THOREAU. 393 



but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the 

 outside of the earth everywhere." The pine shed its 

 odors around him in all his daily employments. The 

 squirrel dropped its nutshells, after its repast among the 

 hickory boughs, upon the roof of his house, and the 

 partridge led her little brood into his garden. Here he 

 dwelt, a hermit, without the hermit's superstition ; living 

 not as a saint nor as a cynic, but as a priest and wor- 

 shipper of nature. 



Thoreau sought in the woods for the realization of a 

 life which he thought possible to humanity, if men, after 

 imbibing the knowledge of civilization, could stilL retain 

 the simplicity of man in the infancy of society. He 

 sought to carry into practice the beautiful visions which 

 Eousseau described, but never dared to live. The beauty 

 and sublimity of nature he wished to incorporate into his 

 daily observations of life. He loved the ideal of nature 

 as a poet loves a beautiful young woman whom his imagi- 

 nation has apotheosized. He, of all visionaries, had the 

 courage to turn his visions into realities. He, of aU poets, 

 resolved to mould his life into a continued pastoral epic. 

 He mingled his own fancies with the balm of the primi- 

 tive wood. He would not lose the beautiful shape of 

 those visions in the confusion of cities, but in the solitude 

 of the forest hoped to perpetuate them in his life. 



He says : " I went to the woods because I wished to live 

 deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and 

 see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, 

 when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." In 

 such passages as this he unfolds the secret of his heart. 

 When he speaks of ' economy and some other practical 

 topics, his philosophy proves itself impracticable ; but 

 when in his enthusiasm he utters one of his rhapsodies, 

 then does the light that flashes from his own mind af- 

 ford us a glimpse of the paradise that dwelt within him, 

 17* 



