Platanus orientalis, see Oriental plane tree
Plato Timaeus
“Plea for Captain John Brown, A,”
Pliny the Elder
plover
Plug Uglies
plum tree
pluralism
Plutarch
Pocahontas
Pockwockomus Lake
poke (Phytolacca decandra)
politics; civil disobedience of slavery
poll tax
Pomaceae, see apple
Pomola
pontederia
poplar
“popular sovereignty,”
potato
Pottawatomie Creek massacre
pout
Powhatan
Prairie River
presidency
press abolitionist John Brown and see also specific publications
principle John Brown and life without
prison
privacy
propagation
property
prophecy
props
Prose Edda
Protestantism denominational
Puritans
purple-fingered grass, see forked beard-grass
purple grass (Eragrostis pectinacea)
purple wood-grass (Andropogon scoparius )
Putnam, Israel
quail
Quakers
Quakish Lake
Quercus alba, see white oak
Quercus bicolor, see swamp white oak
Quercus coccinea, see scarlet oak
Quercus ilicifolia, see shrub oak
Quercus imbricaria, see shingle oak
Quercus macrocarpa, see mossy-cup oak
Quercus palustris, see pin oak
Quercus phellos, see willow oak
Quercus prinus, see chestnut oak
Quercus rubra, see red oak
Quercus velutina, see black oak
rabbit
race see also slavery
railroad
Raleigh, Sir Walter
raspberry
reason
redemption
red maple (Acer rubrum)
red oak (Quercus rubra)
Redpath, James Echoes of Harper’s Ferry
“Reform,”
religion, see Christianity; church; specific religions and texts
reindeer
reptiles
Republican Party
resistance John Brown and civil disobedience and
revolution
Revolutionary War
rhetoric
Rhine River
rhodora
rice-bird
rivers canoe travel
roach (Leuciscus rutilus)
roads
robin
Robin Hood
rock formations
Roebling, John Augustus
Rome
Romulus and Remus
rook
Rosaceae, see rose
rose (Rosaceae)
Rosenwald, Lawrence
Rosetta Stone
rushes (Juncaceae)
rye
Saddle-back Mountain
sailing
St. John River
Saint-John’s-wort (Hypericum perforatum )
St. Lawrence River
salmon
Salmon River
Sanborn, Franklin B. The Life and Letters of John Brown
San Francisco
sarsaparilla
Sartain, John
Sault de Ste. Marie
scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea)
science
Scotch pine
Scott (Dred) case
scrub oak (Quercrus ilicifolia)
sea
Secret Six
seed dispersal and germination
Senate, U.S.
sensuality
“The Service: Qualities of the Recruit,”
serviceberry (Amelanchier)
shad
shadbush
Shad Pond
Shakespeare, William
Sharps’ rifles
Shaw, Lemuel
sheep
shiners
shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria)
shrike
signing off
silvery roach
simple beliefs, declarations of
Sims, Thomas
Singapore
Sing-Sing
skunk-cabbage
slavery abolition of fugitive in Massachusetts rebellions trade in West
“Slavery in Massachusetts,”
Smith, John
snakes
snapping turtle (Emysaurus serpentina)
snipe
snow
snowbird (Junco hiemalis)
society abolitionism and civil disobedience and
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
Solanum nigrum, see black nightshade
solitude
Solomon’s seal
Sorghum nutans, see Indian-grass
South
South Carolina
Spain
sparrow
speckled trout
Spenser, Edmund
spiritualism
Spizella pusilla, see sparrow
spring
Springer, John S. “Forest Life,” 78n, 94n, 95, 111n, 326-27
spruce
squash
squash-bug (Anasa tristis)
squirrel seed transportation
Stark, General John
state government and civil disobedience
steam
Stevens, Aaron D.
