and light my happy feet through the Walden woods, along the
Walden shores, where a philosopher sits in solitary state. He
shall keep me awake by the Walden shore till the moon and the
shadow meet. How tranquil sits the philosopher, how grandly
rings the man! Here, in his homespun house, the squirrels
click under his feet, the woodchucks devour his beans, and the
loon laughs on the lake. Here rich men come, and cannot hide
their lankness and their poverty. Here poor men come, and
their gold shines through their rags. Hither comes the poet,
and the house is too narrow for their thoughts, and the rough
walls ring with lusty laughter. O happy Walden wood and
woodland lake, did you thrill through all your luminous aisles
and all your listening shores for the man that wandered there?

Is it begun? Not yet. The kitchen clock has but just struck
eleven, and my watch lacks ten minutes of that. What if the
astronomers made a mistake in their calculations, and the
almanacs are wrong, and the eclipse shall not come off? Would
it be strange? Would it not be stranger if it were not so?
How can a being, standing on one little ball, spinning forever
around and around among millions of other balls larger and
smaller, breathlessly the same endless waltz,--how can he trace
out their paths, and foretell their conjunctions? How can a
puny creature fastened down to one world, able to lift himself
but a few paltry feet above, to dig but a few paltry feet below
its surface, utterly unable to divine what shall happen to
himself in the next moment,--how can he thrust out his hand
into inconceivable space, and anticipate the silent future?
How can his feeble eye detect the quiver of a world? How can
his slender strength weigh the mountains in scales, and the