thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and
beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and
in every sight and sound about my house, an infinite and unaccountable
friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the
fancied advantages of human neighbourhood insignificant, and I have
never thought of them since. Every little pine-needle expanded and
swelled with sympathy, and befriended me. I was so distinctly made
aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes that
we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of
blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I
thought no place could ever be strange to me again.' This experience
marked the rebirth of Thoreau, as truly as a new and delightful
sensitiveness to a spiritual world marked the re-birth of Bunyan. The
whole secret of re-birth lies in the recovery of lost affinities.

I do not recollect any particular crisis such as Thoreau describes, but
I can trace the process in myself. I took no pains to cast the slough
of cities; I registered no vows and consulted no teachers; it seemed
that the thing was quietly done for me by the Higher Powers. I had no
part in the matter except to be docile. Nature took me in hand, as
sleep takes in hand the sick child; the only thing asked of me was my
submission. The result soon appeared in the altered scale of my
perceptions. I became indifferent to newspapers, to the doings and
performances of public personages, to the rise and fall of literary
reputations, and to a great many books which once interested me. I saw
that a considerable number of those whom I had counted public teachers
were no better than persons who talked in their sleep. They knew
nothing of the elemental life of man, and were unfitted to pronounce
verdicts upon his destiny. Novelists particularly offended me by their
gross ignorance of life. The pictures of life they drew were as untrue