Here we have a touch of fine writing, natural in a boy who had read Irving and Goldsmith, and exaggerating a little the dimensions of the rocks and rills of which he wrote. But how smooth the flow of description, how well-placed the words, how sure and keen the eye of the young observer! To this mount of vision did Thoreau and his friends constantly resort in after years, and it was on the plateau beneath that Mr. Alcott, in 1843, was about to cut down the woods and build his Paradise, when a more inviting fate, as he thought, beckoned his English friend Lane and himself to "Fruitlands," in the distant town of Harvard. At some time after this, perhaps while Thoreau was encamped at Walden with his books and his flute, Mr. Emerson sent him the following note, which gives us now a glimpse into that Arcadia:

"Will you not come up to the Cliff this P. M., at any hour convenient to you, where our ladies will be greatly gratified to see you? and the more, they say, if you will bring your flute for the echo's sake, though now the wind blows. "R. W. E.

"Monday, 1 o'clock P. M."

It does not appear that Thoreau wrote verses at this time, though he was a great reader of the best poetry, — of Milton very early, and with constant admiration and quotation. Thus, in a college essay of 1835, on "Simplicity of Style," he has this passage concerning the Bible and Milton:

"The most sublime and noblest precepts may be conveyed in a plain and simple strain. The Scriptures afford abundant proof of this. What images can be more natural, what sentiments of greater weight and at the same time more noble and exalted than those with which they abound? They possess no local or relative ornament which may be lost in a translation; clothed in whatever dress, they still retain their peculiar beauties. Here is simplicity itself. Every one allows this, every one admires it, yet how few attain to it! The union of wisdom and simplicity is plainly hinted at in the following lines of Mil

ton:

"Suspicion sleeps

At Wisdom's gate, and to Simplicity

Resigns her charge.'

Early in 1837 Thoreau wrote an elaborate paper, though of no great length, on Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," with many quotations, in course of which he said:

"These poems place Milton in an entirely new and extremely pleasing light to the reader, who was previously familiar with him as the author of Paradise Lost' alone. If before he venerated, he may now admire and love him. The immortal Milton seems for a space to have put on mortality, to have snatched a moment from the weightier cares of Heaven and Hell, to wander for a while among the sons of men. . I have dwelt upon the poet's beauties and not so much as glanced at his blemishes. A pleasing image, or a fine sentiment loses none of its charms, though Burton, or Beaumont and Fletcher, or Marlowe, or Sir Walter Raleigh, may have. written something very similar, or even in another connection, may have used the identical word, whose aptness we so much admire. That always appeared to me a contemptible kind of criticism which, deliberately and in cold blood, can dissect the sublimest passage, and take pleasure in the detection of slight verbal incongruities; when applied to Milton, it is little better than sacrilege."

The moral view taken by the young collegian in these essays is quite as interesting as the literary opinions, or the ease of his style. In September, 1835, discussing punishments, he says:

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Certainty is more effectual than severity of punishment. No man will deliberately cut his own fingers. Some have asked, ' Cannot reward be substituted for punishment? Is hope a less powerful incentive to action than fear? When a political pharmacopoeia has the command of both ingredients, wherefore employ the bitter instead of the sweet?' This reasoning is absurd. Does a man deserve to be rewarded for refraining from murder? Is the greatest virtue merely negative? or does it rather consist in the performance of a thousand every-day duties, hidden from the eye of the world?"

In an essay on the effect of story-telling, written in 1836, he says:

"The story of the world never ceases to interest. The child enchanted by the melodies of Mother Goose, the scholar pondering the tale of Troy divine,' and the historian breathing the atmosphere of past ages, - all manifest the same passion, are alike the creatures of curiosity. The same passion for the novel (somewhat modified, to be sure), that is manifested in our early days, leads us, in after-life, when the sprightliness and credulity of youth have given way to the reserve and skepticism of manhood, to the more serious, though scarcely less wonderful annals of the world. The love of stories and of story-telling

cherishes a purity of heart, a frankness and candor of disposition, a respect for what is generous and elevated, a contempt for what is mean and dishonorable, and tends to multiply merry companions and never-failing friends."

In March, 1837, in an essay on the source of our feeling of the sublime, Thoreau says:

"The emotion excited by the sublime is the most unearthly and god-like we mortals experience. It depends for the peculiar strength with which it takes hold on and occupies the mind, npon a principle which lies at the foundation of that worship which we pay to the Creator himself. And is fear the foundation of that worship? Is fear the ruling principle of our religion? Is it not rather the mother of superstition? Yes, that principle which prompts us to pay an involuntary homage to the infinite, the incomprehensible, the sublime, forms the very basis of our religion. It is a principle implanted in us by our Maker, a part of our very selves; we cannot eradicate it, we cannot resist it; fear may be overcome, death may be despised; but the infinite, the sublime seize upon the soul and disarm it. We may overlook them, or rather fall short of them; we may pass them by, but, so sure as we meet them face to face, we yield."