Life of Henry David Thoreau

by Henry Stephens Salt

This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1896 edition by Walter Scott, Limited, London.

Genres: History, Biography

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1890

About the author

Henry Stephens Salt (/sɔːlt, sɒlt/; 20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was an English writer and campaigner for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a noted ethical vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, socialist, and pacifist, and was well known as a literary critic, biographer, classical scholar and naturalist.

Reviews

[Mischa Daanen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography on Thoreau from 1896 is very much recommended for additional insights in the man, his philosophy and his impact at the time. Enriched with a variety of personal accounts from relatives and friends and also private letters and notes mentioning him and descriptions of him in other works from colleagues around that time.

"16 November 1857. – They make a great ado nowadays about hard times ; but I think that the community generally, ministers and all, take a wrong view of the matter. This general failure, both private and public, is rather occasion for rejoicing, as reminding us whom we have at the helm that justice is always done. If our merchants did not most of them fail, and the banks too, my faith in the old laws of the world would be staggered. The statement that ninety-six in a hundred doing such business surely break down, is perhaps the sweetest fact that statistics have revealed exhilarating as the fragrance of sallows in spring. Does it not say somewhere, ' The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice' ? If thousands are thrown out of employment, it suggests that they were not well employed. Why don't they take the hint ? It is not enough to be industrious ; so are the ants. What are you industrious about ?
"The merchants and company have long laughed at transcendentalism, higherlaws, etc., crying 'None of your moonshine,' as if they were anchored to something not only definite, but sure and permanent. If there was any institution which was presumed to rest on a solid and secure basis, and more than any other represented this boasted common sense, prudence, and practical talent, it was the bank ; and now these very banks are found to be mere reeds shaken by the wind. Scarcely one in the land has kept its promise. Not merely the Brook Farm and Fourierite communities, but now the community generally has failed. But there is the moonshine still, serene, beneficent, and unchanged. Hard times, I say, have this value, among others, that they show us what such promises are worth – where the sure banks are. . . .

[alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crazy how it took me 3 years to finally acknowledge that what I've been studying in my degree is acc interesting