HENKY D. THOKEAU 23 



ligMful his account of the Canadian ■vvood-chopper 

 in "Walden," and yet he sees him afar off, across 

 an impassable gulf ! — he is a kind of Homeric or 

 Paphlagonian man to him. Very likely he would 

 not have seen him at all had it not been for the 

 classic models and ideals with which his mind was 

 filled, and which saw for him. 



Yet Thoreau doubtless liked the flavor of strong, 

 racy men. He said he was naturally no hermit, 

 but ready enough to fasten himself, like a blood- 

 sucker for the time, to any full-blooded man that 

 came in his way; and he gave proof of this when 

 he saw and recognized the new poet, Walt Whit- 

 man. Here is the greatest democrat the world has 

 seen, he said, and he found him exhilarating and 

 encouraging, while yet he felt somewhat imposed 

 upon by his heartiness and broad generalities. As 

 a writer, Thoreau shows all he is, and more. No- 

 thing is kept back; greater men have had far less 

 power of statement. His thoughts do not merely 

 crop out, but lie upon the surface of his pages. 

 They are fragments; there is no more than you see. 

 It is not the edge or crown of the native rock, but 

 a drift bowlder. He sees clearly, thinks swiftly, 

 and the sharp emphasis and decision of his mind 

 strew his pages with definite and striking images 

 and ideas. His expression is never sod-bound, and 

 you get its full force at once. 



One of his chief weapons is a kind of restrained 

 extravagance of statement, a compressed exaggera- 

 tion of metaphor. The hyperbole is big, but it is 



