Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/397

 JET. 40.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 371

TO HARRISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

CONCORD, November 16, 1857.

MR. BLAKE, You have got the start again. It was I that owed you a letter or two, if I mis take not.

They make a great ado nowadays about hard times ; 1 but I think that the community gener ally, ministers and all, take a wrong view of the matter, though some of the ministers preaching according to a formula may pretend to take a right one. This general failure, both private and public, is rather occasion for rejoicing, as reminding us whom we have at the helm, that justice is always done. If our merchants did not most of them fail, and the banks too, my faith in the old laws of the world would be staggered. The statement that ninety-six in a hundred doing such business surely break down is perhaps the sweetest fact that statistics have revealed, ex hilarating as the fragrance of sallows in spring. Does it not say somewhere, &quot; The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice &quot; ? If thousands are thrown out of employment, it suggests that they were not well employed. Why don t they take the hint ? It is not enough to be industrious ; so are the ants. What are you industrious about ?

The merchants and company have long laughed

1 The panic of 1857, the worst since 1837.