"The naturalist waded into the pool for the water plants, and his strong legs were no insignificant part of his armor. On this day he looked for the menyanthes and detected it across the wide pool; and, on examination of the floret, declared that it had been in flower five days. He drew out of his breast-pocket a diary, and read the names of all the plants that should bloom that day, whereof he kept account as a banker does when his notes are due.... He could pace rods more accurately than another man could measure them with rod and chain. He could find his way in the woods at night better by his feet than by his eyes. He knew every track in the snow and on the ground, and what creature had taken the path in the snow before him."
Thoreau could write the most beautiful descriptions when he was so inclined. Here is an exquisite description of a snowstorm.
"Did you ever admire the steady, silent, windless fall of the snow, in some lead-colored sky, silent save the little ticking of the flakes as they touched the twigs? It is chased silver, molded over the pines and oak leaves. Soft shades hang like curtains along the closely-draped wood-paths. Frozen apples become little cider-vats. The old crooked apple-trees, frozen stiff in the pale, shivering sunlight, that appears to be dying of consumption, gleam forth like the heroes of one of Dante's cold hells; we would mind any change in the mercury of the dream. The snow crunches under the feet; the chopper's axe rings funereally through the tragic air. At early morn the frost on button-bushes and willows was silvery and every stem and minutest twig and filamentary weed came up a silver thing, while the cottage smoke rose salmon-colored into that oblique day. At the base of ditches were shooting crystals, like the blades of an ivory-handled penknife, the rosettes and favors fretted of silver on the flat ice. The little cascades in the brook were ornamented with transparent shields, and long candelabrums and spermaceti-colored fools'-caps and plated jellies and white globes, with the black water whirling along transparently underneath. The sun comes out, and all at a glance, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds start into intense life on the angles of the snow crystals."
LIX[ToC]
THE LAST DAYS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
There has been great difference of opinion concerning the genius of Poe. His life also has been the subject of much controversy. By some Poe is painted as a fiend incarnate, by others as a man more sinned against than sinning. When Howells visited Emerson he was surprised to hear the Concord Sage refer to Poe as the "jingle man," but then Emerson himself had been treated rather contemptuously by Poe, and that, together with Emerson's lack of appreciation of melody, may account for the "jingle man" expression.
It is not strange that Poe has been the subject of bitter criticism. He himself was bitter and unjust in his criticisms of others. He once wrote: "Bryant is not all a fool. Mr. Willis is not quite an ass. Mr. Longfellow will steal, but, perhaps, he cannot help it." The man who will write like that must expect similar vituperation in return. To have friends, a man must be friendly. Poe was lacking in those warm human sympathies that attract our fellow-men. The human touch lacking in his art is also lacking in his life. "Except the wife who idolized him," writes Mr. Woodberry in his excellent Life of Poe, "and the mother who cared for him, no one touched his heart in the years of his manhood, and at no time was love so strong in him as to rule his life; as he was self-indulgent, he was self-absorbed, and outside of his family no kind act, no noble affection, no generous sacrifice is recorded of him."