226 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1850,

friendship. As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let not your right hand know what your left hand does in that line of busi ness. It will prove a failure. Just as success fully can you walk against a sharp steel edge which divides you cleanly right and left. Do you wish to try your ability to resist disten sion ? It is a greater strain than any soul can long endure. When you get God to pulling one way, and the devil the other, each having his feet well braced, to say nothing of the con science sawing transversely, almost any tim ber will give way.

I do not dare invite you earnestly to come to Concord, because I know too well that the ber ries are not thick in my fields, and we should have to take it out in viewing the landscape. But come, on every account, and we will see one another.

No letters of the year 1851 have been found by me. On the 27th of December, 1850, Mr. Cabot wrote to say that the Boston Society of Natural History, of which he was secretary, had elected Thoreau a corresponding member, " with all the honores, privilegia, etc., ad gradum tuum pertinentia, without the formality of paying any

entrance fee, or annual subscription. Your du-