father who furnishes the Spectator for his children's reading is 'unambitious.' Perhaps the highest ambition lies in a wise forecast that is not for one's self;
"But Brutus says he was (un)ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man."
The sterling native worth of Thoreau's Western correspondent was quickly discerned by not only Thoreau's mother and sister: Thoreau's friends recognized and honored it. The transparent-souled Alcott was moved to the highest issues of friendship, as sundry inscribed presentation copies of the writings of that belated Platonist amply testify; and William Ellery Channing, the "man of genius, and of the moods that sometimes make
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