
43 
Here are a few of his sharp concentrated expressions :— 
“The best poetry has never been written, for when it might have 
been the poet forgot it, and when it was too late remembered 
it.’ ‘The highest condition of art is artlessness.’”’ ‘‘ By 
sufferance you may escape suffering.” “Truth is always 
paradoxical.’’ ‘ When a dog runs at you whistle for him.” 
“ He will get to the goal first who stands stillest.”  ‘‘ Is not 
he hospitable who entertains thought.’”’ ‘‘ Listen to music 
religiously, as if it were the last strain you might hear.’”’ ‘‘ He 
who receives an injury is an accomplice of the wrong-doer.”’ 
“Circumstantial evidence is at times partly conclusive, as when 
you find a trout in the milk.” ‘‘ Man’s noblest gift to man is 
his sincerity, for it embraces his integrity also.”’ ‘‘ Men are 
probably nearer the essential truths in their superstitions 
than in their sciences.”” ‘‘ Men talk about Bible miracles 
because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that 
crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.” ‘““ There are two 
ways to victory,—to strive bravely or to yield. How much 
pains the last will save we have not yet learned.” 
Now we know more of his life, what is Thoreau ? 
A preacher of the Gospel of Simplicity, and as a poet, the ideal- 
iser of what is truly homely and common. It is remarkable 
that a reading community should have allowed the facets of 
Thoreau’s genius to be dim for so long ; to-day most of us fail 
to see the harmony and purity of his life and teaching. Study 
his life closely and you will perceive the coincidence of teaching 
and practice. An intense lover of nature, a mystic, a poet, he is 
above all an individualist. He is no self-complacent, smug 
writer of what is beautiful in style merely ; he is a man con- 
scious of his own faults, and keenly alive to his own mean- 
nesses. With his high ideals, he would seem to have lived very 
closely up to them, 
Quite apart from the value of his opinions, his charm will 
attract the reader,—he has grace, poetic fervour, idealism, 
surprising effects ; he has humour, and is a nature painter of 
the first order. He is a deep thinker, is in earnest and has keen 
. spiritual insight ; he wrote, not for America, but for humanity. 
Concluding, the lecturer said, ‘‘ Thoreau will last, and be 
loved some day by earnest men, who will have him near at hand 
on their shelves with Emerson and Sir Thomas Browne. We 
may call Thoreau visionary, but he points to the focus, to the 
point where apparently parallel lines will meet. To use his 
own words, “ In the last stage of civilisation, poetry, philosophy 
and religion will be one, and there are glimpses of this truth in 
the first.” 
