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WALDEN. By
henry
D;
THOREAU,
AOTHOB OF "A WEEK ON THZ CONCORD AND UEBBIMACK BIVBBa''
I
do not propose to write an ode to dejection, bat to brag as Instily as chanticleer morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors .up. —» Pa
in
t
•«?
NINETEENTH EDITION*
.
r
o>
BOSTON:X^^^. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPA] 1882.
C
Copyright, 1854,
By
henry
D.
THOREAU.
Copyright, 1882,
By MARY
A. T.
LOWELL
and
REBECCA
Heirs of Henry D. Thoreau.
J.
THACHER,
CONTENTS.
KCONOMlf,
WHERE
.
.
LIVED,
I
.
5
,
AND WHAT
LIVED FOB,
I
88
.
.108
READING, SOUNDS,
.
.121
.
SOLITUDE,
.
VISITORS,
.
152
.
THE BEAN-FIELD,
168
THE VILLAGE,
.
.
THE PONDS, .
HIGHER LAWS,
HOUSE-WARMING,
•
.
.
.... VISITORS,
.
WINTER ANIMALS,
.
ccvor^usioN.
240 256
.
FORMER INHABITANTS; AND WINTER
SPRING,
217
226
BRUTE NEIGHBORS
m
181 188
BAKER FARM,
THE rOND
140
275 291
.303
WINTER, .
.
.
.
.
.
....
,..,... (3)
320
aa
ECONOMY.
When
e the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the sliore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts,
I
and earned
fr-e
my
the labor of
by
living
my
At
I lived there two years and two months.
am
a sojourner
hands only. present
I
in civilized life again.
my
I should not obtrude
affairs
much on
so
the
very particular inquiries had
notice of
my
rot been
made by my townsmen concerning my mode
of
life,
readers
if
which some would
do not appear
to
me
call impertinent,
though they
at all impertinent, but, considering
Some the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. have asked what I got to eat if I did not feel lone;
some
;
if
I was not afraid
and the
large families,
to learn
how many poor
I will therefore ask those of particular interest in to
Others have
like.
what portion of my income I charitable purposes; and some, who have
been curious devoted to
;
me
to
children I maintained.
my
readers
pardon
me
answer some of these questions in
if
who
feel
no
I undertake
this book. (5)
Id
WALDEN.
6
most books, the
be retained
will
main
first
person,
is
omitted
We
commonly do not remember
ab.vays the first person that
all,
in this
;
it
that, in respect to egotism, is the
;
difFerence.
after
it is,
or
I^
that
speaking.
is
much about myself if there were whom I knew as weU. Unfortunately, I
I should not talk so
any body
am
else
confined to this theme by the narrowness of
Moreover,
experience.
I,
on
my
side, require of
my
every
and sincere account of his and not merely wdiat he has heard of other men's lives some such account as he would send to his for if he has lived sinkindred from a distant land writer, first or last, a simple
own
life,
;
;
must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to cerely,
it
As
poor students. will accept
for the rest of
it
may
seams
do good service to him
whom
the Chinese and
I trust
on the
in jiutting
coat,
it fits.
much
I would fain say sometliing, not so
these pages,
readers, they
such portions as apply to them.
that none will stretch the for
my
concerning
Sandwich Islanders as you who read
who are
said
to
live
in
New
ICngland;
something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town,
what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it I is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. have travelled a good deal in Concord and every where, in shops, and ofiices, and fields, the inhabitants have ;
appeared
to
me
to
What
remarloible w^ays. sitting
exposed
the sun
;
be doing penance in a thousand
to four fires
I
ha\ e heard of Bramins
and looking
in the face of
or hanging suspended, with their heads down-
ward, over flames shoulders "until
;
or looking at the heavens ov^er their it
becomes impossible
for
tliem
tc
ECONOMY. resume Ihe^r natural
7
position, while
from the twist of
the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach;'*
or dwelling, chained for
measuring with
life,
at the foot of a tree
of vast empires
;
pillars,
these forms of conscious penance
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even
or
;
nr bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth
tb
or standing on one leg on the tops of
are
hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes
The twelve
which I daily witness.
were
comparison with those which
trifling in
bors have undertaken
had an end
labors of Hercules
;
for they
my
were only twelve, and
but I could never see that these
;
men
or captured any monster or finished any labor.
have no friend lolas
to
neigh-
slew
They
burn with a hot iron the root of
the hydra's head, but as soon as one head
is
crushed,
two spring up. I see young men,
my
townsmen, whose misfortune
it
have inherited farms, houses, barns,
cattle, and more easily acquired than Better if they had been born in the open got rid of. pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. "Who made them serfs of the soil ? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt ? Why should IS
to
farming tools
;
for these are
they begin digging their graves as soon as they are
born
?
They have
got to live a man's
life,
pushing
all
these things before them, and get on as well as they can.
How many
a poor immortal soul have I met well nigh
crushed and smothered under the road of feet
life,
by forty,
its
Augean
hundred acres of wood-lot
!
The
its
pushing before stables
it
down
a barn seventy-five
never cleansed, and ene
land, tillage,
portionless,
load, creeping
who
mowing, pasturCj and struggle with
no suci
WALDEN.
8
unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find
subdue and cultivate a few cubic
to
man is soon ploughed
eeeming
fate,
ployed, as
it
The
better part of
By a
into the soil for compost.
commonij' called necessity, they are erasays in an old book, laying up treasures
which moth and rust through and steal. It
when they
labor enough
feet of flesh.
But men labor under a mistake. the
it
will corrupt is
a
get to the end of
that Deucalion and
and thieves b^eak
fool's life, as it,
if
they will find It is said
not before.
Pyrrha created men by throwing
stones over their heads behind thena
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum, Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati.
Or, as Raleigh rhymes
it
in his sonorous
way,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
"From
care,
So much
for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle,
thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are."
throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they
fell.
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of
life
Their
that
its
fingers,
tremble too
finer fruits cannot
from excessive
much
for that.
toil,
be plucked by them. are too clumsy and
Actually, the laboring
has not leisure for a true integrity day by day not afford to sustain the manliest relations to labor would be depreciated in the market.
time to be any thing but a machine.
remember well his ignorance quires
-
- who has
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which
so often to use his
;
man
he can-
men
his
;
He has How can
his
growth
knowledge ?
no he re-
Wc
ECONOMY. Bhould feed and
him with our
nicruit
Ihe
e
him
gratuitously sometimes, and
cordials, before Ave
judge of him.
qualities of our nature, like the
bloom on can be preserved only by the most delicate han-
finest
fruits,
clotl:
9
Yet we do not
dling.
treat ourselves nor one another
thus tenderly.
Some
of you, Ave
all
know, are poor,
are sometimes, as
find
it
hard to
gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you Avho read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners Avhich you have actual-
live,
it
Avere,
and shoes Avhich are fast Avearing or are already Avorn out, and have come to this page to spend borroAved or stolen time, robbing your creditors ly eaten, or for the coats
of an hour. ing lives
It is
many
very evident Avhat mean and sneak-
of you live, for
my sight
has been Avhet-
by experience ahvays on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins ces alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins Avere made of brass still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying to-day, insolvent seeking to curry favor, to ted
;
;
;
;
by how many modes, only not
get custom,
state-prison
offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves
a nutshell of
into
of thin and
civility,
or dilating into an atmosphere
vaporous generosity,
suade your neighbor
to let
you make
hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or for
him
;
that
making yourselves
you may per-
his shoes, or hig
import his groceries
sick, that
you may lay up
something against a sick day, something
awa}
in
an old
tering, or,
chest, or in
more
safely,
where, no matter
to
be tucked
a stocking behind the plas-
in the brick
how much
or
how
bank little.
;
no mattel
'
WALDEN.
10
wonder that we can be so
I sometimes
may
almost say, as to attend
to the gross
many keen and
north and south. seer
;
it is
when you divinity in
worse
hard
It is
to
have a southern over-
man
Look
!
to
but worst of
him?
his horses
!
all
Talk of a
at the teamster on the high-
market by day or night
divinity stir within
does any
;
His highest duty
What
is
How
to
his destiny to
pared with the shipping interests
?
fodder
him com-
Does not he drive
how immortal, is See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all
for Squire Make-a-stir?
he
;
are the slave-driver of ycurself
way, wending
and water
subtle masters that enslave both
have a northern one
to
but somewhat
Negro Slavery, there
foreign form of servitude called
arc so
frVoloiis, 1
?
godlike,
the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak
tyrant compared with our
man
own
thinks of himself, that
the
West Indian also,
a
which determines, or
provinces of the fancy and imagina-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; what Wilberforce
Think,
it
is
Self-emancipation even in
rather indicates, his fate.
tion,
What
private opinion.
is
there to bring that about
of the ladies of the
land weaving
?
toilet
cushions against the last day, not to betray too green nn interest in their fates
!
As
if
you could
kill
time without
injuring eternity.
The mass of inen lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country,
and have
to console
minks and muskrats.
A
yourself with the bravery of
stereotyped but unconsciDua
is concealed even under what are games and amusements of mankind. There
despair
called is
the
no play
ECONOMY. in lliem, for acteristic of
When we chism,
tliis comes wisdom not
it
a char-
is
do desperate things.
consider what, to use the words of the cate
means of
necessaries and
deliberately chosen the
they preferred
it
remember
hfe,
appears as
it
common mode
any
other.
left.
But
to
no choice
is
But
after work. to
tha chief end of man, and what are the true
is
there
11
men had
if
of living because
Yet they honestly think and healthy natures
alert
that the sun rose clear.
never too
It is
late
No way of thinking or doing, to give up our prejudices. however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day
may
turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of
opinion,
which some had trusted
sprinkle fertilizing rain on their
for a cloud that
What
fields.
would
old peo-
you cannot do you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh
ple say
fuel to
keep the
wood under a
fire
pot,
a-going
the speed of birds, in a
phrase
Age
is.
is
no
way
better,
an instructor as youth, for it
has
has
lost.
new
;
people put a
little
dry
and are whiiied round the globe with
One may
it
to kill old people, as the
hardly so well, qualified for
almost doubt
learned any thing of
much as wisest man
has not profited so
absolute
if
the
value by living
have no very important advice to own experience has been so par-
Practically, the old
give the young, their tial,
and their
have been such miserable
lives
for private reasons, as they must believe
that they
have some
faith left
which
;
and
failures,
it
may be
belies that experi-
ence, and they are only less young than they were.
have lived some thirty years on yet to hear the
firs':
this planet,
syllable of valuable or
I
and I have
even earnes*
;
WALDEN.
12 advice from
my
and probably cannot
Here
me
;
is life,
but
it
They have
seniors.
me any
tell
me
told
i;
thing, to the purpose.
an experiment to a great extent untried by
me
does not avail
that they have tried
I have any experience which I think valuable, I to reflect that this
One farmer
my
with
it
You
am
sure
cannot live on vegeta-
make bones
furnishes nothing to
and so he religiously devotes a part of
;
If
it.
Mentors said nothing about.
says to me, "
ble food solely, for "
othiiig,
his
day to
supplying his system with the raw material of bones
walking
all
,â&#x20AC;˘
the while he talks behind his oxen, which,
with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumber-
Some
of every obstacle.
ing plough along in spite
things are really necessaries of
life
in
some
circles,
the
most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others
The whole ground
still
of
are entirely unknown.
human
life
seems
to
some
to
have been gone over by their predecessors, both the all things to have been
heights and the valleys, and
cared
for.
According
to
Evelyn, " the wise Solomon
prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees
and the Roman praetors have decided how often you go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs
may
Hippocrates has even
to that neighbor."
how we
should cut our nails
;
that
is,
left directions
even with the ends
Undoubted-
of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer. ly the very tedium
and ennui which presume
exhausted the variety and the joys of
Adam. ured
;
But man's nor
ai*e
any precedents,
we so
life
to
have
are as old as
have never been measjudge of what he can do by
capacities to
little
has been tried.
Uave been thy failures hitherto, "be not
What(>ver afflicted,
my
ECONOMY.
who
for
cliild,
13
shall assign to thet3
undone ? " We might try our
lives
as, for instance, that the
what thou hast
left
by a thousand simple tests same sun which ripens my ;
beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this
This was not the light in which I hoed
fnistakes.
The
them. angles
apexes of what wonderful
stars are the
What
!
would have prevented some
it
distant
and
tri-
different beings in the various
mansions of the universe are contemplating the same
one at the same moment
Nature and human
!
Who
as various as our several constitutions.
what prospect
are
shall say
Could a greater
another?
life offers to
life
mn-acle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant
We
?
ages of the world in an hour
;
should live in
ay, in all the worlds of
History, Poetry, Mythology
the ages.
the
all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
!
I
know
of no
reading of another's experience so startling and inform-
mg
would be.
as this
The
my
believe in thing,
my
greater part oi what
very likely to be
is
it
soul to be bad,
demon possessed me
that I
neighbors call good I
and
my
if
I repent of
any
What You may
good behavior.
behaved so well ?
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you who have â&#x20AC;&#x201D; honor of a
say the wisest thing you can old man, lived seventy years, not without
hear an
irresistible voice
One
all that.
kind,
which invites
I
me away from
generation abandons the enterprises of
another like stranded vessels. I think that
than
we
do.
we may
safely trust a good deal
We may w^aive
just so
much
^ell adapted to our
Incessant
weakness as
to
care of our-
Nature
selves as w^e honestly bestow elsewhere.
our strength.
anxiety and strain of some
is
more is
as
Tiie
a well nigh
WALDEN.
14
We
incurable form of disease. ate the importance of
much
is
live
by
done by us
not
taken sick
How
?
faith if
alert, at night
what
or,
!
we
vi2;ilant
are
we ;
compelled
determined not
!
to
So thoroughly and
sin*
reverencing our
life,
to live,
This
possibility of change.
many ways
but there are as
be drawn radii from one centre cle to
if
exaggor
to
and yet ho\^ w^e had been
;
and denying the way, we say
;
we can avoid it all the day long on the we unwillingly say our prayers and com-
mit ourselves to uncertainties. cerely are
made
are
what work we do
contemplate
;
as there can
All change
is
a mira-
it is a miracle which is taking Confucius said, " To know that we
but
place every instant.
know what we know, and io not know, that
the only
is
is
we do
that
not
know what
When
true knowledge."
one
w^e
man
has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that establish their lives
on that
all
men
at length
will
basis.
for a moment what most of the trouand anxiety which I have referred to is about, and
Let us consider ble
now much careful. tive
and
it is
It
frontier
civilization, if ries of life
(hem
;
necessary that
we
be troubled,
would be some advantage life,
though
in the
or, at least,
to live a primi-
midst of an outward
only to learn what are the gross necessa-
and what methods have been taken
to obtain
or even to look over the old day-books of the
merchants, to see what
bought at the
it
was
had but
laws of man's
men most commonly
'influence
little
existence
is,
whai
For the improvements of
are the grossest groceries.
ages have
that
stores, wdiat tliey stored, that
:
as
our
on the essential skeletons,
proba-
ECONOMY.
not to be distinguished from those of oai
are
bly,
16
ancestors.
By all
the words, necessary of
that
man
from the
mean whatever,
of
exertions, has been
or from long use has become, so im-
first,
human
portant to
I
life,
own
obtains by his
life
whether from
that few, if any,
garageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to
do without
To many
it.
sense but one necessary of tha praii'ie
water
to
it is
drink
;
of
life
man
None
in
thin
Clothing, and Fuel
;
tlie
of the brute creation
The
Slielter.
necessaries
may, accurately enough,
in this climate
be distributed under
we prepared
is
the bison of
a few inches of palatable grass, with
more than Food and
for
To
Food.
unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest
or the mountain's shadow. requires
there
creatures life.
several heads of Food, Shelter,
for not
till
we have secured
these are
problems of
life witi^
to entertain the true
Man
freedom and a prospect of success.
has invented,
not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly fire,
from the accidental discovery of the warmth of
and the consequent use of
arose the present necessity to cats
sit
at first a luxury,
by
We
it.
observe
By
and dogs acquiring the same second nature.
oroper Shelter and Clothing
own
it,
we
legitimately retain oui
internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of
Fuel, that internal,
is,
with an external heat greater than our
may
Darwin, the
own
not cookery properly be said to begin
?
naturalist, says of the inhabitants of Tierra
del Fuego, that while his
own
clothed and sitting close to a
party, fire,
who were
were
far
warm, these naked savages, who were farther observed, to his great surprise, " to
'">e
well
from too off,
were
streaming with
perspiration at undergoing such a roasting."
So,
we
;;
WALDEN.
16
New
are told, the
Hollander goes naked
wiili
while the European shivers in his clothes. sible to
impunity,
Is
intellectualness
of the
man
civilized
impos-
it
combine the hardiness of these savages
Aviih the
According
?
to
Liebig, man's body
is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, in warm less. The animal heat
result of a slow combustion,
is tlie
take place
when
this is too rapid
and
from some defect in the draught, the course the vital heat
but so
much
the above
fire
Of
goes out.
not to be confounded with
is
for analogy.
It appears, therefore,
animal
that the expression,
list,
and death want of fuel, or
disea:-e
or for
;
fire
from
nearly
life, is
synonymous with the expression, animal heat; for while Food may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire
within us,
Food tion
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
Fuel serves only
or to increase the
prepare that
to
warmth of our bodies by
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Shelter
from without,
addi-
and Clothing also serve only to retain the heat thus generated and absorbed. The grand necessity, then, for our boilies, is to keep
warm,
to
keep the
What
vital heat in us.
we
pains
accordingly take, not only with our Food, and Clothing,
and
Shelter, but with our beds,
clothes, robbing the nests
which are our night-
and breasts of birds
to pre-
pare this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has
bed of grass and leaves poor
and
man
is
to cold,
wont no
to
complain that
less physical
ly a great part of our ails.
mates,
makes
end of
at the
possible to
is
his fire,
cooked by
its
â&#x20AC;˘
this is a cold
man
social,
ita
Tlie
!
world
refer directin
some
a sort of Elysian
is
and many of the
rays
burrow
we The summer,
than
Fuel, except to cook his Food,
sun
its
then unnecessary
clilife.
;
the
fruits are sufficiently
while Food generally
is
more
vari
ECONOMY.
17
and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter
ous,
At
are wholly or half unnecessary.
and
in this country, as I find
few implements, a row,
&:c.,
knife,
the present day,
my own
by
expe.'.'ience,
a
an axe, a spade, a wheelbar-
and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and
access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can
be obtained at a
ail
trifling cost.
go to the other side of the globe,
Yet some, not wise, to barbarous and un-
healthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they
keep comfortably warm, last.
The
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
may
die in
New
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
that
is,
England
at,
live,
luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfort
ably warm, but unnaturally hot
they are cooked, of course a
Most of the
luxuries,
forts of life, are not
la
;
as I implied before,
mode.
and many of the so called com-
only not indispensable, but positive
hinderances to the elevation of mankind.
With
respect
and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The to luxuries
ancient philosophers, Chinese,
Hindoo, Persian, and
Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in
outward
riches,
none so rich in inward.
much about them. much of them as we
We
not
It is
remarkable that
so
do.
The same
is
more modern reformers and bene/actors of
None can be an life
know we know
true of the their race
impartial or wise observer of
human
but from the vantage ground of what we should
Of
voluntary poverty.
a
life
call
of luxury the fruit
is
luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or litera-
There are nowadays professors of philcsophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to To be a |)rofess because it was once admirable to live. philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, noi ture, or art.
2
WALDEN.
18
even
to found^
according to
a school, but so
its dictates,
ence, magnanimity, and
the problems of
The
cally.
a
wisdcm
to love
life
of
as to live
independ-
simplicit}',
It is to solve
trast.
some of
not only theoretically, but practi-
life,
and thinkers
success of great scholars
is
commonly a
courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.
They make
shift to live
cally as their fathers did,
merely by conformity, practi-
and are
no sense the pro-
in
But why do men
genitors of a nobler race of men.
degenerate ever
What
destroys nations
own
?
lives ?
Are Ave sure that there is none of it The philosopher is in advance of his
age even in the outward form of his fed, sheltered, clothed,
How
run out ?
families
the nature of the luxury which enervates and
is
in our
What makes
?
can a
vital heat
When
man be
warmed,
He
life.
is
not
like his contemporaries.
a philosopher and not maintain his
by better methods than other men ? a man is warmed by the several modes which
I have described, what does he want next
Surely not
?
more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous incessant and hotter and the
fires,
When
like.
which are necessary ture on
life
it
The
has sent its
;
another alternative
and that
shoot
its
soil, it
appears,
radicle
upward
is
to
adven-
toil
having
is,
now, his vacation from humbler
commenced. send
to life, there is
to obtain the superfluities
than
for
he has obtained those things
suited to the seed,
downward, and
also with confidence.
it
may now
Why
has
rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he
man may rise
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in the
same proportion
into the
heavens above ?
for the nobler plants are valued for the fruit they
bear at
last in the air
and
light, far
from the ground, and
;
ECONOMY.
19
are not treated like the humbler
may
though they
esculents,
Avhicl\
be biennials, are cultivated only
till
down at know them
they have perfected their root, and often cut top for this purpose, so that most would not in their flowerin": season.
mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant who will mind their own affairs whether in
I do not natures,
heaven or
hell,
and perchance build more magnificently
and spend more lavishly than the
richest, without ever
impoverishing themselves, not knowing
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
how they
indeed, there are any such, as has been
if,
who
nor to those
find their
live,
dreamed
encouragement and inspira-
and
tion in precisely the present condition of things,
cherish
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and,
it
to
with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers,
some
to
those
who
are well employed or not;
anergetically
lot
or of the times,
they
mass
of thft
when they might
and inconsolably of any, because they I also have in
as they say, doing their duty.
my
are,
mind
seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished
class of all,
who have accumulated
how
it,
to use
their
oi
own golden
get rid of
Kpend those
it,
dross, but
know
not
and thus have forged
or silver fetters.
If I should attempt to
its
to the
There are some who complain most
imj)rove them.
(liat
know whether
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but mainly
are discontented, and idly complaining of
hardness of their
;
are well employed, in
wliatever circumstances, and tliey
men who
number
extent, I reckon myself in this
I do not speak
tell
how
I have desired to
my life in years past, it would probably surprise of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with
actual history
;
it
would certainly astonish those who
WALDEN.
20
know nothing about
I will only hint at some of
it.
tlit
enterprises which I have cherished.
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I
have been anxious notch
on
it
eternities, the past
moment
present
some
improve the nick of time, and
to
my stick too
;
and
to stand
future,
on the meeting of two
which
to toe that line.
;
obscurities, for there are
more
precisely the
is
You
pardon
will
my
secrets in
trade
than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from all
know about
that I
tance "
my
on
I would gladly
very nature.
its
it,
and never paint "
tell
No Admit-
gate.
I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-
am
dove, and
still
on their
Many
trail.
are the travel-
lers I
have spoken concerning them, describing
tracks
and what calls they answered to. I have ni't who had heard the hound, and the tramp of
thei*"
one or two
the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a
and they seemed as anxious
cloud,
to recover
them as
them themselves. and the dawn merely, How many mornings, but, if possible. Nature herself! summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring if
they had
To
lost
anticipate, not the sunrise
about his business, have I been about mine!
many this
my
of
doubt,
townsmen have met me returning from
enterprise,
farmers
starting
for
Boston in the
or woodchoppers going to their work.
It is
never assisted the sun materially in his
rising,
twilight, true, I
No
but, doubt not,
present at
it
was of the
last
importance only to be
it.
So many autumn,
ay,
and winter days, spent outside
the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear
and caiTy
it
express
!
I well-nigh sunk
all
my
capita]
ECONOaiT. in
it,
and
lost
my own
breath into
21 bargain, running
tlie
had concerned either of the podepend upon it, it would have appeared If
in the face of it
it
litical
parties,
in the
Gazette with the earliest intelligence.
At
times watching from the observatory of some
other
cliff
or
any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-to]3S for the sky to fall, that I might catch tree, to telegraph
something, though I never caught much, and that, mannawise,
would dissolve again
For a long time
in the sun.
was reporter
I
to
a journal, of no
very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit
to print the
common
bulk of
my
contributions, and, as
with writers, I got only ray labor for
However,
in this case
my
pains were their
my
is
too
pains.
own reward.
For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain storms, and did my duty faithfully
;
and
surveyor,
if
not of highways, then of forest paths
all across-lot routes,
keeping them open, and ravines
bridged and passable at
all
seasons,
where the public
heel had testified to their utility.
I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which
give a faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble
ing fences
;
and I have had an eye
nooks and corners of the farm
;
by leap-
to the unfrequented
though I did not always
know whether Jonas
or Solomon worked in a particular was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered field
to-day
else in
;
that
dry seasons.
In short, I went on thus for a long time, I â&#x20AC;˘without boasting, faithfully
minding
my
besame more and more evident that
may say it
business,
my
till it
townsmen
22
"WALDEN.
would not
after
admit
all
make my
nor
officers,
My
allowance.
me
of towh
into the list
place a sinecure with a moderate
accounts, which I can swear to have
kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, paid and settled.
less accepted, still less
my
have not set
Not long
a strolhng Indian went to
since,
" No,
Do you
"
we do
J
heart on that.
at the house of a
hood.
still
However,
well-known lawyer in
sell
baskets
my
neighbor-
"
he asked.
wish to buy any baskets
?
"
not want any," was the reply.
What
'* !
exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, " do you
mean
to starve us
?
"
neighbors so well
Having seen
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
his industrious white
had only to weave arguments, and by some magic wealth and standing followed, he had said to himself; I will go into business
I will
;
do.
off,
that the lawyer
weave baskets
it
;
is
a thing which I can
Thinking that when he had made the baskets he his part, and then it would be the white
would have done man's
to
He had
buy them.
not discovered that
it
was
make it worth the other's while least make him think that it was so,
necessary for him to
buy them, or at to make something
which
it
would be worth
or
his
had woven a kind of basket of a texture, but I had not made it worth any one's
while to buy. delicate
else
to
I too
buy them^ Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead c studying how to make it worth men's while to buy ray
( while
to
baskets, I studied rather Belling
Tho
them.
successful
is
my
me any room
to
avoid the necessity of
Why
should
we
exaggerate
expense of the others ?
at the
Finding that
how
which men praise and regard as
but one kind.
any one kmd offer
life
fellow-citizens
were not
in the court house, or
likely to
any curacy of
;
ECONOMY.
23
any where else, but I must shift for rayseli", I ^urned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known. I determined to go into
tiving
business at once, and not wait tr icquire the usual capi
My
using such slender means as I had already got.
tal,
purpose in going
Walden Pond was
to
not to live cheap-
ly nor to live dearly there, but to transact b^JiSiness
with the fewest obstacles
;
accomplishing which for want of a
a Httle enterprise and business
some private
be hindered from
to
common
little
sense,
appeared not so
talent,
(^ad as foohsh.
I have always endeavored to acquire habits
trade
mg
;
is
enough.
coast, in
You
pine timber and a
These
will
little
person
;
to
to read
;
;
buy and
the
all
and capsell
and
and
;
to
be upon
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
many
same time often the be discharged upon a Jersey shore ; ;
be your own telegraph, unweai'iedly sweeping the
horizon, speaking all passing vessels to
pilot
letter received,
to
parts of the coast almost at the
to
and
to superintend the dis-
charge of imports night and day
richest freight will
ice
To oversee
be at once
every
write or read every letter sent
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
much
granite, always in native bot-
and owner and underwriter ;
keep the accounts
be
will
will export such articles as the
be good ventures.
details yourself in tain,
If your
some Salem harbor,
country affords, purely native products,
toms.
business
with the Celestial Empire, then some small count
house on the
fixture
strict
they are indispensable to every man.
keep up a
st(3ady
bound coastwise
despatch of commodities, for the
supply of such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of the markets, prospects
of war and peace every where, and anticipate the ten* dencies of trade and civilization,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; taking advantage
of
WALDEN.
24 the results of
sages and
exploring expeditions, using
all
improvements in navigation
all
;
—
be studied, the position of reefs and new buoys
to
new
pas-
charts to
lights
and
be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the loga-
by the error of some upon a rock that should
rithmic tables to be corrected, for calculator the vessel often splits
have reached a friendly of
La Perouse
;
— there
pier,
— universal
is
the untold fate
science to be kept pace
with, studying the lives of all great discoverers
and merchants, from Han-
navigators, great adventurers
no and the Phoenicians down
to
our day
;
in fine, ac-
count of stock to be taken from time- to time, to
how you
stand.
a labor
It is
man,
— such problems of
tare
and
tret,
and
and
profit
and gauging of
know
to task the faculties of
all
loss,
kinds in
a
of interest, of it,
as
demand
a universal knowledge. I have thought that Walden
Pond would be a good
place for business, not solely on account of the railroad
and the ice trade it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge it is a good post and a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled though you ;
;
;
must every where build on It is said that
in the
a
flood-tide,
Neva, would sweep
piles of
your own driving.
with a westerly wind, and ice St.
Petersburg from the face
of the earth.
As
this business
usual capital,
it
was
may
to
be entered into without the
not be easy to conjecture wliere
those means, that will
still
be indispensable to every
such undertaking, were to be obtained. to
come
perhaps
As for
Clotliing,
at once to the practical part of the question,
we
are led oftener by the love of novelty, and
CLOTHING.
25
d regard for the opinions of men, in procuring bj-
a true
Let him who has work
utility.
lect that the object of clothing
and secondly,
heat,
in this
is, first,
to
It,
than
do recol-
to retain th;) vital
of society, to cover
state
may judge how much of any necesmay be accomplished without
nakedness, and he
sary or important work
Kings and queens who wear a
adding to his wardrobe. suit
but once, though made by some
maker
know
to their majesties, cannot
wearing a
suit that
fits.
They
tailor or dress-
the comfort of
are no better than
Every day our
horses lo hang the clean clothes on.
garments become more assimilated
to ourselves, receiv-
ing the impress of the wearer's character, until
them
tate to lay
aside, without
wooden
we
.
^
hesi-
such delay and medical
appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.
No man
my estimation for havI am sure that there i?
ever stood the lower in
ing a patch in his clothes
;
yet
greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean
and unpatched
conscience.
But even
if
clothes,
the rent
than to have a sound
is
not mended, perhaps
the worst vice betrayed is improvidence.
my
acquaintances by such tests as this;
I sometimes try
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who could wear
a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee?
Most
if they beheved would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if an accident happens to a
behave as
that their prospects for life
gt'ntleman's legs, they can be
mended
;
but
if
a similar j
accident happens
no help
for
it
;
to the legs of his pantaloons, there
for
he considers, not what
is
is
truly re-
what is respected. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress a scarevow in you^ last shift, you standing shiftless by, who spectable, but
WALDEN.
26
would not soonest salute the scarecrow?
Passing a
by a hat and coat on a owner of the farm. He was only a little n>ore weather-beaten than when I saw him last. I have heard of a dog that barked at evay cornfield the other day, close
stake, I recognized the
stranger
who approached
clothes on, but is
was
an interesting question how rank
relative
they were
if
Could you, in such a
premises with
his master's
by a naked
easily quieted fnr
men would
It
thief.
retain tlieir
of their clothes.
di\ csted
any company
case, tell surely of
of civilized men, which belonged to the most respected
When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels
class ?
round the world, from east
to west,
had got
so near
home
as Asiatic Russia, she says that she felt the necessity of
wearing other than a travelling dress, when she went
meet the
Even
in our democratic
New
the accidental possession of wealth, and in dress
and equipage alone, obtain
almost universal respect. spect,
to
numerous as they
in a civihzed
England towns
its
manifestation
for the possessor
But they who
yield such re-
are, are so far heathen,
have a missionary sent
to them.
;
a woman's
A man who has not need to get a will do, that
dress, at least, is
call
at length found something to do will
new
suit to
Old shoes
they have served his valet,
d^.
may
never done.
do
it
in
;
for
him the
old
has lain dusty in the garret for an indeter-
minate period.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; bare
and need
Beside, clothes in-
troduced sewing, a kind of work which you endless
to
people are judged of by their
country, where clothes."
was now
authorities, for she "
will serve
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
if
feet are older than shoes,
Only they who go
must have new
valet,
and he can make them
to soirees
coats, coats to
a hero longer than
a hero ever has a
and
legislative hallg
change as often as thÂŤ
CLOTHI^G.
man changes
my do
in them.
hat and shc3S, are
fit
Who
will they not ?
;
But
his old coat, actually
worn
tive elements, so that
it
stow
my jacket
if
to
27
worship
and
God
in,
trousers,
they will
ever saw his old clothes,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
out, resolved into its primi-
Avas not
a deed of charity to be-
on some poor boy, by him perchance to be be-
it
stowed on some poorer could do with less
new
require
If there
clothes.
made
clothes be
fore you, try
I say,
?
clothes,
it
is
to
in
we say
richer,
who
beware of all enterprises
that
still,
or shall
and not rather a new wearer of not a
fit ?
new man, how can
the
new
If you have any enterprise be-
your old
clothes.
men
All
want, not
something to do withy but sometliing to da^ or rather
Perhaps we should never procure a however ragged or dirty the old, until we have
something
new
suit,
to he.
some way,
Bo conducted, so enterprised or sailed in
we
feel like
would be
new men
like
and that
in the old,
keeping new wine in old
lives.
it.
Thus
The
crisis in
loon retires to solitary ponds to spend
also the snake casts
its
slough,
and the caterand ex-
pillar its
wormy
pansion
for clothes are but our outmost cuticle
mortal
;
coil.
false colors,
it
Our
bottles.
moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a
our
that
to retain
coat,
by an
internal industry
and
Otherwise Ave shall be found sailing under
and be inevitably cashiered
at last
by our
OAvn opinion, as well as that of mankind.
We
don garment after garment, as
exogenous plants often thin skin, oft'
and
by
addition without.
fanciful clothes are
which partakes not of our
here and there without
if we grew like Our outside and
our epidermis or false
life,
and may be stripped
fatal injury;
our thicker gar-
ments, constantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex
;
but our shirts are our liber or true bark, which
WALDEN.
28
cannot be removed without girdling and so destroying the man.
I belie\ e that
something equivalent
man
all
races at
to the shirt.
some seasons wear
It is desirable that a
be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on him"
self in tlie dark,
and that he
live in all respects so
pactly and preparedly, that^ if an
enemy take
com-
the town,
he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-
While one
handed without anxiety.
thick garment
for most purposes, as good as three thin ones,
is,
and cheap
clothing can be obtained at prices really to suit custom.crs
;
Avhile
which
a thick coat can be bought for five dollars,
many
will last as
years, thick pantaloons for two
cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a
dollars,
pair, a
hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap
summer
and a half cents, or a better be made at where is he so poor that, clad such a suit, of his oivn earning, there will not be
for sixty-two
home in
at a nominal cost,
found wise
When
men
do him reverence
to
?
