ISO THOREAU. 



testimony* to the natural sweetness, sincerity, and noble- 

 ness of his temper, and in his books an equally irrefragable 

 one to the rare quality of his mind. He was not a strong 

 thinker, but a sensitive feeler. Yet his mind strikes us as 

 cold and wintry in its purity. A light snow has fallen 

 everywhere in which he seems to come on the track of the 

 shier sensations that would elsewhere leave no trace. We 

 think greater compression would have done more for his 

 fame. A feeling of sameness comes over us as we read so 

 much. Trifles are recorded with an over-minute punctuality 

 and conscientiousness of detail. He records the state of 

 his personal thermometer thirteen times a day. We cannot 

 help thinking sometimes of the man who 



&quot; Watches, starves, freezes, and sweats 

 To learn but catechisms and alphabets 

 Of unconcerning things, matters of fact,&quot; 



and sometimes of the saying of the Persian poet, that 

 &quot; when the owl would boast, he boasts of catching mice at 

 the edge of a hole.&quot; We could readily part with some of 

 his affectations. It was well enough for Pythagoras to say, 

 once for all, &quot; When I was Euphorbus at the siege of Troy;&quot; 

 not so well for Thoreau to travesty it into &quot; When I was a 

 shepherd on the plains of Assyria.&quot; A naive thing said 

 over again is anything but naive. But with every excep 

 tion, there is no writing comparable with Thoreau s in kind, 

 that is comparable with it in degree where it is best ; where 

 it disengages itself, that is, from the tangled roots and dead 

 leaves of a second-hand Orientalism, and runs limpid and 

 smooth and broadening as it runs, a mirror for whatever is 

 grand and lovely in both worlds. 



George Sand says neatly, that &quot; Art is not a study of 

 positive reality &quot; (actuality were the fitter word), &quot; but a 

 seeking after ideal truth.&quot; It would be doing very inade 

 quate justice to Thoreau if we left it to be inferred that 

 this ideal element did not exist in him, and that too in 



* Mr. Emerson, in the Biographical Sketch prefixed to the 

 &quot;Excursions.&quot; 



