Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/216

 192 GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT. [1848,

Thus appealed to by one who had so well at tained the true Transcendental shibboleth, &quot; God working in us, both to will and to do,&quot; - Thoreau could not fail to make answer, as he did at once, and thus :

TO HARBISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER). [The first of many letters.]

CONCORD, March 27, 1848.

I am glad to hear that any words of mine, though spoken so long ago that I can hardly claim identity with their author, have reached you. It gives me pleasure, because I have there fore reason to suppose that I have uttered what concerns men, and that it is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of litera ture. Yet those days are so distant, in every sense, that I have had to look at that page again, to learn what was the tenor of my thoughts then. I should value that article, however, if only be cause it was the occasion of your letter.

I do believe that the outward and the inward life correspond ; that if any should succeed to live a higher life, others would not know of it ; that difference and distance are one. To set about living a true life is to go a journey to a distant country, gradually to find ourselves sur rounded by new scenes and men ; and as long as the old are around me, I know that I am not