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This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and ie liberty in Nature, a part of herself As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in h it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract enial to ht, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind fro alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled These s wind are as reh it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes The repose is never complete The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear They are Nature&039;s watchmen -- links which connect the days of animated life

When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yelloalnut leaf or a chip They who come rarely to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands to play with by the hich they leave, either intentionally or accidentally One has peeled a and, woven it into a ring, and dropped it on my table I could always tell if visitors had called in rass, or the print of their shoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by sorass plucked and throay, even as far off as the railroad, half a ar or pipe Nay, I was frequently notified of the passage of a traveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent of his pipe

There is commonly sufficient space about us Our horizon is never quite at our elbows The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but so, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and fenced in some way, and reclaie and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for hbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies It is as land I have, as it were, my own sun and ht there was never a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if I were the first or lastintervals soe to fish for pouts -- they plainly fished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their hooks with darkness -- but they soon retreated, usually with light baskets, and left "the world to darkness and to ht was never profaned by any huenerally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced

Yet I experienced sometimes that thesociety may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still There was never yet such a storm but it was AEolian htly coar sadness While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can entle rain which waters my beans and keeps ood forthe If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me Sometimes, when I compare myself with other ods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which uarded I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a feeeks after I cahborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life To be alone was so unpleasant But I was at the saht insanity in my entle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an ates of huht of them since Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me I was so distinctlykindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to ht no place could ever be strange tountimely consumes the sad;

Few are their days in the land of the living,

Beautiful daughter of Toscar"

So rain-stor 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 hts had ti northeast rains which tried the village houses so, when the maids stood ready with e out, I sat behind hly enjoyed its protection In one heavy thunder-shower the lightning struck a large pitch pine across the pond, roove from top to bottom, an inch or roove 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 cao 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 s can bring two minds much nearer to one another What do ant most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-office, the bar-roorocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where ate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as thestands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction This will vary with different natures, but this is the place where a wiseovertook one of my townsmen, who has accuh I never got a fair view of it -- on the Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to ive 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 hoh the darkness and the ht-town -- which place he would reach so

Any prospect of awakening or co 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 theand transient circumstances to make our occasions They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction Nearest to all things is that pohich fashions their being Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed Next to us is not the workman e have hired, e love so well to talk, but the workman whose e 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 thes, they cannot be separated from them"

"They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their hearts, and clothe thearments 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 experi to ossips a little while under these circuhts to cheer us? Confucius says truly, "Virtue does not rehbors"

With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof froood and bad, go by us like a torrent We are not wholly involved in Nature I may be either the driftwood in the strea 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 much more I only know hts 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 ofnote of it, and that is no edy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way It was a kind of fiction, a work of the iination only, so far as he was concerned This doubleness hbors and friends sometimes

I find it wholesoreater part of the time To be in co I love to be alone I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude We are for theor working is always alone, let him be where he will Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a ent student in one of the crowded hives of Cae is as solitary as a dervish in the desert The far or chopping, and not feel lonesoht he cannot sit down in a roohts, but must be where he can "see the folks," and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself for his day&039;s solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and "the blues"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the sah it may be a more condensed form of it

Society is co had time to acquire any new value for each other We ive each other a new taste of that old ree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, totolerable and that we need not come to open war We meet at the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other&039;s way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another Certainly less frequency would suffice for all iirls in a factory -- never alone, hardly in their dreams It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him

I have heard of aof famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions hich, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased iination surrounded hi to bodily and th, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone

I have a great deal of co, when nobody calls Let est a few comparisons, that some one may convey an idea of my situation I ahs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself What company has that lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters The sun is alone, except in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to be two, but one is aalone; he sees a great deal of cole mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house

I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, froinal proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old tie to pass a cheerful evening with social s, even without apples or cider -- a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps hih he is thought to be dead, none can shohere he is buried An elderly dahborhood, invisible to arden I love to stroll so to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility, and her y, and she can tell inal of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the incidents occurred when she was young A ruddy and lusty old dahts in all weathers and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her children yet

The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature -- of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter -- such health, such cheer, they afford forever! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature would be affected, and the sun&039;s brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put onin rieve Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Aetable mould myself?

What is the pill which will keep us well, serene, contented? Not randetable, botanicalways, outlived so many old Parrs in her day, and fed her health with their decaying fatness For my panacea, instead of one of those quack vials of a mixture dipped fro shallow black-schooner looking wagons which we soht of undilutedair! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket totime in this world But remember, it will not keep quite till noonday even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long ere that and folloard the steps of Aurora I ahter of that old herb-doctor AEsculapius, and who is represented ona serpent in one hand, and in the other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes drinks; but rather of Hebe, cup-bearer to Jupiter, as the daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and who had the power of restoring gods and hly sound-conditioned, healthy, and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever she ca