Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/107

 ;ET.25.] TO HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. 83

But it is rather derogatory that your dwelling- place should be only a neighborhood to a great city, to live on an inclined plane. I do not like their cities and forts, with their morning and evening guns, and sails flapping in one s eye. I want a whole continent to breathe in, and a good deal of solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street cannot buy, nor Broadway with its wooden pavement. I must live along the beach, on the southern shore, which looks directly out to sea, and see what that great parade of water means, that dashes and roars, and has not yet wet me, as long as I have lived.

I must not know anything about my condition and relations here till what is not permanent is worn off. I have not yet subsided. Give me time enough, and I may like it. All my inner man heretofore has been a Concord impression ; and here come these Sandy Hook and Coney Island breakers to meet and modify the former ; but it will be long before I can make nature look as innocently grand and inspiring as in Concord. Your affectionate son,

HENKY D. THOKEAU.