helpful traits, his true services to friendship, than Channing, in the personal lines:—
"Thus Henry lived,
Considerate to his kind. His love bestowed
Was not a gift in fractions, half-way done;
But with some mellow goodness like a sun,
He shone o'er mortal thoughts and taught their buds
To blossom early, thence ripe fruit and seed.
Forbearing too oft counsel, yet with blows
By pleasing reason urged he touched their thought
As with a mild surprise, and they were good,
Even as if they knew not whence that motive came,
Nor yet suspected that from Henry’s heart—
His warm, confiding heart,—the impulse flowed."
At mention of Thoreau's friends, the memory at once reverts to Emerson, as the first and most illustrious friend of Thoreau's manhood. The influence of that friendship and their mutual services will always be mooted subjects. Some earlier critics, like Lowell, or those persuaded by his words, regarded Thoreau as Emerson's progeny,—"a pistillate plant" of his pruning. Others, with strained effect, explain the character of Donatello as the awakening of Thoreau's soul, under the influence of Emerson, as witnessed and recorded by Hawthorne. On the other hand, there are critics, like Dr. Japp, who deplore the temporary influence of Emerson as deleterious to Thoreau's true development as poet. No one can question the stimulative effect, emotionally and mentally, of Thoreau's early friend-
