I am in too great haste this time to speak to your, or out of my, condition. I might say,—you might say,—comparatively speaking, be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested. What a pity if we do not live this short time according to the laws of a long time, the eternal laws! Let us see that we stand erect here, and do not lie along by our whole length in the dirt. Let our meanness be our football, not our cushion. In the midst of this labyrinth let us live a thread of life. We must act with so rapid and resistless a purpose in one direction, that our vices will necessarily trail behind. The nucleus of a comet is almost a star. Was there ever a genuine dilemma? The laws of earth are for the feet, or inferior man; the laws of heaven expanded, even as the radii from the earth’s centre go on diverging into space. Happy the man who observes the heavenly and the terrestrial law in just proportion; whose every faculty, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, obeys the law of its level; who neither stopps nor goes tiptoe, but lives a balanced life, acceptable to nature and to God.

  These things I say; other things I do.

  I am sorry to hear that you did not receive my book earlier. I addressed it and left it in Munroe’s shop to be sent to you immediately, on the twenty-sixth of May, before a copy had been sold.

  Will you remember me to Mr. Brown, when you see him next; he is well remembered by
Henry Thoreau

  I still owe you a worthy answer.