I ask for a garment of a particular form,
tailoi-ess tells
me
my
They do not make them so " They" at all, as if she quoted
gravely, "
now," not emphasizing the
an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I
find
it
dif-
made what I want, simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity 2'hcy ficult to
get
aro related to me, and what authority they in
I
an
am
afliiir
which
inclined to
affects
me
so
nearly; and,
finally,
answer her with equal mysteiy, and
without any more emphasis of the " they," true, they dii not
may have
make them
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" It
U
so recently, but they dc
CLOTHING.
Of what
uov."
not measure
my
shoulders, as
it
29
use this measuring of
me
sho does
if
character, but only the breadth of
were a peg
my
We
hang the coat on ?
to
Avorship not the Graces, nor the Parcoe, but Fashion.
She
spins
and weaves and cuts with fuU authority.
The head monkey all
the
monkeys
on a
at Paris puts
in
traveller's cap,
America do the same.
and
I sometimes
despair of getting any thing quite simple and honest
done
in this
have
to
They would
world by the help of men.
be passed through a powerful press
first,
to
squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again, and then there would
be some one in the company with a maggot in his head,
hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows
when,
have that
for not
even
fjre kills
these things, and you would
Nevertheless, we will not forget lost your labor. some Egyptian wheat was handed down to us by a
mummy. On the
whole, I think that
that dressing has in this or
At
nity of an art.
what they can
it
cannot be maintained
any country risen
present
men make
Like shipwrecked
get.
sailors,
on what they can find on the beach, and tance,
whether of space or time, laugh
masquerade.
Every generation laughs
ions, but follows religiously the
at beholding the
Elizabeth, as
Queen of is pitiful
ing
ir
to
wear
they put
at a little dis-
at
each other's
at the old fash-
We
are amused
costume of Henry VIIT., or Queen
much
as if
it
was that of the King and
the Cannibal Islands.
or grotesque.
It is
m\ and the sincere
life
All costume off a
man
only the serious eye peer-
passed witliin
it,
whicli i6-
and consecrate the costume of any peoLet Harlequin be taken with a fit of the cohc and
strain laughter ple.
new.
to the dig-
shift
WALDEN.
30 have
his trappings >7ill
the soldier
to serve that
by a cuiinon
is hit
mood
When
too.
becoming
ball rags are as
as iÂťurple.
The childish and savage taste of men and women foi new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may discover the parwhich
figure
ticular
this
generation requires to-day.
The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which differ only by a few threads more or will
less of
a particular
be sold readily, the other
lie
on the
color, the shelf,
one
though
it
frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter
becomes the most fashionable.
tattooing
is
Comparatively,
not the hideous custom which
It is not barbarous
it
is
merely because the printing
called. is
skin-
deep and unalterable. I cannot believe that our factory system
mode by which men may of the operatives of the ILnglish far as I
is
and
get clothing.
cannot be wondered
as
it
may
be well and honestly clad, but,
men
what they aim
be enriched. at.
There.-
immediately, they had bet-
for a Shelter, I will not life,
deny that
this is nor? a
tliough there are instances of
having done without
it
ncn
for long periods in colder counÂŤ
Samuel Laing says that " The Laplandel skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts ovef
than
>c liis
fail
may
at somethinsr hijTh.
necessary of
tries
hit only
though they should
As
like that
is,
In the long run
aim
condition
at, since,
;
unquestionably, that the corporations
ter
The
becoming every day more
the best
have heard or observed, the principal object
not that mankind
fore,
is
this.
;
SHELTER. his
head and shoulders, snow
the
in
tinguish the
adds, "
life
He
clothing."
They
probably,
81
of one exposed to it had seen them asleep
any woollen
Yet he
thus.
But,
did not live long on the earth without dis-
covering the convenience which there
domestic comforts, which phrase signified the satisfactions of the
family
in
are not hardier than other people."
man
on
will sleep night after night
a degree of cold which would ex-
is
in a house, the
may have
originally
house more than of the
though these must be extremely partial and oc-
;
casional in those climates
where the house
is
associated
in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season chiefly,
and two thirds of the year, except
for a parasol,
In our climate, in the summer,
necessary.
merly almost solely a covering at night. gazettes a
wigwam was
it
is
was
unfor-
In the Indian
the symbol of a day's march, and
a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so
many
was not made must seek to narrow
times they had camped.
Man
so large limbed and robust but that he
as fitted him.
He
his world,
was
and wall
at first bare
in
a space such
and out of doors
but though this was pleasant enough in serene and Avarm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to
say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have
nipped his race in the bud to clothe l*^ve,
if
he had not made haste
himself with the shelter of a house.
Adam and
according to the fable, wore the bower before
oiher clothes. or comfort,
Man
first
wanted a home, a place of warmth,
of physical wai'mth, then the
warmth
of the affections.
We human low
'n
may
imagine a time when, in the infancy of the
some enterprising mortal crept into a hola rock for shelter. Every child begins the world race,
WALDEN.
S2
some
again, to in
wet and
and loves
extent,
e^ea
to stay out doors,
It plays house, as well as horse, Slav-
cold.
ing an instinct for
Who
it.
does not remember the
which when young he looked at shelvin/Âť any approach to a cave ? It was the rÂťatural yearning of that portion of our most primitive ancestor which still survived in us. From the cave we have ad-
interest with
rocks, or
vanced
to roofs of
woven and
ihien
palm
leaves, of bark
stretched,
of
grass
and boughs, of
and
boards and shingles, of stones and
tiles.
know
open
not what
it
to live in the
is
lives are domestic in
more senses than we
the hearth to the field
is
a great distance.
stravv,
At
last,
we
and our
air,
From
think. It
of
would bo
we were to spend more of our days and any obstruction between us and tlie nights without celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from well perhaps
\mder a
if
roof, or the saint
Birds
dwell there so long.
do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.
However, house,
it
if
one designs to construct a dAve^ing
behooves him to exercise a
ness, lest after all
little
Yankee shrewd-
he find himself in a workhouse, a
museum, an almshouse, a mausoleum instead. Consider first
labyrinth without a clew, a prison, or a splendid
how
slight
a shelter
is
absolutely necessary.
seen Penobscot Indians, in
this
thin cotton cloth, while the
snow was nearly a
I
have
town, living in tents of foot
deep
around them, and I thought that they would be glad to
have
how
it
deeper to keep out the wind.
to get
my
Formerly, when
living honestly, with freedom left for ray
me even am become
proper pursuits, was a question which vexed
more than it does now, for unfortunately I somewhat callous, 1 used to see a large box by the
rail
SHELTER.
33
by three wide, in which the laboi'ers locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to mo that ev?ry man who was hard pushed might get such a road, six feet long
one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in
it,
and
to
admit the air at
at night,
in his love,
least, get into it
and hook down the
and
in his soul
be
lid,
when
rained
it
and so have freedom This did not ap
free.
pear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alterna*
You
tive.
could
sit
up as
late as
you pleased, and, when-
ever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent.
Many
a
man
is
luxurious box
who would
such a box as
this.
is
I
not have frozen to death in
am
far
from
jesting.
Economy
a subject which admits of being treated with
but
it
har-
more
assed to death to pay the rent of a larger and
cannot so be disposed
of.
A
levity,
comfortable house
a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors,
for
was once made here almost entirely of such materials as
Nature furnished ready
to their
Gookin, who
hands.
was superintendent of the Indians subject chusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, their houses are covered
to the
"The
Massabest of
very neatly, tight and warm,
with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons
when
the sap
is
up,
and made
with pressure of weighty timber,
into great flakes,
when they
are green.
The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently Some tiglit and warm, but not so good as the former
.
.
.
I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet
broad
I
found them as
have often lodged in
warm
wigwams, and
as the best English houses."
He
were commonly carpeted and lined withwith well-wrought embroidered mats, and were fur-
adds, that they in
their
3
WALDEN.
84
The
nisb-ÂŤd with various utensils.
Indians liad advanced
wind by a mat the roof and moved by
80 far as to regulate the effect of the
suspended over the hole in
Such a lod2:e was in the first instance conitructed in a day or two at most, and taken do^vn and put up in a few hours; 'and every family owned one, or a
string^.
its
apartment
in one.
In the savage state every family owns a shelter as
good as the pler wants
best,
and
I
nests,
and the foxes
and sim-
speak within bounds
but I think that I
;
when
say that, though the birds of the air have their
wigwams,
in
modern
half the families cities,
sufficient for its coarser
where
and the savages
their holes,
civilized society not
own a
shelter.
their
more than one
In the large towns and
civilization especially prevails, the
number
who own a shelter is a very small fraction of The rest pay dn annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and win-
of those
the whole.
ter,
which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but
now
helps to keep
not
mean
them poor
to insist
as long as they live.
I do
here on the disadvantage of hiring
compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to
own
it
to hire.
;
nor can he, in the long run, any better afford But, answers one, by merely paying this tax
the poor civilized
man
secures an abode which
ace compared with the savage's.
from tAventy-five to a hundred
An
is
a pal-
annual rent of
dollars,
these are the
country rates, entitles him to the benefit of the improve-
ments of paper, olinds,
centui-ies, spacious
apartments, clean paint and
Rumford fireplace, back plastering, Venetian copper pump, spring lock, a commodious cellar
SHELTER.
35
But how happens it that he is so commonly a poor man, while the savage, who has them not, is
Ard many other things.
who
is
said to enjoy these things
civilized
rich as a savage
?
If
it is
asserted that civilization
rea:
advance in the condition of man,
that
it
—
which
is
a
I think
though only the wise improve their advan-
is,
tages,
— and
is
must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life it
required to be exchanged for
An
or in the long run.
hood
costs
sum
this
er's life,
it,
average house in
perhaps eight liundred
immediately
this neighbor-
dollars,
and
to lay
up
will take from ten to fifteen years of the labor-
even
if
he
is
not encumbered with a family
;
—
estimating the pecuniary value of every man's labor at
one dollar a day, for ceive less
;
—
so that
some receive more, others rehe must have spent more than half if
commonly before his wigwam will be earned. his If we suppose him to pay a I'ent instead, this is but a life
Would the savage have been wigwam for a palace on these
doubtful choice of evils.
wise to exchange his
terms It
?
may be
guessed that I reduce almost the whole ad-
vantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund
m
store against the future, so far as the individual
is
concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral expenses.
3ut perhaps a man
is
not required to bury himself.
ertlieless this points to
the civilized
man and
an important the savage
;
distinction
Nev-
between
and, no doubt, they
have designs on us for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an instimtion, in which the life of the mdividual
is
to
a great extent absorbed, in order to pre-
serve and perfect that of the race.
But
1
wish
to
show
WA.LDEN.
SQ
what a
at
and
sacrifice this
advantage
we may
to suggest that
is
at present obtained,
possibly so live as to securft
the advantage without suffering any of the disadvan-
all
What mean ye by
tage.
saying that the poor ye have
always with you, or that the fathers have eaten sou* grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge
"As
I hve, saith the ],ord
God ye
shall not
?
have oo
casion any more to use this proverb in Israel." " Behold all souls are mine as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine the soul that sinneth ;
:
it
shall die."
When cord,
I consider
who
my
neighbors, the farmers of Con-
are at least as well
find that for the
oflf
as the other classes, I
most part they have been
thirty, or forty years, that
they
toiling twenty,
may become
the real
owners of their farms, which commonly they have inherited with encumbrances, or else bought with hired
money,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and we
the cost of their
may
regard one third of that
as
toil
houses, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but commonly they have not
paid for them yet.
It
is
true, the
encumbrances some-
times outAveigh the value of the farm, so that the farm Itself becomes
one great encumbrance, and
found to inherit says.
On
it,
being well acquainted with
applying to the assessors, I
learn that they cannot at once
town who own
know
still
their farms free
am
a
clear.
is
as
he
it,
surprised to
name a dozen
and
man
in the
If you would
the history of these homesteads, inquire at the
bank where they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that I doubt
every neighbor can point to him.
if therf;
What has been
are
three such
men
in Concord.
merchants,
thftt
a very large majority, even ninety-seven
in
a hundred, are sure to
fail,
is
said of the
equally true of the
SHELTER.
With regard
farmers.
of
that
i
But
down.
a great part of their
that
genuine pecuniary
to fulfil their
failure,'*
venient
it is
is,
this puts
howevei one
to the merchants,
them says pertinently
failures are not
37
failures,
engagements, because
but merely it is
incon-
the moral chai-acter that breaka
an
worse face on the
infinitely
matter, and suggests, beside, that probably not even the
other three succeed in saving their souls, but are per-
chance bankrupt in a worse sense than they who
fail
hon-
Bankruptcy and repudiation are the spring-boards
estly.
from which much of our
and turns
civilization vaults
its
somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank
Yet the Middlesex
of famine.
here with eclat annually, as cultural
Cattle
if all
Show
goes oif
the joints of the agri-
machine were suent.
The farmer
is endeavoring to solve the problem of a by a formula more complicated than the problem itself. To get his shoestrings he speculates in
livelihood
herds of
With consummate
cattle.
skill
he has
set his
trap with a hair springe to catch comfort and independ-
own
ence, and then, as he turned away, got his it.
This
reason
we
the reason he
is
are
all
comforts, though surrounded sings,
—
*•
is
I'he false society of
—
by
and for a similar a thousand savage
As Chapman
luxuries.
men
for earthly
;
to
poor
poor in respect
leg into
—
greatness
All heavenly comforts rarefies to air."
And when be
tlie
the farmer has got his house,
richer but the poorer for
it,
and
it
1:
l
may
not
be the house
As I understand it, that was a valid by Momus against the house which Mi
that has got him.
objection urged
Borva made, that she " had not made
it
movable, b^
WALDEN.
88
;
which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided " ana it may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in
them
;
and the bad neighborhood
own scurvy been wishing
move plish
who,
be avoided
houses in the outskirts and
but have not been able to accom-
and only death
or hire the
While
will set
them
modern house with
civilization
free.
all its
last either to
improvements.
has been improving our houses,
not equally improved the
men who
It has created palaces, but
noblemen and kings.
ou.
a generation, have
Granted that the majority are able at
own
is
or two families, at
for nearly
to sell their
into the village, it,
know one
I
selves.
in this town,
least,
to
And
it
it
has
are to inhabit them.
was not so easy
if the civilized
to create
man^s pur-
no worthier than the savage's^ if he is employed greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries
suits are the
and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwell' tng than the former ? But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found, that just in proportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the savage, others have been degraded below him.
one
On
class is
the one side
house and
pyramids garlic,
selves.
The luxury
of
counterbalanced by the indigence of another. is
the palace, on the other are
" silent poor."
to
The myriads who
tlie
alms-
built the
be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on
it may be were not decently buried themThe mason who finishes the cornice of the
and
palace returns at night perchance to a hut not so good as a wigAvam.
try
It is a
mistake to suppose that, in a coun-
where the usual evidences of civiUzation
condition of a very large
body
exist, the
of the inhabitants
may
SHELTER.
89
not be as de^^raded as that of savages.
degraded poor, not this I
now to
I refer to tho
To know
the degraded rich.
should not need to look farther than to the shan-
which every where border our railroads, that last improvement in civilization where I see in my daily ties
;
walks human beings living in
sties,
and
an open door, for the sake of
light,
without any visible,
wood
all
winter with
and the forms of both old and young are permanently contracted by the long habit of shrinking from cold and misery, and the de-
often imaginable,
velopment of certainly
ail their
distinguish
Such
plished.
limbs and faculties
to look at that class
is fair
works which
pile,
too, to
is
checked.
by whose labor the accom-
generation are
this
It
a greater or less extent,
the
is
condition of the operatives of every denomination in
England, which
Or
I could refer
is
the great workhouse of the world.
you
to Ireland,
which
is
marked
of the white or enlightened spots on the map. the physical condition of the Irish with
as one
Contrast
that of the
North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race before it was degraded by contact with the civilized man. Yet I have no doubt that that people's rulers are as wise as the average of civilized
Their condition only proves what squalidnes3
rulers.
may
consist with civilization.
laborers in our Southern States
to the tl:e
I hardly need refer
staple exports of this country,
a staple production of the South. self to those
who
are said to
now
who produce
and are themselv^cs
But
be in
to confine
lyioderate
my-
circum-
stanoes.
Most men appear never house
is,
^lieu' lives
to
have considered what a
and are actually though needlessly poor
all
because they think that they must have sucb
WALDEN.
40
As
a one as their neighbors have.
any or,
sort of coat
which the
tailor
if
one were to wear
might cut out for him,
gradually leaving off palmleaf hat or cap of wood-
chuck
complain of hard times because he could
skin,
not afford to buy him a crown
a house
still
pay
It is possible to invent
more convenient and luxurious than we
have, which yet ford to
!
for.
all
would admit that man could not
Shall
we always
af-
study to obtain more
of these things, and not sometimes to be content with Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely teach,
less ?
by precept and example, the necessity of the young man's providing a certain number of superfluous glowshoes, and umbrellas, and empty guest chambers for
empty
guests, before
he dies?
Why
should not our
furniture be as simple as the Arab's or the Indian's
When
I think of the benefactors of the race,
?
whom we
have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any reti-
any car-load of fashionable furniture. would it not be a singuOr what if I were to allow furniture should be more that our lar allowance ?
nue
at their heels,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
complex than the Arab's, ly
and
intellectually
we are moralAt present our
in proportion as
his
s'^neriors!
houses are cluttered and uenlcd with
it,
and a good house-
wife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole,
and not leave her morning's work undone. Morning work By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this !
world but I daily, Btill,
How,
?
was
I
when
my
had three pieces of limestone on
terrified to find that
the furniture of
desk,
they required to be dusted
my mind
undusted
v/as all
and I threw them out the window in
disgust.
then, could I have a furnished house
I would
?
SHELTER, rather
4^
open air, for no dust gathers on the where man has broken giound. the hixurious and dissipated who set the fashions
sit
in the
grass, unless It is
which the
hei*d so dihgently follow.
The
traveller
who
stops at the best houses, so called, soon discovers this, for the publicans
presume him
to
be a Sardanapalus,
and if he resigned himself to their tender mercies he would soon be completely emasculated. I think that in the railroad car
we
are inclined to spend more on lux-
ury than on safety and convenience, and
it
threatena
without attaining these to become no better than a
modern drawing room, with its divans, and ottomans, and sunshades, and a hundred other oriental thiiio-s, which we are taking west with us, invented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamea to know the names of. I would rather sit on a pumpkin Celestial
and have
it all
cushion.
I
than be crowded on a velvet
to myself,
would rather ride on earth
in
an ox cart
with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria
all
the way.
The very
and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they
left
simplicity
him
still
but a sojourner in nature.
When
hft
was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated journey again.
He
dwelt, as
it
his
were, in a tent in this
worlds and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or
But
climbing the mountain tops.
men have become
the tools of their tools.
Ij
f
The man
who mdependently plucked gry
is
become a farmer
;
the fruits when he was hunand he who stood under a treo
for shelter, a housekeeper.
We
now no
longer
camp
as
WALDEN.
i2
for a night, but liave settled
down on
earth and forgot-
Wc
have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agri^culiure. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a famiten heaven.
The
ly tomb.
best works of art are the expression of
man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art
comfortable and
merely
is
to
make
is
actually no place in this village for a
if
any had come down
houses and
There
low
this
that higher state to be forgotten.
work o^fine
to us, to stand, for
streets, furnish
state
There
our
art,
our
lives,
no proper pedestal for
it.
not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to
is
When
receive the bust of a hero or a saint.
how our houses are their internal
I consider
and paid for, or not paid
built
economy managed and
sustained, I
for,
and
wonder
way under the visitor while gewgaws upon the mantel-piece, and
that the floor does not give
admiring the
he
is
let
him through
some
into the cellar, to
solid
and honest
though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive that this and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I
BO called rich
do not get on
adorn
jump
my
it, ;
for I
in the
enjoyment of the fine arts which
attention being wholly occupied with the
remember
that the greatest genuine leap,
due to human muscles alone, on wandering Arabs, who are said five feet
man The
is
record, to
factitious support,
sure to come to eai-th again beyond that distance.
first
question which I
am
tempted to put to tho
proprietor of such great impropriety
you the
that of certain
have cleared twenty-
Without
on level ground.
is
Are you one of three who succeed ?
?
The
Who
the ninety-seven
Answer me
and then perhaps I may look
rbem ornament al.
is.
at
who
bolstcra fail,
or
these questions,
your bawbles and
find
cart before the horse is neither
SHE^TEK.
48
we
can adorn our houses
Before
beautiful nor useful.
with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives rau.rt be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation
is
now, a taste
most cultivated out of doors, whero
for the beautiful is
there
:
no house and no housekeeper. in his "
Old Johnson, Gpeaking of the
Wonder-Working Providence/'
first settlers
was contemporary,
tells
of this town, with
whom he
us that " they burrow themselves
in llie earth for their first shelter
under some
hillside,
and,
make a smoky casting the soil aloft They did fire against the earth, at the highest side." " earth, by th*' till not " provide them houses," says he, upon timber, they
the Lord's blessing, brought forth bread to feed them,'* and the first year's crop was so light that " they were
forced to cut their bread very thin ibr a long season."
The
secretary of the Province of
New
Netherland,
writing in Dutch, in 1G50, for the information of those who wislied ^o take up kind there, states more particularly, that ".those in
New at
England, who
first
according to
New
Netherland, and especially in have no means to build farm houses their wishes, dig a square pit in the
ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with
wood
all
round the
wall,
and
line the
wood with the bark
of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it
a roof of spars clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their
overhead for a
".ntire
ceiling, raise
families for two, three,
and four years,
it
being
those cellars
understood that partitions arc run through which are adapted to the size of the family.
The
44
WALDEN.
wealthy and principal
men
New
in
England, in the be-
ginning of the colonies, commenced their
houses in this fashion for two reasons
;
first
dwelling
firstly, in
order
not to waste time in building, and not to want food
next season
;
tlie
secondly, in order not to discourage poor
whom they brought over in numbers from
laboring people
In the course of three or four years, when became adapted to agriculture, they built themselves handsome houses, spending on them several Fatherland.
Uie countiy
thousands."
In
this
course w^hich our ancestors took there was a
show of prudence at least, as if their principle were to satisfy the more pressing wants first. But are the more pressing Avants satisfied
When
now ?
I think of acquir-
ing for myself one of our luxurious dwellings, I terred, for, so to speak, the country to
human
culture,
and we are
still
is
am
de-
not yet adapted
forced to cut our
spiritual bread far thinner than our forefathers did their
wheaten.
Not
that all
architectural
ornament
be neglected even in the rudest periods houses
first
but
;
is
to
our
let
be lined with beauty, where they come
in
contact with our lives, like the tenement of the shellfish,
and not overlaid with
inside one or
But, alas
it.
!
I
have been
two of them, and know what they are
Imed with.
Though we
are not so degenerate but that
possibly live in a cave or a
day,
it
certainly
is
wigwam
better to
we might
or wear skins to-
accept the
advantages,
though so dearly bought, which the invention and uidustiy of
mankind
offer.
In such a neighborhood as
this,
boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and
more
easily obtained than suitable caves, or whole logs,
or bark in suffcient quantities, or even well-tempered
BUILDING THE HOUSE. or
vjlay
flat
45
I speak understandlngly on
stones.
Bubject, for 1
have made myself acquainted with
theoretically
and
we
practically.
With a
now
The
blessing.
man is make
civilized
But
and wiser savage.
and make our
are,
to
both
it
more wit become richer
little
mijrht use these materials so as to
than the richest
tliig
civilization a
a more experienced haste to
my own
ex-
periment.
Near the end of
1845, I borrowed an axe
INIarch,
woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth,
and went down
for timber.
but perhaps
to the
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, it
is
the most generous course thus to per-
mit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enter-
The owner
prise.
on it
it,
said that
it
of the axe, as he released his hold
was the apple of
sharper than I received
where
I worked,
it.
It
woods
eye
;
but I returned
was a pleasant
hillside
covered with pine woods, through
wh.ich I looked out on the pond, in the
his
and a small open
field
Avhere pines and hickories were springing
pond was not yet dissolved, though tliere were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurbut ries of snow during the days that I worked there
up.
The
ice in the
;
for Ihc
most part when
my way home,
its
I
came out on
yelloAV
to the railroad,
sand heap stretched away
glo.amii.g in the hazy atmosphere, and the
the spring sun,
rails
shone
in
and I heard the lark and pewee and
other bu'ds already
with us.
on
come
to
commence another year
Tliey were pleasant spring days, in which the
;
;
WALDEN.
46
winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the sarth,
and the
One
itself.
had
that
life
day,
lain torpid
began
when my axe had come
cut a gi-een hickory for a wedge, driving
and had placed the whole
it
in a
to soalv
to stretch
and
off
I
had
with a stone,
pond hole
order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run
in
i:\to
the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently witliout
inconvenience, as long as I staid there, or more than a
quarier of an hour; perhaps because he had not yet fairly
come out of the
torpid state.
It
men remain
that for a like reason
and primitive condition
;
but
if
appeared
to
in their present
they should
me low
m-
feel the
fluence of the spring of springs arousing them, they
would of necessity
rise to
a higher and more ethereal
life.
I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in
my
path with portions of their bodies
still
flexible,
waiting for the sun to thaw them.
April
rained and melted
it
tlie ice,
and
numb and in^ On the 1st of
in the early pai't
of the day, whicli was very foggy, I heard a stray goose
groping about over the pond and cackling as
if lost,
or
like the spirit of the fog.
So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having
many communicable
singJhg to myself,
Men But The
And
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
say they lo
!
arts
know many
the
^
and
sciences,
a thousand appliances that blows
Is all that any
hewed
things
they have taken wings, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
The wind
1
or scholar-like thoughts,
main timbers
body knows. six inches square,
most of the
Btuds on two sides only, and the rafters and floor timÂť
BtriLDING THE HOUSE.
47
bers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark en, so that
much
they were just as straight and
Each
ones.
was
stick
stronger than sawed
carefully mortised or tenoned l)y
stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this lime.
its
My
days in the Avoods were not very long on3s
my
usually carried
yet I
;
dinner of bread and butter, ami
read the newspaper in which
was wrapped,
it
at noon,
sitting
amid the green pine boughs which I had cut
and
my
for
to
my
off,
bread was imparled some of their fragrance,
hands were covered with a thick coat of
pitch.
Before I had done I was more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut
down some
having become better acquainted with
of them,
Sometimes
it.
a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of axe, and
we
my
chatted pleasantly over the chips which I
had made.
By
the middle of April, for I
made no
work, but rather made the most of
framed and ready
for the raising.
it,
haste in
my
my
house was
I had already bought
the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman
who worked on
the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards.
James
Collins'
shanty was considered an uncommonly fine one.
When
I called to see
it
he was not
the outside, at first
at
home.
I walked about
unobserved from within, the window
was so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part, though a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Doorsill there was none, but a perennial passage for Ihe hens under the door board. Mrs. C. came to the door and asked
me
wci*e driven in
to
view
by
my
it
from the
approach.
It
inside.
The
hens
was dark, and had
WALDEN.
48
a dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there a board which would not
She
bear removal.
lighted a
side of the roof and the walls,
lamp
to
show me the
and also that the board
extended under the bed, warning
me
not to step into
the cellar, a sort of dust hole two feet deep.
own
in-
floor
In her
words, they were "good boards overhead, good
boards
all
around, and a good window,"
— of two whole
squares originally, only the cat had passed out that w^ay
There was a
stove, a bed, and a place to sit, nn where it was born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new coffee mill The bargain was nailed to an oak sapling, all told. soon concluded, for James had in the mean while reI to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents toturned. lately.
infant in the house
night,
he
nobody It
were
to-morrow morning, selling to
to vacate at five
else
meanwhile
well,
he
I to take possession at six.
:
said, to
be there early, and anticipate
certain indistinct but wholly unjust claims on the score
of ground rent
and
only encumbrance.
One
on the road.
This he assured
fuel.
At
six I passed
him and
large bundle held their
coffee-mill, looking-glass, hens,
took to
me was
—
all
his family all,
but the
the woods and became a wild
cat,
the
— bed,
cat,
she
and, as I
learned afterward, trod in a trap set for woodchucks,
and so became a dead cat I took
down
the nails, and
at last.
removed
it
to
loads, spreading the boards BJid
same morning, drawing pond side by small cartthe
this dwelling the
warp back again
on the grass there
in the sun.
One
to bleach
early thrush
a note or two as I drove along the woodland I was informed treacherously by a young Patrick path. that neighbor Seel«»y, an Irishman, in the intervals of gave
me
BUILDING THE HOUSE. the carting, transferred the
49
tolerable, straight,
still
and
drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his pocket, and then
when
etood
I
came back
time of day, and
to pass the
look freshly up, unconcerned, with spring thoughts, at
he
the devastation; there being a dearth of work, as
He was
â&#x201A;Źaid.
make
help
there
to represent spectatordom,
and
seemingly insignificant event one with
this
the removal of the gods of Troy.
I dug
my
cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the
south, where a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and blackberry roots, and the stain of vegetation, six
lowest
square by seven
feet
deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in
any winter.
The
were
sides
left
shelving,
and not
stoned; but the sun having never shone on them, the
sand
keeps
still
its
place.
It
was but two hours' work.
I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes
equable temperature. in the city
to
is still
men
dig into the earth for an
Under the most splendid house
be found the cellar where they store
their roots as of old,
and long
after the superstructure
has disappeared posterity remark
The house
is still
its
dent in the earth.
but a sort of porch at the entrance of
a burrow.
At
length, in the beginning of
of some of
my
May, with
up the frame of
was ever more honored than
I.
They
house.
in the character
I began to occupy
house on the 4th of July, as soon as
and roofed,
No man
of his raisers
are destined, I trust, to assist at the rais-
ing of loftier structures one day.
my
my
so
than from any
good an occasion for neighborliness necessity, I set
the help
acquaintances, rather to improve
for the boards
4
it
was boarded
were carefully feather-edged
*
WALDEN.
50 and lapped, so thai but
was
perfectly impervious to rain
boarding I laid the foundation of a cliimney
be.'bre
up the
3nd, bringing two cartloads of stones
at one
hill fi'om
my
after
it
my
the pond in
I built the chimnejr
before a
fire
my cooking in
the
hoeing in the
saiy for warmth, doing
arms.
fall,
became
of doors on the ground, early in the morning
mudc
I
think
still
is
in
neci'.s-
mean while
out
whiiih
:
some respects more convenient
and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch ray loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when
my
hands were much employed, I read but
but
little,
the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground,
me
holder, or tablecloth, afforded
much
as
ment, in fact answered the same purpose as the
would be worth the while
It
to build
liberately than I did, considering, for
still
my
entertainIliad.
more dewhat
instance,
foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, Jiave in
the nature of man, and perchance never raising any Buperstructure until
we found a
better reason for
There
our temporal necessities even.
same
fitness in
there
is
but
if
a
in
men
a man's building
bird's building its
his
own
is
it
own house
Who
nest.
that
knows
constructed their dwellings with their
hands, and provided food for
than
some of the
own
themselves and families
simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would
be universally developed,
when they
are so engaged
as ?
birds
But
universally sing alas
!
we do
like
cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nesta
vhidb other birds have
built,
and cheer no travello
ARCHITECTURB.
51
chaffering and unmusical notes.
witli llieit
Shall \re
forever resign the pleasure of construction to the car-
penter?
does architecture amount to in
What
experience of the mass of m.en?
walks came across a
I never in
man engaged
^Ve belong
It is not the tailor alone
community.
man
ninth part of a
;
it is
as
the merchant, and the farmer.
of labor to end
?
who
is
tho
much the preacher, and Where is this division
and what object does
it
finally serve ?
doubt another ma?/ also think for me; but
No
my and
in so simple
natural an occupation as building his house. to the
the
all
it
is
not
therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion
of
my
thinking for myself.
True, there are architects so called in
and
1
this country,
have heard of one at least possessed with the idea architectural ornaments have a core of truth,
of making
a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it Avere a revelaAll very well perhaps from his point of tion to him. view, but only a tism.
little
A sentimental
better than the
reformer
common
dilettan-
in architecture,
he be-
gan at the cornice, not at the foundation. It was only Aow to put a core of truth within the ornaments, that
3very sugar plum in fact might have an almond or caraway seed in it, though I hold that almonds are most
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and not how the inhabitwholesome without the sugar, ant, the indweller, might build truly within and without,
and
let
the ornaments take care of themselves.
reasonable
man
ever supposed that
What
ornaments were
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
that the
tortoise got his spotted shell, or the shellfish its
mother-
something outward and in the skin merely,
such a contract as the inhabitants of
by Broadway their Trinity Ch-irch? But a man has no more to do with the style of architecture of his house
o'-pearl tints,
WALDEN.
52
than a tortoise with that of
shell
its
nor need the
:
soldier be so idle as to try to paint the precise color of
on
his virtue
He may seemed
iiis
The enemy
standard.
turn pale wlien the
will find
and timidly
^yhisper his half truth to the rude occupants
knnv it better than I now see, I kno\v
he.
What
man
This
comes.
trial
nie to lean over the cornice,
to
out.
it
who
really
of architectural beauty
has gradually grown from within
out ward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller,
who
is
the only builder,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; out
of some un-
conscious truthfulness, and
nobleness, without ever a
thought for the appearance
;
beauty of
this
kind
is
and whatever additional
destined to be produced will be
preceded by a like unconscious beauty of
most interesting dwellings
The
life.
in this country, as the painter
knows, are the most unpretending, humble log huts and cottages of the poor
commonly
;
is
it
the
of the in-
life
habitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity
their surfaces
in
merely, which makes them pic'
turcsque; and equally interesting will be the citizen's
suburban box, when his r^ ascreeable tie
to
the
life
shall
be as
.
imple and
and there
ima2;ination,
is
as
straining after effect in the style of his dwelling.
lit-
A
great proportion of architectural ornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale would strip
them
off,
like
borrowed plumes, without injury to the substantials.
They can do nor wines
without architecture
in the cellar.
made about
What
who have no
if
the ornaments of style in literature, and the
architects of our bibles spent as
much
time about their
cornices as the architects of our churches do
made
olivea
an equal ado were
?
