On May 6, 1862, Thoreau died of tuberculosis, a disease, which had been affecting him for many years. After he died, he left behind many unfinished notes. Some of them were later printed. When Thoreau died, Ralph Waldo Emerson said of him in his funeral speech: "The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost... His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home."