26 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THOREAU. 



&quot; Smoke &quot; suggests Simonides, but is better than any 

 poem of Simonides. His biography is in his verses. 

 His habitual thought makes all his poetry a hymn to 

 the Cause of causes, the Spirit which vivifies and con 

 trols his own. 



&quot; I hearing get, who had but ears, 

 And sight, who had but eyes before ; 

 I moments live, who lived but years, 

 And truth discern, who knew but learning s lore.&quot; 



And still more in these religious lines : 



&quot;Now chiefly is my natal hour, 

 And only now my prime of life ; 

 I will not doubt the love untold, 

 Which not my worth or want have bought, 

 Which wooed me young, and wooes me old, 

 And to this evening hath me brought.&quot; 



Whilst he used in his writings a certain petulance 

 of remark in reference to churches or churchmen, he 

 was a person of a rare, tender, and absolute religion, 

 a person incapable of any profanation, by act or by 

 thought. Of course, the same isolation which be 

 longed to his original thinking and living detached 

 him from the social religious forms. This is neither 

 to be censured nor regretted. Aristotle long ago 

 explained it, when he said, &quot; One who surpasses his 

 fellow-citizens in virtue is no longer a part of the 

 city. Their law is not for him, since he is a law to 

 himself.&quot; 



Thoreau was sincerity itself, and might fortify the 

 convictions of prophets in the ethical laws by his holy 

 living. It was an affirmative experience which refused 

 to be set aside. A truth-speaker he, capable of the 

 most deep and strict conversation ; a physician to 

 the wounds of any soul ; a friend, knowing not only 



