THOREAU'S WALDEN 61 



glacier-crushed granite, out of which never came 

 smoke nor lava, only a white fire from unex- 

 plored depths, a fire of cool austerity which burns 

 the dross out of all that may be put into it. There 

 is no inflowing stream. Its waters well up from 

 a mysterious source within the very earth. Their 

 outflow is equally invisible. In their going they 

 leap spirit-like along the golden stairs which the 

 sun lets down to them and pass up for the building 

 of rainbows, their white light breaking in its 

 mystical seven colors, a visible ecstasy to all who 

 watch the heavens. To plunge in these waters 

 at dawn is to feel this cool fire thrill through 

 the marrow of your bones, and only by 

 total immersion shall you know to the full its 

 purity. 



Coming to such a flight with Eos through the 

 dusky solemnity of the trees of the western bank, 

 I saw the pond silvered beneath its tense level with 

 the frosty scintillations of the stars that had shone 

 into it all night. It was as if their radiance had but 

 penetrated the water-tension film of the surface 

 and collected just beneath it, making a white 

 mirror which my plunge shattered into a thou- 



