eader. Hence the effect
of anecdote on simple minds; and hence good biographies and works of
high, imaginative art, are not only far more entertaining, but far more
edifying, than books of theory or precept. Now Thoreau could not clothe
his opinions in the garment of art, for that was not his talent; but he
sought to gain the same elbow-room for himself, and to afford a similar
relief to his readers, by mingling his thoughts with a record of
experience.

Again, he was a lover of nature. The quality which we should call
mystery in a painting, and which belongs so particularly to the aspect
of the external world and to its influence upon our feelings, was one
which he was never weary of attempting to reproduce in his books. The
seeming significance of nature's appearances, their unchanging
strangeness to the senses, and the thrilling response which they waken
in the mind of man, continued to surprise and stimulate his spirits. It
appeared to him, I think, that if we could only write near enough to the
facts, and yet with no pedestrian calm, but ardently, we might transfer
the glamour of reality direct upon our pages; and that, if it were once
thus captured and expressed, a new and instructive relation might appear
between men's thoughts and the phenomena of nature. This was the eagle
that he pursued all his life long, like a schoolboy with a butterfly
net. Hear him to a friend: "Let me suggest a theme for you--to state to
yourself precisely and completely what that walk over the mountains
amounted to for you, returning to this essay again and again until you
are satisfied that all that was important in your experience is in it.
Don't suppose that you can tell it precisely the first dozen times you
try, but at 'em again; especially when, after a sufficient pause, you
suspect that you are touching the heart or summit of the matter,
reiterate your blows there, and account for the mountain to yourself.
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make
it short." Such was the method, not consistent for a man whose meanings
were to "drop from him as a stone falls to the ground." Perhaps the most
successful work that Thoreau ever accomplished in this direction is to
be found in the passages relating to fish in the "Week." These are
remarkable for a vivid truth of impression and a happy suitability of
language, not frequently surpassed.

Whatever Thoreau tried to do was tried in fair, square prose, with
sen