Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/219

Rh dew-line settling on some flower? What moments will not supply the reel from which thou mayst be wound off? Thou art as subtle as the pollen of flowers and the sporules of the fungi.

When I meet a person unlike me, I find myself wholly in the unlikeness. In what I am unlike others, in that I am.

When we ask for society, we do not want the double of ourselves, but the complement rather. Society should be additive and helpful. We would be reinforced by its alliance. True friends will know how to use each other in this respect, and never barter or exchange their common wealth, just as barter is unknown in families. They will not dabble in the general coffers, but each will put his finger into the private coffer of the other. They will be most familiar, they will be most unfamiliar, for they will be so one and single that common themes and things will have to be bandied between them, but in silence they will digest them as one mind; they will at the same time be so true and double that each will be to the other as admirable and as inaccessible as a star. When my friend comes, I view his orb &quot;through optic glass&quot; &quot;at evening from the top of Fésolé.&quot; After the longest earthly period, he will still be in apogee to me.—But we should so meet ourselves as we meet our