n
insects" as his "kindred," that this affinity bespoke a wider brotherhood
of feeling than men are usually ready to acknowledge. But this is not
the same as loving animals _because_ they are manlike. He loved them
surely because they were _living_ things, and he was drawn towards all
living things, not because he detected any semblance to humankind in
them. The difference between these two attitudes is not easy to define
clearly; but it is a real, not a nominal difference.

It is argued, however, as another instance of Thoreau's undervalued
sociability, that he was very fond of children. That he was fond of
children may be admitted, and some of the pleasantest stories about him
relate to his rambles with children. His huckleberry parties were justly
famous, if report speaks true. "His resources for entertainment," says
Mr. Moncure Conway, "were inexhaustible. He would tell stories of the
Indians who once dwelt thereabouts till the children almost looked to see
a red man skulking with his arrow and stone, and every plant or flower on
the bank or in the water, and every fish, turtle, frog, lizard about was
transformed by the wand of his knowledge from the low form into which the
spell of our ignorance had reduced it into a mystic beauty."

Emerson and his children frequently accompanied him on these expeditions.
"Whom shall we ask?" demanded Emerson's little daughter. "All children
from six to sixty," replied her father.

"Thoreau," writes Mr. Conway in his _Reminiscences_, "was the guide,
for he knew the precise locality of every variety of berry."

"Little Edward Emerson, on one occasion, carrying a basket of fine
huckleberries, had a fall and spilt them all. Great was his
distress, and offers of berries could not console him for the loss of
those gathered by himself. But Thoreau came, put his arm round the
troubled child, and explained to him that if the crop of
huckleberries was to continue it was necessary that some should be
scattered. Nature had provided that little boys and girls should now
and then stumble and sow the berries. 'We shall,' he said, 'have a
grand lot of bushes and berries on this spot, and we shall owe them
to you.' Edward began to smile."

Thoreau evidently knew how to console a child, no less than how to make
friends with a squirrel. But his fondness for children is no more an
argument for his sociability, than his fondness for bi