Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/259

 2ET. 35.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 235

well, a fit place to go to on a Sunday ; one of the true temples of the earth. A temple, you know, was anciently &quot; an open place without a roof,&quot; whose walls served merely to shut out the world and direct the mind toward heaven ; but a modern meeting-house shuts out the heavens, while it crowds the world into still closer quar ters. Best of all is it when, as on a mountain- top, you have for all walls your own elevation and deeps of surrounding ether. The partridge- berries, watered with mountain dews which are gathered there, are more memorable to me than the words which I last heard from the pulpit at least ; and for my part, I would rather look toward Rutland than Jerusalem. Rutland, modern town, land of ruts, trivial and worn, not too sacred, with no holy sepul chre, but profane green fields and dusty roads, and opportunity to live as holy a life as you can, where the sacredness, if there is any, is all in yourself and not in the place.

I fear that your Worcester people do not often enough go to the hilltops, though, as I am told, the springs lie nearer to the surface on your hills than in your valleys. They have the repu tation of being Free-Soilers. 1 Do they insist on a free atmosphere, too, that is, on freedom for

1 The name of a political party, afterwards called &quot; Repub licans.&quot;