CONCORD, August 10, 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 earth's 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