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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. THOREAU S THOUGHTS SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU EDITED BY H. G. O. BLAKE We shall one day see that the most private is the most public energy, that quality atones for quantity, and grandeur of character acts in the dark, and succors them who never saw it. EMERSON BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1890 Copyright, 1890, BY H. G. O. BLAKE. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. INTRODUCTORY. IN selecting the following passages from Thoreau s printed works, for the use of those who are already interested in him, and to win, if possible, new admirers of what has given me so pure and unfailing a satisfaction for now more than forty years, I desired to make a pocket volume, contain ing beautiful and helpful thoughts, which one might not only read in retirement, but use as a traveling companion, or vade me- ciim, while waiting at a hotel, railway sta tion, or elsewhere, something even more convenient and ready at hand than the newspaper. I would furnish an antidote to the dissipating, depressing influence of too much newspaper reading, something which instead of filling the mind with gos- IV INTRODUCTORY. sip, political strife and misstatement, ath letics, pugilism, accounts of shocking acci dents, and every kind of criminality, may refresh us with a new sense of the beauty of the world, and make us feel how truly life is worth living. " O world as God has made it, all is beauty ; And knowing this is love, and love is duty." The truth expressed in these lines of Browning, which seems to me the highest wisdom, and so the essence of religion, was no transient dream with Thoreau, but a deep conviction which took possession of him early in life, never to be relinquished, and which he resolved as far as possible to realize, in spite of the false usages and allurements of the world as man has made it. Though, faithful to his idea, he felt obliged to stand somewhat apart from the society about him, yet his strong and active interest in the anti-slavery move ment, and his instant appreciation and public defense of Captain John Brown, show clearly how sensitive he was to the INTRODUCTORY. V tie of humanity. It is the close alliance or unity of Thoreau s genius and personal character which gives such power to his words for the purpose I have in view, namely, to awaken or revive our interest in the worthiest things, to lift us above the world of care and sadness into that fairer world which is always waiting to receive us. I would express here my obligations to Dr. Samuel A. Jones, of Ann Arbor, Mi chigan, for the free use of his " Biblio graphy," which has been with him indeed a labor of love, and which, I am sure, will add much to the value and attractiveness of this volume. THE EDITOR. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. The best kind Reading, in a high sense, is not of reading. that wh j ch J^g us as a \ uxur y and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the while, but what we have to stand on tiptoe to read and devote our most alert and Wakeful hours tO. WALDEN, p. .13. society in ^ nave never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighbor hood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was some thing unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain, while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensi ble of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the 2 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advan tages of human neighborhood 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 pres ence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which 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. WALDKN, p. 143. The best What sort of space is that which neighbor- - hood. separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary ? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to ? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-of fice, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men most congre gate, but to the perennial source of our SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 3 life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction. This will vary with differ ent natures, but this is the place where a wise man will dig his cellar. WALDEN, P 144. our nearest An Y prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most part we al low only outlying and transient circum stances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Near est to all things is that power which fash ions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are. WALDEN, p. 145. our double However intense my experi ence, I am conscious of the pres ence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but specta- 4 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. tor, sharing no experience, but taking note of it ; and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagi nation only, so far as he was concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends sometimes. WALDEN, p. 146. The most I never found the companion com s panbn y - that was so companionable as shlp solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. WALDK.V, p. 147. TOO much Society is commonly too cheap. shallow intercourse. We meet at very short inter vals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We live thick and are in each other s way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another. Cer tainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty communications. The value of a man is not in his skin, that We Should tOUCh him. WALDEN, p. 147. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 5 The value of T have a g reat deal of company in my house ; especially in the morning, when nobody calls. I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray ? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. God is alone, but the devil, he is far from being alone ; he sees a great deal of company ; he is legion. WALDEN, p. 148. Sympathy of The indescribable innocence Sm^ and beneficence of Nature, of sun and wind and rain, of sum mer and winter, such health, such cheer, they afford forever ! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Na ture would be affected, and the sun s brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a just cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth ? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould my- WALDEN, p. 149. 6 SELECTIONS FROAI THOREAU. Hebepre- I am no worshiper of Hygeia, Hygeia. who was the dauhter of that old herb - doctor ^Esculapius, but rather of Hebe, cupbearer to Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and who had the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of youth. She was probably the only thoroughly sound - conditioned, healthy, and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever she came, it Was Spring. WALDEN, p. 150. Animal food It is hard to provide and cook offends the . . . . , imagination, so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination ; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body ; they should both sit down at the same ta ble. It may be vain to ask why the imagi nation will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. What ever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more Civilized. WALDBN, P . 232. SELECTIONS FROM THOKEAU. 7 The faintest assured objection intima- wn ich one healthy man feels will The slight est inti tions of one^-s genius ^ length prevail over the argu- regarded. men t s and customs of mankind. No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet- scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Per haps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescrib able as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. WALDEN, p. 233. 8 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. inspiration Who has not sometimes derived palate. an inexpressible satisfaction from his food in which appetite had no share ? I have been thrilled to think that I owed a mental perception to the commonly gross sense of taste, that I have been inspired through the palate, that some berries which I had eaten on a hill-side had fed my ge nius. WALDEN, p. 234- The quality He who distinguishes the true of the appe- , . . , , , the makes savor oi his food can never be a the sensual- , ist. glutton ; he who does not can not be otherwise. A puritan may go to his brown -bread crust with as gross an appetite as ever an alderman to his turtle. Not that food which entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten ; it is neither the quantity nor the quality, but the devotion tO SenSUal SaVOrS. WALDEN, p. 235- The moral Our whole life is startlingly rSald moral. There is never an in stant s truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails. In the music of the harp that trembles round the world it is SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 9 the insisting on this which thrills us. Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indiffer ent, but are forever on the side of the most sensitive. Listen to every zephyr for some reproof, for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate who does not hear it. We cannot touch a string or move a stop but the charming moral transfixes us. Many an irksome noise, go a long way off, is heard as music, a proud sweet satire on the meanness of our lives. WALDKN, p. 235. Delicacy of " That in which men differ from the distinc- 1111 tion between brute beasts, says Mencius, " is men and . .... beasts. a thing very inconsiderable ; the common herd lose it very soon ; superior men preserve it carefully." WALDEN, P . 23 6. Purity in- Chastity is the flowering of spires the soui. man ; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it. Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open. By turns our purity inspires and our impurity casts us down. He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being established. WALDEN, p. 236. IO SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Purity and A11 sensuality is one, though it eachTsin- takes many forms; all purity is gle thing. man eat, or drink, or sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity. When the reptile is attacked at one mouth of his burrow, he shows himself at another. WALDEN, P . 237 - work a help ^ Y ou w uld avoid uncleanness, agamst sm. an j a jj ^g s [ nS) wor k earnestly, though it be at cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be Overcome. WALDEN, p. 237. Everyone Every man is the builder of a a scuW. temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness be gins at once to refine a man s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. WALDEN, p. 238. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. II A V ice Said t Thepurifica- loui gives it mer], Why do you stay here a new hfe. an ^ j- ye ^is mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you ? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these. But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate thither ? All he could think of was to practice some new austerity, to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treat himself with ever increasing respect. WALDEN, p. 239. strike at the There are a thousand hacking root of social .... , nis by pun- at the branches ot evil to one who owiThfe. is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to re lieve. It is the pious slave-breeder devot ing the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday s liberty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the poor by em ploying them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed them selves there ? WALDEN, p. 83. 12 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Overflowing I do not value chiefly a man s charity 6 uprightness and benevolence, rmuhitude 3 which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man ; that some fra grance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transi tory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is un conscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude Of Sins. WALDKN, P . 83. what sad- I believe that what so saddens reformer. the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. WALDEN.P. s 4 . Our own All health and success does me sanity most good, however far off and with- helpfulto others. drawn it may appear ; all disease SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU, 13 and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world. WALDBN, P . 8 5 . The true A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. WALDEN, P . 8 9 . The best With respect to landscapes, crop which ,, T i j- n T a farm I am monarch of all 1 survey, affords. My right there is none to dispute." I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a. poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk. WALDEN, P . 90. 14 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Slavery ^8 l n as possible, live ffCC to affairs. and unc ommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail. WALDEN, P . 9 .. Make the ^ ^ not propose to write an goo d f in hat ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morn ing standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors Up. WALDEN, p. 9 a. The creation The winds which passed over a poem to open ears, my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind for ever blows, the poem of creation is unin terrupted ; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere. WALDEN, P . 92. The invita- Every morning was a cheerful tionofmorn- ... ,. r , ing. invitation to make my lite ot equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. WALDKN, P . 96. A new life They say that characters were each day. en g raven on the bathing tub of SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 15 king Tching-Thang to this effect : " Re new thyself completely each day ; do it again, and again, and forever again." WALDEH, p. 96. we should Little is to be expected of that be awakened . , . . each morn- day, it it can be called a day, to ing by new . 111 inward life, which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudg- ings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and as pirations from within to a higher life than we fell asleep from. WALDEN, P . 9 6. After a partial cessation of his The organs gerdul re- sensuous life, the soul of man, or bTrfeahnfui its organs rather, are reinvigo- rated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. WALDEN, p. 97. Morning is To him whose elastic and vig- r r e e truly rwe orous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say, or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. WALDEN, P . 97 . 1 6 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. NO one To be awake Is to be alive. I thoroughly awake. have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face ? WALDEN, P . 9 s. Expectation We must learn to reawaken and of the dawn. keep ourse i ves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expec tation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. WALDEN, p. 9 s. Give beauty It is something to be able to to the day . from the paint a. particular picture, or to beauty within. carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful ; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmos phere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest Of arts. WALDEN, p. 98. Real life. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear ; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. WALDEN, p. 98. Life not to Our life is frittered away by coTexit y he detail. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! Let your affairs be SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. I/ as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand ; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. WALDEN, p. 99- "Plain living The nation itself is just such an and high . . , . , . , thinking." unwieldy and overgrown establish ment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million house holds in the land ; and the only cure for it as for them is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. WALDEN, P . 99- Life wasted Why should we live with such in affairs. hurry and waste of life ? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. WALDEN, p. 100. The news as What news ! how much more wXt^ai important to know what that is which was never old ! " Kieou-he- yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) 1 8 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. sent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-Tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms : What is your master doing ? The messenger answered with respect, My master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of them. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked : What a worthy messenger ! What a wor thy messenger ! WALDEN, P . 103. what alone If we respected only what is in- has reality. ev i ta bi e and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime. WALDEN, p. 103. The great God himself culminates in the eve r L re present moment, and will never be more divine in all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble, only by the SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 19 perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. WALDEN, P . io S . Live deiib- Let us spend one day as deliber ately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mos quito s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early, and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation ; let company come and let company go ; let the bells ring and the children cry, determined to make a day Of it. WALDEN, p. 105. seek to Let us settle ourselves, and through work and wedge our feet down- reaiity. ward through the mud and slush of opinion and prejudice and tradition and delusion and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and reli gion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality. WALDEN, p. 105. Use of the The intellect is a cleaver; it intellect. discerns and rifts its way into the 2O SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is neces sary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. WALDEN, p. ic6. The shallow Time is but the stream I go stream of . . time. a-nshmg in. I drink at it ; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper, fish in the sky, whose bot tom is pebbly with stars. WALDEN, P . 106. Mortality In accumulating property for and im- . mortality. ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal ; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident. WALDEN, p. ios. HOW to read The heroic books, even if books 6 printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times ; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 21 common use permits, out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. WALUKN, p. 109. what are Men sometimes speak as if the sics" ? study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies ; but the adventurous stu dent will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written, and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of men ? