THOREA U. 149 



or Thoreau s see them, and the reflections they cast there. 

 To hear the to-do that is often made over the simple fact 

 that a man sees the image of himself in the outward world, 

 one is reminded of a savage when he for the first time 

 catches a glimpse of himself in a looking-glass. &quot; Venerable 

 child of Nature,&quot; we are tempted to say, &quot; to whose science 

 in the invention of the tobacco-pipe, to whose art in the 

 tattooing of thine undegenerated hide not yet enslaved by 

 tailors, we are slowly striving to climb back, the miracle 

 thou beholdest is sold in my unhappy country for a 

 shilling ! &quot; If matters go on as they have done, and every 

 body must needs blab of all the favours that have been 

 done him by roadside and river brink and woodland walk, 

 as if to kiss and tell were no longer treachery, it will be a 

 positive refreshment to meet a man who is as superbly 

 indifferent to nature as she is to him. By and by we 

 shall have John Smith, of No. 12, 12th Street, advertising 

 that he is not the J. S. who saw a cow-lily on Thursday 

 last, as he never saw one in his life, would not see one if 

 he could, and is prepared to prove an alibi on the day in 

 question. 



Solitary communion with Nature does not seem to have 

 been sanitary or sweetening in its influence on Thoreau s 

 character. On the contrary, his letters show him more 

 cynical as he grew older. While he studied with respectful 

 attention the minks and woodchucks, his neighbours, he 

 looked with utter contempt on the august drama of destiny 

 of which his country was the scene, and on which the 

 curtain had already risen. He was converting us back 

 to a state of nature &quot; so eloquently,&quot; as Voltaire said of 

 Rousseau, &quot; that he almost persuaded us to go on all fours,&quot; 

 while the wiser fates were making it possible for us to walk 

 erect for the first time. Had he conversed more with his 

 fellows, his sympathies would have widened with the 

 assurance that his peculiar genius had more appreciation, 

 and his writings a larger circle of readers, or at least a 

 warmer one, than he dreamed of. We have the highest 



