Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

HENRY DAVID THOREAU
have learned, in his own words, 'to leave out their
dulness.' He inflicts his full quantity upon the
reader in such books as Cape Cod or The Yankee in
Canada. Of the latter he confessed that he had not
managed to get much of himself into it. Heaven
knows he had not, nor yet much of Canada, we may
hope. ' Nothing,' he says somewhere, ' can shock a
brave man but dulness.' Well, there are few spots
more shocking to the brave than the pages of The
Yankee in Canada.
There are but three books of his that will be read
with much pleasure : the Week, Walden, and the
collected letters. As to his poetry, Emerson's word
shall suffice for us, it is so accurate and so prettily
said : ' The thyme and marjoram are not yet honey.'
In this, as in his prose, he relied greatly on the
goodwill of the reader, and wrote throughout in
faith. It was an exercise of faith to suppose that
many would understand the sense of his best work,
or that any could be exhilarated by the dreary
chronicling of his worst. ' But,' as he says, ' the
gods do not hear any rude or discordant sound, as
we learn from the echo ; and I know that the nature
towards which I launch these sounds is so rich that
it will modulate anew and wonderfully improve my
rudest strain.'
IV
' What means the fact,' he cries, ' that a soul
which has lost all hope for itself can inspire in
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