Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/398

 372 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1857,

at transcendentalism, higher laws, etc., crying, &quot; None of your moonshine,&quot; as if they were an chored to something not only definite, but sure and permanent. If there was any institution which was presumed to rest on a solid and secure basis, and more than any other represented this boasted common sense, prudence, and practical talent, it was the bank ; and now those very banks are found to be mere reeds shaken by the wind. Scarcely one in the land has kept its promise. It would seem as if you only need live forty years in any age of this world, to see its most promis ing government become the government of Kan sas, and banks nowhere. Not merely the Brook Farm and Fourierite communities, but now the community generally has failed. But there is the moonshine still, serene, beneficent, and un changed. Hard times, I say, have this value, among others, that they show us what such prom ises are worth, where the sure banks are. I heard some merchant praised the other day be cause he had paid some of his debts, though it took nearly all he had (why, I ve done as much as that myself many times, and a little more), and then gone to board. What if he has ? I hope he s got a good boarding-place, and can pay for it. It s not everybody that can. How ever, in my opinion, it is cheaper to keep house, i. e., if you don t keep too big a one.