Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/280

 256 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1853,

view, to turn it into an upland farm. You have so many more talents to account for. If I accom plish as much more in spiritual work as I am richer in worldly goods, then I am just as worthy, or worth just as much, as I was before, and no more. I see that, in my own case, money might be of great service to me, but probably it would not be ; for the difficulty now is, that I do not improve my opportunities, and therefore I am not prepared to have my opportunities increased. Now, I warn you, if it be as you say, you have got to put on the pack of an upland farmer in good earnest the coming spring, the lowland farm being cared for ; ay, you must be selecting your seeds forthwith, and doing what winter work you can ; and, while others are raising potatoes and Baldwin apples for you, you must be raising apples of the Hesperides for them. (Only hear how he preaches !) No man can suspect that he is the proprietor of an upland farm, upland in the sense that it will produce nobler crops, and better repay cultivation in the long run, but he will be perfectly sure that he ought to cultivate it.

Though we are desirous to earn our bread, we need not be anxious to satisfy men for it, though we shall take care to pay them, but God, who alone gave it to us. Men may in effect put us in the debtors jail for that mat-