which bore dates 1830 and 1835." As suggestive, also, is the next boyish sentence,—"Mr. Henry's initials were cut very neatly and deep." Henry's undoubted love for this young girl was noble in its purity and renunciation and it has tinted with its ideal light all his later heart-life, and given rare spirituality to his words upon love and marriage. Mr. Burroughs shows scanty insight into a deep, silent nature like Thoreau's when he says of this self-abnegation,—"It doubtless cost him less effort than the same act would have cost his more human brother." I have seen a photograph of this woman, loved so tenderly by both John and Henry; in later life, the face had retained matchless beauty and serenity. Sophia's letters to her, too sacred to print, witness her affectionate interest in the entire family as long as any member survived. She married a clergyman and lived a happy, quiet life of service to her large family and her parish. She has recently died at a ripe, revered age. May the world be content to hallow the memory and respect the silence of this noble woman!
Emerson once stated that Thoreau's poem, "Sympathy," which appeared in The Dial in 1840, had reference to this loved one under guise of
"a gentle boy,
Whose features all were cast in virtue's mould."
