Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/140

 Life tvithojit Principle. 129 I hardly know an intellectual man^ even^ avIio 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 institution in which they appear to hold stocky — that is^ some particular, not uni- versal way of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight, be- tween YOU and the skv, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with your cobwebs, wash your windows, I say ! In some lyceums they tell me that they have voted to exclude the subject of relisfion. But how do I know what their reliction is, and when I am near to or far from it ? I have walked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast of what religion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected what I was about. The lecture was as harmless as moonshine to them. AVhereas, if I had read to them the biography of the greatest scamps in history, they might have thought that I had written the lives of the deacons of their church. Ordinarily, the inquiry is. Where did you come from ? or. Where are you going ? That was a more pertinent question which I overheard one of my auditors put to another once, — " What does he lecture for ? ^^ It made me quake in my shoes.

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part they dwell in forms, and flatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an under- pinning of granitic truth^ the lowest primitive rock. Our K