Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/132

 Wednesday, November 1.

Though music agitates only a few waves of air, yet it affords an ample field for the imagination. It is a solid ground and palpitating heaven. Science distinguishes its base and its air. There are few things so evanescent and intangible as music; it is like light and heat, in physics,—still mooted themes. In æsthetics music occupies the same mysterious place as light and electricity in physics. It seems vain to ask ourselves what music is. If we ponder the question, it is soon changed to, What are we? It is everything but itself. It adorns all things and remains hidden itself. It is unsuspectedly the light which colors all the landscape. It is, as it were, the most subtle ether, the most volatile gas. It is a sovereign electuary which enables us to see all things.

You must store up none of the life in your gift; it is as fatal as to husband your breath. We must live all our life.

What shall we make of the wonderful beauty of Nature, which enchants us all our youth, and is remembered till our death?—the love we bear to the least woody fibre, or [84]