Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/224

214 The song sparrow is said to be imitated in New Bedford thus: &quot;Maids, maids, maids–hang on your tea kettle–ettle, ettle, ettle, ettle.&quot;

June 22, 1860. R tells me that he saw, in a mud-hole near the river in Sudbury, about a fortnight ago, a pout protecting her ova. They were in a ball about as big as an apple, under which she swam, all exposed, not at all hatched, I think he said on a stick.

Hear the peculiar peep of young golden robins on the elms this morning.

June 23, 1840. We Yankees are not so far from right, who answer one question by asking another. Yes and No are lies. A true answer will not aim to establish anything, but rather to set all well afloat. All answers are in the future, and day answereth to day. Do we think we can anticipate them? In Latin, to respond is to pledge one's self before the gods to do faithfully and honorably, as a man should, in any case. This is good.

How can the language of the poet be more expressive than Nature? He is content that what he has already read in simple characters or in differently in all be translated into the same again.

He is the true artist whose life is his material. Every stroke of the chisel must enter his own flesh and bones, and not grate dully on marble.