Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/437

 JET. 42.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 411

try ! How many enemies there are to sane thinking ! Every soldier has succumbed to them before he enlists for those other battles. Men may sit in chambers, seemingly safe and sound, and yet despair, and turn out at last only hol- lowness and dust within, like a Dead Sea apple. A standing army of numerous, brave, and well- disciplined thoughts, and you at the head of them, marching straight to your goal, how to bring this about is the problem, and Scott s Tac tics will not help you to it. Think of a poor fellow begirt only with a sword-belt, and no such staff of athletic thoughts ! his brains rattling as he walks and talks ! These are your praetorian guard. It is easy enough to maintain a family, or a state, but it is hard to maintain these chil dren of your brain (or say, rather, these guests that trust to enjoy your hospitality), they make such great demands ; and yet, he who does only the former, and loses the power to tldiik origi nally, or as only he ever can, fails miserably. Keep up the fires of thought, and all will go well.

Zouaves ? pish ! How you can overrun a country, climb any rampart, and carry any for tress, with an army of alert thoughts ! thoughts that send their bullets home to heaven s door, with which you can take the whole world, with out paying for it, or robbing anybody. See, the