CHAPTER V
THE YEARS OF EXPRESSION
IT is not difficult to assert, with seeming evidence of proof, that Thoreau's life, brief and unique, consisted entirely of years of preparation for the expression which never came. His mere life-incidents, read by a casual eye, seem trivial, vacillating experiments while his life has often been accounted a failure in achievement of any definite aims. One may, however, well recall the lesson of "Rabbi Ben Ezra,"—
"For thence,—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail."
The fifteen years of life after the Walden experiment witnessed no remarkable acts but they showed an increasing and sturdy expression of strong character that was fast maturing and that had gained a brighter, surer vision of the inner and loftier phases of life than has often been achieved in such a brief period. In a letter from a relative of the Thoreau family, loaned for use here, are two or three sentences that contained unconscious prophecy
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