Giving 'Til It Hurts

In early 1859, Thoreau sent a contribution of five dollars to the Harvard Library and noted: "I would gladly give more, but this exceeds my income from all sources together for the last four months."

In 1853, Thoreau discovered that his A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers had sold only 219 copies since its publication in 1849. When his publisher returned the remainder, Thoreau wryly mused, "I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself."

-Philip Van Doren Stern