BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS
A WALK TO WACHUSETT
THE LANDLORD
A WINTER WALK
THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES
WALKING
AUTUMNAL TINTS
WILD APPLES
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
BY R.W. EMERSON.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU was the last male descendant of a French ancestor
who came to this country from the Isle of Guernsey. His character
exhibited occasional traits drawn from this blood in singular
combination with a very strong Saxon genius.
He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817. He
was graduated at Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary
distinction. An iconoclast in literature, he seldom thanked colleges
for their service to him, holding them in small esteem, whilst yet his
debt to them was important. After leaving the University, he joined his
brother in teaching a private school, which he soon renounced. His
father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself
for a time to this craft, believing he could make a better pencil than
was then in use. After completing his experiments, he exhibited his
work to chemists and artists in Boston, and having obtained their
certificates to its excellence and to its equality with the best London
manufacture, he returned home contented. His friends congratulated him
that he had now opened his way to fortune. But he replied, that he
should never make another pencil. “Why should I? I would not do again
what I have done once.” He resumed his endless walks and miscellaneous
studies, making every day some new acquaintance with Nature, though as
yet never speaking of zoölogy or botany, since, though very studious of
natural facts, he was incurious of technical and textual science.
At this time, a strong, healthy youth, fresh from college, whilst all
his companions were choosing their profession, or eager to begin some
lucrative employment, it was inevitable that his thoughts should be
exercised on the same question, and it required rare decision to refuse
all the accustomed paths, and keep his solitary freedom at the cost of
disappointing the natural expectations of his family and friends: all
the more difficult that he had a perfect probity, was exact in securing
his own independence, and in holding every man to the like duty. But
Thoreau never faltered. He was a born protestant. He declined to give
up his large ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or
profession, aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the art of
living well. If he slighted and defied the opinions of others, it was
only that he was more intent to reconcile his practice with his own
belief. Never idle or self-indulgent, he preferred, when he wanted
money, earning it by some piece of manual labor agreeable to him, as
building a boat or a fence, planting, grafting, surveying, or other
short work, to any long engagements. With his hardy habits and few
wants, his skill in wood-craft, and his powerful arithmetic, he was
very competent to live in any part of the world. It would cost him less
time to supply his wants than another. He was therefore secure of his
leisure.
A natural skill for mensuration, growing out of his mathematical
knowledge, and his habit of ascertaining the measures and distances of
objects which interested him, the size of trees, the depth and extent
of ponds and rivers, the height of mountains, and the air-line distance
of his favorite summits,—this, and his intimate knowledge of the
territory about Concord, made him drift into the profession of
land-surveyor. It had the advantage for him that it led him continually
into new and secluded grounds, and helped his studies of Nature. His
accuracy and skill in this work were readily appreciated, and he found
all the employment he wanted.
He could easily solve the problems of the surveyor, but he was daily
beset with graver questions, which he manfully confronted. He
interrogated every custom, and wished to settle all his practice on an
ideal foundation. He was a protestant _à l’outrance_, and few lives
contain so many renunciations. He was bred to no profession; he never
married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he
refused to pay a tax to the State: he ate no flesh, he drank no wine,
he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used
neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely, no doubt, for himself, to be
the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth, and
knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inelegance.
Perhaps he fell into his way of living without forecasting it much, but
approved it with later wisdom.
“I am often reminded,” he wrote in his journal, “that, if I had
bestowed on me the wealth of Croesus, my aims must be still the same,
and my means essentially the same.” He had no temptations to fight
against,—no appetites, no passions, no taste for elegant trifles. A
fine house, dress, the manners and talk of highly cultivated people
were all thrown away on him. He much preferred a good Indian, and
considered these refinements as impediments to conversation, wishing to
meet his companion on the simplest terms. He declined invitations to
dinner-parties, because there each was in every one’s way, and he could
not meet the individuals to any purpose. “They make their pride,” he
said, “in making their dinner cost much; I make my pride in making my
dinner cost little.” When asked at table what dish he preferred, he
answered, “The nearest.” He did not like the taste of wine, and never
had a vice in his life. He said,—“I have a faint recollection of
pleasure derived from smoking dried lily-stems, before I was a man. I
had commonly a supply of these. I have never smoked anything more
noxious.”
