Page:A Bit of Unpublished Correspondence Between Henry D. Thoreau and Isaac T. Hecker.djvu/8

 to do so. I feel, and believe you feel so too, that to doubt the ability to realize such a thought is only worthy of a smile and pity. We feel ourself mean in conceiving such a feasible thing, and would keep it silent. This is not sufficient self-abandonment for our being, scarce enough to affect it. To die is easy, scarce worth a thought; but to be and live is an inconceivable greatness. It would be folly to sit still and starve from mere emptiness, but to leave behind the casement in battling for some hidden idea is an altitude beyond conception, a monument more durable than the chisel can sculpture.

I imagine us walking among the past and present greatness of our ancestors (for the present in fact, the present of the old world, to us is ancient) doing reverence to their remaining glory. If, though, I am inclined to bow more lowly to the spiritual hero than to the exhibition of great physical strength, still not all of that primitive heroic blood of our forefathers has been lost before it reached our veins. We feel it swell sometimes as though it were cased in steel, and the huge broad-axe of Cœur de Lion seems glittering before us, and we awake in another world as in a dream.

I know of no other person but you that would be inclined to go on such an excursion. The idea and yourself were almost instantaneous. If needs be, for a few dollars we can get across the ocean. The ocean! if but to cross this being like being, it were not unprofitable. The Bishop thought it might be done with a certain amount of funds to depend on. If this makes it practicable for others, to us it will be but sport. It is useless for me to speak thus to you, for if there are reasons for your not going they are others than these. You will inform me how you are inclined as soon as practicable. Half inclined I sometimes feel to go alone if I cannot get your company. I do not know now what could have directed my steps to Concord other than this. May it prove so.

It is only the fear of death makes us reason of impossibilities. We shall possess all if we but abandon ourselves.

Yours sincerely,

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N. Y., August 15, '44.

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