his speech, and find him superior to legal traditions, and a disciple of the Right in ideality and the affairs of state. He is Sanborn's guest, and stays for a day only. A young man named Anderson accompanies him. They go armed, I am told, and will defend themselves, if necessary. I believe they are now on their way to Connecticut and farther south; but the Captain leaves us much in the dark concerning his destination and designs for the coming months. Yet he does not conceal his hatred of slavery, nor his readiness to strike a blow for freedom at the proper moment. I infer it is his intention to run off as many slaves as he can, and so render that property insecure to the master. I think him equal to anything he dares, — the man to do the deed, if it must be done, and with the martyr's temper and purpose. Nature obviously was deeply intent in the making of him. He is of imposing appearance, personally, —tall, with square shoulders and standing; eyes of deep gray, and couchant, as if ready to spring at the least rustling, dauntless yet kindly; his hair shooting backward from low down on his forehead; nose trenchant and Romanesque; set lips, his voice suppressed yet metallic, suggesting deep reserves; decided mouth; the countenance and frame charged with power throughout. Since here last he has added a flowing beard, which gives the soldierly air and the port of an apostle. Though sixty years old, he is agile and alert, and ready for any audacity, in any crisis. I think him about the manliest man I have ever seen, — the typo and synonym of the Just. I wished to see and speak with him under circumstances permitting of large discourse. I am curious concerning his matured opinions on the great questions, — as of personal independence, the citizen's relation to the State, the right of resistance, slavery, the higher law, temperance, the pleas and reasons for freedom, and ideas generally. Houses and hospitalities were invented for the entertainment of such questions, — for the great guests of manliness and nobility thus entering and speaking face to face:—

Man is his own star; and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man

Commands all light, all influence, all fate.

Nothing to him falls early or too late:

Our acts our angels are, — or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 504-5

Henry David Thoreau to Parker Pillsbury, April 10, 1861

Concord, April 10,1861.

Friend Pillsbury, — I am sorry to say that I have not a copy of “Walden” which I can spare; and know of none, unless possibly Ticknor & Fields may have one. I send, nevertheless, a copy of “The Week,” the price of which is one dollar and twenty-five cents, which you can pay at your convenience.

As for your friend, my prospective reader, I hope he ignores Fort Sumter, and “Old Abe,” and all that; for that is just the most fatal, and, indeed, the only fatal weapon you can direct against evil, ever; for, as long as you know of it, you are particeps criminis. What business have you, if you are “an angel of light,” to be pondering over the deeds of darkness, reading the “New York Herald,” and the like?

I do not so much regret the present condition of things in this country (provided I regret it at all), as I do that I ever heard of it. I know one or two, who have this year, for the first time, read a President’s Message; but they do not see that this implies a fall in themselves, rather than a rise in the President. Blessed were the days before you read a President’s Message. Blessed are the young, for they do not read the President's Message. Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and, through her, God.

But, alas! I have heard of Sumter and Pickens, and even of Buchanan (though I did not read his Message). I also read the “New York Tribune;” but then, I am reading Herodotus and Strabo, and Blodget's “Climatology,” and “Six Years in the Desert of North America,” as hard as I can, to counterbalance it.

By the way, Alcott is at present our most popular and successful man, and has just published a volume in size, in the shape of the Annual School Report, which I presume he has sent to you.

Yours, for remembering all good things,

Henry D. Thoreau.

SOURCE: F. B. Sanborn, Editor, Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau, p. 437-8