Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/141

 and are superior to it. All the culture that had a beginning must in the world's history have an end. It is like the fashions of France; like the tricks taught to a few tame bears and monkeys. How wise we are! how ignorant the savage! we with our penknife with a hundred blades, he with his gnarled club. Ask his senses if they are not well fed, if his life is not well earned.

When we come to the pleasant English verse it seems as if the storm had all cleared away, and it were never to thunder and lighten any more. These stern events are traditionary.

We darkly behold (in the poetry of the obscurest eras) the forms of men,—such as can be seen afar through the mist,—no costume, no dialect, but for language you have a tongue itself. As for costume—we can dispense with that, the skins of beasts or bark of trees are always to be had,—what if the man is naked?

The figurative parts of Ossian are like Isaiah and the Psalms,—the same use is made of gaunt Nature. He uses but few and simple images; but they are drawn from [93]