Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/215

 JET. 30.] BLAKE TO THOREAU. 191

which I look up with veneration. I would know of that soul which can say I am nothing. I would be roused by its words to a truer and purer life. Upon me seems to be dawning with new significance the idea that God is here ; that we have but to bow before Him in profound sub mission at every moment, and He will fill our souls with his presence. In this opening of the soul to God, all duties seem to centre ; what else have we to do ? . . . If I understand rightly the significance of your life, this is it : You would sunder yourself from society, from the spell of institutions, customs, conventionalities, that you may lead a fresh, simple life with God. Instead of breathing a new life into the old forms, you would have a new life without and within. There is something sublime to me in this atti tude, far as I may be from it myself. . . . Speak to me in this hour as you are prompted. ... I honor you because you abstain from ac tion, and open your soul that you may be some what. Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, I will simply ~beJ Could I plant myself at once upon the truth, reducing my wants to their minimum, ... I should at once be brought nearer to na ture, nearer to my fellow-men, and life would be infinitely richer. But, alas ! I shiver on the brink.&quot;