He pulled the woodchuck
out of its hole by the tail; the hunted fox came to him for
protection; wild squirrels have been seen to nestle in his
waistcoat; he would thrust his arm into a pool and bring
forth a bright, panting fish, lying undismayed in the palm of
his hand. There were few things that he could not do. He
could make a house, a boat, a pencil, or a book. He was a
surveyor, a scholar, a natural historian. He could run,
walk, climb, skate, swim, and manage a boat. The smallest
occasion served to display his physical accomplishment; and a
manufacturer, from merely observing his dexterity with the
window of a railway carriage, offered him a situation on the
spot. "The only fruit of much living," he observes, "is the
ability to do some slight thing better." But such was the
exactitude of his senses, so alive was he in every fibre,
that it seems as if the maxim should be changed in his case,
for he could do most things with unusual perfection. And
perhaps he had an approving eye to himself when he wrote:
"Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the
universe are not indifferent, BUT ARE FOR EVER ON THE SIDE OF
THE MOST SENSITIVE."
II.
Thoreau had decided, it would seem, from the very first to
lead a life of self-improvement: the needle did not tremble
as with richer natures, but pointed steadily north; and as he
saw duty and inclination in one, he turned all his strength
in that direction.
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