Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/431

Rh, suffering, etc. It is well if he does not become hardened. He learns how to bear contempt, and to despise himself. He makes, as it were, a post-mortem examination of himself before he is dead. Such is art.

Feb. 21, 1842. I must confess there is nothing so strange to me as my own body. I love any other piece of nature, almost, better. I was always conscious of sounds in nature which my ears could not hear, that I caught but a prelude to a strain. She always retreats as I advance. Away behind and behind is she and her meaning. Will not this faith and expectation make itself ears at length? I never saw to the end, nor heard to the end, but the best part was unseen and unheard.

I am like a feather floating in the atmosphere. On every side is depth unfathomable.

I have lived ill [of late] for the most part, because too near myself. I have tripped myself up, so that there was no progress for my own narrowness. I cannot walk conveniently and pleasantly but when I hold myself far off in the horizon, but when the soul dilutes the body and makes it passable. My soul and body have tottered along together, tripping and hindering one another, like unpracticed Siamese twins. They two should walk as one that no obstacle may be nearer than the firmament.