to the Maine woods, the result of which gave the name to one of his
most characteristic volumes; but as habitually as the coming of the
day was he a walker about Concord, in all seasons, primarily for
companionship with untamed Nature, and secondarily as a gleaner in the
fields of natural history.

II

Thoreau was not a great philosopher, he was not a great naturalist, he
was not a great poet, but as a nature-writer and an original character
he is unique in our literature. His philosophy begins and ends with
himself, or is entirely subjective, and is frequently fantastic, and
nearly always illogical. His poetry is of the oracular kind, and is
only now and then worth attention. There are crudities in his writings
that make the conscientious literary craftsman shudder; there are
mistakes of observation that make the serious naturalist wonder; and
there is often an expression of contempt for his fellow countrymen,
and the rest of mankind, and their aims in life, that makes the
judicious grieve. But at his best there is a gay symbolism, a felicity
of description, and a freshness of observation that delight all
readers.

As a person he gave himself to others reluctantly; he was, in truth, a
recluse. He stood for character more than for intellect, and for
intuition more than for reason. He was often contrary and
inconsistent. There was more crust than crumb in the loaf he gave us.

He went about the business of living with his head in the clouds, or
with an absolute devotion to the ideal that is certainly rare in our
literary history. He declared that he aimed to crow like chanticleer
in the morning, if only to wake his neighbors up. Much of his writings
have this chanticleerian character; they are a call to wake up, to rub
the film from one's eyes, and see the real values of life. To this end
he prods with paradoxes, he belabors with hyperboles, he teases with
irony, he startles with the unexpected. He finds poverty more
attractive than riches, solitude more welcome than society, a sphagnum
swamp more to be desired than a flowered field.

Thoreau is suggestive of those antibodies which modern science makes
so much of. He tends to fortify us against the dry rot of business,
the seductions of social pleasures, the pride of wealth and position.
He is antitoxic; he is a literary germicide of peculiar power. He is
too religious to go to church, too patriotic to pay his taxes, too
fervent a humanist to interest himself in