Page:Excursions (1863) Thoreau.djvu/318

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310
NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT.

conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence. I will endeavor to separate the tide in my thoughts from the current distractions of the day. I would warn my hearers that they must not try my thoughts by a daylight standard, but endeavor to realize that I speak out of the night, All depends on your point of view. In Drake's "Collection of Voyages," Wafer says of some Albinoes among the Indians of Darien, They are quite white, but their whiteness is like that of a horse, quite different from the fair or pale European, as they have not the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion. * * * Their eyebrows are milk-white, as is likewise the hair of their heads, which is very fine. * * * They seldom go abroad in the daytime, the sun being disagreeable to them, and causing their eyes, which are weak and poring, to water, especially if it shines towards them, yet they see very well by moonlight, from which we call them moon-eyed."

Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight walks, methinks, is there "the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion," but we are intellectually and morally Albinoes,—children of Endymion,—such is the effect of conversing much with the moon.

I complain of Arctic voyagers that they do not enough remind us of the constant peculiar