But
his point of view is both high and dry. He has no illusions;
he does not give way to love any more than to hatred, but
preserves them both with care like valuable curiosities. A
more bald-headed picture of life, if I may so express myself,
has seldom been presented. He is an egoist; he does not
remember, or does not think it worth while to remark, that,
in these near intimacies, we are ninety-nine times
disappointed in our beggarly selves for once that we are
disappointed in our friend; that it is we who seem most
frequently undeserving of the love that unites us; and that
it is by our friend's conduct that we are continually rebuked
and yet strengthened for a fresh endeavour. Thoreau is dry,
priggish, and selfish. It is profit he is after in these
intimacies; moral profit, certainly, but still profit to
himself. If you will be the sort of friend I want, he
remarks naively, "my education cannot dispense with your
society." His education! as though a friend were a
dictionary. And with all this, not one word about pleasure,
or laughter, or kisses, or any quality of flesh and blood.
It was not inappropriate, surely, that he had such close
relations with the fish. We can understand the friend
already quoted, when he cried: "As for taking his arm, I
would as soon think of taking the arm of an elm-tree!"
As a matter of fact he experienced but a broken enjoyment in
his intimacies.
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