what wisdom and valour and generosity we have." Nor does he
suppose that such books are easily written. "Great prose, of
equal elevation, commands our respect more than great verse,"
says he, "since it implies a more permanent and level height,
a life more pervaded with the grandeur of the thought. The
poet often only makes an irruption, like the Parthian, and is
off again, shooting while he retreats; but the prose writer
has conquered like a Roman and settled colonies." We may ask
ourselves, almost with dismay, whether such works exist at
all but in the imagination of the student. For the bulk of
the best of books is apt to be made up with ballast; and
those in which energy of thought is combined with any
stateliness of utterance may be almost counted on the
fingers. Looking round in English for a book that should
answer Thoreau's two demands of a style like poetry and sense
that shall be both original and inspiriting, I come to
Milton's AREOPAGITICA, and can name no other instance for the
moment. Two things at least are plain: that if a man will
condescend to nothing more commonplace in the way of reading,
he must not look to have a large library; and that if he
proposes himself to write in a similar vein, he will find his
work cut out for him.

Thoreau composed seemingly while he walked, or at least
exercise and composition were with him intimately connected;
for we are told that "the length of his walk uniformly made
the length of his writing." He speaks in one place of
"plainness and vigour, the ornaments of style," which is
rather too paradoxical to be comprehensively, true.