Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/171

Rh Jan. 11, 1852. The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow patches of sky in the west just before sunset. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian; windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. The end of the day is truly Hesperian.

We sometimes find ourselves living fast, unprofitably, and coarsely even, as we catch our selves eating our meals in unaccountable haste. But in one sense we cannot live too leisurely. Let me not live as if time was short. Catch the pace of the seasons, have leisure to attend to every phenomenon of nature, and to entertain every thought that comes to you. Let your life be a leisurely progress through the realms of nature, even in guest-quarters.

The question is not where did the traveler go? What places did he see? It would be difficult to choose between places. But who was the traveler? How did he travel? How genuine an experience did he get? For traveling is, in the main, like as if you stayed at home, and then the question is, How do you live and conduct yourself at home? What I mean is that it might be hard to decide whether I would travel to Lake Superior or Labrador or Florida. Perhaps none would be worth the while if I went