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Show Henry D. Thoreau. 1 . er.i CnCC an d S k1'l l ca: s to lead them quires at least as roue 1 exp .~ had any conception of 1 lie said that few pcusons ' .. . . in batt e. ' . t f firinrr a s mrrle bullet m tl e pecuma.ry co ' o o o . the cost, even 1 . t, to di:-c;rrust him w1th a I nou(Yh at any I a c, o ... war. I e saw c o ' . . 1 'm a (Yrcat abhorrence of It; l 'fi . deed to cxc,tc m ll ' b ' military 1 e ; 111 ' t ted by the o{fer of some 1 tl t thourrh he wa::; emp so muc 1 so, la n h s about ei(Yht 'en, he not . the army when c wa ' o petty omce 111 c ' 1 f cd to trtin when warnetl, only declined that, but he also re ~ lvcd th·:t he woulu never fi d for it lie t lCn re o • and was me · . . . unle~s it were a war for h ave anY thl.Il<oY to do with any "m' , liberty. . K ~. bcrran he cnt scvct·al of his When the troubles m ani ,l . ·to' of the Free State m 'n, h. h t stren(Ythcn t lC p:u y sons t 1t er o o 110 11•1d . t lliu <r them ·u . ·h weapons a ' ' 0 fitting them out Wl l sued . : , and there should be nce<l that if the trouble shoul mci ca.sc, • 'tl I. , hanu and of him, he would follow to asstst them "'I .l .ll~ and it was counsel. '"fln. s, as yo··"l 'a ll know ' he soon after did ' IC f: . more tll'\n any other's, that ansas through his agency' ar • was made free. 1 t time For a part of his life he wa: a surveyor, anc a ~ne he wa cn('Y aO'Cd I. n ' vool-rrrowinrr and he went to hurope as o o' b (Yent ~b~ut that business. There, a every where~ e ~:d al7is eyes about him, all(! ma<le many origin:tl obs:•·vall~ns.j ;ic said, for instance, that he saw why. the _"oil of }<; ng anr . l d tl at of Germany (I tlwJlc Jt was) so poo ' was so n c l, an I._ ll ., b t l l t f ·'tinrr to some of the crownN ICUus a ou and he t lOug I o wu t> • 1 ' c:: 'l it. It was because in l~ngland the peasanlry hv~ on .. t le .... 01 which they cultintte, but in Germany they are g,ltheicd mto v1. llagr , at n1. g l1 t • It I.::,:, 'a pity that he did not make a book of his ob. crvations. . 1 · I should ay tlmt he was an old-fa~hionrd man 111 us respect for the Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union. Slavery he deemed to be wholly opposed to these, and he was its determined foe. l-Ie was by descent and birth a New England f11rmer, a Henry D. Thoreau. man of great common sense, deliberate and practical as that cla . is, and tenfold more so. lie was like the be, t of tho e who tood at Concot·d Bridge once, on Lexington Common, and on Bunker Hill, only he was firmer and higher principled than any that I have chanced to hear of as there. It was no abolition lecturer that converted him. Ethan Allen and Stark, with whom he may in some r espects be compared, ·were rangers in a lower and less important field. They could bravely face tb ir country'.; foes, but he had the cournge to fncc his country her ·cit; when ·he was in the wrong. A 'V estern writer flays, to account for his escape from so many perils, that he was concealed under a "rural exterior;" as if; in that prairie land, a hero should, by good rights, wear a citizen's dress only. He did not go to the college called llnrvan1, good old Alma Mater as she is. lie was 11ot fed on the pap that it:l there furni hc(l. As he phra cd it, "f know no more of grammar than one of your calves." But he went to the g reat uni versity of the We t, where he scdulou Iy pursued the study of Liberty, for which he had enrly betrayed a fondncs , and having taken many degrees, he finally commenced the public practice of Ilumanity in ICansa , as you all know. Such were his ll umanities, and not any study of grammar. He would have left a Greek accent slanting the wrong way, and righted up n falling man . lie wa one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most p~rt, see nothing at all- the Puritans. It would be in vain to kill him. lie died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared here. Why should he not? Some of the Puritan stock are !'aid to have come over and settled in New England. They were a cia s that did something else than celebrate their forefathers' day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither Democrats nor Republican8, but men of simple habits, straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who |