He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them
himself. In his travels, he used the railroad only to get over so much
country as was unimportant to the present purpose, walking hundreds of
miles, avoiding taverns, buying a lodging in farmers’ and fishermen’s
houses, as cheaper, and more agreeable to him, and because there he
could better find the men and the information he wanted.
There was somewhat military in his nature not to be subdued, always
manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except
in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I
may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call
his powers into full exercise. It cost him nothing to say No; indeed,
he found it much easier than to say Yes. It seemed as if his first
instinct on hearing a proposition was to controvert it, so impatient
was he of the limitations of our daily thought. This habit, of course,
is a little chilling to the social affections; and though the companion
would in the end acquit him of any malice or untruth, yet it mars
conversation. Hence, no equal companion stood in affectionate relations
with one so pure and guileless. “I love Henry,” said one of his
friends, “but I cannot like him; and as for taking his arm, I should as
soon think of taking the arm of an elm-tree.”
Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of sympathy, and
threw himself heartily and childlike into the company of young people
whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain, as he only could,
with the varied and endless anecdotes of his experiences by field and
river. And he was always ready to lead a huckleberry party or a search
for chestnuts or grapes. Talking, one day, of a public discourse, Henry
remarked, that whatever succeeded with the audience was bad. I said,
“Who would not like to write something which all can read, like
‘Robinson Crusoe’? and who does not see with regret that his page is
not solid with a right materialistic treatment, which delights
everybody?” Henry objected, of course, and vaunted the better lectures
which reached only a few persons. But, at supper, a young girl,
understanding that he was to lecture at the Lyceum, sharply asked him,
“whether his lecture would be a nice, interesting story, such as she
wished to hear, or whether it was one of those old philosophical things
that she did not care about.” Henry turned to her, and bethought
himself, and, I saw, was trying to believe that he had matter that
might fit her and her brother, who were to sit up and go to the
lecture, if it was a good one for them.
He was a speaker and actor of the truth,—born such,—and was ever
running into dramatic situations from this cause. In any circumstance,
it interested all bystanders to know what part Henry would take, and
what he would say; and he did not disappoint expectation, but used an
original judgment on each emergency. In 1845 he built himself a small
framed house on the shores of Walden Pond, and lived there two years
alone, a life of labor and study. This action was quite native and fit
for him. No one who knew him would tax him with affectation. He was
more unlike his neighbors in his thought than in his action. As soon as
he had exhausted the advantages of that solitude, he abandoned it. In
1847, not approving some uses to which the public expenditure was
applied, he refused to pay his town tax, and was put in jail. A friend
paid the tax for him, and he was released. The like annoyance was
threatened the next year. But, as his friends paid the tax,
notwithstanding his protest, I believe he ceased to resist. No
opposition or ridicule had any weight with him. He coldly and fully
stated his opinion without affecting to believe that it was the opinion
of the company. It was of no consequence, if every one present held the
opposite opinion. On one occasion he went to the University Library to
procure some books. The librarian refused to lend them. Mr. Thoreau
repaired to the President, who stated to him the rules and usages,
which permitted the loan of books to resident graduates, to clergymen
who were alumni, and to some others resident within a circle of ten
miles’ radius from the College. Mr. Thoreau explained to the President
that the railroad had destroyed the old scale of distances,—that the
library was useless, yes, and President and College useless, on the
terms of his rules,—that the one benefit he owed to the College was its
library,— that, at this moment, not only his want of books was
imperative, but he wanted a large number of books, and assured him that
he, Thoreau, and not the librarian, was the proper custodian of these.
In short, the President found the petitioner so formidable, and the
rules getting to look so ridiculous, that he ended by giving him a
privilege which in his hands proved unlimited thereafter.
No truer American existed than Thoreau. His preference of his country
and condition was genuine, and his aversation from English and European
manners and tastes almost reached contempt. He listened impatiently to
news or _bon mots_ gleaned from London circles; and though he tried to
be civil, these anecdotes fatigued him. The men were all imitating each
other, and on a small mould. Why can they not live as far apart as
possible, and each be a man by himself? What he sought was the most
energetic nature; and he wished to go to Oregon, not to London. “In
every part of Great Britain,” he wrote in his diary, “are discovered
traces of the Romans, their funereal urns, their camps, their roads,
their dwellings. But New England, at least, is not based on any Roman
ruins. We have not to lay the foundations of our houses on the ashes of
a former civilization.”
