Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/179

Rh Among other lectures which he read in Worcester in 1857 were the favorites, "Autumnal Tints" and "Walking," both published in the Atlantic the same year as his death. The first lecture contained some of his most vivid and poetic descriptions of nature. With rapture he catalogued the varieties of Red Maples, declaring of the autumn brilliance that "if such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity and get into the mythology at last." With an artist's eye, he urged the planting of bright-tinted trees along the village street as stimulant to beauty and cheer of living. In his journal for February 25, 1859, Thoreau recorded that the only criticism this lecture brought in Worcester was denial of his statement that his auditors had not seen as many beauties of nature as they assumed to admire. He reiterates his belief "that they have not seen much of them, that there are very few people who do see much of nature,"—a comment of absolute truth for his own time and for all times.

Using his own experience as a text, the lecture on "Walking" abounded in precepts upon proper equipment, motive and direction, and the spirit which would alone bring exhilaration. Some of these didactic statements form an interesting commentary upon the age prior to our own. To-day,