Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/286

272 Jan. 27, 1860. When you think your walk is profitless and a failure, and you can hardly persuade yourself not to return, it is on the point of being a success, for then you are in that subdued and knocking mood to which nature never fails to open.

Jan. 28, 1841. No innocence can quite stand up under suspicion, if it is conscious of being suspected. In the company of one who puts a mean construction upon your actions, they are apt really to deserve such a construction. While in that society I can never retrieve myself. At tribute to me a great motive and I shall not fail to have one, but a mean one, and the fountain of virtue will be poisoned by the suspicion. Show men unlimited faith as the coin with which you will deal with them, and they will invariably exhibit the best wares they have. I would meet men as the friend of all their virtue, and the foe of all their vice, for no man is the partner of his guilt.

If you suspect me, you will never see me, but all our intercourse will be the politest leave-taking. I shall constantly defer and apologize, and postpone myself in your presence. The self-defender is accursed in the sight of gods and men; he is a superfluous knight who serves no lady in the land. He will find in the end that he has been fighting windmills, and has battered