Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/143

 132 A nil- Slavery and Reform Papers.

and now you find it was because the morning and the evening were full of news to you. Your walks were full of incidents. You attended, not to the affairs oi Europe, but to your own affairs in Massachusetts fields.

If you chance to live and move and have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that 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 can- not remember nor be reminded of them. Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a universal fact, would preserve us sane forever.

IS^ations ! AYhat are nations ? Tartars, and Huns, and Chinamen ! Like insects, they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world. Any man thinking may say with the Spirit of Lodin, — '•' I look down from my heis^ht on nations, And they become ashes before me ; — Calm is my dwelling in the clouds ; Pleasant are the great fields of my rest." Pray, let us live without being drawn by dogs, Esqui- maux-fashion, tearing over hill and dale, and biting each other's ears.

Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I have come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair, — the news of the street ; and I am astonished to observe how willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, — to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to