27 October–2 November 1851

It would be hard to recall the rambles of last night's talk with Henry Thoreau. But we stated over again, to sadness almost, the eter- hal lonelinessvl round thatmough the stuff • of Tragedy and of Romances is in a moral union of two superior persons, and the confi- dence of each in the other, for long years, out of sight and in sight, and against all appearances, is at last justified by victorious proof of probity to gods and men, causing a gush of joyful emo- tion, tears, glory, or what-not, — though there be for heroes this moral union, yet they, too, are still as far off as ever from an intellectual union, and this moral union is for comparatively low and external purposes, like the cooperation of a ship's crew or of a fire-club. But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the people we know 1 . . .