So are
the belles-lettres and the beaux-arts and their pro-
cessors.
Much
it
concerns a man, forsooth,
how a
feiv
;
ARCHITECTURE. over him or under
sticky aie slanted
are daubed upon his box.
any earnest
in
if,
It
53
liim,
would
and what colore somewhat,
signify
them and daubed
sense, he slanted
but the spirit having dt;«arted out of the tenant,
own
a piece with constructing his tecture of the grave,
or indifference to
your
and
One man
for " coffin-maker."
name
feet,
life,
What
as weU.
Why
but another
says, in his despair
Is he think-
color.
will
;
Better paint
dirt ? let
!
turn pale or
it
enterprise to improve the style of
cottage architecture!
ments ready I
the archi-
Toss up a copper for
?
own complexion
An
blush for you.
is
of
an abundance of leisure he must have
do you take up a handful of
.your house your
—
it
take up a handful of the earth at
and paint your house that
ing of his last and narrow house it
coffin,
" carpenter,"
it is
When
you have got
my
orna-
wear them.
Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of
my
house, which were already impervious to rain, with
imperfect and sappy shingles the log,
whose edges I was
made
of the
slice
first
of
obliged to straighten with a
plane. 1 have thus a tight shingled feet
wide by
ret
and a
fifteen long,
closet,
a
and plastered house, ten
and eight-feet
lai'ge
posts, with a gar-
window on each
side,
two trap
and a brick fireplace oppo* of my house, paying the usual
doors, one door at the end,
The
site.
exact cost
price for such materials as I used, but not counting the
work,
and
all
of which was done by myself, was as follows;
I give the details
because
.'cry
few are able
exactly what laeir houses cost, and fewer
still,
to lelj if
any
the separate cost of the various materials which com-
pose them
—
WALDEN.
64
$8
Boards,
RefuM sbin(
es fe: roof
and
sides,
.
Laths
Two second-liand windows One tlioiisand
old brick,
with glav,
•
.
.... ...
Hair,
•
•
•
1
25
2 43 (K)
That was bigb. More tk in 1 need«A
2 40
•
Mantle-tree iron,
0(1
4
•
Two casks of lime,
03^, mostly shanty josvAk
4
31
.
.
15
.
3 90
Nails,
Hinges and screws, Latch, Challr,
•
•
•
•
•
•
.
.
.
.
14
.
10
.
ni
.
.^ ) T carried
,
.Tansportatioii.
In
all,
•
....
40 >
1
.
.
a «>od part en
a$
.
$28 12^
These are all the materials excepting the timber, i.:ones and sand, which I claimed by squatter's right I
have
chi'ifly
also
a
wood-shed
small
of the stuff which was
adjoining,
made
building the
left after
ivousc.
1 intend to build
me
a house which
will surpass
any
un the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxuiy, as soon as
it
no more than
pleases
my
me
much and
as
cost
will
me
present one.
I thus found that the student
who wishes
for
a shelter
can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he to boast
now pays
If 1 seem
annually.
more than is becoming, my excuse humanity rather than for myself; and
is
that I
my short-
brag for comings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding much cant and hypocrisy,
from man,
—
my
—
respect,
chaff whicli I find
it
wheat, but for which I
I will Dreathe frvely it is
difficult
am
to
separate
as sorry as
and stretch myself
an/
in thi?
such a relief to both the moral and phys-
55
ECOXOMT. rtial
system
;
and I
resolved that I will not through
am
I will eideavor
humility become the devil's attorney. to
speak a good word
for the truth.
At Cambridge
College the mere rent of a student's room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year,
though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two side by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers the inconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a residence in the fourth story in I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom these respects, not only less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an educaThose contion would in a great measure vanish.
veniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or somebody else ten times as great
a
on both is
they would with proper management Those things for which the most money
sacrifice of life as sides.
demanded are never the
most wants. in the term
things which the student
Tuition, for instance,
is
an important item
while for the far more valuable educacultition which he gets by associating with the most The made. is vated of his contemporaries no charge
mode
bill,
of founding a college
is,
commonly,
to get
up a sub-
blindly scription of dollars and cents, and then following extreme, a the principles of a division of labor to its
which should never be followed but with cirto call in a contractor who makes this a cumspection, Iiishmen or subject of speculation, and he employs
principle
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
while ether operatives actually to lay the foundations, tliemfitting the students that are to be are said to be gonersuccessive oversights and for these selves for it; *lions
have
to pay.
1 think that
it
would be
letter
than
WALDEN.
56
the students, or those
this, for
fited
by
it,
desire to be bene-
The
even to lay the foundation themselves.
who
student
by
who
secures his coveted leisure and retirement
any labor necessary
systematically shirking
man
to
obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defraud-
ing himself of the experience which alone can
ure
fruitful.
"But," says one, "you do not
make mean
work with their hands I do not mean that exactly, bu*.
leis-
that
the students should go to
instead
of their heads ? "
I
mean
something which he might think a good deal like that
mean
that they should not pla^
life,
or stud^
;
I
merely,
it
while the community supports them at this expensive,
game, but earnestly
from beginning
live it
could youths better learn to live than
Methinks
the experiment of living?
by
to end.
How
at once trying
this
would exer-
minds as much as mathematics. If I V7ished know something about the arts and sciences,, instance, I would not pursue the common course,
cise their
a boy to for
which
some
is
merely
professor,
to send
him
into the neigliborhood of
where any thing
tised but the art of life
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to
is
professed and prac-
survey the world through r
telescope or a microscope, and never with his natrr?!
eye
;
to study chemistry,
and not learn how
his bread is
made, or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned to discover new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the ;
motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he himself all
;
or to be devoured
ttiost
at the
satellite
the monsters that
swarm
own
Which would have advanced the the boy who had made
end of a month,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
jackknife from the ore which he had dug and
smelted, reading as '
a
around him, while contemplating the monsters in a
drop of vinegar.
nis
by
is
much
as
would be necessary
for this,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; o^ the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy
EC0N03HT. at the Institute in the
mean
and had received a father? Wliich would be
>Thile,
Rogers' penknife from his
most I
like]}' to
cut his fingers
57
?
.
.
.
To my
was informed on leaving college that
navigation
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; why,
I liad studied
had taken one turn down the
if I
harbor I should have known more about
poor student studies and
my, while
that
with philoso|
Adam
is
economy of
\.y is
Even
it.
tlie
taught only political econoliving
which
synonymous
is
not even sincerely professed in our
The consequence
colleges.
astonisliincnt
is,
that while he
is
reading
Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in
debt irretrievably.
As
with our colleges, so with a hundred " modern im-
provements;" there
an
is
illusion
not always a positive advance.
about them; there
The
is
devil goes on ex-
compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our
acting
attention from serious things.
means to an unimproved
New
York.
We
are but improved
end, an end which
but too easy to arrive at or
They
;
it
are in great haste to consti-uct a
magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas
may
and Texas,
it
municate.
Either
who was
was already
as railroads lead to Boston
be, is
;
but JNIaine
have nothing important
in such
to
a predicament as the
com-
man
earnest to be introduced to a distinguished
deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to
As
say.
if
the main object were to talk fast and not to
talk sensibly. lantic llie
We
are eager to tunnel under the At-
and bring the old world some weeks nearer
new; but perchance the
first
news that
will
to
leak
through into the broad, flapping American ear will be
WALDEN.
&8
whooping
that the Princess Adelaide has the
After
all,
man whose
the
cougli.
horse trots a mile in a minute
does noi carry the most important messages
he
;
is
not
an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts
and wild honey.
I doubt
if"
Flying Childers ever car-
ried a peck of corn to mill.
says to me, " I wonder that you do not lay up
One money; and go I
am
to
wiser than that.
have learned that the swift-
I
he that goes
is
Suppose we try who
friend,
distance
thirty miles
is
start
I
now on
will in the
there
arrive
evening,
if
my
say to
The
will get there first.
I
That
remember when wages
for laborers
on
this
very road.
and get there before night;
foot,
rate by the week mean while have earned your
I have travelled
You
I
afoot.
the fare ninety cents.
;
almost a day's wages.
were sixty cents a day Well,
But
Fitchburg to-day and see the country."
traveller
est
is
love to travel; you might take the cars
yo'i
at that
together. fare,
some time to-morrow, or possibly
you are lucky enough
and this
to get a job in season.
Instead of going to Fitchburg, you
will
And
here the greater part of the day.
be working
so, if
the rail-
road reached round the world, I think that I should
keep ahead of you
;
and as
for seeing the country
and
getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut
your acquaintance altogether.
Such outwit,
^ay
it
is
the universal law, which no
and with regard is
as broad as
it
to the is
round the world available 10
we may
To make a
railroad
mankind
grading the whole surface of the
Rn indistinct notion that joint stocks
if
can ever
railroad even
long. to all
man
},lanet.
is
equivalent
Men
iiave
they keep up this activity of
and spades Icng enough
all will at
length
;
ECONOMY. somewhere,
ride
59
next to no time, and for nothinor
in
but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts " All aboard " when the smoke is blown away !
and the vapor condensed, are
it
be perceived that a few
will
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
but the rest are run over, and it will be called, and will be, " melancholy accident." No riding,
A
doubt they can ride their
fixre,
that
is,
probably have
by that
time.
who
at last
shall
have earned
they survive so long, but they will
lost their elasticity
and desire
to travel
This spending of the best part of one's
money
earning
if
life
a questionable liberty
in order to enjoy
during the least valuable part of
it,
reminds
me
of the
Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once. "What!" exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all
the
shanties
which we have
the land,
in
"is
a good thing
built
comparatively good, that
?
not this "
railroad
Yes, I answer,
you might have done worse but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than diggmg in this dirt.
Before I finished
my
is,
house, wishing to earn ten or
twelve dollars by some honest and agreeable method, in order to meet
my unusual
expenses, I planted about two
acres and a half of light and sandy soil near
it
chiefly
with beans, but also a small part with potatoes, corn, peas,
and
turnips.
The whole
lot
contains eleven acres>
mostly growing up to pines and hickories, and was sold the preceding season for eight dollars and eight cents
an acre. but to
One farmer
r^iise
said that
it
was " good
cheeping squirrels on."
for nothing
I put no manure
WALDEK.
60
whatevi^r on this land, not being the owner, but merelj
a squatter, and not expecting to cultivate so much again, and I did not quite hoe
I got out
once.
it all
several cords of stumps in ploughing, which supplied
with fuel for a long time, and
me
small circles of virgin
left
summer by the The dead and
mould, easily distinguishable through the greater luxuriance of the beans there.
most part unmerchantable wood behind my house, and the driftwood from the pond, have supplied the remainder of my fuel. I was obliged to hire a team and a for the
man
My
for the ploughing,
farm outgoes
though I held the plough myself.
for the first season were, for imple-
The
ments, seed, work, &c., $14 72^.
given me.
seed corn was
This never costs any thing to speak
you plant more than enough.
of,
unless
I got twelve bushels of
some
beans, and eighteen bushels of potatoes, beside
The yellow
peas and sweet corn.
come from the farm was were too
late to
to
any
corn and turnips
My
thing.
whole income
$23 Deducting the outgoes,
There are
•
•
•
44.
14 72^
.
$8 71^,
left,
beside produce consumed and on
hand
made of the value of $4 on hand much more than balancing a estimate was-
at the time this
50,
— the amount
little
grass which
All things considered, that
I did not raise.
is,
con-
sidering the importance of a man's soul and of to-day.
notwithstanding the short time occupied by
ment, nay, partly even because of I believe that that
its
my
experi-
transient character,
was doing better than any farmer
in
Concord did that year.
The next year
I did better
still,
for I spaded
up
all
the land which I required, about a third of an acre, and
ECONOMY. I
6J
learned from tb3 experience of both years, not being
awed by many bandly, Ai'thur Young among in the least
live
the rest, that if one would
simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and
no more than he
raise
and not exchange it for an quantity of more hixurious and expensive
insufficient
ate,
he would need to cultivate only a few rods of
things,
ground, and that
it
would be cheaper
than to use oxen to plough
from time do
celebrated works on hus-
hand
at
odd hours
and
farm work as
in the
to
spade up that
to select
manure the
to time than to
his necessary
all
it,
it
old,
a fresh spot
and he could
were with
his left
summer; and thus he would
not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow, or pig, as at I desire to speak impartially on this
present.
and as one not interested
point,
in the success or failure of the
present economical and social arrangements.
I was more
independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not
anchored of
my
ment.
to
a house or farm, but could follow the bent
genius,
which
is
a very crooked one, every mo-
Beside being better
house had been burned or
off
than they already,
my crops
had
failed,
if
my
I should
have been nearly as well off as before. I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the
Men
and oxen exchange work only, the oxen will be seen to have greatly the advantage, their farm is so much the larger. Man does some of his part of the exchange work in his six weeks of haying, and it is no former are so mucii the
work
;
but
if
boy's play.
respects, that
we
freer.
consider necessary
Certainly no nation that lived simply in is,
all
no nation of philosophers, would com-
mit so great a blunder as to use the labor of animals.
True, there never was and
is
not likely soon to be a
WALDEX.
32
nation of philosophers, nor
am
I certain
it is
desirable that
However, /should never have broken and taken him to board for any work he
there should be.
a horse or bull miglit do for
me, for fear I should become a horse-man
or a herds-man merely
;
and
gainer by so doing, are
man's gain
is
if society
we
not another's
seems
certain that
loss,
to
what
be the is
one
and that the stable-boy
has equal cause with his master to be satisfied?
Granted
some public works would not have been constructed without this aid, and let man share the glory of such with the ox and horse ; does it follow that he could not have accomplished works yet more worthy of himWhen men begin to do, not merely self in that case ? that
unnecessary or artistic, but luxurious and I
heir assistance,
it is
idle
work, with
inevitable that a few do all the ex-
change work with the oxen, the slaves of the strongest.
or, in
Man
other words, become
thus not only works for
the animal wuthin him, but, for a symbol of for the animal without him.
this,
he works
Though we have many
substantial houses of brick or stone, the prosperity of
the farmer
measured by the degree to which the This town is said to have
is still
barn overshadows the house.
the largest houses for oxen, cows, and horses hereabouts,
and
it
is
not behindhand in
its
public buildings; but
there are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county.
but
why
It should not
be by their architecture,
power of abstract thought, that commemorate themselves? How
not even by their
nations should seek to
much more admirable
the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the
Towers and temples are the luxury of princ'?s. A simple and independent mind does not Genius is not a retoil ^t the bidding of any prince. tainer to any emperor, nor is its material silver, or goUâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; ruins of the East
!
ARCHITECTURE.
To what end, pray
or marble, cxc ipi to a trifling extent. is
much
so
6
hammered ? In Arcadia, when I waÂť any hammering stone. Nations are
stone
there, I did not see
possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the
memory
amount of hammered What if equal pains were taken tD stone they leave. smooth and polish their manners ? One piece of good sense would be more memorabh than a monument as of themselves by the
higli as the
moon.
I love better to see stones in phice.
The grandeur of Thebes was a vulgar grandeur. is
a rod of stone wall that bounds an honest
field
than a hundred-gated Tliebes that has wan-
sensible
man's
dered farther from the true end of
and
civilization
The
religion
;
but wha:t you might
call Christianity
Most of the stone a nation hammers goes
does not. its
life.
which are barbaric and heathenisli build
splendid temples
ward
JMore
tomb
only.
Pyramids, there
is
It buries itself alive.
As
to-
for the
nothing to wonder at in them so
many men
ijiuch as the fact that so
could be found de-
graded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb
some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same all the world over, whether the
for
building be an Egyptian temple or the United States
Bank. is
It costs
more than
vanity, assisted
it
comes
to.
The mainspring
by the love of garlic and bread and
butter.
Mr. Balcom, a promising young
signs
on the back of
and
it
ruler,
and the job
etonecuttei's.
When
architect, de-
his Vitruvius, with let
is
the
hard pencil
out to Dobson
tliirty
&
Sons,
centuries begin to iook
WALDEN.
64
down on it, mankind begin to look up at it. As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he
Chinese pots and kettles
my way to
not go out of JNIany
West
my
concerned
and the East,
not build
but I think that I shall
admire the hole which he made.
—
about to
—
pioceed with
By
;
he heard the
the monuments of the know who built them. For I should like to know who in those days did who were above such trifling. But to them,
are
part,
rattle
said,
my
statistics.
surveying, carpentry,
and day-labor of various mean while, for I have
other kinds in the village in the as
many
trades as lingers, I had earned
$13 34.
The
expense of food for eight months, namely, from July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I lived there more than two years, ing potatoes, a
had
hand
little
green corn, and some peas, which I
nor considering the value of what was on
raised,
at the last date, Rice,
— not count-
.
•
was
ECONOMY
my
anblusliingly publish
65 I did not
guilt, if
know
that
most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. I'he next year I sometimes caught a mess of dinner,
and once
went so
I
chuck which ravaged gration, as a Tartar
fish
for
far as to slaughter a
my bean-field,
would say,
—
my
wood-
effect his transmi-
— and devour him,
ly for experiment's sake; but though
it
afforded
part-
me
a
momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woi^dchucks ready dressed by the village butcher. Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to
Oil and
So
some household
utensils,
•
•
•
$8 40| 2 00
that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for
wash
ing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their
have not yet been received,
bills
— and these are and more than which money necessarily goes out world, — were all
all
the
ways by
in this pait of the
House, Farm one year, Food ight months, Clothing,
&.C., eiglit
Oil, &c., eight
In
I
all,
.
address myself
.
...
. .
months,
months,
•
.
•
, •
•
.
.
5
8
40.^
S 00 $G1 992
.
now
,
•
14 72^
8 74
• .
$S8 12^
to those of
my
readers
who have
WALDEN.
66 a livirg to
And
get.
meet
to
I hare for farm
this
produce sold $3n 44 Earned by day-labor, In
•
•
•
•
13 34
•
$36 78)
all,
which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a this being very balance of $25 21f on the one side,
—
nearly the means with which I
stiirted,
ure of expenses to be incurred,
and the meas-
— and on
the other,
beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a comfortable house for to
occupy
it.
These
statistics,
me
as long as I choose
however accidental and therefore appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value also. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account. uninstructive they
It appears
cost
me
in
may
from the above estimate, that
money about twenty-seven
was, for nearly two years after
my
food alone
cents a week.
this,
It
rye and Indian
meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very molasses, and salt, and my drink water.
little salt
It
was
pork,
iit
that
who loved so well the To meet the objections of some may as well state, that if I dined
I should live on rice, mainly,
philosophy of India. inveterate cavillers, I
out occasionally, as I always had done, and I trust shall
have opportunities detriment of
my
to
do again,
it
was frequently
domestic arrangements.
uig out, being, as I have stated, a
to the
But the
constant
din-
element,
does not in the lerst affect a comparative statement
lilie
thie:.
I learned from Hos*^
incredibly
my two years' experience
little
that
it
would
trouble to obtain one's necessary food.
BREAD. even in
ihi
}
latitude
;
that a
67
man may use as simple a diet
as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.
have made a
satisfactory dinner, satisfactory
I
on several
accounts, simply off a dish of purslane {Portulaca olera' cea) which I gathered in
my cornfield, boiled
and
salted.
1 give the Latin on account of the savoriness of the trivial
man
And
name.
pray what more can a reasonable
desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than
sufluiont
number of
with the addition of
ears of green sweet-corn
salt ?
Even
the
a
boiled,
variety which
little
I u*ed was a yielding to the demands of appetite, and
Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries and I know a good woman who
not nf liealth.
;
thinks that her son lost hi'
life
because he took to drink-
ing water only.
The
am
treating the sub-
from an economic than a
dietetic point cf
reader will
ie?t rather
j^iTJjp.jVij
that I
view, and he will nut venture to put to the test unless
Bread
I at
my
abstemiousness
he has a well-stocked larder.
made of pure Indian meal and
first
my
genuine hoe-cakes, which I baked before
fire
salt,
out of
doors on a shingle or the end of a stick of timber sawed off in building
and
to
at last
my
house; but
have a piny Ha\ or.
amusement
suc(;ession,
Egyptian fruit
was wont
to get ;
smoked
but have
found a nixture of rye and Indian meal most
convenient and agreeable. little
it
I tried flour also
to
In cold weather
it
bake several small loaves of
was no this in
tending and turning them as carefully as an his liatching f^ggs.
\dnch I ripened, and
They were a tliey
fragrance hke that of other noble as long as possible
had fruits,
by wrapping them
to
real cereal
my
senses a
which I kept
m cloths.
I
in
made
AALDEN.
68
a study of the ancient and indispensable art of bread-
making, consulting such authorities as ofFeied, going
back
days and
to the primitive
lirst
invention of the un-
leavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and
men
meats
first
and
this diet,
reached the mildness and refinement of
travelling gradually
down
in
m)
studies
through that accidental souring of the dough which, is
it
supposed, taught the leavening process, and through
the various fermentations thereafter, sweet,
wholesome bread," the
till
staff
I
of
came
to "good,
life.
Leaven
which some deem the soul of bread, the spiritus which its
fills
cellular tissue,
like the vestal fire,
pose,
first
iness for
which
— some
religiously preserve?'
brought over in the Mayflower, did the bus
America, and
its
influence
is still
rising, swell-
billows over the land,
ing, spreading, in cerealian this
is
precious bottle-full, I sup-
—
seed I regularly and faithfully procured from the
village,
at length
till
and scalded
my
yeast
one morning I forgot the rules ;
by which accident I discovered
—
for my discovwas not indispensable, eries were not by the synthetic but analytic process, and I have gladly omitted it since, though most housewives earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without yeast might not be, and elderly people
that even this
—
prophesied a speedy decay of the vital forces. find
it no'^y
without
and I
it
am
to be
for
an essential ingredient, and
a year
am
still
Yet
I
after going
in the land of the living;
glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a
my pocket, which would sometimes po|> and It is simj>ler discharge its contents to my discomfiture. Man is an animal and more respectable to omit bottle-full in
it.
who more than any
other can adapt himself to
mates and circumstances.
jill
Neither did I put any
cli-
sal
BREAD.
69
loda, 01 other acid or alkali, into
my bread.
It
would
Beem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus Porcius Cato gave about two centuries before Christ.
"
Panem
riumque bene
depsticium
lavato.
sic facito.
Farinam
in
Manus moita-
mortarium
Ubi bene
aquce paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. subegeris, defingito, coquitoque
take to
mean
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
"
add.
Put
well.
"Which I
sub testu."
Wash your
Make kneaded bread thus.
hands and trough
the meal into the trough,
water gradually, and knead
it
thoroughly.
mould
it,
and bake
you have kneaded
it
well,
indito,
it
When under a
Not a word about leaven. But I did not always use this staff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw none of it for more than a month. Every New Englander might easily raise all his cover," that
own
is,
in a baking-kettle.
breadstuffs in this land of rye
not depend
Yet
them.
pendence
on distant and so far
that, in
are
and Indian
fluctuating
we from
corn,
and
markets for
simplicity
and inde-
Concord, fresh and sweet meal
is
hominy and corn in a still For the most coarser form are hardly used by any. part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a greater cost, at the store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel or two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow on the poorest land, and the latter does not require the best, and grind iheo in a hand-mill, and so do without rice and pork and if I must have some concentrated sweet, I
rarely sold in the shops, and
;
make a very good pumpkins or beets, and I knew that
lound by experiment that I could molasse.s cither of I
needed only
to set out
a few maples
to obtain
it
more
WALDEIT.
70
and while these were growing I could use various substitutes beside those which I have named.
easily
**
still,
For," as the Forefathers sang,
—
" we can make liquor to svreeten our lips Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips."
Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain
might be a
this
fit
did without
if I
the less water.
Thus it
altogether, I should probably drink
I do not learn that the Indians ever
themselves to go after
ti'oubled
my
occasion for a visit to the seashore, or,
it
it.
and
I could avoid all trade
barter, so far as
food was concerned, and having a shelter already,
would only remain
pantaloons which I
;
and
The
fuel.
now wear were woven in a farmer's there is so much virtue still in
— thank Heaven
family,
man
to get clotiiing
for I think the fall
from the farmer
to the oper-
ative as great and memorable as that from the
— and
man
to
is an encumpermitted not were brance. As for a stiH to squat, I might purchase one acre at the same price namely, for which the land I cultivated was sold
the farmer ;
in
a new country fuel
habitat,
if
I
—
But
eight dollars and eight cents.
as
was, I con-
it
sidered that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on
it.
There ask
me
is
a certain class of unbelievers
such questions
vegetable food alone
matter at once,
tomed
to
—
;
as, if I
and
who sometimes
think that I can live on
to strike at the root of tho
for the root is faith,
answer such, that I can
live
—
am
I
on board
accus
nails.
If
they cannot understand that, they cannot understand
much
that I have to say.
For
my part,
I
am
glad to
FURNITUKE. hear of experimenty of
this
71
kind being tried
j-oung
man
on the
ear, using his teeth for all mortar.
tri^d
as that a
;
a fortnight to live on hard, raw corn
same and succeeded.
tribe tried the is intei
i'oi-
The squirrel The human race
ested in these experiments, though a few old wo-
men who
are incapacitated for them, or
thirds in mills,
may
My furniture, rest cost
me
who own
Ihcir
be alarmed.
part of which I
made
myself, and
tlie
nothing of wiiich I have not rendered an
account, consisted of a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs,
a looking-glass three inches
and andirons, a
kettle,
a
panned lamp.
None
is
diameter, a pair of tongs
in
and a frying-pan, a dipper, a wash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for oil, a jug for molasses, and a ja-
pumpkin.
skillet,
so poor that he need
sit
on a
That
is shiftlessness. There is a plenty of such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for taking them away. Furniture Thank God, I can sit !
and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account of empty boxes ? That is Spaulding's furniture.
I could
load whether
poor one
it
never
belonged
tell
to
from inspecting such a
a so called rich
man
or n
owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the more you have of such things the [joorer you are. Each load looks as if it contained the contents of is
;
the
a dozen shanties
;
a dozen times as poor.
and
if
one shanty
is
poor, this
Pray, for what do we move
ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviis
;
at last
WALDEN.
72 to
go from
this
world to another newly furnished, and
leave this to be burned
It
?
is
same as
the
if all
these
were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not move over the rough country where our lines are cast without traps
dragging them, fox that
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; dragging
his trap.
his tail in the trap.
left
gnaTv his third leg oiF to be free.
has
lost his elasticity.
may
" Sir, if I
man you
is
at a dead set
see all that he owns, ay,
will
1
will not burn,
and much
disown, behind him, even to his
to
kitchen furniture and
it
he
be so bold, what do you mean by a
that he pretends
and
was a lucky The muskrat will No wonder man
If you are a seer, whenever you meet
dead set?" a
How often
He
all
and he
the trumpery which he saves will
appear to be harnessed to
and making what headway he can. I think that the is at a dead set who has got through a knot hole
man
or gateway where his sledge load of furniture cannot follow him.
some
trig,
I cannot but feel compassion
when
I hear
compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded
and ready, speak of sured or not.
his " furniture," as
whether
" But what shall I do with
in-
it is
my furniture ?"
^^y g^y butterfly is entangled in a spider's web then. Even those who seem for a long while not to have any, if
you inquire more narrowly you
will find
have some
stored in somebody's barn.
I look upon England to-
day as an old gentleman who
is
travelling with a great
deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated from
long housekeeping, which he has not the courage to
burn
;
great trunk,
Throw away tl.e
the
first
powers of a well
little
trunk, bandbox and bundle.
three at least.
man nowadays
It
would surpass
to take
up
his
bed
and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one lay
down
his
bed and run.
When
tc
I have met an im>
73
FURNITUIIE.
migrant tottering under a bundle wticli contained nla
— looking
an enormous wen which had grown out I have pitied him, not because of the nape of his neck that was his all, but because he had all that to carry.
all
liise
—
If I have got to drag
be a
light
perchance intc
my
trap, I will take care that
one and do not nip it
me
would be wisest never
to
it
But paw
in a vital part.
put one's
It.
I w:)uld observe,
it
costs
me
nothing
to shut out but the
sun
wiUing that they should look m. moon will not sour milk nor tamt meat of mine,
am
and moon, and I
nor will the sun injure
and
that
have no gazers
for curtains, for I
The
by the way,
if
better
he
is
my
sometimes too
economy
to retreat
furniture or fade
warm
my
a friend, I find
carpet, it still
behind some curtain which
nature has provided, than to add a single item to the delady once offered me a mat, tails of housekeeping.
A
but as
I had no room
to spare within the house, nor time
to spare within or without
preferring to wipe It
is
my
shake
it,
I dechned
on the sod before
my
it,
door.
best to avoid the beghinings of evih
Not long
since I
con's effects, for his
"
As
feet
to
was present at the auction of a dealife had not been ineffectual:
Tlie evil that
—
men
do
usual, a great proportion
lives after
them."
was trumpery which had
bcgim to accumulate in his father's day. Among the And now, after lying half rest was a dried tapeworm. these things a century in his garret and other dust holes, were not burned
;
instead of a honjire, or purifying de-
Btruction of them, there
tf them.
The
was an
auction, or increasmg
neighbors eagerly collected to view them,
"
WALDEN.
7'i
bought tlicm garrets and
all,
dust holes, to lie there
when they will
settled,
he kicks the
stai-t
When
again.
to their
their estatea are
till
a man
of some savage nations might, perchance,
by
i)rofitably imitated
they at least go throujh
us, for
the semblance of casting their slough annually
Lave the idea of the ity or
Would
not.
dies
dust.
The customs be
and carefully transported them
thing, it
;
they
whether they have the
real-
we were
to cele-
first fruits,"
as Bar-
not be well
brate such a " busk," or " feast of
if
tram describes to have been the custom of the Muc(;lasse Indians
"
?
When
a town celebrates the busk," says
new
he, " having previously provided themselves with clothes,
and
new
pans, and other household utensils
pots,
furniture, they collect all their
worn out
clothes
and other despicable things, sweep and cleanse
and the whole town, of
houses, squares,
which wnth
all
consume
with
fire.
During
ification of
common
one
is
turn to their town.
On
heap, and
this fast
town
is
extin^
they abstain from the grat-
A
every appetite and passion whatever.
general amnesty "
filth,
After having taken medicine, and
fasted for three days, all the fire in the
guished.
their
the remaining grain and other old pro-
visions they cast together into it
their
proclaimed j
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
malefactors
the fourth morning, the high priest,
dry wood together, produces new square, from
fire
whence every habitation new and pure flame."
in
may
re-
by rubbing the
in the
public
town
is
6ui>plied with the
They
then feast on the
new
corn and fruits and
dance and sing for three days, " and the four following days they receive
visits
and
rejoice with their friends
from neighboring towns who have rifled
and Dreuared
themselves.*'
in lilvC
manner
pik
ECONOMY.
The Mexicans fiie
also practisctl a similar purification at
enJ of evciy
was time
75
fifty
two years,
for the world to
come
to
in the belief that
I have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament, that
as the dictionary defines
it,
it
an end. is,
" outward and visible sign
of an inward and spiritual grace," than
this,
no doubt that they were originally inspired
and I have
directly from
Ileavon to do thus, though they have no biblical rccoid of the revelation.
For more than solely
five
by the labor of
working about expenses of
six
years I maintained myself thus
my
weeks
hands, anl I found, that by
in a year, I could
The whole
living.
of
my
meet
all
the
winters, as well
as most of ray summers, I bad free and clear for study.
I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that
my
expenses were in proportion, or rather out of pro-
my
portion, to
train, not to lost
my
say think and believe, accordingly, and
time into the bargain.
the good of this
income, for I was obliged to dress and
was a
my
As
I did not teach foi
fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood,
failure.
I
have
tried trade
;
but I found that
it would take ten years to get under way that then I should probably be on my way
I was actually afraid that I
what
is
]
in that,
and
to the devil.
might by that time be doin^
called a good business.
When
formerly I was;
looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes of fiiendi
being fresh in
my
mind
to tax
my
ingenuity,
I
thought
and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surefoi ly I could do, and its small profits might sufiice, mv 'greatest skill has been ti want but little, so little
often
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
76
VTALDEN.
capital
it
required, so
moods, I
fooii^lily
distraction
little
"Wliile
tliou;:lit.
my
from
my
wonled
acquaintances
we]it nnhesitahngly into ti-ade or tlie profession.^, I conleinj)lated
ll'is
occupation as most
summer
lii^e tlieirs
ranging
;
to pick tlie berries Avhich
came
the
liilh all
my
waj, and thereafter carelessly dispose of tliem;
to
keep the flocks of Admetus.
mi^iit feather tlie Avild herbs,
dreamed
I also
or carry evergreens
viUagers as loved to be reminded of the
But
the city, by Iiay-cart loads. tiiat
trade curses every tiling
it
"vvoods,
in so,
that I to sucli
even
to
I have since learned
handles; and though you
trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of ti'adc attaches to the business.
As
some thing?
1 ])referred
valued
my
to others,
and especially
freedom, as I could fare hard and yet suc-
ceed well, I did not wish to spend
my
time in earning
rich cai'pets or other fine furniture, or delicate cookery,
or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just yet. If there are
any
to Avliom
these things, and quired, I
it is
no interruption
who know how
relinquish to
them the
to acquire
use them when ac-
to
Some
pursuit.
" industrious," and appear to love labor for sake, or perhaps because
it
its
are
own
keeps them out of worse
mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say.
Those who would not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to woik twice as hard as they do,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; work
and get their free papers. oÂŤ;ci;palion
of
an}-,
days
in
till
they pay for themselve?,
For myself
I found that the
of a day-laborer was the most independent
especially as
it
required ordy thirty or forty
a year to support one.
with the going
down
The
laborer
of the sun, and he
is
s
day ends
then free to
devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his
ECONOMY.
who
labor; but his employer,
77
specuhites from
month, has no respite from one end
oi'
month
to
ihe year lo the
other.
am
In short, I
convinced, both by faith and ex])eri-
ence, that to maintain one's self on this earth
but a pastime,
hard:jhip
if
we
will
not a
is
simply and
live
wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are
the L-ports of the
man
that a
more
should eai*n his living by the sweat of his
brow, unless he sweats easier than
One young man some
herited
my
of
acres, told
live as I did, if he
any one adopt beside
still
It is not necessary
artificial.
had
me the
my mode
I do.
in-
that he thought he should I would not have
means.
any account
of living on
before he has fairly learned
tliat
who has
acquaintance,
may have may be
I
it
for,
;
found out another for myself, I desire that there as
ditferent persons in the world as possible
many
but
;
and
careful to iind out
have each one be very pursue his own way, and not his father's or his motlier's The youth may build or or his neighbor's instead.
