Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/529

1837-47 to the cabins of the settlers which we discover on the shore, how all the rays which paint the land scape radiate from them. The flight of the crow and the gyrations of the hawk have reference to their roofs. Friends do not interchange their common wealth, but each puts his finger into the private coffer of the other. They will be most familiar, they will be most un familiar, for they will be so one and single that common themes will not have to be bandied between them, but in silence they will digest them as one mind ; but they will at the same time be so two and double that each will be to the other as admirable and as inaccessible as a star. He will view him as it were through " optic glass," "at evening from the top of Fesole." And after the longest earthly period, he will still be in apogee to him. It [the boat] had been loaded at the door the evening before, half a mile from the river, and provided with wheels against emergencies, but, with the bulky cargo which we stevedores had stowed in it, it proved but an indifferent land carriage. For water and water-casks there was a plentiful supply of muskmelons from our patch, which had just begun to be ripe, and chests and spare spars and sails and tent and guns and munitions for the galleon. And as we pushed it through the meadows to the river's bank, we stepped as lightly about it as if a portion of our own bulk and burden was stored in its hold. We were amazed to find ourselves outside still, with scarcely independent force enough to push or pull effectually.