Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/127

 ice or air, vegetable or coral, she works the same figure. Set away a jar in the dark, and mould-leaves make haste to grow over it; and "clothe the naked" is the omnipresent and everlasting law. Nature has only to breathe on the glass and the form of leaves appears. Nature loves these forms and has not tired of repeating them for how many centuries.

Monday, October 16.

We often hear the expression "the natural life of man." We should rather say "the unnatural life of man." It is rare indeed to find a man who has not long ago departed out of Nature. We only have a transient glimpse of some solitary feature in a serener moment. If anything ails a man so that he does not perform his functions,—especially if his digestion be poor,—though he has considerable nervous strength still, what does he do? why he sets about reforming the world. If he has failed in all undertakings hitherto, learned that life is short and errare est humanum, what does he do? Why, he reforms the world. If he has committed [79]