I would
plant or that
sail,
only
which he
tells
let
me
him not be hindered from doing he would like to do.
It is
by a
mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye but ;
that is suthcient guidance for all our
AVe may not
life.
we
arrive at our port within a calculable period, but
would preserve the true course. Undoubtedly, in this case, what truer
still
portionally
roof
may
arate ferred
is
true for one
for a thousand, as a large house
more expensive than a small
cover, one cellar
several tlie
apartments.
is
13
not )?ro-
one, since one
underlie, and one wall sep-
But
solitary dwelling.
for
my
Moreover,
I
pre-
will
com-
i)art, it
;
WALDEN.
78
monly be
%'^lieaper
whole yourself than to
to build the
convince another of the advantage of the coramon wall
and wlien you have done
much
be
may
The
sible is
only cooperation which
commonly
is
exceedingly partial and superficial
true cooperation there
a harmony inaudible
as
is, is
men.
to
if it
If a
;
were
man
he
faitii,
will continue to
company he
world, whatever
is
joined
to.
together.
I
young men should
heard
it
faiti:
if
he
he has
To co;')i)erate,
in the highest as well as the lowest sense,
our I wing
not, being
rest of the
like the
live
ros-
and what
has
cooperate with equal faith everywhere;
will
not
partition, to
prove a bad neighbor, and also not keep his side in
repair.
little
common
the
this,
cheaper, must be a thin one, and that other
means
to get
proposed lately that two
travel together over the world, the
one without money, earning
his
means
as he went, before
the mast and behind the plough, the other carrying a bill
of exchange
in his
pocket.
It
was easy
to see that
they could not long be companions or cooperate, since
one would not operate at first
They would
to-day
;
but he
that other
they get
But
is
who
man who
travels
ready, and
it
part at the
Above
interesting crisis in their adventures.
as I have implied, the
with another must wait
may
all,
goes alone can start till
be a long time before
off.
all this is
t.'wnsmen say.
v^iy
all.
little
in
very
selfish,
I have heard some of
philanthropic enterprises.
S'Âťme sacrifices to a sense of duty, and I'tive sacrificed this
>^ve used
my
I confess that I have hitherto indulged
jdeasure also.
all their arts to
I
have made
among
others
There are those who
persuade
me
to undertake
PHILANTHROPY. some poor family
the support of
had the
notliing to do, idle,
—
—
in the to^\m
for the devil finds
I might try
However, when
that.
79 and
;
if
employment
my hand at some such pastime I
have thought
to indulge
1
for
as
myself
and lay their Hcavon under an obliga-
in this respect,
by maintaining certain poor peraons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have even ventiired so far as to make them the offer, they have tion
one and
all
unhesitatingly preferred to remain
poor.
While my townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of tlieir fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius
As
else.
for charity as well as for
for Doing-good, that
which are
Moreover, I have tried
full.
may
strange as
it
agree with
my
seem,
am
constitution.
any thing
one of the professions
is
it
that
satisfied
fairly,
and,
does not
it
Probably I should not con-
my
sciously and deliberately forsake
particular calling
do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation and I believe that a like but
to
;
infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that preserves it. But I would not stand betw^een any
and
his genius
and
;
to
him who does
this
now man
work, which
would I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I doing evil, as it say, Persevere, even if the world call it is m«)st likely
am
I
one
;
far
they wiU.
no doubt many of
my
my
readers
At doing something,
liar defence.
dvdt
my
from supposing that
neighbors shall i)ronounce
hesitate to say that I should be a
but wluvt that Vi'hsii
good 1
is,
do,
it
is
for
my
m the common
case
is
a peculiar
would make a
— it
sim-
I will not
engage
good,—
do no!
cai)itJil
1
fellow to hire;
employer
to
find
out.
sense of that word, must
WALDEN,
80
my
be aside from
main
path,
and
for the
most
pai"?
wholly unintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good. If I were to preach at all in this strain, I should say rather, Set
As
about being good.
if
when he had kindled his fires up to splendor of a moon or a star of the sixth magnitude,
the sun should stop the
and go about
a Robin Goodfellow, peeping in at
like
every cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting meats, jmd making darkness visible, instead of steadily increasing his genial heat and beneficence
till
he
of
is
such brightness that no mortal can look him in the face,
and then, and
in the
world in his own
mean
orbit,
while too, going about the
doing
it
good, or rather, as a
truer philosophy has discovered, the world going about
him his
getting good.
When
Phaeton, wishing to prove
heavenly birth by his beneficence, had the sun's
chariot but one day, and drove out of the beaten track,
he burned several blocks of houses
in the
lower streets
of heaven, and scorched the surface of the earth, and dried
up every
Sahara,
till
spring,
and made the great desert of
at length Jupiter hurled
him headlong
to
the earth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, through grief at his death, did not shine for a year.
There
is
no odor so bad as that which
goodness tainted. I
knew
It is
human,
for a certainty that a
it is
divine, carrion.
man was coming
house with ths conscious design of doing should run for
my
life,
from
arises
me
to
If
my
good, I
as from that dry and parching
wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which 611s the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are
suffocated, for fear that I should get s(ime of
;
PHILANTHROPY. his
good (lone
my
blood.
to
No,
me,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
because he will feed
me
of
its virus mingled with would rather sulTer evil
in this case I
natural way.
the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; some
A
man me if I
not a good
is
ever
fall
man
into one.
me
out of a dileh
can lind you a
I
me waim
to
should be starving, or
should be freezing, or pull
if I
I should
81
if
New-
foundland dog that will do as much.
Philanthropy
not love for one's fellow-man in the
broadest sense
is
Howard was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worlliy man in his way, and has his reward but, comparatively ;
speaking, what are a hundred
philanthropy do not help us
in
Howards our best
are most worthy to be helped
posed
to
The
do any good
to
me, or the
like of
suffering,
it
me.
by those Indians who,
being burned at the stake, suggested ture to their tormentors.
when we
was sincerely pro-
it
Jesuits were quite balked
estate,
I never heard of a
?
philanthropic meeting in which
to vs, if their
new modes
of tor-
Being superior to physical
sometimes chanced that they were superior
any consolation which the missionaries could offer and the law to do as you would be done by fell with to
less jDersuasiveness )art,
their
on the ears of those, who, for their
how they were done by, who loved enemies after a new fashion, and came very near
did not care
them all they did. Be sure that you give the poor
freely forgiving
be your exami)le which leaves them far If you give money, spend yourself with it, and
need, though
behind.
it
do not merely abandon mistakes sometimes. cold It
If
is
the aid they most
it
to
them.
Often the
and hungry as he
is
dirty
We
make poor man is
curious
and ragged and
not sc gross.
partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune.
vou give him money, he 6
will
perhaps buy more rags
WALDEN.
82
I was wont to pity the clumsy Irish latwrers
witli
it.
who
cut ice on the pond, in such
clothes, Avhile I shivered in
mean and ragged
my more
more fashionable garments,
till,
tidy
and somewhat
one biUer
day, one
;rold
win had clipped into the water came to my iiouse to warm iiim, and I saw him strip off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings ere he got down to the skin, though they were dirty and ragged enough,
and that he could which
This ducking was
began
and I saw that
to pity myself,
me
money on
of
a flannel shirt than a wliole
who
is
at the
striking at the root,
and
the needy
is
doing the most by hi?
produce that misery whicii he strives
life to
vain to reheve.
It is the pious slave-breeder
the proceeds of every tenth slave to
Some show
erty for the rest.
poor by employing them in be kinder
lot
I
would be a greatei
be that he who bestows the largest amount of
time and
mode
it
ones.
Then
There are a thousand hacking
slop-shop on him.
branches of evil to one
may
intra
very thing he needed.
tlie
charity to bestow on
it
many
true,
garments
afford to refuse the extra
him, he had so
offered
I
is
it
if
tlieir
in
devoting
buy a Sunday's
lib-
their kindness to the
kitchens.
Would they ? You
they employed themselves there
boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity
;
may
be you sliould spend the nine tenths
done with
it.
Is this
whose possession
the officers of justice
Philanthropy
is
A.
;
and
robust poor
it
it
owing is
to the generosity of liim
ibund, or to the remissness of
?
almost the only virtue which
ficiently appreciated
overrated
and
Society recovers only a tenth part of the
property then. in
so,
is
is
suf-
by mankind.
Nay,
our
which overrates
seltisl.ness
man, one sunny day here
it
in
is
greatly it.
Conc!ord,
PHILANTHROPT.
$3
praised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, he was kind to the poor ; meaning himself. The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its
true spiritual fathers
and mothers.
reverend lecturer on England, a intelligence, after
and
man
enumerating her
political worthies,
I once heard a of learning
and
scientific, literary,
Shakspeare, Bacon, Cromwell,
Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of her Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him,
he
elevated to a place far above
all
the rest, as the great-
They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs.
est of the great.
Fry.
Every one must
feel the falsehood
this.
The
not England's
women
;
last
were
and cant of
best
men and
only, perhaps, her best philanthropists.
I would not subtract any thing from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all
who by
and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness witliered we make their lives
lierb tea for the sick, serve but
a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and /i-uit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our inter-
His goodness must not be a partial and trana constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a course.
sitory act, but
enarity that hides a multitude of sins.
The
philan-
mankind with the rememgriefs as an atmosphere, and
thropist too often surrounds
brance of ?ÂŁd\s
it
liis
own
cast-off
sympathy.
"VYe should
not our despair, our health
and take care that
and
impart our courage, and ease,
this does not
and not our
disease,
spread by contagiort
WALDEN.
84
From
wliat southern plains
ing?
Under
comes up the voice of wail-
-what latitudes reside the heathen to whonr
we would send light? Who is that brutal man whom we would redeem ?
intemperate and
any thing
ail
a man, so that he does not perform his functions,
if
he have a pain in of sympathy,
for that
a true discovery, and he
is
the
man to make
the world has been eating green apples fact, the globe itself is
is
the seat
forthwith sets about reforming
—
Being a microcosm himself, he discovers, and
the world. it is
his
— he
bowels even, —
If
is
it,
—
that
to his eyes, in
;
a great green apple, which there
danger awful to think of that the children of men will
nibble before
it
is
ripe
and straightway
;
his drastic
philanthropy seeks out the Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages tivity,
own
and thus, by a few years of philanthropic ac-
;
the powers in the
mean
while using him for their
no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were beginning to be ripe, and life loses its ends,
crudity and I
is
once more sweet and wholesome to
live.
never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have I never knew, and never shall know, a
committed.
worse
man
than myself.
I believe that what so saddens the reformer
sympathy with
his fellows in distress, but,
be the holiest son of God, be righted,
over his
let
the spring
couch, and he
is
his private
come
to
My
not his
though he
Let
this
him, the morning rise
will forsake his
panions without apology.
ail.
is
generous com-
excuse for not lecturing
chewed it that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chew ers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed
against the use of tobacco
is,
that I never
;;
PHII A NTH RO IT.
85
which I could lecture against. If you should eve.' be betrayed into any- of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. shoe-strings.
Rescue the drowning and tie your Take your time, and set about some free
labor.
Our manners have been corrupted by communication Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring him forever. One
with the saints.
would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of
There
man.
nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does
me
is
however much sympathy it may have with me with it. If, then, we would indeed restore man-
evil,
or I
kind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let
us
first
be as simple and well as Nature ourselves,
dispel the clouds which
hang over our own brows, and
Do not stay to be take up a little life into our pores. an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world. I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik
Sadi of Shiraz, that " They asked a wise man, saying Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they
call
none azad,
or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit;
what mystery
is
there in this
?
He
replied
;
Each has
its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the coi tinuance of which it is fresh and blooming, an^ during their absence dry and withered ; to neither o^
:
WALDEN.
86 ivhicli states is
Isliing;
and of
the cypress exposed, being always flourtliis
hidependents. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Fix transitory
;
flow through if
nature are the azads, or religious not thy heart on that which
Bagdad
after the race of caliphs
is
extinct
thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree
if it affords
man,
is
tor the Dijhih, or Tigris, will continue to
;
but
nothing to give away, be an azad, or free
like the cypress."
COMPLEMEXTATi VERSES. THE PRETEXSIOXS OF POVERTY. *Thou dost presume too much, poor needy To claim a station in the firmament,
'wretch*
Because thj humble cottage, or thy tub. Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs, ^^"ith roots and pot-herbs ; where thy right hand. Tearing those humane passions from tlic mind, Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish, Degradeth nature, and benumbcth sense,
And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone "We not require the dull society Of your necessitated temperance. Or that unnatural stupidity That knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forc'd Falsely exalted passive fortitude
Above the active. This low abject brood, That fix their seats in mediocrity, Become your servile minds but we advance Such virtues only as admit excess, ;
Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence. All-seeing prudence, magnanimity That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue
For which antiquity hath left no name. But patterns only, such as Hercules, Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath'd cell And when thou seest the new enliglitened sphere. Study to know but what those worthies were." ;
T. CAHKir
(m
WHERE
At
I
LIVED,
AND WHAT
a certain season of our
life
I
LIVED FOR.
we
are accustomed
every spot as the possible
to consider
of a house.
site
I have thus surveyed the country on every side Avithin
a dozen miles of where I
bought
all
live.
In imagination I have
the farms in succession, for
bought, and I
knew
all
were to be
I walked over each
their price.
farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on
husbandry with him, took his farm at price,
mortgaging
higher price on it,
— took —
his
to
him
— took
word
cultivated
talk,
it
it,
in
my
his price, at
mind
;
any
even put a
every thing but a deed of
for his deed, for I dearly love to
it,
and him too
to
some
extent, I trust,
and withdrew when I had enjoyed it Ipng enough, leavThis experience entitled me to ing him to carry it on. be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscaite radiated from sedes,
a seat
many a
?
me
accordingly.
— better
site for
if
What
a country
is
a house but a
seat.
I discovered
a house not likely to be scon im-
proved, which some might have thought too far from the village,
but to
my
eyes the village was too far from
it
;
WHERE
LIVED,
I
89
Well, there I might live, T said; and there I did for
an hour, a summer and a winter
life
;
live,
saw how I
could
let the years run off, butTet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may
An
be sure that they have been anticipated.
afternoon
Bufficed to lay out the land into orchard, woodlot,
and
pasture,
what
to decide
and
oaks or pines should be
fine
stand before the door, and whence each blasted
left to
tree could be seen to the best advantage
man
and then
;
I let
it lie,
fallow perchance, for a
is
rich in proportion
to the
number of things which he can
afford to let alone.
My imagination
me
carried
the refusal of several farms,
wanted,
— but
I
so far that I even had
—
my
never got
the refusal was all I
fingers
burned by actual
The nearest that I came to actual posseswas when I bought the Hollowell place, and had
possession. sion
begun which
my
to sort to
seeds,
make a wheelbarrow
but before the owner gave
every wished
man to
keep
it,
Now,
and
I
was
that
on or off with
it
a deed of
— changed
he offered
me
it,
his wife
—
her mind and
ten dollars to re-
to speak the truth, I
had but ten
my
arithmetic to
cents in the world, and tell, if
to carry
me
has such a wife
lease him.
collected materials with
and
it
surpassed
man who had
farm, or ten dollars, or
all
ten cents, or
together.
who had
However,
a
I let
him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he vjas not a rich man, made him a present of ten d( -liars, and ;
my
and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a But I rich man without any damage to my poverty. still
had
tori
cents,
and
seeds,
WALDEN.
â&#x20AC;˘0
retained the landscape, and I have since annually car* ried off
what
it
"I
With
yielded without a wheelbarrow.
respect to landscapes,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
am monarch
My right
there
of all I surtey. is
none
to dispute.'*
1 have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty
farmer supposed that he had got a few wild
Why,
ap[)les only.
owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk. The real attractions of the Hollowell fjirm, to me, were its complete retirement, being about two miles tlie
;
from the
village, half
a mile from the nearest neighbor,
and separated from the highway by a broad field ; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected .t by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to
me;
the gray color and ruinous state of the
house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between
me and
the last occupant
;
the
hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits,
showing what kind of neighbors I should have;
but above liest
all,
the recollection I had of
it
from
my
ear-
voyages up the river, when the house was concealed
b(jhind
heard
a dense grove of red maples, through which I th-^
'
ouse-rlog bark.
I
was
in haste to
buy
it,
irietor finished getting out some rocks, down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, vr, in short, had made any more of his improvements.
before the [. cutting
;
WHERE To enjoy
LIVED.
I
91
these advantages I was ready to carry
like Atlas, to take the
my shoulders, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I
world on
heard what compensation he received for all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
that,
U on never
do
jjnd
those things which had no other motive or cxoiiso
but that I might pay for possession of
it
and be unmolested
knew
for 1
it;
all
the while that
it
would
yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted
could only afford to
have
let it alone.
But
my
in
if I
turned out as I
it
said.
All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on rt
large scale, (I have always cultivated a garden,) wasÂť
that
my
had had
I
seeds ready.
improve with age.
Many
have no doubt that time discrim
I
mates between the good and the bad shall
But
plant, I shall
be
woulil say to
my
I
possible live free
think that seeds
less
and when
;
at last i
likely to be disappointed.
fellows,
once for
and uncommitted.
As
all.
long as
makes but
It
little
difference whether you are committed to a farm or the
county
jail.
Old Cato, whose " tor," says,
De Re
Rustica "
and the only translation
sheer nonsense of the i)assage, " getting a far^i, turn
nc
;
ihink
enougu
go there the more think I shall not it
it
When you
it
once.
please
The
the
more
preser.t
was
it
oflener you
is
greedily, but go round
as long as I live, anJ bo buried in
me
at Ik
my
think of
and do not
it,
The
will please you, if
buy
" CultiTa-
thus in your mind, not to buy
go round
to
my
have seen makes
spare your pains to look at
crreedily it
it
I
is
it first,
good."
I
and round
that
it
may
t.
nex.
.
xperim nt
which I purpose to describe more
at
ol
'tm^lli
this kind, j
for con-
WALDEN.
92
venienco, putting the experience of two years into one.
As
I have said, I do not propose to write an ode to de-
jection, but to
brag as
ing, standing
on his
lustily as chanticleer in the
roost,
only to
if
wake
my
mornueigli-
bors up.
When began
first
I took
spend
to
my
up
my
abode in the woods, that
is,
nights as well as days there, which,
by accident, was on Independence day, or the fourth of July, 1845,
my
house was not finished for winter, but
was merely a defence against the
rain, without jjlaster-
ing or chimney, the walls being of rough weather-stained boards, "with wide chinks, which
The
upright white
hewn
made
it
cool at night.
studs and freshly planed door
and window casings gave
it
a clean and airy look, espe-
cially in the morning, when
its
timbers were saturated
with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet
gum would exude
from them.
retained throughout the day ral
character, reminding
mountain which
was an
I
had
me
To my
more or
imagination
less of this
it
auro-
of a certain liouse on a
year before.
visited the
airy and unplastered cabin,
fit
to
and where a goddess miglit The winds which passed over
Tiiis
entertain
a
travelling god,
trail
her gar-
ments.
my
dwelling
were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terThe morning wind forever blows, the restrial music. pocra of creation tint hear
is
uninterrupted
Olympus
it.
is
;
but few are the ears
but the outside of the earth
every whore.
The
only house I had been the owner of before,
if I
except u boat, was a tent, which I used occasionally
when making roll'jd
up
in
excursions in the summer, and this
my
garret
;
is still
but the boat, after passing from
WHERE hana
I
LIVED.
C|3
has gone down the stream of time. With more sabstantial shelter about me, I had made some progress toward setthnn; in the world. This to l:nnd,
this
frame, so
slightly clad, Avas
a sort of crystallization around me,
and reacted on the
builder.
as a picture in outhnes. to take the air, for the
of
its
freshness.
It
It
atmosphere within had
was not
behind a door where I
sat,
The Harivansa
ÂŤ
says,
was suggestive somewhat
I did not need to go out doors
even
An
much
so
lost
in the rainiest weather.
abode without birds
a meat without seasoning."
none
within doors as
Such was not
my
is
like
abode,
for I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having im[)risoned one, but having caged myself near
them.
I was not only nearer to
commonly frequent the those wilder and more
gai-den
some of those which and the orchard, but to
thrilling songsters of the forest
which never, or rarely, serenade a villager, 7â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the woodthrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field-sparrow, the whippoorwill, and
many
others.
I was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of the village of Concord and some-
what higher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two miles fioutli
of thai our only field
Battle
Ground; but I was
opposite shore, half a mile
wood, was
my most
known
to fame,
off,
like the rest,
pond
it
(
saw
hei*e
:
it
nd
rtjllecting
first
impressed
a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, llie
covered with
For the
distant horizon.
\^henevrn* I looked out on the
ihove
Concord
so low in the woods that the
its
week,
me
like
bottom far
surface of other lakes, and, as the sun arose,
throwing off
its
nightly clothing of mist, and
by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth jurface was revealed, while the mists, lika
there,
WALDEN.
94 ghosts,
were
stealthily
withdrawing in every directitm
up of some nocturnal The very dew seemed to hang upon the conventicle. trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of into the woods, as at the breaking
mountains.
This small lake was of most value as a neighbor
in
the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when,
both air and water being perfectly cast,
mid-afternoon had
all
still,
but the sky over-
the serenity of evening, and
the wood-thrush sang around, and was heard from shore
A
to shore.
such a time
lake like this
never smoother than at
is
and the clear portion of the
;
air
above
being shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, light
and
reflections,
becomes a lower heaven
it
full
of
itself
so
From a hill top near by, the more important. where the wood had been recently cut off, there was a
much
pleasing vista southward across the pond, through a wide indentation
where
in
the
hills
which form the shore there, sloping toward each other
their opposite sides
suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a
wooded
valley, but stream there
I looked between and over the near green distant
and higher ones
That way
was none.
hills to
some
in the horizon, tinged with blue.
Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of
some of the peaks of the mountain ranges
still
bluer and more distant
in the north-west, those true-blue coins
from heaven's own mint, and also of some portion of the village.
But
in other directions, even
from
this point, 1
could not see over or beyond the woods which sur-
rounded me.
It is well to
have some water
neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and
One
value even of the smallest well
.ook into
it
you see that earth
is
is,
in
float the
that
your earth
when you
not continent but insu
WHERE This
lar.
When
LIVED.
I
as important as that
is
95
it
keeps butter cool
I looked across the pond from this pi\ik toward
the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood I distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley, like a coin in a basin, all the earth
beyond the
pond appeared
and
e\ en
by
like a thin crust insulated
this small slieet of intervening water,
reminded that
this
on which
Tliougli the view from tracted, I did not feel
my
stretched
away toward
dwelt was but
door was
still
crowded or confined
There was pasture enough low shrub-oak plateau
I
to
my
and I waa
drt/ land,
more
con-
in the lea:jt.
imagination.
The
which the opposite shore
arose,
for
the prairies of the
West and
steppes of Tartary, affording ample room for ing families of men.
floated
all
the
the rov-
" There are none happy in the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
who enjoy freely a vast horizon," Damodara, when his herds required new and larger
world but beings paid
pastures.
Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe
and
tory which had most attracted me. as fai off as
omers.
We
places in
many a
to tliose eras in his-
Where
I lived
was
region viewed nightly by astron-
are wont to imagine rare and delectable
some remote and more
celestial corner of the
system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's Chair, far
from noise and disturbance.
house actually had
its site
I discovered that ray
in such a withdrawn, but for
ever new and unprofaned, part of the universe.
were
If
it
worth the while to settle in tliose parts near to the
Pleiades or the Ilyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I
was
really there, or at
an equal remoteness from the
life
which I had
left
behind, dwindled and twinkling with as
Ime a ray
my
nearest neighbor, and to be seen only
tc
;
WALDEN.
96 in
Such was
moonless nights by him.
where I had squatted
tion
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" There was a shepherd that did
And
that part of crea
live,
hold his thoughts as high
As were
the mounts whereon Did hourly feed hun by."
we
his flocks
"What
should
flocks
nlways wandered to higher pastures than his
thoughts
think of the shepherd*s
cheerful invitation to
of equal simplicity, and I
Nature
if
his
?
Every morning was a life
life
of Aurora as the Greeks. the pond; that
make my
say innocence, with
have been as sincere a worshipper
I
herself.
may
was a
I got up early and bathed in
and one of the
religious exercise,
They say
best things which I did.
that characters
were
engraven on the bathing tub of king Tching-thang to this effect
do
"
:
Renew
thyself completely each day
again, and again, and forever again."
it
derstand that.
much
I was as
making
its
Morning bi'ings back the heroic ages. by the faint hum of a mosquito
affected
invisible
apartment at
I can un-
and unimaginable tour through
earliest
dawn, when I was
sitting
my
with door
and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer's requiem itself an ;
Iliad
and Odyssey
wanderings.
in the air, singing its
a standing advertisement, ing \igor and
which
is
fertility
for
all
Then
there
it;
forbidden, of the everlast-
The morning,
is least
is
the
somnolence in us
some part of us awakes which the rest of the day and night. Little is to be
an hour, at
Blumbers
till
of the world.
the most memorable season of the day,
awakening hour.
and
own wrath and
There was something cosmical about
least,
WHAT expected of that day,
I
LIVED FOR.
97
can be called a day, to which are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our if it
we
own
newly-acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance fiUing the air to a higher
darkness bear less
than
life
than the
we
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
fell asleep from and thus the and prove itself to be good, no That man who does not believe ;
its fruit,
light.
that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day,
and
Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vehis
das say, "All intelligences awake with the morning."
Poetry and
art,
and the
fairest
and most memorable of
the actions of men, date from such an hour.
and heroes, and emit
like
Memnon,
All poets
are the children of Aurora,
their music at sunrise.
To him whose
elastic
and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks eay or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is wlien I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform
men
is
the effort to throw off sleep.
not been slumbering tors.
?
They
is
it
that
are not such poor calcula-
If they had not been overcome with drowsiness
they would have performed something. *kre
Why
give so poor an account of their day if they have
The
millions
awake enough for physical labor but only one in a
million
;
is
awake enough 7
for effective intellectual exer-
;
98
WALDEI?.
tion,
only one
ma
hundred millions
to a poetic or div ine
To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face ? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expeclife.
tation of the
dawn, which does not forsake us in our
soundest sleep.
I
know
of no more encouraging fact
man
than the unquestionable abiUty of
by
life
a conscious endeavor.
It is
to paint a particular picture, or to carve
to
make a few
objects beautiful
;
to elevate his
something to be able
a
statue,
and so
but it is far more glori-
ous to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.
To
affect the quality
Every man
arts.
details,
and
of the day, that
make
tasked to
is
his
worthy of the contemplation of
critical hour.
If
we
how
this
even in
life,
his
its
most elevated
refused, or rather used up,
we
such paltry information as tinctly inform us
the highest of
is
would
get, the oracles
dis-
might be done.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of
see
if
I could not learn what
when I came
to teach,
and
had not
lived.
life,
living
life,
put to rout
all
its
to live so sturdily
that
was not
life,
close, to drive life into
lowest terms, and,
to get the
is it
if it
so dear
all
the
and Spartan-like as
to cut a
a corner,
proved
I
was quite
I wanted to live deep and suck out
marrow of
its
not,
had
it
did not wish to live what was not
shave
and
to die, discover that I
nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless necessary.
life,
to
to
broad swath and
and reduce
be mean,
why
it
to
then
whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish
meanness
to the
world
;
or
if it
were sublime,
to
WUAT know
99
experience, and be able to give a tnu; acin VAj next excursion. For most men, il
it hjr
count of
LIVED FOR.
I
it
appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about ii, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have ioyne-
what
hastily concluded that
here to "glorify
God and
the chief end of
it is
man
enjoy him forever."
we live meanly, like ants though the fable tells we were long ago ^hanged into men like pygmies we fight with cranes it is error upon error, and Still
;
us that
;
,
upon
clout
clout,
and our best virtue has
for
a superfluous and evitable wretchedness.
its
occasion
Our life
is frit-
away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity,
tered
simplicity, simplicity
!
I say, let your affairs be as two
or three, and not a hundred or a thousand
instead of a
;
railhon count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on
your thumb civilized
nail.
life,
In the midst of
has to
live, if
jmd he must be a great Simplify, simplify.
lik3
be allowed
at all,
for, that
who
succeeds.
Instead of three meals a day, ;
a
to the
by dead reckoning,
calculator indeed
be necessary eat but one
if it
instead of a hundred dishes,
and reduce other things
;
to
he would not founder and go
bottom and not make his port
five
chopping sea of
such are the clouds and storms and quick-
sands and thousand-and-one items
man
this
in proportion.
Our
a German Confederacy, made up of petty
life is
states,
with its boundary forevjr fluctuating, so that even a German cainiot tell you how it is bounded at any moment.
The
nation
itself,
with
all
its
improvements, which, by the way, are
so called internal all
external and
superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by
WALDEN.
iOO
own
its
and a worthy aim, as the million the land and the only cure for it as for
calculation
households in
them
is
a
in
;
rigid
tan simplicity of too
iy luxury and heedless expense,
traps, ruined
by want of
Men
fast.
economy, a stern and more than Sparand elevation of purpose. It Uvea
life
think that
it is
have commerce, and export
essential that the
ice,
and
Nation
through a
talk
tele-
graph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt,
whether they do or not baboons or like men,
;
is
but whether
a
little
get out sleepei-s, and forge
we
should live like
uncertain.
we do
If
not
and devote days and tinkering upon our lives to
rails,
nighrs to the work, but go to
And if railroads
improve them^ who will build railroads ?
how shall we get to heaven in season ? But at home and mind our business, who will want
are not built, if
we
stay
railroads
"VVe
?
do not ride on the railroad
;
it
rides
upon
Did you ever think what those sleepers are that Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and us.
underlie the railroad 1
they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly
They
over them.
And over rail,
are sound sleepers, I assure
you.
every few years a new
lot is laid down and run some have the pleasure of riding on a others have the misfortune to be ridden upon.
;
so that, if
And when sleep,
they run over a
man
that
is
walking in his
a supernumerary sleeper in the wi-ong position,
and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception. I
am
glad to
five miles to
beds as get
up
know
that
it
takes a gang of
men
for every
keep the sleepers down and level in
it is,
for this is a sign that they
their
may sometime
again.
Why
should
we
live with si^eh
hurry and waste
>f
;;
WHAT
LIVED FOR.
I
101
We are
determined to be starved before we are Men say tliat a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitclies to-day to save nine tolife ?
hungry.
morrow.
As
quenee.
We
wo haven't any of any consehave the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannoi possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without
for icork,
the
.^.etting
])ell,
there
hardly a
is
man on
farm
his
in tne outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press
of engagements which was his excuse so
many
times
morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, ncl this
mainly
to save property
confess
burn
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or
the truth,
much more
must, and we, be
to see
but, if
it
known, did not
it
we
burn, set it,
it
if
will
since
on
fire,
that
is
;
itself.
asks, "
What's the news
had stood his
waked every and then,
to
sentinels.
?
Some
give directions to be
pay for
it,
they
tell
what they have dreamed. is
as indispensable as the
Pray tell me any thing new that has hapman anywhere on this globe," and he over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
a
to it
mankind
"
breakfast.
pened
" as if the rest of
half hour, doubtless for no other purpose
After a night's sleep the news
reads
see
yes, even if it were the parish Hardly a man takes a half hour's nap dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head
church after
to
put out, and have a hand in
it
done as handsomely
and
from the flames,
eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River
never dreaming the while that he
fathomed
mammoth
cave of
lives in the
this world,
dark un-
and has but the
rudiment of an eye himself.
For I
my
part, I could easily
do without the
post-ofiice.
think thai there are very few important communica*
TTALDEN.
102
made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life I wrote lions
this
The penny-post
I
am
tliat
were worth the postage.
commonly, an
is,
which you seriously thoughts which
—
—
some years ago
offer
man
a
institution tliroigh
penny
that
for his
And
so often safely offered in jest.
is
sure that I never read any memorable news in a
newspaper.
If
we by
dered, or killed
read of one
man
robbed, or mur-
accident, or one house burned, or one
vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one
cow
run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad do2 or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,
.
killed,
\
never need read of another.
One
is
— we
If you
enough.
\ire acquainted with the principle, wliat do you care for
To
a myriad instances and applications?
pher edit
all
neivs, as
and read
it
not a few are
it
and they who
called, is gossip,
is
are old
women 6ver
greedy after
such a rush, as I hear, the
this otiier
a ])hiloso-
gossip.
Yet There was
day
one of the
their tea.
at
offices to learn
the foreign news by the last arrival, that
several
squares of plate glass belonging to the
large
establishment were
— news
broken by the pressure,
which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with sufficient
accuracy.
know how
to
As
throw
Don Pedro and
in
for Spain, for
Don
and Granada, from time
Seville
in the right proportions,
names a
little
a bull-fight
since I
you
instance, if
Carlos and the Infanta, and to
time
— they may have changed the
saw the papers,
when other entertainments
— and fail,
serve up it
will
be
true to the letter, and :^ive us as good an idea of the
exact state or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct
and lucid reports under
this
head
in the
news-
!
WHAT papers
:
LIVED FOR.
1
103
and as for England, almost the
last s'gnifirant
news from that quarter was the revolution of and if you have learned the history of her crops
scrap, of
1G4.9 for
;
an avei'age year, you never need attend
to that thing
again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecu-
may
If one
niary character.
into the newspapers, nothing
judge who rarely looks
new does ever happen
m
French revolution not excepted.
foreign parts, a
What news how much more important to know " Kieou-he-yu what that is which was never old (gi-eat dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to !
!
Khoung-tseu
to
know
Khoung-tseu caused
his news.
the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned liim in these terms
:
What
is
your master doing ? The
My
master desires
faults,
but he cannot
messenger answered with respect to
diminish the number
come
to the
of his
The messenger
end of them.
the philosopher remarked
:
:
What
being gone,
a worthy messenger
a worthy messenger " The preacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest !
What
— — with
for Sunday is the fit concluend of the week, sion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave
at the
new
beginning of a
one,
this
one other draggle-
—
voice, tail of a sermon, should shout with thundering "Pause! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly
slow?" are esteemed for soundest truths, If men would steadily obfabulous.
Shams and delusions while reality
is
to be deserve realities only, and not allow themselves know, we as luded; life, to compare it with such things
and the Arabian Nights' EnIf we respected only what is inevitable tertainments. would resound P^'l has a right to be, music and poetry
would be
like
a fairy
tale
WALDEN.
