Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/292

278 a box at the tavern which had come by railroad express containing three wild geese, and directed to his neighbor over the brook. The April-like morning had excited one so that he honked, and Minott's reputation acquired new lustre.

As I come through the village at 11, the sky is completely overcast, and the perhaps thin clouds are very distinctly pink or reddish, some what as if reflecting a distant fire, but this phenomenon is universal, all round and overhead. I suspect there is a red aurora borealis behind.

Jan. 29, 1840. A friend in history looks like some premature soul. The nearest approach to a community of love in these days is like the distant breaking of waves on the sea-shore. An ocean there must be, for it washes our beach. This alone do all men sail for, trade for, plow for, preach for, fight for.

The Greeks, like those of the south generally, expressed themselves with more facility than we, in distinct and lively images, and so far as relates to the grace and completeness with which they treated the subjects suited to their genius, they must be allowed to retain their ancient supremacy. But a rugged and uncouth array of thought, though never so modern, may rout them at any moment. It remains for other than Greeks to write the literature of the next century.