Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/337

Rh You cannot rob a man of anything which he will miss.

July 5, 1852. I know a man who never speaks of the sexual relation but jestingly, though it is a subject to be approached only with reverence and affection. What can be the character of that man's love? It is ever the subject of a stale jest, though his health or his dinner can be seriously considered. The glory of the world is seen only by a chaste mind. To whomsoever this fact is not an awful, but beautiful mystery, there are no flowers in Nature.

White lilies continue to open in the house in the morning and shut in the night, for five or six days, until their stamens have shed their pollen, and they turn rusty, and begin to decay. Then the beauty of the flower is gone, and its vitality, so that it no longer expands with the light.

How perfect an invention is glass! There is a fitness in glass windows which reflect the sun morning and evening; windows the doorways of light thus reflecting its rays with a splendor only second to itself. The sun rises with a salute, and leaves the world with a farewell to our windows. To have, instead of opaque shutters, or dull horn or paper, a material like solidified air, which reflects the sun thus brightly. It is inseparable from our civilization and