For—and it is well to admit it frankly—the Vagabond loses as well as gains by his deliberate withdrawal from the world. No man can live to himself without some injury to his character. The very cares and worries, the checks and clashings, consequent on meeting other individualities tend to keep down the egotistic elements in a man’s nature. The necessary give and take, the sacrifice of self-interests, the little abnegations, the moral adjustment following the appreciation of other points of view; all these things are good for men and women. Yes, and it is good even to mix with very conventional people—I do not say live with them—however distasteful it may be, for the excessive caution, the prudential, opportunistic qualities they exhibit, serve a useful purpose in the scheme of things. The ideal thing, no doubt, is to mix with as many types, as many varieties of the human species, as possible. Browning owes his great power as a poet to his tireless interest in all sorts and conditions of men and women. It is idle to pretend then that Thoreau lost nothing by his experiments, and by the life he fashioned for himself. Nature gives us plenty of choice; we are invited to help ourselves, but everything must be paid for. There are drawbacks as well as compensations; and the most a man can do is to strike a balance. And in Thoreau’s case the balance was a generous one. Better than his moralizing, better than his varied culture, was his intimacy with Nature. Moralists are plentiful, scholars abound, but men in close, vital sympathy with the Earth, a sympathy that comprehends because it loves, and loves because it comprehends, are rare. Let us make the most of them. In one of his most striking Nature poems Mr. George Meredith exclaims:— “Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare. Nothing harms beneath the leaves More than waves a swimmer cleaves. Toss your heart up with the lark, Foot at peace with mouse and worm, Fair you fare, Only at a dread of dark Quaver, and they quit their form: Thousand eyeballs under hoods Have you by the hair. Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare.” So to understand Nature you must trust her, otherwise she will remain at heart fearsome and cryptic. “You must love the light so well That no darkness will seem fell; Love it so you could accost Fellowly a livid ghost.” Mr. Meredith requires us to approach Nature with an unswerving faith in her goodness.