Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/121

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
1838]
CONVERSATION
43

Their roots are intertwined
Insep'rably.

CONVERSATION

April 15. Thomas Fuller relates that "in Merionethshire, in Wales, there are high mountains, whose hanging tops come so close together that shepherds on the tops of several hills may audibly talk together, yet will it be a day's journey for their bodies to meet, so vast is the hollowness of the valleys betwixt them." As much may be said in a moral sense of our intercourse in the plains, for, though we may audibly converse together, yet is there so vast a gulf of hollowness between that we are actually many days' journey from a veritable communication.

STEAMSHIPS

April 24. Men have been contriving new means and modes of motion. Steamships have been westering during these late days and nights on the Atlantic waves,—the fuglers of a new evolution to this generation. Meanwhile plants spring silently by the brooksides, and the grim woods wave indifferent; the earth emits no howl, pot on fire simmers and seethes, and men go about their business.

April 26.

THE BLUEBIRDS

In the midst of the poplar that stands by our door
We planted a bluebird box,
And we hoped before the summer was o'er
A transient pair to coax.