shipped them to England, with the request that they might be kept from
ever again becoming troublesome by being consigned to service as
common sailors on board ships-of-war. No doubt existed of the King's
approbation. The lords of trade, more merciless than the savages and
than the wilderness in winter, wished very much that every one of the
Acadians should be driven out; and, when it seemed that the work was
done, congratulated the King that "the zealous endeavors of Lawrence
had been crowned with an entire success."

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Born in 1803, died In 1882, a Unitarian clergyman in Boston
in 1829-32; began a long career as lecturer in 1833; settled
in Concord in 1834; editor of _The Dial_ in 1842-44;
published "Nature" in 1836; "Essays," two series, in
1841-44; "Poems" in 1846; "Representative Men" in 1850;
"English Traits" in 1856; "Conduct of Life" in 1860;
"Society and Solitude" in 1870; "Letters and Social Aims" in
1876.

I

THOREAU'S BROKEN TASK[71]

His robust common sense, armed with stout hands, keen perceptions, and
strong will, can not yet account for the superiority which shone in
his simple and hidden life. I must add the cardinal fact that there
was an excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of men, which
showed him the material world as a means and symbol. This discovery,
which sometimes yields to poets a certain casual and interrupted
light, serving for the ornament of their writing, was in him an
unsleeping insight; and whatever faults or obstructions of temperament
might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his
youth he said one day, "The other world is all my art: my pencils
will draw no other; my jack-knife will cut nothing else; I do not use
it as a means." This was the muse and genius that ruled his opinions,
conversation, studies, work and course of life. This made him a
searching judge of men. At first glance he measured his companion,
and, tho insensible to some fine traits of culture, could very well
report his weight and caliber. And this made the impression of genius
which his conversation often gave.

[Footnote 71: From Emerson's address at the funeral of Thoreau, as
expanded for the _Atlantic Monthly_ of August, 1862; usually printed
since as an introduction to Thoreau's volume entitled "Excursions,"
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Company.]

I think his fancy for referring everything to