Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/231

Rh in youth" became "temperament" in manhood. At Walden his enthusiasm was symbolized by chanticleer, to "wake his neighbors up." This gleeful enjoyment of nature and life found more serene, yet no less emphatic, statements in the temperamental writings of more mature years. "Life is not for complaint but for satisfaction." "Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever-glorious morning." Thoreau realized that to maintain the equable division of work and leisure, to attain contentment and cheer, there must be readjustment of the standards of civilization. In other words, he based his philosophy on the transcendental doctrine of the simplification of life. In looking at society, he found commercialism and anxiety, sham and artifice, injustice and suffering, and these contending armies seemed called into battle by the complex demands of modern life. To "reduce life to its lowest terms," to separate the essential from the artificial, to satisfy the natural cravings of senses, brain, and heart, and preclude the merely acquired tastes from becoming tyrannous,—such formed the pivotal point of his creed. "Probe the earth and see where your main roots run." Walden tested and proved the doctrine