HENRY THOREAU
reau, told me that he soon learned by running over again Thoreau's lines that he was sure to find his plans minutely accurate if he made in them correction required by the variation of the compass, some degrees since Thoreau's day. Never but once did he find an error, and that was not in angular measurement and direction, but in distance, one chain, probably an error in count of his assistant. Thoreau did work in the spirit of George Herbert's prayer two hundred years before:—
"Teach me, my God, my King,
In all things Thee to see.
And what I do in any thing
To do it as for Thee.
"Not rudely as a beast
To run into an action.
But still to make Thee prepossessed
And give it its perfection."
He wrote: "I would not be one of those who will foolishly drive a nail into
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