The bream, appreciated.

November 30.

I see in my mind's eye the little striped breams poised in Walden's water - - the bream that I have just found. How wild it makes the pond and the township to find a new fish in it!

For more than two centuries men have fished here and have not distinguished this permanent settler of the township. When my eyes first rested on Walden the striped bream was poised in it, though I did not see it. But there it dwells and has dwelt permanently, who can tell how long?

In my account of this bream I cannot go a hair's breadth beyond the mere statement that it exists. I can only think of precious jewels, of music, poetry, beauty, and the mystery of life-- ---the miracle of its existence, my contemporary and neighbor, yet so different from me!

I want you to perceive the mystery of the bream.  I have a contemporary in Walden. It has fins where I have legs and arms. I have a friend among the fishes, acquaintance with it is to make my life more rich and eventful. 

What is the amount of my discovery to me?  It is not that I have got one in a bottle, that it has got a name in a book, but that I have a little fishy friend in the pond, a living contemporary, a provoking mystery. 

I can only poise my thought there by its side and try to think like a bream for a moment. I can only see the bream in its orbit, as I see a star. 

The bream, appreciated, floats in the pond as the centre of the system, another image of God. Its life no man can explain more than he can his own.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, November 30, 1858

But there it dwells and has dwelt permanently, who can tell how long? See July 10, 1853 (“So it has poised here and watched its ova before this New World was known to the Old.”); November 28, 1858 ("And all the years that I have known Walden these striped breams have skulked in it without my knowledge!")

In my account of this bream I cannot go a hair's breadth beyond the mere statement that it exists. See October 4, 1859 ("To conceive any natural object with a total apprehension you must approach it as something totally strange. . . . simply to perceive that such things are.”)

I cannot but see still in my mind’s eye those little striped breams poised in Walden’s glaucous water. ‘They balance all the rest of the world in my estimation at present, for this is the bream that I have just found, and for the time I neglect all its brethren and am ready to kill the fatted calf on its account. For more than two centuries have men fished here and have not distin guished this permanent settler of the township. It is not like a new bird, a transient visitor that may not be seen again for years, but there it dwells and has dwelt permanently, who can tell how long? When my eyes first rested on Walden the striped bream was poised in it, though I did not see it, and when Tahatawan paddled his canoe there. How wild it makes the pond and the township to find a new fish in it! America re news her youth here. But in my account of this bream I cannot go a hair’s breadth beyond the mere statement that it exists, — the miracle of its existence, my contem porary and neighbor, yet so different from me! I can only poise my thought there by its side and try to think like a bream for a moment. I can only think of precious jewels, of music, poetry, beauty, and the mystery of life. I only see the bream in its orbit, as I see a star, but I care not to measure its distance or weight. The bream, appreciated, floats in the pond as the centre of the sys tem, another image of God. Its life no man can ex plain more than he can his own. I want you to perceive the mystery of the bream. I have a contemporary in Walden.l It has fins where I have legs and arms. I 'have a friend among the fishes, at least a new acquaint ance. Its character will interest me, I trust, not its clothes and anatomy. I do not want it to eat. Acquaint ance with it is to make my life more rich and eventful. It is as if a poet or an anchorite had moved into the town, whom I can see from time to time and think of yet oftener. Perhaps there are a thousand of these striped bream which no one had thought of in that pond, —— not their mere impressions in stone, but in the full tide of the bream life.