Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/377

 JST. 39.] TO B. B. WILEY. 351

means is for me as the floating cloud which passes.&quot;

&quot; As soon as a child is born he must respect its faculties : the knowledge which will come to it by and by does not resemble at all its present state. If it arrive at the age of forty or fifty years without having learned anything, it is no more worthy of any respect.&quot; This last, I think, will speak to your condition.

But at this rate I might fill many letters.

Our acquaintance with the ancient Hindoos is not at all personal. The full names that can be relied upon are very shadowy. It is, however, tangible works that we know. The best I think of are the Bhagvat Geeta (an episode in an ancient heroic poem called the Mahabarat), the Vedas, the Vishnu Purana, the Institutes of Menu, etc.

I cannot say that Swedenborg has been di rectly and practically valuable to me, for I have not been a reader of him, except to a slight ex tent ; but I have the highest regard for him, and trust that I shall read his works in some world or other. He had a wonderful knowledge of our interior and spiritual life, though his illumina tions are occasionally blurred by trivialities. He comes nearer to answering, or attempting to an swer, literally, your questions concerning man s origin, purpose, and destiny, than any of the