Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/114

 90 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,

if I had ? I like to deal with you, for I believe you do not lie or steal, and these are very rare virtues. I thank you for your influence for two years. I was fortunate to be subjected to it, and am now to remember it. It is the noblest gift we can make ; what signify all others that can be bestowed ? You have helped to keep my life &quot; on loft,&quot; as Chaucer says of Griselda, and in a better sense. You always seemed to look down at me as from some elevation some of your high humilities and I was the better for hav ing to look up. I felt taxed not to disappoint your expectation ; for could there be any acci dent so sad as to be respected for something bet ter than we are ? It was a pleasure even to go away from you, as it is not to meet some, as it apprised me of my high relations ; and such a departure is a sort of further introduction and meeting. Nothing makes the earth seem so spa cious as to have friends at a distance ; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

You must not think that fate is so dark there, for even here I can see a faint reflected light over Concord, and I think that at this distance I can better weigh the value of a doubt there. Your moonlight, as I have told you, though it is a reflection of the sun, allows of bats and owls and other twilight birds to flit therein. But I am very glad that you can elevate your life with