But, idealist as he was, standing for abolition of slavery, abolition
of tariffs, almost for abolition of government, it is needless to say
he found himself not only unrepresented in actual politics, but almost
equally opposed to every class of reformers. Yet he paid the tribute of
his uniform respect to the Anti-Slavery Party. One man, whose personal
acquaintance he had formed, he honored with exceptional regard. Before
the first friendly word had been spoken for Captain John Brown, after
the arrest, he sent notices to most houses in Concord, that he would
speak in a public hall on the condition and character of John Brown, on
Sunday evening, and invited all people to come. The Republican
Committee, the Abolitionist Committee, sent him word that it was
premature and not advisable. He replied,—“I did not send to you for
advice, but to announce that I am to speak.” The hall was filled at an
early hour by people of all parties, and his earnest eulogy of the hero
was heard by all respectfully, by many with a sympathy that surprised
themselves.
It was said of Plotinus that he was ashamed of his body, and ’tis very
likely he had good reason for it,—that his body was a bad servant, and
he had not skill in dealing with the material world, as happens often
to men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was equipped with a most
adapted and serviceable body. He was of short stature, firmly built, of
light complexion, with strong, serious blue eyes, and a grave
aspect,—his face covered in the late years with a becoming beard. His
senses were acute, his frame well-knit and hardy, his hands strong and
skilful in the use of tools. And there was a wonderful fitness of body
and mind. He could pace sixteen rods more accurately than another man
could measure them with rod and chain. He could find his path in the
woods at night, he said, better by his feet than his eyes. He could
estimate the measure of a tree very well by his eyes; he could estimate
the weight of a calf or a pig, like a dealer. From a box containing a
bushel or more of loose pencils, he could take up with his hands fast
enough just a dozen pencils at every grasp. He was a good swimmer,
runner, skater, boatman, and would probably outwalk most countrymen in
a day’s journey. And the relation of body to mind was still finer than
we have indicated. He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The
length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up
in the house, he did not write at all.
He had a strong common sense, like that which Rose Flammock, the
weaver’s daughter, in Scott’s romance, commends in her father, as
resembling a yardstick, which, whilst it measures dowlas and diaper,
can equally well measure tapestry and cloth of gold. He had always a
new resource. When I was planting forest-trees, and had procured half a
peck of acorns, he said that only a small portion of them would be
sound, and proceeded to examine them, and select the sound ones. But
finding this took time, he said, “I think, if you put them all into
water, the good ones will sink;” which experiment we tried with
success. He could plan a garden, or a house, or a barn; would have been
competent to lead a “Pacific Exploring Expedition”; could give
judicious counsel in the gravest private or public affairs.
He lived for the day, not cumbered and mortified by his memory. If he
brought you yesterday a new proposition, he would bring you to-day
another not less revolutionary. A very industrious man, and setting,
like all highly organized men, a high value on his time, he seemed the
only man of leisure in town, always ready for any excursion that
promised well, or for conversation prolonged into late hours. His
trenchant sense was never stopped by his rules of daily prudence, but
was always up to the new occasion. He liked and used the simplest food,
yet, when some one urged a vegetable diet, Thoreau thought all diets a
very small matter, saying that “the man who shoots the buffalo lives
better than the man who boards at the Graham House.” He said,—“You can
sleep near the railroad, and never be disturbed: Nature knows very well
what sounds are worth attending to, and has made up her mind not to
hear the railroad-whistle. But things respect the devout mind, and a
mental ecstasy was never interrupted.” He noted, what repeatedly befell
him, that, after receiving from a distance a rare plant, he would
presently find the same in his own haunts. And those pieces of luck
which happen only to good players happened to him. One day, walking
with a stranger, who inquired where Indian arrow-heads could he found,
he replied, “Everywhere,” and, stooping forward, picked one on the
instant from the ground. At Mount Washington, in Tuckerman’s Ravine,
Thoreau had a bad fall, and sprained his foot. As he was in the act of
getting up from his fall, he saw for the first time the leaves of the
_Arnica mollis_.
