Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/382

368 Yet I have no doubt that that nation's rulers are as wise as the average of civilized rulers.

Feb. 12. Living all winter with an open door for light, and no visible wood-pile, the forms of old and young are permanently contracted through long shrinking from cold, and their faces pinched by want. I have seen an old crone sitting bare-headed on the hillside in the middle of January, while it was raining, and the ground was slowly thawing under her, knitting there. There is no greater squalidness in any part of the world. Contrast the condition of these Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race before they are degraded by contact with civilized man.

Feb. 11, 1853. While surveying on the Hunt farm the other day, behind Simon Brown's house, I heard a remarkable echo. In the course of surveying, being obliged to call aloud to my assistant from every side and almost every part of a farm in succession and at various hours of a day, I am pretty sure to discover an echo, if any exists. That day it was encouraging and soothing to hear one. After so many days of comparatively insignificant drudgery with stupid companions, this leisure, this sportiveness, this generosity in nature, sympathizing with the better part of me, somebody I could talk with,