Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/114

 It is one great and rare merit of the old tragedy that it says something. The words slide away very fast, but toward some conclusion. It has to do with things and not words; and the reader feels as if he were advancing. It does not seem to make much odds what the author has to say at this distance of time, if he only deliver himself of it in a downright and manly way. We like Marlowe because he is so plain-spoken and direct, and does not waste the time.

I think that the mythological system, interwoven as it is so mysteriously and perfectly with the astronomical, points to a time when a grander and mightier genius inhabited the earth than now. There is a grandeur and perfection about this scheme which match with the architecture of the heavens themselves.

Thursday, September 28.

We have never conceived how many natural phenomena would be revealed to a simpler and more natural life. Rain, wind, sunshine, day and night, would be very different to experience if we were always true. [66]