ible sultry lull just before the great storm. You must picture the
audience of the best people in Massachusetts, half-sympathizing with
Captain Brown, half-afraid of being guilty of treason in so doing. You
must picture the speaker, with his clear-cut, earnest features and
penetrating voice. No preacher, no politician, no professional
reformer, no Republican, no Democrat; a man who never voted; a
naturalist whose companions were the flowers and the birds, the trees
and the squirrels. It was the voice of Nature in protest against
slavery and in plea for Captain Brown.

"My respect for my fellow-men," said Thoreau, "is not being increased
these days. I have noticed the cold-blooded way in which men speak of
this event, as if an ordinary malefactor, though one of unusual pluck,
'the gamest man I ever saw,' the Governor of Virginia said, had been
caught and was about to be hung. He was not thinking of his foes when
the Governor of Virginia thought he looked so brave.

"It turns what sweetness I have to gall to hear the remarks of some of
my neighbors. When we heard at first that he was dead, one of my
townsmen observed that 'he dieth as the fool dieth,' which, for an
instant, suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living.
Others, craven-hearted, said, disparagingly, that he threw his life
away because he resisted the Government. Which way have they thrown
their lives, pray?

"I hear another ask, Yankee-like, 'What will he gain by it?' as if he
expected to fill his pockets by the enterprise. If it does not lead to
a surprise party, if he does not get a new pair of boots or a vote of
thanks, it must be a failure. But he won't get anything. Well, no; I
don't suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take
the year around, but he stands a chance to save his soul--and such a
soul!--which you do not. You can get more in your market for a quart
of milk than a quart of blood, but yours is not the market heroes carry
their blood to.

"Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that in the
moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable; that
when you plant or bury a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to
spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, it does not ask
our leave to germinate.

"A man does a brave and humane deed, and on all sides we hear people
and parties declaring,' I didn't do it, nor countenance him to do it in
any conceivab