CONCORD, December 31, 1852.
MR. WATSON,--I would be glad to visit Plymouth again, but at present I
have nothing to read which is not severely heathenish, or at least
secular,--which the dictionary defines as "relating to affairs of the
present world, not holy,"--though not necessarily unholy; nor have I
any leisure to prepare it. My writing at present is profane, yet in a
good sense, and, as it were, sacredly, I may say; for, finding the air
of the temple too close, I sat outside. Don't think I say this to get
off; no, no! It will not do to read such things to hungry ears. "If
they ask for bread, will you give them a stone?" When I have something
of the right kind, depend upon it I will let you know.
* * * * *
Up to 1848, when he was invited to lecture before the Salem Lyceum by
Nathaniel Hawthorne, then its secretary, Thoreau seems to have spoken
publicly very little except in Concord; nor did he extend the circuit
of his lectures much until his two books had made him known as a
thinker. There was little to attract a popular audience in his manner
or his matter; but it was the era of lectures, and if one could once
gain admission to the circle of "lyceum lecturers," it did not so much
matter what he said; a lecture was a lecture, as a sermon was a
sermon, good, bad, or indifferent. But it was common to exclude the
antislavery speakers from the lyceums, even those of more eloquence
than Thoreau; this led to invitations from the small band of reformers
scattered about New England and New York, so that the most unlikely of
platform speakers (Ellery Channing, for example) sometimes gave
lectures at Plymouth, Greenfield, Newburyport, or elsewhere. The
present fashion of parlor lectures had not come in; yet at Worcester
Thoreau's friends early organized for him something of that kind, as
his letters to Mr. Blake show. In default of an audience of numbers,
Thoreau fell into the habit of lecturing in his letters to this
friend; the most marked instance being the thoughtful essay on Love
and Chastity which makes the bulk of his epistle dated September,
1852. Like most of his serious writing, this was made up from his
daily journal, and hardly comes under the head of "familiar letters;"
the didactic purpose is rather too apparent. Yet it cannot be spared
from any collection of his epistles,--none of which flowed more
directly from the quickened moral nature of the man.