Walden: Visitors

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Walden: Visitors

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  • Princeton_Ed: Princeton Ed. of Walden
  • Version_A: Walden, Version A (1847)
  • Version_B: Walden, Version B (1849)
  • Version_C: Walden, Version C (1849)
  • Version_D: Walden, Version D (1852)
  • Version_E: Walden, Version E (late 1852 - 1853)
  • Version_F: Walden, Version F (1853-1854)
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Visitors n
Note: The title “Society" appears in pencil at the top of the leaf containing Visitors 1. (R. Clapper)
1
Visitors 1 written: A rewritten: B, D
A & B: Visitors 1 precedes Solitude 12a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I THINK that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me thither .
2
Visitors 2 written: A rewritten: B
A & B: Visitors 2-6 is preceded by Visitors 7-13.
A: [The following passage precedes Visitors 2.] Sometimes there would come half a dozen railroad men to my house at once—healthy and sturdy working men, descended from sound bodies of men, and still transmitting arms & legs & bowels from remote generations to posterity. They had a rude wisdom and courtesy which I love. downward from remote days to more remote. Some of them had got a rude wisdom withal and a courtesy which I love thanks to their dear-bought experience. I met them so often in the woods—that they began to look upon me at last as one of their kin. One a handsome younger man a sailor-like—Greek-like man—says to me to-day—“Sir, I like your notions—I think I shall live so myself. Only I should like wilder country, where there is was more game. I have been among the Indians near Apallachicola. I have lived with them. I like your kind of life. Good-day, I wish you success and happiness." They came in troops on Sundays in clean shirts, with washed hands & faces, and fresh twigs in their hands. There appeared in some of these men even at a distance, a genuine magnanimity equal to Greek or Roman, of unexplored and uncontaminated descent—The expression of their grimmed & sunburnt features made me think of Epaminondas of Socrates & Cato. The most famous philosophers & poets seem in some respects infantile beside the easy and successful life of natural men. These faces—homely—hard and scarred like the rocks, but human & wise—embracing Copt, and Mussulman and all tribes & nations. One is a pacha or Sultan—Selim—or Mustapha or Mahmoud in disguise. Circumstances and employment may conceal for a season but they do not essentially alter the finer qualities of our nature. I observe among these men when I meet them on the road an ineradicable refinement & delicacy—as old as the sun & moon.—A fineness which is commonly thought to adorn the drawing rooms only. There is no more real rudeness in laborers & washer women—than in gentlemen and ladies. Under some ancient wrinkled, almost forlorn visage of an Indian chieftain slumbers all that was ever writ or spoken of man. You can tell a nobleman’s head though he may be shovelling gravel beneath it six rods off in the midst of a gang with a bandana handkerchief tied about it. Such as are to succeed the worthies of history. Their humble occupation which allows them to take no airs upon themselves seems their least disadvantage—Civilization seems to make bright only the superficial film of the eye. Most men are wrecked upon their consciousness.
B: (preceded by two leaves, #99-101, from A that were taken into B and renumbered, #117-119) men, descended from sound bodies, and still transmitting arms and legs and bowels downward from remote days to more remote. Some of them had got a rude wisdom withal and a courtesy which I love, thanks to their dear-bought experience. I met them so often in the woods that they began to look upon me at last as one of their kin. One a handsome younger man, a sailor-like Greek-like man, says to me to-day—“Sir, I like your notions, I think I shall live so myself. Only I should like a wilder country where there is more game. I have been among the Indians near Apallachicola. I have lived with them. I like your kind of life. Good-day. I wish you success and happiness." They came in troops on Sundays, in clean shirts with washed hands & faces, and fresh twigs in their hands. Circumstances and employment affect but slowly the finer qualities of our nature. I observe observed in some of these men an inextinguishable and ineradicable refinement and delicacy of nature, older and of more worth than the sun & moon, which are commonly thought to adorn the drawing rooms only. Sometimes a genuine magnanimity more than Greek or Roman —equal to the least occasion, of unexplored and uncontaminated descent. Greater traits I seem to observe in them methought I noticed in the shortest intercourse, than are recorded of Epaminondas Socrates or Cato, With any of these worthies. They had faces homely, hard and seared like the rocks, but human and wise, embracing Copt and Mussulman, all races & nations. One is a pacha or Sultan—Selim—Mustapha or Mahmoud in disguise. There is no more real rudeness in laborers or washerwomen than in gentlemen & ladies. Under some ancient and wrinkled, almost forlorn visage, as of an Indian chieftan slumbers slumbered the world famous humanities qualities of man. There is the race, and you need look no further. You can tell a nobleman’s head among a thousand—though he may be shovelling gravel six rods off in the midst of a gang with cotton handkerchief tied about it. Such a one as is to succeed the worthies of history. Their humble occupation and that they take no airs upon themselves, are no disadvantage. Civilization makes bright only the superficial film of the eye. Most men are wrecked upon their consciences consciousness. A farmer who lived near the skirts of the wood would pay me a visit, and we took a sober view or even review of the state of the world, & many times we felt that it was good for us to have come together. We consumed many hours endeavoring to crack those old & now dry nuts on which so many philosophers & sour sectarians have left the marks of their teeth, but for the most part we got only the flavor of their shells. Those which are hardest to crack contain no meat & wise squirrels do not meddle with them
E: This passage follows Visitors 14b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another . Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his summons before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse, which soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement .
3
Visitors 3 written: A rewritten: B, E
E: A fair copy was made of only thoughts to get into sailing trim … we gradually shoved our chairs.

