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Page-Turner

Thoreau in Love

The writer had a deep bond with his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. But
he also had a profound connection with Emerson's wife.

By James Marcus

October 11, 2021

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A GIF shows a field of flowers transform into a line drawing of Henry
David Thoreau and Lidian Emerson Ralph Waldo...
Illustration by Marine Buffard

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When we think of Henry David Thoreau, we think of him at Walden.
Indeed, readers might be forgiven for imagining that he passed his
entire adult life there, planting beans and bouncing pebbles off the
frozen surface of the pond. But, in fact, Thoreau spent little more
than two years in the cabin. The rest of the time, he lived as a
paying customer at his family's boarding house in Concord,
Massachusetts. Yes, he sang the praises of perpetual motion.
("Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin
to flow," he once wrote.) Yet he largely stuck to his burrow, with
one notable exception: a protracted pajama party, in two distinct
chapters, at the home of his great friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo
Emerson.

Thoreau first joined the Emerson household in April of 1841. At that
point, Emerson was dallying with communitarian ideals, and doubtless
found the idea of a house guest more palatable than carting manure at
the nearby utopian compound of Brook Farm. Also, Emerson adored his
young friend. He viewed Thoreau as a disciple, factotum, personal
healer. "I work with him as I should not without him," Emerson
informed his brother William, adding that the newest member of the
house was "a scholar & a poet & as full of buds of promise as a young
apple tree."

James Marcus is a writer, an editor, and a translator. He is at work
on his second book, "Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Emerson
in Thirteen Installments."
More:ThoreauLiteratureLoveRalph Waldo EmersonWaldenBooks

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