Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/206

192 into the house. I thought I had seen the nearest one. He called me by name faintly and with hesitation, and held out his hand half unconsciously, which I did not decline. I inquired gravely if he wished to say anything to me. He could only wave to the other, and mutter, &quot;My brother.&quot; I approached him and repeated the question. He looked as if he were shrinking into a nutshell, a pitiable object he was, and looked away from me while he began to frame some business, some surveying that he might wish to have done. I saw that he was drunk, that his brother was ashamed of him, and I turned my back on him in the outset of this indirect and drunken apology.

In proportion as I have celestial thoughts is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky before sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer. What is your thought like? That is the hue, that the purity and transparency and distance from earthly taint of my inmost mind; for whatever we see without is a symbol of something within, and that which is farthest off is the symbol of what is deepest within. The lover of contemplation, accordingly, will gaze much into the sky. Fair thoughts and a serene mind make fair days.