354 
WALDEN. 
inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as tho 
ices. I thought that there was no need of ice to freeze 
them. They talked to me of the age of the wine and 
the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older, a 
newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, 
which they had not got, and could not buy. The style, 
the house and grounds and “ entertainment ” pass for 
nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me 
wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated 
for hospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood 
who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly 
regal. I should have done better had I called on 
him. 
How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle 
and musty virtues, which any work would make imper¬ 
tinent ? As if one were to begin the day with long- 
suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in 
the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness 
and charity with goodness aforethought! Consider the 
China pride and stagnant self-complacency of mankind. 
This generation reclines a little to congratulate itself on 
being the last of an illustrious line; and in Boston and 
London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long de¬ 
scent, it speaks of its progress in art and science and 
literature with satisfaction. There are the Records of 
the Philosophical Societies, and the public Eulogies of 
Great Men ! It is the good Adam contemplating his 
own virtue. “ Yes, we have done great deeds, and sung 
divine songs, which shall never die,” — that is, as long 
as we can remember them. The learned societies and 
great men of Assyria, — where are they ? What youth¬ 
ful philosophers and experimentalists we are ! There is 
