Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/334

248 fairyland, but not beyond her ray. We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes. The farthest blue streak in the horizon I can see, I may reach before many sunsets. What I saw alters not; in my night, when I wander, it is still steadfast as the star which the sailor steers by.

Whoever has had one thought quite lonely, and could contentedly digest that in solitude, knowing that none could accept it, may rise to the height of humanity, and overlook all living men as from a pinnacle.

Speech never made man master of men, but the eloquently refraining from it.

April 11. Sunday. A greater baldness my life seeks, as the crest of some bare hill, which towns and cities do not afford. I want a directer relation with the sun.

True friendship is so firm a league

That's maintenance falls into the even tenor

Of our lives, and is no tie,

But the continuance of our life's thread.

If I would safely keep this new-got pelf,

I have no care henceforth but watch myself,

For lo! it goes untended from my sight,

Waxes and wanes secure with the safe star of night.

See with what liberal step it makes its way,

As we could well afford to let it stray