HENEY D. THOEEATJ 17 



perhaps, succeeded as few men ever have. He 

 says you cannot even know evil without being a 

 particeps oriminis. He did not so much regret 

 the condition of things in this country (in 1861) as 

 that he had ever heard of it. 



Yet Thoreau creates as much consternation among 

 the saints as among the sinners. His delicacy and 

 fineness were saved by a kind of cross-grain there 

 was in him, — a natural twist and stubbornness of 

 fibre. He was not easily reduced to kindling-wood. 

 His self-indulgences were other men's crosses. His 

 attitude was always one of resistance and urge. He 

 hated sloth and indolence and compliance as he 

 hated rust. He thought nothing was so much to 

 be feared as fear, and that atheism might, compara- 

 tively, be popular with God himself. Beware even 

 the luxury of affection, he says, — " There must be 

 some nerve and heroism in our love, as in a winter 

 morning." He tells his correspondent to make his 

 failure tragical by the earnestness and steadfastness 

 of his endeavor, and then it will not differ from 

 success. His saintliness is a rock-crystal. He says 

 in "Walden: " "Probably I should not consciously 

 and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do 

 the good which society demands of me, to save the 

 universe from annihilation; and I believe that a 

 like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is 

 all that now preserves it." Is this crystal a dia- 

 mond ? What will it not cut 1 



There is no grain of concession or compromise in 

 this man. He asks no odds and he pays no boot. 



