Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/271

 mi. 35.] THE DEEDS OF LOVE. 247

ures must give place to loftier delights. They who meet as superior beings cannot perform the deeds of inferior ones. The deeds of love are less questionable than any action of an individ ual can be, for, it being founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which they are associated must be pure and noble indeed, for innocence and purity can have no equal. In this relation we deal with one whom we respect more religiously even than we respect our better selves, and we shall neces sarily conduct as in the presence of God. What presence can be more awful to the lover than the presence of his beloved ?

If you seek the warmth even of affection from a similar motive to that from which cats and dogs and slothful persons hug the fire, be cause your temperature is low through sloth, you are on the downward road, and it is but to plunge yet deeper into sloth. Better the cold affection of the sun, reflected from fields of ice and snow, or his warmth in some still, wintry dell. The warmth of celestial love does not relax, but nerves and braces its enjoyer. Warm your body by healthful exercise, not by cowering over a stove. Warm your spirit by performing independently noble deeds, not by ignobly seek ing the sympathy of your fellows who are no