works are piled up on one side of my chamber as high as my head, my opera omnia. This is authorship, these are the works of my brain. There was just one piece of good luck in the venture. The unbound copies were tied up by the printer four years ago in stout paper wrappers, and inscribed:—
H. D. Thoreau,
Concord River,
50 cops.
so Munroe had only to cross out "River" and write "Mass.," and deliver them to the express-man at once. I can now see what I write for, the result of my labors. Nevertheless in spite of this result, sitting beside the inert mass of my works, I take up my pen to-night to record
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