180 
■WALDEN. 
distinction. They all reflect and absorb his rays alike, 
and the former make but a small part of the glorious 
picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his 
view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. 
Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light 
and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. 
What though I value the seed of these beans, and har¬ 
vest that in the fall of the year ? This broad field which 
I have looked at so long looks not to me as the principal 
cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to 
it, which water and make it green. These beans have 
results which are not harvested by me. Do they not 
grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat, (in 
Latin spica , obsoletely speca , from spe , hope,) should not 
be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or 
grain (i granum , from gerendo , bearing,) is not all that 
it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail ? Shall I not 
rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds 
are the granary of the birds ? It matters little com¬ 
paratively wdiether the fields fill the farmer’s barns. 
The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the 
squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will 
bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with 
every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his 
fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but 
his last fruits also. 
