Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/159

 is so transfigured to me that I dare not identify my ideal with the actual. The fit time has never come for that. If I could believe that my friend would tenderly and wisely enough sustain the declaration of my love, I should make him privy to my dreams. But I fear that some more terrestrial cousin may be introduced; that if ideals can thus commingle, actuals will begin to obtrude themselves. I am afraid to contrast my dreams so rudely with the actual day,—to tell them by daylight. I was never so near my friend when he was bodily present as when he was absent. And yet I am indirectly accused by this friend of coldness and disingenuousness, when I cannot speak for warmth and sincerity.

"Ask and ye shall receive;" but asking is not merely the form of asking: we must ask as purely and undesignedly as we would that another should give.

My so-called friend comes near being my greatest enemy; for, when he deceives me more than any, he betrays as an enemy has no opportunity of doing.

There is no kind of cheating, no [111]