Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/109

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HENRY THOREAU

Brighton, — or Bright-town, — which place he would reach some time in the morning.”

Thoreau said he once overheard one of his auditors at a country Lyceum after the lecture say to another, “What does he lecture for?” — a question which made him quake in his shoes.

I forget of what the following amusing utterance is apropos: “If you are chosen Town Clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Terra del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is wider than our views of it.”

When, on occasion of some convention, some divines tarried at his mother's, one of these persons told the aunts that he wished Henry would go and hear him, saying, “I have a sermon on purpose for him.” The aunts gave little hope, but presently Henry came in and was intro-

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