No underground railroad could
atone for slavery, even as no bills in Parliament can redeem
the ancient wrongs of Ireland. But here at least is a new
light shed on the Walden episode.
Second, it appears, and the point is capital, that Thoreau
was once fairly and manfully in love, and, with perhaps too
much aping of the angel, relinquished the woman to his
brother. Even though the brother were like to die of it, we
have not yet heard the last opinion of the woman. But be
that as it may, we have here the explanation of the "rarefied
and freezing air" in which I complained that he had taught
himself to breathe. Reading the man through the books, I
took his professions in good faith. He made a dupe of me,
even as he was seeking to make a dupe of himself, wresting
philosophy to the needs of his own sorrow. But in the light
of this new fact, those pages, seemingly so cold, are seen to
be alive with feeling. What appeared to be a lack of
interest in the philosopher turns out to have been a touching
insincerity of the man to his own heart; and that fine-spun
airy theory of friendship, so devoid, as I complained, of any
quality of flesh and blood, a mere anodyne to lull his pains.
The most temperate of living critics once marked a passage of
my own with a cross ar d the words, "This seems nonsense."
It not only seemed; it was so.
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