206 THOEEAU. 



gained it, or with one's own soul among men, as Dante, 

 is the most delightful, as it is the most precious, of all. 

 In outward nature it is still man that interests us, and 

 we care far less for the things seen than the way in 

 which poetic eyes like Wordsworth's 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. " Ven 

 erable child of Nature," we are tempted to say, "to 

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

 whose art in the tattooing of thine undegenerate 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 ! " If matters go on as 

 they have done, and everybody must needs blab of all 

 the favors 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 refresh 

 ment 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 neighbors, 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 