104 along the
we
When we
streets.
are unhurried and wise,
perceive that only great and worthy things have any
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow cf the reality. This
is
always exhilarating and sublime.
By
closing
the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived
by shows, men
establish
and confirm
their daily hfe of
routine and habit every where, which p-irely illusory foundations.
discern
who
Children,
true law and relations
its
fail to
hve
it
worthily, but
wiser by experience, that
more
who
still
is
who
built
play
clearly than
on
life,
men,
think that they are
by failure. I h^ve read was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity in a
Hindoo book,
is,
that " there
in that state, imagined himself to belong to the bar-
One
barous race with which he lived.
of his father's
ministers having discovered him, revealed to
him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul," continues the Hindoo philosopher, " from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until
teacher,
ceive that
mean
the truth
and then
life
we
that
it
is
revealed to
knows
itself to
inhabitants
we do
New
it
by some holy
Brahmen England
I perlive this
because our vision does not pene-
trate the surface of things.
appears to be.
of
be
We think that that is whi<!h
man
should walk through this town and see only the reality, where, think you, would the "Mill-dam" go to? If he should give us an acIf a
count of the realities he beheld there, we should not recognize the place in his description. Look at a ÂŤQeeting-house, or a court-house, or a jail, or a shop, oi
WHAT
LIVED FOR.
I
105
a dAvelling-house, and say what that thing really
a true gaze, and they would
fore
account of them. skirts
of the
Adam
and
Men
esteem
all
go
man.
be-
your
remote, in the out-
tinith
system, behind the farthest
after the last
is
to pieces in
before
star,
In eternity there
is in-
deed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present
moment, and
be more divine in the lapse of are enabled to apprehend at
all
what
never
will
And we
the ages.
all
sublime and
is
noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of
The
the reality that surrounds us.
and obediently answers
to our conceptions
travel fast or slow, the track
is
fair
;
The
whether we Let us spend
laid for us.
our lives in conceiving then.
never yet had so
universe constantly
poet or the artist
and noble a design but some of
his posterity at least could accomplish
it.
Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's
and let
wing that
fast,
or break
fast,
gently and without perturbation
company come and it.
stream
Why
rise early
on the
let
should
rails.
company
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
go,
let
Let us not be upset and overwhelmed
?
;
the bells
determined to make a day we knock under and go with the
ring and the children cry,
of
Let us
falls
in that
terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in Weather this danger and you the meridian shallows.
are safe, for the rest of the
way
is
down
unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by ing another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. eno-ine whistles, let
pains.
If
it
whistle
the bell rings,
will consider
why
till
it
is
it,
lookIf the
hoarse for
should m'C run
what kind of music they are
With
hill.
like.
?
its
We
Let ua
WALDEN.
106 ourselves,
settle
and vrork and
v/ard through the judice,
and
allu\ ion
^^
tradition,
hicli
and pre-
and Boston
that
Lon
and Concord,
through poetry and philoso-
state,
we come which we can call
religion,
rocks in place,
down-
feet
and delusion, and appearance,
through church and
phy and
wedg(Âť. oui
slush of opinion,
covers the globe, through Paris and
New York
through
don,
mud and
till
to
a hard bottom and
reality^
and say, This
is,
and no mistake and then begin, having a point cVappui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, ;
or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might
know how deep a
shams and appearances had gathered
of
freshet
fi-om time to time.
If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact,
you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfiices, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. crave only reality.
If
we
the rattle in our throats ties
;
if
Time it
;
we is
Be
it
we
or death,
life
are really dying, let us hear
and
feel cold in the
extremi-
are alive, let us go about our business.
but the stream I go a-fishing
in.
I drink at
but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect
how
shallow
it
Its thin current
is.
eternity remains.
sky, whose bottom one.
I
know
slides
I would drink deeper
pebbly with
is
not the
first
stars.
letter
;
away, but the
fish in
I cannot count
of the alphabet.
I
have always been regretting that I was not as wise as
The intellect is a cleaver way into the secret of things.
the day I
was born.
cerns and
rifts its
not wish to be any necessary.
;
more busy with
My head
is
hands and
my
feet.
it
dis-
I do
hands than I feel all
is
my
"WHAT
LIVED FOB.
I
best faculties concentrated in that
my
head
is
an<i
My
instinci tells
me
an organ for burrowing, as some crea-
tures use their snout
mine
it.
107
burrow
and fore-paws, and with
my way
that the richest vein
is
through these
it
hitls.
somewhere hereabouts
I weald
I think ;
the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge
here 1 will begin to
mu6.
so ;
by and
;
ABADIIfG.
With
a
oursuits,
more
little
all
deliberation
and observers,
students
iÂť-.
choice of theii
k\'.
men would perhaps oejome
essentially
and
for certainij their nature
destiny are interesting to all alike.
In accumulating
property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even,
we
but in dealing with truth
we
are mortal
are immortal, and need
no change nor accident, liie oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the
fear
statue of the divinity
;
and
still
the trembling robe re-
mains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since
he in tled
it
was I
in
him
that
me that now reviews
on that robe
was revealed. \<hich
is
My
was then so
the vision.
bold,
No
and
it is
dust has set-
no time has elapsed since that divinity That time which we really improve, oi ;
improvable, residence
is
was
neither past, present, nor future.
more
favorable,
not only
the jght, but to serious reading, than a university
though I was beyond the
ran^^'e
;
to
and
of the ordinary circu-
had more than ever come within the influence of those books which iiirculate round the worl^
lating library, I
(108)
READING. wbost sonkinces were
first
merely copied from time
109
written on bark, and are to
now
time on to linen paper.
Says the poet Mir Camar Uddin Mast, "Being seated to run through the region of the spiritual world I have had this advantage in books. To be intoxicated by a ;
single glass of
when
I
1 kept
wine
I have experienced this pleasure
;
have drunk the liquor of the
Homer's
Iliad on
my
esoteric doctrines.'*
summer,
table through the
though I looked at his page only now and then.
my hands, my beans to
sant labor with to finish
and
more study impossible.
Inces-
my
house
hoc at the same time,
made
at
first,
for I
had
Yet I sustained myself by the
prospect of such reading in future.
I read one or two
shallow books of travel in the intervals of
my
work,
till that employment made me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that / lived. The student may read Homer or ^schylus in the
Greek without danger of
dissipation or luxuriousness,
some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages. The heroic books, even if printed in the character of
for it implies that
he
in
our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times
;
and we must laboriously seek the
meaning of each word and sense than
common
line,
use permits out of what wisdom
and valor and generosity we have. and
fertile press,
with
conjecturing a larger
The modern cheap
all its translations,
has done
little
bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they are to
printed as rare and curious, as ever. It expense of youthful days and costly hours,
is
worth the
if
you learn
only some words of an ancient language, which are perraised out of /he trivialness of the street, to be
WALDEN.
110
petual suggestions and provocations.
remembers and repeats the few Latin words
the flu'nier
which he
It is not in vain tha
lias
Men
heard.
sometimes speak as
study oi the classics would at length
modern and dent
"\\
pr^ictical studies
always study
ill
what are the of
man ?
classics
They
make way for more
whatever language they
ancient they
may be.
are the only oracles which are not de-
inquiry in them as Delphi
"We might as well omit
To
For
but the noblest recorded thoughta
cayed, and there are such answers to the most
old.
the
but the adventurous stu-
;
classics, in
may be written and however
if*
modern
and Dodona never gave. Nature because she is
to study
read well, that
is,
to read true
books in a true
a noble exercise, and one that will task the
spirit, is
reader more than any exercise which the customs of the
day esteem.
It requires
a training such as the athletes
undenvent, the steady intention almost of the whole
Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written, for there is a memorable life to this object.
between the spoken
interval
guage, the language heard
The one
is
commonly
and
transitory,
other
is
like
the
we
learn
of our mothers.
it
un-
The
the maturity and experience of that; if that
our mother tongue, this
and
brutes,
lan-
a sound, a tongue,
a dialect merely, almost brutish, and consciously,
the written
and the language read.
is
is
our father tongue, a reserved
select expression, too significant to be heard by the which we must be born again in order to speak. The crowds of men who merely spoJce the Greek and Latin tongues in the middle ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of genius written in
ear,
READING. languages
those
Greek or Latin guage of
were not written
for these
;
Ill in
that
whicli they knew, but in the select lan-
They had
literature.
not learned the ncbler
Greece and Rome, but the very materials on which they were written were waste paper to them, dialects of
and they prized instead a cheap contemporary
But when distinct
the several nations of
though rude written
sufficient for
then
literature.
Europe had acquired
lanjjuaGres
of their own,
purposes of their rising literatures,
the
learning revived, and scholars were enabled
first
tc
discern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity.
What
Roman and
the
Grecian multitude could not hear,
after the lapse of ages a
scholars only are
still
few scholars read, and a few
reading
it.
However much we may admire
the orator's occasional
bursts of eloquence, the noblest Avritten words are com-
monly
as far behind or above the fleeting spoken lan-
suajie as the clouds.
firmament with
There are the
The observe them. They quence
in the study.
forum
The
behind the
comment on and
are not exhalations like our daily
What
is
called elo-
commonly found
to
be rhetoric
and vaporous breath.
in the
is
and they who can may
astronomers forever
read them.
colloquies
stars,
stars
its
is
orator yields to the inspiration of a
transient occasion, and speaks to the io those
who can hear him
equable
life is his
occasion,
;
mob
before him,
but the writer, whose more
and who would be
by the event and the crowd which
distracted
inspire the orator,
speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to
any age who can understand liim. No wonder that Alexander carried the
all
Iliad with
A
on his expeditions in a precious casket. It is something â&#x20AC;˘vord is the choicest of relics.
m
him
written at oncfÂť
WALDEN.
112
more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life It may be translated into every language, and not itself. only be read but actually breathed from lips
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not be represented on canvas
;
but be carved cut of the breath of bol
human
or in marble only,
The sym-
life itself.
of an ancient man's thought becomes a modern
Two
man's speech. to the
thousand summers have imparted
monuments of Grecian
literature, as to
only a maturer golden and autumnal
bles,
have carried their own serene and into
all
aU lands
to protect
Books
time.
and the
fit
her mar-
tint, for
celestial
they
atmosphere
them against the corrosion of
are the treasured wealth of the world
of
inheritance
generations
and nations.
Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully
on the shelves of every
no cause of their own and sustain the reader
cottage.
to plead, but while they enlighten his
common
sense will not refuse
Their authors are a natural and
them.
They have
aristocracy in every society, and,
irresistible
more than
emperors, exert an influence on mankind.
lyings or
When
the
illiterate
and perhaps scornful trader has earned by en-
terprise
and industry his coveted leisure and independ-
ence, ion,
and
is
admitted to the circles of wealth and fash-
he turns inevitably at
last to those still
higher but
yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and sensible only of the imperfection of his culture
vanity and insufficiency of
all
his riches,
is
and the
and further
proves his good sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that intellectual culture whose
want he so keenly
feels
;
and thus
it is
that he becomes
the founder of a family.
Those who have not learned
to read the ancient
READINO.
113
language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history in
classics
tlie
human
of the
script of
race
;
for
it
is
remarkable that no tran-
them has ever been made
tongue, unless our civilization itself
Homer
such a transcript. in English, nor
itself;
their genius,
may
be regarded as
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
woi'ks as
and as beautiful almost
for later writers, say
have
any modern
has never yet been printed
^schylus, nor Virgil even,
refined, as solidly done,
morning
into
what we
as the
will
of
rarely, if ever, equalled the elaborate
beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary labors of the ancients.
They
only talk of forgetting
them who never knew them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we have the learning and the genius which will enable us to attend to and appreciate
That age
them.
which we classic
shall
will
call Classics,
be rich indeed when those
and the
but even less known
have
still
still
older and
relics
more than
Scriptures of the nations,
further accumulated,
when
the Vaticans
with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles,
be filled with Homers and Dantes and Shakspeares, and shall
centuries to
come
all
the
shall have successively deposited their
By
trophies in the forum of the world.
may hope to scale heaven at last. The works of the great poets have
such a pile
we
never yet been
read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. They have only been read as the multitude read the stars, at
most
astrologically, not astronomically.
Most
men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they have learned to cipher in order to keep accounts and not be cheated in trade
;
but of reading as
a noble intellectual exercise they know little or nothing; which yet this only is reading, in a high sense, not that
8
WALDEN.
114
US as a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to
lulls
the while,
sleep toe
we have
stand on tip-
to
read and devote our most alert and wakeful
to
hours
but what
to.
I think that having learned our letters
the best that
is
in literature,
we
should read
and not be forever repeat-
ing our a b.abs, and words of one syllable, in the fourth or all
on the lowest and foremost form
fifth classes, sitting
our
Most men are
lives.
satisfied
if
they read or
hear read, and perchance have been convicted by
the.
wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading. There is a work in several volumes in our Circulating Library entitled Little Reading, which I thought referred to a town of that name which I had not been to. There are those who, like tcrmorants and ostriches, can digest
even after the
for they suffer nothing to
machines to provide chines to read
it.
all
sorts of this,
dinner of meats and vegetables,
fullest
this
be wasted.
If others are the
provender, they are the ma-
They read
the nine thousandth tale
how they loved
about Zebulon and Sephronia, and
as
none had ever loved before, and neither did the course of their true love run smooth,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
at
any
how
rate,
run and stumble, and get up again and go on
it
did
how
!
some poor unfortunate got up on to a steeple, who had better never have gone up as far as the belfry and then, I aving needlessly got him up there, the happy nov;
elist
come together and down again For my
rings the bell for all the world to
hear,
O
dear
!
how he
part, I think that tliey
did get
!
had better metamorphose
aspiring heroes of universal noveldom into oo'^ks, as
they used to put heroes
among
man
all
such
weather-
the constella*
BEADING.
115
and let them swing round there till they -are rusty, and not come down at all to bother honest men with tlteir pranks. The next time the novelist rings the bell t(on?,
I will not stir
"The Skip
though
tlie
meeting-house
of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a
burn down
Romance
IMiddle Ages, by the celebrated author of
'
of the
Tittle-Tol-
Tan,' to appear in monthly parts; a great rush; don't
come and
all
eyes,
together."
All
this
they read with saucer
erect and primitive curiosity,
and with unwearied gizzard, whose corrugations even yet need no
some
shai-pening, just as
little
four-year-old bencher his
two-cent gilt-covered edition of Cinderella,
any improvement,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; without
that I can see, in the pronunciation,
or accent, or emphasis, or any more
The
or inserting the moi-al.
in extracting
skill
result is dulness of sight,
a stagnation of the vital circulations, and a general deliquium and sloughing off of ties.
all
This sort of gingerbread
is
the intellectual facul-
baked daily and more
sedulously than pure wheat or rye-and-Indian in almost
every oven, and
The
good amount to? called
ceptions, in
finds
a surer market.
best books are not read even
What
readers.
There
no taste
is
does our Concord culture
in this town, with a
for the best or for
very few ex-
very good books even
English literature, whose words
spell.
by those who are
all
can read and
Even the college-bred and so called liberall}men here and elsewhere have really little or
educated
no acquaintance with the English
classics
;
and as for
the recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles, which are accessible to all who will know of them, there are the feeblest efforts any Avhere made to
become acquainted with them.
per, of
middle age,
who
I
know a woodchop-
takes a French paper, not for
WALDEN.
116
news as he
says, for
he
above
is
but to "ke^p
that,
himself in practice," he being a Canadian by birth
when I ask him what he do in
add
this,
;
and
considers the best tiling he can
world, he says, beside this, to keep up and
to his English.
This
much
about as
is
as the col-
lege bred generally do or aspire to do, and they take an
One who has
English paper for the purpose.
just
come from reading perhaps one of the best Enolish books will find how about
many
with
whom
he can converse
Or suppose he comes from reading a Greek
it ?
or Latin classic in the original, Avhose praises are miliar even to the so called illiterate
body
at all to
Indeed, there
who,
if
speak
to,
he
;
fa-
will find no-
but must keep silence about
it.
hardly the professor in our colleges,
is
he has mastered the
and poetry of a Greek
of the lanjruajje,
difficulties
has proportionally mastered the poet,
difficulties
of the wit
and has any sympathy
impart to the alert and heroic reader
to
and as for the
;
who in this even their titles ? Most men do not any nation but the Hebrews have had a
sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind,
town can
know
tell
that
A
scripture.
of his
way
me
man, any man,
to pick
up a
will
go considerably out
silver dollar
;
but here
are
men of antiquity have and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of; and yet we learn to read only golden words, which the wisest
uttered,
as far as
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Easy Reading, the primers and
and when we
class-books,
leave school, the " Little Reading," and
story books, which are for boys
and beginners and our ;
reading, our conversatitn and thinking, are all on a very
worthy only of pygmies and manikins. I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than
low
level,
our Concord
soil
tnis
has produced, whose names are hardly
READING.
known
Or
here.
117
hear the name of Plato and As if Plato were my townsman
sKall I
never r^ad his book ?
and I never saw him,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of his words. But how
actually
is
it?
His Dialogues, which contain
what was immortal in him, yet I never read them.
and
lived
not
illiterate
;
and
make any very broad
ateness of
lie
We
on the next
shelf,
and
are under-bred and low-
in this respect I confess I
distinction
between the
do
illiior-
my
townsman who cannot read at all, and him who has learned to read only children and feeble intellects. We should
the illiterateness of
what
for
is
be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first
knowing how good they were. and soar but
tit-men, flights
little
We
are a race of
higher in our intellectual
than the columns of the daily paper.
It is not all
books that are as dull as their readers.
There are probably words addressed
our condition
to
we could really hear and undersalutary than the morning or more stand, would be the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect exactly, which, if
on the face of things for
us.
new era The book
life
dated a
in
book.
exists for
his
How many
a
man
has
from the reading of a us perchance which will
and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere utThese same questions that disturb and puzzle tered. explain our miracles
and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men not one has been omitted and each has answered them, according to his abihty, by his words ;
;
Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn The solitary hired man jn a farm in the liberality. outskirts of Concord, who has had his second birth and
and
his
life.
WALDEN.
118
peculiar religious experience, and lieves into silent gravity
may
think
not true
is
it
driven as he be
is
and exclusiveness by ;
liis
faith
but Zoroaster, thousands of
years ago, travelled the same road and had the saxnn
experience
and treated to
knew
but he, being wise,
;
it
hi* neighbors accordingly,
to be universal,
and
even s^id
is
have invented and established worship among Jian
Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster tnui, and through the liberalizing influence of
the woichies
all
with Jesus Christ himself, and
let " our church '^ go
b;^
the board.
"We boast that we belong to the nuieteenth century and are making the most rapid strides ot any nation
But
consider
ture.
by them,
need
to
common
for that will not
be provoked,
We
into a trot.
of
cul-
goactea like oxen, as
Lyceum
for
tjchools, that
begin to
were
we be
It
m
We
of their lives.
by the
state,
aliment or ailment than on our
uncommon when
time that Ave had
is
did not leave off our education
men and women.
universities,
indeed so well off
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and
It
is
time that
their elder inhabitants
to pursu'j liberal
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
if
they are
studies
the rest
Shall ihe world be confined tc one Paris
or one Oxford forever
Concord ?
are,
spend more on almost
the fellows of universities, with leisure
here and
we
bts
us.
the winter, and latterly
library suggested
ourselves.
article of bodily
villages
advance either of
schools, schools for infants only ; but except-
mental aliment.
we
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
puny beginning of a
no school
any
own
have a comparatively decent system
ing the half-starved the
this village does tor its
I do not wish to flatter njy townsmen, nor to
flattered
We
how little
get a
r*
liberal,
Can we not
Cannot student? be boarded educacion under the skies of hire
some Abelar d
to lectui e tc
READINvJ. OS
?
Alas
what with
!
the store,
we
education
is
fodderinsj the cattle
sadly neglected.
tendincr
In this country, the
vil-
some respects take the place of the
nobleman of Europe. It
and
are kept from school too long, anvl our
lage should in
fine arts.
119
is
It
should be the patron of the
rich enough.
It
wants only the mag-
nanimity and refinement.
It can spend money enough on such things as farmers and traders value, but it is
thought Utopian to propose spending
which more
men know
intelligent
to
money
for tilings
be of far more
This town has spent seventeen thousand dol-
worth.
on a town-house, thank fortune or politics, but probably it will not spend so much on living wit, the lars
true meat to put into that shell, in a hundred years.
The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annually subscribed for a Lyceum in the winter is better spent than any other equal sum raised in the town. If we live in the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the nineteenth century offers should our
be in any respect provincial
life
why
will read newspapers,
Why
?
If
?
we
not skip the gossip of Bos-
ton and take the best newspaper in the world at once
— not be sucking
New
or browsing " Olive-Branches" here in
Let the reports of and we
we
the learned societies
all
will see if they
leave
to select
it
to
Harper
our reading?
know any
&
thing.
England.
come
Why
Brothers and Redding
As
to us.
should &: Co.
the nobleman of cultivaleft
taste surrounds himself with
whatever conduces
to hi*
— genius — learning — — books — — statuary — music — philosophical instruments, — not short the the like
painting'^
wit
cultiire,
;
so let
?
the pap of "neutral family" papers,
village do,
pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a
stop
pai'ish library,
and at a
and
WALDEN.
120
three selectmen, because our pilgrim forefathers
get
through a cold winter once on a bleak rock with these.
To
act collectively
stitutions
;
and I
am
is
according to the spirit of our in-
confident that, as our circumstances
are more flourishing, our means are greater than the
New
England can hire all the wise men come and teach her, and board them round the while, and not be provincial at all. That is Instead of noblemen, the uncommon school we want.
nobleman's.
in the world to
let
us have noble villages of men.
If
it is
omit one bridge over the river, go round a
necessary,
little
there,
and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.
\
SOUNDS.
But eelect
while
and
we
are confined to books, though the most
classic,
and read only
particula-* written lan-
guages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial,
we
are in danger of forgetting the language which
thmgs and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. Much is published, but The rays which stream througl| the little printed. shutter will be no longer remembered wV-^en the shutNo method nor discipline ter is wholly removed.
all
can supersede the necessity of being forever on the What is a course of history or philosophy, or alert. poetry, no matter
how
well selected, or the best society,
the or the most admirable routine of life, compared with seen? be to is what at discipline of looking always ? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer into on walk and you, before Eead your fate, see what is
futurity.
hoed beans. I did not read books the first summer; I There were times Nay, I often did better than this. of the could not afibrd to sacrifice the bloom
when
1
Dresent ^
moment
to
any work, whether of the head or (121)
;
WALDEN.
122
I love a broad margin to
hands. in a
my
Somelimus,
life.
summer morning, having taken my accustomed
bath, I sat in
my
sunny doorway from sunrise
noon,
till
rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and
sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and
while
stillness,
the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the
house, until by the sun
falling; in
or the noise of some traveller's
my
at
west window,
wagon on
the distant
highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.
grew and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded I
in those seasons like corn in the night,
how
not
light it is
the hours went. The day advanced as if to some work of mine it was morning, and lo, now evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. ;
Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at incessant good fortune. sitting
chuckle of
my
As
the sparrow had
on the hickory before o;'
my
its
had
door, so
my
trill,
I
my
suppressed warble which he might heai' out
nest.
My
days were not days of the week,
bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they
minced
into hours
and
for I lived like the
fretted
by the
ticking of a clock
Puri Indians, of
whom
it
is
said
that " for yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow they have
only one word, and they express the variety of mean-
ing by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for to-
morrow, and overhead sheer idleness to the
birds
my
This was
for the passing day."
fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but
and flowers had
tried
me by
their
dard, I should not have been found wanting.
A
if
stan-
mas
SOUNDS must
find
lib
natural day
is
occasions
himself,
in
very calm, and
indolence.
123
-svill
is
it
true.
The
hardly reprove his
.ÂŤ>
I had this advantage, at least, in
my mode of hf'^, ot ot*
those Avho Avere obliged to look abroad for an-ÂŤurement,
and the theatre, that my life itself was tie come my amusement and never ceased to be novel. I^ was a drama of many scenes and without an end. II we were always indeed getting our living, and regulal to so'5iety
ing our
according to the
li'^^es
learned,
we
last
and best mode we haf
should never be troubled with ennui.
low your gerius closely enough, and
it
Fol
will not fail to
Housework show you a fresh prospect every hour. was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting
all
my
the grass, bed and bedstead
dashed water on the
from the pond on it
it,
clean and white
;
floor,
furniture out of doors or
making but one budget
and sprinkled white sand
and then with a broom scrubbed
and by the time the
villagers had
morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to allow me to move in again, and my mediIt was pleasant t( tations were almost uninterrupted.
broken their
see
my
ing a
fast the
whole household
little
pile
effects out
like a gypsy's
on the grass, mak-
pack, and
my
three
legged table, from which I did not remove the book?
amid the pines and hi( koi'ies They seemed glad to get out themselves, and as if unI was sometimes tempted tt willing to be brought in. and pen and
ttretch an
ink, standing
awning over them and take
my
seat there
It was worth the while to see the sun shine on tluso
and hear the free wind blow on them so much more intere.sting most familiar objects look out of bird sits on the next bough doors than in the house.
things,
;
A
WALDEN.
124
grows under
life-everlasting
vines run round
its
legs
;
tlie
table,
and blackberry
pine cones, chestnut burs, and
etra\Yberrj leaves are strewn about.
It looked as if
was the way these forms came to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, and bedsteads, because this
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
thev once stood in their midst.
My
house was on the side of a
hill,
immediately on
the edge of the larger wood, in the midst of a fDrest of pitch pines
young
and hickories, and half a dozen
rods from the pond, to which a narrow footpath led
down
the
hill.
my
In
front yard
grew the strawberry,
blackberry, and life-everlasting, jolmswort and goldenrod, shrub-oaks
Near
nut.
and sand-cherry, blueberry and ground-
the end of
May,
the sand-cherry, (cerasus
pumila,) adorned the sides of the path with
its
flowers arranged in umbels cylindrically about stems, which sized and
last,
in the
handsome
rays on every side. to
fall,
weighed down
delicate its
short
Avith
good
cherries, fell over in wreaths like I tasted
them out of compliment
The
Nature, though they were scarcely palatable.
Bumacli, {I'hus glabra,) grcAV luxuriantly about the house,
pushing up through the embankment which I had made,
and growing
five or six feet the first season.
Its
broad
pinnate tropical leaf was j)leasant though strange to look on. the
The
large buds, suddenly pushing out late in
spring from dry sticks which had seemed to bo
dead, developed themselves as by magic into graceful
green and tender boughs, an inch in diameter sometimes, as I sat at they grow and tax their
my
weak
and tender bough suddenly
when by
;
and
window, so heedlessly did joints, I
fall like
heard a fresh
a fan to the ground,
there was not a breath of air stirring, broken off
its
own
weight.
In August, the large masses of
;
SOUNDS.
when
berries, which,
in flower,
assumed
bees, gradually
125
had attracted many wild
their bright velvety crimson
hue, and by their weight again bent
down ard broke
the
tender limbs.
my window this summer afternoon, hawka are circling about my clearing; the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart my view, or As
I
sit
at
perching restless on the Avhite-pine boughs behind house, gives a voice to the air
;
a fishhawk dimples the
glassy ^urface of the pond and brings up a fish
frog
by the shore
of the reed-birds last
my
marsh before
steals out of the ;
the sedge
flitting
is
country.
For
a mink
door and seizes a
hither and thither; and for the
now dying away and then conveying
;
bending under the weight rattle of railroad cars,
half hour I have heard the
partridge,
my
reviving like the beat of a
from Boston
travellers
the
to
I did not live so out of the world as that
boy, who, as I hear, was put out to a farmer in the east part of the town, but ere long ran away and came home again,
quite
down
at
the
heel
He
and homesick.
aad never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place even heai the folks were all gone off; why, you couldn't I doubt if there is such a place in Masthe whistle !
sachusetts *«
now
:
—
In truth; cur village has become a butt For one of those fleet railroad sliafts, and o'er Concord " Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is
—
The Fitchburg
Railroad touches the pond about a
uundied rods south of where U>
the village along
its
1 dwell.
I usually go
causeway, and am, as
it
wer?,
WALDEN.
126 related to society
me
The men on
this link.
go over the wliole length of
trains, wlio to
hy
the freight road,
tlie
me
as to an old acquaintance, they pass
bow
so often,
and apparently they take -me for an employee and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere ;
in the orbit of the earth.
The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my wocda summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a over some farmer's yard, informing ine
liasvk sailing
many
that
merchants are arriving within
restless city
the circle of the town, or adventurous country traders
from the other
As
side.
zon, they shout their
they come under one hori-
warning
to get off the track to
the other, heard sometimes through the circles of
Here come your
towns. tions,
countrymen
Nor
!
groceries, country
tle
;
;
so independ-
And
them nay.
ent on his farm that he can say
your pay for them
man
there any
is
two
your rahere's
screams the countryman's whis-
!
timber like long battering rams going twenty miles
an hour against the to seat all the
walls,
city's
and chairs enough
weary and heavy laden
that dwell within
With such huge and lumbering
them.
country hands a chair to the
huckleberry
hills
are stripped,
are raked into the city.
goes the
woven
the woollen
;
cloth
up come
;
all
Up
All
city.
civility
the
Indian
the
meadows down down goes
the cranberry
comes the
up comes the
cotton,
silk,
down goes
the wit
train of cars
moving
the books, but
that writes them.
"When off
"-A'ith
I
meet the engine with
planetary motion,
the beholder that direction orbit
knows not it
will
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
if
its
or, ratlier, like
a comet, for
with that velocity and with
ever revisit this system, since
does not look like a returning curve,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with
its Jta
SOUNDS.
127
steam cloud like a banner streaming behind in golden
and
silver wreaths, like
have seen, high the light,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
many
a downy cloud which I
in the lieavens, unfolding its
masses
to
as if this ti-avelling demigod, this cloud-
compeller, would ere long take the sunset sky for the livery of his train
the
hills
when
;
I hear the iron horse
echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the
earth with his
feet,
and breathing
Lis nostrils, (what kind of
fire
and smoke from
winged horse or
fiery
dragon
they will put into the
new
stems as
had got a race now worthy
habit
it.
make
if the earth
If
all
were as
Mythology I don't know,)
it
elements their servants for noble ends
to in-
men made
seems, and !
it
the
If the cloud
engine were the perspiration of
that hangs over the
heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that which floats over
the farmer's self
fields,
then the elements and Nature her-
would cheerfully accompany men on
and be
their errands
their escort.
I watch the passage of the morning cars with the same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, which is
Their train of clouds stretching far behind and rising higher and higher, going to heaven while the cars are going to Boston, conceals the sun for a minute and casts my distant field into the shade, a
hardly more regular.
celestial train beside
which the petty train of cars which
but the barb of the spear. The stamorning by bler of the iron horse was up early this winter fodder and the light of the stars amid the mountains, to
hugs the earth
is
was awakened thus early If the enput the vital heat in him and get him off. the snow If were as innocent as it is early!
harness his steed. to
Fire, too,
terprise
with the deep, they strap jn his snow-shoes, and to the mountains giant plougi; plough a furrow from the
lies
J
WALDEN.
28
seaboard, in vrhich the cars,
barrow, sprinkle
all
a following
like
the restless
men and
drill-
mer-
floating
All day the fire-steed
chandise in the country for seed. flies
over the country, stopping only that his master
rest,
and I
am awakened by when
at midnight,
in
his
some remote glen
reach his
stall
woods
in the
he fronts the elements incased in ice and snow will
may
tramp and defiant snort
only with the morning
;
and he
star, to start
Or
once more on his travels without rest or slumber.
perchance, at evening, I hear him in his stable blowing off the superfluous energy of the day, that he
may
calm his nerves and cool his liver and brain
a few hours of iron slumber. heroic and
wearied
commanding
as
for
If the enterprise were as it
is
protracted
and un-
!
Far through unfrequented woods on the
confines of
towns, where once only the hunter penetrated by day, in the darkest night dart these bright saloons without
the knowledge of their inhabitants
;
this
moment
stop-
ping at some brilliant station-house in town or city, where a social crowd is gathered, the next in the Dismal Swamp, scaring the owl and fox. The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the vilThey go and come with such regularity and lage day. precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well con-
ducted institution regulates a whole country. not
Have
men improved somewhat
in punctuality since the
Do
they not talk and think
railroad
was invented
?
faster in the depot than they did in the stage-officer
There
is
something electrifying in the atmosphere of the
formei place. it
has wrought
I have been astonished at the miraclea ;
that
some of
my
neighbors, who, I
SOUNDS. prophesi3d, once for
ihoiilcl hu^viL
129 all,
would never
gel. to
Boston by so prompt a conveyance, are on hand wlicn
To do
the bell nnj^s. the by-word
;
and
tilings " railroad fashion" is
worth the while
is
it
to
now
be warned so
and so sincerely by any power to get off its trackThere is no stopping to read the riot act, no firing over
often
the heads of the mob, in this case.
a
an Atropos, that never turns
fate,
\)e
the
name
at a certain
ward "with
of your engine.)
Men
hour and minute these
are advertised that
bolts will
yet
;
no man's business, and the children go
We
(Let that
aside.
particular points of the compass
the other track. all
have constructed
"VVe
live the steadier for
be shot
interferes
it
Every path but
bolts.
of
Keep on your own
fate.
We
it.
The air your own is
to
me
It does not clasp its
Jupiter.
I see these
ness with
more or
of
is full
the path
is
its
enterprise
hands and
men every day go
less
are
track, then.
What recommends commerce and bravery.
on
to school
educated thus to be sons of Tell.
invisible
to-
i)iay to
about their busi-
courage and content, doing more
even than they suspect, and perchance better employed than they could have consciously devised.
I
am
less
who Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plough who have not merely the for their winter quarters affected
by
stood up for half an hour
their heroism
in the front line at
;
morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not
three-o'-clock in the
go
to rest so early,
who go
to sleep only
when
the storm
sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen. this Btill
On
morning of the Great Snow, perchance, which raging and
ia
chilling men's blood, I hear the muffled
lono of their engine bell from out the fog bank of theii 9
'- ^-
WALDEN.
130
which announces that the cars are coru
chilled breath,
hig, wiLhout long delay, notwithstanding the veto of a
New
England north-east snow storm, and 1 behold the ploughmen covered with snow and rime, their licads p(iering above the mould-board which is turning do^M") other tlian daisies and the nests of field-mice, like bowlders of the Sierra Nevada, that occupy an outside place in the universe.
