Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall,which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon,soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting;when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.In those driving northeast rains which tried the village houses so,when the maids stood ready with mop and pail in front entries to keep the deluge out,I sat behind my door in my little house,which was all entry,and thoroughly enjoyed its protection.In one heavy thundershower the lightning struck a large pitch pine across the pond,making a very conspicuous and perfectly regular spiral groove from top to bottom,an inch or more deep,and four or five inches wide,as you would groove a walking-stick.I passed it again the other day,and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding that mark,now more distinct than ever,where a terrific and resistless bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago.Men frequently say to me,“I should think you would feel lonesome down there,and want to be nearer to folks,rainy and snowy days and nights especially.”I am tempted to reply to such,-This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space.How far apart,think you,dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star,the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?Why should I feel lonely?Is not our planet in the Milky Way?This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question.What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary?I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.What do we want most to dwell near to?Not to many men surely,the depot,the post-office,the bar-room,the meeting-house,the school-house,the grocery,Beacon Hill,or the Five Points,where men most congregate,but to the perennial source of our life,whence in all our experience we have found that to issue,as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction.This will vary with different natures,but this is the place where a wise man will dig his cellar....I one evening overtook one of my townsmen,who has accumulated what is called “a handsome property,”-though I never got a fair view of it,-on the Walden road,driving a pair of cattle to market,who inquired of me how I could bring my mind to give up so many of the comforts of life.I answered that I was very sure I liked it passably well;I was not joking.And so I went home to my bed,and left him to pick his way through the darkness and the mud to Brighton,-or Bright-town,-which place he would reach some time in the morning.
Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places.The place where that may occur is always the same,and indescribably pleasant to all our senses.For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions.They are,in fact,the cause of our distraction.Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being.Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed.Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired,with whom we love so well to talk,but the workman whose work we are.
“How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven and of Earth!”
“We seek to perceive them,and we do not see them;we seek to hear them,and we do not hear them;identified with the substance of things,they cannot be separated from them.”
“They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their hearts,and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors.It is an ocean of subtile intelligences.They are everywhere,above us,on our left,on our right;they environ us on all sides.”
We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me.Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while under these circumstances,-have our own thoughts to cheer us?Confucius says truly,“Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan;it must of necessity have neighbors.”
With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense.By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences;and all things,good and bad,go by us like a torrent.We are not wholly involved in Nature.I may be either the driftwood in the stream,or Indra in the sky looking down on it.I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition;on the other hand,I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me more more.I only know myself as a human entity;the scene,so to speak,of thoughts and affections;and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another.However intense my experience,I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me,which,as it were,is not a part of me,but spectator,sharing no experience,but taking note of it;and that is no more I than it is you.When the play,it may be the tragedy,of life is over,the spectator goes his way.It was a kind of fiction,a work of the imagination only,so far as he was concerned.This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends sometimes.