Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/218

 194 GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT. [1848,

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest man thinks he must attend to in a day ; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incum- brances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the ne cessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. I would stand upon facts. Why not see, use our eyes ? Do men know nothing ? I know many men who, in com mon things, are not to be deceived ; who trust no moonshine ; who count their money correctly, and know how to invest it ; who are said to be prudent and knowing, who yet will stand at a desk the greater part of their lives, as cashiers in banks, and glimmer and rust and finally go out there. If they know anything, what under the sun do they do that for ? Do they know what bread is ? or what it is for ? Do they know what life is ? If they knew something, the places which know them now would know them no more forever.

This, our respectable daily life, in which the man of common sense, the Englishman of the world, stands so squarely, and on which our in stitutions are founded, is in fact the veriest illu sion, and will vanish like the baseless fabric of