(Ronald Clapper)
 One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plough out again through the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them . I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear,— we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other’s undulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other’s breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice in any case. Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout . As the conversation began to assume a loftier and grander tone , we gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners, and then commonly there was not room enough .
4
Visitors 4 written: A rewritten: B

(Ronald Clapper)
 My “best" room, however, my withdrawing room, always ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rarely fell , was the pine wood behind my house. Thither in summer days, when distinguished guests came, I took them, and a priceless domestic swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept the things in order.
5
Visitors 5 written: A rewritten: B
A: You need not rest your reputation … never revisit those scenes is interlined in pencil.
B: A fair copy was made of only if one guest came … bread enough for two, more than if eating. A leaf (#109) from A containing the rest of Visitors 5 and the first half of Visitors 6 was taken into B and renumbered (#127).

(Ronald Clapper)
 If one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty-pudding, or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the mean while. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a case , and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least . So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man’s house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes. I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a card :—
 
“Arrivéd there, the little house they fill,
 
Ne looke for entertainment where none was;
 
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:
 
The noblest mind the best contentment has."
6
Visitors 6 written: A rewritten: B, C
B & C: Fair copies were made of only savages’ barbarous singing … no deficiency in this respect.

(Ronald Clapper)
 When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massassoit on foot through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by the king, but nothing was said about eating that day. When the night arrived, to quote their own words,—“He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only plank, laid a foot from the ground and a thin mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey." At one o’clock the next day Massassoit "brought two fishes that he had shot," about thrice as big as a bream; “these being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in them. The most ate of them. This meal only we had in two nights and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fasting." Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of food and also sleep, owing to “the savages’ barbarous singing, (for they use to sing themselves asleep,)" and that they might get home while they had strength to travel, they departed. As for lodging, it is true they were but poorly entertained, though what they found an inconvenience was no doubt intended for an honor; but as far as eating was concerned, I do not see how the Indians could have done better. They had nothing to eat themselves, and they were wiser than to think that apologies could supply the place of food to their guests; so they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this respect .
7
Visitors 7 written: A rewritten: E
A & E: But fewer came to see me on trivial business … uncultivated continents on the other side does not appear in the manuscript in A or in the original copying of E but is interlined in pencil in E.

(Ronald Clapper)
 As for men, they will hardly fail one any where. I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean that I had some. I met several there under more favorable circumstances than I could any where else. But fewer came to see me on trivial business. In this respect, my company was winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far within the great ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the finest sediment was deposited around me. Beside, there were wafted to me evidences of unexplored and uncultivated continents on the other side.
8a
Visitors 8a written: A rewritten: E
A: Visitors 8-13 appears in the following order—8a, 10a, 12a, 11b, 8b, 11a, 10b, 13a, 11d, 11f, and 13b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 Who should come to my lodge this morning but a true Homeric or Paphlagonian man,— he had so suitable and poetic a name that I am sorry I cannot print it here, —a Canadian, a wood-chopper and post-maker, who can hole fifty posts in a day, who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. He, too, has heard of Homer, and, “if it were not for books," would “not know what to do rainy days," though perhaps he has not read one wholly through for many rainy seasons. Some priest who could pronounce the Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the testament in his native parish far away ; and now I must translate to him, while he holds the book, Achilles’ reproof to Patroclus for his sad countenance.—“Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?"—
 
“Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia?
 
