Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/236

222 They had evidently taken and communicated the resolution to improve the coolness of the night to remove their young to a cooler and safer locality, one stream running up, and another down, with great industry.

But why did I change? Why did I leave the woods? I do not think that I can tell. I have often wished myself back. I do not know any better how I came to go there. Perhaps it is none of my business, even if it is yours. Perhaps I wanted change. There was a little stagnation, it may be, about two o'clock in the after noon. The world's axle creaked, as if it wanted greasing, as if the oxen labored with the wain, and could hardly get their load over the ridge of the day. Perhaps if I lived there much longer, I might live there forever. One would think twice before he accepted heaven on such terms. A ticket to heaven must include a ticket to Limbo, Purgatory, and Hell. Your ticket to the Boxes admits you to the Pit also.

How much botany is indebted to the Arabians. A great part of our common names of plants appear to be Arabic.

The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory.—My friend invites me to read my papers to him. Gladly would I read, if he would hear. He must not hear coarsely, but finely, suffering not