HENRY D. THOEEAU 19 



contented witli a slight and almost animal happi- 

 ness. "My happiness is a good deal like that of 

 the woodchticks. " He says that "of acute sorrow 

 I suppose that I know comparatively little. My 

 saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be but 

 transient regrets." Yet he had not long before lost 

 by death his brother John, with whom he made his 

 voyage on the Concord and Merrimack. Referring 

 to John's death, he said: "I find these things 

 more strange than sad to me. What right have I 

 to grieve who have not ceased to wonder 1 " and 

 says in effect, afterward, that any pure grief is its 

 own reward. John, he said, he did not wish ever 

 to see again, — not the John that was dead (0 

 Henry! Henry!), John as he was in the flesh, 

 but the ideal, the nobler John, of whom the real 

 was the imperfect representative. When the son of 

 his friend died, he wasted no human regrets. It 

 seemed very natural and proper that he should die. 

 "Do not the flowers die every autumn?" "His 

 fine organization demanded it [death], and nature 

 gently yielded its request. It would have been 

 strange if he had lived." 



Either Thoreau was destitute of pity and love (in 

 the human sense), and of many other traits that are 

 thought to be both human and divine, or else he 

 studiously suppressed them and thought them un- 

 worthy of him. He writes and talks a great deal 

 about love and friendship, and often with singular 

 beauty and appreciation, yet he always says to his 

 friend : " Stand off — keep away ! Let there be an 



