the upper side loose, the under matted like
felt, and in the spring these appendages
dropped off. They gave me a pair of her
'wings, which I keep still. There is no
appearance of a membrane about them.
Some thought it was part flying-squirrel
or some other wild animal, which is not
impossible, for, according to naturalists,
prolific hybrids have been produced by the
union of the marten and domestic cat. 10
This would have been the right kind of
cat for me to keep, if I had kept any; for
why should not a poet's cat be winged as
well as his horse?

15

dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came 5 to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen the interval; and again he laughed loud and long, and with more reason than before. He manoeuvered so cunningly that I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Each time, when he came to the surface, turning his head this way and that, he coolly surveyed the water and the land, and apparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the widest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from the boat. It was surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into execution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could not be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain, I was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game, played on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly your adversary's checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem is to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having apparently passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he and so unweariable, that when he had swum farthest he would immediately plunge again, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New York lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout, though Walden is deeper than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely underwater as on the surface, and swam much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoiter, and instantly dived again. I found that it was as well for me to rest on my oars and wait his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface one way, I would suddenly be startled by

In the fall the loon (Colymbus glacialis) came, as usual, to molt and bathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his wild. laughter before I had risen. At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen are on the alert, in gigs and on foot, two by 20 two and three by three, with patent rifles and conical balls and spy-glasses. They come rustling through the woods like autumn leaves, at least ten men to one loon. Some station themselves on this 25 side of the pond, some on that, for the poor bird cannot be omnipresent; if he dive here he must come up there. But now the kind October wind rises, rustling the leaves and rippling the surface of the 30 water, so that no loon can be heard or seen, though his foes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, and make the woods resound with their discharges. The waves generously rise and dash angrily, taking sides 35 with all waterfowl, and our sportsmen must beat a retreat to town and shop and unfinished jobs. But they were too often successful. When I went to get a pail of water early in the morning I frequently 40 saw this stately bird sailing out of my cove within a few rods. If I endeavored to overtake him in a boat, in order to see how he would manoeuver, he would dive and be completely lost, so that I did not discover him again, sometimes, till the latter part of the day. But I was more than a match for him on the surface. He commonly went off in a rain.

45

As I was paddling along the north shore 50 one very calm October afternoon, for such days especially they settle on to the lakes, like the milkweed down, having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one, sailing out from the shore 55 toward the middle a few rods in front of me, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he

But why,

10

his unearthly laugh behind me.
after displaying so much cunning, did he
invariably betray himself the moment he
came up by that loud laugh? Did not his
white breast enough betray him? He was 5
indeed a silly loon, I thought. I could
commonly hear the plash of the water
when he came up, and so also detected
him. But after an hour he seemed as
fresh as ever, dived as willingly and swam
yet farther than at first. It was surpris-
ing to see how serenely he sailed off with
unruffled breast when he came to the sur-
face, doing all the work with his webbed
feet beneath. His usual note was this 15
demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that
of a water-fowl; but occasionally, when he
had balked me most successfully and come
up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn
unearthly howl, probably more like that 20
of a wolf than any bird; as when a beast
puts his muzzle to the ground and deliber-
ately howls. This was his looning,— per-
haps the wildest sound that is ever heard
here, making the woods ring far and wide. 25
I concluded that he laughed in derision of
my efforts, confident of his own resources.
Though the sky was by this time overcast,
the pond was so smooth that I could see
where he broke the surface when I did 30
not hear him. His white breast, the still-
ness of the air, and the smoothness of the
water were all against him. At length,
having come up fifty rods off, he uttered
one of those prolonged howls, as if call- 35
ing on the god of loons to aid him, and
immediately there came a wind from the
east and rippled the surface, and filled
the whole air with misty rain, and I was
impressed as if it were the prayer of the
loon answered, and his god was angry
with me; and so I left him disappearing
far away on the tumultuous surface.

For hours, in fall days, I watched the
ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold 45
the middle of the pond, far from the
sportsmen; tricks which they will have
less need to practise in Louisiana bayous.
When compelled to rise they would some-
times circle round and round and over the 50
pond at a considerable height, from which
they could easily see to other ponds and
the river, like black motes in the sky; and,
when I thought they had gone off thither
long since, they would settle down by a
slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to
a distant part which was left free; but
what beside safety they got by sailing in

55

the middle of Waldon I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

CONCLUSION

To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery. Thank Heaven, here is not all the world. The buck-eye does not grow in New England, and the mocking-bird is rarely heard here. The wild-goose is more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern bayou. Even the bison, to some extent, keeps pace with the seasons, cropping the pastures of the Colorado only till a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellowstone. Yet we think that if rail-fences are pulled down, and stone-walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided. If you are chosen town-clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is wider than our views of it.

