expressed strong, effusive admiration for the young Concord author and his book. Among other sentences of laudation are these:—"When I think of what you are, of what you have done as well as what you have written,—I have the right to tell you that there is no man living upon the earth at present, whose friendship or whose notice I value more than yours. In your book and in one other from your side of the Atlantic,—'Margaret,' I see hope for the coming world. . . . In the meantime, I will but congratulate you on the age in which your work is cast; the world has never seen one more pregnant." That last sentence must have raised a sardonic smile on the face of the young philosopher whose volume had searched so long for a publisher, whose author had spent ten successive weeks in hard manual work to meet the expense of its issue, and whose shoulders were soon to bear the bulk of the edition up the garret-stairs.
Profiting by the censures of vagueness and laxity of form upon this first volume, recognizing the interest, if not the real value, of his experiment at Walden, if narrated with directness and humor, Thoreau constructed a book which happily mingled the personal and the theoretical, earnest teaching and droll anecdote. In its unique form and theme, with spicy humor and delicate nature-lore, it is one
