Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/319

Rh off with Christianity. The present world in which we talk is of a little less value to him than the next world. So we are said to hope in proportion as we do not realize. It is all hope deferred. But one grain of realization, of instant life on which we stand, is equivalent to acres of the leaf of hope hammered out to gild our prospect. The former so qualifies the vision that it gilds all we look upon with the splendor of truth. We must meet the hero on heroic grounds. Some tribes inhabit the mountains. Some dwell on the plains. We discourage one another. We obey different laws.

My friends! my friends! It does not cheer me to see them. They but express their want of faith in me or in mankind. Their coldest, cruellest thought comes clothed in polite and easy spoken words at last. I am silent to their in citations, because I do not feel invited, and we have no reasons to give for what we do not do. One says, &quot;Love me out of this mire.&quot; The other says, &quot;Come out of it and be lovely.&quot;

Feb. 1, 1855. As I skated up the river yesterday, now here, now there, past the old kingdoms of my fancy, I was reminded of Landor's Richard the First. &quot;I sailed along the realms of my family; on the right was England, on the left was France [on the right was Sudbury, on the left was Wayland]; little else