178 
WALDEN. 
brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to plant 
corn and beans each new year precisely as the Indians 
did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as 
if there were a fate in it. I saw an old man the other 
day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe 
for the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to 
lie down in! But why should not the New Englander 
try new adventures, and not lay so much stress on his 
grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards,— 
raise other crops than these ? Why concern ourselves 
so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned 
at all about a new generation of men? We should real- 
ly be fed and cheered if when we met a man we were 
sure to see that some of the qualities which I have 
named, which we all prize more than those other pro¬ 
ductions, but which are for the most part broadcast and 
floating in the air, had taken root and grown in him. 
Here comes such a subtile and ineffable quality, for in¬ 
stance, as truth or justice, though the slightest amount 
or new variety of it, along the road. Our ambassadors 
should be instructed to send home such seeds as these, 
and Congress help to distribute them over all the land. 
We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. 
We should never cheat and insult and banish one an¬ 
other by our meanness, if there were present the kernel 
of worth and friendliness. We should not meet thus in 
haste. Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem 
not to have time; they are busy about their beans. We 
would not deal with a man thus plodding ever, leaning 
on a hoe or a spade as a staff between his work, not as 
a mushroom, but partially risen out of the earth, some¬ 
thing more than erect, like swallows alighted and walk¬ 
ing on the ground: — 