Commerce
is
unexpectedly confident and serene,
adventurous, and unwearied.
methods withal, prises
far
more
It is
so than
very natural in
many
I
am
freight train rattles
its
fantastic enter-
and sentimental experiments, and hence
gular success.
alert,
refreshed and expanded
sin-
its
when
the
past me, and I smell the stores
which go dispensing their odors all the way from Long Wharf to Lake Champlain, reminding me of foreign
and Indian oceans, and tropical I feel more like a climes, and the extent of the globe. citizen of the world at tlie sight of the palm-leaf which
parts, of coral
will cover so
summer, the
reefs,
many ^axen New England heads the next Manilla hemp and cocoa-nut husks, the
gunny bags, scrap iron, and rusty nails. This is more legible and interesting now they should be wrought into paper and printed
old junk,
ear-load of torn sails
than
if
Who
books.
can write so graphically the history of the
storms they have weathered as these rents have done
They
i'
Here
are proof-sheets which need no correction.
goes lumber from the Maine woods, which did not go out to sea in the last freshet, risen four dollars
sand because of what did go out or was spruce, cedar, io lately
moose,
all
and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
first,
split
up
;
pinc>
second, third and fourth qualities,
wave over the bear, and Next rolls Thomaston lime, a
of one quality, to cai-ibou.
on the thou-
SOUNDS. prime
^ijt,
which
among
will get far
These rags
gets slack<id.
131
to
which cotton and linen
descend, the final result of dress, are
now no
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of patterns which
longer cried up, unless
it
be in Milwaukie,
as those splendid articles, English, French, or
gathered from
prints, gingliams, muslins, &c.,
ters
and poverty, going
both of fashion
American all
quar-
become
to
paper of one color or a few shades only, on which sooth will be written tales of real
and founded on fish,
the strong
me
minding
Who
fact!
New
of the
England and commercial Grand Banks and the fish,
for-
high and low,
life,
This closed car smells of
has not seen a salt
it
hues and
bales, of all
in
qualities, the lowest condition
the hills before
salt
scent, refisheries.
thoroughly cured for this
and putting the perseverance of the saints to the blush ? with which you may sweep or pave the streets, and split your kindlings,
world, so that nothing can
spoil
it,
and the teamster shelter liimself and his lading against and the trader, as a sun wind and rain behind it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Concord trader once did, hang it up by his door for a sign when he commences business, until at last his oldest customer cannot tell surely whether it l^x, animal, vegetable, or mineral, and yet it shall be as pure as a snowflake, and
if it
be put into a pot and
boiled, will
out an excellent dun fish for a Saturday's dinner.
come Next Spanish
hides, with the tails
still
preserving their
twist and the angle of elevation they had when the oxen that wore them were careering over the pampas
of the Spanish main,
evincing
how
I
type of
all
obstinacy, and
almost hopeless and incurable
stitutional vices.
when
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
ai-e all
con-
I confess, that practically speaking,
have learned a man's real
disposition, 1
hopes of changing it for the betier or worse
have no
in this state of
WALDEN.
132
As
existence.
the Orientals say, "
A cur's tail
warmed, and pressed, and bound round with and
after a twelve years' labor
will retain its natural form."
bestowed upon
The only
may be
ligaturi^s, it,
stiU
effectual cure
for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is to
glue of them, which I believe
is
what
is
with them, and then they will stay put and is
it
make
usually done
Here
stick.
a hogshead of molasses or of brandy directed
Smith, Cuttingsville, Vermont, some trader
to
John
among
the
Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near his and now perchance stands over his bulk-head and thinks of the last arrivals on the coast, how they
clearing,
may
affect the price for
him, telling his customers this
them twenty times before this morning, that he expects some by the next train of moment,
as he has told
prime quality.
It is
advertised in
the Cuttingsville
Times.
While these things go up other things come down. Warned by the whizzing sound, I look up from my book and see some tall pine, hewn on far northern hills, which has winged its way over the Green Mountains and the Connecticut, shot like an arrow through the township within ten minutes,
and scarce another eye be-
holds it; going ** to be the mast Of some great ammiral."
And hark cattle
!
here comes the cattle-train bearing the
of a thousand
yards in the
air,
hills,
sheepcots, stables, and cow-
drovers with their
herd boys in the midst of their
sticks,
and shep-
flocks, all
but the
mountain pastures, whirled along like leaves blown
from the mountains by the September gales.
Th^
;
SOUNDS. aJr
with the bleating of calves and sheep,
filled
is
and the hustling of oxen,
When
going by.
little
as if a pastoral valley
were
the old bell-weather at the head rat-
the mountain^ Jo indeed skip like rams and
tles his bell,
the
133
A
like lambs.
hills
car-load of drovers, too,
on a level with their droves now,
in the midst,
cation gone, but
still
their vo-
clinging to their useless sticks as
But their dogs, where are they? It is a stampede to them they are quite thrown out they have lost the scent. Methinks I hear them bark-
their
badge of
office.
;
ing behind the Peterboro' Hills, or panting up the west-
They
ern slope of the Green Mountains.
Their vocation,
in at the death.
fidehty slink
will not
too, is gone.
and sagacity are below par now.
back
to their kennels in disgrace, or
be
Their
They
will
perchance
run wild and strike a league with the wolf and the fox.
So
is
your pastoral
by
whirled past and away.
and I must get
the bell rings, the cars go
life
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
What's the railroad I
Where fills
it
And
my
for
the swallows,
sand a-blowing,
the blackberries a-growing,
like
a cart-path in the woods.
eyes put out and
smoke and steam and
Now
me ?
ends.
It sets the
have
let
a few hollows,
And makes banks
it
the track and
never go to see
It
but I cross
to
oflf
But
my
I will not
ears spoiled by
ita
hissing.
that the cars are gone b^
and
all
the restless
iForld with them, and the fishes in the pond no longef
134
WALDEN. their rumbling, I
feel the,
am more
For
alone than ever.
my
rest of the long afternoon, perhaps,
meditations
are interrupted only by the faint rattle of a carriage or team along the distant highway.
Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the Acton, Bedford, or Concord
coin,
WIS favorable, a
faint, sweet,
bells,
when
bell,
and, as
it
the wind
were, natural
melody, worth importing into the wilderness. ficient
the Lin
At a
suf-
distance over the woods this sound acquires a
certain vibratory
hum, as
if
the pine needles in the hori
zon were the strings of a harp which
it
swept.
All
sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces^
one and the same
effect,
a vibration of the universal lyre,
makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint There came to me m this case a melody it imparts to it. which the air had strained, and which had conversed
just
as the
intervening atmosphere
with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken lated and echoed from vale to vale.
up and modu-
The echo
is,
to
some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph. At evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the hoVizon beyond the woods sounded sweet and melodious, and at first I would mistake it for the voices of certain minstrels by whom I was sometimes serenaded, who might be straying over hill and dale but soon I was not unpleasantly disappointed when it was prolonged into the cheap and natural music of the cow. I do not mean ;
;
CO
be
satirical,
but to express
my
appreciation of those
SOUNDS. jroulhs' singing,
that
it
was akin
when
135
I state that I perceived clearly
music of the cow, and they were
to the
at lengtli one articulation of Nature.
Regularly at half past seven,
one part of the sum-
in
had gone by, the Avhippoor-
iiJ3r,
after the evening train
Tr'ills
chanted their vespers for half an hour,
my door,
by
BtuiDj)
TLey would
sitting
on a
or upon the ridge pole of the house.
begin to sing almost with as
much
pre-
a clock, within five minutes of a particular
cision as
time, referred to the setting of the sun, every evening. I
had a rare opportunity
Sometimes
habits.
to
become acquainted with
their
1 heard four or five at once in dif-
ferent parts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind
me
another, and so near
that I distinguished not only
the cluck after each note, but often that singular buzzing
sound
a spider's web, only proportionally Sometimes one would circle round and round
like a fly in
louder.
me
in the
string,
woods a few
when probably
feet distant as if tethered
was near
I
its
at intervals throughout the night,
eggs.
by a
They sang
and were again as
musical as ever just before and about dawn. '
When
other birds are
Their dismal scream
midnight hags
still
the screech owls take
mourning women
the strain, like
!
It
is
is
truly
up
their ancient u-lu-lu.
Ben
Jonsonian.
Wise
no honest and blunt tu-whit
tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lov-
remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal Yet I love to hear their love in the infernal groves. wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the wooders
side
reminding
;
birds
;
as if
die regrets
it
me
sometimes of music and singing
were the
thirk
and
and sighs that would
tearful side of music,
fain
be sung.
They
!
WALDEN.
136
are the spirits, the low spirits and melanchol}^ for^* bodings, of fallen souls that once in
human shape
night
walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, nov
hymns or thren transgressions. They givf
expiating their sins with their wailing odies in the scenery of their
me
a
new
sense of the variety and capacity of that na-
ture which
had
never
is
our
common
dwelling.
Oh-o-o-o-o that j
been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of
the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair co
—
some new perch on the gray oaks. Then that [ never had been bor-r-r-r-n ! echoes another on the farther side with tremidous sincerity, and bor-r-r-r-i
—
comes I
faintly
was
from
far in the Lincoln woods.
also serenaded
you could fancy as if she
it
by a hooting owL
Near
at
hand
the most melancholy sound in Nature,
meant by
this to stereotype
and make perma-
—
human being, some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more awful by a cer
nent in her choir the dying moans of a
tain gurgling melodiousness,
—
I find myself beginning
with the letters gl when I try to imitate
it,
— expressive
of a mind which has reached the gelatinous mildewy stage in the mortification of all healthy and courageous
thought.
reminded
It
me
of ghouls and idiots and in-
But now one answers from far woods Hoo made really melodious by distance,
sane bowlings. in a strain
—
hoo hoo, hoorer hoo
;
and indeed for the most part
it
suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by
day or I
night,
rejoice
idiotic
summer that
or winter.
there
are
Let them do the men. It is a sound
owls.
and maniacal hooting for
admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which
SOUNDS. day
ni>
illustrates,
nature which the
137
suggesting a vast and undeveloped
men have
not recognized.
and
stark twilight
unsatisfied thoughts
All day the sun has shone
have.
They represent which
all
on the surface of
some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chicadee lisps amid the evergreens, and tho partridge and rabbit skulk beneath but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race ;
of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.
Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over bridges,-*- a sound heard farther than ahnost
any other
at night,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the baying of dogs, and sometimes
again the lowing of some disconsolate cow in a distant
In the mean while
barn-yard.
all
the shore rang with
the trump of bullfrogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient winebibbers and wassailers,
still
unrepentant, trying to sing
a catch in their Stygian lake, will
no weeds, there are frogs
up
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Walden nymphs â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who would keep if
pardon the comparison, for though there are almost fain
there,
the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, though
have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost its flavor, and become only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet their voices
intoxication never past,
comes
to
drown the memory of the
but mere saturation and waterloggedness and dis-
tention. heart-leaf,
The most
aldermanic, with his chin upon a
which serves for a napkin
to his drooling
chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep drau.:jht of the once scorned water, and passes round the cup
with
the
ejaculation
tr-r-r-oonk,
tr-r-r-tonk,
tr-r-r-
oonk! and straightway comes over the water from some
WALDEN.
133
cove the same password repeated, where the
distant
next
m
mark
;
and girth has gulped down
seniority
and when
observance has
this
mad i
to his
the circuit
of the shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies,
with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonh ! and each in his turn repeats the
same down
to the least distended, leakiest,
paunched, that there be no mistake
flabbiest
and
and then
;
the bowl goes round again and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch
under the pond, but vainly bellowing to time,
I
am
my
clearing, to
and I thought that
keep a cockerel for
The
merely, as a singing bird.
Indian pheasant
and
if
in
certainly the
is
might music
note of this once wild
most remarkable of any
it
would soon become the most famous
our woods, surpassing the clangor of the goose
and the hooting of the owl kling of the hens to clarions rested
fill
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
To walk
in
to
and then imagine the cac-
when their lords* man added this bird
the pauses
No wonder
!
stock,
tame
sticks.
it
his
they could be naturalized without being
domesticated,
to his
not
and pausing for a reply.
crowing from
sound
is
from time
not sure that I ever heard the sound of cock-
be worth the while
bird's,
trooiik
that
say nothing of the eggs and drum-
a winter morning in a wood where
these birds abounded, their native woods, and hear the
wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and
shrill for
miles over the resounding earth, drowning the feebler notes of other birds, tions
and
on the
ifRC earlier
life, till
wise?
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; think of
it
!
It
would put na-
Who
would not be early to rise, and earlier every successive day of his
alert.
he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and This foreign bird's note is celebrated by the
poets of all countries along with the notes of their na*
a
SOUNDS.
All climates agree with brave Chan-
iive songsters. ticleer.
He
His health never flag. is
more indigenous even than
is
is
ever good,
Even
awakened by
roused
me
139
the sailor on the Atlantic and Pacilic
voice
iiis
my
from
the natives.
lungs are sound, his spirits
liis
;
but
slumbers.
shrill
its
sound never
I kept neither dog, cat,
cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said there
was a
deticiency of domestic sounds
neither the churn,
;
nor the spinning wheel, nor even the singing of the kettle,
nor the hissing of the urn, ncr children crying,
comfort one.
An
old-fashioned
man would have
lost
Not even
rats
his senses or died of ennui before this. in the wall, for they
never baited
in,
were starved
— only
to
out, or rather
squirrels on the roof
were
and under
the floor, a whippoorwill on the ridge pole, a blue-jay
screaming beneath the window, a hare or woodchuck under the house, a screech-owl or a cat-owl behind it, a fiock of wild geese or a laughing loon
a fox to bark in the night.
on the pond, and lark or an
Not even a
oriole, those mild plantation birds, ever visited in"-.
yard.
No cockerels to No yard but
your very
!
sills.
A
crow nor hens
my clear-
to cackle in tlie
unfenced Nature reaching up to young forest growing up under
your windows, and wild sumachs and blackberry vines sturdy pitch-pines breaking through into your cellar for want of shingles rubbing and creaking against the ;
Inroom, their roots reaching quite under the house. gale,— the in off stead of a scuttle or a blind blown behind tree snappid off or torn up by the roots
pine
vour hous3 for
fuel.
Instead of no path to the front-
—
no gate yard gate in the Great Snow, and no path to the civilized world yrard,
— no
!
front-
SOLITUDE.
Tms
\\s. delicious evening,
when
the whole beily
one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.
i§
I
go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself.
in
my
As
I walk along the stony shore of the pond
though
shirt sleeves,
it
and windy, and I see nothing
is
cool as well as cloudy
special to attract me, aU
The
the elements are unusually congenial to me. frogs
trump
to usher in
the whippoorwill
is
borne on the rippling wind from
Sympathy with the and poplar leaves almost takes away over the water. like the lake,
my
bull
the night, and the note of
serenity
is
fluttering
my
breath
aldei ;
yet,
rippled but not ruffled.
These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never com-
The wildest animals do not repose, but seek now the fox, and skunk, and rabtit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Naplete.
their prey
ture's
;
watchmen,
anunated
life.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
linki
which connect the
da;* s
(1^0)
of
SOLITUDE.
When
I return to
been there and ers, or
my
I4i
house I find that
left their cards, either
visitors
have
a bunch of flow-
name in pencil on a They who come rarely
a "^vreath of evergreen, or a
yellow walnut leaf or a chip.
woods take some little piece of the forest into hands to play with by the way, which they leave,
to the
their
One has
either intentionally or accidentally.
willow wand, woven table.
my
it
into a ring,
could always
I
tell
if
and dropped
had
visitors
peeled a
on
my
called
in
it
by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their shoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some slight trace left, as a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and absence, either
thrown away, even as
far off as the railroad, half a mile
by the lingering odor of a
distant, or
cigar or pipe.
Nay, I was frequently notified of the passage of a traveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent of his pipe.
Our wood horizon is not just at our door, nor the pond, but somewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated There
is
is
commonly
sufficient space
never quite at our elbows.
about
The
us.
thick
some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I this vast range and circuit,
and fenced
in
some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to me by men ? My nearest neighbor a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place have but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I distant horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a IS
my
one view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the road woodland hand, and of the fence which skirts the is as solitary it part But for the most the other.
m
where I
live as on the prairies.
It
is
as
much Asia
>
WALDEN.
42
or Africa as
New England.
sun and moon and
At
man
my
unless
;
and a
little
it
were,
world
my own
all to mv-self.
never a traveller passed
night there was
or knocked at last
stars,
I have, as
my
house,
more than if I were the first or were in the spring, when at long in-
door,
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
some came from the village to fish for pouts, they plainly fished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their hooks with darktervals
ness,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but they soon and
kets,
retreated, usually with light bas-
left " the world to darkness
the black kernel of the night
any human neighborhood. erally
are
a
still
little
and
to
me," and
was never profaned by
I believe that
men
are gen-
afraid of the dark, though the witches
hung, and Christianity and candles have been
all
introduced.
Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of There was never yet .Nature and has his senses stiU. Buch a storm but it was -^olian music to a healthy and
be found
in
mnocent
ear.
bravo
man
Nothing can -rightly compel a simple and
to
a vulgar sadness.
While I enjoy the
friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can life
a burden to me.
beans and keeps
me
The
in the
and melancholy, but good for vents
my
hoeing.
hoeing them, If
it
make
gentle rain which waters
it is
house to-day
me
too.
is
my
not dreai
Though
it
of far more worth than
pre-
my
should continue so long as to cause the
seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in 'he
low lands,
it
would
still
be good for the grass on the
upbndsj and, being good for the grass,
it
would be good
SOLITUDE. for me.
men,
it
Sometimes, when I compare mj self with other if I were more favored by the gods than
seems as
they, beyond
any deserts
that I
had a warrant and surety
if I
fellows
have
guarded.
they
am
at their
and were
not,
me.
least oppressed
conscious or
;
guided
if it
as
my
hands which
especially
I do not flatter myself, but
flatter
and
be possible
I have never felt lonesome, or in the
by a sense of
that Avas a few weeks after I for
143
an hour, I doubted
if
solitude, but once,
came
and
woods, when,
to the
the near neighborhood of
man
was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unjjleasant. But I Avas at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and
my
seemed
to foresee
tle rain
while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly
In the midst of a gen-
recovery.
sensible of such sweet and benelicent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops,
sight
around
my
and
in
every sound and
house, an infinite and unaccountable
friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining
me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them
Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to since.
me, even
in
scenes which
we
are accustomed to call
wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood
me and
huraanest was not a person nor
to
a villager, that
I thought no place could ever be strange to " Mourning untimely f^onsumcs the sad
me again.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
Feu- are their clays in the hind of the living, Beautiful dauglitcr of Toscar."
Some
of
my
pleasantest hours were during the long
WALDEN.
14 i
rain storms in the spring or the house for the afternoon
me
which confined
fall,
to
as well as the forenoon,
soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting
;
when an
early twilight ushered in a long evening in which
many
thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.
In those driving north-east rains which houses
so,
when
the maids stood ready with
pail in front entries to
my
door in
my
little
thoroughly enjoyed
der
tried the village
its
keep the deluge
mop and
out, I sat
house, which was
behind
entry,
all
and
In one heavy thun-
protection.
shower the lightning struck a large pitch-pine
making a very conspicuous and perfectfrom top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four or five inches wide, as you would across the pond,
ly regular spiral groove
groove a walking-stick.
I passed
it
again the other
awe on looking up and beholdmore distinct than ever, where a ing that mark, now terrific and resistless bolt came down out of the harmday, and was struck with
less
Men
sky eight years ago.
" I should think
and want
to
you would
be nearer to
nights especially."
I
frequently say to me,
feel
lonesome down there,
folks, rainy
am
tempted
and snowy days and to reply to such,
This whole earth which we inhabit space.
How
yonder
disk cannot be appreciated
should I feel lonely?
is
solitary?
other.
Why
What
man from
to
me
not to be the
sort of space is that
his fellows
and makes
I have found that no exertion of the
bring two minds
What
the breadth of whose
by our instruments ?
This which you put seems
which separates a legs can
star,
two most
not our planet in the Milky
most important question.
him
but a point in
far apart, think you, dwell the
distant inhabitants of
Way ?
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
much nearer
do we want most
to
to
dwell
one annear to
SOLITUDE.
Not
to
many men
surely, the
145 depot,
the post-office,
the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the
Beacon
grocery,
whence
to the perennial source of our hfe,
in all our experience
issue, as the its
Five Points, where men
Hill, or the
most congregate, but
we have found
that to
willow stands near the water and sends cut
This
roots in that direction.
natures, but this
is
will
vary with
difFercnt
man
the place where a wise
will dig
his cellar. ... I one evening overtook one of
my towns-
men, who has accumulated what
handsome
property,"
— though
called " a
is
I never got a fair view of
on the Walden road, driving a pair of
who
inquired of
me how
I could bring
it,
-^•
cattle to
market,
my mind
to give
up so many of the comforts of life. I answered that I was very sure I liked it passably well I was not joking. And so I went home to my bed, and left him to pick ;
his
way through
the darkness and the
mud
to Brighton,
— or Bright-town, — which place he would reach some time in the morning.
Any prospect dead man makes Hace where 1
that
of awakening or coming to indifferent all times
may occur is
and
life to
places.
a
The
always the same, and indethe most part
For
.ribably pleasant to all our senses.
we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction.
Nearest to
all
Next
fashions their being.
continually being executed.
man wliom we have to talk, but the
"
How
things
is
that
to us the grandest
to us is
whom we
love so well
workman whose work we is
laws are
not the work-
Next
hired, with
vast and profound
power which
are.
the influence of the sub-
!'' powers of Heaven and of Earth « We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them
tile
10
j
;
WALBEN.
146
we seek tified
\\
1o
ith
we do
hear them, and
not hear them
iden-
;
the substance of things, they cannot be sepa-
rated from them." " They cause that in
all
the universe
men
purify and
and clothe themselves in offer sacrifices and oblations to
thcii
sanctify their hearts,
holiday garments to It is
ancestors.
an ocean of
arc every where, above us, on our
environ us on
llicy
We n
left,
on our right
all sides."
are the subjects of an experiment which
Can we
interesting to me.
little
their
They
subtile intelligences.
not
is
not do without the
society of our gossips a httle while under these cir-
cumstances,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have
our
own
thoughts to cheer us
?
Confucius says truly, "
Virtue does not remain as an
abandoned orphan
must of necessity have neigh
;
it
bors."
With thinking we may be
beside ourselves in a sano
By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand actions and their consequences; and all things, from aloof sense.
good and bad, go by us
wood on
in the stream, or
it.
I
may be
a torrent.
like
wholly involved in Nature.
I
may be
We
are not
either the drift-
Indra in the sky looking down
affected
by a
theatrical exhibition
;
on
the other hand, I mai/ not be affected by an actual event
which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself as a human entity ; the scene, so to speak, cf thoughts and affections and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself ;
as from another.
However
intense
my
experience, I
am ctmscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator,
sharing no experience, but taking note of
*hati ia
no more I than
it
is
you.
When
it
;
and
the play,
it
147
80LITUDE.
may his
bo
tragedy, of
tlic
life is
way.
may
us poor neiglibors and friends
make
easily
This double-
wis concerned.
nation only, so far as he
ness
over, the spectator goes
It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagi*
sometimes. 1 find
wholesome
it
To be
the time.
in
be alone the greater part of company, even with the best, is to
Boon wearisome and dissipating.
I love to be alone.
I
never found the companion that was so companionable are for the most part more Lmely as solitude.
We
when we go abroad among men than when wo
A man
our chambers. alone, let iiim
thinking or woiking
be where he
will.
Solitude
is
stay in
always
is
not meas-
a ured by the miles of space that intervene between
man and
his fellows.
The
really diligent student in
is as one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College The farmer can solitary as a dervis in the desert. hoeing or work alone in the field or the woods all day, is emhe because and not feel lonesome,
chopping,
ployed
down
;
in
but
when he comes home
a room
at night
he cannot
sit
alone, at the mercy of his thoughts,
folks," and but must be where he can "see the for his day's soliand as he thinks remunerate, himself how the student can sit tude and hence he wonders
recreate,
;
most of the day withAlone in the house all night and ;" but he does not realize that out ennui and ÂŤ the blues house, is still at work the student, though in the the farmer and chopping in Ids woods, as
m his m his,
field,
and
same recreation and society that torm though it may be a more condensed
in turn seeks the
the latter does, "^
Society
is
commonly
tihort intervals,
too -heap.
We
not having had time to
meet
at very
acquire any new
WALDEN.
148
We meet at meals three times a other a new taste of that old musty and give each day, cheese that wf-. are. We have had to agree on a certain value for each other.
set of rules, cnlled etiquette
and
fiequent meeting tolerable and that
^Ve meet
open war.
to
(hick
and are
in
for
sider
not come
and at the
niglit;
we
live
we
thus lose some respect for
frequency would
sutfioe
important and hearty communications.
Con-
tlie girls
dreams.
It
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; never
a factory,
would be better
if
alone, liardiy in their
there were but one in-
habitant to a square mile, as where
of a
this
each other's way, and stumble over one
Certainly less
anotlier. all
every
fireside
another, and I think that
one
we need
at the post-office,
and about the
sociable,
make
politeness, to
man
is
not in his skin, that
I have heard of a man
The value
I live.
we should touch him, woods and dying
lost in the
of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose
was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he beheved to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more norloneliness
mal and natural never
society,
and come
to
know
that
we
are
al jne.
I have a great deal of company in pecially in the morning,
when nobody
my
house
calls.
;
I^et
es-
me
some one may convey am no more lonely than the
suggest a few comparisons, that
an idea of
my
loon in the
Pond pray
?
itself.
And
angels in
it,
situation.
I
pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden AVhat company has that lonely lake, I yet
it
in the
has not the blue devils, but the blue
azure
tint
of
jdone, except in thick weather,
its
waters.
when
The sun
is
there somstimea
SOLITUDE. appear to alone,
two, but one
b*^
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but
tlie devil,
ture, or
a bean I
ble-bee.
am
is
;
God
a mock sun.
far
is
company
sees a great deal of
more lonely than a
he
119
from being alone
he
is
legion.
I
;
is
he
am no
single mullein or dandelion in a pas-
or sorrel, or a horse-Hy, or a
leaf,
no more lonely than the
]Mill
hum-
Brook, or a
weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, oi an
April shower, or a January thaw, or the
a
new I
spider in
house.
have occasional
when
first
the snow
visits in
falls
wood, from an old
fast
settler
the long winter evenings,
and the wind howls
in the
and original proprietor, who
Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth
is
reported to have dug
;
and pleasant views of things, even without apples or a most wise and humorous friend, wliom I love cider, much, who keeps himself more secret than ever did
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Gotfe or Whalley
;
and though he
none can show where he
is
is
buried.
thought to be dead,
An
elderly dame,
neighborhood, invisible to most persomesons, in whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll times, gathering simples and listening to her fables;
too, dwells
in
my
has a genius of unequalled fertility, and her mcn;ory runs back farther than mythology, and she what can tell me the original of every fable, and on every one is founded, for the incidents occurred
for she
fact
when she was young. A ruddy and lur^ty who deliglits in all weathers aud seasons, and
old <lam(;, is
likely to
lutlive all her children yet.
The
indescribable innocence and beneficence of Na-
!
WALDEN.
150
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of sun and wind and â&#x20AC;&#x201D; such such
rain, of
ture, ter,
summer and win-
cheer, they afford
health,
forever
and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature would be affected, and the sun's brightness fade,
and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds
rain tears, and the
mourning
in
woods shed
midsummer,
Am
earth?
and put ou
any man should ever
for
a
Shall I not have intelligence with
just cause grieve.
the
if
their leaves
not partly leaves
I
and vegetable
mould myself?
What tented
is
Not
?
pill
which
my
or thy great-grandfather's, but our
the
great-grandmother
will
Nature's
keep us
well, serene, con-
universal, vegetable, bo-
by which she has kept herself young many old Parrs in her day, and fed her health with their decaying fatness. For my pana* tanic medicines,
always, outlived so
cea, instead of
one of those quack
of a mixture
.vials
dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come/ out of those lono^ shallow black-schooner lookino' wa":ons
which we sometimes see made
to carry bottles, let
have a draunrht of undiluted mornin^j
men
If
air!
will not
it
we must even
\o?t their subscription
But remember,
day even I
ticket to it
up some and
am
who
liavf
morning time in this keep quite till noon-
will not
in the coolest cellar,
ples long ere that rora.
bottle
in the shops, for the benefit of those
world.
JMoniins
drink of this at the fountain-head
of the day, why, then, sell
air.
but drive out the stop-
and follow westward the steps of Au-
no worshipper of Ilygeia, who was the
daughter of that old herb-doctor ^sculapius, and is
me
represented on
monuments holding a serpent
in
who one
hand, and in the other a cup out of which the serpent
SOLITUDE. joraetimes drinks;
but rather of Hebe, cupbearer to
who was the daughter and who had the power
Jupiter, tuce,
men
151
of Juno and
Avild let-
of restoring gods and
She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthv, and robust young lady that ever walkod the globe, a.id wherever she camo it
to the vigor of youth.
was spring.
VISITORS.
I THINK that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my
way.
I
am
naturally no hermit, but might possibly
out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if ness called
me
my
sit
busi-
thither.
I had three chairs in
my
house
;
for friendship, three for society.
one for
When
solitude, visitors
two
came
and unexpected numbers there M'as but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many I great men and women a small house will contain.
in larger
have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another. Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines
of peace, appear to
They
inhabitants. matter
seem
to
me
and other munitions
extravagantly large for their
are so vast and magnificent that the
be only vermin which infest them. (152)
I anc
VISITORS. 8111
prised
when
153
the herald blows his
summons
before
some Trcmont or Astor or Middlesex ilousc, to see come creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse, wliich soon again slinks into in the
some h dIo
pavement.
One inconvenience
I sometimes
experienced in so
small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient dis-
my
tance from
thoughts
guest
when we began
to utter the big
You want room
big words.
in
your
for
thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or
two before they make their thought must have overcome
motion and fallen into
DO
it
its
The
port. its
lateral
last
and ricochet
may
it
room
the interval.
Individuals, like nations,
and form
plough out
Also, our sen-
of his head.
tuices wanted
to unfold
your
and steady course before
reaches the ear of the hearer, else
rgain throu2:h the side
bullet of
'
their
must
columns
in
liave suit-
able broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them.
I
have found
it
a sin-
gular luxury to talk across the i)ond to a comi)anion on the opposite side.
In
we could not begin enough
to
my
house we were so near that
to hear,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we
could not speak low
be heard; as wlien you throw two stones
calm water so near that they break each other's If we are merely loquacious and loud undulations.
into
talkers, then
we
can afford to stand very near
cheek by jowl, and
we speak
feel
each other's breatii
reservedly and thoughtfully,
fai-ther apart, that all
animal heat and
have a chance to evaporate. most intimate society with that without, or above, being spoken Bilent,
togetlier, ;
we want
but
if
to
b'-'
moisture ina'
If
we woukl enjoy
in
each of us which
to,
we must
not only
tl'^ > '^
but commonly so far apart bodily that we can^ÂŽ
'
WALDEN.
154
any
possibly hear each other's voice in to this standard,
who
tilings
speech
is
we have
if
assume a
we gradually shoved our
they touched
many
fine
to shout.
As
are
but there
;
which we cannot say
the conversation began to tone,
for the convenience of those
hard of hearing
are
Referred
case.
and grander
loftier
uU
chairs farther apart
the wall in opposite
and
corners,
thtii
commonly there was not room enough.
My
" best" room, however,
my withdrawing
room,
al-
ways ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rareTliitlier in ly fell, was the pine wood behind my house.
summer
days,
when
distinguished guests came, I took
thpm, and a priceless domestic swept
floor
tlie
and
dusted the furniture and kept the things in order.
came he sometimes partook of my frugal was no interruption to conversation to be a hasty-pudding, or watching tiie rising and ma-
If one guest
meal, and stirring
it
turing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the
But
if
my
twenty came and sat in
mean
while.
house there was
nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread
enough habit
;
for two,
we
but
more than
if
eating were a forsaken
naturally practised abstinence
was never
felt to
the most
proper and considerate course.
and decay of physical
life,
this
its
The waste
which so often needs
seemed miraculously retarded dtal vigor stood
and
;
be an offence against hospitality, but
in
repair,
such a case, and the
I could entertain thus a
ground.
housand as well as twenty and if any ever went away isappointed or hungry from my house when they found ;
e at home, they ized with
them
usekoepers doubt \s in
may depend upon
at least. it,
So easy
to establish
the place of the old.
is
it
that I
it,
new and
You
sympa-
though many better ens-
need not
rest
youi
—
;:
155
VISITORS. reputation on
tlie
was never so
I
dinners you give.
effectually deterred
For
my own
pai1,
from frequenting a
man's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I toolv to bo
a very polite and roundabout hint never I think
so again.
Spenser which one of
a yellow walnut leaf «•
for
my
a card
him
revisit those scenes.
have for the motto of
should be proud to lines of
never
I shall
to trouble
:
my cabin
visitors inscribed
—
I
those
on
little house they fill, entertainment where none was
Arrived there, the
No looke Kest
their feast,
is
The
for
and
all
mind the
noblest
things at their will
best contentment has."
afterward governor of the Plymouih
When Winslow,
Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massassoit on foot through the woods, and arrived tired
and hungry
at his lodge, they
were well received
by the king, but nothing was said about eating that day.
When the night arrived, to quote their own words, He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they **
one end and we at the other, it being only plank, laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room,
at the
pressed by and upon us of our lodging than of
we were worse weary our journey." At one o'clock ;
so that
lie had the next day Massassoit " brought two fishes that "these behig shot," about thrice as big as a bream;
boiled, there
them.
were
The most
at least forty looked for a share in
ate of them.
This meal only we had
two nights and a day and had not one of us bought' Fear' a pnrtridge, we had taken our journey fasting." foo of want for ing that they would be light -headed
i'l
;
/ ^
AVAL DEN.
156
and also
sleep,
owing
to
"the savages' barbarous singing asleep,) "
(for they used to sing themselves
thej might get
home
they departed.
As
and
while they had strength to
for lodging,
it is
that
trav(;l,
true they were but
poorly entertained, though what they found an incon
venience was no doubt inter ied for an honor
was concerned,
as eating
could have done better. selves,
I
;
but as far
do not see how the Indians
They had nothing
and they were wiser than
to eat
them-
to think that apolo-
gies could supply the place of food to their guests
;
so
they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this respect.
As
for
men, they
had more
will hardly fail
one any where.
I
woods than
at
visitors while I lived in the
any other period of
my
life
I
;
mean
that I
had some.
met several there under more favorable circumstances But fewer came to see else.
