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George William Curtis was also a farmhand out on the Lowell Road, but came into town Saturday evenings–taking a swim in the river on the way–to attend the philosophical conferences at Emerson’s house, and then went off and made gentle fun of them.

Little Doctor Holmes occasionally drove out from Boston to Concord in a one-horse chaise; James Russell Lowell had walked over from Cambridge; and Longfellow had invited all hands to a birthday fete on his lawn at Cambridge, but Thoreau had declined for himself, saying he had to look after his pond-lilies and the field-mice on Bedford flats.

Thoreau, at this time, was a member of Emerson’s household, and in a letter Emerson says, “He has his board for what labor he chooses to do; he is a great benefactor and physician to me, for he is an indefatigable and skilful laborer, besides being a scholar and a poet, and as full of promise as a young apple-tree.”

And again, in a letter to Carlyle: “One reader and friend of yours dwells in my household, Henry Thoreau, a poet whom you may one day be proud of–a noble, manly youth, full of melodies and invention. We work together day by day in my garden, and I grow well and strong.”

To work and talk is the true way to acquire an education. All of our best things are done incidentally–not in cold blood. Hawthorne says in his Journal that most of Emerson’s and Thoreau’s farming was done leaning on the hoe-handles, while Alcott sat on the fence and explained the Whyness of the Wherefore.

But we must remember that in Hawthorne’s ink-bottle there was a goodly dash of tincture of iron. In his Journal of September First, Eighteen Hundred Forty-two, he writes: “Mr. Thoreau dined with us yesterday. He is a singular character–a young man with much of wild, original nature still remaining in him; and so far as he is sophisticated, it is in a way and method of his own. He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and somewhat rustic ways, though his courteous manner corresponds very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest character and really becomes him better than beauty.” Little did Hawthorne’s guests imagine they were being basted, roasted, or fricasseed for the edification of posterity.

Prosperity at this time had just begun to smile on Hawthorne, and among other extravagances in which he indulged was a boat, bought from Thoreau–made by the hands of this expert Yankee whittler. Hawthorne quotes a little transcendental advice given to him by the maker of the boat: “In paddling a canoe, all you have to do is to will that your boat shall go in any particular direction, and she will immediately take the course, as if imbued with the spirit of the steersman.” Hawthorne then adds this sober postscript: “It may be so with you, but it is certainly not so with me.”

Admiration for Thoreau gradually grew very strong with Hawthorne, and he quotes Emerson, who called Thoreau “the young god Pan.” And this lends much semblance to the statement that Thoreau served Hawthorne as a model for Donatello, the mysterious wood-sprite in the “Marble Faun.”

As to the transformation of Thoreau himself, one of his classmates records this:

Meeting Mr. Emerson one day, I inquired if he saw much of my classmate, Henry D. Thoreau, who was then living in Concord. “Of Thoreau?” replied Mr. Emerson, his face lighting up with a smile of enthusiasm. “Oh, yes, we could not do without him. When Carlyle comes to America, I expect to introduce Thoreau to him as the man of Concord,” and I was greatly surprised at these words. They set an estimate on Thoreau which seemed to be extravagant…. Not long after I happened to meet Thoreau in Mr. Emerson’s study at Concord–the first time we had come together after leaving college. I was quite startled by the transformation that had taken place in him. His short figure and general cast of countenance were, of course, unchanged; but in his manners, in the tones of his voice, in his modes of expression, even in the hesitations and pauses of his speech, he had become the counterpart of Mr. Emerson. Thoreau’s college voice bore no resemblance to Mr. Emerson’s, and was so familiar to my ear that I could have readily identified him by it in the dark. I was so much struck by the change that I took the opportunity, as they sat near together talking, of listening with closed eyes, and I was unable to determine with certainty which was speaking. I do not know to what subtle influences to ascribe it, but after conversing with Mr. Emerson for even a brief time, I always found myself able and inclined to adopt his voice and manner of speaking.