For The Lonely Thinker 2
The following is an excerpt from one of a series of letters written by Henry David Thoreau to an acquaintance, Harrison Blake, during their correspondence from March of 1848 to May 1861.
It is from the letter dated May 21, 1856.
“As for the dispute about solitude and society any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plain at the base of a mountain instead of climbing steadily to its top. Of course you will be glad of all the society you can get to go up with. ‘Will you go to glory with me?’ is the burden of the song. I love society so much that I swallowed it all at a gulp – i.e. all that came in my way. It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner & thinner till there is none at all. It is either the Tribune on the plain, a sermon on the mount, or a very private ECSTACY still higher up. We are not the less to aim at the summits, though the multitude does not ascend them. Use all the society that will abet you. But perhaps I do not enter into the spirit of your talk.”