They say that Menœtius lives yet, son of Actor,
 
And Peleus lives, son of Æacus, among the Myrmidons,
 
Either of whom having died, we should greatly grieve."
He says, “That’s good." He has a great bundle of white-oak bark under his arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning. “I suppose there’s no harm in going after such a thing to-day," says he. To him Homer was a great writer, though what his writing was about he did not know . A more simple and natural man it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which cast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed to have hardly any existence for him. He was about twenty-eight years old, and had left Canada and his father’s house a dozen years before to work in the States, and earn money to buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native country . 8b
Visitors 8b written: A rewritten: E
A: Visitors 8b follows Visitors 11b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He was cast in the coarsest mould; a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully carried, with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression . He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat , and cowhide boots. He was a great consumer of meat, usually carrying his dinner to his work a couple of miles past my house,—for he chopped all summer,—in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold woodchucks , and coffee in a stone bottle which dangled by a string from his belt; and sometimes he offered me a drink. He came along early, crossing my bean-field, though without anxiety or haste to get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit. He wasn’t a-going to hurt himself. He didn’t care if he only earned his board. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his dog had caught a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to dress it and leave it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after deliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in the pond safely till nightfall,—loving to dwell long upon these themes. He would say, as he went by in the morning, “How thick the pigeons are! If working every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should want by hunting,—pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges,—by gosh ! I could get all I should want for a week in one day."
9
Visitors 9 written: C rewritten: E
C & E: Visitors 9, which was interlined in pencil in C, follows Visitors 10b and precedes Visitors 12a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flourishes and ornaments in his art. He cut his trees level and close to the ground, that the sprouts which came up afterward might be more vigorous and a sled might slide over the stumps ; and instead of leaving a whole tree to support his corded wood, he would pare it away to a slender stake or splinter which you could break off with your hand at last.
10a
Visitors 10a written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 10a follows Visitors 8a and precedes Visitors 12a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. 10b
Visitors 10b written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 10b follows Visitors 11a and precedes Visitors 13a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 Sometimes I saw him at his work in the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian French, though he spoke English as well . When I approached him he would suspend his work, and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a pine which he had felled, and, peeling off the inner bark, roll it up into a ball and chew it while he laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirits had he that he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the ground with laughter at any thing which made him think and tickled him. Looking round upon the trees he would exclaim,—“By George! I can enjoy myself well enough here chopping; I want no better sport." Sometimes, when at leisure, he amused himself all day in the woods with a pocket pistol, firing salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked . In the winter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in a kettle; and as he sat on a log to eat his dinner the chickadees would sometimes come round and alight on his arm and peck at the potato in his fingers; and he said that he “liked to have the little about him."
11a
Visitors 11a written: A rewritten: B, C, E
A: Visitors 11a follows Visitors 8b and precedes Visitors 10b.
B: Visitors 11a follows Visitors 11e and precedes Visitors 12b.
C: Visitors 11-12 appears in the following order—12a, 12c, 11b, 11c, 11d, 11f, 11a, and 12b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 In him the animal man chiefly was developed. In physical endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock . I asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at night, after working all day; and he answered, with a sincere and serious look , "Gorrappit, I never was tired in my life." But the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in him were slumbering as in an infant . 11b
Visitors 11b written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 11b follows Visitors 12a and precedes Visitors 8b.
C: Visitors 11b follows Visitors 12c.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a child is not made a man, but kept a child. When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and contentment for his portion, and propped him on every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his threescore years and ten a child. 11c
Visitors 11c written: B rewritten: C, E
B: Visitors 11c follows Visitors 13b and precedes Visitors 11e.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He was so genuine and unsophisticated that no introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if you introduced a woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out as you did. He would not play any part . Men paid him wages for work, and so helped to feed and clothe him ; but he never exchanged opinions with them. 11d
Visitors 11d written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 11d follows Visitors 13a and precedes Visitors 11f.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He was so simply and naturally humble— if he can be called humble who never aspires —that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor could he conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. 11e
Visitors 11e written: B rewritten: E
B: Visitors 11e follows Visitors 11c and precedes Visitors 11a.
E: Visitors 11e is interlined in pencil in its present position.
B: Visitors 11e appears as follows. He never heard the sound of praise. If I told him that a wise man was coming to see him he did not know nor think how he would behave more than if I told him an archangel were coming—but he did as if he thought that anything so grand would expect nothing of himself but take all the responsibility on itself, and let him be forgotten still

(Ronald Clapper)
 If you told him that such a one was coming, he did as if he thought that any thing so grand would expect nothing of himself, but take all the responsibility on itself, and let him be forgotten still. He never heard the sound of praise. 11f
Visitors 11f written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 11f follows Visitors 11d and precedes Visitors 13b.
C: Visitors 11f follows Visitors 11d and precedes Visitors 11a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their performances were miracles. When I told him that I wrote considerably, he thought for a long time that it was merely the handwriting which I meant , n
Note: “meant" copied and “spoke of" interlined as a variant. (R. Clapper)
 for he could write a remarkably good hand himself . I sometimes found the name of his native parish handsomely written in the snow by the highway, with the proper French accent, and knew that he had passed. I asked him if he ever wished to write his thoughts. He said that he had read and written letters for those who could not, but he never tried to write thoughts,—no, he could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same time!
12a
Visitors 12a written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 12a follows Visitors 10a and precedes Visitors 11b.
C: Visitors 12a follows Visitors 10b and precedes Visitors 12c.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer asked him if he did not want the world to be changed; but he answered with a chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had ever been entertained before, “No, I like it well enough." It would have suggested many things to a philosopher to have dealings with him . 12b
Visitors 12b written: B rewritten: C, E
B: Visitors 12b, 14b and 15a are inserted on the verso of the leaf that contains Visitors 11c, 11e and 11a.
E: A fair copy was made of only To a stranger he appeared … as wise as Shakspeare, or as simply.

(Ronald Clapper)
 To a stranger he appeared to know nothing of things in general; yet I sometimes saw in him a man whom I had not seen before, and I did not know whether he was as wise as Shakspeare or as simply ignorant as a child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity. 12c
Visitors 12c written: A rewritten: C
A & C: Visitors 12c, which is interlined in pencil in A, follows Visitors 12a and precedes Visitors 11b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 A townsman told me that when he met him sauntering through the village in his small close-fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he reminded him of a prince in disguise.
13a
Visitors 13a written: A rewritten: C
A: Visitors 13a follows Visitors 10b and precedes Visitors 11d.
C: Visitors 13a follows Visitors 12b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which last he was considerably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopædia to him, which he supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it does to a considerable extent. I loved to sound him on the various reforms of the day, and he never failed to look at them in the most simple and practical light . He had never heard of such things before. Could he do without factories? I asked. He had worn the home-made Vermont gray, he said, and that was good. Could he dispense with tea and coffee? Did this country afford any beverage beside water? He had soaked hemlock leaves in water and drank it, and thought that was better than water in warm weather. When I asked him if he could do without money , he showed the convenience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide with the most philosophical accounts of the origin of this institution, and the very derivation of the word . If an ox were his property, and he wished to get needles and thread at the store, he thought it would be inconvenient and impossible soon to go on mortgaging some portion of the creature each time to that amount. He could defend many institutions better than any philosopher, because, in describing them as they concerned him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and speculation had not suggested to him any other. 13b
Visitors 13b written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 13b follows Visitors 11f.
C: Visitors 13b is interlined in pencil in its present order.
E: A fair copy was made of only without feathers, —and that one exhibited … knees bent the wrong way.