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such an swers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. WALDEN, p. no. How true T read We]1 > ~ that is t<D should be true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. WALDEN, P . no. 22 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Living in We should be blessed if we the present. jj ve( j j n the present a l ways> an d took advantage of every accident that be fell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it ; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in win ter while it is already spring. WALDEN . P- 336- The in- In a pleasant spring morning Spring. all men s sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. Through our own recovered inno cence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. WALDBN, p. 336. wiidness. We need the tonic of wild- ness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow -hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and inexplor- able, that land and sea be infinitely wild. WALDEN, p. 339. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 2$ The glory of Be B. Columbus to whole new the realm . . , . . . within. continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. WALDEN, p. 343- Know If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. WALDEN, p. 344- The universe l learned this, at least, by my ourhigTelt experiment : that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unimagined in common hours. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less com plex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. WALDEN, p. 346. 24 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Realize ^ y ou nave built castles in the your dream. ^ your wor k need not be lost J that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. W ALDEN, P . 34 6. Extrava- I desire to speak somewhere gance of expression. witJioiit bounds, like a man in a waking moment, to men in waking mo ments ; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the founda tion of a true expression. Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more for ever ? WALDEN, p. 347. The words which express our Indefinite words may faith and piety are not definite ; be most * J significant. ve t \^ Q j are significant and fra grant, like frankincense, to superior na tures. WALDEN, p. 347. step to the If a man does not keep pace music you . hear. with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer ? WALDEN, P . 34 s. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 2$ Aim ever at ^ ^e condition of things which the highest. we were ma( J e f or i s not y et) w h a t were any reality which we can substitute ? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain real ity. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not ? WALDEN, P . 349 . Live for that ^ n an imperfect work time is whkh b an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter. WALDEN, p. 349. why we are No face which we can give to a T7auJ y matter will stead us so well at position. last ag the truth _ Thig alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. WALDEN, p. 350. The sim- In sane moments we regard truth. only the facts, the case that is. 26 SELECTIONS FROM TIIOREAU. Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make- believe. WALDBN, p. 350. Make the Love your lif e, poor as it is, best of your . own life. meet it and live it ; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. WALDEN, p. 35 o. Poverty You may perhaps have some need not , ..... . take from us pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, the purest . enjoyments, even in a poor-house. 1 he set ting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brighly as from the rich man s abode ; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. WALDEN, P . 35 o. Dishonesty Most think they are above being dependence, supported by the town ; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. WALDEN, p. 351. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 2"J Humility Do not seek so anxiously to be soui c mo s re he developed, to subject yourself to than culture. many j n fl uences to be played on ; it is all dissipation. Humility, like dark ness, reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, " and, lo ! creation widens to OUr View." WALDEN, p. 351. wealth does We are often reminded that, if not help in our pursuit there were bestowed on us the of the , highest. wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be the same, and our means essen tially the Same. WALDEN, p. 351. Advantage If 7 OU are restricted in your of poverty. ran g e by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most signifi cant and vital experiences ; you are com pelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. WALDEN, p. 351. Money not Superfluous wealth can buy su- for the soul, perflultics only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul. WALDEN, p. 352. 28 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. A person * ^ OVe tO We ig n > to Settle, tO onTif^wn gravitate toward that which most path. strongly and rightfully attracts me ; not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less, not suppose a case, but take the case that is ; to travel the only path I can, and that on which no power can resist me. WALDEN, p. 352. Fidelity in Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction, a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying On the WOrk. WALDEN, p. 353- Hospitaiity I sat at a table where were rich in manners, r ,,..,, , not in the rood and wine in abundance, and "entertain- ment." I went away hungry from the in hospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. . . . The style, the house and grounds and "entertainment," pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 29 There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I Called On him. WALDEN, p. 353. workessen- How long shall we sit in our acter. porticoes practicing idle and mus ty virtues, which any work would make im pertinent ? As if one were to begin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes ; and in the afternoon go forth to practice Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought ! WALDEN, p. 354. "More day Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning Star. WALDEN, p. 357. The vk- Say not that Caesar was victorious, character. With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame ; In other sense this youth was glorious, Himself a kingdom wheresoe er he came. WBEK, p. 276. The heart is forever inexperienced. WEEK, p. 278. 3O SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Friendship There is on the earth no insti- a thing out- . . . side of hu- tution which friendship has es- man institu tions, tablished ; it is not taught by any religion ; no scripture contains its maxims. WEEK, p. 280. Friendship No word is oftener on the lips the dream . of ail. or men than " friendship, and in deed no thought is more familiar to their aspirations. All men are dreaming of it, and its drama, which is always a tragedy, is enacted daily. It is the secret of the uni verse WEEK, p. 281. The actual ^ ls equally impossible to for- sug^on a get our friends, and to make of the ideal, them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins ! WKEK P- 28 - A fnend Even the utmost good will and the soul. harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for friendship, for friends do not live in harmony, merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 31 friends to feed and clothe our bodies, neighbors are kind enough for that, but to do the like office to our spirits. For this, few are rich enough, however well disposed they may be. WEEK, P . 282. A Wend, Think of the importance of the true .... , educator. friendship in the education of men. It will make a man honest ; it will make him a hero ; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnani mous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man. WEEK, 11.283. The friend All the abuses which are the the only radi- r -11 1-1 cai reformer, object or retorm with the philan- thropist, the statesman, and the house keeper, are unconsciously amended in the intercourse of friends. WEEK, P . 283. It takes two to speak the truth, one to speak, and another to hear. WEEK, p. 283. Men ask too ^ n our daily intercourse with no biTdeait 6 men > our nobler faculties are dor mant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to expect no- 32 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. bleness from us. We ask our neighbor to surfer himself to be dealt with truly, sin cerely, nobly ; but he answers no by his deafness. He does not even hear this prayer. WEEK, P . 284. society con- The state does not demand tent with a j ustice o f its mem bers, but thinks too narrow that it succeeds very well with the least degree of it, hardly more than rogues practice ; and so do the family and the neighborhood. What is commonly called friendship is only a little more honor among rogues. WEEK, P . 284. Hearty truth Between whom there is hearty is one with . . love. truth there is love ; and m pro portion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal. WEEK, p. 284. The purest There are passages of affection g^mpseof i n our intercourse with mortal men and women, such as no pro phecy had taught us to expect, which trans cend our earthly life and anticipate heaven for US. WEEK, p. 284. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 33 Estrange- Between two by nature alike and fitted to sympathize, there is no veil, and there can be no obstacle. Who are the estranged ? Two friends ex plaining. WINTER, p. i. Friends are The books for young people not selected. tion of friends ; it is because they really have nothing to say about friends. They mean associates and confidants merely. . . . Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail. WEEK, p. 285. Friends not Impatient and uncertain lovers pleach think that they must say or do something kind whenever they meet ; they must never be cold. But they who are friends do not do what they think they must, but what they must. Even their friendship is, in one sense, a sublime phenomenon to them. WEEK, P . 285. Friends help The f riend asks no return but fo a f c tiest thers that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace 34 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other s hopes. They are kind to each other s dreams. WEEK, p. 286. Between No such affront can be offered goodwill is to a friend as a conscious good- not"^ will, a friendliness which is not a necessity of the friend s nature. WEEK, p. 286. Friendship is no respecter of sex ; and perhaps it is more rare between the sexes than between two of the same sex. WEEK, p. 287. A hero s love is as delicate as a maiden s. WEEK, p. 287. My friend is that one whom I can as sociate with my choicest thought. WEEK, p. 288. The toiera- Beware lest thy friend learn at tion of faults . . r MI. r an obstacle last to tolerate one frailty of ship" 6 " thine, and so an obstacle be raised to the progress of thy love. WEBK, P . 288. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 35 The purest Friendship is never established !he e mosj p un- as an understood relation. Do conscious. y()u ^ emand that J be less your friend that you may know it ? WEEK, P . 2 88. Genuine Wait not till I invite thee, but invitation, observe that I am glad to see thee when thou comest. .WEEK, P 2 8 9 . Where my friend lives, there are all riches and every attraction, and no slight obstacle can keep me from him. WEEK, P . 289. The language of friendship is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence above language. WEEK, p. 2 8 9 . Friendship It is one proof of a man s fit- wisdom ness for friendship that he is as well as .... tenderness, able to do without that which is cheap and passionate. A true friendship is as wise as it is tender. WEEK, P . 29 o. Friendship When the friend comes out of conscious his heathenism and superstition, and breaks his idols, being con verted by the precepts of a newer testa- 36 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. ment ; when he forgets his mythology, and treats his friend like a Christian, or as he can afford, then friendship ceases to be friendship, and becomes charity ; that prin ciple which established the almshouse is" now beginning with its charity at home, and establishing an almshouse and pauper relations there. WEEK, P . 292. Friendship A oase friendship is of a nar- imwMt of rowing and exclusive tendency, humanity. but ^ no\A& one is not exclusive ; its very superfluity and dispersed love is the humanity which sweetens society, and sympathizes with foreign nations ; for, though its foundations are private, it is in effect a public affair and a public advan tage, and the friend, more than the father of a family, deserves well of the state. WEEK, p. 293. Are any The only danger in friendship enough for is that it will end. It is a deli- friendship? cate plant, though a native. The least unworthiness, even if it be unknown to one s self, vitiates it. Let the friend know that those faults which he observes in his friend his own faults attract. . . . SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 37 Perhaps there are none charitable, none disinterested, none wise, noble, and heroic enough, for a true and lasting friendship. WEEK, p. 294. Friends do I sometimes hear my friends not ask to be r . , appreciated, complain finely that 1 do not ap preciate their fineness. I shall not tell them whether I do or not. As if they ex pected a vote of thanks for every fine thing which they uttered or did ! Who knows but it was finely appreciated ? It may be that your silence was the finer thing Of the tWO. WEEK, p. 294. Between I n human intercourse the tra- riknceis g ec ty begins, not when there is )od- misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood. Then there can never be an explanation. WEEK, p. 294. The reserve often forbear to confess our of affection. f ee lJ nS) not f rom j-Jde, but for fear that we could not continue to love the one who required us to give such proof of affection. WEEK, p. 295. 38 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. A Wend For a companion, I require one one s s hig s hest wno w i^ make an equal demand aspirations. Qn me my Qwn g enms> a one will always be rightly tolerant. It is suicide and corrupts good manners to welcome any less than this. I value and trust those who love and praise my aspira tion rather than my performance. If you would not stop to look at me, but look whither I am looking and farther, then my education could not dispense with your company. WEEK, P . 296. I cannot leave my sky For thy caprice ; True love would soar as high As heaven is. The eagle would not brook Her mate thus won, Who trained his eye to look Beneath the sun. WEEK, P . 297. Friendship Confucius said, "To contract what tawgh- ties of friendship with any one, estineach. j g to contract friendship with his virtue. There ought not to be any other motive in friendship." WEEK, P . 298. SELECTIONS FROM THOKEAU. 39 The faults of ^ * s impossible to say all that mus! r be n iost we think, even to our truest friend. We may bid him fare well forever sooner than complain, for our complaint is too well grounded to be ut tered. WEEK, p. 299. Friends The constitutional differences sUen t 136 which always exist, and are ob- sdmdonaY stacles to a perfect friendship, are forever a forbidden theme to the lips of friends. They advise by their whole behavior. Nothing can reconcile them but love. WEEK, p. 299. The necessity itself for explanation, what explanation will atone for that ? WEEK, p. 299. The real True love does not quarrel for differences , , , between slight reasons, such mistakes as friends cannot be mutual acquaintances can explain explained away. away ; but, alas, however slight the apparent cause, only for adequate and fatal and everlasting reasons, which can never be set aside. Its quarrel, if there is any, is ever recurring, notwithstanding the beams of affection which invariably come to <rild its tears. WEEK, p. 3 oo. 4O SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. We must accept or refuse one another as we are. I could tame a hyena more easily than my friend. WEEK, p. 3 oo. NO real we Ignorance and bungling, with without love. love> are better than w i s d om and skill without. There may be courtesy, there may be even temper and wit and talent and sparkling conversation, there may be good-will even, and yet the hu- manest and divinest faculties pine for ex ercise. Our life without love is like coke and ashes. WEEK, p. 300. The inward dawn. Nature doth have her dawn each But mine are far between ; Content, I cry, for sooth to say, Mine brightest are, I ween. For when my sun doth deign to rise, Though it be her noontide, Her fairest field in shadow lies, Nor can my light abide. WEEK, P . 301. Friendship As ! love nature, as I love sing- oF\ h ure ve ing birds, and gleaming stubble, harmonize. an( j fl ow j n g r i v ers, and morning SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 41 and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my friend. WEEK, P . 302. The Wend Even the death of friends will leaves the . , . . , . sweetest inspire us as much as their lives. consolation . at his death. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to de fray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monu ments of other men are overgrown with mOSS. WEEK, p. 302. Two solitary stars, Unmeasured systems far Between us roll, But by our conscious light we are Determined to one pole. WEEK, P . 304. civility Lying on lower levels is but a friends. trivial offense compared with ci vility and compliments on the level of friendship. WINTER, p. 428. Exalting We are all ordinarily in a state mifsic. of desperation. Such is our life, it ofttimes drives us to suicide. To how 42 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. many, perhaps to most, life is barely toler able ; and if it were not for the fear of death or of dying, what a multitude would imme diately commit suicide ! But let us hear a strain of music, and we are at once adver tised of a life which no man had told us of, which no preacher preaches. WINTER, p. 181. No warder at the gate Can let the friendly in, But, like the sun, o er all He will the castle win, And shine along the wall. WBBK, p. 305. Implacable is Love : Foes may be bought or teased From their hostile intent, But he goes unappeased Who is on kindness bent. WEEK, p. 305. Simplify When the mathematician would the problem . of life. solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all encumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So sim plify the problem of life, distinguish the SELECTIONS FROM THOKEAU. 43 necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. LETTERS, p. 43. our faintest This > our respectable daily life, fo^sS* in which the man of common est reality. ^^ ^ Eng l ishman o f t he world, stands so squarely, and on which our institutions are founded, is in fact the veriest illusion, and will vanish like the baseless fabric of a vision ; but that faint glimmer of reality which sometimes illu minates the darkness of daylight for all men, reveals something more solid and en during than adamant, which is in fact the corner-stone of the world. LETTERS, P . 44 Thereaiiza- Men cannot conceive of a state tion of . . . dreams. of things so fair that it cannot be realized. LETTERS, p. 44. We never have a fantasy so subtile and ethereal, but that talent merely, with more resolution and faithful persistency, after a thousand failures, might fix and engrave it in distinct and enduring words, and we should see that our dreams are the solidest facts that We knOVV. LETTERS, p. 43. 44 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. What can be expressed in words can be expressed in life. LETTERS, P . 