English and American Criticism of Thoreau

Abstract

G EORGE Eliot in later life made a collection of such articles from her earlier work as she wished preserved in permanent form and left them with a written injunction that no other pieces published before 1857 should be reproduced in collected editions of her writing. Thus a brief but appreciative review of or Life in the Woods, which, as assistant editor, she wrote for the Westminster Review, has not been reprinted. A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers had not been reviewed in the British press.1 This review of Walden by George Eliot was, therefore, the first critical notice of Thoreau to appear in England: In a volume called Walden; or Life in the Woodspublished last year but quite interesting enough for us to break our rule by a retrospective notice we have a bit of pure American life (not the go-ahead species, but its opposite pole) animated by that energetic yet calm spirit of innovation, that practical as well as theoretic independence of formulae, which is peculiar to some of the finer American minds. The writer tells us how he chose, for some years, to be a stoic of the woods; how he built his house; how he earned the necessaries of his simple life by cultivating a bit of ground. He tells his system of diet, his studies, his reflections, and his observations of natural phenomena. These last are not only made with a keen eye but have their interest enhanced by passing through the medium of a deep poetic sensibility; and, indeed, we feel throughout the book the presence of a refined as well as a hardy mind. People