Far too much has been made of the Walden episode. It has been written upon as if it had represented the totality of Thoreau’s life, instead of being merely an interesting episode. Critics have animadverted upon it, as if the time had been spent in brooding, self-pity, and sentimental affectations, as if Thoreau had gone there to escape from his fellow-men. All this seems to me wide of the mark. Thoreau was always keenly interested in men and manners; his essays abound in a practical sagacity, too frequently overlooked. He went to Walden not to escape from ordinary life, but to fit himself for ordinary life. The sylvan solitudes, as he knew, had their lessons for him no less than the busy haunts of men.
Of course it would be idle to deny that he found his greatest happiness in the woods and fields; it is this touch of wildness that makes of him a Vagabond. But though not an emotional man, his was not a hard nature so much as a reserved, self-centred nature, rarely
expressing itself in outward show of feeling. That he was a man capable of strong affection is shown by his devotion to his brother. Peculiarities of temperament he had certainly, idiosyncrasies as marked as those of Borrow. These I wish to discuss later. For the moment I am concerned to defend him from the criticism that he was a loveless, brooding kind of creature, more interested in birds and fishes than in his fellow-men. For he was neither loveless nor brooding, and the characteristics that have proved most puzzling arose from the mingled strain in his nature of the Eastern quietist and the shrewd Western. These may now be considered more leisurely. I will deal with the less important first of all.
II
Some of his earlier work suffers somewhat from a too faithful discipleship of Emerson; but when he had found himself, as he has in Walden, he can break away from this tendency, and there are many lovely passages untouched by didacticism.
“The stillness was intense and almost conscious, as if it were a natural sabbath. The air was so elastic and crystalline that it had the same effect on the landscape that a glass has on a picture—to give it an ideal remoteness and perfection. The landscape was bathed in a mild and quiet light, while the woods and fences chequered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched far away with lawnlike smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairyland.”
But while there is the Wordsworthian appreciation of the peaceful moods of Nature and of the gracious stillnesses, there is the true spirit of the Vagabond in his Earth-worship. Witness his pleasant “Essay on Walking”:—
“We are but faint-hearted crusaders; even the walkers nowadays undertake no persevering world’s end enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half of the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walks, perchance, in the spirit of stirring adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdom. If you have paid your debts and made your will and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.”
There is a relish in this sprightly abjuration that is transmittible to all but the dullest mind. The essay can take its place beside Hazlitt’s “On Going a Journey,” than which we can give it no higher praise.
With all his appreciation of the quieter, the gentler aspects of nature, he has the true hardiness of the child of the road, and has as cheery a welcome for the east wind as he has for the gentlest of summer breezes. Here is a little winter’s sketch:—