45. we can My actual life is a fact, in view respect our . aspirations, ot which 1 have no occasion to not our actual lives, congratulate myself ; but for my faith and aspiration I have respect. LETTERS, p. 45. I love reform better than its modes. There is no history of how bad became better. LETTERS, p. 45. As for positions, combinations, and de tails, what are they ? In clear weather, when we look into the heavens, what do we see but the sky and the sun ? LETTERS, p. 45. individual If y u would convince a man louSeT" that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them See. LETTERS, p. 46. ,< Dowhat Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does his master s chaise. Do what you SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 45 love. Know your own bone ; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. LETTERS, p. 46. "if ye be Aim above morality. Be not led by the . . spirit, ye simply good \ DQ good for some- denheiaw." thing. All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the StOry. LETTERS, p. 46. Direct ap- Let nothing come between you peal to the highest. and the light. Respect men as brothers only. When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduc tion. When you knock, ask to see God, none of the servants. LETTERS, P . 4 s. In what concerns you much, do not think you have companions ; know that you are alone in the world. LETTERS, p. 4 6. The true ^ have tasted but little bread in my life. It has been mere grub and provender for the most part. Of bread that nourished the brain and the heart, scarcely any. There is absolutely none, even on the tables of the rich. LETTERS, p. 47. 46 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. The delight Some men go a-hunting, some ear r ning y a a-fishing, some a-gaming, some to war ; but none have so pleas ant a time as they who in earnest seek to earn their bread. It is true actually as it is true really ; it is true materially as it is true spiritually, that they who seek hon estly and sincerely, with all their hearts and lives and strength, to earn their bread, do earn it, and it is sure to be very sweet tO them. LETTERS, p. 48. A very little bread, a very few crumbs are enough, if it be of the right quality, for it is infinitely nutritious. Let each man, then, earn at least a crumb of bread for his body before he dies, and know the taste of it, that it is identical with the bread of life, and that they both go down at one SWallOW. LETTERS, p. 48- Not only the rainbow and sunset are beautiful, but to be fed and clothed, shel tered and warmed aright, are equally beau tiful and inspiring. There is not necessa rily any gross and ugly fact which may not be eradicated from the life of man. LETTERS, p. 49. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 47 The earnest How can any man be weak who man irre- , ., - _, sistibie. dares to be at all ? Even the ten- derest plants force their way up through the hardest earth, and the crevices of rocks ; but a man no material power can resist. What a wedge, what a beetle, what a cata pult is an earnest man ! What can resist him ? LETTERS, p. 49. That we have but little faith is not sad, but that we have but little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned. LETTERS, p. 50. The misery When once we fall behind our- enc d e is to b our~ selves, there is no accounting for the obstacles that rise up in our path, and no one is so wise as to advise, and no one so powerful as to aid us while we abide on that ground. Such are cursed with duties, and the neglect of their duties. For such the decalogue was made, and other far more voluminous and terrible COdeS. LETTERS, p. 50. cibg to Be not anxious to avoid pov- the thread , . i i r of life. erty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested. 48 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. What a pity if we do not live this short time according to the laws of the long time, the eternal laws ! ... In the midst of this labyrinth let us live a thread of life. LETTERS, p. 52. The laws of The laws of earth are for the heaveiThar- f eet > or inferior man ; the laws of heaven are for the head, or superior man ; the latter are the former sublimed and expanded, even as radii from the earth s centre go on diverging Space. LETTERS, p. 53. Happy the man who observes the heav enly and terrestrial law in just proportion ; whose every faculty, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, obeys the law of its level ; who neither stoops nor goes on tiptoe, but lives a balanced life, acceptable to nature and to God. LETTERS, p. 53. Newspapers. If words were invented to con ceal thought, I think that newspapers are a great improvement on a bad invention. Do not surfer your life to be taken by newspapers. LETTERS, p. 56. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 49 Rest for the When we are weary with trav el, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So, when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was ? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. LETTERS, P . 57 . God most It is not when I am going to truly found ... . T when not meet him, but when I am just consciously . . sought. turning away and leaving him alone, that I discover that God is. I say, God. I am not sure that that is the name. You will know whom I mean. LETTERS, P . s s. self renun- ^ f r a nioment we make way with our petty selves, wish no ill to anything, apprehend no ill, cease to be but as the crystal which reflects a ray, what shall we not reflect ! What a uni verse will appear crystallized and radiant US ! LETTERS, p. 58. The muse The muse should lead like a should lead, . - ... . the under- star which is very tar oft ; but that standing . follow. does not imply that we are to tol- low foolishly, falling into sloughs and over 5O SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. precipices, for it is not foolishness, but un derstanding, which is to follow, which the muse is appointed to lead, as a fit guide of a fit follower. LETTERS, p. 58. TOO high a Men make a great ado about nTbe^ad"" the folly of demanding too much upon life. of Hfe ( Qr of etemity? ^ and O f endeavoring to live according to that demand. It is much ado about nothing. No harm ever came from that quarter. LETTERS, p. 59. Danger of I am not afraid that I shall ex- undervalu- . ing life. aggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is. I shall be sorry to remember that I was there, but noticed nothing remarkable, not so much as a prince in disguise ; lived in the golden age a hired man ; visited Olympus even, but fell asleep after dinner, and did not hear the conversation of the gods. LETTERS, p. 59. The kind of We, demanding news, and put- reaiiywant. ting up with suc/i news ! Is it a new convenience, or a new accident, or, SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 5 [ rather, a new perception of the truth that We want ? LETTERS, p. 60. Divine ex- ^ s not tne attitude of expecta- pemtions. t j on SO mewhat divine ? a sort of home-made divineness ? Does it not compel a kind of sphere-music to attend on it ? and do not its satisfactions merge at length, by insensible degrees, in the enjoy ment of the thing expected ? LETTERS, p. 6:. Exalted em- Some absorbing employment on pioyment. vour higher ground, your up land farm, whither no cart-path leads, but where you mount alone with your hoe, where the life everlasting grows ; there you raise a crop which needs not to be brought down into the valley to a market ; which you barter for heavenly products. LETTERS, p. 61. Yield not to Be not deterred by melancholy heup- y on the path which leads to im- wardpath. they tasted of the water of the river over which they were to go, they thought it tasted a little bitterish to the palate, but it proved sweeter when it was down. LETTERS, P . 6 3 . 52 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. AS a man Our thoughts are the epochs in thinketh, so _ . , , , . is he. our lives ; all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here. LETTERS, p. 63. Our ideal It is not easy to make our lives shames our , / best efforts, respectable by any course 01 ac tivity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like the tortoise, somewhat helplessly ; yet there is more than philosophy in that. LETTERS, p. 64. Inward If I should turn myself inside poverty. QU ^ my ra g g an( _j meanne sS WOuld indeed appear. I am something to him that made me, undoubtedly, but not much to any other that he has made. LETTERS, p. 64. He who As for missing friends, what genius can- if we do miss one another ? not lose his friends. Have we not agreed on a rendez vous ? While each wanders his own way through the wood, without anxiety, ay, with serene joy, though it be on his hands and knees, over rocks and fallen trees, he can not but be in the right way. There is no Wrong Way tO him. LETTERS, p. 65. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 53 Friendship A man who missed his friend m nature. ^ a { urn ^ W ent on buoyantly, di viding the friendly air, and humming a tune to himself, ever and anon kneeling with delight to study each lichen in his path, and scarcely made three miles a day for friend ship. LETTERS, p. 65. Unconscious l am g lad tO knOW that T am aS much to any mortal as a persis tent and consistent scarecrow is to a far mer, such a bundle of straw in a man s clothing as I am, with a few bits of tin to sparkle in the sun dangling about me, as if I were hard at work there in the field. However, if this kind of life saves any man s corn, why, he is the gainer. LETTERS, p. 68. The best I am no t afraid you will flatter f s p ^S n e as long as you know what I am, as well as what I think or aim to be, and distinguish between these two ; for then it will commonly happen that if you praise the last, you will condemn the first. LETTERS, p. 69. 54 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. The earnest All the world complain now-a- not hindered .. . . . . by trifles. days of a press or trivial duties and engagements, which prevents their employing themselves on some higher ground they know of ; but undoubtedly, if they were made of the right stuff to work on that higher ground, provided they were released from all those engagements, they would now at once fulfill the superior en gagement, and neglect all the rest, as nar- urally as they breathe. LETTERS, P . 7 o. A glorious As for passing through any cann"t e be e great and glorious experience, ehmd and rising above it, as an eagle might fly athwart the evening sky to rise into still brighter and fairer regions of the heavens, I cannot say that I ever sailed so creditably, but my bark ever seemed thwarted by some side wind, and went off over the edge, and now only occasionally tacks back toward the centre of that sea again. LETTERS, p. 70. Hope {or I have outgrown nothing good, ourselves. j ^ Q nQ behind by whole continents of virtue, which should have been passed as islands in my SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 55 course ; but I trust what else can I trust ? that with a stiff wind, some Friday, when I have thrown some of my cargo over board, I may make up for all that distance lost. LETTERS, p. 71. wisdom and Man is continually saying to daTtolach woman, Why will you not be more wise ? Woman is contin ually saying to man, Why will you not be more loving ? It is not in their wills to be wise or to be loving ; but, unless each is both wise and loving, there can be neither Wisdom nor love. LETTERS, p. 72. I am not satisfied with ordinary windows. I must have a true sky-light, and that is outside the village. . . . The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks. This stillness, solitude, wildness of nature is a kind of thoroughwort or boneset to my intellect. This is what I go out to seek. It is as if I always met in those places some grand, serene, immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him. There at last my nerves are steadied, my senses and my mind do their Office. WINTER, p. 133. 56 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. The human The lover sees in the glance of his beloved the same beauty that in the sunset paints the western skies. It is the same daimon here lurking under a human eyelid and there under the closing eyelids of the day. Here, in small com pass, is the ancient and natural beauty of evening and morning. What loving astron omer has ever fathomed the ethereal depths Of the eye ? LETTERS, p. 73- The lover s Perhaps an instinct survives through the intensest actual love, which prevents entire abandonment of de votion, and makes the most ardent lover a little reserved. It is the anticipation of change. For the most ardent lover is not the less practically wise, and seeks a love which will last forever. LETTERS, P . 73 . The rarity Considering how few poetical marriages, friendships there are, it is remark able that so many are married. It would seem as if men yielded too easy an obedi ence to nature without consulting their genius. One may be drunk with love without being any nearer to finding his mate, LETTERS, p. 74. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. $/ Both com- ^ common sense had been con- divine n s tnse suited, how many marriages would consulted in never have taken place ; if uncom mon or divine sense, how few marriages, such as we witness, would ever have taken place ! LETTERS, p. 74- Love should Our love may be ascending or be ascend- . TTT-I i ing. descending. What is its charac ter, if it may be said of it, " \Ve must respect the souls above, But only those below we lave." LETTERS, p. 74. shun a t Is your friend such a one that descending love. an increase of worth on your part will rarely make her more your friend ? Is she retained, is she attracted, by more nobleness in you, by more of that virtue which is peculiarly yours ; or is she indif ferent and blind to that ? Is she to be flattered and won by your meeting her on any other than the ascending path ? Then duty requires that you separate from her. LETTERS, p. 74. True love A man of fine perceptions is most clear- ...... , sighted. more truly feminine than a merely 58 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. sentimental woman. The heart is blind ; but love is not blind. None of the gods is so discriminating. LETTERS, p. 75. in love the ^ n ^ ove an ^ friendship the imag- JITusTnotte ination is as much exercised as offended. raged, the other will be estranged. It is commonly the imagination which is wounded first, rather than the heart, it is so much the more sensitive. LETTERS, p. 75. Lovers must I require that thou knowest understand . each another everything without being told without words. anything. I parted from my be loved because there was one thing which I had to tell her. She questioned me. She should have known all by sympathy. That I had to tell it her was the difference be tween us, the misunderstanding. LETTERS, p. 76. The lover A lover never hears anything hears things, . . . not words, that is to/d, for that is commonly either false or stale ; but he hears things taking place, as the sentinels heard Trenck SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 59 mining in the ground, and thought it was moles. LETTERS, p. 76. Lovede . If to chaffer and higgle are Ctm osVdi- bad in trade, they are much worse in love. It demands directness as of an arrOW. LETTERS, p. 77- The true The lover wants no partiality. not e hidehfs He says, Be so kind as to be just. ... I need thy hate as much as thy love. Thou wilt not repel me entirely when thou repellest what is evil in me. LETTERS, p. 77. Truthfulness. It is not enough that we are truthful ; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about. LETTERS, p. 78. NO lower en- Commonly, men are as much STlhT afraid of lov e as of hat e- They way of love. haye lower en g agements . They have near ends to serve. They have not imagination enough to be thus employed about a human being, but must be cooper ing a barrel, forsooth. LETTERS, P . 7 s. 60 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. NO treasure What a difference whether, in paredwi?h a ll your walks, you meet only strangers, or in one house is one who knows you, and whom you know. To have a brother or a sister ! To have a gold mine on your farm ! To find diamonds in the gravel heaps before your door ! How rare these things are ! LETTERS, P . 7 z. "Through Would not a friend enhance the thee alone . the sky is beauty ot the landscape as much arched. r Through as a deer or a hare ? Everything thee the rose J is red." would acknowledge and serve such a relation ; the corn in the field, and the cranberries in the meadow. The flow ers would bloom and the birds sing with a new impulse. There would be more fair days in the year. LETTERS, p. ?s. "On the The object of love expands broken a^cs, and grows before us to eternity, heaven a until it includes all that is lovely, sound." and we become all that can love. LETTERS, p. 79. Meet others If you seek the warmth even stpiane g of affection from a similar mo- commrnd. tive to that from which cats and SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 6 1 dogs and slothful persons hug the fire, be cause your temperature is low through sloth, you are on the downward road, and it is but to plunge yet deeper into slofh. LETTERS, p. 81. Genuine The warmth of celestial love love elevates does not relax, but nerves and strengthens. b races j^s enjoyer. Warm your body by healthful exercise, not by cower ing over a stove. Warm your spirit by performing independently noble deeds, not by ignobly seeking the sympathy of your fellows who are no better than yourself. LETTERS, p. 81. Friends deal A man s social and spiritual truthwith discipline must answer to his cor- each other. pQrea] Re must J ean Qn a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends. LETTERS, p. si. We must love our friend so much that 62 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone. When there is impurity, we have "descended to meet," though We knew it not. LETTERS, p. 82. Love must We may love and not elevate toSta one another. The love that takes us as it finds us degrades us. What watch we must keep over the fairest and purest of our affections, lest there be some taint about them. May we so love as never to have occasion to repent our love. LETTERS, p. 82. A flower the Flowers, which, by their infinite pore love. hues and fragrance, celebrate the marriage of the plants, are intended for a symbol of the open and unsuspected beauty of all true marriage, when man s flower ing season arrives. LETTERS, P . 82. The joy of A true marriage will differ in intellectual no wise from illumination. In all perception. percept j on o f t h e truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his be trothed virgin. The ultimate delights of a true marriage are one with this. LETTERS, p. 84. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 63 Pure love Some have asked if the stock of the radical 11^1- ^ -r reformer. men could not be improved, it they could not be bred as cattle. Let love be purified, and all the rest will follow. A pure love is thus, indeed, the panacea for all the ills Of the WOrld. LETTERS, p. 84. The off- The only excuse for reproduc- spring of the ... _ _ noble tend tion is improvement. Nature ab- to a higher nobility. hors repetition. Beasts merely propagate their kind ; but the offspring of noble men and women will be superior to themselves, as their aspirations are. By their fruits ye shall know them. LETTERS, p. 84. Faithfulness As to how to preserve potatoes knowledge from rotting my opinion may soul. change from year to year ; but as to how to preserve my soul from rotting, I have nothing to learn, but something to practice. LETTERS, p. 87. wealth com- Tne problem of life becomes, problem ^f 6 one cannot say by how many de grees, more complicated as our material wealth is increased, whether that needle they tell of was a gateway or not, 64 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. since the problem is not merely nor mainly to get life for our bodies, but by this or a similar discipline to get life for our souls ; by cultivating the lowland farm on right principles, that is, with this view, to turn it into an upland farm. LETTERS, p. ss. TO truly Though we are desirous to earn earn our bread, we our bread, we need not be anxious must satisfy . . God for it. to satisfy men tor it, though we shall take care to pay them, but God, Who alone gave it tO US. LETTERS, p. 89. Men may ut US ln tne PoSsfying debtors jail for that matter, sim ply for paying our whole debt to God, which includes our debt to them, and though we have his receipt for it, for his paper is dishonored. LETTERS, P . 