Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/51

Rh of division of labor, and that Professor D. should divide himself between the library and the huckleberry field.

Dec. 27, 1837. The real heroes of minstrelsy have been ideal, even when the names of actual heroes have been perpetuated. The real Arthur, who &quot;not only excelled the experienced past, but also the possible future,&quot; of whom it was affirmed, after many centuries, that he was not dead, but &quot;had withdrawn from the world into some magical region from which at a future crisis he was to reappear, and lead the Cymri in triumph through the island,&quot; whose character and actions were the theme of the bards of Bretagne, and the foundation of their interminable romances, was only an ideal impersonation.—Men claim for the ideal an actual existence also, but do not often expand the actual into the ideal. &quot;If you do not believe me, go into Bretagne, and mention in the streets and villages that Arthur is really dead like other men. You will not escape with impunity. You will be either hooted with the curses of your hearers, or stoned to death.&quot;

The most remarkable instance of home-sickness is that of the colony of Franks transplanted by the Romans from the German Ocean to the Euxine, who, at length resolving to a man to abandon the country, seized the vessels which