Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/117

 voices, unnoted of others, spoke to him, like the sudden understanding of the eagle's voices to Sigurd in the Saga.

He was more than Naturalist. He said of Nature, “She must not be looked at directly, but askance, or by flashes: like the head of the Gorgon Medusa, she turns the men of Science to stone.” But the walls of Troy are said to have builded themselves of stone obedient to immortal music, and though those walls be crumbled, they endure in the song of the blind harper.

In the ages called dark, and what we think of as rude times, one wanderer was sure of welcome, — wherever he went was free of market and inn, of camp and castle and palace; he who could tell in song or story of the gods and the darker powers; the saints, the helping heroes, and gracious beauty. These men by their magic made hard life seem sweet, and