Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/353

treme penalty of the divine law, excluding trespassers from these grounds, it behoves us to preserve the purity and sanctity of the mind. It is so hard to forget what it is Worse than useless to remember. If I am to be a channel or thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not of the city sewers. There is inspiration, the divine gossip which comes to the attentive mind from the Courts of Heaven, there is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the individual determines to which source chiefly it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. They shall be dusty as stones in the street. Our very minds shall be paved and macadamized, their foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over. If you would know what will make the most durable pavements, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to look into some mens' minds. If we have thus desecrated ourselves, the remedy will be by circumspection and wariness, by aspiration and devotion to consecrate ourselves, to make a fane of the mind. I think we should treat our