24 INDOOR STUDIES 



gritty, and is firmly held. Sometimes it takes the 

 form of paradox, as when he tells his friend that 

 he needs his hate as much as his love : — 



" Indeed, indeed, I cannot tell. 

 Though I ponder on it well, 

 Which were easier to state, 

 All my love or all my hate." 



Or when he says, in "Walden:" "Our manners 

 have been corrupted by communication with the 

 saints," and the like. Sometimes it becomes down- 

 right brag, as when he says, emphasizing his own 

 preoccupation and indifference to events : " I would 

 not run aroimd the corner to see the world blow 

 up;" or again: "Methinks I would hear with in- 

 difference if a trustworthy messenger were to inform 

 me that the sun drowned himself last night." 

 Again it takes an impish ironical form, as when he 

 says: "In heaven I hope to bake my own bread 

 and clean my own linen." Another time it as- 

 sumes a half-quizzical, half-humorous turn, as when 

 he tells one of his correspondents that he was 

 so warmed up in getting his winter's wood that 

 he considered, after he got it housed, whether he 

 should not dispose of it to the ash-man, as if he 

 had extracted all its heat. Often it gives only an 

 added emphasis to his expression, as when he says: 

 "A little thought is sexton to all the world;" or, 

 "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as 

 when you find a trout in the milk ; " but its best 

 and most constant office is to act as a kind of fer- 

 menting, expanding gas that lightens, if it some- 



