have not yet heard the last opinion of the woman. But be
that as it may, we have here the explanation of the "rarefied
and freezing air" in which I complained that he had taught
himself to breathe. Reading the man through the books, I
took his professions in good faith. He made a dupe of me,
even as he was seeking to make a dupe of himself, wresting
philosophy to the needs of his own sorrow. But in the light
of this new fact, those pages, seemingly so cold, are seen to
be alive with feeling. What appeared to be a lack of
interest in the philosopher turns out to have been a touching
insincerity of the man to his own heart; and that fine-spun
airy theory of friendship, so devoid, as I complained, of any
quality of flesh and blood, a mere anodyne to lull his pains.
The most temperate of living critics once marked a passage of
my own with a cross ar d the words, "This seems nonsense."
It not only seemed; it was so. It was a private bravado of
my own, which I had so often repeated to keep up my spirits,
that I had grown at last wholly to believe it, and had ended
by setting it down as a contribution to the theory of life.
So with the more icy parts of this philosophy of Thoreau's.
He was affecting the Spartanism he had not; and the old
sentimental wound still bled afresh, while he deceived
himself with reasons.

Thoreau's theory, in short, was one thing and himself
another: of the first, the reader will find what I believe to
be a pretty faithful statement and a fairly just criticism in
the study; of the second he will find but a contorted shadow.
So much of the man as fitted nicely with his doctrines, in
the photographer's phrase, came out. But that large part