been too often regarded as a mere
disciple of Emerson. For this he cannot altogether escape blame, but the
student will soon detect the superficiality of the criticism, and see the
genuine Thoreau beneath the Emersonian veneer.

Thoreau lacked the integrating genius of Emerson, on the one hand, yet
possessed an eye for concrete facts which the master certainly lacked.
His strength, therefore, lay in another direction, and where Thoreau is
seen at his best is where he is dealing with the concrete experiences of
life, illustrating them from his wide and discursive knowledge of Indian
character and Oriental modes of thought.

III

Insufficient attention has been paid, I think, to Thoreau's sympathy with
the Indian character and his knowledge of their ways.

The Indians were to Thoreau what the gypsies were to Borrow. Appealing
to certain spiritual affinities in the men's natures, they revealed their
own temperaments to them, enabling them to see the distinctiveness of
their powers. Thoreau was never quite able to give this intimate
knowledge such happy literary expression as Borrow. Apprehending the
peculiar charm, the power and limitations of the Indian character,
appreciating its philosophical value, he lacked the picturesque pen of
Borrow to visualize this for the reader.

A lover of Indian relics from his childhood, he followed the Indians into
their haunts, and conversed with them frequently. Some of the most
interesting passages he has written detail conversations with them. One
feels he knew and understood them; and they no less understood him, and
talked with him as they certainly would not have done with any other
white man. But one would have liked to have heard much more about them.
If only Thoreau could have given us an Indian Petulengro, how interesting
it would have been!

But, like the Indian, there was a reserve and impenetrability about
Thoreau which prevented him from ever becoming really confidential in
print. If he had but unbended more frequently, and not sifted his
thought so conscientiously before he gave us the benefit of it, he would
certainly have appealed to our affections far more than he does.

One feels in comparing his writings with the accounts of him by friends
how much that was interesting in the man remains unexpressed in terms of
literature. Partly this is due, no doubt, to his being tormented with
the idea of self-education that he had learnt from Emerson. In a
p