His robust common sense, armed with stout hands, keen perceptions, and
strong will, cannot yet account for the superiority which shone in his
simple and hidden life. I must add the cardinal fact, that there was an
excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of men, which showed
him the material world as a means and symbol. This discovery, which
sometimes yields to poets a certain casual and interrupted light,
serving for the ornament of their writing, was in him an unsleeping
insight; and whatever faults or obstructions of temperament might cloud
it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his youth, he
said, one day, “The other world is all my art: my pencils will draw no
other; my jack-knife will cut nothing else; I do not use it as a
means.” This was the muse and genius that ruled his opinions,
conversation, studies, work, and course of life. This made him a
searching judge of men. At first glance he measured his companion, and,
though insensible to some fine traits of culture, could very well
report his weight and calibre. And this made the impression of genius
which his conversation often gave.
He understood the matter in hand at a glance, and saw the limitations
and poverty of those he talked with, so that nothing seemed concealed
from such terrible eyes. I have repeatedly known young men of
sensibility converted in a moment to the belief that this was the man
they were in search of, the man of men, who could tell them all they
should do. His own dealing with them was never affectionate, but
superior, didactic,—scorning their petty ways,—very slowly conceding,
or not conceding at all, the promise of his society at their houses, or
even at his own. “Would he not walk with them?” “He did not know. There
was nothing so important to him as his walk; he had no walks to throw
away on company.” Visits were offered him from respectful parties, but
he declined them. Admiring friends offered to carry him at their own
cost to the Yellow-Stone River,—to the West Indies,—to South America.
But though nothing could be more grave or considered than his refusals,
they remind one in quite new relations of that fop Brummel’s reply to
the gentleman who offered him his carriage in a shower, “But where will
_you_ ride, then?”—and what accusing silences, and what searching and
irresistible speeches, battering down all defences, his companions can
remember!
Mr. Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields,
hills, and waters of his native town, that he made them known and
interesting to all reading Americans, and to people over the sea. The
river on whose banks he was born and died he knew from its springs to
its confluence with the Merrimack. He had made summer and winter
observations on it for many years, and at every hour of the day and the
night. The result of the recent survey of the Water Commissioners
appointed by the State of Massachusetts he had reached by his private
experiments, several years earlier. Every fact which occurs in the bed,
on the banks, or in the air over it; the fishes, and their spawning and
nests, their manners, their food; the shad-flies which fill the air on
a certain evening once a year, and which are snapped at by the fishes
so ravenously that many of these die of repletion; the conical heaps of
small stones on the river-shallows, one of which heaps will sometimes
overfill a cart,—these heaps the huge nests of small fishes; the birds
which frequent the stream, heron, duck, sheldrake, loon, osprey; the
snake, musk-rat, otter, woodchuck, and fox, on the banks; the turtle,
frog, hyla, and cricket, which make the banks vocal,—were all known to
him, and, as it were, townsmen and fellow-creatures; so that he felt an
absurdity or violence in any narrative of one of these by itself apart,
and still more of its dimensions on an inch-rule, or in the exhibition
of its skeleton, or the specimen of a squirrel or a bird in brandy. He
liked to speak of the manners of the river, as itself a lawful
creature, yet with exactness, and always to an observed fact. As he
knew the river, so the ponds in this region.
One of the weapons he used, more important than microscope or
alcohol-receiver to other investigators, was a whim which grew on him
by indulgence, yet appeared in gravest statement, namely, of extolling
his own town and neighborhood as the most favored centre for natural
observation. He remarked that the Flora of Massachusetts embraced
almost all the important plants of America,—most of the oaks, most of
the willows, the best pines, the ash, the maple, the beech, the nuts.
He returned Kane’s “Arctic Voyage” to a friend of whom he had borrowed
it, with the remark, that “most of the phenomena noted might be
observed in Concord.” He seemed a little envious of the Pole, for the
coincident sunrise and sunset, or five minutes’ day after six months: a
splendid fact, which Annursnuc had never afforded him. He found red
snow in one of his walks, and told me that he expected to find yet the
_Victoria regia_ in Concord. He was the attorney of the indigenous
plants, and owned to a preference of the weeds to the imported plants,
as of the Indian to the civilized man,—and noticed, with pleasure, that
the willow bean-poles of his neighbor had grown more than his beans.