90. How prompt we are to satisfy the hun ger and thirst of our bodies ; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls. LETTERS, p. 90. Care for the An ordinary man will work body com- pared with every day for a year at shovelling care for the J J J . f soul. dirt to support his body, or a tarn- SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 65 ily of bodies ; but he is an extraordinary man who will work a whole day in a year for the Support of his SOUI. LETTERS, p. go. Real success. He alone is the truly enterpris ing and practical man who succeeds in maintaining his soul here. Have we not our everlasting life to get ? and is not that the only excuse for eating, drinking, sleep ing, or even carrying an umbrella when it rains ? LETTERS, p. go. The helpful I am mucri indebted to you be- courag?" our cause you look so steadily at the aspirations. |j etter g^e, or ratri er the true cen tre of me (for our true centre may, and perhaps oftenest does, lie entirely aside from us, and we are in fact eccentric), and, as I have elsewhere said, " give me an op portunity to live." LETTERS, p. 91. The ideal What a little shelf is required, slight su P - by which we may impinge upon port in the ./- . J & . actual. another, and build there our eyrie in the clouds, and all the heavens we see above us we refer to the crags around and beneath us. Some piece of mica, as it were, in the face or eyes of one, as on 66 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. the delectable mountains, slanted at the right angle, reflects the heavens to us. LETTERS, p. 91. HOW the It was not the hero I admired, %u a res ra a ns ~ but the reflection from his epau let or helmet. It is nothing (for us) permanently inherent in another, but his attitude or relation to what we prize, that we admire. The meanest man may glitter with micaceous particles to his fel low s eye. These are the spangles that adorn a man. LETTERS, p. 91. ideal union. The highest union, ... or central oneness, is the coincidence of visual rays. Our club-room was an apartment in a con stellation where our visual rays met (and there was no debate about the restaurant). The way between us is over the mount. LETTERS, p 92. Yourself and Your words make me think of in y th e l f hg s n- a man of my acquaintance whom I occasionally meet, whom you, too, appear to have met, one Myself, as he is called. Yet, why not call him Your- self ? If you have met with him and SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 6/ know him, it is all I have done ; and surely where there is mutual acquaintance, the my and thy make a distinction without a difference. LETTERS, p. 92. The most Hold fast to your most indefi- Ihought sig- nite, waking dream. The very green dust on the walls is an or ganized vegetable ; the atmosphere has its fauna and flora floating in it ; and shall we think that dreams are but dust and ashes, are always disintegrated and crumbling thoughts, and not dust-like thoughts troop ing to their standard with music, systems beginning to be organized ? LETTERS, P . 92. Value of a Suppose a man were to sell the clear soul .... compared hue, the least amount of coloring with mate- rial gains. matter in the superficies of his thought, for a farm, were to exchange an absolute and infinite value for a relative and finite one, to gain the whole world and lose his Own SOUl ! LETTERS, p. 93. Self-respect. It is worth while to live respect ably unto ourselves. We can possibly get along with a neighbor, even with a bedfel low, whom we respect but very little ; but 68 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. as soon as it comes to that, that we do not respect ourselves, then we do not get along at all, no matter how much money we are paid for halting. LETTERS, p. 95. Better ob- It is better to have your head above than in the clouds, and know where ness beiow. you are, if indeed you cannot get it above them, than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise. LETTERS, P . 96. Appeal to All that men have said or are the highest . . . within you. is a very taint rumor, and it is not worth while to remember or refer to that. If you are to meet God, will you refer to anybody out of that court ? How shall men know how I succeed, unless they are in at the life ? I did not see the " Times " re porter there. LETTERS, p. 96. Friends We will stand on solid founda- must meet . _ . erectly. tions to one another, la col umn planted on this shore, you on that. . . . We will not mutually fall over that we may meet, but will grandly and eternally guard the StraitS. LETTERS, p. 119- SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 69 The comfort Talk of burning your smoke of industry. a ter ^ Q WOO( ^ has been con- sumed ! There is a far more important and warming heat, commonly lost, which precedes the burning of the wood. It is the smoke of industry, which is incense. I had been so thoroughly warmed in body and spirit, that when at length my fuel was housed, I came near selling it to the ash man, as if I had extracted all its heat. LETTERS, p. 128. Providing Is it not delightful to provide necessaries, , 1f . . . - rot super- one s self with the necessaries of pleasure. life, to collect dry wood for the fire when the weather grows cool, or fruits when we grow hungry? not till then. And then we have all the time left for thought ! LETTERS, p. 96. A warm Of what use were it, pray, to body and a . . . . . cold spirit, get a little wood to burn to warm your body this cold weather, if there were not a divine fire kindled at the same time tO Warm yOUr Spirit ? LETTERS, p. 97. Thetrue Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor 70 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. can we spend much time in waiting. Is it absolutely necessary, then, that we should do as we are doing ? . . . Though it is late to leave off this wrong way, it will seem early the moment we begin in the right way ; instead of mid-afternoon, it will be early morning with us. We have not got half-way to dawn yet. LETTERS, P . 97 . Necessity of We mUSt hea P U P a g reat P ile of doing for a small diameter of being. Is it not imperative on us that we do something, if we only work in a tread mill ? And, indeed, some sort of revolving is necessary to produce a centre and nu cleus of being. What exercise is to the body, employment is to the mind and morals. LETTERS, p. 99. Uncon- There are so many layers of sciousness of . beauty. mere white lime m every shell to that thin inner one so beautifully tinted. Let not the shell-fish think to build his house of that alone ; and pray, what are its tints to him ? Is it not his smooth, close- fitting shirt merely, whose tints are not to him, being in the dark, but only when he is gone or dead, and his shell is heaved up SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Jl to light, a wreck upon the beach, do they appear. LETTERS, p. 99. High results How admirably the artist is made to accomplish his self-cul ture by devotion to his art ! The wood- sawyer, through his effort to do his work well, becomes not merely a better wood- sawyer, but measurably a better man. LETTERS, p. 100. NO diiettan- Y u say that you do not suc ceed much. Does it concern you enough that you do not ? Do you work hard enough at it ? Do you get the bene fit of discipline out of it ? If so, persevere. Is it a more serious thing than to walk a thousand miles in a thousand successive hours ? Do you get any corns by it ? Do you ever think of hanging yourself on ac count Of failure ? LETTERS, p. 100. It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrub bing in SOme part. LETTERS, p. 101. The higher If the work is high and far, you the aim, the . more earnest must not only aim aright, but must be the J work. draw the bow with all your might. 72 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. You must qualify yourself to use a bow which no humbler archer can bend. " Work, work, work ! " Who shall know it for a bow ? It is not of yew-tree. It is straighter than a ray of light ; flexibility is not known for one of its qualities. LETTERS, p. 101. work in Whether a man spends his day spite of . iii/ moods. m an ecstasy or despondency, he must do some work to show for it, even as there are flesh and bones to show for him. We are superior to the joy we experience. LETTERS, p. 103. The loneii- Ah ! what foreign countries ness of false society. there are, greater in extent than the United States or Russia, and with no more souls to a square mile, stretching away on every side from every human being, with whom you have no sympathy. . . . Rocks, earth, brute beasts, compara tively, are not so strange to me. LETTERS, p. 105. When I sit in the parlors and kitchens of some with whom my business brings me I was going to say in contact (busi- SELECTIONS FKOM THOREAU. 73 ness, like misery, makes strange bedfel lows), I feel a sort of awe, and as forlorn as if I were cast away on a desolate shore. I think of Riley s narrative and his suf ferings. LETTERS, p. 105. HOW finite You, who soared like a merlin bo a k tes ess with y ur mate through the realms of ether, in the presence of the unlike drop at once to earth, a mere amor phous squab, divested of your air-inflated pinions. . . . You travel on, however, through this dark and desert world ; you see in the distance an intelligent and sym pathizing lineament ; stars come forth in the dark, and oases appear in the desert. LETTERS, p. 105. The friend I am gl a d to hear that I do not limit our always limit your vision when you look this way ; that you some times see the light through me ; that I am here and there windows, and not all dead wall. Might not the community sometimes petition a man to remove himself as a nuisance, a darkener of the day, a too large mOte ? LETTERS, p. 107. 74 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Humanity The best news you send me is, Nature. not that Nature with you is so fair and genial, but that there is one there who likes her so well. That proves all that Was asserted. LETTERS, p. in. Things cor- I nave not yet learned to live, ouThighest that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very soon. I find, how ever, that in the long run things corre spond to my original idea, that they cor respond to nothing else so much. LETTERS, p. 113. Courage. When an Indian is burned, his body may be broiled, it may be no more than a beefsteak. What of that ? They may broil his Jicart, but they do not therefore broil his courage, his princi ples. Be of good courage ! That is the main thing. LETTERS, p. 1 13. Tothecour- ^ a man were to plaCC himself burde ns a be- an attitude to bear manfully come light. the greatest ev ji t hat can be in flicted on him, he would find suddenly that there was no such evil to bear ; his brave back would go a-begging. . . . But as long SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 75 as he crouches, and skulks, and shirks his work, every creature that has weight will be treading on his toes, and crushing him ; he will himself tread with one foot on the Other foot. LETTERS, p. 114. Thedreadfui The monster is never just there thing not ..... ,.... outside of us. where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth. LETTERS, p. 114. The true Why should we ever go abroad, adviser, even across the way, to ask a neighbor s advice ? There is a nearer neighbor within us incessantly telling us how we should behave. But we wait for the neighbor without to tell us of some false, easier way. LETTERS, P . n 4 . Fatal post- ^ n ever y one f these hoUSCS ponement. t h c re is at least one man fighting or squabbling a good part of his time with a dozen pet demons of his own breeding and cherishing, which are relentlessly gnawing at his vitals ; and if perchance he resolve at length that he will courageously combat them, he says, " Ay ! Ay ! I will attend to you after dinner." And, when that time 76 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. comes, he concludes that he is good for another stage, and reads a column or two about the Eastern War ! LETTERS, P . u 5 . we must At last one will say, "Let us account for our lives. see, how much wood did you burn, sir ? " and I shall shudder to think that the next question will be, " What did you do while you were warm ? " Do we think the ashes will pay for it ? that God is an ash man ? It is a fact that we have got to ren der an account for the deeds done in the body. LETTERS, p. 115. Sincerity is a great but rare virtue, and we pardon to it much complaining, and the betrayal of many weaknesses. LETTERS, p. u 7 . simplicity To what end do I lead a simple ?nfet life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives ? and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula ? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more worthily and profitably ? LETTERS, p. 117. I would fain lay the most stress forever SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. fj on that which is the most important, im ports the most to me, though it were only (what it is likely to be) a vibration in the air. LETTERS, p. 118. Themnun- I was glad to hear the other tains within . us. day that Higgmson and Brown were gone to Ktaadn ; it must be so much better to go to than a Woman s Rights or Abolition Convention ; better still, to the delectable, primitive mounts within you, which you have dreamed of from your youth up, and seen, perhaps, in the horizon, but never climbed. LETTERS, p. 118. Poverty of A wa ^ over the crust to Asny- fote u roa? nd bumsldt, standing there in its inviting simplicity, is tempting to think of, making a fire on the snow un der some rock ! The very poverty of out ward nature implies an inward wealth in the walker. What a Golconda is he conversant with, thawing his fingers over such a blaze ! LETTERS, p. 137- Helpful As for the dispute about soli tude and society, any comparison 78 SELecTiojvs FROM THOREAU. is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plain at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top. Of course you will be glad of all the society you can get to go up with. Will you go to glory with me ? is the burden of the song. LETTERS, p. 139. & It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner and thin ner till there is none at all. It is either the tribune on the plain, a sermon on the mount, or a very private ecstasy still higher up. We are not the less to aim at the summits, though the multitude does not ascend them. Use all the society that will abet yOU. , LETTERS, p. 13$. Gratitude I am grateful for what I am for the sense . . of existence, and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite, only a sense of existence. LETTERS, P . MS The doable- Methinks a certain polygamy aessofour , , , , with its troubles is the tate of almost all men. They are married to two wives, their genius (a celestial muse), and SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. fg also to some fair daughter of the earth. Unless these two were fast friends before marriage, and so are afterward, there wiH be but little peace in the house. LTTTEK,?, 154- It is a great satisfaction to find that your oldest convictions are permanent With regard to es- s e r. ".:=.! s I have never had occasion to change rr.y mind. . . . The aspect of the world Y~r: :5 from year to year, as the landscape is d ff-rently clothed, but I find that the truth is still true, and I never regret any emphasis it may have inspired. Ktaadn is th :re still, but much more sorely my con viction is there, resting with more than mountain breadth and weight on the world, the source still of fertilizing streams, and affording glorious views from its summit if I can get up to it again. t. .-, . As for style of writing, if one has anything to say, it drops from him simply and directly, as a stone falls to the ground. There are no two ways about it, but down it comes, and he may stick in the points and stops wherever he can get a 80 SELECT/OXS FXO.V THOREAU. chance. ... To try to polish the stone in its descent, to give it a peculiar turn, and make it whistle a tune, perchance would be of no use, if it were possible, L*TT*S, p. 158. jnuetitetor As some heads cannot earn, * much wine, so it would seem that I cannot bear so much society as you can. I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don t get enough of it this year, I shall cry all the " C X t La limits, p. 160. If you have been to the top of Mdmher Mount Washington, let me ask, than in the thingdooe. What did you find there ? That is the way they prove witnesses, you know. Going up there and being blown on is noth- :-_ \Vo never io much climbing while we are there, but we eat our luncheon, etc., very much as at home. It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever. WTiat did the mountain say ? What did the mountain do ? LTTMS, P . 165. B< wanned Now is the time to become con- by activity. versan t with your wood-pile (this comes under Work for the Month), and be SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 8 1 sure you put some warmth into it by your way of getting it. Do not consent to be passively warmed. An intense degree of that is the hotness that is threatened. But a positive warmth within can withstand the fiery furnace, as the vital heat of a living man can withstand the heat that cooks meat. Lmrmts, p. 167. ?- : I have lately got back to that - - i - 11 * < I- * glorious society, called Solitude, where we meet our friends continually, and can imagine the outside world also to be peopled. Yet some of my acquaintances would fain hustle me into the almshouse for the sake of society, as if I were pining for that diet, when I seem to myself a most befriended man, and find constant employment. LXTTZSS, p. 173. What a fool he must be who thinks that his El Dorado is anywhere but where he lives. Lcrms, p. 177. - - ., . What a battle a man must fight j^hfafcf everywhere to maintain his stand ing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array through the 82 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. always hostile country ! How many ene mies there are to sane thinking. Every soldier has succumbed to them before he enlists for those other battles. LETTERS, p. 179. The cost of It i s eas y enough to maintain a KS family, or a state, but it is hard thoughts. to ma i nta i n these children of your brain (or say, rather, these guests that trust to enjoy your hospitality), they make such great demands ; and yet, he who does only the former, and loses the power to think originally, or as only he ever can, fails mis erably. Keep up the fires of thought, and all Will gO Well. LETTERS, p. 180. Real success How Y ou can overrun a coun- fsVn ou7 try, climb any rampart, and carry thoughts. an y f ortresS) w j t h an armv O f alert thoughts ! thoughts that send their bullets home to heaven s door, with which you can take the whole world, with out paying for it, or robbing anybody. See, the conquering hero comes ! You fail in your thoughts, or you prevail in your thoughts Only. LETTERS, p. 180. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 83 Thought a In your mind must be a liquor solvent for 1-1 ,-, T 1 1 11 the world, which will dissolve the world whenever it is dropt in it. There is no universal solvent but this, and all things together cannot saturate it. It will hold the universe in solution, and yet be as translucent as ever. LETTERS, P . 