And sight, who had but eyes before;
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore."

And still more in these religious lines:--

"Now chiefly is my natal hour,
And only now my prime of life;
I will not doubt the love untold,
Which not my worth or want hath bought,
Which wooed me young, and wooes me old,
And to this evening hath me brought."

Whilst he used in his writings a certain petulance of remark in reference
to churches or churchmen, he was a person of a rare, tender, and absolute
religion, a person incapable of any profanation, by act or by thought. Of
course, the same isolation which belonged to his original thinking and
living detached him from the social religious forms. This is neither to be
censured nor regretted. Aristotle long ago explained it, when he said,
"One who surpasses his fellow-citizens in virtue is no longer a part of
the city. Their law is not for him, since he is a law to himself."

Thoreau was sincerity itself, and might fortify the convictions of
prophets in the ethical laws by his holy living. It was an affirmative
experience which refused to be set aside. A truth-speaker he, capable of
the most deep and strict conversation; a physician to the wounds of any
soul; a friend, knowing not only the secret of friendship, but almost
worshipped by those few persons who resorted to him as their confessor and
prophet, and knew the deep value of his mind and great heart. He thought
that without religion or devotion of some kind nothing great was ever