“The wonderful purity of Nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rush of the dead leaves of autumn are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and trickling woods see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness.”
But Thoreau’s pleasant gossips about the woods in Maine, or on the Concord River, would pall after a time were they not interspersed with larger utterances and with suggestive illustrations from the Books of the East. Merely considered as “poet-naturalist” he cannot rank with Gilbert White for quaint simplicity, nor have his discursive essays the full, rich note that we find in Richard Jefferies. That his writings show a sensitive imagination as well as a quick observation the above extracts will show. But unfortunately he had contracted a bad attack of Emersonitis, from which as literary writer he never completely recovered. Salutary as Emerson was to Thoreau as an intellectual irritant, he was the last man in the world for the discursive Thoreau to take as a literary model.
Many fine passages in his writings are spoiled by vocal imitations of the “voice oracular,” which is the more annoying inasmuch as Thoreau was no weak replica of Emerson intellectually, showing in some respects indeed a firmer grasp of the realities of life. But for some reason or other he grew enamoured of certain Emersonian mannerisms, which he used whenever he felt inclined
to fire off a platitude. Sometimes he does it so well that it is hard to distinguish the disciple from his master. Thus:—
“How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not a seedtime of character?”
Again:—
“Only he can be trusted with goods who can present a face of bronze to expectations.”
Unimpeachable in sentiment, but too obviously inspired for us to view them with satisfaction. And Thoreau at his best is so fresh, so original, that we decline to be put off with literary imitations, however excellently done.
And thus it is that Thoreau has been too often regarded as a mere disciple of Emerson. For this he cannot altogether escape blame, but the student will soon detect the superficiality of the criticism, and see the genuine Thoreau beneath the Emersonian veneer.
Thoreau lacked the integrating genius of Emerson, on the one hand, yet possessed an eye for concrete facts which the master certainly lacked. His strength, therefore, lay in another direction, and where Thoreau is seen at his best is where he is dealing with the concrete experiences of life, illustrating them from his wide and discursive knowledge of Indian character and Oriental modes of thought.