Thoreau writes to H.G.O. Blake:
Mr Blake,—I “never found any contentment in the life which the newspapers record”—any thing of more value than the cent which they cost. Contentment in being covered with dust an inch deep! We who walk the streets and hold time together, are but the refuse of ourselves, and that life is for the shells of us—of our body & our mind—for our scurf—a thoroughly scurvy life. It is coffee made of coffee—grounds the twentieth time, which was only coffee the first time—while the living water leaps and sparkles by our doors. I know some who in their charity give their coffee grounds to the poor! We demanding news, and putting up with such news! Is it a new convenience or a new accident or rather a new perception of the truth that we want?You say that [“] serene hours in which Friendship, Books, Nature, Thought, seem above primary considerations, visit you but faintly—Is not the attitude of expectation somewhat divine?—a sort of homemade divineness? Does it not compel a kind of sphere music to attend on it? And do not its satisfaction merge at length by insensible degrees in the enjoyment of the things expected? What if I should forget to write about my not writing. It is not worth the while to make that a theme. It is as if I had written every day—It is as if I had never written before—I wonder that you think so much about it, for not writing is the most like writing in my case of anything I know.Why will you not relate to me your dream? That would be to realize it somewhat. You tell me that you dream, but not what you dream.—I can guess what comes to pass. So do the frogs dream. Would that I knew what. I have never fought out whether they are awake or asleep- whether it is day or night with them.
I am preaching, mind you, to bare walls, that is to myself; and if you have chanced to come in and occupy a pew—do not think that my remarks are directed at you particularly, and so slam the seat in disgust. This discourse was written long before these exciting times.
Some absorbing employment on your higher ground—your upland farm, wither no catpath leads—but where you mount alone with your hoe—Where the life-ever—lasting grows—you raise a crop which needs not to be brought down into the valley to a market, which you barter for heavenly products.
Do you separate distinctly enough support of your body from that of your essence? By how distinct a course commonly are these two ends attained! Not that they should not be attained by one & the same means—that indeed is the rarest success—but there is no half and half about it.
I shall be glad to read my lectures to a small audience in Worcester, such as you describe, and will only require that my expenses be paid. If only the parlor be large enough for an echo, and the audience will embarrass themselves with hearing as much as the lecture would otherwise embarrass himself with reading. But I warn you that this is no better calculated for a promiscuous audience than the last two which I read to you. It requires in every sense a concordant audience
I will come on Sunday next and spend Sunday with you, if you wish it. Say so if you do.
Drink deep or taste not of the Peirian spring. Be not deterred by the melancholy on the path which leads to immortal health & joy. When they tasted of the water of the river over which they were to go, they thought that tasted a little bitterish to the palate, but it proved sweeter when it was down
H D T
(Letters to Harrison Gray Otis Blake (259-261), edited by Wendell Glick (from Great Short Works of Henry David Thoreau edited, with an introduction, by Wendell Glick (New York: Harper & Row, 1982). Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers)
