Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/272

 248 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1852,

better than yourself. A man s social and spirit ual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympa thy of friends. ^

Can love be in aught allied to dissipation? Let us love by refusing, not accepting one an other. Love and lust are far asunder. The one is good, the other bad. When the affectionate sympathize by their higher natures, there is love ; but there is danger that they will sympa thize by their lower natures, and then there is lust. It is not necessary that this be deliberate, hardly even conscious ; but, in the close contact of affection, there is danger that we may stain and pollute one another ; for we cannot embrace but with an entire embrace.

We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone. When there is impurity, we have &quot;descended to meet,&quot; though we knew it not.

The luxury of affection, there s the danger. There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning. In the religion of