As a thinker Thoreau is suggestive and stimulating, except when he tries
to systematize. Naturally I think he had a discursive and inquisitive,
rather than a profound and analytical mind. He was in sympathy with
Eastern modes of regarding life; and the pantheistic tendency of his
religious thought, especially his care and reverence for all forms of
life, suggest the devout Buddhist. The varied references scattered
throughout his writings to the Sacred Books of the East show how
Orientalism affected him.
Herein we touch upon the most attractive side of the man; for it is this
Orientalism, I think, in his nature that explains his regard for, and his
sympathy with, the birds and animals.
The tenderness of the Buddhist towards the lower creation is not due to
sentimentalism, nor is it necessarily a sign of sensitiveness of feeling.
In his profoundly interesting study of the Burmese people Mr. Fielding
Hall has summed up admirably the teaching of Buddha: "Be in love with all
things, not only with your fellows, but with the whole world, with every
creature that walks the earth, with the birds in the air, with the
insects in the grass. All life is akin to man." The oneness of life is
realized by the Eastern as it seldom is by the Western. The love that
stirs in your heart kindled the flower into beauty, and broods in the
great silent pools of the forest.
But Nature is not always kind. That he cannot help feeling. She
inspires fear as well as love. She scatters peace and consolation, but
can scatter also pain and death. All forms of life are more or less
sacred. The creatures of the forest whose ferocity and cunning are
manifest, may they not be inhabited by some human spirit that has misused
his opportunities in life? Thus they have an affinity with us, and are
signs of what we may become.
And if a measure of sacredness attaches to all life, however unfriendly
and harmful it may seem, the gentler forms of life are especially to be
objects of reverence and affection.
In one particular, however, Thoreau's attitude towards the earth and all
that therein is differed from the Buddhist, inasmuch as the fear that
enters into the Eastern's Earth-worship was entirely purged from his
mind. Mr. Page has instituted a suggestive comparison between Thoreau
and St. Francis d'Assisi. Certainly the rare magnetic attraction which
Thoreau seemed to have exercised over his "brute friends" was quite as
remarkable as the power attributed to St. Francis, and it is true to say
that in both cases the sympathy for animals is constantly justified by a
reference to a dim but real brotherhood. The brutes are "undeveloped
men"; they await their transformation and stand on their defence; and it
is very easy to see that inseparably bound up with this view there are
certain elements of mysticism common to the early saint and the American
"hut builder." {106}
And yet, perhaps, Mr. Page presses the analogy between the medieval saint
and the American "poet-naturalist" too far. St. Francis had an ardent,
passionate nature, and whether leading a life of dissipation or tending
to the poor, there is about him a royal impulsiveness, a passionate
abandonment, pointing to a temperament far removed from Thoreau's.
Prodigal in his charities, riotous in his very austerities, his
tenderness towards the animals seems like the overflowing of a finely
sensitive and artistic nature. With Thoreau one feels in the presence of
a more tranquil, more self-contained spirit; his affection is the
affection of a kindly scientist who is intensely interested in the ways
and habits of birds, beasts, and fishes; one who does not give them the
surplus of the love he bears towards his fellow-men so much as a care and
love which he does not extend so freely towards his fellows. I do not
mean that he was apathetic, especially when his fellow-creatures were in
trouble; his eloquent defence of John Brown, his kindliness towards
simple folk, are sufficient testimony on this score. But on the whole
his interest in men and women was an abstract kind of interest; he showed
none of the personal curiosity and eager inquisitiveness about them that
he showed towards the denizens of the woods and streams. And if you are
not heartily interested in your fellow-men you will not love them very
deeply.
I am not sure that Hawthorne was so far out in his characterization
"Donatello"--the creature half-animal, half-man, which he says was
suggested by Thoreau. It does not pretend to realize all his
characteristics, nor do justice to his fine qualities. None the less in
its picture of a man with a flavour of the wild and untameable about
him--whose uncivilized nature brings him into a close and vital intimacy
with the animal world, we detect a real psychological affinity with
Thoreau. May not Thoreau's energetic rebukes of the evils of
civilization have received an added zest from his instinctive repugnance
to many of the civilized amenities valued by the majority?