(Ronald Clapper)
 At another time, hearing Plato’s definition of a man,— a biped without feathers,—and that one exhibited a cock plucked and called it Plato’s man, he thought it an important difference that the bent the wrong way . 13c
Visitors 13c written: A rewritten: C, E

(Ronald Clapper)
 He would sometimes exclaim, “How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all day!" 13d
Visitors 13d written: E
E: He would sometimes ask me … honesty and the like virtues is interlined in pencil.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I asked him once when I had not seen him for many months, if he had got a new idea this summer. “Good Lord," said he, “a man that has to work as I do, if he does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do well. May be the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, by gorry, your mind must be there; you think of weeds." He would sometimes ask me first on such occasions, if I had made any improvement. One winter day I asked him if he was always satisfied with himself, wishing to suggest a substitute within him for the priest without, and some higher motive for living. “Satisfied!" said he; “some men are satisfied with one thing, and some with another. One man, perhaps, if he has got enough, will be satisfied to sit all day with his back to the fire and his belly to the table, by George!" Yet I never, by any manœuvring, could get him to take the spiritual view of things; the highest that he appeared to conceive of was a simple expediency, such as you might expect an animal to appreciate; and this, practically, is true of most men . If I suggested any improvement in his mode of life , he merely answered, without expressing any regret, that it was too late. Yet he thoroughly believed in honesty and the like virtues.
14a
Visitors 14a written: E
E: Though he hesitated … presentable thought behind is interlined in pencil.

(Ronald Clapper)
 There was a certain positive originality, however slight, to be detected in him, and I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion , a phenomenon so rare that I would any day walk ten miles to observe it, and it amounted to the re-origination of many of the institutions of society. Though he hesitated, and perhaps failed to express himself distinctly, he always had a presentable thought behind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and immersed in his animal life, that, though more promising than a merely learned man’s, it rarely ripened to any thing which can be reported. 14b
Visitors 14b written: B rewritten: C, E
B: Visitors 14b is interlined in pencil.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He suggested that there might be men of genius in the lowest grades of life, however permanently humble and illiterate, who take their own view always, or do not pretend to see at all ; who are as bottomless even as Walden Pond was thought to be, though they may be dark and muddy . n
Note: For earlier versions of this passage in A & B, see Visitors 2. (R. Clapper)
15a
Visitors 15a written: B rewritten: D, E
B: Visitors 15a is interlined in pencil.
E: A fair copy was made of only Many a traveller came out of his way to see.

(Ronald Clapper)
 Many a traveller came out of his way to see me and the inside of my house, and, as an excuse for calling, asked for a glass of water. I told them that I drank at the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend them a dipper . Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from the annual visitation which occurs, methinks, about the first of April, when every body is on the move; and I had my share of good luck, though there were some curious specimens among my visitors. Half-witted men from the almshouse and elsewhere came to see me; but I endeavored to make them exercise all the wit they had, and make their confessions to me; in such cases making wit the theme of our conversation; and so was compensated. Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so called of the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned. With respect to wit, I learned that there was not much difference between the half and the whole. 15b
Visitors 15b written: D

(Ronald Clapper)
 One day, in particular, an inoffensive, simple-minded pauper, whom with others I had often seen used as fencing stuff, standing or sitting on a bushel in the fields to keep cattle and himself from straying, visited me, and expressed a wish to live as I did. He told me, with the utmost simplicity and truth, quite superior, or rather inferior , to any thing that is called humility, that he was “deficient in intellect." These were his words. The Lord had made him so, yet he supposed the Lord cared as much for him as for another. “I have always been so," said he, “from my childhood; I never had much mind; I was not like other children; I am weak in the head. It was the Lord’s will, I suppose." And there he was to prove the truth of his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely met a fellow-man on such promising ground,—it was so simple and sincere and so true all that he said. And, true enough, in proportion as he appeared to humble himself was he exalted. I did not know at first but it was the result of a wise policy . It seemed that from such a basis of truth and frankness as the poor weak-headed pauper had laid, our intercourse might go forward to something better than the intercourse of sages.
16
Visitors 16 written: D

(Ronald Clapper)
 I had some guests from those not reckoned commonly among the town’s poor, but who should be; who are among the world’s poor, at any rate; guests who appeal, not to your hospitality, but to your hospitality ; who earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their appeal with the information that they are resolved, for one thing, never to help themselves. I require of a visitor that he be not actually starving, though he may have the very best appetite in the world, however he got it . Objects of charity are not guests. Men who did not know when their visit had terminated, though I went about my business again , answering them from greater and greater remoteness. Men of almost every degree of wit called on me in the migrating season. Some who had more wits than they knew what to do with; runaway slaves with plantation manners, who listened from time to time, like the fox in the fable, as if they heard the hounds a-baying on their track, and looked at me beseechingly, as much as to say, —
 
