Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/224

196 regards nature, man is "an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of nature, rather than a member of society." When the question of opposition to slavery arose, his preaching was that his countrymen were men first, and Americans afterwards. Thus, through the imagery of the pure water-lily, "partner to no Missouri compromise," he urged individual "purity and courage which are immortal."

This individualistic philosophy, with its corollary of self-improvement, has given a narrow, seemingly selfish tone to many of his words. The idea, however, must be considered in its entirety and logical sequence, to be justly understood. His own life and his most earnest words proclaim that self-expansion should prove preparatory to the highest service for mankind and society in generic form. The latter should be constructed to assist, not to retard, the noblest development of each man and woman. At present the individual is compelled to suppress his nature-given faculties that he may conform to the usages of society. Robert Louis Stevenson, though he failed to understand many of Thoreau's traits, because he accepted some false guides, said forcefully of the Walden seclusion and Thoreau's later life,—"The secret of his retirement lies not in misanthropy, of which he had no tincture, but part in his engrossing design of self-improvement