Stillwater
Stockwell, Sam
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
“Succession of Forest Trees, The,”
suckers
Sudbury River
Sue, Eugène, Le Juif errant
sugar maple
Sullivan’s Island
sulphur
sumach
summer
Sumner, Charles
sun
Supreme Court, U.S.
surveying
Suttle, Charles F.
swamps
swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor)
Swedenborg, Emanuel
sycamore (P. occidentalis)
Tacitus, Cornelius
Tamias
Tartars
Tartary
taxation church highway poll
Taylor, Zachary
teas
Tell, William
temperance movement
Texas
textile factories, New England
Thales
Theophrastus
Thomson, James “Autumn,”; “Winter,”
Thoreau, John
thrush
tides
timothy grass (Phleum alpinum)
toads
tobacco
tomato
Topsell, Edward
tortoises
Tourneur, Cyril
Tract Society
trade free fur lumber slave
Transactions of the Middlesex Agricultural Society
transcendentalism
treason
treeclimbing
trout
truth
tupelo
Turkey
Turner, Nat
turnips
turtles
Underground Railroad
understanding
Unio complanatus, see mussel
Union
Union Magazine of Literature and Art
United States Magazine, and Democratic Review
upland haying
Urtica urens, see nettle
utopianism
Vaccinium vitis-idaea, see mountain cranberry
Vallandigham, Clement L.
Valley of the Mohawk
Van Mons, Jean-Baptiste
Varro, Marcus Terentius
veery
Veeshnoo-Sarma, Hitopadésa
Vermont
Vespucci, Amerigo
vigilance committees
village
violence John Brown and
Virgil first “Eclogue,” 305, 368; Georgics
Virginia Harpers Ferry raid
voluntary association
voting
wages
Walden
Walden Pond
Walker, Robert J.
Walker, William
walking winter
“Walking,”
walnut
war
warbler
War of
Warren, Robert Penn
Washburn, Emory
Washington, George
Washington, Colonel Lewis W.
Wassataquoik River
water lily (Nymphaea odorata)
waves
Webster, Daniel
Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842)
Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, A
West Indies
westward expansion
“What Shall It Profit?,” see “Life without Principle”
wheat
whistler-duck
White, Martin
white oak (Quercus alba)
white pine (Pinus strobus) logging of
Whitman, Walt
Whitney, Peter
wigwams
wild apple beauty crab “frozen-thawed,” 310-12; fruit and flavor of growth of last gleaning naming of
“Wild Apples,”
wildcat
wildness
Willard, Major
willow
willow oak (Quercus phellos)
Wilson, Alexander
Wilson, Henry
wind
Winkelried, Arnold
winter walk
“Winter Walk, A,”
Winthrop, John
wisdom
Wise, Henry A.
wolf
Wolfe, Charles, “The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna,”
women
woodbine
woodchopper
woodcock
wood duck
wood mouse (Mus leucopus)
woodpecker
wood thrush
Wordsworth, William
Yankee in Canada, A
Yankees
yellow birch
yellow squash
Notes
1 I should here mark the fact that I am deriving my portrait of prophecy from Thoreau’s practice rather than beginning with an image and seeing if the practice matches. There are different styles of prophecy. In the Hebrew Bible, for example, prophets do not speak in the first person; God speaks through them. Self-abnegation was the precondition of their utterance, not self-reliant individualism: In Thoreau we find the prophetic voice in its American, Protestant mode.
2 As might be expected, Thoreau’s talent for perspective fails him sometimes. He seemed mostly unable to imagine what it must have been like to be an Irish immigrant to America in the 1840s; he never takes the woman’s-eye view of things; public lectures especially seemed to draw his voice back to the community’s underlying way of thinking (“Walking” is, among other things, a patriotic ode to manifest destiny, and in the John Brown essays he falls willy-nilly into stock comparisons of Brown and Christ).
3
Reports—on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds; the Herbaceous Plants and Quadrupeds: the In
sects Injurious to Vegetation; and the Invertebrate Animals of Massachusetts. Published agree–
ably to an Order of the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the Zoölogical and
Botanical Survey of the State.
4 A white robin and a white quail have occasionally been seen. It is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should be found on the ground; but this bird seems to be less particular than most in the choice of a building-spot. I have seen its nest placed under the thatched roof of a deserted barn, and in one instance, where the adjacent country was nearly destitute of trees, together with two of the phœbe, upon the end of a board in the loft of a sawmill, but a few feet from the saw, which vibrated several inches with the motion of the machinery.
5 This bird, which is so well described by Nuttall, but is apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it “yorrick,” from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the traveler through the underwood. The cowbird’s egg is occasionally found in its nest, as mentioned by Audubon.
6 The Paradise within the Reach of all Men, without Labor, by Powers of Nature and Machinery. An Address to all intelligent Men. In Two Parts. By J. A. Etzler. Part First. Second English Edition. London. 1842. Pp. 55.