“See these weeds,” he said, “which have been hoed at by a million
farmers all spring and summer, and yet have prevailed, and just now
come out triumphant over all lanes, pastures, fields, and gardens, such
is their vigor. We have insulted them with low names, too,—as Pigweed,
Wormwood, Chickweed, Shad-Blossom.” He says, “They have brave names,
too,—Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchia, Amaranth, etc.”
I think his fancy for referring everything to the meridian of Concord
did not grow out of any ignorance or depreciation of other longitudes
or latitudes, but was rather a playful expression of his conviction of
the indifferency of all places, and that the best place for each is
where he stands. He expressed it once in this wise:—“I think nothing is
to be hoped from you, if this bit of mould under your feet is not
sweeter to you to eat than any other in this world, or in any world.”
The other weapon with which he conquered all obstacles in science was
patience. He knew how to sit immovable, a part of the rock he rested
on, until the bird, the reptile, the fish, which had retired from him,
should come back, and resume its habits, nay, moved by curiosity,
should come to him and watch him.
It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the country
like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his
own. He knew every track in the snow or on the ground, and what
creature had taken this path before him. One must submit abjectly to
such a guide, and the reward was great. Under his arm he carried an old
music-book to press plants; in his pocket, his diary and pencil, a
spy-glass for birds, microscope, jack-knife, and twine. He wore straw
hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave shrub-oaks and smilax,
and to climb a tree for a hawk’s or a squirrel’s nest. He waded into
the pool for the water-plants, and his strong legs were no
insignificant part of his armor. On the day I speak of he looked for
the Menyanthes, detected it across the wide pool, and, on examination
of the florets, decided that it had been in flower five days. He drew
out of his breast-pocket his diary, and read the names of all the
plants that should bloom on this day, whereof he kept account as a
banker when his notes fall due. The Cypripedium not due till to-morrow.
He thought, that, if waked up from a trance, in this swamp, he could
tell by the plants what time of the year it was within two days. The
redstart was flying about, and presently the fine grosbeaks, whose
brilliant scarlet makes the rash gazer wipe his eye, and whose fine
clear note Thoreau compared to that of a tanager which has got rid of
its hoarseness. Presently he heard a note which he called that of the
night-warbler, a bird he had never identified, had been in search of
twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving
down into a tree or bush, and which it was vain to seek; the only bird
that sings indifferently by night and by day. I told him he must beware
of finding and booking it, lest life should have nothing more to show
him. He said, “What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you
come full upon all the family at dinner. You seek it like a dream, and
as soon as you find it you become its prey.”
His interest in the flower or the bird lay very deep in his mind, was
connected with Nature,—and the meaning of Nature was never attempted to
be defined by him. He would not offer a memoir of his observations to
the Natural History Society. “Why should I? To detach the description
from its connections in my mind would make it no longer true or
valuable to me: and they do not wish what belongs to it.” His power of
observation seemed to indicate additional senses. He saw as with
microscope, heard as with ear-trumpet, and his memory was a
photographic register of all he saw and heard. And yet none knew better
than he that it is not the fact that imports, but the impression or
effect of the fact on your mind. Every fact lay in glory in his mind, a
type of the order and beauty of the whole. His determination on Natural
History was organic. He confessed that he sometimes felt like a hound
or a panther, and, if born among Indians, would have been a fell
hunter. But, restrained by his Massachusetts culture, he played out the
game in this mild form of botany and ichthyology. His intimacy with
animals suggested what Thomas Fuller records of Butler the apiologist,
that “either he had told the bees things or the bees had told him.”
Snakes coiled round his leg; the fishes swam into his hand, and he took
them out of the water; he pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the
tail, and took the foxes under his protection from the hunters. Our
naturalist had perfect magnanimity; he had no secrets: he would carry
you to the heron’s haunt, or even to his most prized botanical
swamp,—possibly knowing that you could never find it again, yet willing
to take his risks.