181. Right think- Provided you think well, the ing irresist- , , ibie. heavens falling, or the earth ga ping, will be music for you to march by. No foe can ever see you, or you him ; you cannot so much as think of him ; swords have no edges, bullets no penetration, for SUCh a COnteSt. LETTERS, p. 180. The beauty Look at mankind. No great Hfe m i s n er o y ur difference between two, appa- thoughts. rently . perhaps the same height, and breadth, and weight ; and yet, to the man who sits most east, this life is a wea riness, routine, dust and ashes, and he drowns his imaginary cares (!) (a sort of fric tion among his vital organs) in a bowl. But to the man who sits most west, his contempo rary (!), it is a field for all noble endeavors, an elysium, the dwelling-place of heroes and demigods. The former complains that 84 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. he has a thousand affairs to attend to ; but he does not realize that his affairs (though they may be a thousand) and he are one. LETTERS, p. 182. Grade the What is the use of a house if befor e d you y ou nave n>t got a tolerable pla net to put it on ? if you cannot tolerate the planet it is on ? Grade the ground first. LETTERS, p. 183. A man s ^ a man believes and expects fopteHn r great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him (of course you cannot put him anywhere, nor show him anything), he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, How sweet this crust is ! If he despairs of himself, then Tophet is his dwelling-place, and he is in the condition of a sick man who is disgusted with the fruits of finest flavor. LETTERS, p. 183. Whether he sleeps or wakes, whether he runs or walks, whether he uses a microscope or a telescope, or his naked SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 85 eye, a man never discovers anything, never overtakes anything, or leaves any thing behind, but himself. Whatever he says or does, he merely reports himself. LETTERS, p. 183. Courage. Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists and cooperates, and therefore it is not in vain. But alas ! each relaxation and des peration is an instinct too. To be active, well, happy, implies rare courage. LETTERS, p. 184. success The fact is, you have got to take de^o f nto th e world on your shoulders like Atlas, and put along with it. You will do this for an idea s sake, and your success will be in proportion to your devotion to ideas. It may make your back ache occasionally, but you will have the satisfaction of hanging it or twirling it to suit yourself. Cowards suffer, heroes en joy. After a long day s walk with it, pitch it into a hollow place, sit down and eat your luncheon. Unexpectedly, by some immortal thoughts, you will be compen sated. The bank whereon you sit will be 86 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. a fragrant and flowery one, and your world in the hollow, a sleek and light gazelle. LETTERS, p. 184. Explore the What is the use of going right & m^dhii over the old track again ? There your ways. your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown. That is what you have your board and clothes for. Why do you ever mend your clothes, unless that, wearing them, you may mend your ways. LETTERS, p. 185. One - s I am very busy, after my fash- andSpa 1 ? ion, little as there is to show for it, and feel as if I could not spend many days nor dollars in traveling ; for the shortest visit must have a fair margin to it, and the days thus affect the weeks, you know. Nevertheless, we cannot forego these luxuries altogether. LETTERS, P . 187. The shallow- This life is not for complaint, ness of .... A complaint, but for satisfaction. . . . Any complaint / have to make is too serious to be uttered, for the evil cannot be mended. LETTERS, p. i8S. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 8/ unconscious How wholesome winter is, seen goodness. f ar or near . fo QW good, aboVC all mere sentimental, warm-blooded, short lived, soft-hearted, moral goodness, com monly so-called. Give me the goodness which has forgotten its own deeds, - which God has seen to be good, and let be. LETTERS, p. 194. What business have you, if you are " an angel of light," to be pondering over the deeds of darkness, reading the " New York Herald " and the like ? LETTERS, P . 195. I will not doubt the love untold Which not my worth nor want hath bought, Which wooed me young, and woos me old, And to this evening hath me brought. LETTERS, p. 219. The ideal of E very walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Her mit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels. EXCURSIONS, p. 162. 88 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Atnie No wealth can buy the requi- r o al by er the ade site leisure, freedom, and inde- graceofGod. pendence) which are the cap i ta l in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispen sation from Heaven to become a walker. EXCURSIONS, p. 163. True walk- The walking of which I speak ing is not for .... exercise. has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours, as the swing ing of dumb-bells or chairs ; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man s swinging dumb-bells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him. EXCURSIONS, p. 166. Worldly I n m y walks I would fain re- gotten f( ina turn to m y senses. What busi ness have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods ? I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good works, for this may sometimes happen. EXCURSIONS, p. 169. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 89 The interest An absolutely new prospect is a of a new . prospect. great happiness, and 1 can get this any afternoon. ... A single farm house which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey. EXCURSIONS, p. 169. Nature P re- From many a hill I can see vails over . ... . , , j r man in a civilization and the abodes or scape. man afar. The farmers and their works are scarcely more obvious than wood-chucks and their burrows. Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarm ing of them all, I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. EXCURSIONS, p. 170. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoy ment of it. EXCURSIONS, p. 175. The charm There are some intervals which ofwildness. thrush, to which I would migrate, wild lands where no settler has squatted, to to which, methinks, I am already accli mated. EXCURSIONS, p. 186. 90 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Thejnost Life consists with wildness. alive, the . wildest. I he most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence re freshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. EXCURSIONS, p. 187. Theattrac- I derive more of my subsis- tiveness of . , , . , swamps. tence from the swamps which sur round my native town than from the culti vated gardens in the village. There are no richer pastures to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromcda which cover these tender places on the earth s Surface. EXCURSIONS, p. 188. My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness. EXCURSIONS, p. 189. wild think- It is the uncivilized, free, and ing delights . . . . . . ., . , us. wild thinking in Hamlet and the " Iliad," in all the Scriptures and My thologies, not learned in the schools, that delights US. EXCURSIONS, p. 193. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 91 wiidness of A truly good book is something books. as natural and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. EXCURSIONS, p. 193. NO poetry I do not know of any poetry to Naulre. as quote which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is tame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or modern, any account which con tents me of that Nature with which even I am acquainted. EXCURSIONS, p. 195. The soul By long years of patient indus- saence. try and reading of the newspa pers, for what are the libraries of science but files of newspapers ? a man accumu lates a myriad facts, lays them up in his memory, and then when in some spring of his life he scampers abroad into the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a horse, and leaves all his har ness behind in the stable. EXCURSIONS, p. 203. Knowledge A man s ignorance sometimes wTsffhan is not only useful, but beautiful, ignorance. _ while his knowledge, so called, 92 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with, he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all ? EXCURSIONS, p. 204. Aim above M Y desire for knowledge is in- knowledge. my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The high est that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. EXCURSIONS, p. 204. Free and "That is active duty," says acdvify, the tne Vishnu Purana, "which is not for our bondage ; that is know ledge which is for our liberation ; all other duty is good only unto weariness ; all other knowledge is only the cleverness of an artist. EXCURSIONS, p. 205. A border F r mV P art > I ^ Ce ^ tnat NaturS regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 93 transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the State into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. EXCURSIONS, p. 2 o 7 . vision The walker in the familiar fields works g of the which stretch around my native ^dn ess of town sometimes finds himself in another land than is described in their owners deeds. . . . These farms . . . have no chemistry to fix them ; they fade from the surface of the glass, and the pic ture which the painter painted stands out dimly from beneath. EXCURSIONS, p. 207. The realm We are accustomed to say in laid waste New England that few and fewer by worldly ... .~ living. pigeons visit us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the grove in our minds is laid waste, sold to feed unnecessary fires of ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. EXCURSIONS, P . 209 . The great So we saunter toward the Holy fe val ue Land . til] One da Y the SUn sha11 shine more brightly than ever he 94 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn. EXCURSIONS, p. 214. Thecompii- Th e greatest compliment that ^g n one f s va u " was ever P a id me was when one asked me what / thought, and at tended to my answer. I am surprised as well as delighted when this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were acquainted with the tool. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 248. The glory of This world is a place of busi ness. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for Once. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 249. outdoor We must go out and re-ally our selves to Nature every day. We must make root, send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day. I am sen sible that I am imbibing health when I SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 95 open my mouth to the wind. Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is, in this sense, a sort of hos pital. A night and a forenoon is as much confinement to those wards as I can stand. I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost, almost the instant that I come abroad. WINTER, p. 57. The evil of To have done anything by which money g vou earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated ; he cheats himself. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 251. "Work for The aim of the laborer should work s sake." ^ nQt tQ get ^ li v j ng) to g et a good job," but to perform well a certain work. . . . Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 252. Thetmiy The community has no bribe man. that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a moun tain, but you cannot raise money enough 96 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. to hire a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 253. Artificial Perhaps I am more than usually lave us. jealous with respect to my free dom. ... If my wants should be much in creased, the labor required to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to so ciety, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 253. The constant As for the comparative demand elevation of ... ,.,... which men make on life, it is an our aim. important difference between two, that one is satisfied with a level success, that his marks can all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other, however low and unsuccess ful his life may be, constantly elevates his aim, though at a very slight angle to the horizon. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 254. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 97 Living and It is remarkable that there is fivin jfshouid little or nothing to be remembered beautiful. written on the subject of getting a living : how to make getting a living not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious ; for if getting a living is not so, then living is not. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 254. Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 255. The ordinary The Wa Y S in whi ch mOSt men edng of g et their living, that is, live, are hostne s to mere make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life, chiefly because they do not know, but partly be cause they do not mean, any better. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 255. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 257. where alone Men rusn to California and themzegold to be found in that direction ; but 98 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. that is to go to the very opposite extreme to where it lies. ... Is not our native soil auriferous ? Does not a stream from the golden mountains flow through our native valley ? and has not this for more than geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles and forming the nuggets for US ? YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 258. what shall it A man had Better starve at once f/he shaT" tnan l se h* s innocence in the ^hoie h worid, process of getting his bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the Devil s angels. As we grow old we live more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, and, to some extent, cease to obey our finest instincts. But we should be fastidious to the extreme of sanity, dis regarding the gibes of those who are more unfortunate than ourselves. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 260. The limited I hardly know an intellectual men. man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some SELECTION S FROM THOREAU. 99 institution in which they appear to hold stock, that is, some particular, not uni versal, way of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would view. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 261. Religion I n some lyceums they tell me language of that they have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I know what their religion is, and when I am near to it or far from it ? I have walked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast of what reli gion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected what I was about. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 261. The low I ften accuse my finest ac- demandwe quaintanccs of an immense fri- rna.Ke upon i each other. vo iity ; for, while there are man ners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, 100 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. however ; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 262. shallow When our life ceases to be in- mtercourse. warc j an( | p r i va te, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor ; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 263. Lifesacn- I do not know but it is too newspaper, much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day s devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 263. A world If y u chance to live and move that ff the ar >d have your being in that thin newspaper. stratum J n ^J^ t h e CVCntS that SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. IOI make the news transpire, thinner than the paper on which it is printed, then these things will fill the world for you ; but if you soar above or dive below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 264. The mind I am astonished to observe how not to be . . desecrated willing men are . . . to permit idle by gossip and affairs, rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, where the af fairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed ? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, an hy- paethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods ? YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 265. intellectual It is important to preserve the and moral . . , suicide. mind s chastity. . . . Think of ad mitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanc torum for an hour, ay, for many hours ! to make a very bar-room of the mind s in most apartment, as if for so long the very dust of the street had occupied us, the IO2 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts shrine ! Would it not be an in tellectual and moral suicide ? YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 265. Let your ^ I am to be a thoroughfare, I JTpen ufthe prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both commu nications. Only the character of the hear er determines to which it shall be opened, and to which closed. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 266. Science Even the facts of science may aKoin- dust the mind by their dryness, spirauon. un i ess th e y are in a sense effaced each morning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Know ledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 267. SELECTIONS FROM THOKEAU. 103 Political Do we call this the land of the freedom but ... . a means. free ? . . . What is the value of any political freedom but as a means to moral freedom ? . . . It is our children s children who may perchance be really free. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC, p. 268. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter s Substance. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 268. Manners It is the vice . . . of manners apart from . - . .. , . character. that they are continually being deserted by the character ; they are cast- off clothes or shells, claiming the respect which belonged to the living creature. . . . The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on intro ducing me to his cabinet of curiosities when I wished to see himself. It was not in this sense that the poet Decker called Christ "the first true gentleman that ever breathed. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 269. The most The chief want, in every State ducuonsof that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabi tants. , . When we want culture more 104 SELECTIONS FROM THOKEAU. than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men, those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 271. Truth and institutions. 3. snow-drift is formed where would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length bloWS it down. YANKEE IN CANADA, ETC., p. 271. The author- Poetry is so universally true ship of f poetry. and independent 01 experience that it does not need any particular biog raphy to illustrate it, but we refer it sooner or later to some Orpheus or Linus, and after ages to the genius of humanity, and the gods themselves. WEEK, P . 102. Hours above We should be at the helm at least once a day. The whole of the day should not be daytime ; there should be one hour, if not more, when the day did not bring forth. WEEK, P . 103. