Plucked a buttercup on Bear Hill to-day.

November 24

Plucked a buttercup on Bear Hill to-day.

November 24, 2020

I have certain friends whom I visit occasionally, but I commonly part from them early with a certain bitter-sweet sentiment. That which we love is so mixed and entangled with that we hate in one another that we are more grieved and disappointed, aye, and estranged from one another, by meeting than by absence.

Some men may be my acquaintances merely, but one whom I have been accustomed to regard, to idealize, to have dreams about as a friend, and mix up intimately with myself, can never degenerate into an acquaintance.  

I must know him on that higher ground or not know him at all. We do not confess and explain, because we would fain be so intimately related as to understand each other without speech. 

Our friend must be broad. His must be an atmosphere coextensive with the universe, in which we can expand and breathe.

For the most part we are smothered and stifled by one another. I go and see my friend and try his atmosphere. If our atmospheres do not mingle, if we repel each other strongly, it is of no use to stay.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 24, 1850

Plucked a buttercup on Bear Hill to-day. See November 2, 1852 ('Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias"); November 14, 1852 ("Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy"); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common) . . . and perhaps tall buttercup, etc."); November 20, 1857 ("In the large Tommy Wheeler field, Ranunculus bulbosus in full bloom!")

We are more grieved and disappointed, aye, and estranged from one another, by meeting than by absence. See, e.g. February 15, 1851 ("Alas! Alas! when my friend begins to deal in confessions, breaks silence, makes a theme of friendship"); November 16, 1851 ("I love my friends very much , but I find that it is of no use to go to see them  I hate them commonly when I am near them. They belie themselves and deny me continually. "); December 18, 1851 ("When they who have aspired to be friends cease to sympathize, it is the part of religion to keep asunder. . . To explain to a friend is to suppose that you are not  intelligent of one another. If you are not, to what purpose will you explain?"); January 21, 1852 ("I never realized so distinctly as this moment that I am peacefully parting company with the best friend I ever had, by each pursuing his proper path. I perceive that it is possible that we may have a better understanding now than when we were more at one. . . . Simply our paths diverge."); June 11, 1855 ("What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers? I walk alone. My heart is full. Feelings impede the current of my thoughts. I knock on the earth but no friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me"); March 4, 1856 ("I do not believe in complaint, nor in explanation. The whole is but too plain, alas, already. We grieve that we do not love each other, that we cannot confide in each other."); March 28, 1856 ("Farewell, my friends, my path inclines to this side the mountain, yours to that."); February 8, 1857 ("And now another friendship is ended. I do not know what has made my friend doubt me, but I know that in love there is no mistake, and that every estrangement is well founded. . . . I am perfectly sad at parting from you. I could better have the earth taken away from under my feet, than the thought of you from my mind. ");  February 23, 1857 ('That aching of the breast, the grandest pain that man endures, which no ether can assuage . . . If the teeth ache they can be pulled. If the heart aches, what then? Shall we pluck it out?");  November 3, 1858 ("How long we will follow an illusion! On meeting that one whom I call my friend, I find that I had imagined something that was not there.. . . Thus I am taught that my friend is not an actual person. When I have withdrawn and am alone, I forget the actual person and remember only my ideal. Then I have a friend again "); February 5, 1859 ("When we have experienced many disappointments, such as the loss of friends, the notes of birds cease to affect us as they did")