Compelling Chords 



Thoreau was to me as cooling water 

 to a thirsty wanderer in a desert of 

 hot sands; as a breeze from across 

 green meadows stealing like a bene- 

 diction into a stifling prison cell; as the 

 call of wild-fowl flying high above the 

 busy haunts of men. I loved the good 

 old Indian from the first. I love him 

 still, and shall walk with him till the 

 last. 



While upon the subject of books, I 

 held one in my hand the other day 

 inside a fireproof vault, where many 

 literary treasures are in storage, valued 

 at $15,000. I have no quarrel with the 

 fads and fancies of the ancient and 

 honorable guild of rare book collectors, 

 but I do desire to file my protest 

 against a fashion that runs mad over 

 Boswell, Lamb and Browning, Shelley, 

 Keats and Byron, Trollope, Thackeray 

 and Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, 

 Thos. Hardy and Oscar Wilde in 

 brief John Bulliana and yet has no 

 room upon its shelves for either classi- 

 [i53] 