No college ever offered him a diploma, or a professor’s chair; no
academy made him its corresponding secretary, its discoverer, or even
its member. Whether these learned bodies feared the satire of his
presence. Yet so much knowledge of Nature’s secret and genius few
others possessed, none in a more large and religious synthesis. For not
a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men,
but homage solely to the truth itself; and as he discovered everywhere
among doctors some leaning of courtesy, it discredited them. He grew to
be revered and admired by his townsmen, who had at first known him only
as an oddity. The farmers who employed him as a surveyor soon
discovered his rare accuracy and skill, his knowledge of their lands,
of trees, of birds, of Indian remains, and the like, which enabled him
to tell every farmer more than he knew before of his own farm; so that
he began to feel as if Mr. Thoreau had better rights in his land than
he. They felt, too, the superiority of character which addressed all
men with a native authority.
Indian relics abound in Concord,—arrow-heads, stone chisels, pestles,
and fragments of pottery; and on the river-bank, large heaps of
clam-shells and ashes mark spots which the savages frequented. These,
and every circumstance touching the Indian, were important in his eyes.
His visits to Maine were chiefly for love of the Indian. He had the
satisfaction of seeing the manufacture of the bark-canoe, as well as of
trying his hand in its management on the rapids. He was inquisitive
about the making of the stone arrow-head, and in his last days charged
a youth setting out for the Rocky Mountains to find an Indian who could
tell him that: “It was well worth a visit to California to learn it.”
Occasionally, a small party of Penobscot Indians would visit Concord,
and pitch their tents for a few weeks in summer on the river-bank. He
failed not to make acquaintance with the best of them; though he well
knew that asking questions of Indians is like catechizing beavers and
rabbits. In his last visit to Maine he had great satisfaction from
Joseph Polis, an intelligent Indian of Oldtown, who was his guide for
some weeks.
He was equally interested in every natural fact. The depth of his
perception found likeness of law throughout Nature, and I know not any
genius who so swiftly inferred universal law from the single fact. He
was no pedant of a department. His eye was open to beauty, and his ear
to music. He found these, not in rare conditions, but wheresoever he
went. He thought the best of music was in single strains; and he found
poetic suggestion in the humming of the telegraph-wire.
His poetry might be bad or good; he no doubt wanted a lyric facility
and technical skill; but he had the source of poetry in his spiritual
perception. He was a good reader and critic, and his judgment on poetry
was to the ground of it. He could not be deceived as to the presence or
absence of the poetic element in any composition, and his thirst for
this made him negligent and perhaps scornful of superficial graces. He
would pass by many delicate rhythms, but he would have detected every
live stanza or line in a volume, and knew very well where to find an
equal poetic charm in prose. He was so enamored of the spiritual beauty
that he held all actual written poems in very light esteem in the
comparison. He admired Aeschylus and Pindar; but, when some one was
commending them, he said that “Aeschylus and the Greeks, in describing
Apollo and Orpheus, had given no song, or no good one. They ought not
to have moved trees, but to have chanted to the gods such a hymn as
would have sung all their old ideas out of their heads, and new ones
in.” His own verses are often rude and defective. The gold does not yet
run pure, is drossy and crude. The thyme and marjoram are not yet
honey. But if he want lyric fineness and technical merits, if he have
not the poetic temperament, he never lacks the causal thought, showing
that his genius was better than his talent. He knew the worth of the
Imagination for the uplifting and consolation of human life, and liked
to throw every thought into a symbol. The fact you tell is of no value,
but only the impression. For this reason his presence was poetic,
always piqued the curiosity to know more deeply the secrets of his
mind. He had many reserves, an unwillingness to exhibit to profane eyes
what was still sacred in his own, and knew well how to throw a poetic
veil over his experience. All readers of “Walden” will remember his
mythical record of his disappointments:—
“I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtledove, and am still
on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them,
describing their tracks, and what calls they answered to. I have met
one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and
even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud; and they seemed as anxious
to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.” [“Walden” p.20]
His riddles were worth the reading, and I confide, that, if at any time
I do not understand the expression, it is yet just. Such was the wealth
of his truth that it was not worth his while to use words in vain. His
poem entitled “Sympathy” reveals the tenderness under that triple steel
of stoicism, and the intellectual subtilty it could animate. His
classic poem on “Smoke” suggests Simonides, but is better than any poem
of Simonides. His biography is in his verses. His habitual thought
makes all his poetry a hymn to the Cause of causes, the Spirit which
vivifies and controls his own.
“I hearing get, who had but ears,
And sight, who had but eyes before;
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning’s lore.”