Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/230

202 As workman and writer he was always methodical and intense. He measured the height of the toadstool and the Highland Lighthouse. He always worked with concentration, yet never with such haste as to prevent the full enjoyment of the work. He applied his own advice to keep all the faculties in repose save the one in use. We hear much to-day of the interrelations of brain and manual work and the best means of associating both with nature. Thoreau in America, as Ruskin and Jefferies in England, early advocated this alliance of outdoor tasks and sanative studies. In his bean-field at Walden, on his botanical excursions, in surveying and fence-building, in writing and studying, he met the requisite demands of both work and leisure. Like many salient dogmas of the best creeds, this combination is not always possible; Thoreau's independent circumstances enabled him to appropriate more leisure than others could afford. The doctrine, however, is true and deserves all the emulation which environment can be forced to yield.

Industry and leisure, if rightly related in kind and measure, will develop contentment and cheer, the ultimate end in all philosophy of experimental trend. Thoreau suggests a vital and universal truth when he says of himself, that "enthusiasm