Yet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, like curious passengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum. The other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our voyaging is only greatcircle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after. How long, pray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one's self.

'Direct your eye right inward, and you'll
find

A thousand regions in your mind
Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be
Expert in home-cosmography.'

What does Africa — what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a North-West Passage around this continent, that we would find?

Are these the problems which most con-
cern mankind? Is Franklin the only man
who is lost, that his wife should be so
earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell
know where he himself is? Be rather the
Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clark and
Frobisher, of your own streams and
oceans; explore your own higher latitudes,
- with shiploads of preserved meats to
support you, if they be necessary; and pile 10
the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were
preserved meats invented to preserve meat
merely? Nay, be a Columbus to whole
new continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of
thought. Every man is the lord of a
realm beside which the earthly empire
of the Czar is but a petty state, a hum-
mock left by the ice. Yet some can be
patriotic who have no self-respect, and 20
sacrifice the greater to the less. They
love the soil which makes their graves, but
have no sympathy with the spirit which
may still animate their clay. Patriotism is
a maggot in their heads. What was the 25
meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Ex-
pedition, with all its parade and expense,
but an indirect recognition of the fact,
that there are continents and seas in the
moral world, to which every man is an 30
isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by
him, but that it is easier to sail many
thousand miles through cold and storm
and cannibals, in a government ship, with
five hundred men and boys to assist one, 35
than it is to explore the private sea, the
Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being
alone.-

5

toms of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travelers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest western way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct, a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and 5 night, sun down, moon down, and at last earth down too.

It is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery to ascertain what degree of resolution was necessary in order to place one's self in formal opposition to the most sacred laws of society. He declared that a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage as a footpad,' that honor and religion have never stood in the way of a well-considered and a firm resolve.' This was manly, as the world goes; and yet it was idle, if not desperate. A saner man would have found himself often enough in formal opposition' to what are deemed 'the most sacred laws of society,' through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if

'Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. 40 he should chance to meet with such. Plus habet hic vitæ, plus habet ille viæ.'

'Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians,

I have more of God, they more of the road.' 45

It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, and you may perhaps find some Symmes' 50 Hole' by which to get at the inside at last. England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of 55 land, though it is without doubt the direct way to India. If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the cus

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pondside; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of

tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

gantly any more forever? In view of the future or possible, we should live quite laxly and undefined in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its 10 literal monument alone remains. The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.

I learned this, at least, by my experi ment that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and 15 Why level downward to our dullest within him; or the old laws be expanded, perception always, and praise that as comand interpreted in his favor in a more mon sense? The commonest sense is the liberal sense, and he will live with the sense of men asleep, which they express license of a higher order of beings. In by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to proportion as he simplifies his life, the 20 class those who are once-and-a-half witlaws of the universe will appear less com- ted, with the half-witted, because we applex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor preciate only a third part of their wit. poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. Some would find fault with the morningIf you have built castles in the air, your red, if they ever got up early enough. work need not be lost; that is where they 25 They pretend,' as I hear, that the verses should be. Now put the foundations under them.

It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall speak so that they can understand you. 30 Neither men nor toadstools grow so. As if that were important, and there were not enough to understand you without them. As if Nature could support but one order of understandings, could not sustain birds 35 as well as quadrupeds, flying as well as creeping things, and hush and who, which Bright can understand, were the best English. As if there were safety in stupidity alone. I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extra-vagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced. Extra vagance! it 45 depends on how you are yarded. The migrating buffalo, which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not extravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail, leaps the cow-yard fence, and runs after 50 her calf, in milking time. I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay 55 the foundation of a true expression. Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extrava

of Kabir have four different senses: illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas;' but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writings admit of more than one interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the potatorot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?

I do not suppose that I have attained to obscurity, but I should be proud if no more fatal fault were found with my pages on this score than was found with the Walden ice. Southern customers objected to its blue color, which is the evidence of its purity, as if it were muddy, and preferred the Cambridge ice, which is white, but tastes of weeds. The purity men love is like the mists which envelop the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.

But

Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however, measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be ship-wrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over our- 15 selves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?

5

10

There was an artist in the city of 20 Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does 25 not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of un- 30 suitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of 35 purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance 40 because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the 45 proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to men- 5 tion these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished

artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. Tell the tailors,' said he, to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.' His companion's prayer is forgotten.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The 50 town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like