The Thoreau
Institute at Walden Woods Library
Thoreau's Life &
Writings: Correspondence
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HDT to H.G.O.
Blake
Concord, 10 August 1849
Mr. Blake, — I write now chiefly to
say, before it is too late, that I shall be glad to see you in
Concord, and will give you a chamber, etc., in my father’s house,
and as much of my poor company as you can bear.
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 the 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 footstool 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 are for the head, or superior man; the latter are the
former sublimed and expanded, even as radii from the earths 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 stoops
nor goes on 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 directed 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.
A
Note on the Text:
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Source:
Familiar Letters edited by F.B. Sanborn [The Writings of
Henry David Thoreau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906)
p. 173-174.
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