210 
WALDEN. 
In the hollow of my hand 
Are its water and its sand, 
And its deepest resort 
Lies high in my thought. 
The cars never pause to look at it; yet I fancy that 
the engineers and firemen and brakemen, and those pas¬ 
sengers who have a season ticket and see it often, are 
better men for the sight. The engineer does not forget 
at night, or his nature does not, that he has beheld this 
vision of serenity and purity once at least during the 
day. Though seen but once, it helps to wash out State- 
street and the engine’s soot. One proposes that it be 
called “ God’s Drop.” 
I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor out¬ 
let, but it is on the one hand distantly and indirectly re¬ 
lated to Flints’ Pond, which is more elevated, by a 
chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on 
the other directly and manifestly to Concord River, 
which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds through 
which in some other geological period it may have 
flowed, and by a little digging, which God forbid, it can 
be made to flow thither again. If by living thus re¬ 
served and austere, like a hermit in the woods, so long, 
it has acquired such wonderful purity, who would not 
regret that the comparatively impure waters of Flints’ 
Pond should be mingled with it, or itself should ever go 
to waste its sweetness in the ocean wave ? 
Flints’, or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest lake 
and inland sea, lies about a mile east of Walden. It is 
much larger, being said to contain one hundred and 
ninety-seven acres, and is more fertile in fish; but it is 
