[Rarebooks] FS: Thoreau MANUSCRIPT from his important essay, LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE

[Charles Agvent]

THOREAU, Henry David. THE WRITINGS OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU [WORKS] with a 
leaf of manuscript. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1906. 
Manuscript Edition. Large octavo (6" x 8-3/4"), 20 volumes bound in 
original green buckram. Illustrated with a folding map of Concord and 
103 plates with lettered tissue guards. Manuscript edition, in original 
binding. Number 536 of 600 sets SIGNED by the publisher and with an 
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT sheet by Thoreau tipped into the first volume. The 
two page manuscript fragment comprises 55 lines, much of it with a big 
"X" by Thoreau over the text. What is not crossed out, however, is one 
of Thoreau's best-known paragraphs from his important essay, LIFE 
WITHOUT PRINCIPLE: "Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, 
is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life 
ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere 
gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not 
read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbors, and, for the most 
part, the only difference between us & our fellow, is that he has seen 
the newspaper, or been out to tea, & we have not. In proportion as our 
inward life fails, we go more constantly & desperately to the post 
office." The rest of the paragraph, not present here: "you may depend on 
it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of 
letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from 
himself this long while." Most of the manuscript has been "X"ed by 
Thoreau and may or may not be published, but certainly is interesting. 
In part: "Mere numbers, noise, & tinsel count as nothing, though many 
think that they are all. We have just had a state muster -- a sort of 
military picnic -- in our usually quiet town of Concord, heralded by 
many trumpets, as if it were something worth attending to. But the only 
observation that I made during all those days was, that the town was 
fuller of dust than it was ever known to be before." Light wear. Near 
Fine with an exceptional manuscript offering.

LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE originated as a lecture called "What Shall It 
Profit," first delivered at Railroad Hall in Providence in 1854. It was 
the 46th of the 75 lectures Thoreau is known to have given and was 
delivered 5 more times in the next two years. It is considered by many 
to be preeminent among his essays, his most concentrated statement of 
his major message, his equivalent of Emerson's SELF-RELIANCE. Of this 
essay, Walter Harding in THE DAYS OF THOREAU said: "... in a few pages 
the very essence of Thoreau's philosophy.... It is pure 
Transcendentalism, a plea that each follow his own inner light." This 
edition also marks the first printing of Thoreau's entire Journal. 
(#019250)        $15,000.00

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