Many of Thoreau's admirers--including Mr. Page and Mr. Salt--defend him
stoutly against the charge of unsociability, and they see in this feeling
for the brute creation an illustration of his warm humanitarianism.
"Thoreau loves the animals," says Mr. Page, "because they are manlike and
seem to yearn toward human forms." It seems to me that Thoreau's
affection was a much simpler affair than this. He was drawn towards them
because _he_ felt an affinity with them--an affinity more compelling in
its attraction than the affinity of the average human person.
No doubt he felt, as Shelley did when he spoke of "birds and even
insects" as his "kindred," that this affinity bespoke a wider brotherhood
of feeling than men are usually ready to acknowledge. But this is not
the same as loving animals _because_ they are manlike. He loved them
surely because they were _living_ things, and he was drawn towards all
living things, not because he detected any semblance to humankind in
them. The difference between these two attitudes is not easy to define
clearly; but it is a real, not a nominal difference.
It is argued, however, as another instance of Thoreau's undervalued
sociability, that he was very fond of children. That he was fond of
children may be admitted, and some of the pleasantest stories about him
relate to his rambles with children. His huckleberry parties were justly
famous, if report speaks true. "His resources for entertainment," says
Mr. Moncure Conway, "were inexhaustible. He would tell stories of the
Indians who once dwelt thereabouts till the children almost looked to see
a red man skulking with his arrow and stone, and every plant or flower on
the bank or in the water, and every fish, turtle, frog, lizard about was
transformed by the wand of his knowledge from the low form into which the
spell of our ignorance had reduced it into a mystic beauty."
Emerson and his children frequently accompanied him on these expeditions.
"Whom shall we ask?" demanded Emerson's little daughter. "All children
from six to sixty," replied her father.
"Thoreau," writes Mr. Conway in his _Reminiscences_, "was the guide,
for he knew the precise locality of every variety of berry."
"Little Edward Emerson, on one occasion, carrying a basket of fine
huckleberries, had a fall and spilt them all. Great was his
distress, and offers of berries could not console him for the loss of
those gathered by himself. But Thoreau came, put his arm round the
troubled child, and explained to him that if the crop of
huckleberries was to continue it was necessary that some should be
scattered. Nature had provided that little boys and girls should now
and then stumble and sow the berries. 'We shall,' he said, 'have a
grand lot of bushes and berries on this spot, and we shall owe them
to you.' Edward began to smile."
Thoreau evidently knew how to console a child, no less than how to make
friends with a squirrel. But his fondness for children is no more an
argument for his sociability, than his fondness for birds or squirrels.
As a rule it will be found, I think, that a predilection for children is
most marked in men generally reserved and inaccessible. Lewis Carroll,
for instance, to take a famous recent example, was the reverse of a
sociable man. Shy, reserved, even cold in ordinary converse, he would
expand immediately when in the company of children. Certainly he
understood them much better than he did their elders. Like Thoreau,
moreover, Lewis Carroll was a lover of animals.
Social adaptability was not a characteristic of Thackeray, his moroseness
and reserve frequently alienating people; yet no one was more devoted to
children, or a more delightful friend to them.
So far from being an argument in favour of its possessor's sociability,
it seems to be a tolerable argument against it. It is not hard to
understand why. When analysed this fondness for children is much the
same in quality as the fondness for animals. A man is drawn towards
children because there is something fresh, unsophisticated, and elemental
about them. It has no reference to their moral qualities, though the
aesthetic element plays a share. Thoreau knew how to comfort little
Edward Emerson just as he knew how to cheer the squirrel that sought a
refuge in his waistcoat. This fondness, however, must not be confused
with the paternal instinct. A man may desire to have children, realize
that desire, interest himself in their welfare, and yet not be really
fond of them. As children they may not attract him, but he regards them
as possibilities for perpetuating the family and for enhancing its
prestige.
A good deal of nonsense is talked about the purity and innocence of
childhood. Children are consequently brought up in a morbidly
sentimental atmosphere that makes of them too quickly little prigs or
little hypocrites. I do not believe, however, that any man or woman who
is genuinely fond of children is moved by this artificial point of view.
The innocence and purity of children is a middle-class convention. None
but the unreal sentimentalist really believes in it. What attracts us
most in children is naturalness and simplicity. We note in them the
frank predominance of the instinctive life, and they charm us in many
ways just as young animals do.
