What were his feelings about
all these things he has been at such pains to record? The things
themselves are not enough. It is not alluring to be told soberly:--
Hedge-hogs abound in my garden and fields. The manner in which they
eat the roots of the plaintain in the grass walk is very curious;
with their upper mandible, which is much larger than the lower,
they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upward, leaving
the tuft of leaves untouched.
And so on. By way of contrast, see how Mr. Burroughs treats
a similar subject. After describing the porcupine, mingling
description and human encounter, thereby enlisting the reader's
interest, he says:--
In what a peevish, injured tone the creature did complain of our
unfair tactics! He protested and protested, and whimpered and
scolded like some infirm old man tormented by boys. His game
after we led him forth was to keep himself as much as possible
in the shape of a ball, but with two sticks and the cord we
finally threw him over on his back and exposed his quill-less
and vulnerable under side, when he fairly surrendered and seemed
to say, "Now you may do with me as you like."
Here one gets the porcupine and Mr. Burroughs too.
Thoreau keeps his reader at arm's length, invites and repels at
the same time, piques one by his spiciness, and exasperates by
his opinionatedness.
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