Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/317

 *ST. 37.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 293

work, every creature that has weight will be treading on his toes, and crushing him ; he will himself tread with one foot on the other foot.

The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.

Have no idle disciplines like the Catholic Church and others ; have only positive and fruit ful ones. Do what you know you ought to do. Why should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a neighbor s advice ? There is a nearer neighbor within us incessantly telling us how we should behave. But we wait for the neighbor without to tell us of some false, easier way.

They have a census-table in which they put down the number of the insane. Do you believe that they put them all down there ? Why, in every one of these houses there is at least one man fighting or squabbling a good part of his time with a dozen pet demons of his own breed ing and cherishing, which are relentlessly gnaw ing at his vitals ; and if perchance he resolve at length that he will courageously combat them, he says, &quot;Ay! ay! I will attend to you after dinner ! &quot; And, when that time comes, he con cludes that he is good for another stage, and reads a column or two about the Eastern War ! Pray, to be in earnest, where is Sevastopol?