Lewis Carroll's biographer speaks of "his intense admiration for the
white innocence and uncontaminated spirituality of childhood."
If this be true then it shows that the Rev. C. L. Dodgson had a great
deal to learn about children, who are, or should be, healthy little
pagans. But though his liking for them may not have been free of the
sentimental taint, there is abundant proof that other less debatable
qualities in childhood appealed to him with much greater force.
"Uncontaminated spirituality," forsooth. I would as soon speak of the
uncontaminated spirituality of a rabbit. I am sure rabbits are a good
deal more lovable than some children.
Thoreau's love of children, then, seems to be only a fresh instance of
his attraction towards simpler, more elemental forms of life. Men and
women not ringed round by civilized conventions, children who have the
freshness and wildness of the woods about them; such were the human
beings that interested him.
Such an attitude has its advantages as well as its limitations. It calls
neither for the censorious blame visited upon Thoreau by some of the
critics nor the indiscriminate eulogy bestowed on him by others.
The Vagabond who withdraws himself to any extent from the life of his
day, who declines to conform to many of its arbitrary conventions,
escapes much of the fret and tear, the heart-aching and the
disillusionment that others share in. He retains a freshness, a
simplicity, a joyfulness, not vouchsafed to those who stay at home and
never wander beyond the prescribed limits. He exhibits an individuality
which is more genuinely the legitimate expression of his temperament. It
is not warped, crossed, suppressed, as many are.
And this is why the literary Vagabond is such excellent company, having
wandered from the beaten track he has much to tell others of us who have
stayed at home. There is a wild luxuriance about his character that is
interesting and fascinating--if you are not thrown for too long in his
company. The riotous growth of eccentricities and idiosyncrasies are
picturesque enough, though you must expect to find thorns and briars.
On the other hand, we must beware of sentimentalizing the Vagabond, and
to present him as an ideal figure--as some enthusiasts have done--seems
to me a mistake. As a wholesome bitter corrective to the monotonous
sweet of civilization he is admirable enough. Of his tonic influence in
literature there can be no question. But it is well for the Vagabond to
be in the minority. Perhaps these considerations should come at the
close of the series of Vagabond studies, but they arise naturally when
considering Thoreau--for Thoreau is one of the few Vagabonds whom his
admirers have tried to canonize. Not content with the striking qualities
which the Vagabond naturally exhibits, some of his admirers cannot rest
without dragging in other qualities to which he has no claim. Why try to
prove that Thoreau was really a most sociable character, that Whitman was
the profoundest philosopher of his day, that Jefferies was--deep down--a
conventionally religious man? Why, oh why, may we not leave them in
their pleasant wildness without trying to make out that they were the
best company in the world for five-o'clock teas and chapel meetings?
For--and it is well to admit it frankly--the Vagabond loses as well as
gains by his deliberate withdrawal from the world. No man can live to
himself without some injury to his character. The very cares and
worries, the checks and clashings, consequent on meeting other
individualities tend to keep down the egotistic elements in a man's
nature. The necessary give and take, the sacrifice of self-interests,
the little abnegations, the moral adjustment following the appreciation
of other points of view; all these things are good for men and women.
Yes, and it is good even to mix with very conventional people--I do not
say live with them--however distasteful it may be, for the excessive
caution, the prudential, opportunistic qualities they exhibit, serve a
useful purpose in the scheme of things. The ideal thing, no doubt, is to
mix with as many types, as many varieties of the human species, as
possible. Browning owes his great power as a poet to his tireless
interest in all sorts and conditions of men and women.
It is idle to pretend then that Thoreau lost nothing by his experiments,
and by the life he fashioned for himself. Nature gives us plenty of
choice; we are invited to help ourselves, but everything must be paid
for. There are drawbacks as well as compensations; and the most a man
can do is to strike a balance.
And in Thoreau's case the balance was a generous one.
Better than his moralizing, better than his varied culture, was his
intimacy with Nature. Moralists are plentiful, scholars abound, but men
in close, vital sympathy with the Earth, a sympathy that comprehends
because it loves, and loves because it comprehends, are rare. Let us
make the most of them.