Thoreau would again live in the Emerson household from 1847 to 1848, while Emerson was in Europe. By 1850, however, the friendship was strained. Despite their respect for one another, Emerson's sense of Thoreau's promise and Thoreau's idealization of Emerson did not quite fit the reality of how each conducted his life. Thoreau did not vigorously pursue the visible success as a writer of which Emerson thought him capable. Emerson increasingly became a man of the world and traveled in literary and social circles that Thoreau disdained. When Thoreau died in 1862, Emerson delivered the eulogy at the First Parish in Concord; it was later expanded for publication in the August 1862 issue of Atlantic Monthly. The piece, titled "Thoreau," clearly conveys Emerson's disappointment in what Thoreau had achieved.
In 1843, through Emerson's influence, Thoreau left Concord to tutor the children of Emerson's brother William on Staten Island, New York. He delighted in observing the local plant life, so different from that of his native town; he enjoyed the ocean; he visited New York City; he read and was able to take books out of the New York Society Library; he met Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, who helped him to publish some of his work in magazines. But Thoreau was unable to sell as many of his pieces as he had hoped he might. Moreover, he did not feel much intellectual kinship with the William Emersons, and he missed Concord. By the end of 1843, Thoreau was ready to return to the landscape and the community that formed such a large part of his identity.
Thoreau once again applied himself to the family pencil-making business, so improving the product that it was widely acknowledged as superior. (He remained involved with the pencil business to one degree or another until the end of his life, taking it over with his sister Sophia after their father's death in 1859.) Thoreau also renewed his association with the Concord Lyceum, both as lecturer and as curator for the 1843–1844 season. Although he also lectured outside Concord, Thoreau was never one of those popular lecturers who were solidly booked and who spoke to packed halls on the lyceum circuit.
