128 
WALDEN. 
seaboard, in which the cars, like a following drill- 
barrow, sprinkle all the restless men and floating mer¬ 
chandise in the country for seed. All day the fire-steed 
flies over the country, stopping only that his master may 
rest, and I am awakened by his tramp and defiant snort 
at midnight, when in some remote glen in the woods 
he fronts the elements incased in ice and snow; and he 
will reach his stall only with the morning star, to start 
once more on his travels without rest or slumber. Or 
perchance, at evening, I hear him in his stable blow¬ 
ing off the superfluous energy of the day, that he 
may calm his nerves and cool his liver and brain for 
a few hours of iron slumber. If the enterprise were as 
heroic and commanding as it is protracted and un¬ 
wearied ! 
Far through unfrequented woods on the confines of 
towns, where once only the hunter penetrated by day, 
in the darkest night dart these bright saloons without 
the knowledge of their inhabitants ; this moment stop¬ 
ping at some brilliant station-house in town or city, 
where a social crowd is gathered, the next in the Dis¬ 
mal Swamp, scaring the owl and fox. The startings 
and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the vil¬ 
lage day. They go and come with such regularity and 
precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the 
farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well con¬ 
ducted institution regulates a whole country. Have 
not men improved somewhat in punctuality since the 
railroad was invented ? Do they not talk and think 
faster in the depot than they did in the stage-office ? 
There is something electrifying in the atmosphere of the 
former place. I have been astonished at the miracles 
it has wrought; that some of my neighbors, who, I 
