And this too was language I could not understand. I watched him in silence, wondering what was behind his visit to me.
"Thoreau was a lonely man," he went on, "as most writers are, I think, but Thoreau was very lonely."
"Wild," Burroughs had called him; "irritating," I had called him; and on the table beside the Pilgrim lay even then a letter from Mr. Burroughs, in which he had taken me to task on behalf of Thoreau.
"I feel like scolding you a little," ran the letter, "for disparaging Thoreau for my benefit. Thoreau is nearer the stars than I am. I may be more human, but he is certainly more divine. His moral and ethical value I think is much greater, and he has a heroic quality that I cannot approach."
There was something queer in this. Why had I not understood Thoreau? Wild he surely was, and irritating too, because of a certain strain and self-consciousness. A "counter-irritant" he called himself. Was this not true?
As if in answer to my question, as if to explain his coming out to Mullein Hill, the Pilgrim drew forth a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and without opening it or looking at it, said:—
"I wrote it the other day beside Thoreau's grave. You love your Thoreau—you will understand."
And then in a low, thrilling voice, timed as to some solemn chant, he began, the paper still folded in his hands:—
"A lonely wand'rer stands beside the stone
That marks the grave where Thoreau's ashes lie;
An object more revered than monarch's throne,
Or pyramids beneath Egyptian sky.
"He turned his feet from common ways of men,
And forward went, nor backward looked around;
Sought truth and beauty in the forest glen,
And in each opening flower glory found.