“O Christian, will you send me back?"
One real runaway slave, among the rest, whom I helped to forward toward the northstar. Men of one idea, like a hen with one chicken, and that a duckling; men of a thousand ideas, and unkempt heads, like those hens which are made to take charge of a hundred chickens, all in pursuit of one bug, a score of them lost in every morning’s dew,— and become frizzled and mangy in consequence; men of ideas instead of legs, a sort of intellectual centipede that made you crawl all over. One man proposed a book in which visitors should write their names, as at the White Mountains; but, alas! I have too good a memory to make that necessary .
17
Visitors 17 written: B rewritten: E
B & E: and you would suppose that they would not go … as many risks as he runs does not appear in the manuscript in B or in the original copying of E but is interlined in E.
E: A fair copy was made of only that it was not possible to do so much good … feared the men-harriers rather.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors. Girls and boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods. They looked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time. Men of business, even farmers, thought only of solitude and employment, and of the great distance at which I dwelt from something or other; and though they said that they loved a ramble in the woods occasionally, it was obvious that they did not. Restless committed men, whose time was all taken up in getting a living or keeping it; ministers who spoke of God as if they enjoyed a monopoly of the subject, who could not bear all kinds of opinions; doctors, lawyers , uneasy housekeepers who pried into my cupboard and bed when I was out,—how came Mrs. —— to know that my sheets were not as clean as hers ? —young men who had ceased to be young, and had concluded that it was safest to follow the beaten track of the professions,— all these generally said that it was not possible to do so much good in my position. Ay! there was the rub. The old and infirm and the timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most of sickness, and sudden accident and death; to them life seemed full of danger,—what danger is there if you don't think of any? —and they thought that a prudent man would carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might be on hand at a moment’s warning. To them the village was literally a com-munity , a league for mutual defence, and you would suppose that they would not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of it is, if a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs . Finally, there were the self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of all, who thought that I was forever singing,—
 
This is the house that I built;
 
This is the man that lives in the house that I built;
but they did not know that the third line was,
 
These are the folks that worry the man
 
That lives in the house that I built.
I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I feared the men-harriers rather.
18
Visitors 18 written: E
E: Visitors 18 is interlined.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I had more cheering visitors than the last . Children come a-berrying, railroad men taking a Sunday morning walk in clean shirts , fishermen and hunters, poets and philosophers , in short, all honest pilgrims, who came out to the woods for freedom’s sake, and really left the village behind, I was ready to greet with,—“Welcome, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!" for I had had communication with that race.
XVersion
Visitors n
Note: The title “Society" appears in pencil at the top of the leaf containing Visitors 1. (R. Clapper)
1
Visitors 1 written: A rewritten: B, D
A & B: Visitors 1 precedes Solitude 12a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 Yet I think that I love society as much as most, and am apt enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but should probably sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me that way.
 
What do we ask?
 
Some worthy task;
 
Never to run
 
Till that be done,
 
That never done
 
Under the sun.
 
By might & main
 
Health and strength gain,
 
So to give nerve
 
To our slenderness,
 
Yet some mighty pain
 
We would sustain,
 
So to preserve
 
Our tenderness.
 
Strength like the rock
 
To withstand every shock,
 
Yet not be deceived,
 
Of suffering bereaved—
 
Occasion to gain
 
To shed human tears,
 
And to entertain
 
Still demonic fears.
 
Not once for all
 
Forever blest.
 
Still to be cheered
 
Out of the west,
 
Not from our heart
 
To banish all sighs,
 
Still be encouraged
 
By the sun-rise—
 
For earthly pleasures,
 
Celestial pains—
 
Heavenly losses,
 
For earthly gains.
 
Must we still eat
 
The bread we have spurned?
 
