Thoreau attends Bronson Alcott’s “Saturday Evening Conversations” in Boston. On the topic of wordy love and Christian love, Thoreau “thought the difficulty to be, that love is practical. He would not call it love: love is the action of the whole being in its intensest form.”

Mr. Browne asked if the house be not often a refuge for passions . . .

Mr Alcott said, yes, if it be the beast that burrows there, then the house is a den.

   Mr Thoreau asked, if doves were there if it be not a nest.