Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/361

Rh I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.

The world has never learned what men can build each other up to be, when both master and work in love.

Wait not till I invite thee, but observe that I am glad to see thee when thou comest.

The most ardent lover holds yet a private court, and his love can never be so strong and ethereal that there will not be danger that judgment be rendered against the beloved.

So far as we respond to our ideal estimate of each other, do we have profitable intercourse.

Feb. 7, 1857. Hayden, the elder, tells me that the quails have come to his yard every day for about a month, and are just as tame as chickens. They come about his wood shed, he supposes, to pick up the worms that have dropped out of the wood, and when it storms hard, gather together in a corner of the shed. He walks within about three or four feet of them without disturbing them. They will be about his yard the greater part of the day; were there yesterday, though it was so warm, but now probably can get food enough elsewhere. They go just the same to Poland's across the road. About ten years ago there was a bevy of fifteen that used to come from the same woods, and one