Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/252

238 Coleridge says of the &quot;ideas spoken out every where in the Old and New Testaments,&quot; that they &quot;resemble the fixed stars which appear of the same size to the naked or the armed eye, the magnitude of which the telescope may rather seem to diminish than to increase.&quot;

It is more proper for a spiritual fact to have suggested an analogous natural one than for the natural fact to have preceded the spiritual in our minds.

By spells seriousness will be forced to cut capers, and drink a deep and refreshing draught of silliness, to turn this sedate day of Lucifer's and Apollo's into an all fools day for Harlequin and Cornwallis. The sun does not grudge his rays to either, but they are alike patronized by the gods. Like overtasked school-boys, all my members and nerves and sinews petition thought for a recess, and my very thigh bones itch to slip away from under me, and run and join in the melée. I exult in stark inanity.—We think the gods reveal themselves only to sedate and musing gentlemen, but not so; the buffoon in the midst of his antics catches unobserved glimpses which he treasures for the lonely hour. When I have been playing torn fool, I have been driven to exchange the old for a more liberal and catholic philosophy.

Jan. 24, 1852. If thou art a writer, write as