Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/32

 by the sweat of his brow, and the other six his Sabbath of the affections and the soul,—in which to range this widespread garden, and drink in the soft influences and sublime revelations of Nature.'

"With darkened eyes Milton dreamed of Paradise Lost; with an unfaltering trust in the beneficence of God Thoreau went forth in the broad daylight to find it. Who shall say of him that he failed of his quest; who shall declare to the struggling millions of Earth's toilers that Paradise is, indeed, irretrievably lost!

"Once before there came to the race a man wearing a garment of camel's hair, eating locusts and wild honey, and bearing a Message: perhaps this, too, is the veiled purpose of him who abode in that much-derided shanty at Walden Pond.