1
than I could any where
trivial business. In this respect, my company was winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far within the great ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the Beside, there finest sediment was deposited around me.
me upon
were wafted
to
me
evidences
of unexplored and un-
cultivated continents on the other side.
Who true
should come to
lodge this morning but a
Homeric or Paphlagonian man,
able and poetic a it
my
here,
name
that I
am
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he had
so suit-
sorry I cannot print
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a Canadian, a wood-chopper and post-maker
vho can hole
fifty
posts in a day,
who made
upper on a woodchuck which his dog caught.
his last
He,
toes
VISITORS.
Hom^,
has heard of
and, " if
would ''not know what
it
157
were not
for books,"
dj rainy days," though per-
to
haps he has not read one wdiolly through for
Some
rainy seasons.
priest
who
many
could pronounce the
Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the testament in his native parish far away and now I must ;
translate to him, wdiile
he holds the book, Achilles' re-
proof to Patroclus for his sad countenance. are
}
ou in
tears, Patroclus, like
a young
They say
And
He
"
?
that Mencetius lives yet, son of Actor,
Peleus
Either of
''
girl ?
" Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia
— Why —
son of ^acus, among the Myrmidons, having died, we should greatly grieve."
lives,
whom
He has a great bundle
says, " That's good."
oak bark under
his
Sunday morning.
arm
for a sick
of w' hite-
man, gathered
this
harm in going To him Homer
" I suppose there's no
after such a thing to-day," says he.
was a great writer, though what his writing was about he did not know. A more simple and natural man it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which cast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed to
have hardly any existence for him. He was about twenty-eight years old, and had left Canada and his father's
States,
to work in the buy a farm with at last, pe) He was cast in the coarse native country.
house a dozen years before
and earn money
haps in his
to
mould; a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully carrie 5\'ith
a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and d
•olecpy
blue eyes, which were occasionally
expression.
He
wore a
fiat
up
gray cloth cap, a
wool-colored greatcoat, and cowhide boots. ^reat
lit
consumer of meat, usually carrying
I
v^'^
dii^
He wa his dinnf
WALDEN.
I5i5
his
a couple of miles
vN'^ork
chopped
all
summer,
cold woodchucks,
and
—
a
in
tin pail
a drink.
He came
He
which dan-
along early, crossing
He
my
bean-
get to his
to
wasn't a-going to
he only earned
didn't care if
when
his
dog had caught a woodchuck by the
his
way, and go back a mile and a half in tlie cellar of the
in the
it
pond
safely
"
it
and leave
an hour whether he could not nightfall,
till
long upon these themes. the morning,
to dress
house where he boarded, afler de-
liberating first for half
in
he
Frequently he would leave his dinner in the
board.
bushes,
sink
for
and sometimes he offered
;
work, such as Yankees exhibit. hurt himself.
—
cold meats, often
though without anxiety or haste
field,
it
;
house,
coffee in a stone bottle
gled by a string from his belt
me
my
past
How
He
thick
working every day were not
— loving
to dwell
would say, as he went by the
my
pigeons are
!
If
trade, I could get all
—
meat I should want by hunting, pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges, by gosh I could get all I should want for a week in one day." He was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flourishes and ornaments in his art. He cut his trees level and close to the ground, that the sprouts which the
—
!
came up afterward might be more vigorous and a sled night slide over the stumps and instead of leaving a ;
hole tree to support his corded wood, he Avould j)are
away
to
a slender stake or splinter which you could
with your hand at
eak
off
He
interested
'f
me
last.
because he was so quiet and
and so happy withal
;
a well of good humor and
tentment which overflowed at his eyes. without alloy. e woods,
Sometimes I saw him
felling trees,
soli-
His mirth at his
work
and he would greet me with
t
i.OX
1.
v^i\o<
Ivif
laugh of inexpressible satisfection, and a salutation in Canadian French, though he spoke English as welL When I approached him he would suspend his work, B
and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a pine which he had felled, and, peeling off the inner bark, roll it up into a ball and chew it while he laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirit* had he that he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the ground with laughter
any thing which made him think and tickled him. Looking round upon the trees " By George he would exclaim, I can enjoy myself well enough here chopping; I want no better sport." at
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Sometimes, when at in the
!
leisure,
woods with a pocket
he amused himself
pistol, firing salutas to
he walked.
self at regular intervals as
he had a a
kettle
;
fire
by which
and as he
at
sat
all
him-
In the winter
noon he warmed
on a log
day
his coffee in
to eat his
dinner the
chicadees would sometimes come round and alight on his
arm and peck
said that
at the potato in his fingers
he " liked
to
have the
little
and he
;
fellers
about
him."
man
was developed. In physical endurance and contentment he was cousin to I asked him once if he was not the pine and the rock. Rometimes tired at night, after working all day and ho In him the animal
chiefly
;
answered, with a sincere and serious look, " Gorrappit, I never was tired in
what
is
my
called spiritual
life."
man
in
But the intellectual andi him were slumbering aaf
He
had been instructed only in that in I nojent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, by which the pupil is never edi
hi
an
infant.
cated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the d gree of trust and reverence, and a child is not mad
WALDKN.
160
man, but kept a child. When Nature made him. she gave him a strong body and contentment for his portion,
and propped him on every side with reverence and reliance, that he might Hve out his threescore years and
He was
ten a child. that
so genuine
no introduction would serve
and unsophisticated
to introduce him,
more
you introduced a woodchuck to your neighbor. had got to find him out as you did. He would not play any part. Men paid him wages for Avork, and so than
if
He
helped to feed and clothe him; but he never exchanged
He was
opinions with them.
— —
humble pires
if
that humility
was no
and naturally
gods to him.
If
he did as
you
if
distinct
quality in him,
Wiser men were demiwas comhe thought that any thing so grand
nor could he conceive of
ing,
so simply
he can be called humble who never as-
told
it.
him
that such a one
would expect nothing of himself, but take all the sponsibility on itself, and let him be forgotten still.
He
never heard the sound of praise.
erenced the writer and the preacher. ances were miracles. considerably, he
When
He
particularly rev-
Their perform-
him
I told
re-
that I wrote
thought for a long time that
it
was
"
merely the handwriting which I meant, for he could
^^
write a remarkably good hand
can
found the
^'o
in the
"^ t
accent,
name of his native parish handsomely written snow by the highway, with the proper French and knew that he had j^assed. I asked him if
^^
he ever wished
'^^
had read and written
"*-{\e
never tried
He
to write his thoughts. letters for those
to write thoughts,
what
—
who
he
said that
could not, but
no, he 'jould not, he
him, and then same time withx heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer
would
'^'ould
not
tell
tentiere
was
spelling to be attended to at the
'^
I somctimef;
himself.
e wo«
to put
first, it
kill
!
161
VISITORS. a-^ked
him
if
he did not want the world
be changed;
to
but he answered with a chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had ever been entertained before, " No, I like it well enough." It
would have
pher
to
suggested
many
have dealings with him.
peared to know
a philoso-
things to
To a
stranger he ap-
nothing of things in general
;
yet I some-
man whom I had not seen before, know whether he was as wise as Shak-
times saw in him a
and I did not
speare or as simply ignorant as a child, whether to sus-
him of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity. townsman told me that when he met him sauntering
pect
A
through the village in his small whisfiing to himself,
close-fitting cap,
and
he reminded him of a prince in
disguise.
His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, he was considerably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopoidia to him, which he supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it I loved to sound him on does to a considerable extent.
in
which
last
the various reforms of the day, and he never failed to
most simple and practical light. He had never heard of such things before. Could he do without factories? I asked. He had worn the home-
look at
them
in the
made Vermont
gray, he said,
and that was good.
Could
he dispense with tea and coffee ? Did this country afibrd any beverage beside water ? He had soaked h(;mlock leaves in water and drank it, and thought that was better
than water in
warm
weather.
When
I asked
liira
he could do without money, he showed the convenience of money in such a way as to suggest and
if
coincide with origin of
tliis
most philosophical accounts of the mstitution, and the very derivation of tlw the
11
WALDEN.
162
word pecunia.
ox were
If an
property, and he
his
wished to get needles and thread at the it
store,
he thought
would be inconvenient and impossible soon
to
go on
mortgaging some portion of the creature each time
He
that amount.
many
could defend
to
institutions better
than any philosopher, because, in describing them as they concerned him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and speculation had not suggested to liim
any
other.
of a man,
At another
time, hearing Plato's definition
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a biped without
thought the
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
feathers,
and called
hibited a cock plucked
it
that one ex-
Plato's
man, he
an important difference that the knees bent He would sometimes exclaim, " How
wrong way.
I love to talk
By
!
George, I could talk
all
day
asked him once, when I had not seen him for months,
if
he had got a new idea
Lord," said he, " a
man
this
summer.
"
!
"
I
many Good
that has to Avork as I do, if he
does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do well.
May
be the man you hoe with is inclined to race ; then, by gorry, your mind must be there you think of weeds." He would sometimes ask me first on such occasions, if ;
I had
him
made any improvement.
if
he was always
One
satisfied
winter day I asked
with himself, wishing to
suggest a substitute within him for the priest without,
and some higher motive he
;
"
some men are
satisfied
One man,
with another.
with one thing, and some
perhaps,
will
be
and
his belly to the table,
satisfied
" Satisfied!" said
for living.
to sit all
he has got enough,
if
day with
his
back
to the lire
by George " Yet I never, by any manoeuvring, could get him to take the spiritual view of things the highest that he appeared to con!
;
ceive of was a simple expediency, such as you might
expect an animal to appreciate
;
and
this, practically, ia
VISITORS.
men.
true of mos;t
mode
his
of
If I suggested any improvement in he merely answered, without express
life,
ing any regret, that
was too
it
ly bilieved in honesty
There was a slight, to
was thinking
that he
re-origination
Yet
in his
for himself
and
it,
it
life,
that,
rarely ripened to any thing
it
He
suggested that there might
illiterate,
view always, or do not pretend as bottomless even as
may
who
my
life,
however
own
take their
to see at all
;
who
Walden Pond was thought
are
to be,
be dark and muddy.
a traveller came out of his
ihe inside of
to tlic
was so primitive and immersed though more promising than a
permanently humble and
Many
any day
amounted
of genius in the lowest grades of
though they
own
his
of the institutions of society.
which can be reported.
men
and expressing
failed to express himhe always had a presentable thought be-
merely learned man's, be
however
originality,
and perhaps
his thinking
animal
thoroufrh-
so rare that I would
many
hesitated,
self distinctly,
hind.
positive
to observe
of
Yet he
late.
like virtues.
him, and I occasionally observed
in
phenomenon
walk ten miles
Though he
and the
certain
be detected
opinion, a
163
house, and, as an
usked for a glass of water.
1 told
way
to see
me and
excuse for calling,
them
that I drank at
the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend them a dipper.
Far
off as I
lived, I
was not exempted from
first
annual visitation which occurs, methinks, about the of April, when every body is on the move and I
had
share of good luck, though there were some
tliat
;
my
curious specimens
among my
visitors.
Half-witted
from the almshouse and elsewhere came to see
me
men ;
bu;
WALDEN.
164 I endeavored io
make
had, and
make them
exercise all the wit they
then' confessions to
me;
in such casea
making wit the theme of our conversation and so was compensated. Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so called overseers of the poor and selectmen ;
of the town, and thought
With
were turned.
it
was time that the
respect
to
wit,
I
tables
learned
that
much difference between the half and One daj, in particular, an inoffensive,
there was not
whole.
the
whom
simple-minded pauper, seen used as fencing
stuff,
with others I had often
standing or sitting on a bushel
in the fields to keep cattle
and himself from
visited me, and expressed a wish
me, with the utmost simplicity and
told
superior, or rather inferior, to
sti-aying,
truth,
any thing that
is
" deficient in intellect."
humility, that he
was
were
The Lord had made him so, cared as much for him
his words.
supposed the Lord "I
another.
childhood
I
;
have
He
to live as I did.
quite called
These yet he as
always been so," said he, " from
never had much mind
;
I
was not
for
my
like other
am weak in the head. It was the Lord's And there he was to prove the truth will, I suppose." I of his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. children
;
I
have rarely met a fellow-man on such promising ground,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
was so simple and sincere and so true all that he And, true enough, in proportion as he appeared said. I did not know at to humble himself was he exalted. it
first
but
it
was the
result of a wise policy.
It
seemed
that from such a basis of truth
and frankness as the poor
weak-headed pauper had
our intercourse might go
forward
to
laid,
something better than the intercourse of sages
I had some guests from those not reckoned commonly
among
the town's poor
but
who should be; who
are
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;;
VISITORS. uniong
IQH
world's poor, at any rate
tlie
;
guests
who
appeal,
not to your hospitality, but to your 1w$pitalality ;
who
earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their appeal
with the information that they are resolved, for one thing, never to help themselves.
I require of a visitor
that he be not actually starving, though he
the very best appetite in the world,
Objects of charity are not guests.
know when
my
about
their visit
Men who
it.
did net
had terminated, though I went
business again, answering them from greater
and greater remoteness. of wit called on
who had more
me
wits
Men
of almost every degree
from time
Some
migrating season.
in the
than they knew what
slaves with plantation manners,
runaway
may have
however he got
to
who
do with listened
to time, like the fox in the fable, as if they
heard the hounds a-baying on their track, and looked at
me
beseechingly, as
"
One
real
much
Christian, will
runaway
slave,
as to say,
you send
me back ? '*
among
the rest,
whom
I
helped to forward toward the northstar. Men of one idea, like a hen with one chicken, and that a duckling
men
of a thousand ideas, and unkempt heads, like those
hens which are made to take charge of a hundred cliickens, all in pursuit of one bug, a score of them lost
every morning's dew,
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
men
become
frizzled
of ideas instead of
in consequence a sort of intellectual centipede that made you erawl all over. One man proposed a book in which
and mangy
;
legs,
visitoi-s
tains
;
should write their names, as at the White
but, alas
necessaiy.
!
I
Moun-
have too good a memory to make
that
"WALDEN.
166
I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of
my
seemed glad
erally in
Girls
visitors.
the pond and
Men
time.
and boys and young women genbe in the woods.
to
They looked
and improved
at the flowers,
their
of business, even farmers, thought only of
and emjjloyment, and of the great distance
solitude
at
which I dwelt from something or other; and though they said that they loved a ramble in the woods occca-
was obvious that they did not. committed men, whose time was all taken up sionally,
a living or keeping if
it
ministers
;
who spoke
they enjoyed a monopoly of the subject,
not bear
kinds of opinions
all
who
housekeepers
when
I
Restless
it
was
out,
pried
;
into
— how came
in getting
of God as who could
doctors, lawyers, uneasy
my
cupboard and bed
Mrs.
to
—
know
that
my sheets were not as clean as hers? young men who had ceased to be young, and had concluded that it
was
sions,
to
safest to follow the beaten track of the profes-
—
all
these generally said that
do so much good
the rub.
The
in
my
old and infirm
it
was not possible
Ay
position.
and the
!
there was
timid, of Avhatever
age or sex, thought most of sickness, and sudden accident and death to them life seemed full of danger,
—
;
what danger
is
there if you don't think of any
they thought that a prudent
man would
?
— and
carefully select
where Dr. B. might be on hand at a moment's warning. To them the village was literally a com-munity, a league for mutual defence, and you would suppose that they would not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of it is, if a the safest position,
man
is alive,
there
is
always danger that he
though the danger must be allowed poj'tion as
he
is
to
be
may
die,
less in pro-
dead-and-alive to begin with.
A man
;
\ISITORS. Sits
as
many
self-styled
risks as
he runs.
reformers,
tlie
167 Finally, there were the
greatest
thought that I was forever singing, This
is
the house that I built;
This
is
the
out they did not
man
know
bores of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all,
who
that lives in the house that I built
that
tlie
third
Ime was,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
These arc the folks that worn' the man That lives in the house that 1 built.
I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens but I feared the men-harriei's rather. I had
more cheering
visitors than the last.
men
come
a-berrying, railroad
walk
in clean shirts, fishermen
philosophers, in short,
all
Children
taking a Sunday morning
and hunters, poets and
honest pilgrims,
who came
out to the woods for freedom's sake, and really village behind, I
was ready
to
gi-eet with,
left
the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " Wel-
come, Englishmen! welcome. Englishmen!" for Iliad
had oornmunicatior with that
race.
THE BEAN-FIELD-
Meanwhile my
beans, the length of whose rows,
was seven miles ah-eady plauted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the ground indeed they added
togetlier,
;
were not
easily to be put
Wliat was
off.
tlie
meaning
of this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean labor, I
knew
me
tached
came
I
not.
many more
Deans, though so
to tlie earth,
But why should
to love
my
rows,
my
They atstrength like Au-
than I wanted.
and so I got
Only Heaven summer, to make this portion of the earth's surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild fruits and pleasant flowers, pro-
tieus.
knows.
This Avas
duce instead or beans of late I It is
this
me ?
fine
I raise
pulse.
What
to
them
broad leaf
fertility is in
lean
and
the soil
effete.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
shall I learn of
;
and
My
this is
itself,
this
which
my
My
to look on.
dews and rains which water
the
them ?
curious labor
beans
I cherish them, I hoe them, early and
have an eye a
my
day's work.
auxiliaries are
dry
for the
soil,
and what
most
pai't is
enemies are worms, cool days, and (168)
THE BEAN-FIELD.
169
most of all fioodchucks. Tlie last ha\e nibbled for me a quarter of an acre clean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the rest, and break up their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the remaining beans will
be too tough for them, and go forward
meet new
to
f)es.
When
T was
four years old, as I well remember,
1 was brought from Boston to this
through these very woods and It
is
one of the oldest scenes stamped on
And now ;
my
to-night
The
that very water.
I
my
flute
pines
still
stand here older than
some have fallen, I have cooked stumps, and a new growth is rising
paring another aspect for
pond.
my memory
has waked the echoes over
or, if
their
native town,
this field, to the
my supper with around, pre-
all
new
infant eyes. Almost the same johnswort springs from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even I have at length helped to clothe
that fabulous landscape of
of the results of
my
my
and one
infant dreams,
presence and influence
is
seen in
these bean leaves, corn blades, and potato vines. I planted about two acres and a half of upland
and was only about fifteen years since the land was cleared, and I myself had got out two or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any manure but in th course of the summer it appeared by the arrow-heads which I turned up in hoeing, that an extinct nation had as
;
it
;
anciently dwelt here and planted corn and beans ere
white
men came
to clear the land,
and
so, to
some ex
had exhausted the soil for this very crop. Befox"e yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or the sun had got above the shrub ttnt,
oaks, while
all
the
warned me against
dew was it,
on,
though the fai-m^ra
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I would advise you
to
do aU
WALDEN.
170 your work
if possible
to level the ranks of
and throw dust upon
while the
dew
on,
is
haughty weeds
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I began
my
bcan-ficld
Early in the morning
their heads.
I worked barefooted, dabbling like a plastic artist
dewy and crumbling
my
sand, but later in
tiie
in the
day the sun
There the sun lightâ&#x201A;Źd me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and forward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green i\ ws, llftcen rods, tlie one end terminating in a slirub oak copse where I could rest in the shade, tlie other in a blackberry field where the green berries deepened their tints by the time 1 had made another bout. Removing the weeds, putting fresh soil about the bean stems, and blistered
feet.
weed which I had sown, makinnj the yellow soil express its summer thought in bean leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood and piper and millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of grass, this was my daily work. As I had little aid from encoura"rin"j this
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
horses or cattle, or hired
men
or boys, or improved im-
plements of husbandry, I was much slower, and became
much more
labor of the hands, even
drudgery, It
my
intimate with
is
beans than usual.
when pursued
to the verge of
perhaps never the worst form of idleness.
has a constant and imperishable moral, and to
scholar
it
But
A
yields a classic result.
tlie
very agricola labo'
was I to travellers bound westward through liincoin and Wayland to nobody knows where; they sitting riosus
at their ease in gigs, with elbows
loosely hanging in festoons
native of the their sight
soil.
;
1 the home-staying, laborious
But soon
and thought.
on knees, and reins
my
homestead was out of
It Avas the
only open and
tivaled field for a great distance on either side of rcaJi
so they
made
the most of
it
;
c^ul-
tlie
and sometimes the
THE BEAN-FIELD. in
aaaii
he
heard more of
field
comment than was meant peas so late!"
had began
— the
"Does he
bonnet of the gray coat er reins up
travellers' gossip
husbandman
my
boy, for fodder;
and recommends a or
it
may
little
chip
and two hands
draw
to
and horses,
sion to other carts
plaster.
to
fields
know how
was one
field
were hoc
it,
— there being an aver-
— and
chip dirt far away.
which they had passed, so
I stoo:l in
waste
only a
Fellow-travellers as they ntttled by compared
with the
furrow,
little
IVjt here
and
fin-rows,
what yon
ihe
or any
dirt,
be ashes or
two acres and a half of for cart
corn
and the hard-featured farm-
;
grateful dobbin to inquire
his
liiid
there?" asks the black
live
are doing where he sees no manure in
stuff,
and
ear: " Beans so late!
ministerial
"Corn,
it.
fodder."
Iiis
for I continued to plant Avhen others
hoe,
to
not suspected for
—
for
171
it
aloud
tliat I
came This
the agricultural world.
not in Mv. Coleman's report.
And, by the
way, who estimates the value of the crop which Nature yields in the
The
crop
still
wilder fields unimproved by
of English
moisture calculated, the dells
and pond holes
hay
is
silicates
in the
man?
carefully weighed,
and the potash; but
woods and
the in all
))astures
and
swamps grows a rich and various ci'op only unreaped by man. Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated
fields
;
as
some
states
are
civihzed, and othei's half-civilized, and others savage cr
barbarous, so «l
my
half-cultivated
field field.
was, though not in a bad sense,
They were beans
cheerl'uUy
returning to their wild and primitive state that rated, and
my
hoe played the
Rans
I
cuhi-
des Vaches for them
upon the topmost spray of a birch, or red mavis, as some love t<h «ing3 the brown-thrasher
Near
at hand,
—
WAT.DEN.
172 call
him
—
would here.
V/liile
"Drop
it,
up, pull it
another farmer's
— cover
it,
up, pull
it
field
yours were
it'
you are planting the seed, he
drop
it
it
up, cover
But
up."
this
his rigmarole, his
it
up,
r.ot
cries,
—
—
pull
was not corn, and
from such enemies as he.
wa.) safe
what
the morning, glad of your locioty, that
all
tind ou<
You may
it
so
M'onder
amateur Paganini performances
g or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster. It was a
on one
strii
cheap sort of top dressing
As
I
drew a
still
in
which I had entire
fresljer soil
faith.
who
hoe, I disturbed the aslies of unchronicled nations in primeval years lived
small implements of
my
about the rows with
under these heavens, and their
war and hunting were brought
to
modern day. They lay mingled with other natural stones some of which bore the marks of having been burned by Indian fires, and some by \he sun, and also bits of jjottery and glass brought hither by the recent cultivators of the soiL "When my hoe the light of this
tinkled
the
against
woods and
sky, and
tl:e
music echoed
stones, that
to
was an accompaniment and immeasurable
labor whiL-h yielded an instant It
was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I
that
my
ci'op.
hoed
remembered with as much pity as pride, remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone
beans if I
tlie
to
;
and
I
to the city to attend the oratorios.
clod overhead in the
made a day of en's eye, falling
sound as rags and
if
sunny afternoons like
a mote
—
for
cij-
Isometimea
in the eye, or in
heav-
from time to time with a swoop and a were rent, torn at last to very
the heavens
tatters,
small imps that
ground on
—
it
The night-hawk
bai*e
and yet a seamless cope remained the air and lay their eggs on the
fill
sand or rocks on the tops of
hills,
where
THE BEAN-FIELD.
173
few Ila^> found them; graceful and slender ilU ripup from tlie, pond, as leaves arc raised bv the wind 10 float in the heavens such pies cai.ght
kindredship
;
N<Mlure.
The hawk
is
iâ&#x20AC;&#x17E;
aerial brother of
is
tlie wave which over mid surveys, tliose his perfect air-infiated wirgs answering to the elemental unriedged
he
saiis
the sea.
Or sometimes
pinions of I watched a pair of hen-hawks
cu-.ling high in the sky, alternately soaring
and descendmg, ai)proaching and leaving one another, as if they were the imbodiment of my own thoughts. Or I was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons fi-om this
wood
to that, with
a
sliglit
quivering winnowing sound and
carrier haste or from under a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish portentous and outlandish spotted salamander, a trace ol* Egypt and tlie Nile, yet our contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, tliese sounds and sights I heard and saw any wiiere ;
in
the
row, a part of the inexhaustible entertainment which the country offers.
On
gala days the toAvn
fires
its
great guns, "wljich
echo like popguns to mai-tial
away
tliesc woods, and some waifs of music occasionally penetrate thus far. To me,
tlici-e
in
my
bean-lield at the other end of the
town, the big guns sounded as
if
a puff ball had burst;
and when there
Avas a military turnout of Avhich I was igucrant, I have sometimes had a vague sense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon,
as if
some eruption would break out there
scarlatina or canker-i-ash, until at
length
soon, either
some more
favorable puff of wind, making haste over the
up the Wayland road, brought " trainers."
me
fields
information of
and tiie
seemed by the distant hum as if somebody's bees had swarmed, and that the neighbors, It
;
WALDEN.
174
nccording to Virgirs advice, by a faint tintinnabulum
upon
mwt
tlic
endeavoring
sonorous of their domestic utensils, wen*,
to
down
tiiem
call
hive again.
into the
And when
the sound died quite away, and the
hum
h:id ceased,
and the most favorable breezes
tale,
I
knew
no
told
that they had got the last drone of tlicm all
now
JMiddlesex hive, and that
safely into the
minds were bent on the honey with which
their
it
t\'as
smeared. I
felt
setts
proud to know that the
liberties of
and of our fatherland were
and as
I
my
turned to
in
hoeing again I was
inexpressible confidence, and pursued fully with a
When
calm trust
filled
my
with an
labor cheer-
in the future.
were
there
Massachu
such safe keeping
bands of musicians,
several
it
was a vast bellows, and the buildings expanded and collapsed alternately
sounded as all
with a
But sometimes
di]!.
inspiring
the village
if all
that
strain
it
was a
reached
these
trumpet that sings of fame, and
1
Mexican with a good
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
s\ni a
always stand for
trifles?
chuck or a skunk
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
relish,
really noble
woods, and the
felt
for
as
I could
if
why
should
:ind looked I'ound for
to exercise
my
and
we
a wood-
These
chivalry upon.
away as Palestine, and march of crusaders in the horizon,
martial strains seemed as far
reminded
me
of a
with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elmtree tops Avhich ")f
the (/real days
;
thongh
tlie tlie
village.
\lail}',
and
I
saw no
This was one
sky had from
the same everlastingl}' great look
'^nly
It
overhang
diflereiK-e in
my
that
clearing it
wears
it.
was a singular exjierienee that long acquaintance
which I cultivated with beans, what with planting, and hoeh]g, and harvesting, and threshing, ard picking over,
— THE BEAN-FIELD. them,
arid selling
—
last
tlic
I migiit add eating, tor I
mined
know
to
five o'elock in the
and commonly spent the affairs.
was the hardest of all,— I was detertaste.
did
Wlien they were growing, 1 morning till noon,
beans.
used to hoe from
175
rest of the
day about other
Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance
one makes with various kinds of weeds,
Gomc
—
it
will
bear
no
little
iteration in the account, for there Avas
iteration in the labor,
—
disturbing their dehcate organi-
and making such invidious dishoe, levelling whole ranks of one
zations so ruthlessly, tin2tions with
Bpicies,
and
his
sedulously
Eoman wormv.'ood, — — have
cultivating
that's
that's piper-grass,
roots
upward
the shade,
if
at him,
that's sorrel,
chop him up, turn his
to the sun, don't let
you do
him have a
fibre in
turn himself t'other side up
he'll
and be as green as a leek
in
A long war
two days.
not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans
sun and rain and dews on their
saw me
Tiiat's
another.
pigweed, —
side.
who had
Daily the beans
come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and
thin the ranks of their enemies, fiUing up the trenches
with weedy dead. ihat towered a
Many
a lusty crest-waving Hector,
whole foot above his crowding comrades,
my
weapon and rolled in the Those summer days which some of before
fell
ries
dust.
my
contempora-
devoted to the fine arts in Boston or Rome, and
ethers to contemplation in India, and others to trade in
London or of
New
New
York, I thus,
England, devoted
wanted boans
to eat, for I
to
Avith the
other farmers
husbandry.
am by
Not
tliat
I
nature a Pythagorean,
60 far as beans are concerned, whether they
mean
por*
ridge or voting, and exchanged them perchance, as some must work in fields
rice
but,
for if
;
only for the
WALDEN.
176
sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parabk-makei
one day.
was on the whole a rare amusement,
It
which, continued too long, might have become a dissipa-
Though
tion.
them
all once,
them no manure, and did not lice I hoed them unusually well as far as I I gave
it in the end, " there being in " truth," as Evelyn says, no compost or lastation v/hat-
went, and was paid for
soever comparable to this continual motion, repastina-
and turning of the mould with the spade." " The earth," he adds elsewhere, " especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, tion,
power, or virtue is
the logic of
to sustain us
;
(call it either)
which gives
it life,
we keep
and
all
the labor and stir
all
dungings and other sordid temperings
being but the vicars succedaneous to
about
it,
improvement."
this
Moreover, this being one of those " worn-out and exhausted
lay
fields
perchance, as Sir
which enjoy
Kenelm Digby
" vital spirits " from the air.
sabbath,"
their
liad
thinks likely, attracted
I harvested twelve bushels
of beans.
But to be more particular, for it is complained that Mr. Coleman has reported chiefly the expensive ex-
my
periments of gentlemen farmers, For a hoe,
"...
Peas
ÂŤ
.
Too mucb
3 12^ 1
line for
crow
fence,
.... ... ....
Horse cultivator and boy three hours, Horse and cart to get crop, In
54 7 50,
,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
33
40
Turnip sssd,
My
.
for seed,
Potatoes
White
$
,
Ploughing, harrowing, and furrowing,
Beans
outgoes were,
all,
06
02 1
00 75
$14
72j
income was, (patrem familias vendacem^ noa
emacem
esse oportet,)
from
THE BEAN-FIELD, Pn.ie bushels
" "
Five
Nine
177
and twelve quarts of beans sola,
,
$16 94
.
large potatoes,
2 50
small,
2 25
Grass,
In
$23
.ill,
profit, as I
my
tha result of
is
common
Plant the
experience in raising beans.
small white bush bean abou^
aparr, being careful to select fresh
iic-hes
round and unmixed
Then
an exposed
is
place,
look out for woodchucks, if
for
they will nibble off the
earliest tender leaves almost clean as
when
young
the
have notice of
tendrils
and
it,
But above
all
make sitting
harvest as early as
they go
tliem
erect
save
much
loss
by
this
further experience
with both
oti*
like
])ossibIe, if
escape frosts and have a fair and salable
Tliis
and again,
;
their appearance, they
will shear
buds and young pods,
a squirrel.
you would crop; you
means. also
I
gained.
I said to
myself, I will not plant beans and corn with so
industry another summer, but such seeds, not
tlie
First look out for worms, and supply vacancies
Bced.
by planting anew.
may
-i-l
have elsewhere saM, of ยง3 71 \.
of June, in rows three feet by eighteen
first
it
75
.
Leaving a pecuniary
This
00
1
Stalks,
lost,
and the
it
the seed
is
as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, like,
even with surely
if
much
and see
less toil
if they will not grow in this soil, and manurance, and sustain me, for
has not been exhausted for these crops.
I said this to myself; but
now another summer
and another, and another, and I
am
Alas! is
gone,
obliged to say to
you, Reader, that the seeds which I j^lanted,
if indeed they we7'e the seeds of those virtues, were wormeaten oi
had
and so did not come up. Com only be brave as their fathers wera
lo>t their vitality,
tnonly
men
will
12
-
WALDEN.
178
This generation
braTC, or timid.
com and
new year
beans eacli
is
if tlicre
were a
my
fate in
astonishment, making
time ut
for llie seventietli
least,
down in But why try new adventures, and not lie
liis
man
old
and not
lay so
the other
for himself to
New
much
Englander
stress
on Lis
potato and grass crop, and his orchard;->,
Why
raise other crops than these?
as
holes with a hoe
tlie
should not the
!
grain,
first settlers to do.
saw an
I
it.
to plant
precisely is th(; Indians
did centuries au;o and tauirlit the
day, to
very sure
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
concern ourselves
much about our beans for seed, and not ])e concerned a new generation of men ? We should realbe led and cheered if when we met a man we were
so
at all about ly
sure to see that some of the qualities wliich I have
named, which we
more than those other pro-
prize
all
ductions, but which are for the most part broadcast floating in the air, liad taken root
Here comes such a
and
subtile
stance, as truth or justice,
new
or
variety of
it,
We We
siiould
along the road.
him.
home such
to distribute
amount
Our ambassadors seeds as these,
them over
all
the land.
witli sincerity.
should never cheat and insult and banish one an-
worth and
haste.
not to
if
We
should not meet thus in
Most men have time they are busy about I do not meet at
;
would not deal with a
mushroom, but
thing
there were present the kernel
friendliness.
man
on a hoe or a spade as a a
slightest
never stand upon ceremony
other by our meanness, ^f
in
ineffable quality, for in-
though the
should be instructed to send
and Congress help
and grown
and
more than
for they
seem
their beans.
We
all,
thus plodding ever,
staff
l!:\aning
between his work, not as
partially risen out of the earth, some* erect, like
ing on the ground
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
swallows alighted and walk
THE BEAN-FIELD. "Ami]
.is
he spake, his wings would now and then
Spread, as he meant to
60 that
we
then close again,"
fly,
should suspect that
-vve
might be conversing
Bread may not always nourish us
with an angel.
always does us good,
it
179
it
even takes
stiffness
but
;
out of our
and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew noi what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man joints,
or Nature, to share any
unmixed and heroic joy.
Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art but it is pursued with ;
ii-reverent haste
and heedlessness by
us,
our object being
have large farms and large crops merely.
to
no
festival,
We
have
nor procession, nor ceremony, not except-
ing our Cattle-shows and so called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness
of his calling, or the
reminded of
is
premium and the
rifices
its
sacred origin.
which tempt him.
feast
sac-
not to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the
infernal
Plutus rather.
and a groveUing regarding the
habit,
soil as
By
avarice and selfishness,
from which none of us
property, or the
ing property chiefly, the landscape
bandry
He
It i3
is
degraded with
meanest of
lives.
