shall be filled with
Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and
Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively
deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we
may hope to scale heaven at last.

IV

OF SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE[33]

When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and
left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen,
or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They who come
rarely to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their
hands to play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally
or accidentally. One has peeled a willow wand, woven it into a ring,
and dropt it on my table. I could always tell if visitors had called
in my absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of
their shoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by
some slight trace left, as a flower dropt, or a bunch of grass plucked
and thrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half a mile distant,
or by the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. Nay, I was frequently
notified of the passage of a traveler along the highway sixty rods off
by the scent of his pipe....

[Footnote 33: From Chapter IV of "Walden."]

I have never felt lonesome, or in the least opprest by a sense of
solitude but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods,
when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not
essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something
unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity
in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a
gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of
such sweet and beneficent society in nature, in the very pattering of
the drops and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite
and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere
sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood
significant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine
needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so
distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even
in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also
that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person, nor a
villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me
again....

I find it whol