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for it, notwithstanding slavery, and the cowardice 

 and want of principle of the North, i It suggests that 

 the time may come when men's deeds will smell as 

 sweet. Such, then, is the odor our planet emits. Who 

 can doubt, then, that Nature is young and sound? 

 If Nature can compound this fragrance still annu- 

 ally, I shall believe her still full of vigor, and that 

 there is virtue in man, too, who perceives and loves 

 it. It is as if all the pure and sweet and virtuous was 

 extracted from the slime and decay of earth and 

 presented thus in a flower. The resurrection of vir- 

 tue! . . . The foul slime stands for the sloth and 

 vice of man; the fragrant flower that springs from 

 it, for the purity and courage which springs from its 

 midst. It is these sights and sounds and fragrances 

 put together that convince us of our immortality. 



Journal, vi, 352, 353. 



' An instance of Thoreau's intense feeling on the slavery question, 

 which found extended expression in his famous addresses on John Brown. 

 (See the volume Cape Cod and Miscellanies, pp. 409 and 441; also nu- 

 merous entries in the Journal, vols, xii and xiii.) H. W. G. 



