228 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
imagine that Thoreau was sucha one. Atall events, 
although he was without the Darwinian lights which 
we have, and these feelings were always to him 
“ strange,” ‘ mysterious,” “ unaccountable,’’ he does 
not concealthem. This is the ‘‘ something uncanny 
in Thoreau” which seems inexplicable and startling 
to such as have never been startled by nature, nor 
deeply moved; but which, to others, imparts a 
peculiarly delightful aromatic flavour to his writings. 
It is his wish towards a more primitive mode of life, 
his strange abandonment when he scours the wood 
like a half-starved hound, and no morsel could be 
too savage for him; the desire to take a ranker 
hold on life and live more as the animals do; the 
sympathy with nature so keen that it takes: his 
breath away ; the feeling that all the elements were 
congenial to him, which made the wildest scenes 
unaccountably familiar, so that he came and went 
with a strange liberty in nature. Once only he had 
doubts, and thought that human companionship 
might be essential to happiness ; but he was at the 
same time conscious of a slight insanity in the 
mood ; and he soon again became sensible of the 
sweet beneficent society of nature, of an infinite and 
unaccountable friendliness all at once like an 
atmosphere sustaining him. 
‘In the limits of a chapter it is impossible to do 
more than touch the surface of so large a subject as 
that of the instincts and remains of instincts exist- 
ing in us. Dr. Wallace doubts that there are any 
human instincts, even in the perfect savage; which 