Must we rekindle
 
The faggots we’ve burned?
 .
2
Visitors 2 written: A rewritten: B
A & B: Visitors 2-6 is preceded by Visitors 7-13.
A: [The following passage precedes Visitors 2.] Sometimes there would come half a dozen railroad men to my house at once—healthy and sturdy working men, descended from sound bodies of men, and still transmitting arms & legs & bowels from remote generations to posterity. They had a rude wisdom and courtesy which I love. downward from remote days to more remote. Some of them had got a rude wisdom withal and a courtesy which I love thanks to their dear-bought experience. I met them so often in the woods—that they began to look upon me at last as one of their kin. One a handsome younger man a sailor-like—Greek-like man—says to me to-day—“Sir, I like your notions—I think I shall live so myself. Only I should like wilder country, where there is was more game. I have been among the Indians near Apallachicola. I have lived with them. I like your kind of life. Good-day, I wish you success and happiness." They came in troops on Sundays in clean shirts, with washed hands & faces, and fresh twigs in their hands. There appeared in some of these men even at a distance, a genuine magnanimity equal to Greek or Roman, of unexplored and uncontaminated descent—The expression of their grimmed & sunburnt features made me think of Epaminondas of Socrates & Cato. The most famous philosophers & poets seem in some respects infantile beside the easy and successful life of natural men. These faces—homely—hard and scarred like the rocks, but human & wise—embracing Copt, and Mussulman and all tribes & nations. One is a pacha or Sultan—Selim—or Mustapha or Mahmoud in disguise. Circumstances and employment may conceal for a season but they do not essentially alter the finer qualities of our nature. I observe among these men when I meet them on the road an ineradicable refinement & delicacy—as old as the sun & moon.—A fineness which is commonly thought to adorn the drawing rooms only. There is no more real rudeness in laborers & washer women—than in gentlemen and ladies. Under some ancient wrinkled, almost forlorn visage of an Indian chieftain slumbers all that was ever writ or spoken of man. You can tell a nobleman’s head though he may be shovelling gravel beneath it six rods off in the midst of a gang with a bandana handkerchief tied about it. Such as are to succeed the worthies of history. Their humble occupation which allows them to take no airs upon themselves seems their least disadvantage—Civilization seems to make bright only the superficial film of the eye. Most men are wrecked upon their consciousness.
B: (preceded by two leaves, #99-101, from A that were taken into B and renumbered, #117-119) men, descended from sound bodies, and still transmitting arms and legs and bowels downward from remote days to more remote. Some of them had got a rude wisdom withal and a courtesy which I love, thanks to their dear-bought experience. I met them so often in the woods that they began to look upon me at last as one of their kin. One a handsome younger man, a sailor-like Greek-like man, says to me to-day—“Sir, I like your notions, I think I shall live so myself. Only I should like a wilder country where there is more game. I have been among the Indians near Apallachicola. I have lived with them. I like your kind of life. Good-day. I wish you success and happiness." They came in troops on Sundays, in clean shirts with washed hands & faces, and fresh twigs in their hands. Circumstances and employment affect but slowly the finer qualities of our nature. I observe observed in some of these men an inextinguishable and ineradicable refinement and delicacy of nature, older and of more worth than the sun & moon, which are commonly thought to adorn the drawing rooms only. Sometimes a genuine magnanimity more than Greek or Roman —equal to the least occasion, of unexplored and uncontaminated descent. Greater traits I seem to observe in them methought I noticed in the shortest intercourse, than are recorded of Epaminondas Socrates or Cato, With any of these worthies. They had faces homely, hard and seared like the rocks, but human and wise, embracing Copt and Mussulman, all races & nations. One is a pacha or Sultan—Selim—Mustapha or Mahmoud in disguise. There is no more real rudeness in laborers or washerwomen than in gentlemen & ladies. Under some ancient and wrinkled, almost forlorn visage, as of an Indian chieftan slumbers slumbered the world famous humanities qualities of man. There is the race, and you need look no further. You can tell a nobleman’s head among a thousand—though he may be shovelling gravel six rods off in the midst of a gang with cotton handkerchief tied about it. Such a one as is to succeed the worthies of history. Their humble occupation and that they take no airs upon themselves, are no disadvantage. Civilization makes bright only the superficial film of the eye. Most men are wrecked upon their consciences consciousness. A farmer who lived near the skirts of the wood would pay me a visit, and we took a sober view or even review of the state of the world, & many times we felt that it was good for us to have come together. We consumed many hours endeavoring to crack those old & now dry nuts on which so many philosophers & sour sectarians have left the marks of their teeth, but for the most part we got only the flavor of their shells. Those which are hardest to crack contain no meat & wise squirrels do not meddle with them
E: This passage follows Visitors 14b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, and with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one other . Our houses generally with their huge halls & garretts & cellars, seem to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants. One would certainly be somewhat astonished, if when the herald blew his summons before the Middle-sex House he should see come creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse Many of our houses with their innumerable apartments, their huge halls & cellars for the storage of wines & other munitions of peace, seem to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast & grim—that the latter appear to be only vermin that infest them. I am frequently astonished when the herald blows his summons before some Tremont or Astor or Middle-sex House to see come creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse, which soon as it appears slinks into some hole in the pavement .
3
Visitors 3 written: A rewritten: B, E
E: A fair copy was made of only thoughts to get into sailing trim … we gradually shoved our chairs.

(Ronald Clapper)
 One inconvenience however I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it falls into the ear of the hearer, else it may plough out again through the side of his head. our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. We need a considerable neutral ground—though it be a disputed territory, for individuals like nations must have suitable broad and natural boundaries even a considerable neutral ground—though it be a disputed territory between them.—The reason why the Kilkenny cats quarrelled and ate each other all up but the tails in that hollow sphere, certainly is that there was not room in that small space for their several spheres to revolve . I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. or did you ever talk to the sexton across an empty meeting house after the audience had gone? It is easy to be eloquent at such a time In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear,— and or we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water but so near that they break each other’s undulations. If we are very loquacious and loud talkers, then indeed we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and shoulder to shoulder but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, But if we would be silent we must commonly be so far apart that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voices in any case & that is what we commonly mean by solitude . As the conversation began to assume a loftier and grander tone& this was always the case when it was successful , we gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners, and then sometimes there was not room enough. If you do not want the fire to smoke you must not stand too near it, so as to divert the current of the chimney’s inspiration .
4
Visitors 4 written: A rewritten: B

(Ronald Clapper)
 My “best" room, my withdrawing room, always ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rarely fell, for its green blinds were kept always closed , was the pine wood behind my house. There when distinguished guests came in summer days I took them, and Nature was my domestic that swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept the things in order.
5
Visitors 5 written: A rewritten: B
A: You need not rest your reputation … never revisit those scenes is interlined in pencil.
B: A fair copy was made of only if one guest came … bread enough for two, more than if eating. A leaf (#109) from A containing the rest of Visitors 5 and the first half of Visitors 6 was taken into B and renumbered (#127).

