Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/413

Rh the horizon's edge as a hungry man nibbles a cracker. The henhawk and the pine are friends. The same thing which keeps the henhawk in the woods, away from cities, keeps me here. That bird settles with confidence on a white pine top, and not upon your weather-cock. That bird will not be poultry of yours, lays no eggs for you, forever hides its nest. Though willed or wild, it is not willful in its wildness. The unsympathizing man regards the wildness of some animals, their strangeness to him, as a sin, as if all their virtue consisted in their tamableness. He has always a charge in his gun ready for their extermination. What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own. The henhawk shuns the farmer, but it seeks the friendly shelter and support of the pine. It will not consent to walk in the barnyard, but it loves to soar above the clouds. It has its own way and is beautiful when we would fain subject it to our will. So any surpassing work of art is strange and wild to the mass of men, as is genius itself. No hawk that soars and steals our poultry is wilder than genius, and none is more persecuted or above persecution. It can never be poet laureate, to say, &quot;Pretty Poll,&quot; and &quot;Polly want a cracker.&quot;

Feb. 17, 1841. Our work should be fitted to and lead on the time, as bud, flower, and fruit