literary force that made for plain living and high thinking. His
nature lore was an aside; he gathered it as the meditative saunterer
gathers a leaf, or a flower, or a shell on the beach, while he ponders
on higher things. He had other business with the gods of the woods
than taking an inventory of their wares. He was a dreamer, an
idealist, a fervid ethical teacher, seeking inspiration in the fields
and woods. The hound, the turtle-dove, and the bay horse which he said
he had lost, and for whose trail he was constantly seeking, typified
his interest in wild nature. The natural history in his books is quite
secondary. The natural or supernatural history of his own thought
absorbed him more than the exact facts about the wild life around
him. He brings us a gospel more than he brings us a history. His
science is only the handmaid of his ethics; his wood-lore is the foil
of his moral and intellectual teachings. His observations are
frequently at fault, or wholly wide of the mark; but the flower or
specimen that he brings you always "comes laden with a thought." There
is a tang and a pungency to nearly everything he published; the
personal quality which flavors it is like the formic acid which the
bee infuses into the nectar he gets from the flower, and which makes
it honey.

I feel that some such statement about Thoreau should precede or go
along with any criticism of him as a writer or as an observer. He was,
first and last, a moral force speaking in the terms of the literary
naturalist.

Thoreau's prayer in one of his poems--that he might greatly disappoint
his friends--seems to have been answered. While his acquaintances went
into trade or the professions, he cast about to see what he could do
to earn his living and still be true to the call of his genius. In his
Journal of 1851 he says: "While formerly I was looking about to see
what I could do for a living, some sad experiences in conforming to
the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I
thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I
could do, and its small profits might suffice, so little capital is
required, so little distraction from my wonted thoughts." He could
range the hills in summer and still look after the flocks of King
Admetus. He also dreamed that he might gather the wild herbs and carry
evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods. But
he soon learned that trade cursed everything, and t