(Ronald Clapper)
 If one guest came to my house he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty-pudding,in the meanwhile or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the mean while. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a case , and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well as twenty; and I am not aware that if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least . So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old. I mention this to show that you need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man’s house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade he made of dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes. To quote the lines which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf and which may make part of the motto of my house :—
 
“Arrivéd there, the little house they fill,
 
Ne looke for entertainment where none was;
 
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:
 
The noblest mind the best contentment has."
6
Visitors 6 written: A rewritten: B, C
B & C: Fair copies were made of only savages’ barbarous singing … no deficiency in this respect.

(Ronald Clapper)
 When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massassoit on foot through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by the king, but nothing was said about eating that day. When the night arrived, to quote their own words,—“He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only plank, laid a foot from the ground and a thin mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey." At one o’clock the next day Massassoit "brought two fishes that he had shot," about thrice as big as a bream; “these being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in them. The most ate of them. This meal only we had in two nights and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fasting." For fear Fearing that they should be light-headed for want of food & also sleep on account of owing to “the savages’ barbarous singing (for they used to sing themselves asleep)," and for want of food, and that they might get home while they had strength to travel—they departed. The fact was—the Indians had nothing to eat themselves—and they were wiser than to think that apologies & ceremony could supply the place of food to their guests—and so they drew their belts tighter & said nothing about it—As for lodging indeed they were but poorly entertained, but as far as eating was concerned I do not see how the Indians could have done better. This was a time of fasting with them. At another time when Winslow visited them—they he got as much to eat as he got little before .
7
Visitors 7 written: A rewritten: E
A & E: But fewer came to see me on trivial business … uncultivated continents on the other side does not appear in the manuscript in A or in the original copying of E but is interlined in pencil in E.

(Ronald Clapper)
 As for men, they will hardly fail one any where. I have had more of their society since while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I met many men there under more favorable circumstances than I could any where else. Yet fewer came to see me on trivial businessit is true. In this respect, my company was winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far into within the great ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the finest sediment was deposited where I was. Also around me. Beside there were wafted to me evidences of unexplored and uncultivated continents on the other side.
8a
Visitors 8a written: A rewritten: E
A: Visitors 8-13 appears in the following order—8a, 10a, 12a, 11b, 8b, 11a, 10b, 13a, 11d, 11f, and 13b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 Who should come to my lodge this morning but a true Homeric or Paphlagonian man,— Alex Therien—(terren, Alexander the Farmer) he calls himself he had so suitable and poetic a name that I am sorry I cannot print it here, —a Canadian, a wood-chopper and post-maker, who can hole fifty posts in a day, who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. He, too, has heard of Homer, and, “if it were not for books," would “not know what to do rainy days," though perhaps he has not read one wholly through for many rainy seasons. Some priest who could pronounce the Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the testament at Nicolèt, away by the Trois Riviers once ; and now I must translate to him, while he holds the book, Achilles’ reproof to Patroclus for his sad countenance.—“Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?"—
 
“Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia?
 
