From: aaron@space.ualberta.ca (Aaron Humphrey)
Subject: Thoreau and timothy
Reply-To: aaron@space.ualberta.ca
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 22:27:53 GMT

Alfvaen enjoys the Faire in the way he enjoys many outdoor-type festivals--
he sits in the haywagon and reads.  He managed to connive for the haywagon to
be parked in the shade.

"What are you reading?" asked timothy.

"You still here?"

"I'm not exactly perambulatory vegetation, you know.  As long as I can be free
from the Brumby's depredations, I'll probably stay right here in the wagon.  So
what are you reading?"

"Can't you see my .sig?"

"Just barely.  I can see the Current Album...is that right?  That doesn't sound
like whan I'm hearing..."

"Oops.  Well, I'll change it when I'm finished, because I might be listening to
something different by then.  Anyway, I'm reading Thoreau, Walden and other
stuff.  It's hard slogging at some points.  I'm used to reading things with
plots, that I can finish in 1/2-4 days, or so...but I've been reading this one
for a week, and if I put in another hour or so tonight, then I should reach
the halfway point."

"Ouch.  So, is it any good?"

"It's a bit uneven.  And I can't agree with all of his philosophies, especially
the stuff in Walden.  I'm much too tied to all my books and tapes and computer
stuff, and Usenet and all that, to really approve too heartily of simplicity.
I mean, he may be right, but I can't agree with him without being a hypocrite."

"I'd probably have an easier time of it, being only a plant, with minima--what
was that?"

"That was my modem connection flaking out.  So this is actually about twenty
minutes later, after disconnecting, coming in over another line, killing my
other line, recovering my vi file, and making a followup to SeaWasp's post.  So
now that >is< what I'm listening to.  Anyways, you were saying?"

"I forget."

"Anyway, Thoreau has some interesting things to say on the subject of fr
friendship, back in the 'Week of the Concord and Merrimack Rivers' excerpt they
have in here..."  Alfvaen flips back a hundred pages or so, mumbling as he
searches through the pages for the exact section he wishes.  Then he quotes
(except with no quotation marks since he didn't come up with it)

In my experience, persons, when they are made the subject of conversation,
though with a friend, are commonly the most prosaic and trivial of facts.  The
universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of
individuals.  Our discourse all runs to slander, and our limits grow narrower
as we advance.  How is it that we are impelled to treat our old friends so ill
when we obtain new ones?  The housekeeper says, I never had any new crocker in
my life but I began to break the old.  I say, let us speak of mushrooms and
forest trees rather.

"That really hits home to me, the part about treating old friends ill when 
one gets new ones.  I've done that time and again--but the main excuse I have
for that is that I hate phoning people.  When I'm in a situation where I have
to phone somebody to keep in touch with them, then I'll likely fall out of
touch completely.  I'm even more reliable at writing letters than I am at
calling people on the phone.  But that's not all of it, because I've broken off
email conversations with good net.friends in favour of posting on the Net.
Anyway, some more Thoreau..."

..We are continually acting a part in a more interesting drama than any
written.  We are dreaming that our Friends are our _Friends_, and that we are
our Friends' _Friends_.  Our actual Friends are but distant relations of those
to whom we are pledged.  We never exchange more than three words with a Friend
in our lives on that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually
rise.  One goes forth prepared to say "Sweet Friends!" and the salutation is
"Damn your eyes!"  But never mind, faint heart never won true Friend.  O my
Friend, may it come to pass, once, that when you are my Friend I may be yours.

Of what use the friendliest disposition even, if there are no hours given to
Friendship, if it is forever postponed to unimportant duties and relations?
Friendship is first, Friendship last.  But it is equally impossible to forget
our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal.  When they say farewell,
then indeed we begin to keep them company.  How often we find ourselves turning
our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.
I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.

"Why does he keep capitalizing friend like that?"

"No idea."

"Is it all that good?"

"Sadly, no.  And there's more good stuff in there on Friendship, somewhere in
Wednesday of the 'Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers'.  My version is
somewhat edited, so I can't give it more exactly than that, but read more if
you're interested."

"Who are you talking to?"

"I'm sure somebody else is listening.  I mean, this is alt.callahans, and
whether they're at the Faire or in the Place or on the meadow or just lurking,
they can still read what you say, if they have time, that is.  Well, from the
subject line, anyone who's interested in Thoreau..."

"Or timothy..."

"Or timothy, will likely read it.  Or so I hope."

--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey)
"So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts
 what's so amazing about really deep thoughts"  -- Tori Amos
Current Album--Golden Earring:Cut
Current Read--Henry David Thoreau:Walden and Other Writings
Newsgroups: alt.callahans