WALDEN POND HENRY DAVID THOREAU Occasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, I joined some impatient companion who had been fishing on the pond since morning, as silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and, after practising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient sect of Coenobites.

It is very certain, at any rate, that once there was no pond here, and now there is one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the account of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he concluded to dig a well here.

The main distinguishing features, however, of stoicism, the unselfish ideal and the controlling reason, were acquiesced in, and each represents an important side of the ancient conception of excellence which we must now proceed to examine.

It was examples of this nature that formed the culminations or ideals of ancient systems of virtue, and they naturally led men to draw a very clear and deep distinction between the notions of interest and of duty.

The desire for reputation, and especially for posthumous reputationthat "last infirmity of noble minds"assumed an extraordinary prominence among the springs of Roman heroism, and was also the origin of that theatrical and overstrained phraseology which the greatest of ancient moralists rarely escaped.

The circumstances of the ancient societies led them to the former type, of which the Stoics furnished the extreme expression in their doctrine that the affections are of the nature of a diseasea doctrine which they justified by the same kind of arguments as those which are now often employed by metaphysicians to prove that love, anger and the like, can only be ascribed by a figure of speech to the Deity.

Friendship rather than love, hospitality rather than charity, magnanimity rather than tenderness, clemency rather than sympathy, are the characteristics of ancient goodness.

Thus, while the Epicureans, urging men to study nature in order to banish superstition, endeavoured to correct the ignorance of physical science which was one of the chief impediments to the progress of the ancient mind, the Stoics for the most part disdained a study which was other than the pursuit of virtue.

The selfishness of modern times exists in defiance of morality, in ancient times it was approved, sheltered, and even in part enjoined by morality.

We are therefore to consider the ancient world as a society of men in whom natural humanity existed but had been, as it were, crusted or frosted over.

Widely diffused indeed it is, and seldom entirely eradicated; but for the most part, at least in the ancient world, it was crushed under a weight of predominant passions and interests; it had seldom power enough to dictate any action, but made itself felt in faint misgivings and relentings, which sometimes restrained men from extremes of cruelty.

Compare the ancient with the modern world: "Look on this picture and on that."

Among all the men of the ancient heathen world there were scarcely one or two to whom we might venture to apply the epithet "holy."

But from the modern point of view the ancient plaint of the Book of Job remains true, both for the rock and for the man: "The waters wear away stones, And the hope of frail man thou destroyest.

If the title of a poem conveys little or nothing to us, the "subject" appears to be either what we should gather by investigating the title in a dictionary or other book of the kind, or else such a brief suggestion as might be offered by a person who had read the poem, and who said, for example, that the subject of The Ancient Mariner was a sailor who killed an albatross and suffered for his deed.

The season at which it was performed was the festival of Dionysus; about his altar the chorus danced; and the object of the performance was the representation of scenes out of the lives of ancient heroes.

In the first place, the theme represented is the life and fate of ancient heroesof personages, that is to say, greater than ordinary men, both for good and for evil, in their qualities and in their achievements, pregnant with fateful issues, makers or marrers of the fortunes of the world.

The nearest modern analogy to what the ancient drama must have been is to be found probably in the operas of Wagner, who indeed was strongly influenced by the tragedy of the Greeks.

The ancient pistol was not dangerous, but the action was.

Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetic rage, In ancient tales amused a barb'rous age; But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more.

It is addressed to Lord Cutts in a dedication dated from the Tower-Yard, March 23, 1701, and is in four chapters, of which the first treats of the heroism of the ancient world, the second connects man with his Creator, by the Bible Story and the Life and Death of Christ, the third defines the Christian as set forth by the character and teaching of St. Paul, applying the definition practically to the daily life of Steele's own time.

It stood slightly back from the street with ancient dignity; upon the shining door-plate, deeply bitten in angular text, was the name "Ashton-Kirk.

Two large modern safes stood at one side, behind a long show case spread with ancient coins.

An examination of the cabinets and cases disclosed hundreds of ancient coins and other articles the value of which must have been heavy.

But, although there are no human bones, in several places, and especially in the mountain of Boutaresa, (which is not far from the mountain of Boulade,) pieces of wood have been discovered, buried under the ancient lava, which observers worthy of credit declare seem to have been fashioned by the hand of man, and to have been cut with a hatchet, although rudely, and as might be expected in the infancy of the arts.