Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/197

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THE YEARS OF EXPRESSION
171

In a dual sense were his words prophetic,—both as regards his country and himself. The agitation ripened fast; the conflict he had foreseen, and foretold, came apace. His latent reference to his own death was as speedily fulfilled. To many he seemed now at the very prime of age and power. His development had been slow and experimental, his recognition as author, naturalist, and reformer, had at last been bestowed. His unique, yet strong, philosophy of life had been shaped and tested; his knowledge of nature, poetry, and Indian lore was rare and extensive, ready for expression in literary forms of new and recognized value. His home-life as companion and care-taker for mother and sister was affectionate and satisfying. He had many devoted and dependent friends. He had become a force in national affairs at a time when such sympathies were sure to broaden and ennoble the best manhood. At forty-two years of age, with all these prospects before him, his health had failed, his active Work was nearly done. Only months of patient endurance and a few last expressions of mind and soul remained.

There has always seemed a paradox in the fact that the man who lived four or five hours a day in the open air when it was possible, who walked and bivouacked amid the pine woods, whose phys-