Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/355

Rh The senses of children are unprofaned. Their whole body is one sense, they take a physical pleasure in riding on a rail. So does the unviolated, the unsophisticated mind derive an inexpressible pleasure from the simplest exercise of thought.

I can express adequately only the thought which I love to express.

All the faculties in repose but the one you are using, the whole energy concentrated in that. Be so little distracted, your thoughts so little confused, your engagements so few, your attention so free, your existence so mundane, that in all places and in all hours you can hear the sound of crickets in those seasons when they are to be heard. It is a mark of serenity and health of mind when a person hears this sound much in streets of cities as well as in fields. Some ears can never hear this sound; are called deaf. Is it not because they have so long attended to other sounds?

July 7, 1852. 4 The first (?) really foggy morning. Yet before I rise, I hear the song of birds from out it like the bursting of its bubbles with music. Their song gilds thus the frost work of the morning. I came near waking this morning. I am older than last year. The mornings are further between. The days are fewer. Any excess, to have drunk too much