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true of most men. If I suggested any improvement in 
his mode of life, he merely answered, without express¬ 
ing any regret, that it was too late. Yet he thorough¬ 
ly believed in honesty and the like virtues. 
There was a certain positive originality, however 
slight, to be detected in him, and I occasionally observed 
that he was thinking for himself and expressing his own 
opinion, a phenomenon ^o rare that I would any day 
walk ten miles to observe it, and it amounted to the 
re-origination of many of the institutions of society. 
Though he hesitated, and perhaps failed to express him¬ 
self distinctly, he always had a presentable thought be¬ 
hind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and immersed 
in his animal life, that, though more promising than a 
merely learned man’s, it rarely ripened to any thing 
which can be reported. He suggested that there might 
be men of genius in the lowest grades of life, however 
permanently humble and illiterate, who take them own 
view always, or do not pretend to see at all; who are 
as bottomless even as Walden Pond was thought to be, 
though they may be dark and muddy. 
Many a traveller came out of his way to see me and 
the inside of my house, and, as an excuse for calling, 
asked for a glass of water. I told them that I drank at 
the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend them a 
dipper. Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from 
that annual visitation which occurs, methinks, about the 
first of April, when every body is on the move ; and I 
had my share of good luck, though there were some 
curious specimens among my visitors. Half-witted men 
from the almshouse and elsewhere came to see me; but 
