Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/239

 ^T.32.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 215

foolishly, falling into sloughs and over preci pices, for it is not foolishness, but understand ing, which is to follow, which the Muse is ap pointed to lead, as a fit guide of a fit follower.

Will you live ? or will you be embalmed ? Will you live, though it be astride of a sun beam ; or will you repose safely in the cata combs for a thousand years ? In the former case, the worst accident that can happen is that you may break your neck. Will you break your heart, your soul, to save your neck ? Necks and pipe-stems are fated to be broken. Men make a great ado about the folly of demand ing too much of life (or of eternity ?), and of endeavoring to live according to that demand. It is much ado about nothing. No harm ever came from that quarter. I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is. I shall be sorry to remember that I was there, but noticed nothing remarkable, not so much as a prince in disguise; lived in the golden age a hired man ; visited Olym pus even, but fell asleep after dinner, and did not hear the conversation of the gods. I lived in Judaea eighteen hundred years ago, but I never knew that there was such a one as Christ among my contemporaries ! If there is any thing more glorious than a congress of men