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 1 05 Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. WEEK, p. 103. Thehibema- The poet is he that hath fat poet. enough, like bears and marmots, to suck his claws all winter. He hiber nates in this world, and feeds on his own marrow, ... is ... a sort of dormouse gone into winter quarters of deep and se rene thoughts, insensible to surrounding circumstances ; his words are the relation of his oldest and finest memory, a wisdom drawn from the remotest experience. Other men lead a starved existence, meanwhile, like hawks that would fain keep on the wing and trust to pick up a sparrow now and then. WEEK, P . 106. The rarity of A perfectly healthy sentence perfect ex- . . pression. is ... extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought ; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of morning or evening with out their colors, or the heavens without their azure. WEEK, p. no. 106 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. are O f ten struck by the ma y hep force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unprac tised in writing, easily attain, when re quired to make the effort ; as if plainness and vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the schools. WEEK, p. 113. Hours of Some hours seem not to be resolution. occas j on f or any dccd> but f Qr resolves to draw breath in. We do not directly go about the execution of the pur pose that thrills us, but shut our doors be hind us and ramble with prepared mind, as if the half were already done. Our reso lution is taking root or hold . . . then, as seeds first send a shoot downward, which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upward to the light. WEEK, P . u S . Few speak The scholar is not apt to make eugh of his most familiar experience come gracefully to the aid of his ex pression. Very few men can speak of Nature, for instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty somehow or other, SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. IO/ and confer no favor. They do not speak a good word for her. . . . The surliness with which the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling them indifferently as his axe, is better than the mealy-mouthed enthusiasm of the lover of nature. Better that the primrose by the river s brim be a yellow primrose and nothing more, than that it be something less. WEEK, P . n S . Always room A good book will never have for a true r . book. been forestalled, but the topic itself will in one sense be new, and its author, by consulting with Nature, will con sult not only with those who have gone be fore, but with those who may come after. There is always room and occasion enough for a true book on any subject, as there is room for more light the brightest day, and more rays will not interfere with the first. WEEK, p. 116. Good and One sailor was visited in his bad sleep. Breams this night by the Evil Destinies, and all those powers that are hostile to human life, which constrain and oppress the minds of men, and make their path seem difficult and narrow, and beset IO8 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. with dangers. . . . But the other hap pily passed a serene and even ambrosial or immortal night, and his sleep was dream less, or only the atmosphere of pleasant dreams remained, a happy, natural sleep until the morning, and his cheerful spirit soothed and reassured his brother, for whenever they meet, the Good Genius is sure to prevail. WEEK, P . 123. Thesigmfi- When we are in health, all music. sounds fife and drum for us ; we hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn. Marching is when the pulse of the hero beats in unison with the pulse of Nature, and he steps to the measure of the universe ; then there is true courage and invincible strength. WEEK, P . is s . Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. It is the only assured tone. There are in it such strains as far surpass any man s faith in the loftiness of his des tiny. WEEK, p. 185. History not We should read history as little critically. critically as we consider the land- SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. IOQ scape, and be more interested by the at mospheric tints and various lights and shades which the intervening spaces cre ate, than by its groundwork and composi tion. It is the morning now turned even ing and seen in the west, the same sun, but a new light and atmosphere. ... In reality, history fluctuates as the face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment is its hue and color . . . ; we want not its then, but its now. We do not complain that the mountains in the horizon are blue and indistinct ; they are the more like the heavens. WEEK, P . :6 4 . Divine What are threescore years and ten, hurriedly and coarsely lived, to moments of divine leisure, in which your life is coincident with the life of the uni verse ? We live too fast and coarsely, just as we eat too fast, and do not know the true savor of our food. We consult our will and our understanding and the expec tation of men, not our genius. I can im pose upon myself tasks which will crush me for life and prevent all expansion, and this I am but too inclined to do. WINTER, p. 45. 1 10 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. The muse The loftiest strains of the muse too plaintive. aY ^ for the most ^^ sublimely plaintive, and not a carol as free as na ture s. The contest which the sun shines to celebrate from morning to evening is unsung. The muse solaces herself, and is not ravished, but consoled. . . . But in Homer and Chaucer there is more of the serenity and innocence of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. WEEK, p. 389. A spomane- To th e innocent there are nei- cencTabove ther cherubims nor angels. At rare intervals we rise above the necessity of virtue into an unchangeable morning light, in which we have only to live right on and breathe the ambrosial air. WEEK, p. 390. There is no wisdom that can take place of humanity. WEEK, P . 39 i. Each deed Our whole lif e is taxed for the oy thTwhlie least thing well done. It is its net result. How we eat, drink, sleep, and use our desultory hours now in these indifferent days, with no eye to ob- SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Ill serve and no occasion to excite us, deter mines our authority and capacity for the time tO COme. EARLY SPRING, p. 22. A friend s ^ friend advises by his whole behavior, and never condescends to particulars. Another chides away a fault, he loves it away. While he sees the other s error, he is silently conscious of it, and only the more loves truth itself, and assists his friend in loving it, till the fault is expelled and gently extinguished. EARLY SPRING, p. 28. A lesson Simplicity is the law of nature from the . urn flowers. for men as well as for flowers. When the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (calyx) is excessive, luxuriant, it is un productive. . . . Such a flower has no true progeny, and can only be reproduced by the humble mode of cuttings from its stem or roots. . . . The fertile flowers are single, not double. EARLY SPRING, p. 28. The source l have thoughts, as I walk, on above u o g u h r- some subject that is running in my head, but all their pertinence seems gone before I can get home to set 112 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. them down. The most valuable thoughts which I entertain are anything but what 7 thought. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am SUre tO be filled. EARLY SPRING, p. 34. There must There can be no good reading hearing to unless there is good hearing also. make a good _ . reader. It takes two, at least, for this game, as for love, and they must coope rate. EARLY SPRING, p. 52. Anadvan- The birds I heard [to-day], tageofigno- . ranee. which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it had been the first morning of creation, and had for background to their song an untrodden wilderness stretching through many a Carolina and Mexico of the SOul. EARLY SPRING, p. 55. The stan- We forget to strive and aspire, dard within us. to do better even than is expected of us. I cannot stay to be congratulated. I would leave the world behind me. . . . To please our friends and relatives we turn out our silver ore in cartloads, while we neglect to work our mines of gold known only to ourselves, far up in the Sierras, SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 113 where we pulled up a bush in our mountain walk, and saw the glittering treasure. Let us return thither. Let it be the price of our freedom to make that known. WINTER, p. 169. unconscious We reprove each other uncon sciously by our own behavior. Our very carriage and demeanor in the streets should be a reprimand that will go to the conscience of every beholder. An infusion of love from a great soul gives a color to our faults which will discover them as lunar caustic detects impurities in water. The best will not seem to go contrary to others ; but as if they could afford to travel the same way, they go a parallel but higher course. Jonson says, " That to the vulgar canst thyself apply, Treading a better path, not contrary." EARLY SPRING, p. 56. We must How can our love increase un- friend a r s we ^ ess ur loveliness increases also ? We must securely love each other as we love God, with no more danger that our love be unrequited or ill bestowed. There is that in my friend before which I must first decay and prove untrue. EARLY SPRING, p. 62. 114 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Respectyour Impulse is, after all, the best impulses. linguist; its logic, if not confor- mable to Aristotle, cannot fail to be most convincing. The nearer we can approach to a complete but simple transcript of our thought, the more tolerable will be the piece, for we can endure to consider our selves in a state of passivity or in involun tary action, but rarely can we endure to consider our efforts, and least of all, our rare efforts. EARLY SPRING, p. 77. Essential We must not expect to probe life not to . . e be probed, with our nngcrs the sanctuary of any life, whether animal or vegetable. If we do, we shall discover nothing but sur face still. The ultimate expression or fruit of any created thing is a fine effluence, which only the most ingenuous worshiper perceives at a reverent distance from its surface even. . . . Only that intellect makes any progress toward conceiving of the essence which at the same time per ceives the effluence. EARLY SPRING, p. 83. NO ripeness There is no ripeness which is merely the .. . . . means. not, so to speak, something ulti mate in itself, and not merely a perfected SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 115 means to a higher end. In order to be ripe it must serve a transcendent use. The ripeness of a leaf, being perfected, leaves the tree at that point, and never returns to it. EARLY SPRING, p. 84. Music has A history of music would be no history. jj^ the history of the f lltUFC, f OF so little past is it and capable of record that it is but the hint of a prophecy. ... It has no history more than God. . . . Pro perly speaking, there can be no history but natural history, for there is no past in the soul, but in nature. ... I might as well write the history of my aspirations. EARLY SPRING, p. 85. The warbie The bluebird on the apple-tree, of the blue- , , . . , . . bird. warbling so innocently, to inquire if any of its mates are within call, the angel of the spring ! Fair and innocent, yet the offspring of the earth. The color of the sky, above, and of the subsoil, be neath, suggesting what sweet and innocent melody, terrestrial melody, may have its birthplace between the sky and the ground. EARLY SPRING, p. no. Il6 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. Content- We can only live healthily the [heiife^ life th e gods assign us. I must us receive my life as passively as the willow leaf that flutters over the brook. I must not be for myself, but God s work, and that is always good. . . . My fate can not but be grand so. We may live the life of a plant or an animal without living an animal life. This constant and universal content of the animal comes of resting quietly in God s palm. EARLY SPRING, p. in. The delight My friend! my friend! ... To courlfwith address thee delights me, there is such clearness in the delivery. I am delivered of my tale, which, told to strangers, still would linger in my life as if untold, or doubtful how it ran. EARLY SPRING, p. 112. Real wealth. I wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, every-day phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive in my daily walk, the conversations of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me. ... I do not wish my native soil SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 1 1/ to become exhausted and run out through neglect. Only that traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home, and enables me to enjoy it better. That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. EARLY SPRING, p. 114. Solitude and MrS - A - takes On dolefully On account of the solitude in which she lives ; but she gets little consolation. Mrs. B. says she envies her that retirement. Mrs. A. is aware that she does, and says it is as if a thirsty man should envy another the river in which he is drowning. So goes the world. It is either this extreme or that. Of solitude, one gets too much ; another, not enough. EARLY SPRING,?. 116. Turn The scholar finds in his experi- tovvards the light. ence some studies to be most fer tile and radiant with light, others, dry, barren, and dark. If he is wise he will not persevere in the last, as a plant in a cel lar will strive towards the light. . . . Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows. A man may associate with such companions, he may pursue such em- Il8 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. ployments, as will darken the day for him. Men choose darkness rather than light. EARLY SPRING, p. 121. The solitude How alone must our life be of a human ,. , , soul. lived. We dwell on the seashore, and none between us and the sea. Men are my merry companions, my fellow-pil grims, who beguile the way, but leave me at the first turn in the road, for none are traveling one road so far as myself. . . . Parents and relatives but entertain the youth. They cannot stand between him and his destiny. EARLY SPRING, p. 128. " The king- I am startled that God can make dom of God . , . , , cometh not me so rich, even with my own with obser- , _ , , .. vation." cheap stores. It needs but a few wisps of straw in the sun, some small word dropped, or that has long lain silent in some book. When heaven begins, and the dead arise, no trumpet is blown. Perhaps the SOUth wind will blow. EARLY SPRING, p. 129. Let love rest As soon as I see people loving on common - aspirations, what they see merely, and not their own high hopes that they form of oth ers, I pity them and do not want their love. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 1 19 Did I ask thee to love me who hate myself ? No ! Love that which I love, and I will love thee that loves it. EARLY SPRING, p. 133- The promise Life is grand, and so are its en- in the face of r -n i T- ^ nature. vironments of last and ruture. Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man s destiny were not equally SO ? EARLY SPRING, p. 133. Singleness What am I gOOd for HOW, who of purpose. am stm searc hi n g after high things, but to hear and tell the news, to bring wood and water, and count how many eggs the hens lay ? In the mean while I expect my life to begin. I will not aspire longer. I will see what it is I would be after. I will be unanimous. EARLY SPRING, p. 134. water in No sooner has the ice of Wal- eariy spring. den me lted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the face of the virgin water. It is affecting to see nature so tender, however old, and wearing none of the wrinkles of age. Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect water as if it had been melted a million years. To see 120 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. that which was lately so hard and immov able now so soft and impressible! What if our moods could dissolve thus completely ? It is like a flush of life on a cheek that was dead. It seems as if it must rejoice in its own newly-acquired fluidity, as it affects the beholder with joy. EARLY SPRING, p. 135. The privacy O ur religion is as unpublic and of rehgion. i ncO mmunicable as our poetical vein, and to be approached with as much love and tenderness. EARLY SPRING, P . i 37 . Nobook As I am going to the woods, I can match . 11 i i nature. think to take some small book in my pocket, whose author has been there already, whose pages will be as good as my thoughts, and will eke them out, or show me human life still gleaming in the horizon when the woods have shut out the town. But I can find none. None will sail as far forward into the bay of nature as my thought. They stay at home. I would go home. When I get to the wood, their thin leaves rustle in my fingers. They are bare and obvious, and there is no halo or haze about them. Nature lies fair and far be hind them all. EARLY SPRING, p. 137. SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 121 The divinity When God made man he re- of the human . . eye. served some parts and some rights to himself. The eye has many qualities which belong to God more than man. It is his lightning which flashes therein. When I look into my companion s eye, I think it is God s private mine. It is a noble feature ; it cannot be degraded. For God can look on all things undefiled. EARLY SPRING, p. 138. NO truth The only way to speak the truth without love. is to speak i ov i ng i yi Only the lover s words are heard. The intellect should never speak. It does not utter a natural SOUnd. EARLY SPRING, p. 139. Disinter- The great and solitary heart estedlove. ^ IQVQ ^^ without the knQW _ ledge of its object. It cannot have society in its love. It will expend its love as the cloud drops rain upon the fields over which it liOcltS. EARLY SPRING, p. 139. Aspirations I P^y that the life of this spring m the spring. anc j summ er may ever lie fair in my memory. May I dare as I have never done. May I persevere as I have never 122 SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. done. May I purify myself anew as with fire and water, soul and body. May my melody not be wanting to the season. May I gird myself to be a hunter of the beauti ful, that naught escape me. May I attain to a youth never attained. EARLY SPRING, p. 140. Human and Men make an arbitrary code, divine law. andj b ecause j t j s not r j gnt) they try to make it prevail by might. The moral law does not want any champion. Its assertors do not go to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is in consistent to deny war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war, there WOUld be no need Of law. EARLY SPRING, p. 147. The blue- How much more habitable a few atlheendof birds make the fields! At the winter end of the winter, when the fields are bare, and there is nothing to relieve the monotony of withered vegetation, our life seems reduced to its lowest terms. But let a bluebird come and warble over them, and what a change ! The note of the first bluebird in the air answers to the purling rill of melted snow beneath. It is evi- SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU. 123 dently soft and soothing, and, as surely as the thermometer, indicates a higher tem perature. It is the accent of the south wind, its vernacular. EARLY SPRING, p. 168. Nature on Each new year is a surprise to *haSfc?st us. We find that we had virtu ally forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again it is re membered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are al ways pleasing, never saddening, reminis cences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging. EARLY SPRING, p. 170. A CONTRIBUTION TOWARD A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THOREAU "A truth-speaker he, capable of the most deep and strict conver sation ; a physician to the wounds of any soul." EMERSON. PREFACE. " IT is the bibliographer who of all men has most occasion to realize the imperfec tion of human endeavor. Completeness in bibliography is an ignis fatuus that eludes even the closest pursuit and the most pains taking endeavor." If such an adept as Mr. R. R. Bowker makes the above avowal (and it may be found in his preface to the "American Catalogue," 1 885), that fact must plead for the "imperfection" of this bit of prentice work, which has been done in such moments as could be stolen from the imperative duties of an arduous profession. To be suddenly summoned from searching a catalogue to soothe a colic may be " busi ness ; " it is hardly bibliographing. This "Contribution " is not the result of an "endeavor " at "completeness." It is 128 PREFACE. simply a thank-offering to Thoreau s memo ry, from one who has been " lifted up and strengthened" by his example. It was compiled in the hope that it might facili tate the study of, and enlarge an acquain tance with, the author of "the only book yet written in America, to my thinking, that bears an annual perusal." Standing at Thoreau s graveside some twenty-eight years ago, Emerson said, " The country knows not yet, or in least part, how great a son it has lost. ... His soul was made for the noblest society ; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world ; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home." There is too much of truth in the fear that the man so certified "great, intelligent, sensual, avaricious America" knows not yet, or in least part. There is peril for the soul in such ignorance. To those unacquainted with Thoreau, this "Contribution" will afford an aid for which the compiler would long since have PREFACE. 