Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/279

 jsT.35.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 255

much of acting upon horses before they run, or of preventing fires which are not yet kindled. What a foul subject is this of doing good ! in stead of minding one s life, which should be his business ; doing good as a dead carcass, which is only fit for manure, instead of as a living man, instead of taking care to flourish, and smell and taste sweet, and refresh all mankind to the extent of our capacity and quality. People will some times try to persuade you that you have done something from that motive, as if you did not already know enough about it. If I ever did a man any good, in their sense, of course it was something exceptional and insignificant com pared with the good or evil which I am con stantly doing by being what I am. As if you were to preach to ice to shape itself into burn ing-glasses, which are sometimes useful, and so the peculiar properties of ice be lost. Ice that merely performs the office of a burning-glass does not do its duty.

The problem of life becomes, one cannot say by how many degrees, more complicated as our material wealth is increased, whether that needle they tell of was a gateway or not, since the problem is not merely nor mainly to get life for our bodies, but by this or a similar discipline to get life for our souls ; by cultivating the low land farm on right principles, that is, with this