It is either the tribune on the
plain, a sermon on the mount, or a very private ecstasy still higher up.
We are not the less to aim at the summits, though the multitude does not
ascend them. Use all the society that will abet you." (p. 139.)
And since the unsocial character of Thoreau's theory of life has been
one of the most serious charges against it, his fine series of thoughts
on love and marriage in this volume become peculiarly interesting. "Love
must be as much a light as a flame." "Love is a severe critic. Hate can
pardon more than love." "A man of fine perceptions is more truly
feminine than a merely sentimental woman." "It is not enough that we are
truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful
about." These are sentences on which one might spin commentaries and
scholia to the end of life; and there are many others as admirable.
His few verses close the volume,--few and choice, with a rare flavor of
the seventeenth century in them. The best poem of all, "My life is like
a stroll upon the beach," is not improved by its new and inadequate
title, "The Fisher's Boy.
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