Probably I should
not conscientiously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do
the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from
annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater
steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. If you should ever
be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand
know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing." Elsewhere
he returns upon the subject, and explains his meaning thus: "If I ever
_did_ a man any good in their sense, of course it was something
exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil I am
constantly doing by being what I am." There is a rude nobility, like that of a barbarian king, in this
unshaken confidence in himself and indifference to the wants, thoughts,
or sufferings of others. In his whole works I find no trace of pity. This was partly the result of theory, for he held the world too
mysterious to be criticised, and asks conclusively: "What right have I
to grieve who have not ceased to wonder?" But it sprang still more from
constitutional indifference and superiority; and he grew up healthy,
composed, and unconscious from among life's horrors, like a green
bay-tree from a field of battle. It was from this lack in himself that
he failed to do justice to the spirit of Christ; for while he could
glean more meaning from individual precepts than any score of
Christians, yet he conceived life in such a different hope, and viewed
it with such contrary emotions, that the sense and purport of the
doctrine as a whole seems to have passed him by or left him unimpressed. He could understand the idealism of the Christian view, but he was
himself so unaffectedly unhuman that he did not recognise the human
intention and essence of that teaching. Hence he complained that Christ
did not leave us a rule that was proper and sufficient for this world,
not having conceived the nature of the rule that was laid down; for
things of that character that are sufficiently unacceptable become
positively non-existent to the mind. But perhaps we shall best
appreciate the defect in Thoreau by seeing it supplied in the case of
Whitman. For the one, I feel confident, is the disciple of the other; it
is what Thoreau clearly whispered that Whitman so uproariously bawls; it
is the same doctrine, but with how immense a difference! the same
argument, but used to what a new conclusion! Thoreau had plenty of
humour until he tutored himself out of it, and so forfeited that best
birthright of a sensible man; Whitman, in that respect, seems to have
been sent into the world naked and unashamed; and yet by a strange
consummation, it is the theory of the former that is arid, abstract, and
claustral. Of these two philosophies, so nearly identical at bottom, the
one pursues Self-improvement--a churlish, mangy dog; the other is up
with the morning, in the best of health, and following the nymph
Happiness, buxom, blithe, and debonair. Happiness, at least, is not
solitary; it joys to communicate; it loves others, for it depends on
them for its existence; it sanctions and encourages to all delights that
are not unkind in themselves; if it lived to a thousand, it would not
make excision of a single humorous passage; and while the self-improver
dwindles towards the prig, and, if he be not of an excellent
constitution, may even grow deformed into an Obermann, the very name and
appearance of a happy man breathe of good-nature, and help the rest of
us to live. In the case of Thoreau, so great a show of doctrine demands some outcome
in the field of action. If nothing were to be done but build a shanty
beside Walden Pond, we have heard altogether too much of these
declarations of independence. That the man wrote some books is nothing
to the purpose, for the same has been done in a suburban villa. That he
kept himself happy is perhaps a sufficient excuse, but it is
disappointing to the reader. We may be unjust, but when a man despises
commerce and philanthropy alike, and has views of good so soaring that
he must take himself apart from mankind for their cultivation, we will
not be content without some striking act. It was not Thoreau's fault if
he were not martyred; had the occasion come, he would have made a noble
ending. As it is, he did once seek to interfere in the world's course;
he made one practical appearance on the stage of affairs; and a strange
one it was, and strangely characteristic of the nobility and the
eccentricity of the man. It was forced on him by his calm but radical
opposition to negro slavery. "Voting for the right is doing nothing for
it," he saw; "it is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it
should prevail." For his part, he would not "for an instant recognise
that political organisation for _his_ government which is the _slave's_
government also." "I do not hesitate to say," he adds, "that those who
call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their
support, both in person and property, from the government of
Massachusetts." That is what he did: in 1843 he ceased to pay the
poll-tax. The highway-tax he paid, for he said he was as desirous to be
a good neighbour as to be a bad subject; but no more poll-tax to the
State of Massachusetts. Thoreau had now seceded, and was a polity unto
himself; or, as he explains it with admirable sense, "In fact, I
quietly declare war with the State after my fashion, though I will still
make what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such
cases." He was put in prison; but that was a part of his design. "Under
a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man
is also a prison. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one
hundred, if ten men whom I could name--ay, if _one_ HONEST man, in this
State of Massachusetts, _ceasing to hold slaves_, were actually to
withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county gaol
therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it
matters not how small the beginning may seem to be; what is once well
done is done for ever." Such was his theory of civil disobedience. And the upshot? A friend paid the tax for him; continued year by year to
pay it in the sequel; and Thoreau was free to walk the woods unmolested. It was a _fiasco_, but to me it does not seem laughable; even those who
joined in the laughter at the moment would be insensibly affected by
this quaint instance of a good man's horror for injustice. We may
compute the worth of that one night's imprisonment as outweighing half a
hundred voters at some subsequent election; and if Thoreau had possessed
as great a power of persuasion as (let us say) Falstaff, if he had
counted a party however small, if his example had been followed by a
hundred or by thirty of his fellows, I cannot but believe it would have
greatly precipitated the era of freedom and justice.