If he exaggerated the importance of a certain way
of regarding things, he did so only because he thought the exaggeration was
necessary to secure attention for that particular truth, which would even
then not be apprehended at its full value. His style has a peculiar flavor,
difficult to describe. Lowell's characterization of Thoreau's style has
hardly been surpassed. "His range was narrow, but to be a master is to be a
master. There are sentences of his as perfect as anything in the language,
and thoughts as clearly crystallized; his metaphors and images are always
fresh from the soil."
Thoreau's style shows remarkable power of description. No American has
surpassed him in unique description of the most varied incidents in the
procession of all the seasons. We shall find frequent illustrations of this
power scattered through his _Journal_:--
"_June_ 1, 1857. I hear the note of a bobolink concealed in the top of an
apple tree behind me.... He is just touching the strings of his theorbo,
his glassichord, his water organ, and one or two notes globe themselves
and fall in liquid bubbles from his teeming throat. It is as if he
touched his harp within a vase of liquid melody, and when he lifted it
out, the notes fell like bubbles from the trembling string .
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