Company and Solitude 117 



there would not be such wide-spread mis- 

 conception of the man. To most of us he 

 was, and will always be, an enigma, and the 

 more so, in that petty spite on the part of 

 greatness strove to misrepresent him. In 

 face of such conditions do we " knock our- 

 selves down," as a writer recently said in 

 pointing out the arrogance of one critic who 

 presumed too much when he essayed to com- 

 ment on such a subject. Even a professional 

 critic can get beyond his depth, and Lowell 

 got far beyond his, and, worse than mere 

 failure, he seems to have forgotten an earlier 

 essay full of praise, and in the later screed 

 failed to conceal the true animus that moved 

 him. But all is well : Thoreau, the lover 

 of solitude, the sane egotist, fills our lives 

 more and more, and leads us to a better con- 

 ception of the world about us. 



