We sit on the rock on Pine Hill overlooking Walden. There is a thick haze almost entirely concealing the mountains.

There is wind enough to raise waves on the pond and make it bluer. What strikes me in the scenery here now is the contrast of the unusually blue water with the brilliant-tinted woods around it. The tints generally may be about at their height. The earth appears like a great inverted shield painted yellow and red, or with imbricated scales of that color, and a blue navel in the middle where the pond lies, and a distant circumference of whitish haze . . .

  Shall I break our long silence, silence so much more instructive than any words I may utter? Yet should my rashness procure a response from you, I, at least, may be the wiser. Solemn though the undertaking be, I would fain venture.

  Well, imprimis, you have been talking, as I learn from various sources, in Boston. I hope you were understood, in some small measure, at least, though I fear not; but this is not your business—to find understanding for your audience. I respect your benevolence in thus doing, for I esteem it one of the most gracious and philanthropic deeds, for a wise, thoughtful man, a philosopher, to attempt, at least, to awaken his fellow men from their drunken somnolence, perhaps to elevate them.

“But unimproved, Heaven’s noblest browns are vain,
No sun plenty crowns the uncultured vale;
Where green lakes languish on the silent plain,
Death rides the billows of the western gale.”

  What are we to think of a world that has had a Socrates, a Plato, a Christ for its teachers, and yet remaining in such outer darkness?

  It appears to me it is only, age after age, the working over of the old original compound-man. We appear to gain nothing. A few noble, wise ones, mark the lustrums of the past—a few also will mark what we call the present. The things men rate so highly in modern times do not appear to me to be of very great value after all. What is it for a ship to cross the ocean by steam if its passengers have no godlike errand to perform? We have enough to wonder at in Nature already, why seek new wonders?

  I have passed some peaceful hours of late, sawing wood by moonlight, in the field near the lane to our cow-pastures—the work does not interfere with, but rather favors meditation, and I have found some solace in the companionship of the woods near by, and the concert of their wind harps.

  During my evening walks I hear the flight of passenger birds overhead, probably those of noctura habits, as I suppose other rest at this season (Night).

  A small flock, only ten wild geese, passed over a few days ago. The Sylviacola coronata [Myrtle Warbler] have arrived from the north, and will remain until driven away by the severe cold. I have often seen them in the company of snow bunting about the house and during snowstorms, but they suffer and often die at such times if the storm be severe. Quails are gradually increasing, though still scarce. Last winter I saw a convey of some twelve or more near here, and occasionally have heard their whistle during the early parts of the past summer.

  I made the acquaintance of your friends, Blake [H. G. O. Blake] and Brown, [Theophilus Brown] very favorably at the Middleborough ponds, last June, on their way to Cape Cod. I had, however, seen Mr. Blake once before.

  I should be happy to have a visit from you. Can you not come soon?

  I have passed through some deep experiences since I last saw you. We are getting nearer. Is there not such a fact as human companionship? I need not add how much I owe you, and that I remain, faithfully your friend,

  D. R.

Bluebirds are still here, and meadow-larks are tuneful.