20 
WALDEN. 
know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the 
enterprises which I have cherished. 
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I 
have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and 
notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two 
eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the 
present moment; to toe that line. You w r ill pardon 
some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade 
than in most men’s, and yet not voluntarily kept, but 
inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell 
all that I know about it, and never paint “ No Admit¬ 
tance ” on my gate. 
I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle¬ 
dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travel¬ 
lers I have spoken concerning them, describing their 
tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met 
one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of 
the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a 
cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as 
if they had lost them themselves. 
To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, 
but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, 
summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring 
about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, 
many of my townsmen have met me returning from 
this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the 
twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is 
true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, 
but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be 
present at it. 
So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside 
the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear 
and carry it express ! I well-nigh sunk all my capital 
