Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/102

 78 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,

and fitting a straight and tough shaft thereto, will not that suffice? We are more pleased to consider the hero in the forest cutting cornel or ash for his spear, than marching in triumph with his trophies. The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospects.

What you say about your studies furnishing you with a &quot;mimic idiom&quot; only, reminds me that we shall all do well if we learn so much as to talk, to speak truth. The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success, the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part, at least apparently, but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know. Even the grown hunter you speak of slays a thousand buffaloes, and brings off only their hides and tongues. What immense sacrifices, what hecatombs and holo causts, the gods exact for very slight favors! How much sincere life before we can even utter one sincere word.

What I was learning in college was chiefly, I think, to express myself, and I see now, that as the old orator prescribed, 1st, action ; 2d, ac tion ; 3d, action ; my teachers should have pre scribed to me, 1st, sincerity ; 2d, sincerity ; 3d,