say about his social nature. I think I may say that he was wholly unpretending, and there was this peculiarity in his aim, that though he had pecuniary difficulties to contend with the greater part of his life, he always studied merely how to make a good article, pencil or other (for he practised various arts), and was never satisfied with what he had produced. Nor was he ever in the least disposed to put off a poor one for the sake of pecuniary gain, as if he labored for a higher end." How fully the ideality, lofty aim, and unflinching honesty of the famous son may be traced to his own revelation of his father's nature!
In the vivacity and adroitness of mind characteristic of French ancestry, one is tempted to believe that, by some mischance, the Celtic blood belonged to Thoreau's mother. Her active, fluent, and witty tongue, expressive of a brilliant mind, has been accounted as "malicious liveliness." The true character of Mrs. Thoreau, however, has recently received full quota of justice from family friends. Cynthia Dunbar, born at Keene, New Hampshire, in 1787, was the daughter of a clever lawyer. He died the year of her birth and later her mother married Jonas Minott of Concord, hence the "Minott house" where Henry Thoreau was born. Mr. Sanborn, in his biography of Thoreau, has given
