Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/215

Rh are associated with one's native place, for instance. She is most significant to a lover. If I have no friend, what is nature to me? She ceases to be morally significant." (Journal, June 30, 1852.) The man, shut in from the external world which had been so large a part of his life, was moved to tears and generous response by a tune of his boyhood days, played by a street musician. Such words and incidents express the latent tenderness of heart cherished and controlled, yet never crushed, coexistent with a complacency and quiet, steady growth, akin to that of nature and her laws.

As his life progressed, the lighter traits of French ancestry became less marked but they were never lost. Even in his later life, he had moods of merriment and pure relaxation. From his serious studies he would join the Emerson children in "playing Esquimaux" in their snow-cave, or would indulge in an occasional hilarious dance. Among Mr. Kicketson's published memorials are his graphic, descriptive verses on "Thoreau's Dance," a memory of an evening in the New Bedford home when the music of the young people awakened the vivacity and rhythm of the mature man to unique expression. The analogy of the versifier is graceful and dignified: