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.