Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/157

1839] racking his bones to that degree. Men are not so much virtuous as patrons of virtue, and every one knows that it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than the temporary guardian of it.

May 17. We say justly that the weak person is flat; for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life. Most things are strong in one direction,—a straw longitudinally, a board in the direction of its edge, a knee transversely to its grain,—but the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side, and is equally strong every way. The coward is wretchedly spheroidal at best, too much educated or drawn out on one side commonly and depressed on the other; or he may be likened to a hollow sphere, whose disposition of matter is best when the greatest bulk is intended.

May 21. Who knows how incessant a surveillance a strong man may maintain over himself,—how far subject passion and appetite to reason, and lead the life his imagination paints? Well has the poet said,—

By a strong effort may he not command even his brute body in unconscious moments?