This was
the eagle that he pursued all his life long, like a schoolboy
with a butterfly net. Hear him to a friend: "Let me suggest
a theme for you - to state to yourself precisely and
completely what that walk over the mountains amounted to for
you, returning to this essay again and again until you are
satisfied that all that was important in your experience is
in it. Don't suppose that you can tell it precisely the
first dozen times you try, but at 'em again; especially when,
after a sufficient pause you suspect that you are touching
the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows
there, and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that
the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make
it short." Such was the method, not consistent for a man
whose meanings were to "drop from him as a stone falls to the
ground." Perhaps the most successful work that Thoreau ever
accomplished in this direction is to be found in the passages
relating to fish in the WEEK. These are remarkable for a
vivid truth of impression and a happy suitability of
language, not frequently surpassed.
Whatever Thoreau tried to do was tried in fair, square prose,
with sentences solidly built, and no help from bastard
rhythms. Moreover, there is a progression - I cannot call it
a progress - in his work towards a more and more strictly
prosaic level, until at last he sinks into the bathos of the
prosy.
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