7 Springer, in his “Forest Life” (1851), says that they first remove the leaves and turf from the spot where they intend to build a camp, for fear of fire; also, that “the spruce-tree is generally selected for camp-building, it being light, straight, and quite free from sap;” that “the roof is finally covered with the boughs of the fir, spruce, and hemlock, so that when the snow falls upon the whole, the warmth of the camp is preserved in the coldest weather;” and that they make the log seat before the fire, called the “Deacon’s Seat,” of a spruce or fir split in halves, with three or four stout limbs left on one side for legs, which are not likely to get loose.
8 The Canadians call it picquer de fond.
9 Even the Jesuit missionaries, accustomed to the St. Lawrence and other rivers of Canada, in their first expeditions to the Abnaquiois, speak of rivers ferrées de rochers, shod with rocks. See also No. 10 Relations, for 1647, p. 185.
10 “A steady current or pitch of water is preferable to one either rising or diminishing; as, when rising rapidly, the water at the middle of the river is considerably higher than at the shores,—so much so as to be distinctly perceived by the eye of a spectator on the banks, presenting an appearance like a turnpike road. The lumber, therefore, is always sure to incline from the centre of the channel toward either shore.”—Springer.
11 “The spruce-tree,” says Springer in ’51, “is generally selected, principally for the superior facilities which its numerous limbs afford the climber. To gain the first limbs of this tree, which are from twenty to forty feet from the ground, a smaller tree is undercut and lodged against it, clambering up which the top of the spruce is reached. In some cases, when a very elevated position is desired, the spruce-tree is lodged against the trunk of some lofty pine, up which we ascend to a height twice that of the surrounding forest.”
To indicate the direction of pines, he throws down a branch, and a man at the ground takes the bearing.
12 The bears had not touched things on our possessions. They sometimes tear a batteau to pieces for the sake of the tar with which it is besmeared.
13 I cut this from a newspaper. “On the 11th (instant?) [May. ’49], on Rappogenes Falls, Mr. John Delantee, of Orono, Me., was drowned while running logs. He was a citizen of Orono, and was twenty-six years of age. His companions found his body. enclosed it in bark, and buried it in the solemn woods.”
14 These extracts have been inserted since the lecture was read.
15 An Address read to the Middlesex Agricultural Society in Concord, September, 1860.
16 Read to the citizens of Concord, Mass., Sunday Evening, October 30, 1859. Also as the fifth lecture of the Fraternity Course in Boston, November 1; and at Worcester, November 3.
Copyright © 2002 by Lewis Hyde
All rights reserved
The texts for “Ktaadn,” “Slavery in Massachusetts,” “Life without Principle,” “A Plea for Captain John Brown,” and “The Last Days of John Brown” are taken from The Maine Woods and Reform Papers by Henry Thoreau, copyright © 1972 and 1973 by Princeton University Press, and are reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.<
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North Point Press
A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Designed by Jonathan D. Lippincott
eISBN 9781429935074
First eBook Edition : May 2011
First edition, 2002
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reproduce images on the essay title pages in this book:
To the Thoreau Institute for pages from The Dial, July 1842, preceding “Natural History of Massachusetts,” and October 1843, preceding “A Winter Walk”; for the page from the Democratic Review, November 1843, preceding “Paradise (To Be) Regained”; for the page from The Union Magazine, November 1848, preceding “Ktaadn”; for the title page from Aesthetic Papers, 1849, preceding “Civil Disobedience”; for the leaf cut from The Atlantic Monthly, October 1862, preceding “Autumnal Tints”; for the page from Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, ed. James Redpath (Boston: Thayer and Eldridge,1860), preceding “A Plea for Captain John Brown”; and for the page from The Atlantic Monthly, November 1862, preceding “Wild Apples.”
To the Houghton Library at Harvard University for the manuscript page from 1851, preceding “Walking”; for excerpts from The Liberator, July 21, 1854, preceding “Slavery in Massachusetts,” and July 27, 1860, preceding “The Last Days of John Brown”; and for the advertisement from The Liberator, December 1, 1854, preceding “Life without Principle.”
And to the Concord Free Public Library for the page from Transactions of the Middlesex Agricultural Society, 1860, preceding “The Succession of Forest Trees.”
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862.
[Essays. Selections]
The essays of Henry D. Thoreau / selected and edited by Lewis Hyde.—1st ed. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
I. Hyde, Lewis, 1945– II. Title.
PS3042 .H93 2002
814’.3—dc21
2001054600
The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau Page 52