discomforts. I do not remember that Thoreau spoke of his books or of
himself at all, and when he began to speak of John Brown, it was not the
warm, palpable, loving, fearful old man of my conception, but a sort of
John Brown type, a John Brown ideal, a John Brown principle, which we
were somehow (with long pauses between the vague, orphic phrases) to
cherish, and to nourish ourselves upon.

It was not merely a defeat of my hopes, it was a rout, and I felt myself
so scattered over the field of thought that I could hardly bring my
forces together for retreat. I must have made some effort, vain and
foolish enough, to rematerialize my old demigod, but when I came away it
was with the feeling that there was very little more left of John Brown
than there was of me. His body was not mouldering in the grave, neither
was his soul marching on; his ideal, his type, his principle alone
existed, and I did not know what to do with it. I am not blaming
Thoreau; his words were addressed to a far other understanding than mine,
and it was my misfortune if I could not profit by them. I think, or I
venture to hope, that I could profit better by them now; but in this
record I am trying honestly to report their effect with the sort of youth
I was then.




XVII.

Such as I was, I rather wonder that I had the courage, after this
experiment of Thoreau, to present the card Hawthorne had given me to
Emerson. I must have gone to him at once, however, for I cannot make out
any interval of time between my visit to the disciple and my visit to the