Introduction 



where I was going. Doomed to be 'carried of 

 the spirit into the wilderness/ I suppose. I 

 wish I could be more moderate in my desires, 

 but I cannot, and so there is no rest." 



The letter noted above was written only two 

 days before he started on his long walk to 

 Florida. If the concluding sentences still re- 

 flect indecision, they also convey a hint of the 

 overmastering impulse under which he was 

 acting. The opening sentences of his journal, 

 afterwards crossed out, witness to this sense of 

 inward compulsion which he felt." Few bodies," 

 he wrote, "are inhabited by so satisfied a soul 

 that they are allowed exemption from extra- 

 ordinary exertion through a whole life." After 

 reciting illustrations of nature's periodicity, of 

 the ebbs and flows of tides, and the pulsation 

 of other forces, visible and invisible, he observes 

 that " so also there are tides not only in the af- 

 fairs of men, but in the primal thing of life it- 

 self. In some persons the impulse, being slight, 

 is easily obeyed or overcome. But in others it 

 is constant and cumulative in action until its 

 [ xiv ] 



