Thoreau in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

From Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend (1917)

[188] UT From Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend (1917) Edward Waldo Emerson Edward Waldo Emerson (1844–1930), the son of Waldo and Lidian Emerson, graduated from Harvard College in 1866 and Harvard Medical School in 1874, in which year he married Concord native Annie Shepard Keyes; the couple had seven children. Although predominantly interested in art and literature, Emerson practiced medicine in Concord, where he never truly overcame living in the large shadow cast by his father. Thomas Wortham contends that “the burden of being his father’s son rested heavily upon Edward’s shoulders , and circumstances and family expectations often thwarted his ambitions and personal desires” (vii). After Waldo Emerson died in 1882, Edward gave up his medical practice and began lecturing, painting, and writing as well as assisting his sister, Ellen, and James Elliot Cabot in compiling and editing his father’s manuscripts. From the time they were born, Henry Thoreau was a reliable, trusted friend to all the Emerson children. During his extended stay with the family during Waldo’s visit abroad in 1847, Thoreau reported to Waldo a recent conversation he’d had with three-year-old Edward: “He very seriously asked me, the other day, ‘Mr. Thoreau, will you be my father?’ . . . So you must come back soon, or you will be superseded” (Correspondence, 189). Not only does this example evidence the mutual affection between Thoreau and Emerson’s young son, it may also reflect both Thoreau’s yearning to fulfill a paternal role and desire to chastise Emerson for his extended stay away from his family. Concord neighbor and historian Allen French affirms the value of Thoreau’s friendship with Edward: “Thoreau had a marked respect for children and with his varied entertainment and instruction did much to develop Edward’s mind and character. In the household all the interests of the day were discussed. Edward learned to think for himself and, when necessary, to say his say” (1). Before leaving home to take his Harvard College entrance exams, Edward valued Thoreau’s supportive advice: “He had divined my suppressed state of [189] mind and remembered that first crisis in his own life. . . . With serious face, but with a very quiet, friendly tone of voice, he reassured me, told me that I should be really close to home; very likely should pass my life in Concord. It was a great relief” (Henry Thoreau, 147). As an adult, Edward likely realized that he and Thoreau had shared the plight of disappointing Waldo Emerson’s expectations. But he waited until after his father’s death to publish Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend (1917), in which he overturns his father’s contention that Thoreau lacked ambition: “This man . . . is better known and prized more nearly at his worth each year, and to-day is giving freedom and joy in life to fellowmen in the far parts of this country, and beyond the ocean. Let us not misprize him, and regret that he did not make pencils and money.” Moreover, Edward reestablishes Thoreau as a writer, a crucial missing component from Waldo’s “Thoreau.” Edward Emerson explains that he began to lecture on Thoreau in the 1890s “because I was troubled at the want of knowledge and understanding , both in Concord and among his readers at large, not only of his character , but of the events of his life,—which he did not tell to everybody,—and by the false impressions given by accredited writers who really knew him hardly at all” (Henry Thoreau, v–vi). One audience member who attended Emerson ’s 10 December 1890 lecture in Concord was Maria S. Porter. Her report on the talk for the Boston Transcript makes plain that Emerson met his objective : “The remarkable intellectual power and originality of Thoreau as a writer were not so much dwelt upon by the lecturer as was the practical side of his life among them in Concord, his love of Nature, also of music; and his great helpfulness in the family of the Emersons, of which for some time he was an inmate, was spoken of, and illustrated by facts and incidents that were of real interest to the audience and of great value to know. Many pleasant recollections of the lecturer’s childhood were given; also of Thoreau’s delightful stories told the children, of his walks with them in the woods and fields; also of his making musical instruments, that they called trombones...