CHAPTER IV - HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS



I.


THOREAU'S thin, penetrating, big-nosed face, even in a bad
woodcut, conveys some hint of the limitations of his mind and
character. With his almost acid sharpness of insight, with
his almost animal dexterity in act, there went none of that
large, unconscious geniality of the world's heroes. He was
not easy, not ample, not urbane, not even kind; his enjoyment
was hardly smiling, or the smile was not broad enough to be
convincing; he had no waste lands nor kitchen-midden in his
nature, but was all improved and sharpened to a point. "He
was bred to no profession," says Emerson; "he never married;
he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he
refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank
no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco and, though a
naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. When asked at
dinner what dish he preferred, he answered, `the nearest.'"
So many negative superiorities begin to smack a little of the
prig. From his later works he was in the habit of cutting
out the humorous passages, under the impression that they
were beneath the dignity of his moral muse; and there we see
the prig stand public and confessed. It was "much easier,"
says Emerson acutely, much easier for Thoreau to say NO than
YES; and that is a characteristic which depicts the man. It
is a useful accomplishment to be able to say NO, but surely