Perhaps in searching for ‘the place’ as Thoreau did, I am more sensitive to the curiosity of this quote, from ‘ Where I lived, and what I live for‘. I cannot say for sure, it just is at once surreal and yet quite tangible.

It is quite a little book, easy to travel with. But now somewhat travel soiled and so slowly read. Why? … For some reason, uknown, only now, this quote has timeliness.

” You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men’s, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseperable from its very nature.  I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint ‘No Admittance’ on my gate.

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, resting on their trail.  Many are the travelers I have been talking about, describing their tracks and what they have answered to.  I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves. “