Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/233

 asT.32.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 209

The nucleus of a comet is almost a star. Was there ever a genuine dilemma? The laws of earth are for the feet, or inferior man ; the laws of heaven are for the head, or superior man ; the latter are the former sublimed and ex panded, even as radii from the earth s centre go on diverging into space. Happy the man who observes the heavenly and the terrestrial law in just proportion ; whose every faculty, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, obeys the law of its level ; who neither stoops nor goes on tiptoe, but lives a balanced life, acceptable to nature and to God.

These things I say ; other things I do.

I am sorry to hear that you did not receive my book earlier. I addressed it and left it in Mimroe s shop to be sent to you immediately, on the twenty-sixth of May, before a copy had been sold.

Will you remember me to Mr. Brown, when you see him next : he is well remembered by

HENRY THOEEAU.

I still owe you a worthy answer.

TO HARRISON BLAKE.

CONCORD, November 20, 1849.

MR. BLAKE, I have not forgotten that I am your debtor. When I read over your let-