I but recently returned from New Jersey after an absence of a little, over a month, and found your letter awaiting me. I am glad to hear that you have walked with [Charles] Newcomb, though I fear that you will not have many more opportunities to do so. I have no doubt that in his company you would ere long find yourself, if not on those White Mountains you speak of, yet on some equally high, though not laid down in the geographies.

It is refreshing to hear of your earnest purposes with respect to your culture, & I can send you Do better wish, than that they may not be thwarted by the cares and temptations of life. Depend on it, now is the accepted time, & probably you will never find yourself better disposed or freer to attend to your culture than at this moment. When They who inspire us with the idea are ready, shall not we be ready also?

  I do not now remember anything which Confucious has said directly respecting man’s “origin, purpose, and destiny.” He was more practical than that. He is full of wisdom applied to human relations—to the private life—the Family Government &c. It is remarkable that according to his own account of the sum & substance of his teaching is, as you know, to Do as you would be done by.

  He also said—(I translate from the French) [“] Conduct yourself suitably towards the persons of your family, then you will be able to instruct and to direct a nation of men.”

  “To nourish one sens with a little rice, to drink water, to have only his bended arom to support his head, is a state which has also its satisfaction. To be rich and honored by inquitious means, is for me as the floating cloud which passes.”

  As soon as a child is born he must respect its faculties; the knowledge which will come to it by & by does not resemble at all its present state. If it arrives at the age of 40 or 50 years, without having learned anything, it is no more worthy of any respect.”

  This last, I think, will speak to your condition.

  But at this rate I might fill many letters.

  Our acquaintance with the Ancient Hindoos is not at all personal. The few names that can be relied on are very shadowy. It is however tangible works that we know. The best I think of are the Bhagvat-Geeta (an episode in an ancient heroic poem called the Mahabarata)—the Vedas—the Vishnu Purana—The Institutes of Menu—&c

  I cannot say that Swedenbord has been directly & practically valuable to me, for I have not been a reader of him, expect to a slight extent—but I have the highest regard for him and trust that I shall read all his works in some world or other. He had a wonderful knowledge of our interior & spiritual life—though his illuminations are occasionally blurred by trivialities. He comes nearer to answering, or attempting to answer, literally, your questions concerning man’s origin, purpose & destiny than any of the worthies I have referred to, But I think that this is not altogether a recommendation; since such an answer to these questions cannot be discovered, any more than perpetual motion, for which no reward is now offered. The noblest man it is, methink, that knows, & by his life suggests, the most about these things. Crack away at these nuts however as long as you can—the very exercise will ennoble you & you may get something better than the answer you expect—

  Yrs
  Henry D. Thoreau