A mere unimaginative naturalist may be a bore; but Thoreau regarded nature
with the eyes of a poet. His ear was thrilled with the vesper song of the
whippoorwill, the lisping of the chickadee among the evergreens, and the
slumber call of the toads. For him the bluebird "carries the sky on its
back." The linnets come to him "bearing summer in their natures." When he
asks, "Who shall stand godfather at the christening of the wild apples?"
his reply shows rare poetic appreciation of nature's work:--
"We should have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the rainbow and
the autumn woods and the wild flowers, and the woodpecker and the purple
finch and the squirrel and the jay and the butterfly, the November
traveler and the truant boy, to our aid."
He is not only a poet-naturalist, but also a philosopher, who shows the
influence of the transcendental school, particularly of Emerson. Some of
Thoreau's philosophy is impractical and too unsocial, but it aims to
discover the underlying basis of enchantment. He thus sums up the
philosophy which his life at Walden taught him:--
"I learned this at least by my experiment--that if one advances
confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the
life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in
common hours.
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