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[Illustration: Portrait of Thoreau]


MR. THOREAU'S WRITINGS.

I. WALDEN. 1 vol. 16mo. Price $1.25.

II. A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. 1 vol. 12mo. Price $1.50.




    EXCURSIONS.

    BY

    HENRY D. THOREAU.


    1863



    CONTENTS.


  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

  NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS

  A WALK TO WACHUSETT

  THE LANDLORD

  A WINTER WALK

  THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES

  WALKING

  AUTUMNAL TINTS

  WILD APPLES

  NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT




BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

BY R.W. EMERSON.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU was the last male descendant of a French ancestor who
came to this country from the Isle of Guernsey. His character exhibited
occasional traits drawn from this blood in singular combination with a
very strong Saxon genius.

He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817. He was
graduated at Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary
distinction. An iconoclast in literature, he seldom thanked colleges for
their service to him, holding them in small esteem, whilst yet his debt to
them was important. After leaving the University, he joined his brother in
teaching a private school, which he soon renounced. His father was a
manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself for a time to this
craft, believing he could make a better pencil than was then in use. After
completing his experiments, he exhibited his work to chemists and artists
in Boston, and having obtained their certificates to its excellence and to
its equality with the best London manufacture, he returned home contented.
His friends congratulated him that he had now opened his way to fortune.
But he replied, that he should never make another pencil. "Why should I?
I would not do again what I have done once." He resumed his endless walks
and miscellaneous studies, making every day some new acquaintance with
Nature, though as yet never speaking of zoology or botany, since, though
very studious of natural facts, he was incurious of technical and textual
science.

At this time, a strong, healthy youth, fresh from college, whilst all his
companions were choosing their profession, or eager to begin some
lucrative employment, it was inevitable that his thoughts should be
exercised on the same question, and it required rare decision to refuse
all the accustomed paths, and keep his solitary freedom at the cost of
disappointing the natural expectations of his family and friends: all the
more difficult that he had a perfect probity, was exact in securing his
own independence, and in holding every man to the like duty. But Thoreau
never faltered. He was a born protestant. He declined to give up his large
ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession,
aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the art of living well.
If he slighted and defied the opinions of others, it was only that he was
more intent to reconcile his practice with his own belief. Never idle or
self-indulgent, he preferred, when he wanted money, earning it by some
piece of manual labor agreeable to him, as building a boat or a fence,
planting, grafting, surveying, or other short work, to any long
engagements. With his hardy habits and few wants, his skill in wood-craft,
and his powerful arithmetic, he was very competent to live in any part of
the world. It would cost him less time to supply his wants than another.
He was therefore secure of his leisure.

A natural skill for mensuration, growing out of his mathematical
knowledge, and his habit of ascertaining the measures and distances of
objects which interested him, the size of trees, the depth and extent of
ponds and rivers, the height of mountains, and the air-line distance of
his favorite summits,--this, and his intimate knowledge of the territory
about Concord, made him drift into the profession of land-surveyor. It had
the advantage for him that it led him continually into new and secluded
grounds, and helped his studies of Nature. His accuracy and skill in this
work were readily appreciated, and he found all the employment he wanted.

He could easily solve the problems of the surveyor, but he was daily beset
with graver questions, which he manfully confronted. He interrogated every
custom, and wished to settle all his practice on an ideal foundation. He
was a protestant _a l'outrance_, and few lives contain so many
renunciations. He was bred to no profession; he never married; he lived
alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to
the State: he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of
tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose,
wisely, no doubt, for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature.
He had no talent for wealth, and knew how to be poor without the least
hint of squalor or inelegance. Perhaps he fell into his way of living
without forecasting it much, but approved it with later wisdom.

"I am often reminded," he wrote in his journal, "that, if I had bestowed
on me the wealth of Croesus, my aims must be still the same, and my means
essentially the same." He had no temptations to fight against,--no
appetites, no passions, no taste for elegant trifles. A fine house