AN EGOTISTICAL CHAPTER 7 



Thoreau : I had begun to write upon outdoor themes 

 before his books fell into my hands, but he undoubt 

 edly helped confirm me in my own direction. He 

 was the intellectual child of Emerson, but added 

 a certain crispness and pungency, as of wild roots 

 and herbs, to the urbane philosophy of his great 

 neighbor. But Thoreau had one trait which I 

 always envied him, namely, his indifference to 

 human beings. He seems to have been as insensible 

 to people as he was open and hospitable to nature. 

 It probably gave him more pleasure to open his 

 door to a woodchuck than to a man. 



Let me confess that I am too conscious of per 

 sons, feel them too much, defer to them too 

 much, and try too hard to adapt myself to them. 

 Emerson says, " A great man is coming to dine with 

 me: I do not wish to please him, I wish that he 

 should wish to please me." I should be sure to 

 overdo the matter in trying to please the great man : 

 more than that, his presence would probably take 

 away my appetite for my dinner. 



In speaking of the men who have influenced me, 

 or to whom I owe the greatest debt, let me finish 

 the list here. I was not born out of time, but in 

 good time. The men I seemed to need most were 

 nearly all my contemporaries; the ideas and influ 

 ences which address themselves to me the most 

 directly and forcibly have been abundantly current 

 in my time. Hence I owe, or seem to owe, more 