They say that Menœtius lives yet, son of Actor,
 
And Peleus lives, son of Æacus, among the Myrmidons,
 
Either of whom dead having died, we should greatly grieve."
He says, “That’s good." He has a great bundle of white-oak bark under his arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning. “I suppose there’s no harm in going after such a thing to-day," He had heard of Homer. To him Homer was a great writer, though what his writing was about under the sun he did not know. I have since seen Therien many times . A more simple and natural man I never saw it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which cast such a sombre moral hue over the world, had hardly any existence for him. He left Canada and his father’s house a dozen years ago to work in the states, and earn money to buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native country . 8b
Visitors 8b written: A rewritten: E
A: Visitors 8b follows Visitors 11b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He was about 28 years old—stout & sluggish, with a strong thick fleshy & sunburnt neck & dark bushy hair & dull sleepy & quiet blue eye—breathed hard and smelled of his work . He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat which draped and concealed his body , and cowhide boots. He was strong-limbed and a great consumer of meat, usually carrying his dinner to his work a couple of miles past my house,—for he chopped all summer,—in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold woodchucks which his dog had caught , and coffee in a stone bottle which dangled by a string from his belt; and sometimes he offered me a drink. He came along early, crossing my bean-field, though without any anxiety or haste to get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his dog had caught a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to dress it and leave it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after deliberating for half an hour whether he could not sink it in the pond safely till nightfall,—loving to dwell long upon these themes. He would say, as he went by in the morning, “How thick the pigeons are! If working every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should want by hunting,—pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges,—by George gosh ! I could get all I should want for a week in one day."
10a
Visitors 10a written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 10a follows Visitors 8a and precedes Visitors 12a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He interested me because he was so happy—so solitary—so quiet quiet & solitary & so happy He was a well of good humor and happiness contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. 10b
Visitors 10b written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 10b follows Visitors 11a and precedes Visitors 13a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 Sometimes I saw him at his own work in the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian French, though he spoke English as well, and when I asked him in which he thought now, or if he spoke aloud to himself which language he used—you know we sometimes talk to ourselves—“Yes—some times" answered he—He said it was in English . When I approached him he would suspend his work, and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a tree which he had felled and peeling off the pine bark, roll it up in a ball and chew it while he laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirits had he that he would sometimes tumble down and roll on the ground with laughter at any thing which made him think and tickled him. Sometimes, when at leisure, he would amuse himself all day in the woods with a little pocket pistol firing salutes of powder to himself at regular intervals as he travelled—and would occasionally steal up behind my house and fire a stout charge—& laugh loudly at my surprise or at his own trick He loved also to frighten his dog when alone with him in the woods—by pointing his pistol at him & firing powder only . In winter days when chopping in the woods he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in a tin kettle, and as he sat on a log to eat his dinner. He told me that the chickadees would come round & light on his arm and peck at the potatoe in his fingers, & he added “I like" said that he “liked to have the little fellers about me him.
11a
Visitors 11a written: A rewritten: B, C, E
A: Visitors 11a follows Visitors 8b and precedes Visitors 10b.
B: Visitors 11a follows Visitors 11e and precedes Visitors 12b.
C: Visitors 11-12 appears in the following order—12a, 12c, 11b, 11c, 11d, 11f, 11a, and 12b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 If others had cultivated their intellectual faculties till they astonished him—his physical contentment and endurance—like the a cousin to the pine & the rock was equally astonishing to them . I asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at night, after working all day; and he answered, with a sincere and serious look, quite truthful , "Gorrappit, I never was tired in my life." It sounded like the triumph of the physical man . 11b
Visitors 11b written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 11b follows Visitors 12a and precedes Visitors 8b.
C: Visitors 11b follows Visitors 12c.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, in which the pupil is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a child is not made a man, but kept a child. When Nature made him, she gave him contentment for his portion, a strong body and health and propped him, as it were on every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his threescore years and ten a child. 11d
Visitors 11d written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 11d follows Visitors 13a and precedes Visitors 11f.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He was so simply and naturally humble— —that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor could he conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. 11f
Visitors 11f written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 11f follows Visitors 11d and precedes Visitors 13b.
C: Visitors 11f follows Visitors 11d and precedes Visitors 11a.

(Ronald Clapper)
 He particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their performances were miracles. When I told him that I wrote a good deal, he thought for a long time that it was merely the handwriting which I meant spoke of , n
Note: “meant" copied and “spoke of" interlined as a variant. (R. Clapper)
 for he could write remarkably well himself, indeed much better than I commonly do . I asked him if he ever wished to write his thoughts. He said that he had read and written letters for those who could not, but he never tried to write thoughts,—no, he could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same time!
12a
Visitors 12a written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 12a follows Visitors 10a and precedes Visitors 11b.
C: Visitors 12a follows Visitors 10b and precedes Visitors 12c.

(Ronald Clapper)
 I heard that a wise man the chief of all the Reformers asked him if he did not want the world to be changed; and he answered with a chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had ever been entertained before, “No, he liked it well enough." It would suggest have suggested many things to a philosopher to have dealings with him Indeed he was himself a philosopher in his way, & could take his own views of things . 12c
Visitors 12c written: A rewritten: C
A & C: Visitors 12c, which is interlined in pencil in A, follows Visitors 12a and precedes Visitors 11b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 My friends said that when he met him sauntering through the village in his small close-fitting cap, he reminded him of a prince in disguise.
13a
Visitors 13a written: A rewritten: C
A: Visitors 13a follows Visitors 10b and precedes Visitors 11d.
C: Visitors 13a follows Visitors 12b.

(Ronald Clapper)
 His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which last especially he was quite expert. The former was a sort of universal lexicon to him, which he supposed contained an abstract of human knowledge, I loved to sound him on all the reforms of the day, and he rarely failed to look at them in the most simple and practical light and as they concerned him . He had never heard of such things before. He allowed that he might dispense with many articles of commerce to advantage He had worn the home-made Vermont gray, and that was good. If I didn’t like factories—was it necessary to send abroad for our drink? Did he ever drink anything beside water which the country afforded? He had soaked hemlock leaves in water and drank it in Canada, and that was better than water in warm weather. Could he When I asked him once if he could do without money and , he showed the convenience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide with the most philosophical accounts of the origin of this institution, and the very derivation of the word . If an ox were his property, and he wished to get needles or thread at the store, he thought it would be inconvenient and impossible soon to go on mortgaging some fraction of the creature each time to that amount. 13b
Visitors 13b written: A rewritten: C, E
A: Visitors 13b follows Visitors 11f.
C: Visitors 13b is interlined in pencil in its present order.
E: A fair copy was made of only without feathers, —and that one exhibited … knees bent the wrong way.

(Ronald Clapper)
 Speaking of Plato’s definition of a man,— one day, he said that the knee of the cock turned the other way from man’s, and that was an important difference . 13c
Visitors 13c written: A rewritten: C, E

(Ronald Clapper)
 He would exclaim sometimes after conversing with me several hours “How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all day! You make me think of things I never thought of before
n
Note: For earlier versions of this passage in A & B, see Visitors 2. (R. Clapper)
 
 
 
 
 

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