144 A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE. 



is far gone in philosophy he need not feel 

 bound to increase in wisdom every time a 

 neighbor speaks to him ; and anyhow, that 

 expression about the "putting out of the 

 timber" had given me pleasure. Hearing 

 it thus was better than finding it upon a 

 page of Stevenson, or some other author 

 whose business in life is the picking of right 

 words. Let us have some silver, I repeat. 

 I am ready to believe, what I have some- 

 where read, that men will have to give 

 account not only for every idle word, but 

 for every idle silence. 



The summit of the Ridge, as soon as one 

 leaves its precipitous rocky edge, — the 

 Brow, so called, — is simply an indefinite 

 expanse of gently rolling country, thin-soiled, 

 but well watered, and covered with fine open 

 woods, rambling through which the visitor 

 finds little to remind him of his elevation 

 above the world. I heard a resident speak 

 of going to the " top of the mountain," how- 

 ever, and on inquiry learned that a certain 

 rocky eminence, two miles, more or less, 

 from Fairmount (the little "settlement" 

 where I was staying), went by that name, 

 and was supposed to be the highest point of 



