CONCORD, November 20, 1849.
MR. BLAKE,--I have not forgotten that I am your debtor. When I read
over your letters, as I have just done, I feel that I am unworthy to
have received or to answer them, though they are addressed, as I would
have them, to the ideal of me. It behooves me, if I would reply, to
speak out of the rarest part of myself.
At present I am subsisting on certain wild flavors which nature wafts
to me, which unaccountably sustain me, and make my apparently poor
life rich. Within a year my walks have extended themselves, and almost
every afternoon (I read, or write, or make pencils in the forenoon,
and by the last means get a living for my body) I visit some new hill,
or pond, or wood, many miles distant. I am astonished at the
wonderful retirement through which I move, rarely meeting a man in
these excursions, never seeing one similarly engaged, unless it be my
companion, when I have one. I cannot help feeling that of all the
human inhabitants of nature hereabouts, only we two have leisure to
admire and enjoy our inheritance.
"Free in this world as the birds in the air, disengaged from every
kind of chains, those who have practiced the _yoga_ gather in Brahma
the certain fruit of their works."
Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice
the _yoga_ faithfully.
"The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to
creation: he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things.
Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and, united to the
nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original
matter."
To some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a yogi.
I know little about the affairs of Turkey, but I am sure that I know
something about barberries and chestnuts, of which I have collected a
store this fall. When I go to see my neighbor, he will formally
communicate to me the latest news from Turkey, which he read in
yesterday's mail,--"Now Turkey by this time looks determined, and Lord
Palmerston"--Why, I would rather talk of the bran, which,
unfortunately, was sifted out of my bread this morning, and thrown
away. It is a fact which lies nearer to me. The newspaper gossip with
which our hosts abuse our ears is as far from a true hospitality as
the viands which they set before us. We did not need them to feed our
bodies, and the news can be bought for a penny. We want the inevitable
news, be it sad or cheering, wherefore and by what means they are
extant this _new_ day. If they are well, let them whistle and dance;
if they are dyspeptic, it is their duty to complain, that so they may
in any case be _entertaining_. If words were invented to conceal
thought, I think that newspapers are a great improvement on a bad
invention. Do not suffer your life to be taken by newspapers.
I thank you for your hearty appreciation of my book. I am glad to have
had such a long talk with you, and that you had patience to listen to
me to the end. I think that I had the advantage of you, for I chose my
own mood, and in one sense your mood too,--that is, a quiet and
attentive reading mood. Such advantage has the writer over the talker.
I am sorry that you did not come to Concord in your vacation. Is it
not time for another vacation? I am here yet, and Concord is here.
You will have found out by this time who it is that writes this, and
will be glad to have you write to him, without his subscribing himself