Solitude and Company 169 



though to cut loose from society as often 

 implies depravity as it does spiritual stout- 

 ness. One experiment in enforced vagrancy 

 makes me doubt if I have enough of either 

 to brag about. You can keep away from 

 humanity well enough when there is no 

 humanity to keep away from, when you 

 are hunting or prospecting in the moun- 

 tains, chopping in the forest, reaching the 

 north pole or rowing home from it ; but 

 to use the roads, to pass houses, shops, 

 churches, and bakeries, to be within touch 

 of civilization, yet to hold aloof and deny 

 yourself to it, or it to yourself, that takes 

 genius. 



A man might school himself to be at 

 once a tramp and a philosopher, but Arid 

 Artemus and Pinguid Percy who rap at our 

 door for food, and wax wroth if they get 

 sandwiches instead of four-course dinners, 

 seldom discover in them the making of 

 philosophers. Thoreau and Diogenes were 

 nearer to this possibility, though I fancy 

 that Diogenes had a few shares of gilt- 

 edged stock to help him to take life so in- 

 differently, while Thoreau was not much of 



