Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/266

 242 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1852,

me to jump off the precipice that debars me from it, for it is wounded, its wings are clipt, and it cannot fly, even descendingly. Our &quot; blundering hearts ! &quot; some poet says. The im agination never forgets ; it is a re-membering. It is not foundationless, but most reasonable, and it alone uses all the knowledge of the intellect.

Love is the profoundest of secrets. Divulged, even to the beloved, it is no longer Love. As if it were merely I that loved you. When love ceases, then it is divulged.

In our intercourse with one we love, we wish to have answered those questions at the end of which we do not raise our voice ; against which we put no interrogation-mark, answered with the same unfailing, universal aim toward every point of the compass.

I require that thou knowest everything with out being told anything. I parted from my be loved because there was one thing which I had to tell her. She questioned me. She should have known all by sympathy. That I had to tell it her was the difference between us, the misunderstanding.

A lover never hears anything that is told, for that is commonly either false or stale ; but he hears things taking place, as the sentinels heard Trenck 1 mining in the ground, and thought it was moles.

1 Baron Trenck, the famous prisoner.