129 been very grateful. Whatever of worth it may have as a contribution is wholly due to courtesies received from H. S. Salt, Lon don ; Geo. Willis Cooke ; Wm. C. Lane, Harvard College Library ; R. C. Davis, Librarian of the University of Michigan ; to whom be thanks. ANN ARBOR, 2$th May, 1890. A CONTRIBUTION TOWARD A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU. I. PAPERS, POEMS, AND BOOKS BY THOREAU. 1840. Sympathy. The Dial, i. 71 (July). Reprinted in the collection of poems at the close of Letters to Various Persons. Aulus Persius Flaccus. The Dial, i. 117 (July). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 326. 1841. Stanzas: "Nature doth have her dawn each day." The Dial, i. 314 (January). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 301. Sic Vita. The Dial, ii. 81 (July). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 405. Friendship. The Dial, ii. 204 (October). Re printed under the title, " Romans, Country men, and Lovers," in the collection of poems at the close of Letters to Various Persons j also in A Week on the Concord and Merri- tnack Rivers, p. 304. 132 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1842. Natural History of Massachusetts. The Dial, iii. 19 (July). Reprinted in Excursions. Prayers. The Dial, iii. 77 (July). Reprinted in A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. The Black Knight. The Dial, iii. 180 (Octo ber). The Inward Morning. The Dial, iii. 198 (Oc tober). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 311. Free Love. The Dial, iii. 199 (October). Re printed in A Week on the Concord and Mer rimack Rivers, p. 296. The Poet s Delay. The Dial, iii. 200 (Octo ber). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 364. Rumors from an ^Eolian Harp. The Dial. iii. 200 (October). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 185. The Moon. The Dial, iii. 222 (October). To the Maiden in the East. The Dial, iii. 222 (October). Reprinted in A Week on the Con cord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 54. The Summer Rain. The Dial, iii. 224 (Octo ber). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 320. 1843. The Laws of Menu. Selected by H. D. T. The Dial, iii. 331 (January). The Prometheus Bound. Translated by H. D. T. The Dial, iii. 363 (January). Anacreon. With translations. The Dial, iii. 484 (April). Reprinted in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 238. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 133 To a Stray Fowl. The Dial, iii. 505 (April). Orphics: Smoke, Haze. The Dial, iii. 505 (April). Reprinted in the collection of poems at the close of Letters to Various Persons; also, the former in Walden, p. 271 ; the latter in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 229. Dark Ages. The Dial, iii. 527 (April). Re printed in A Week on the Concord and Mer rimack Rivers, pp. 164-168. A Winter Walk. The Dial, iv. 211 (October). Reprinted in Excursions. A Walk to Wachusett. The Boston Miscel lany. Reprinted in Excursions. The Landlord. The Democratic Review, xiii. 427 (October). Reprinted in Excursions. Paradise (to be) Regained. The Democratic Review, xiii. 451 (November). Reprinted in A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. 1844. Homer, Ossian, Chaucer; extracts from a lecture on poetry, read before the Concord Lyceum, November 29, 1843. The Dial, iv. 290 (January). Pindar. Translations. The Dial, iv. 379 (Jan uary)- Herald of Freedom. The Dial, iv. 507 (April). Reprinted in A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. Fragments of Pindar. The Dial, iv. 513 (April). 1845. Wendell Phillips before the Concord Lyceum. The Liberator, March 28. Reprinted in A 134 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. 1847. Thomas Carlyle and his works. Graham s Magazine, March, April. Reprinted in A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. 1848. Ktaadn and the Maine Woods. The Union Magazine. Reprinted in The Maine Woods. 1849. A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRI- MACK. RIVERS. Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe & Co. Reissued in 1867 by Ticknor & Fields. Resistance to Civil Government. ^Esthetic Papers, i. 189-211. Reprinted with the title " Civil Disobedience " in A Yankee in Canada, with Anti- Slavery and Reform Papers. 1853. Excursion to Canada. Putnam 1 s Magazine, i. 54, 179, 321 (January, February, March). Chapters i., ii., iii., of A Yankee in Canada. 1854. WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS. Bos ton: Ticknor & Fields. Reissued in 1889 in two volumes, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., in The Riverside Aldine Series. Slavery in Massachusetts ; an address delivered at the anti-slavery celebration at Framing- ham, Mass., July 4. The Liberator, July 21. Reprinted in A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. 1855. Cape Cod. Putnam s Magazine, v. 632, vi. 59, 157 (June, July, August). Chapters i.- iv. of Cape Cod. 1858. Chesuncook. The Atlantic Monthly, ii. I, BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1 3 5 224, 305 (June, July, August). Reprinted in The Maine Woods. 1859. A Plea for Captain John Brown. Read to the citizens of Concord, Mass., Sunday even ing, October 30. A Yankee in Canada, with A nil-Slavery and Reform Papers. 1860. Reminiscences of John Brown. Read at North Elba, N. Y., July 4. The Liberator, July 27. Reprinted with the title " The Last Days of John Brown " in A Yankee in Can ada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. The Succession of Forest Trees ; an address read to the Middlesex Agricultural Society in Concord, September. The New York Weekly Tribune, October 6 ; also in Middle sex Agricultural Transactions. Reprinted in Excursions. Remarks at Concord on the day of the execu tion of John Brown. Echoes from Harper s Ferry. Boston : Thayer & Eldridge, p. 439, 1862. Walking. The Atlantic Monthly, ix. 657 (June). Reprinted in Excursions. Autumnal Tints. The Atlantic Monthly, x. 385 (October). Reprinted in Excursions. Wild Apples. The Atlantic Monthly, x. 313 (November). Reprinted in Excursions. 1863. Life without Principle. The Atlantic Month ly, xii. 484 (October). Reprinted in A Yan kee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Re form Papers. Night and Moonlight. The Atlantic Monthly, xii. 579 (November). Reprinted in Excur- 1 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY, EXCURSIONS. (With biographical sketch by R. W. Emerson.) Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 1864. THE MAINE WOODS. (Edited by W. E. Channing.) Boston : Ticknor & Fields. N. B. This volume contains The Allegash and East Branch, not before printed. The Wellfleet Oysterman. The Atlantic Monthly, xiv. 470 (October). Reprinted in Cape Cod. The Highland Light. The Atlantic Monthly, xiv. 649 (December). Reprinted in Cape Cod. CAPE COD. (Edited by W. E. Channing.) Bos ton: Ticknor & Fields. [Publisher s date, 1865.] 1865. LETTERS TO VARIOUS PERSONS. (Edited by R. W. Emerson.) Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 1866. A YANKEE IN CANADA, WITH ANTI-SLA VERY AND REFORM PAPERS. (Edited by W. E. Channing.) Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 1878. April Days. The Atlantic Monthly, xli. 445 (April). May Days. The Atlantic Monthly, xli. 567 (May). Days in June. The Atlantic Monthly, xli. 71 1 (June). Reprinted in Summer. 1881. EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS : FROM THE JOURNAL OF HENRY D. THOREAU. (Edited by H. G. O. Blake.) Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. SUMMER: FROM THE JOURNAL OF HENRY BIBLIOGRAPHY. 137 D. THOREAU. (Edited by H. G. O. Blake.) Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1885. Winter Days. The Atlantic Monthly, Iv. 79 (January). Reprinted in Winter, pp. 81-107. 1887. WINTER: FROM THE JOURNAL OF HENRY D. THOREAU. (Edited by H. G. O. Blake.) Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. [Publish er s date, 1888.] II. BOOKS WHOLLY OR IN PART DEVOTED TO THOREAU. 1855. Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Henry D. Thoreart. CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN LIT ERATURE, ii. 653-656. New York: Charles Scribner. 1857. Curtis, G.W. Thoreau. HOMES OF AMERI CAN AUTHORS, pp. 247-248; 250-251. New York : D. Appleton and Company. 1863. Emerson, R. W. Biographical Sketch. In Thoreau s EXCURSIONS. Issued also in COMPLETE WORKS, Riverside edition, x., pp. 421-452. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1866. Alger, W. R. Thoreau. THE SOLITUDES OF NATURE AND OF MAN, pp. 329-338. Bos ton : Roberts Brothers. 1868. Hawthorne, N. PASSAGES FROM THE AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS, ii., pp. 96-99. Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 1871. Lowell, J. R. Thoreau. MY STUDY WIN DOWS, pp. 193-209. Boston: James R. Os- good & Co. 138 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1873. Charming, W. E. THOREAU : THE POET- NATURALIST. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Alcott, A. B. Thoreau, Walden Pond. CON CORD DAYS, pp. 11-20, 259-264. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1877. Page, H. A. (Dr. A. H. Japp). THOREAU : His LIFE AND AIMS. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1878. Sanborn, F. B. MEMOIRS OF JOHN BROWN, pp. 45, 49-51. Concord, Mass. 1879. Higginson, T. W. Thoreau. SHORT STUD IES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS, pp. 23-31. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1880. James, Jr., H. HAWTHORNE. Ame-ican Men of Letters, pp. 93-94. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1880. Scudder, Horace E. Henry David Thoreau. AMERICAN PROSE, pp. 296-301. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 1881. Flagg, Wilson. Thoreau. HALCYON DAYS, pp. 164-168. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. Cooke, G. W. RALPH WALDO EMERSON: His LIFE, WRITINGS, AND PHILOSOPHY. (Vide Index.) Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1882. Conway, M. D. Thoreau. EMERSON AT HOME AND ABROAD, pp. 279-289. Boston : James R. Osgood & Co. Alcott, A. B. SONNETS AND CANZONETS. Boston : Roberts Brothers. Nichol, Prof. John. TJioreau. AMERICAN- LITERATURE: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH, pp. 313-321. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1 39 Welsh, A. H. Thoreau. DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE, ii., pp. 409-414. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. Burroughs, John. T/wreaiis Wildness. ES SAYS FROM THE Critic, pp. 9-18. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. Sanborn, F. B. Thoreau s Unpublished Po etry. ESSAYS FROM THE Critic, pp. 71-78. Boston : James R. Osgood & Co. Sanborn, F. B. Reading from Thoreau s Manuscripts. CONCORD LECTURES ON PHI LOSOPHY, pp. 124-126. Cambridge: Moses King. 1883. Sanborn, F. B. HENRY D. THOREAU. American Men of Letters. Boston: Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. Hawthorne, Julian. NATHANIEL HAW THORNE AND His WIFE: A BIOGRAPHY. (Vide Index.) Cambridge: James R. Os good & Co. 1885. Sanborn, F. B. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN BROWN. (Vide Index.) Boston: Rob erts Brothers. Holmes, O. W. RALPH WALDO EMERSON. (Vide Index.) American Men of Letters. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1886. Stevenson, R. L. Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions. FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS, pp. 129-171. London: Chatto & Windus. Dircks, W. H. Thoreau. An Introductory Note in WALDEN. Camelot Classics. Lon don : Walter Scott. 140 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Garnett, Richard. An Introductory Note in MY STUDY WINDOWS. Camelot Classics. London : Walter Scott. 1887. Cabot, James Elliot. A MEMOIR OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON, i., p. 282. Boston: Hough- ton, Mifflin & Co. Haskins, David Green. RALPH WALDO EMERSON: His MATERNAL ANCESTORS, pp. 119-122. Boston: Cupples, Upham & Co. Whipple, E. P. AMERICAN LITERATURE AND OTHER PAPERS, pp. 111-112. Boston : Tick- nor & Co. Beers, Prof. Henry A. Henry David Thoreau. AN OUTLINE SKETCH OF AMERICAN LIT ERATURE, pp. 143-148. New York : Chautau- qua Press. Carpenter, Edward. ENGLAND S IDEAL, pp. 13-14. London : Swan, Sonnenschein, Low- rey & Co. 1888. Garnett, Richard. LIFE OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON, pp. 157-159. Great Writers Se ries. London : Walter Scott. Besant, Walter. THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES, pp. 221-225. London : Long mans, Green & Co. Salt, H. S. LITERARY SKETCHES. London: Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co. 1889. Emerson, E. W. EMERSON IN CONCORD. (Vide Index.) Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Burroughs, John. INDOOR STUDIES, pp. 1-42. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1 4 1 Dircks, W. H. Thoreau. A Preparatory Note in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMAC \_sic~\ RIVERS, pp. v-xviii. Game- lot Classics. London : Walter Scott. Frothingham, O. B. Thoreau, Henry David. CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, vi., pp. loo-ioi. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Hubert, Jr., Philip G. Henry David Thoreau. LIBERTY AND A LIVING, pp. 171-190. New York and London: G. P. Putnam s Sons. 1890. Jones, Dr. S. A. THOREAU: A GLIMPSE. WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ann Arbor: No publisher. Ellis, Havelock. THE NEW SPIRIT, pp. 90- 99. London: George Bell & Sons. Charles J. Woodbury. Thoreau. TALKS WITH RALPH WALDO EMERSON, pp. 69-94. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd. The same. New York : Baker & Taylor Co. Salt, H. S. THE LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU. London: Richard Bentley & Son. III. MAGAZINE ARTICLES. 1849. George Ripley. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The New York Tribune. J. R. Lowell. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Massachusetts Quar terly Review, iii., ix. (December), 40-51. 142 BIBLIOGRAPHY. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Riv ers. Athenceum (October 27). 1854. A. P. Peabody. Walden : or Life in the Woods. North American Review, bcxix. 536. C. F. Briggs. A Yankee Diogenes. Put- Hani s Magazine, iv. 443. 1855. Edwin Morton. Thoreau and his Books. The Harvard Magazine, i. No. ii. (January), 87-99. \Vide Sanborn s Thoreau. "Ameri can Men of Letters," pp. 195-199.] A Rural Humbug. Knickerbocker Magazine, xlv. 235. 1857. An American Diogenes. Chambers Edin burgh Journal, xxviii. 330. 1862. G. W. Curtis. Reminiscences of Thoreau. Harper s Magazine, xxv. 270. R. W. Emerson. Thoreau. Atlantic Month ly, x. 239. 1864. T.W. Higginson. The Maine \Voods. At lantic Monthly, xiv. 386. The Transcendentalists of Concord. Eraser s Magazine, Ixx. 245. [Same article in Eclec tic Magazine, Ixiii. 231 ; LittelFs Living Age, Ixxxiii. 99, 1 78.] An American Rousseau. Saturday Review (December 3). 1865. T. W. Higginson. Cape Cod. Atlantic Monthly, xv. 381. T. W. Higginson. Letters to Various Persons. Atlantic Monthly, xvi. 504. J. A. Weiss. Thoreau. Christian Examiner, Ixxix. 96. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 143 W. R. Alger. Thoreau. Monthly Religious Magazine, xxxv. 382. M. D. Conway. Thoreau. Eraser s Maga zine, Ixxiii. 447. [Same article in Eclectic Magazine, Ixvii. 180 (1886); Every Satur day, i. 622 (1886).] J. R.Lowell. "Letters to Various Persons." By Henry D. Thoreau. North American Review, ci. 597. 1869. G. W. Curtis. Further Reminiscences of Thoreau. Harper s Magazine, xxxviii. 415. 1870. J. R. Lowell. Thoreau. Every Saturday, x. 1 66. 1873. Thoreau. British Quarterly, lix. 181. [Same article in Littell s Living Age, cxx. 643 ; Eclectic Magazine, Ixxxii. 305.] 1874. Henry Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist. Brit ish Quarterly (January). Ellery Channing s Thoreau. The Nation (January 8). 1875. Miss H. R. Hudson. Concord Books. Harper s Magazine, li. 18. 1877. M.Collins. Thoreau. Dublin University Magazine, xc. 610. T. Hughes. Study of Thoreau. Eclectic Mag azine, xc. 1 14. Theodore Watts. Article in Athetuzum (No vember 17). 1878. J. V. O Connor. Henry D. Thoreau and New England Transcendentalism. Catholic World, xxvii. 289. 1879. The Pity and Humor of Thoreau. LitteWs Living Age, cxlvi. 190. 144 BIBLIOGRAPHY. R. L. Stevenson. Henry David Thoreau : His Character and Opinions. Cornhill Maga zine, xli. 665. [Same article in L itteir s Liv ing Age, cxlvi. 179; Eclectic Magazine, xcv. 257 (1880).] 1880. W. S. Kennedy. A New Estimate of Henry D. Thoreau. Penn Monthly, xi. 794. Philosophy at Concord. The Nation (Septem ber 2). W. S. Kennedy. A New Estimate of Tho reau. Penn Monthly, ii. 794. 1881. Thoreau s Portrait. By himself. The Liter ary World (Boston), xii. 1 16-1 17 (March 26). F. B. Sanborn. Henry David Thoreau. The Harvard Register, iii. 214-217 (April). Por trait. 1882. John Burroughs. Henry D. Thoreau. The Century, ii. (New Series), 368. John Burroughs. Thoreau s Wildness. Critic, i. 74. F. B. Sanborn. Thoreau s Unpublished Po etry. Critic, i. 75. Portraits of Thoreau with a Beard. Critic, i. 95- Henry D. Thoreau : Sanborn s Life of. The Nation, xxxv. 34. Henry D. Thoreau: Sanborn s Life of. Lit erary World (Boston), xiii. 227. Henry D. Thoreau : Sanborn s Life of. Athe- naum, ii. (of the year), 558. J. A. Janvier. Henry D. Thoreau : Sanborn s Life of. American, iv. 218. Henry D. Thoreau : Sanborn s Life of. Aca demy, ii. 271. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 145 Theodore Watts. Article in Athenceum (Oc tober 28). 1883. H. N. Powers. H. D. Thoreau. Dial (Chi cago), iii. 70. Henry D. Thoreau. Spectator, Ivi. 239. 1884. Walter Lewin. "Summer: From the Jour nal of Henry D. Thoreau." The Nation, xxvi. 193. " Summer : From the Journal of Henry D. Tho reau." Literary World (Boston), xv. 223. 1885. Henry D. Thoreau. Spectator, Iviii. 122. J. Benton. Thoreau s Poetry. Lippincott s Magazine, xxxvii. 491. G. Willis Cooke. The Dial. Journal of Speculative Philosophy (July). 