Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/156

 longer? Where are we whose friend is dead? are we in this world?

If you would know what it is to be separated from those we love, think not of death, but of estrangement. Whom we have once seen we shall never see again; whom we have never seen we shall see anon. Friends meet and part as when two pilgrims, who have walked together many days in sweet society, sharing the adventures of the road, with mutual aid and entertainment, reach a point where their courses diverge, and linger there awhile. And then, bidding each other farewell, one takes this road and the other that; and as they withdraw, they mutually turn to wave a last adieu, and watch each other's retreating figures, until at last they are concealed from one another by a bend in the road; and the sun goes down behind the mountains. And they are sorry to part, leaving each alone; but their duty calls them different ways. And one climbs upon a rock that he may see his late fellow-traveller a little longer, and yearns that they should once more communicate freely with each other their thoughts and feelings. [108]