D.H.Thoreau, another great American.

David Henri Thoreau was born in Concord Massachusetts in 1817. His father was a pencil maker of French descent. He studied at Harvard University between 1833 and 1837.  He joined the Faculty of the Concord Public School but resigned after a short time because he refused to administer corporal punishment.
With his brother John he opened a school where he introduced several progressive concepts but closed this when his brother died in 1842. He returned to Concord and  met R.Waldo Emerson and resumed work at the family pencil factory. Here he rediscovered the process of mixing graphite with clay (the Conte process), and later converted the factory to produce graphite which was used for typesetting machines.
In 1845 he embarked  on a two-year experiment in simple living in a small self-built cabin on the shores of  Walden Pond on land that belonged to Emerson.Here he spent an incredible amount of time reading and writing. He had a brush with the tax man in 1846 when he refused to pay poll tax because of his opposition to the Mexican-American War, and slavery, and had to  spend a night in prison. This incident had a strong impact on him, and in 1848 he delivered an important  lecture on the "Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government".
He left Walden Pond in 1847 but worked for several years  continuously revising his  manuscript "Walden, or Life in the Woods". This book had mixed reviews  but Robert Frost said of it - "In one book  he surpasses everything we have in America".
Thoreau became increasingly fascinated by natural history and travel, he admired Darwin, became a land surveyor  and wrote  very detailed natural history observations on fruit trees  and the migrationary habits of birds etc.  He believed  that one should "Live at home like a traveler".  He was a life-long abolitionist. He died  of tuberculosis at 44  in  1862- "Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only  not indispensable  but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind". Thoreau.     Wise words.

Robert Frost, a sensitive poet, and snow....

Robert Frost was born in California 1874, of Scottish descent on his mother's side, and English descent on his father's. He sold his first poem 'My Butterfly: An Elegy' in 1894.He prospered at Harvard, then for 9 years he worked on his grandfather's farm in New Hampshire. Ultimately this was not a success, so between 1906 and 1911 he returned to being an English teacher. In 1912 he sailed to Britain with his family, stayed first in Glasgow, then went to Beaconsfield outside London. He wrote some of his best work while in England including his first book of Poems A Boy's Will in 1913 and while there met up with Ezra Pound, Edward Thomas and T.E.Hulme. At the start of World War 1 in 1915 he returned to US and bought a farm in New Hampshire, and pursued a career in teaching, writing, and lecturing. This home is still maintained today as Frost Place, a museum and poetry conference site. Until 1963 Frost spent every Summer and Autumn at the Bread Loaf Writers conference at Vermont.
He died in Boston in 1963. His epitaph was - "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
by Robert Frost (c1923).


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake,
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.