as universal as it is nontemporaneous--as universal as it is free
from the measure of history, as "solitude is free from the
measure of the miles of space that intervene between man and his
fellows." In spite of the fact that Henry James (who knows almost
everything) says that "Thoreau is more than provincial--that he
is parochial," let us repeat that Henry Thoreau, in respect to
thought, sentiment, imagination, and soul, in respect to every
element except that of place of physical being--a thing that
means so much to some--is as universal as any personality in
literature. That he said upon being shown a specimen grass from
Iceland that the same species could be found in Concord is
evidence of his universality, not of his parochialism. He was so
universal that he did not need to travel around the world to
PROVE it. "I have more of God, they more of the road." "It is not
worth while to go around the world to count the cats in
Zanzibar." With Marcus Aurelius, if he had seen the present he
had seen all, from eternity and all time forever.

Thoreau's susceptibility to natural sounds was probably greater
than that of many practical musicians. True, this appeal is
mainly through the sensational element which Herbert Spencer
thinks the predominant beauty of music. Thoreau seems able to
weave from this source some perfect transcendental symphonies.
Strains from the Orient get the best of some of the modern French
music but not of Thoreau. He seems more interested in than
influenced by Oriental philosophy. He admires its ways of
resignation and self-contemplation but he doesn't contemplate
himself in the same way. He often quotes from the Eastern
scriptures passages which were they his own he would probably
omit, i.e., the Vedas say "all intelligences awake with the