"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself." "Of what significance the things you can forget? A little thought is sexton to all the world." "How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?" "Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present a face of bronze to expectations." "I ask to be melted. You can only ask of the metals that they be tender to the fire that melts them. To nought else can they be tender." There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our summer plant called "Life-Everlasting," a _Gnaphalium_ like that, which grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese mountains, where the chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted by its beauty, and by his love, (for it is immensely valued by the Swiss maidens,) climbs the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes found dead at the foot, with the flower in his hand. It is called by botanists the _Gnaphalium leontopodium_, but by the Swiss _Edelweisse_, which signifies _Noble Purity_. Thoreau seemed to me living in the hope to gather this plant, which belonged to him of right. The scale on which his studies proceeded was so large as to require longevity, and we were the less prepared for his sudden disappearance. The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst his broken task, which none else can finish,--a kind of indignity to so noble a soul, that it should depart out of Nature before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what be is. But he, at least, is content. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home. A SUMMER DAY. At daybreak, in the fresh light, joyfully The fishermen drew in their laden net; The shore shone rosy purple, and the sea Was streaked with violet, And, pink with sunrise, many a shadowy sail Lay southward, lighting up the sleeping bay, And in the west the white moon, still and pale, Faded before the day. Silence was everywhere. The rising tide Slowly filled every cove and inlet small: A musical low whisper, multiplied, You heard, and that was all. No clouds at dawn,--but, as the sun climbed higher, White columns, thunderous, splendid, up the sky Floated and stood, heaped in the sun's clear fire, A stately company. Stealing along the coast from cape to cape, The weird mirage crept tremulously on, In many a magic change and wondrous shape, Throbbing beneath the sun.