Gboreau 



at their full value. There was no time to study what 

 others had decided as the best methods of record- 

 ing thought ; and yet, who has given us better spe- 

 cimens of pure literature than he ? There is no 

 other writer of our country who leaves the mind 

 in a more thoughtful state, when we close the vol- 

 ume, than he does. This is just the difference 

 between Thoreau and his critic, Lowell. The 

 latter keeps us in a pleasant frame of mind so 

 long as we read, but Thoreau lingers long after 

 we have laid aside his books. 



A very recent and ludicrous evidence of mis- 

 conception as to Thoreau runs as follows : " Tho- 

 reau is as one of the lower wild animals, occupied 

 with woods and mountains because he had under- 

 taken to get a living for body and soul out of 

 them. Thoreau cannot be said to have loved, or 

 sympathized with, any creature, neither the wood- 

 chuck whose meat he was after, nor the farmer 

 whom he delighted to puzzle with conundrums 

 about the cost of living, nor the Indian whom, a 

 century ago, he would have slain on sight." If 

 we take this simple statement as it is, not reading 

 between the lines, it is worse than an absurdity, 

 for it is positively and inexcusably false. Thoreau 

 was the very prince of lovers ; but of late people 

 have lost the proper conception of honest love; 

 and when we reflect how greatly he preferred 

 an Indian who was what he claimed to be to 

 white men who were not what they wished to be 



221 



