HENRY THOREAU
Bowling” from Thoreau could ask if he were capable of human feeling. To this day that song, heard long years ago, rings clear and moving to me.
He studied the songs of birds as eagerly as many a man how to make money. Milton calls Mammon, —
“The least erected spirit that fell
From Heaven, for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold.
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
In vision beatific.”
Not so Henry Thoreau. As he walked the village street sometimes it happened that his towns-folk were hurt or annoyed that his eyes were far away and he did not stop “to pass the time of day.” There was no affectation or unkindness here. The real man was then in the elm-arch high aloft, —
89
