I
Thoreau has suffered badly at the hands of the critics. By some he has
been regarded as a poser, and the Walden episode has been spoken of as a
mere theatrical trick. By others he has been derided as a cold-blooded
hermit, who fled from civilization and the intercourse of his fellows.
Even Mr. Watts-Dunton, the eloquent friend of the Children of the Open
Air, quite recently in his introduction to an edition of _Walden_ has
impugned his sincerity, and leaves the impression that Thoreau was an
uncomfortable kind of egotist. He has not lacked friends, but his
friends have not always written discreetly about him, thus giving the
enemy opportunity to blaspheme. And while not unmindful of Mr. H. S.
Salt's sympathetic biography, nor the admirable monograph by Mr. "H. A.
Page," there is no denying the fact that the trend of modern criticism
has been against him. The sarcastic comments of J. R. Lowell, and the
banter of R. L. Stevenson, however we may disagree with them, are not to
be lightly ignored, coming from critics usually so sane and discerning.
Since it is the Walden episode, the two years' sojourn in the woods near
Concord, that has provoked the scornful ire of the critics, it may be
well to re-examine that incident.
From his earliest years Thoreau was a lover of the open air. It was not
merely a poetic appreciation such as Emerson had of the beauties of
nature--though a genuine poetic imagination coloured all that he
wrote--but an intellectual enthusiasm for the wonders of the natural
world, and, most important of all, a deep and tender sympathy with all
created things characteristic of the Eastern rather than the Western
mind. He observed as a naturalist, admired like a poet, loved with the
fervour of a Buddhist; every faculty of his nature did homage to the
Earth.
Most of us will admit to a sentimental regard for the open air and for
country sights and sounds. But in many cases it reduces itself to a
vague liking for "pretty scenery" and an annual conviction that a change
of air will do us good. And so it is that the man who prefers to live
the greater part of his life in the open is looked upon either as a crank
or a poser. Borrow's taste for adventure, and the picturesque vigour of
his personality, help largely in our minds to condone his wandering
instinct. But the more passive temperament of Thoreau, and the absence
in his writings of any stuff of romance, lead us to feel a kind of
puzzled contempt for the man.
"He shirks his duty as a citizen," says the practical Englishman; "He
experienced nothing worth mentioning," says the lover of adventure.
Certainly he lacked many of the qualities that make the literary Vagabond
attractive--and for this reason many will deny him the right to a place
among them--but he was neither a skulker nor a hermit.
In 1839, soon after leaving college, he made his first long jaunt in
company with his brother John. This was a voyage on the Concord and
Merrimac rivers--a pleasant piece of idling turned to excellent literary
account. The volume dealing with it--his first book--gives sufficient
illustration of his practical powers to dissipate the absurd notion that
he was a mere sentimentalist. No literary Vagabond was ever more skilful
with his hands than Thoreau. There was scarcely anything he could not
do, from making lead pencils to constructing a boat. And throughout his
life he supported himself by manual labour whenever occasion demanded.
Had he been so disposed he could doubtless have made a fortune--for he
had all the nimble versatility of the American character, and much of its
shrewdness. His attacks, therefore, upon money-making, and upon the
evils of civilization, are no mere vapourings of an incompetent, but the
honest conviction of a man who believes he has chosen the better part.
In his _Walk to Wachusett_ there are touches of genial friendliness with
the simple, sincere country folk, and evidence that he was heartily
welcome by them. Such a welcome would not have been vouchsafed to a
cold-blooded recluse.
The keen enjoyment afforded to mind and body by these outings suggested
to Thoreau the desirability of a longer and more intimate association
with Nature. Walden Wood had been a familiar and favoured spot for many
years, and so he began the building of his tabernacle there. So far from
being a sudden, sensational resolve with an eye to effect, it was the
natural outcome of his passion for the open.
He had his living to earn, and would go down into Concord from time to
time to sell the results of his handiwork. He was quite willing to see
friends and any chance travellers who visited from other motives than
mere inquisitiveness. On the other hand, the life he proposed for
himself as a temporary experiment would afford many hours of congenial
solitude, when he could study the ways of the animals that he loved and
give free expression to his naturalistic enthusiasms.
Far too much has been made of the Walden episode. It has been written
upon as if it had represented the totality of Thoreau's life, instead of
being merely an interesting episode. Critics have animadverted upon it,
as if the time had been spent in brooding, self-pity, and sentimental
affectations, as if Thoreau had gone there to escape from his fellow-men.
All this seems to me wide of the mark. Thoreau was always keenly
interested in men and manners; his essays abound in a practical sagacity,
too frequently overlooked. He went to Walden not to escape from ordinary
life, but to fit himself for ordinary life. The sylvan solitudes, as he
knew, had their lessons for him no less than the busy haunts of men.
Of course it would be idle to deny that he found his greatest happiness
in the woods and fields; it is this touch of wildness that makes of him a
Vagabond. But though not an emotional man, his was not a hard nature so
much as a reserved, self-centred nature, rarely expressing itself in
outward show of feeling. That he was a man capable of strong affection
is shown by his devotion to his brother. Peculiarities of temperament he
had certainly, idiosyncrasies as marked as those of Borrow. These I wish
to discuss later. For the moment I am concerned to defend him from the
criticism that he was a loveless, brooding kind of creature, more
interested in birds and fishes than in his fellow-men. For he was
neither loveless nor brooding, and the characteristics that have proved
most puzzling arose from the mingled strain in his nature of the Eastern
quietist and the shrewd Western. These may now be considered more
leisurely. I will deal with the less important first of all.