HENEY D. THOEEAU 11 



would have faced the rack or the stake with perfect 

 composure. Such a man was bound to make an im- 

 pression by contrast, if not by comparison, with the 

 men of his country and time. He is, for the most 

 part, a figure going the other way from that of the 

 eager, money-getting, ambitious crowd, and he ques- 

 tions and admonishes and ridicules the passers-by 

 sharply. We all see him and remember him, and 

 feel his shafts. Especially was his attitude upon 

 all social and political questions scornful and exas- 

 perating. His devotion to principle, to the ideal, 

 was absolute; it was like that of the Hindu to his 

 idol. If it devoured him or crushed him, — what 

 business was that of his ? There was no conceiv- 

 able failure in adherence to principle. 



Thoreau was, probably, the wildest civilized man 

 this country has produced, adding to the shyness of 

 the hermit and woodsman the wildness of the poet, 

 and to the wildness of the poet the greater ferity 

 and elusiveness of the mystic. An extreme product 

 of civilization and of modern culture, he was yet as 

 untouched by the worldly and commercial spirit of 

 his age and country as any red man that ever 

 haunted the shores of his native stream. He put 

 the whole of nature between himself and his fel- 

 lows. A man of the strongest local attachments, — 

 not the least nomadic, seldom wandering beyond his 

 native township, — yet his spirit was as restless and 

 as impatient of restraint as any nomad or Tartar 

 that ever lived. He cultivated an extreme wild- 

 ness, not only in his pursuits and tastes, but in his 



