LET every one mind his own business and endeavor to be what he was 

 made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in 

 such desperate enterprises ? If a man does not keep pace with his 

 companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him 

 step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is 

 not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak. 



There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive 

 after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having 

 considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a per- 

 fect work time does not enter, he said to himself, " It shall be perfect in all 

 respects, though I should do nothing else in my life." He proceeded 

 instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made 

 of unsuitable material ; and, as he searched for and rejected stick after 

 stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works 

 and died ; but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose 

 and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his know- 

 ledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, 

 Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could 

 not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable, the 

 city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel 

 the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape, the dynasty of the 

 Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the 

 name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. 

 By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff, Kalpa was no longer 

 the pole-star ; and, ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned 

 with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. 

 But why do I stay to mention these things ? When the finishing-stroke 

 was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the asto- 

 nished artist into the fairest of all creations of Brahma. He had made a 

 new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions : in 

 which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and 

 more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw, by the heap 

 of shavings still fresh at his feet, that for him and his work the former 

 lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed 

 than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to 

 fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, 

 and his art was pure : how could the result be other than wonderful ? 



THOREAU. 



