Cod," 1865; "Early Spring in Massachusetts," 1881; followed by volumes named for the other seasons. These later volumes were published and the titles given by others, after Thoreau's death. He is not a scientific naturalist like Audubon; but he is a loving observer and a charming recorder of the phenomena of sky, field, and flood, and of the ways of flowers, trees, birds, and beasts. His writings gave a great stimulus to that sort of loving study and observation of nature, and set the example for a number of authors who, in more recent times, have written in a similar vein.

A few brief extracts from "Walden" will do more to suggest Thoreau's peculiar outlook upon life and the place he holds in our Literature than many words about him. He thus gives his reasons for going to live in the woods by Walden Pond:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

And a little further on in the same chapter:

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases, he may add his ten toes and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

The intimacy with which he lived among the wild creatures of the woods is illustrated by another passage. Some wild species of mouse quite different from the ordinary domestic pest frequented his cabin; and seem to have been on terms of the greatest familiarity with Thoreau. He writes:

At length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one day, it ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept the latter close, and dodged and played at bo-peep with it; and when at last I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and finger, it came and nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and afterward cleaned its face and paws like a fly, and walked away.

The young of the partridge he often held in his hands, and he thus writes in regard to them:

The remarkably adult, yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes, is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem. The traveller does not often look into such a limpid well.

Y

Amos Bronson Alcott,

necticut,

1799; died

setts, 1888.

Amos Bronson Alcott is one of the most interesting

born in Con- personalities in the "Transcendental" group; although he has not left much of importance in the way of in Massachu- published writings. He was the master of a famous school in Boston, conducted on the theory that instruction should be by conversation, rather than by the learning and reciting of tasks. In discipline, he believed and practised the idea of "vicarious punishment," and more than once in his school the pathetic spectacle was seen of the teacher literally punishing himself in the presence of the offending scholar. Neither in his school teaching nor in any other occupation did Alcott secure the kind of success which ensures comfortable housekeeping; and it is difficult to see how his household would have lived but for the busy pen of his daughter, Louisa May. But he was a beautiful and inspiring presence in the community where he lived, and his influence was broadening and uplifting always. His more important published volumes are: "Tablets," 1868; "Concord Days," 1872; "Table Talk," 1877.

Margaret

Fuller Ossoli, born in Massachusetts, 1810; died, 1850.

Margaret Fuller bears to the woman authors of this country a relation somewhat similar to that which Emerson bears to all. Losing her father in her girlhood, her life was consecrated to a brave fight with fate. She kept the family together, and saw her younger brothers educated and well started in life. Meanwhile an eagerly active intellect was longing for companionship; and as with the growth of her brothers and their progress toward independence, the pressure of her cares relaxed, we find her in close