Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/123

 to God. There are very few fibres in the stone, very little organism. Sometimes we are conscious of the simple, but slow and insensate, life in which it lives. We are mere pudding-stone or scoriæ in the world. But suddenly we may be informed with new life, and pass through all the scales of being, up to the most complex and nearest to God,—furnished with countless nerves, and imbibing more and more of vital air or inspiration.

How suddenly and intently do all the eras which we call history awaken and glimmer in us,—all the dynasties that have passed away are still passing in our memory. There is room for Alexander to march, and for Hannibal to conquer. The grand three-act drama of past, present, and future, where does its scene lie but within the compass of this same private life which beats within its ribbed walls?

We may say that our knowledge is infinite, for we have never discovered its limits; and what we know of infinity is a part of our knowledge still.

History is the record of my experience. [75]