Peer into the Private Journals of Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Benjamin D. Maxham (1821–1889), Henry D. Thoreau, Daguerreotype, Worcester, Massachusetts, June 18, 1856. Berg Collection, New York Public Library.

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live,” came from the pen of no less than Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), one the…