1886. H. S. Salt. Henry D. Thoreau. Temple Bar, Ixxviii. 369. Reprinted, 1888, in Liter ary Sketches, by H. S. Salt. London : Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co. 1887. H. S. Salt. Henry D. Thoreau. Eclectic Magazine, cviii. 89. H. S. Salt. Henry D. Thoreau. The Critic, ii. 276, 289. From Temple Bar, A. H. Japp. Henry David Thoreau. The Welcome (November). 1888. Henry D. Thoreau. Good Words, xxix. 445. Grant Allen. A Sunday at Concord. Fort nightly Review (May). 1 889. John Burroughs. Henry D. Thoreau. Chau- tauquan, ix. 530. " Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers." Saturday Review, Ixviii. 195. 1890. S.A.Jones. Thoreau: A Glimpse. The Unitarian, v. 2, 3, 4 (February, March, April). 146 BIBLIOGRAPHY. H. S. Salt. Thoreau s Poetry. The Art Re view (London), i. 5 (May). C. J. Woodbury. Emerson s Talks with a College Boy. The Century (February). INDEX. ACTIVITY, be warmed by, 80. Actual, the ideal needs but slight support in the, 65. Adventure, an, in the mind rather than in the thing done, 80. Advice, a friend s, HI. Adviser, the true, 75. Affairs, slavery to, 14; life not to be lost in the complexity of, 16 ; life wasted in, 17 ; the mind not to be desecrated by gossip and, 101. Affection, the reserve of, 37 ; and sloth, do. Aim, the higher the, the more ear nest must be the work, 71 ; the constant elevation of our, 96. Animal food offends the imagina tion, 6. Appeal, to the highest, direct, 45 ; to the highest within you, 68. Appetite, the quality of the, makes the sensualist, 8. Appreciation, the best, is discrim inating, S3- Aspirations, a friend cherishes one s highest, 38 ; we can re spect our, 44 ; the helpful friend encourages our, 65 ; let love rest on common, 118; in the spring, 121. Authorship of poetry, the, 104. Awake, morning is whenever we are truly, 15 ; no one is thor oughly, 16. Battle in behalf of sane thinking, the, 81. Beasts, delicacy of the distinction between men and, 9. Beauty, give to the day, from the beauty within, 16 ; unconscious ness of, 70 ; the, or misery, of life in our thoughts, 83. Bluebird, the warble of the, 115, 122. Body, care for the, compared with care for the soul, 64 ; a warm, and a cold spirit, 69 ; eats up the soul s substance, 103. Book, always room for a true, 107 ; cannot match nature, 120. Books, how to read the heroic, 20 ; how true ones should be read, 21; wildness of the best, 91 ; read the best first, 105. Border life between nature and society, a, 92. Bow, a, which no humbler archer can bend, 72. Bread, the true, 45 ; the taste of that which we earn, 46 ; to truly earn our, we must satisfy God for it, 64 ; better starve than lose innocence in getting, 98. Burdens, all, become light to the courageous, 74. Cares, worldly, forgotten in a true walk, 88. Character, work essential to, 29; the victory of, 29 ; manners apart from, 103. Charity which hides a multitude of sins, overflowing love the, 12. Classics, what are the, 21. Cold and hunger, 07. Companionship, the most satis factory, 4. Complaint, the shallowness of, 86. Contentment with the life as signed us, 116. 148 INDEX. Convictions, our deepest, un changeable, 79. Courage, 74, 85. Creation a poem to open ears, the, 14. Crop, the best, which a farm af fords, 13. Culture, humility enriches the soul more than, 27. Darkness, pondering over the deeds of, 87. Dawn, expectation of the, 16; more day to, 29; the inward, 40; the true, 69. Deed, each, determined by the whole life, no. Demand we make upon each other, the low, 99. Differences, friends must be si lent about constitutional, 39 ; the real, between friends can not be explained away, 39. Dilettanteism, 71. Dishonesty worse than depen dence, 26. Dissipation, one s proper work and, 86. Distinction between men and beasts, the delicacy of the, 9. " Do what you love," 44. Dreadful thing, the, not outside of us, 75. Dream, realize your, 24 ; our faintest, points to the solidest reality, 43. Dreams, the realization of, 43 ; the solidest facts that we know, 43- . Dreariness, outward, 90. Earnest, the, not hindered by tri fles, 54. Earning a living, the delight of really, 46 ; earning money mere ly, the evil of, 95. Earth and heaven, the laws of, harmonize, 48. Economy, the only cure for the nation, as for the household, >7- El Dorado, a man s, is where he lives, 81. Elevation of our aim, the con stant, 96. Elysium or Tophet, a man s, in himself, 84. Employment, exalted, 51. Enjoyment, the true, 89. Enjoyments, poverty need not take from us the purest, 26. Estrangement, 33. Exercise, true walking is not for, 88. Existence, gratitude for the sense of, 78. Expectations, divine, 51. Experience, a glorious, cannot be left behind, 54. Expression, extravagance of, 24; the rarity of perfect, 105. Eye, the human, 56. Failure, real success or, is in our thoughts, 82. Faith is earned by faithfulness, 47- Faithfulness rather than know ledge saves the soul, 63. False position, why we are com monly in a, 25. Farm, the best crop which one affords, 13. Fastidious, one should be ex tremely, 98. Faults, the toleration of, an ob stacle to friendship, 34 ; the, of our friends must be lost in love, 39 ; the true lover would not hide his, 59. Fidelity in work, 28. Flower, a, the symbol of pure love, 62. Flowers, a lesson from the, in. Freedom, political, but a means, 103. Friend, the actual, but a sugges tion of the ideal, 30; nourishes the soul, 30; the true educator, 31 ; the only radical reformer, 31 ; associated with our choi cest thought, 34 ; no slight ob stacle can keep one from a, 35 ; cherishes one s highest aspira tions, 38 ; the faults of, must be lost in love, 39; leaves the sweetest consolation at his death, 41 ; enhances every thing, 60; the helpful, encour ages our aspirations, 65 ; does not limit our vision, 73 ; we must love our, as we love God, 113; the delight of intercourse with a, 116. Friends, are not selected, 33 ; not anxious to please each other, INDEX. 149 33 ; help each other s loftiest dreams, 33 ; good will is neces sary, not conscious, between, 34 ; do not ask to be appreci ated, 37; silence is understood between, 37; must be silent about constitutional differ ences, 39 ; the real differences between, cannot be explained away, 39; civility between, 41 ; he who obeys his genius can not lose his, 52 ; deal in pure truth with each other, 61 ; must meet erectly, 68 ; found in solitude, 81. Friendship, a thing outside of hu man institutions, 30 ; the dream of all, 30; no respecter of sex, 34 ; the toleration of faults an obstacle to, 34; the purest, the most unconscious, 35 ; the lan guage of, 35 ; requires wisdom as well as tenderness, 35 ; is not conscious kindliness, 35; is in the interest of humanity, 36 ; are any noble enough for a lasting? 36 ; only between what is high est in each, 38 ; and the love of nature harmonize, 40 ; in na ture, 53. Genius, the slightest intimations of one s, to be regarded, 7 ; the organs of one s, reinvigorated by healthful sleep, 15 ; the mis ery of disobedience to our, 47 ; he who obeys his, cannot lose his friends, 52. Getting a living, living and, should be alike beautiful, 97; the or dinary modes of, hostile to true life, 97. God most truly found when not consciously sought, 49. Gold, or wisdom, 97 ; where alone the true, is to be found, 67. Good will is necessary, not con scious, between friends, 34. Goodness, unconscious, 87. Gossip and affairs, the mind not to be desecrated by, 101. Grade the ground before you build, 84. Gratitude for the sense of exis tence, 78. Hearing, there must be good, to make a good reader, 112. Heart, the, forever inexperienced, 29. Heaven, the purest love a glimpse of, 32 ; the laws of earth and, harmonize, 48. Hebe preferred to Hygeia, 6. Hibernation of the poet, the, 105. Highest, aim ever at the, 25 ; wealth does not help us in the pursuit of the, 27 ; within you, appeal to the, 68. History not to be read critically, 108. Hope, for ourselves, 54; the great, that gives value to life, 93. Hospitality, in manners, not in "entertainment," 28; the cost of, to our best thoughts, 82. Hours, above time, 104; of reso lution, 106. Human race, sympathy of nature with the, 5. Humanity before Nature, 74; no wisdom can take the place of, no. Humility enriches the soul more than culture, 27. Hunger, and thirst of body and soul, 64; and cold, 97. Hyena, a, more easily tamed than a friend, 40. Ideal, our, shames our best ef forts, 52 ; the, needs but slight support in the actual, 65 ; how the ideal transfigures a person, 66. Ideas, success comes from devo tion to, 85. Ignorance, knowledge sometimes worse than, 91 ; an advantage of, 1 12. Imagination, animal food offends the, 6 ; must not be offended in love, 58. Immortality, mortality and, 20. Impulses, respect vour, 114. Industry, the comfort of, 69. Influence, unconscious, 53. Innocence, a spontaneous, above virtue, no. Inspiration, through the palate, 8 ; science should be allied to, 102. Institutions, truth and, 104. Intellect, use of the, 19. Intercourse, too much shallow, 4 ; shallow, 100. INDEX. Invitation, the, of morning, 14; genuine, 35. Inward life, we should be awak ened each morning by new, 15. Justice, society content with a too narrow, 32. Kingdom of God, the, cometh not with observation, 118. Know thyself, 23. Knowledge, faithfulness saves the soul rather than, 63 ; some times worse than ignorance, 91 ; aim above, 92 ; activity, free and loving, the highest, 92. Labor, how physical, may help the writer, 106. Landscape, nature prevails over man in a large, $9. Language of religion, religion without the, 99. Law, if ye be led by the spirit, ye are not under the, 45 ; human and divine, 122. Laws, the, of earth and heaven harmonize, 48. Leisure, the glory of, 94; divine, 109. Life, the moral quality of nature and, 8 ; strike at the root of so cial ills by purifying your own, ii ; make the most of what is good in, 14 ; a new, each day, 14; we should be awakened each morning by new inward, 15; real, 16; not to be lost in the complexity of affair:;, 16 ; wasted in affairs, 17 ; make the best of your own, 26; no real, without love, 40 ; simplify the problem of, 42 ; can express whatever words can, 44 ; cling to the thread of, 47 ; a balanced, 48 ; too high a demand cannot be made upon, 50 ; danger of undervaluing, 50 ; wealth com plicates the problem of, 63 ; simplicity of, not an end, but a means, 76 ; the beauty or mi sery of, in our thoughts, 83 ; consists with wildness, 90; the great hope that gives value to, 93 ; out-door, 94 ; sacrificed to the newspaper, 100 ; each deed determined by the whole, no; essential, not to be probed, 114; contentment with that assigned us, 116. Light, turn towards the, 117. Live deliberately, 19. Lives, we must account for our, 76 ; the doubleness of our, 78. Living, plain, 17; the delight of really earning a, 46 ; and get ting a living should be alike beautiful, 97. Loneliness, the, of false society, 7 2 - Love, overflowing, the charity which hides a multitude of sins, 12; hearty truth is one with, 32 ; the purest, a glimpse of heaven, 32 ; a hero s, delicate as a maiden s, 34; no real life without, 40 ; is implacable, 42 ; wisdom and, essential to each other, 55 ; should be ascend ing, 57 ; shun a descending, 57 ; true, most clear-sighted, 57; the imagination must not be of fended in, 58 ; demands the ut most directness, 59 ; no lower engagement can stand in the way of, 59 ; no treasure to be compared with, 60 ; its object expands, 60 ; genuine, elevates and strengthens, 61 ; must be vigilant to retain its purity, 62 ; a flower the symbol of pure, 62 ; the joy of, and of intel lectual perception, 62; pure, the radical reformer, 63 ; not to be doubted, 87 ; let it rest on common aspiration, 118; no truth without, 121 ; disinter ested, 121. Lover, the most ardent, a little reserved, 56 ; the, hears things, not words, 58; the true, would not hide his faults, 59. Lovers must understand each other without words, 58. Man, the earnest, irresistible, 47 , as a, thinketh, so is he, 52; never discovers anything but himself, 85 ; the truly efficient, 95- Mankind, the art of, is to polish the world, 71. Manners, hospitality in, not in " entertainment," 28 ; apart from character, 103. INDEX. Marriage, both common and di vine sense should be consulted in, 57. Marriages, the rarity of real, 56. Melancholy, yield not to, in the upward path, 51. Men, and beasts, delicacy of the distinction between, 9 ; ask too seldom to be nobly dealt with, 31 ; may punish us for satisfy ing God, 64 ; the limited views of, 98. Mind, an adventure in the, rather than in the thing done, 80 ; not to be desecrated by gossip and affairs, 101 ; let your, be open to the best, 102. Money, not necessary for the soul, 27 ; the evil of earning, merely, 95- Moods, work in spite of, 72. Moral quality of nature and life, the, 8. Morning, the invitation of, 14 ; is whenever we are truly awake, 5- Mortality and immortality, 20. Mountains, the, within us, 77. Muse, the, should lead, the un derstanding follow, 49 ; too plaintive, no. Music, you hear, step to the, 24 ; exalting effect of, 41 ; the sig nificance of, 108 ; the sound of the universal laws promulgated, 1 08; has no history, 115. Nature, our double, 3 ; sympathy of, with the human race, 5 ; the moral quality of, and life, 8; friendship and the love of, har monize, 40; friendship in, 53; humanity before, 74 ; poverty of outward, 77 ; prevails over man in a large landscape, 89; no poetry so wild as, 91 ; a border life between society and, 92 ; vision through the works of man to the wildness of, 93 ; few speak simply enough of, 106 ; the promise in the face of, 119; no book can match, 120; on the side of what is best in us, 123. Necessaries, providing, a -plea sure, 69. Neighbor, our nearest, 3. Neighborhood, the best, 2. News, as compared with eternal truth, the, 17; the kind of, we really want, 50. Newspaper, life sacrificed to the, joo ; a world outside of the, 100. Newspapers, 48. Noble, the offspring of the, tend to a higher nobility, 63. Obscurity above better than false clearness below, 68. Offspring of the noble tend to a higher nobility, 63. Out-door life, 94. Palate, inspiration through the, 8. Path, a person irresistible on his own, 28. Perception, the joy of love and of intellectual, 62. " Plain living and high think ing, 1 17. Poet, the hibernation of the, 105. Poetry, no, so wild as nature, 91 ; the authorship of, 104. Polishing the world, 71. Postponement, fatal, 75. Poverty, need not take from us the purest enjoyments, 26 ; ad vantage of, 27 ; inward, 52 ; of nature and internal wealth, 77- Present, living in the, 22. Problem of life, simplify the, 42 ; wealth complicates the, 63. Prospect, the interest of a new, 89. Purification of a soul gives it a new life, the, u. Purity, inspires the soul, 9: and sensuality each a single thing, 10. Purpose, singleness of, 1 19. Reader, there must be good hear ing to make a good, 112. Reading, the best kind of, i. Reality, what alone has, 18 ; the great, is ever here and now, 18; seek to penetrate through surfaces to, 19; our faintest dream points to the solidest, 43- Realm within, the glory of the, 23. Reform, individual life the true source of, 44; is better than its modes, 44. 152 INDEX, Reformer, what saddens the, 12 ; the friend the only radical, 31 ; pure love the radical, 63. Religion, without the language of religion, 99; the privacy of, 120. Reproof, unconscious, 113. Reserve, the lover s, 56. Resolution, hours of, 106. Rest for the soul, 49. Ripeness, not merely the means, 114. Sanity, our own cheerful, most helpful to others, 12. Science, the soul above, 91 ; should be allied to inspiration, 102. Sculptor, every one a, 10. Self-renunciation, 49. Self-respect, 67. Sense, both common and divine, should be consulted in mar riage, 57. Sensualist, the quality of the ap petite makes the, 8. Sensuality, purity and, each a single thing, 10. Simplicity of life not an end, but a means, 76. Sin, work a help against, 10. Sincerity, a rare virtue, 76. Singleness of purpose, 119. Sky-lights, 55. Slavery to affairs, 14. Sleep, the organs of one s genius reinvigorated by healthful, 15; good and bad, 107. Sloth and affection, 60. Social ills, strike at the root of, by purifying your own life, n. Society, in solitude, i ; content with a too narrow justice, 32 ; the loneliness of false, 72 ; help ful, 77; use all the, that will abet you, 78; a border life be tween nature and, 92 ; solitude and, 117. Solitude, society in, i ; the value of, 5 ; appetite for, 80 ; friends found in, 81 ; and society, 117 ; of a human soul, the, 118. Solvent for the world, thought a, S3- Soul, purity inspires the, 9; the purification of a, gives it a new life, ii ; humility enriches the, more than culture, 27; money not necessary for the, 27 ; a friend nourishes the, 30 ; rest for the, 49 ; faithfulness rather than knowledge saves the, 63 ; care for the body compared with care for the, 64 ; value of a clear, compared with material gains, 67 ; above science, 91 ; the body eats up the substance of the, 103 ; the solitude of a human, 118. Souls, how finite unlikeness iso lates, 73. Spirit, a warm body and a cold, 69. Spring, the influence of, 22 ; water in early, 119 ; aspirations in the, 121. Standard, the, within us, 112. Stars, two solitary, determined to one pole, 41. State, the most precious produc tions of a, 103. Stress, lay the most, on that which is most important, 76. Style in writing, 79. Success, real, 65 ; real, or failure is in our thoughts, 82 ; comes from devotion to ideas, 85. Suicide, intellectual and moral, 101. Swamps, the attractiveness of, 90. Sympathy of nature with the hu man race, 5. Things correspond to our highest idea, 74. Thinking, sane, the battle in be half of, 81 ; right, irresistible, 83 ; wild, delights us, oo. Thought, the most indefinite, sig nificant, 67 ; a solvent for the world, 83 ; the realm of, laid waste by worldly living, 93 ; the compliment of valuing one s, 94 ; the source of, above ourselves, in. Thread of life, cling to the, 47. Time, the shallow stream of, 20 ; not an ingredient of a perfect work, 25 ; hours above, 104. Tophet, a man s Elysium or, in himself, 84. Trifles, the earnest not hindered by, 54- Truth, the news as compared with eternal, 17; the simplicity of, INDEX. 153 25; hearty, is one with love, 32; friends deal in pure, with each other, 61 ; and institutions, 104; no, without love, 121. Truthfulness, 59. Ugly facts may be eradicated from the life of man, 46. Union, the highest, 66 ; yourself and myself lost in, 66; ideal, 66. Universe, the, conforms to our highest ideas, 23. Unknown, explore the, by mend ing your ways, 86. Unlikeness, how finite, isolates souls, 73. Value of a clear soul compared with material gains, 67. Views of men, the limited, 98. Virtue, a spontaneous innocence above, no. Walk, the ideal of a, 87 ; worldly cares forgotten in a true, 88. Walker, a true, made so by the grace of God, 88. Walking, true, is not for exercise, Wants, artificial, enslave us, 96. Water in the early spring, 119. Wealth, the true, 13; does not help in our pursuit of the high est, 27 ; complicates the prob lem of life, 63 ; poverty of na ture and internal, 77 ; real, n6. Wildness, 22 ; the charm of, 89 ; life consists with, 90. Wisdom, and love, essential to each other, 55 ; cannot take the place of humanity, no. Words, indefinite, may be most significant, 24. Work, a help against sin, 10 ; fidel ity in, 28 ; essential to character, 29 ; necessity of, 70 ; high re sults of, 71 ; the higher the aim, the more earnest must be the, 71 ; in spite of moods, 72 ; one s proper, and dissipation, 86 ; for work s sake, 95. World, the art of mankind is to polish the, 71. Writer, how physical labor may help the, 106. Writing, style in, 79. Yourself and myself lost in the highest union, 66. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000685015 o University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. L 2