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Notes
Echoes of Harper's Ferry, ed. James Redpath (1860), pp. 444-445; Miscellanies, Vol. X of the Riverside Edition (1883), 251-252; and Cape Cod and Miscellanies, Vol. IV of the Walden Edition (1906), 452-453. Referred to hereafter in this essay as "Redpath," "Riverside," and "Walden," respectively.
The asterisk refers to a footnote at the bottom of the page in Redpath which reads: "Translated by Mr. Thoreau."
The Emerson translation begins on sheet 78, recto, of MA 884. Thoreau's translation begins in Redpath on p. 444. I am indebted to the Morgan Library for permission to comment on MA 884, and to publish selected portions of the MS. You, Agricola, we may now congratulate. You are blessed, not only because your life was a career of glory, but because you were released when it was a happiness to die. You met your fate with calm serenity. We have lost a parent, and we suffer that it was not in our power to gaze upon you with earnest affection, and see your expiring glance. Your dying words would have been ever dear to us. Your commands we should have treasured, and graved them in our hearts. Few tears bedewed thy cold remains and, in the parting moment, your eyes looked up for other objects, — but they looked in vain, and closed forever. If, in another world, there is a pious mansion for the blessed; if, as the wisest men have thought, the soul is not extinguished with the body, — you shall enjoy a state of eternal felicity. From that station behold your disconsolate family. Exalt our minds from unavailing grief to the contemplation of your virtues. Those we must not lament: it were impiety to sully them with a tear. To cherish their memory, to embalm them with our praises, and, if our frail condition will permit, to emulate your bright example will be the truest mark of our respect, the best tribute your family can offer. By dwelling on your words and actions, they will have an illustrious character before their eyes, and, not content with the bare image of your mortal frame, they will have what is more valuable, the form and features of your mind. I do not mean to censure the custom of preserving in brass and marble the shape and stature of eminent men, but busts and statues, like their originals, are frail and perishable. The form of the soul is eternal, and we can retain and express that, not by a foreign material and art, but by our own virtues. All of Agricola that gained our love and raised our admiration, still subsists, and will ever subsist, preserved in the minds of men, the register of ages, and the records of fame. You, Agricola, are fortunate, not only because your life was glorious, but because your death was timely. As they tell us who heard your last words, unchanged and willing you accepted your fate; as if, as far as in your power, you would make the emperor appear innocent. But, besides the bitterness of having lost a parent, it adds to our grief, that it was not permitted us to minister to your health, . . . to gaze on your countenance, and receive your last embrace; surely, we might have caught some words and commands which we could have treasured in the inmost part of our souls. This is our pain, this our wound . . . . You were buried with the fewer tears, and in your last earthly light, your eyes looked around for something which they did not see. If there is any abode for the spirits of the pious; if, as wise men suppose, great souls are not extinguished with the body, may you rest placidly, and call your family from weak regrets, and womanly laments, to the contemplation of your virtues, which must not be lamented, either silently or aloud. Let us honor you by our admiration, rather than by short-lived praises, and, if nature aid us, by our emulation of you. That is true honor, that the piety of whoever is most akin to you. This also I would teach your family, so to venerate your memory, as to call to mind all your actions and words, and embrace your character and the form of your soul, rather than of your body; not because I think that statues which are made of marble or brass are to be condemned, but as the features of men, so images of the features, are frail and perishable. The form of the soul is eternal; and this we can retain and express, not by a foreign material and art, but by our own lives. Whatever of Agricola we have loved, whatever we have admired, remains, and will remain, in the minds of men, and the records of history, through the eternity of ages. For oblivion will overtake many of the ancients, as if they were inglorious and ignoble: Agricola, described and transmitted to posterity, will survive.
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