Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/115

 We cannot deceive the ground under our feet. We never try. But we do not treat each other with the same sincerity. How much more wretched would the life of man be if there was the same formality and reserve between him and his intercourse with Nature that there is in human society!

It is a strange world we live in, with this incessant dream of friendship and love; where is any? Genius cannot do without these; it pines and withers. I believe that the office of music is to remind us continually of the reality and necessity of the fine elements of love and friendship. One mood always forgets another, and till we have loved we have not imagined the heights of love. Love is an incessant inspiration. By the dews of love the arid desert of life is made as fragrant and blooming as a paradise.

The world waits yet to see man act greatly and divinely upon man. What are social influences as yet? The poor human flower would hold up its drooping head at once, if this sun should shine on it. That is the dyspepsia with which all men ail.

In purer, more intellectual moods we [67]