mer breezes.
Here is a little winter's sketch:--

"The wonderful purity of Nature at this season is a most pleasing
fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rush of the dead
leaves of autumn are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the
bare fields and trickling woods see what virtue survives. In the
coldest and bleakest places the warmest charities still maintain a
foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and
nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly
whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places as the tops of
mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan
toughness."

But Thoreau's pleasant gossips about the woods in Maine, or on the
Concord River, would pall after a time were they not interspersed with
larger utterances and with suggestive illustrations from the Books of the
East. Merely considered as "poet-naturalist" he cannot rank with Gilbert
White for quaint simplicity, nor have his discursive essays the full,
rich note that we find in Richard Jefferies. That his writings show a
sensitive imagination as well as a quick observation the above extracts
will show. But unfortunately he had contracted a bad attack of
Emersonitis, from which as literary writer he never completely recovered.
Salutary as Emerson was to Thoreau as an intellectual irritant, he was
the last man in the world for the discursive Thoreau to take as a
literary model.

Many fine passages in his writings are spoiled by vocal imitations of the
"voice oracular," which is the more annoying inasmuch as Thoreau was no
weak replica of Emerson intellectually, showing in some respects indeed a
firmer grasp of the realities of life. But for some reason or other he
grew enamoured of certain Emersonian mannerisms, which he used whenever
he felt inclined to fire off a platitude. Sometimes he does it so well
that it is hard to distinguish the disciple from his master. Thus:--

"How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not a seedtime of
character?"

Again:--

"Only he can be trusted with goods who can present a face of bronze
to expectations."

Unimpeachable in sentiment, but too obviously inspired for us to view
them with satisfaction. And Thoreau at his best is so fresh, so
original, that we decline to be put off with literary imitations, however
excellently done.

And thus it is that Thoreau has