Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/225

Rh and part, in the real deficiencies of social intercourse." Thoreau once explained his isolation as "a desire to soar" and, in the process, he found his companions becoming rapidly less. In exploiting and applying his philosophy of self-culture, he was often indifferent to the world and its real merits, he often showed a lack of true altruism. One must, however, distinguish carefully in both his teaching and its exposition. Indifferent, even defiant, to petty rules and conventions, which preclude the natural cultivation of all faculties, he is emphatically desirous that life, when expanded in the individual, should share its fruitage with mankind. After expansion, comes unfolding and expression. In one of his personal explanations, he wrote;—"I would fain communicate the wealth of my life to men, would really give them what is most precious in my gift I will sift the sunbeams for the public good. I know no riches I would keep back." Again, after a longing for a life of seclusion with nature, he rebuked such desire and emphasized rather the need of "dropping the plummet where you are," of present duty and faithfulness; thus, will one live a "purer, a more thoughtful and laborious life, more true to your friends and neighbors, more noble and magnanimous, and that will be better than a wild walk."