n had a great
deal to learn about children, who are, or should be, healthy little
pagans. But though his liking for them may not have been free of the
sentimental taint, there is abundant proof that other less debatable
qualities in childhood appealed to him with much greater force.

"Uncontaminated spirituality," forsooth. I would as soon speak of the
uncontaminated spirituality of a rabbit. I am sure rabbits are a good
deal more lovable than some children.

Thoreau's love of children, then, seems to be only a fresh instance of
his attraction towards simpler, more elemental forms of life. Men and
women not ringed round by civilized conventions, children who have the
freshness and wildness of the woods about them; such were the human
beings that interested him.

Such an attitude has its advantages as well as its limitations. It calls
neither for the censorious blame visited upon Thoreau by some of the
critics nor the indiscriminate eulogy bestowed on him by others.

The Vagabond who withdraws himself to any extent from the life of his
day, who declines to conform to many of its arbitrary conventions,
escapes much of the fret and tear, the heart-aching and the
disillusionment that others share in. He retains a freshness, a
simplicity, a joyfulness, not vouchsafed to those who stay at home and
never wander beyond the prescribed limits. He exhibits an individuality
which is more genuinely the legitimate expression of his temperament. It
is not warped, crossed, suppressed, as many are.

And this is why the literary Vagabond is such excellent company, having
wandered from the beaten track he has much to tell others of us who have
stayed at home. There is a wild luxuriance about his character that is
interesting and fascinating--if you are not thrown for too long in his
company. The riotous growth of eccentricities and idiosyncrasies are
picturesque enough, though you must expect to find thorns and briars.

On the other hand, we must beware of sentimentalizing the Vagabond, and
to present him as an ideal figure--as some enthusiasts have done--seems
to me a mistake. As a wholesome bitter corrective to the monotonous
sweet of civilization he is admirable enough. Of his tonic influence in
literature there can be no question. But it is well for the Vagabond to
be in the minority. Perhaps these considerations should come at the
close of the series of Vagabond studies, but they arise naturally when
considering T