### Extracts from AMERICAN NOTEBOOKS by Nathaniel Hawthorne > September 1, 1842. Mr. Thoreau dined with us yesterday. He is a singular character — a young man with much of wild original nature still remaining in him; and so far as he is sophisticated, it is in a way and method of his own. He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty. ([Location 62414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DRNYOFE&location=62414)) > > life, I mean, as respects the absence of any systematic effort for a livelihood. He has been for some time an inmate of Mr. Emerson’s family; and, in requital, he labors in the garden, and performs such other offices as may suit him — being entertained by Mr. Emerson for the sake of what true manhood there is in him. ([Location 62419](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DRNYOFE&location=62419)) > > Nevertheless he was desirous of selling the boat of which he is so fit a pilot, and which was built by his own hands; so I agreed to take it, and accordingly became possessor of the Musketaquid. I wish I could acquire the aquatic skill of the original owner. ([Location 62444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00DRNYOFE&location=62444))