NOTES
Page 68, note 1. Mr. Henry S. Salt, who, in 1890, published in London his excellent and appreciative book on Thoreau, tells how in the same essay Stevenson summed up his character by the phrase “a skulker” but had to admit later — unhappily only in a preface — that he had quite misread Thoreau through lack of sufficient knowledge of his life.
Page 72, note 1. Thoreau once said: “A thought would destroy, like the jet of a blowpipe, most persons.”
Page 73, note 1. A lady who, from her youth upward, was constantly meeting Thoreau at the homes of two of his friends where she also often stayed, and who also was in friendly relation with his mother and sister, says: “When others say of Henry Thoreau that he took no interest except in his selfish concerns, that he was a mere hermit, that he was strange, indolent, had no occupation, immediately it comes to me that that is all wrong. It seems as if he had so much affection, was cordial with his kind, that is, when they were of his kind, where there were points of contact.
“He took great pleasure in learning from Nature and he wished to divide what he learned with others, and to help let them see with his eyes, that is, show them how to see.”
Thoreau wrote in his journal: “It is always a recommendation to me to know that a man has ever been poor, has been regularly born
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