Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/317

Rh necks and every muscle tense with anxiety, that I was convinced. At length, on some signal which I did not perceive, they went with a whir, as if shot off, over the bushes.

Feb. 1, 1852. When I hear that a friend on whom I relied has spoken of me, not with cold words, perhaps, but even with a cold and indifferent tone, to another, ah! what treachery I feel it to be! the crime of all crimes against humanity. My friend may cherish a thousand suspicions against me, and they may but represent his faith and expectation, till he cherishes them so heartlessly that he can speak of them. If I have not succeeded in my friendships, it was because I demanded more of them, and did not put up with what I could get; and I got no more, partly because I gave so little. I be dumb to those who do not, as I believe, appreciate my actions, not knowing the springs of them.

While we preach obedience to human laws, and to that portion of the divine laws set forth in the New Testament, the natural laws of genius, of love and friendship, we do not preach nor insist upon. How many a seeming heartlessness is to be explained by the very abundance of the heart. How much of seeming recklessness, even selfishness, is to be explained by obedience to this code of the divine laws.