uties of
nature--though a genuine poetic imagination coloured all that he
wrote--but an intellectual enthusiasm for the wonders of the natural
world, and, most important of all, a deep and tender sympathy with all
created things characteristic of the Eastern rather than the Western
mind. He observed as a naturalist, admired like a poet, loved with the
fervour of a Buddhist; every faculty of his nature did homage to the
Earth.

Most of us will admit to a sentimental regard for the open air and for
country sights and sounds. But in many cases it reduces itself to a
vague liking for "pretty scenery" and an annual conviction that a change
of air will do us good. And so it is that the man who prefers to live
the greater part of his life in the open is looked upon either as a crank
or a poser. Borrow's taste for adventure, and the picturesque vigour of
his personality, help largely in our minds to condone his wandering
instinct. But the more passive temperament of Thoreau, and the absence
in his writings of any stuff of romance, lead us to feel a kind of
puzzled contempt for the man.

"He shirks his duty as a citizen," says the practical Englishman; "He
experienced nothing worth mentioning," says the lover of adventure.
Certainly he lacked many of the qualities that make the literary Vagabond
attractive--and for this reason many will deny him the right to a place
among them--but he was neither a skulker nor a hermit.

In 1839, soon after leaving college, he made his first long jaunt in
company with his brother John. This was a voyage on the Concord and
Merrimac rivers--a pleasant piece of idling turned to excellent literary
account. The volume dealing with it--his first book--gives sufficient
illustration of his practical powers to dissipate the absurd notion that
he was a mere sentimentalist. No literary Vagabond was ever more skilful
with his hands than Thoreau. There was scarcely anything he could not
do, from making lead pencils to constructing a boat. And throughout his
life he supported himself by manual labour whenever occasion demanded.
Had he been so disposed he could doubtless have made a fortune--for he
had all the nimble versatility of the American character, and much of its
shrewdness. His attacks, therefore, upon money-making, and upon the
evils of civilization, are no mere vapourings of an incompetent, but the
honest conviction of a man who believes he has chosen the better part.

In his _Walk to