“A plea for Captain John Brown ” (Publication, 1859)

Thoreau, Henry David. A plea for Captain John Brown [ID D29693].
We dream of foreign countries, of other times and races of men, placing them at a distance in history of space ; but let some significant event like the present occur in our midst, and we discover, often, this distance and this strangeness between us and our nearest neighbors. They are our Austrias, and Chinas, and South Sea Islands. Our crowded society becomes well spaced all at once, clean and handsome to the eye, - a city of magnificent distances. We discover why it was that we never got beyond compliments and surfaces with them before ; we become aware of as many versts between us and them as there are between a wandering Tartar and a Chinese town.