Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/331

 arc. 38.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 307

formula ? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more wor thily and profitably ? I would fain lay the most stress forever on that which is the most impor tant, imports the most to me, though it were only (what it is likely to be) a vibration in the air. As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat- bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once. He 11 not waste much time in earning those. Don t spend your time in drilling sol diers, who may turn out hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a country to fight for. The schools begin with what they call the elements, and where do they end ?

I was glad to hear the other day that Higgin-

son. and were gone to Ktaadn ; it must be

so much better to go to than a Woman s Rights or Abolition Convention ; better still, to the de lectable primitive mounts within you, which you have dreamed of from your youth up, and seen, perhaps, in the horizon, but never climbed.

But how do you do ? Is the air sweet to you ? Do you find anything at which you can work, accomplishing something solid from day to day ? Have you put sloth and doubt behind, consider ably? had one redeeming dream this summer?