...en experiment is open to all the criticism of Lowell: it presupposed all the complicated civilization which it theoretically abjured. Even for Thoreau it was not a success. In the first year, his Homer lay open on the table, but he was so busy that he could only read it by snatches; in the second year, he was forced to set up a prosaic stove in the place of the romantic fire-place. Thoreau's idea...