Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/228

214 have the same relation and value to the next world, i. e., the world of thought and of the soul, that political news have to this.

Heard lecture to-night. Why did I not like it better? Can I deny that it was good? Perhaps I am bound to account to myself at least for any lurking dislike for what others admire, and I am not prepared to find fault with. Well, I did not like it then because it did not make me like it, it did not carry me away captive. The lecturer was not simple enough. For the most part, the manner overbore, choked off, stifled, put out of sight the matter. I was inclined to forget that he was speaking, conveying ideas, thought there had been an intermission. Never endeavor to supply the tone which you think proper for certain sentences. It is as if a man whose mind was at ease should supply the tones and gestures for a man in distress who found only the words. One makes a speech and another behind him makes the gestures.—Then he reminded me of Emerson, and I could not afford to be reminded of Christ himself. Yet who can deny that it was good? But it was that intelligence, that way of viewing things (combined with much peculiar talent), which is the common property of this generation. A man does best when he is most himself.