Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/104



So we sailed this afternoon. "It is beautiful, therefore," said Pythagoras, "when prosperity is present with intellect, and when sailing, as it were, with a prosperous wind, actions are performed looking to virtue, just as a pilot looks to the motions of the stars." Without any design or effort of ours, the ripples curled away in the wake of our boat, like ringlets from the head of a child, while we went serenely on our way. So always, in the performing of our proper work, the forms of beauty fall naturally around our path, like the curled shavings which drop from the plane, or the borings from the auger; and [56]