Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/295

 XT. 36.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 271

Whether a man spends his day in an ecstasy or despondency, he must do some work to show for it, even as there are flesh and bones to show for him. We are superior to the joy we ex perience.

Your last two letters, methinks, have more nerve and will in them than usual, as if you had erected yourself more. Why are not they good work, if you only had a hundred correspondents to tax you ?

Make your failure tragical by the earnestness and steadfastness of your endeavor, and then it will not differ from success. Prove it to be the inevitable fate of mortals, of one mortal, if you can.

You said that you were writing on Immor tality. I wish you would communicate to me what you know about that. You are sure to live while that is your theme.

Thus I write on some text which a sentence of your letters may have furnished.

I think of coming to see you as soon as I get a new coat, if I have money enough left. I will write to you again about it.

TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

CONCORD, January 21, 1854.

MR. BLAKE, My coat is at last done, and my mother and sister allow that I am so far in