etorician, in the
common sense. He was a poet, who wrote chiefly in prose, but also in
verse. His verse was usually rough, but sometimes finished and
melodious; it was always extraordinarily concise and expressive. During
his engagement to the lady who became his second wife, he wrote thus to
her: "I am born a poet,--of a low class without doubt, yet a poet; that
is my nature and vocation. My singing, be sure, is very husky, and is,
for the most part, in prose. Still, I am a poet in the sense of a
perceiver and dear lover of the harmonies that are in the soul and in
matter, and specially of the correspondences between these and those."

This husky poet had his living to get. His occupations in life were
those of the teacher, minister, lecturer, and author. He was a teacher
at various times between 1818 and 1826; but he never liked teaching. He
was a preacher at intervals from 1826 to 1847, but a settled minister
only from 1829 to 1832. His career as a lecturer began in the autumn of
1833; and his first book, "Nature," was published in 1836, when he was
thirty-three years old. His lectures for money were given as a rule
during the winter and early spring; and for thirty years the travelling
he was obliged to do in search of audiences was often extremely
fatiguing, and not without serious hardships and exposures. These
occupations usually gave him an income sufficient for his simple wants;
but there were times when outgo exceeded income. The little property his
first wife left him ($1200 a year) relieved him from serious pecuniary
anxiety by 1834; although it did not relieve him from earning by his own
labor the livelihood of his family.

In 1834 he went to live in Concord, where his grandfather had been the
minister at the time of the Revolution, and in 1835 he bought the house
and grounds there which were his home for the rest of his days. Before
settling in Concord, he had spent one winter and spring (1826-27) in the
Southern states, and seven months of 1833 in Europe. Both of these
absences were necessitated by the state of his health, which was
precarious during his young manhood. With these exceptions, he had lived
in Boston or its immediate neighborhood, until he settled in Concord.
His progenitors on both sides were chiefly New England ministers. His
formal education was received in the Boston Latin School and Harvard
College, and was therefore purely local. How narrow and provincial seems
his experience of life!