Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/163

 I do not live near, but at the antipodes of. I may have a good deal still, without having anything to say. Indeed, I have not much, my friends,—at least not much to speak of. By a well-directed silence I have sometimes seen threatening and troublesome persons routed,—unconsciously and innocently, no doubt. You sit musing, as if you were in broad nature again; they cannot stand it; their position becomes more and more uncomfortable every moment. So much humanity over against one without any disguise,—not even the disguise of speech! With a little silence, things take shape as they should.

Sometimes I have listened so attentively to the whole expression and utterance of a man, with such absorbed interest, that I did not hear one word he was saying,—and saying, too, with the more vivacity, observing my attention. And after all he thought I did not hear him! The fact was I heard him from all his mouths, and half his purport was open to me; as if my ears were sieves and strained his words of all their meaning,—letting fall the husks. And I heard, through [115]