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ful, of old scenes and faces, and many eloquent 
passages in verse and prose, written by men in 
other and better days, who lived more with nature 
than we do now. Such a note as this was, perhaps, 
in Thoreau's mind when he regretted that there 
were no cocks to cheer him in the solitude of 
Walden. " I thought," he says, " that it might be 
worth while keeping a cockerel for his music 
merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once 
wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remark- 
able of any bird's, and if they could be naturalized 
without being domesticated it would soon become 
the most famous sound in our woods. ... To 
walk in a winter morning in a wood where these 
birds abounded, their native woods, and hear the 
wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill 
for miles over the surrounding country — think of 
it ! It would put nations on the alert. Who 
would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and 
earlier on each successive morning of his life, till 
he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and 
wise ? " 
Soon I fell into thinking of one in some ways 
greater than Thoreau, so unlike the skyey-minded 
New England prophet and solitary, so much more 
genial and tolerant, more mundane and lovable ; 
and yet like Thoreau in his nearness to nature. 
Not only a lover of generous wines — " That mark 
