THOREAU. 195 



" And we '11 talk with them, too, 

 And take upon 's the mystery of things 

 As if we were God's spies." 



Nature is always kind enough to give even her clouds 

 a humorous lining. We have barely hinted at the comic 

 side of the affair, for the material was endless. This was 

 the whistle and trailing fuse of the shell, but there was 

 a very solid and serious kernel, full of the most deadly 

 explosiveness. Thoughtful men divined it, but the gen 

 erality suspected nothing. The word " transcendental " 

 then was the maid of all work for those who could not 

 think, as " Pre-Raphaelite " has been more recently for 

 people of the same limited housekeeping. The truth is, 

 that there was a much nearer metaphysical relation and 

 a much more distant aesthetic and literary relation be 

 tween Carlyle and the Apostles of the Newness, as they 

 were called in New England, than has commonly been 

 supposed. Both represented the reaction and revolt 

 against Philisterei, a renewal of the old battle begun in 

 modern times by Erasmus and Reuchlin, and continued 

 by Lessing, Goethe, and, in a far narrower sense, by 

 Heine in Germany, and of which Fielding, Sterne, and 

 Wordsworth in different ways have been the leaders in 

 England. It was simply a struggle for fresh air, in which, 

 if the windows could not be opened, there was danger 

 that panes would be broken, though painted with images 

 of saints and martyrs. Light colored by these reverend 

 effigies was none the more respirable for being pictu 

 resque. There is only one thing better than tradition, and 

 that is the original and eternal life out of which all tra 

 dition takes its rise. It was this life which the reformers 

 demanded, with more or less clearness of consciousness 

 and expression, life in politics, life in literature, life in 

 religion. Of what use to import a gospel from Ju<hra, 

 if we leave behind the soul that made it possible, the God 



