Self-improvement--a churlish, mangy dog; the other is up
with the morning, in the best of health, and following the nymph
Happiness, buxom, blithe, and debonair. Happiness, at least, is not
solitary; it joys to communicate; it loves others, for it depends on
them for its existence; it sanctions and encourages to all delights that
are not unkind in themselves; if it lived to a thousand, it would not
make excision of a single humorous passage; and while the self-improver
dwindles towards the prig, and, if he be not of an excellent
constitution, may even grow deformed into an Obermann, the very name and
appearance of a happy man breathe of good-nature, and help the rest of
us to live.

In the case of Thoreau, so great a show of doctrine demands some outcome
in the field of action. If nothing were to be done but build a shanty
beside Walden Pond, we have heard altogether too much of these
declarations of independence. That the man wrote some books is nothing
to the purpose, for the same has been done in a suburban villa. That he
kept himself happy is perhaps a sufficient excuse, but it is
disappointing to the reader. We may be unjust, but when a man despises
commerce and philanthropy alike, and has views of good so soaring that
he must take himself apart from mankind for their cultivation, we will
not be content without some striking act. It was not Thoreau's fault if
he were not martyred; had the occasion come, he would have made a noble
ending. As it is, he did once seek to interfere in the world's course;
he made one practical appearance on the stage of affairs; and a strange
one it was, and strangely characteristic of the nobility and the
eccentricity of the man. It was forced on him by his calm but radical
opposition to negro slavery. "Voting for the right is doing nothing for
it," he saw; "it is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it
should prevail." For his part, he would not "for an instant recognise
that political organisation for _his_ government which is the _slave's_
government also." "I do not hesitate to say," he adds, "that those who
call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their
support, both in person and property, from the government of
Massachusetts." That is what he did: in 1843 he ceased to pay the
poll-tax. The highway-tax he paid, for he said he was as desirous to be
a good neighbour as to be a bad subject; but no more poll-tax to the
State of Massachusetts. Thoreau