Cato says that the
us,
is free,
of
means of acquiris
deformed, hus-
and the farmer leads the
He knows
Nature but as a robber.
profits of agriculture are particularly
pious or just, (maximeque pius qucBstus,) and according
Varro the old Romans " called the same earth INIothcr and Ceres, and thought that they who cultivated it 'ed a pious and useful life, and that they alone were to
itifr
of the race of
AV^e are
wont
tivated fields
King Saturn."
to forget that the
and on the
sun looks on our cul-
prairies
and
forests without
WALDEN.
180
They all reflect and ?.ht30r'b his rays alike, former make but a small part of the glorious
distinction.
and the
picture which he beholds in his daily course.
view the earth Therefore
we
is
all
should receive the benefit of his light
and heat with a corresponding
What though hav3 looked
trust
and magnanimity.
I value the seed of these beans, and har-
vest that in the I
In his
equally cultivated like a garden.
fall
of the year ?
This broad
at so long looks not to
away from me which water and make it
cultivator, but
me
field
which
as tne principal
to influences
more
genial to
These beans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for woodchucks partly ? The ear of wheat, (in it,
green.
Latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope,) should not be the only hope of the husbandman grain (gra7ium, from gerendo^ bearing,) it
bears.
How,
.''
paratively whether the fields
husbandman
squirrels manifest
and
all
that
Shall I not
com-
It matters little fill
the
farmer's
barns.
cease from anxiety, as the
will
every day, relinquishing
xiot,
all
sacrificing in his
his last fruits also.
not
no concrn whether the woods
bear chestnuts this year or
fields,
?
kernel or
abundance of the weeds whose seeds
are the granary of the birds
true
is
then, can our harvest fail
rejoice also at the
The
its
;
and
finish his labor
will
with
claim to the produce of Ids
mind not only
his first buk
THE VILLAGE.
After
hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the
swimming and washed the dust
forenoon, I usually bathed again in the pond, across one of
its
of labor from
my
coves for a
stint,
person, or smoothed out the last wrin-
kle which study had made, and for the afternoon was ab-
Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, solutely free.
or from ne\vspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in
homoeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way As I as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.
woods
to see the birds
walked
in the
walked
in the village to see the
of the wind
among
squirrels, so I
boys
;
instead
the pines I heard the carts rattle.
In one direction from rauskrats in
and
men and
the river
my
house there was a colony of
meadows
;
under the grove of
elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon w^as a village of busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie dogs, each sitting at the
mouth of
its
running over to a neighbor's to gossip. frequently to
observe their habits.
The
burrow, or
I went there village ap* (181)
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; WALDEN.
f82 pearcd
me
tc
support
it,
a great news room
Street, they Icept nuts
and
rhe former commodity, that
organs,
avenues without througli ether, pain,
is, tlie
that tlicy can
stliring,
Company's on State and meal and
and
vast appetite lor
news, and such sound forever in public
sit
let it
simmer and whisper
ihem
like the P^tesian winds, or as if inhaling
oiily
producing numbness and insensibility to
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; otherwise
it
would often be painful
without atfecting the consciousness. failed,
side, to
raisins, or salt
Some have such a
otiier grocei'ies.
digestive
and on one
;
&
Redding
as once at
Avhen
1
rambled through the
I
toÂť
hear,
hardly ever
village, to see
a row
of sucii worthies, either sitting on a ladder sunning themselves, with their bodies
inchned forward and their eyes
glancing along the line this time,
way and
that,
from time
to
with a voluptuous expression, or else leaning
against a barn with their hands in their pockets, like caryatides, as if to prop t)ut
They, being commonly
up.
it
of doors, heard whatever was in the wind.
dre the coarsest mills, in which all gossip digested or cracked
and more
up before
it
is
is first
These rudely
emptied into finer
delicate hoppers within doors.
I
observed that
the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room,
the post-office, and the bank of
tlie
;
machinery, they kept a
engine, at convenient places
;
and, as a necessary part
bell,
a big gun, and a
fire-
and the houses were so
ar-
ranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run
the gantlet, and eveiy man, lick at him. est to the
Of
woman, and
who were statioiied nearwhere they could most see
course, those
head of the
line,
and be seen, and have the Lighe'^t prices
child might get a
first
for their places
;
blow at him, paid the
and the few straggling
THE VILLAGE. inhabitants in the outskirts,
began
to occur,
183
where long gaps
."n
the line
traveller could get over walls
and the
cow paths, and so escape, paid a very Signs were liung out slight ground or window tax. some to catch him by the on all sides to allure him some by appetite, as the tavern and victualling cellar the fancy, as the dry goods store and the jeweller's and or turn aside into
;
;
:
others by the hair or the feet or the skirts, as the barber, the still
shoemaker, or the
more
tailor.
Besides, there Avas a
terrible standing invitation to call at
every
one of these houses, and company expected about these For the most part I escaped wonderfully from times. these dangers, either by proceeding at once boldly and
without deliberation to the goal, as those
who
is
recommended
run the gantlet, or by keeping
on high things,
like
my
to
thoughts
Orpheus, who, " loudly singing the
drowned the voices of Sometimes I the Sirens, and kept out of danger." bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my wliereabouts, for I did not stand much about gracefulness, and never
praises of the gods to his lyre,
I was even accustomed some houses, where I was well learning the kernels and very last
hesitated at a gap in a fence. to
make
an irrufjtion into
entertained, and after
had subsided, the prospects of
sieve-ful of news, wliat
war and
peace, and whether the world
together
much
was
longer, I
let
was
likely to hold
out through the real
avenues, and so escaped to the woods again. It
was very
i)leasant,
Avhen I staid late in town, to
launch myself into the night, especially
and temfjestuous, and
set
sp.il
parlor or lecture room, with a
upon
my
shoulder, for
having made
all
my
if it
was dark
from some bright viUage bag of rye or Indian meal
snug harbor in the woods,
tight without
and withdrawn under
184
WALDEN.
.
hatches with a merry crew of thoughts, leaving only
man
outer it
was
at the hehn, or
I had
many
a genial thought by was never cast away any weather, though I encountered
plain sailing.
the cabin fire " as I sailed."
nor distressed in
some severe storms.
common
my
even tying up the helm when
nights, than
It is
I
darker in the woods, even in
most suppose.
I frequently had to
look up at the opening between the trees above the path
my route, and, where there was no cartwith my feet the faint track which I had
in order to learn
path, to feel
worn, or steer by the known relation of particular trees
which I
felt
with
for instance, not
my
hands, passing between two pines
more than eighteen inches
apart, in the
midst of the woods, invariably in the darkest night.
Sometimes, after coming home thus
muggy
when my
night,
feet felt the
could not see, dreaming and absent-minded until I
was aroused by having
dark and
late in a
path v/hich
to raise
my
all
my
eyes
the way,
hand
to
lift
the latch, I have not been able to recall a single step of
my
walk, and I have thought that perhaps
would as the ance.
my
body
way home if its master should forsake it, way to the mouth without assistSeveral times, when a visitor chanced to stay into
find its
hand
evening, and
finds its
it
proved a dark night, I was obliged
to
conduct him to the cart-path in the rear of the house,
and then point out to him the direction he was to pursue, and in keeping which he was to be guided rather
by
One very dark night I diway two young men v.dio had been pond. They lived about a mile off through
his feet than his eyes.
rected thus on their fishing in the
the woods, and were quite used to the route.
two
after
one of them told
me
that they
A
day or
wandered
about the greater part of the night, close by their
own
;
THE VILLAGE. premises, and
/iid
not get
home
185 toward morning, by
till
which time, as there had been several heavy showers
mean
the
while, and the leaves were very wet, they
drenched to their
when
astray even in the village streets,
was so saying
thick that
you could cut
Some who
is.
town a-shopping
to
many
I have heard of
skins.
in
were going
the darkness
with a knife, as the
it
live in the outskirts,
having como
have been obliged
in their wagons,
and gentlemen and
making
to put
up
h
have gone half a mile out of their way, feeling the
call
for the night;
ladies
and not knowing when they turned. It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. sidewalk only with their
feet,
Often in a snow storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and yet find to
which way leads
tell
knows
that he has travelled
not recognize a feature in as if
it
were a road
perplexity walks, like
we and
it
village.
impossible
Though he
a thousand times, he can-
but
it
By
greater.
is
as strange to
him
night, of course, the
In our most
trivial
are constantly, though unconsciously, steering
by
pilots
lands,
it
it,
in Siberia.
infinitely
is
the
to
if
certain well-kfiown
we go beyond our
beacons and head-
usual course
we
still
car-
ry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape
and not for
a
till
man
we
are completely
or turned round,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
needs only to be turned round once with his
eyes shut in this world to be the
lost,
lost,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; do we appreciate
vastness and strangeness of Nature.
Every man
hp4S to learn the points of compass again as often a3 he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till
wc
are
world, do
we
lost,
in other words, not
we begin
till
to find ourselves,
we have
lost the
and realize where
are and the infinite extent of our relations.
WALDEN.
l86
One afternoon, near tlie end of the firsv snmmei when I went to tlie village to get a shoe from the cobwas seized and put
bler's, I
have
into jail, because, as I
elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax
or recognize
to,
of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senateLouse. I had gone down to the woods for other pur-
the authority
man
But, wherever a
poses.
paw him
men
goes,
pursue and
will
with their dirty institutions, and,
constrain
him
to belong to their desperate
society.
It
true, I
more or society
;
is
they can,
if
odd-fellow
might have resisted forcibly with
less effect, might have run "amok" against but I preferred that society should run " amok"
against me,
it
However,
being the desperate party.
my mended season to get my
I
was
released the next day, obtained
shoe, and
returned to the woods in
dinner of
on Fair-Haven Hill. 1 was never moby any person but those who represented the
huckleberries lested state.
held
had no lock nor bolt but
I
my
windows.
I never fastened
though I was the next
And
yet
for the desk
papers, not even a nail to put over
to
fall I
my
my
not even
;
file
The
of soldiers.
and warm himself by
my
my
dinner, and
Vet, though
my
many people
to the ])ond, I
I
had
tired
ram-
the
liter-
my
closet door, see
what prospect
if it
fire,
ary amuse himself with the few books on the curious, by opening
of
when
spent a fortnight in the woods of iNIaine.
house was more respected than
bler could rest
which
latch or
door night or day,
be absent-several days
been surrounded by a
left
my
table, or
what was
had of a supper.
of every class
came
this
way
suffered no serious inconvenience fiom
these sources, and I nover missetl any thing but one
small book, a volume of
Homer, which perhaps
v/as in*
THE VILLAGE.
187
properly gilded, and this I trust a soldier of our has found by this time.
I
were
I
simply as
to live as
nm
convinced, that
camp if all men
then did, thieving and robbery
would be unknown.
These take j)lace only in comnumiwhere some have got moi-e than is sufficient while others have not cnougli. The Pope's Homers would ties
soon get properly
dÂť'=t'-'h:itp'l.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" Ncc bclla fucrunt, Faginus astabat duin scyphus ante dapcs." *' Nor wars did men molest, "When only bcechen bowls were in request."
"
You who
to
govei'n public affairs,
employ punislnnents
will
like
be virtuous. the wind
the grass
bends."
;
;
The
?
Love
and the people
virtues of a superior
the virtues of
the grass,
what need have you
virtue,
when
a common man
the whid
passes
man
are
are like
OTer
iti
;
fHE rujsus.
S:;MET-'iÂŤrES, Hnci gossip,
bled
having had a
and worn out
all
surfeit of
my
human
society
village friends, I ram-
farther -westward than I habitually dwell, into
still
yet more
unfrequented
parts
woods and pastures new,"
or,
of the town, " to
fresli
while the sun was setting,
made my supper of huckleberries and blueberries on Fair Haven Hill, and laid up a store for several days. The fruits do not yield their true flavor to the purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way. If you would know the flavor of huckleberries, Hhk the cow-boy or the partridge. to
It is
a vulgar error
suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never
plucked them.
A
huckleberry never reaches Boston
they have not been known there since they grew on her three
hills.
The
ambrosial and essential part of the
fruit is lost with the
market
cart,
bloom which
is
rubbed
off in the
and they become mere provender.
As
long as Eternal Justice reigns, not one innocent huckleberry- can be transported thither
from the country's
hiUs.
as8>
THE PONDS.
189
my hoeing was done for the day, I 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 Occasionally, after
Joined
various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, tlie time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient
by
sect of Coenobites.
cellent
and
fjsher
who was
There was one older man, an exskilled
in
pleased to look upon
erected for the
his lines.
kinds of woodcraft,
my
house as a building
convenience of fishermen
when he
equally pleased
all
Once
sat in
in a while
we
my
many words
passed between
in his later years, but
v/hich
Our
doorway
sat together
he at one end of the boat, and I
;
and to
was
arrange
on the pond,
at the other
us, for
I
but not
;
he had grown deaf
he occasionally
hummed
harmonized well enough with
my
a psalm,
philosophy.
was thus altogether one of unbroken to remember than if it had been carried on by speech. When, as was commonly the case, I had none to commune with, I used to raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my intercourse
harmony, far more pleasing
woods with circling and dithem up as the keeper of a mena-
boat, filling the surrounding
lating sound, stirring
gerie his wild beasts, until I elicited a growl from every
wooded vale and Tn
warm
ing The li;Âťv(;
hill-side.
evenings I frequently sat in the boat play-
and saw the perch, which I seemed
flute,
cliarmed, hovering around me, and the
ling t)ver the ribbed bottom,
wrecks of the
forest.
travel
which was strewed with the
Formerly I had come
pond adventurously, from time nights, with a
moon
to
to time, in
companion, and making a
water's cigc, which we thought
to this
dark summer
fire close to
the
atti'acted the fishes,
we
WALDEN.
190
caught pouts with a bunch of worms strung on a thread
and when we
done, fur in
liad
threw tho
night,
tlie
burning brands high into the air like skyrockets, whicii;
coming down hissing,
into the pond,
were quenclied
and we were suddenly groping
ness.
Through
to the
haunts of
home by
this,
men
we
whistling a tune, again.
witli
a loud
in total
dark-
took our
way
But now I had made
my
the shore.
Sometimes, after staying in a village parlor family had
all retired, I
have returned
to the
till
the
woods, and,
partly with a view to the next day's dinner, spent the liours of
midnight fishing from a boat by moonlight, sere-
naded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from time
to time,
some unknown bird close at hand. These experiences were very memoi'able and valuable anchored in forty feet of water, and twenty oi to me, Ihii'ty rods from the shore, surrounded sometimes by thousands of small ])erch and shiners, dimpling the sur face with their tails in the moonlight, and communicating by a long flaxen line with mysterious nocturnal fishes which had their dwelling forty feet below, or sometimes di-agging sixty feet of line about the pond as the creaking note of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
I drifted in the gentle night breeze,
ing a slight vibration along
prowling about
its
now and
indicative of
it,
then feel-
some
life
extremity, of dull uncertain blunder-
ing purpose there, and slow to
make up
its
At
mind.
length }ou slowly raise, pulling hand over hand, some Iiorned pout squeaking and squirming to the upper air. It
was very queer, especially
in
dark nights, when your
thoughts had wandered lo vast and cosmogonal themes hi other spheres, to feel this faint jerk,
interrupt your dreams and link It
seemed as
if
you
I might next cast
my
to
which came
to
Nature agaiiL
line
upward
into
THE PONDS. the
air,
as
as
i\^ell
1
91
dowmvard into this eleraen* ^Ineh Thus 1 caught two l-sheti as
was scarcely inoi-(3 dense. it were wil.h one hook.
The
scenery of "Walden
is
on a humble
though very beautiful, does not approach nor can
it
much concern one who
quented
it
or lived by
remarkable for
dei)th
its
ticular description.
shore
its
to
scale, an<>^
grandeur,
has not long fre-
yet this pond
;
and purity as
is
so
j)
nr-
to merit a
a clear and deep green well,
It is
half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in cii-
cumference, and contains about sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial sjn-ing in the midst of
woods, without any visible
i)ine
and oak
except by the
The surrounding
and evaporation.
clouds
inlet or outlet
rise
hills
abruptly from the water to the height of forty to eighth feet,
though on the south-east and east they attain
t(
about one hundred and one hundred and fifty feet i"e spectively, within a quarter and a third of a mile
They ters
have two colors
tance, first
are exclusively woodland. at least,
and another, more
depends more on the
clear weather, in
one when viewed at a
light,
summer,
appear
alike.
dis-
and follows the sky.
In
they ajipear blue at a liMle
and
at a great distance
In stormy weather they are some*
times of a dark slate color. to
wu The
propei*, close at hanfl.
distance, especially if agitated, all
All our Concord
The
sea,
however,
is
said
be blue one day and green another without any perchange in the aMnosphere. I have seen our
ccptiblt
rirer, \Ahen, the
landscape being covered with snow,
both water and
ice
Some
were almost as green as
grass.
consider blue " to be the color of pure water.
WALDEN.
192 whether liquid or into our waters
But, looking directly
solid."
from a boat, they are seen
Walden
dilFerent colors
is
to
blue at one time and green
Lying
even from the same point of view.
at another,
down
be of very
between the earth and the heavens,
it
partakes of the
Viewed from a hill-top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a color of both.
light green,
which gradually deepens
In some
green in the body of the pond.
even from a
hill-top,
shore.
Some have
verdure
;
but
it
is
is
it
uniform dark
to a
lights,
viewed
of a vivid green next the
referred this to the reflection of the
equally green there against the rail-
road sand-bank, and in the spring, before the leaves are
expanded, and
it
may be
simply the result of the prevail-
ing blue mixed with the yellow of the sand. color of
its iris.
This
spring, the ice being reflected
still
is
the
in the
the heat of the sun
also transmitted through
face of the
first
agitated, in clear weather, so that the sur-
waves may
or because there
is
reflect the
more
at a little distance of at
Such where
and forms a narrow canal about Like the rest of our waters, frozen middle.
when much
and
warmed by
from the bottom, and
the earth, melts
the
that portion, also,
is
light
sky at the right angle,
mixed with
it, it
appears
a darker blue than the sky
such a time, being on
its
surface,
itself;
and looking
with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have discerned a matchless
and indescribable
light
blue,
such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest,
more cerulean than the sky
itself,
alternating
with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but It is
muddy
in comparison.
a vitreous greenish blue, as I remember
it,
like
;
THE rONDS.
193
those patches of the winter sky seen thiough cloud vistas in the its
quantity of
to its " body,"
How
tint,
that a large plate of
owing, as the makers say,
of our river
is
black or a very dark brown to and, like that of most
it,
ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in ;
col-
body of Walden water would be a green tint I have never proved.
large a
one looking directly down on ish tinge
an equal
but a small piece of the same will be
required to reflect
The water
known
It is well
air.
single glass of
to the light is as colorless as
have a green
glass will
orless.
Yet a
west before sundown.
water held up
but this water
is
it
a yellow-
of such crystalline purity that
the body of the bather appears of an alabaster whiteness,
still
nified and making fit
more unnatural, which,
mag-
as the limbs are
distorted withal, produces a monstrous effect,
studies for a
The water
is
Michael Angelo.
so transparent that the bottom can easi-
ly be discerned at the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet.
Paddling over
it,
you
may
see
many
feet
beneath the
surface the schools of perch and shiners, perhaps only
an inch long, yet the former easily distinguished by their transverse bars, and you think that they must be ascetic fish that find
many
a subsistence there.
years ago,
when
Once, in the winter,
I had been cutting holes through
the ice in order to catch pickerel, as I stepped ashore I tossed
my
axe back on
genius had directed
it,
to the ice, but, as if it slid
some
evil
four or five rods directly
into one of the holes, where the water was twenty-five Out of curiosity, I lay down on the ice and feet deep. looked through the hole, until I saw the axe a little on ine side, standing on its head, with its helve erect and gently swaying to and fro with the pulse of the pond
and there
it
might have stood 13
erec./
and swaying
till
in
;
WALDEN.
194 the
cours(^,
turbed
an
of time the handle rotted
Making another
it.
I had not
off, if
hole directly over
dis-
with
it
which I had, and cutting down the longest
ice chisel
my
birch which I could find in the neighborhood with
made a slip-noose, which I attached to its end, letting it down carefully, passed it over the knob of
knife, I
and,
the handle, and drew
it
by a
line along the birch,
and
80 pulled the axe out again.
The
shore
is
composed of a belt of smooth rounded pavmg stones, excepting one or two
white stones like
short sand beaches,
and
is
so steep that in
many
plaCv^s
a single leap will carry you into water over your head and were it not for its remarkable transparency, that
would be the
last to
be seen of
Some
the opposite side.
its
think
it
bottom is
till it
rose on
bottomless.
It is
nowhere muddy, and a casual observer would say that there were no weeds at all in it and of noticeable plants, except in the little meadows recently overflowed, which ;
do not j)roperly belong to detect a flag
it,
a closer scrutiny does not
nor a bulrush, nor even a
white, but only a few small heart-leaves tons,
and perhaps a water-target or two
ever a bather might not perceive
;
lily,
yellow or
and potamoge-
all which howand these plants are ;
clean and bright like the element they
grow
in.
The
stones extend a rod or two into the water, and then the
bottom there
is
is
pure sand, except in the deepest parts, where
usually a
little
sediment, probably from the de-
cay of the leaves which have been wafted on to
many
successive
falls,
up on anchors even
We have in
and a bright green weed
is
it
so
brought
in midwinter.
one other pond just like
this, 'Whit(i
Pond
Nine Acre Corner, about two and a half miles wes-
terly; but, though I
am
acquainted with most of the
THE PONLS.
195
ponds witLin a dozen miles of
this centre, I do not know pure and well-like character. Successive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and fathomed it, and passed away, and still its water is green and pel-
a third of
this
lucid as ever. Not an intermitting spring! Perhaps on that spring morning when Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden Walden Pond was already in existence, and even then breaking up in a gentle spring rain accompanied with mist and a southerly wind, and covered with myriads of ducks and geese, which had not
heard of the
fall,
Even
then
them.
when
such pure
still
lalves
sufficed
had commenced to rise and fall, and had clarified its waters and colored them of the hue they now wear, and obtained a patent of heaven to be the only Walden Pond in the world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows in how many unremembered it
nations' hteratures this has
or what It is a
been the Castahan Fountain?
nymphs presided over
gem
of the
first
it in the Golden Age water which Concord wears in
.?
her coronet.
Yet perchance the first who came to this well have some trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised to detect encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like left
path in the steep
hill-side, alternately rising
and
falling,
approachmg and receding from the
water's edge, as old
pro')ably as the race of
worn by the
aboriginal hunters, and
man still
here,
from time
feet of
to time unwit-
tingly trodden
by the present occupants of the land. particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow has This
is
fliUen, appearing as a clear undulating white line, unobecured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quailci
196
"WALDEN.
ly
as
many places where
summer it is hiird' distinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, it were, m clear white type alto-relievo. The orna-
of a mile off in
mented grounds of
villas
which
in
will
one day be
may still preserve some trace of this. The pond rises and falls, but whether
built
here
not,
regularly o?
and within what period, nobody knows, though, aa
many
usual,
pretend to know.
in the winter
and lower
in the
It is
commonly higher
summer, though not
responding to the general wet and dryness.
member was There it
Avhen
it
was a
foot or
is
when
I lived
a narrow sand-bar running into side,
I can re-
two lower, and also when
at least five feet higher, than
deep water on one
cor-
it,
by
it.
with very
on which I helped boil a kettle
of chowder, some six rods from the main shore, about the year 1824, which
twenty-five years
used to
listen
;
it
has not been possible to do for
and on the other hand,
my
friends
with incredulity when I told them, that a
few years later I was accustomed to
fish
a secluded cove in the woods,
rods from the only
fifteen
from a boat
in
shore they knew, which place was long since converted
meadow. But the pond has risen steadily for two years, and now, in the summer of '52, is just five into a
feet higher than
when
thirty years ago,
and
I lived there, or as high as
This makes a difterence of
ow.
of six or seven feet
rounding
;
it
level, at the outside,
and yet the water shed by the
hills is insignificant in
was
on again in the mead-
fishing goes
amount, and
this
sur*
over
flow must be referred to causes which affect the deep springs.
again.
This same summer the pond has begun to It is
remarkable that
this fluctuation,
periodical or not, appears thus to require (or
its
accomphshment.
fall
whether
many
years
I have observed one rise an
il
a
THE PONDS. pan
of
ever
known
two
197
and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will again be as low as I have falls,
Pond, a mile eastward, allowing
Flints'
it.
by its inlets and outlets, and the smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and recently attained their greatest height for the disturbance occasioned
at the
same time with the
far as
my
This
and
rise
use at least
this
;
fall
it,
up about
kills its
though
it
edge since the
;
at long intervals serves
makes
my
the water house, a
is
many ponds and
to
a daily
row of
if
it
;
this fluctuation the
a shore, and thus the shore not hold
by
by a
is
pond
clean-
is
and thus a
size indicates
asserts its title to
and the
shorn^
to time.
When
in the w.-vter,
and
trees can-
These are the
the water
and maples send
red roots several feet long from
shore,
lever,
and their
right of possession.
alders, willows,
fion? the
wa-
the side of the pond
of the lake on which no beard grows.
from time
shore
all
years have elapsed since the last rise to this
By
height.
I
walk
pitch pines fifteen feet high has
stop put to their encroachments
how many
tide, its
On
lowest.
been killed and tipped over as
and
difficult to
it
last rise, pitch-pines, birches,
unlike
for,
which are subject
when
next
Walden
of
the shrubs and trees which have sprung
unobstructed shore
est
true, aa
aspens, and others, and, falling again, leaves an
Âťtlders,
ters
is
the water standing at this great height
for a year or more,
round
The same
latter.
observation goes, of White Pond.
It licks its is
lips
chaps
at its height, the\
forth a
mass of
all sides
fibrous
of their stems
to the height of three or four feet
ground, in the effort to maintain themselves;
have known the
liigh-])lueberry bushes about the
which commonly produce no
frait,
4ant crop under these circumstances.
bear an abun.
WALDEN.
198
Some have been puzzled came
the tradition, the oldest people it
m
how
to tell
the shore he-
My townsmen have
so regularly paved.
me
tell
that they heard
their youth, that anciently the Indians
ing a po^v-wow upon a
hill
the heavens as the pond
here,
now
heard
all
were hold-
which rose as high into
sinks deep into the earth,
and they used much profanity, as the story goes, though one of which the Indians were never guilty,
this vice is
and while they were thus engaged the
hill
shook and
suddenly sank, and only one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named.
been conjectured that when the rolled is
down
its
side
now
shook these stones
hill
and became the present shore.
very certain, at any
here, and
has
It
there
once there was no pond
rate, that
is
one
;
It
and
this Indian fable does
not in any respect conflict with the account of that ancient settler
whom
when he
so well
have mentioned, who remembers
I
came here whh
first
saw a thin vapor
rising
his divining rod,
from the sward, and the hazel
pointed steadily downward, and he concluded to dig a well here.
As
for the stones,
many
are hardly to be accounted for
think that they
still
by the
action of the
waves on these hills but I observe that the surrounding hills are remarkably full of the same land of stones, ;
so that they
on
have been obliged
to pile
them up in walls pond and
both sides of the railroad cut nearest the
moreover, there are most stones where the shore abrupt to
me.
;
so that, unfortunately,
I detect the paver.
rived from that of den, for instance,
it is
The pond was my
name was
locality,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one might suppose
originally, Walled-in
is
most
no longer a mystery
If the
some English
;
not de-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Saffron WalÂť
that
H was
called,
Pond. well ready dug.
For four montk
;
THE PONDS.
m
Ik'i
year iu
w iter
and I think that
it
is
as cold as
199 it is
best, in the town.
In the winter,
exposed
is
to
the air
all
all if
times
not the
water which
is
colder than springs and wella
which are protected from it. pond water which had stood from
pure at
then as good as any,
is
The temperature the
in
five o'clock in the afternoon
of the
room where I
sat
noon the next day, the sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer having heen up to 65째 or 70째 some of the time, owing partly to the till
sun on the
roof, was 42째, or one degree colder than the water of one of the coldest wells in the village just
The temperature
drawn.
same day was though
it is
of the Boiling Spring the
warmest of any water
the coldest that I
beside, shallow
gled with
45째, or the
it.
know
tried,
of in summer, when,
and stagnant surface water is not minMoreover, in summer, Walden never be-
comes so warm as most water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth. In the warmest weather
my cellar, where it became and remained so during the day;
I usually placed a pailful in cool in
tlie
night,
though I also resorted
to
a spring
in the
neighborhood.
was as good when a week old as the day it was dipped, and had no taste of the pump. Whoever camps for a week in summer by the shore of a pond, needs only bury a pail of water a few feet deep in the shade It
of his
camp
to be
independent on the luxury of
There have been caught weighing seven pounds,
to
in
Walden,
ice.
pickerel,
one
say nothing of another which
carried off a reel with great velocity, which the fisher-
man
down at eight pounds because he did not perch and pouts, some of each weighing over U'o pounds, shiners, chivins or roach, [Leuciscus pulchel' safely set
?ee him,
his,)
a
\
^ry few breams, and a couple of eels, one weigh-
;
WALDEN.
200 ing four pounds,
weight of a
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;I
fish is
am
thus particular because the
commonly
its
only
title
these are the only eels I have heard of here
have a faint recollection of a dace-like in
my
not very dant, are
on the
also, I
five inche
i
is
though not abun-
Its pickerel,
fertile in fish.
chiefly
Nevertheless, this pond
facts to fable.
I have seen at one time lying
chief boast.
its
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
which I mention here
character,
its
;
and a greenish back, somewhat
long, with silvery sides
to link
some
little fish
and
to fame,
ice pickerel of at least three different kinds
;
a
long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those
caught in the river
common here like the last,
;
a bright golden kind, with green-
and remarkably deep, which
ish reflections
is
the most
and another, golden-colored, and sliaped but peppered on the sides with small dark ;
brown or black
spots,
intermixed with a few faint blood-
red ones, very
much
like
These are
tus rather.
more than perch
and indeed
much
;
it
very firm
all
all
The
trout.
to this
their size promises.
also,
pond, are
a
would not apply
reticulatus
The
specific
name
should be gutta'
and weigh
fish,
shiners, pouts,
and
the fishes which inhabit this
cleaner, handsomer,
and firmer fleshed
than those in the river and most other ponds, as the
water
is
purer,
from them.
new
and they can
Probably
varieties of
many
easily be distinguished
ichthyologists
some of them.
Thgre are
would make also a clean
race of frogs and tortoises, and a few muscles in
it
muskrats and minks leave their traces about
oc-
casionally a travelling mud-turtle visits
when
I pushed off
my
it.
it,
and
Sometimes,
boat in the morning, I disturbed a
great mud-turtle which
boat in the night. ipring and
fall,
had secreted himself under the Ducks and geese frequent it in the
the wliite-bellied swallows {TJhundo
THE PONDS. Vicdor) >kim over
it,
larius) -teter" along
201
and the peetweets {Totanus macu. its stony shores all summer. I
have sometimes disturbed a fishliawk sitting on a whitepine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wing of a gull, like Fair Haven.
At
tolerates
one annual loon. These are of consequence which frequent it now.
all
most,
it
the animala
You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy eastern shot 3, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also in some other parts of the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot in height, consisting of small stones less than a hen's e^g in size, where all around is bare sand. At first
you wonder
if the Indians could have formed them on the ice for nny purpose, and so, when the ice melted,
they sank to the bottom
Bome of them plainly
;
but they are too regular and
too fresh
for that.
They
are
similar to those found in rivers; but as there are no
suckers nor lampreys here, I
know not by what fish Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin. These lend a pleasing mystery to the bottom. The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind's eye the western indented with they could be made.
-
deep bays, the bolder northern, and the beautifully scolloped southern shore, lap each other
The
forest has
where successive capes overand suggest unexplored coves between. never so good a
tinctly beautiful, as
setting,
when seen from
nor
is
so dis
the middle
of a small lake amid hills which rise from the water's edo-e : for the water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in
such a case, but, with its winding most natural and agreeable boundary to it. no rawness nor imperfection in its edge therei
shore, the
There
is
WALDEN.
202
where the axe has cleared a part, or a culti\'ated The trees have ample room to ex field abuts on it. pand on the water side, and each sends forth it most vigorous branch in that direction. There Nature has woven a natural selvage, and the eye rises by just as
5
the low shrubs of the shore to the
gradations from
There are few traces of man's hand
highest trees.
The water
be seen.
laves the shore as
it
tc
did a thou-
sand years ago.
A
lake
the landscape's most beautiful and expres-
is
It is earth's eye
sive feature.
beholder measui
are
looking into which the
the depth of his
^s
own
The
nature.
next the shore are the slender eyelashes
fluviatile trees
which fringe
;
it,
and the wooded
and
hills
cliffs
around
overhano-ino; brows.
its
Standing on the smooth sandy beach of the pond, in a calm
at the east
end
September afternoon, when a
haze makes the opposite shore line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, " the glassy rjight
When
surface of a lake." lOoks like
you invert your head,
it
a thread of finest gossamer stretched acros.-
the valley, and gleaming against the distant pine woods,
separating one stratum of the atmosphere from another.
You would
think that you could walk dry under
the opposite
it.
below
were by mistake, and are
tlie
line,
as
As you
'ibliged to
to
and that the swallows which skim
hills,
over might perch on
ceived.
it
it
Indeed, they sometimes dive iiide
look over the pond westward you are
employ both your hands
to
defend your eyes
against the reflected as well as the true sun, for they are
equally bright
;
and
gui-face critically,
i\
if,
is
between the two, you survey
literally as
smooth as
3ept whei e the skater insects, at eq
"lal
its
glass, ex-
intervals scat-
THE PONDS.
203
fcred over
its whole extent, by iLeir motions in the sun produce the linest imaginable .p^^rkle on it,
or, per-
chance, a duck plumes itseh; or, aa 1 nave said, a swallow sknns so low as to touch it. It n.aj be that in the distance a fish describes an arc of tuice or four feet in the air, and ihere is one bright flash vuere
it emer-es and another where it strikes the water; sometimes "the' whole silvery arc is revealed; or here ana there, per-
naps,
a thistle-down floating on
is
fishes dart at
and so dimple
it
its
again.
glass cooled but not congealed,
surface,
which the
It is like
molten
and the few mo.es
in
it
are pure and beautiful like the imperfections in glass. You may often detect a yet smoother and darker water, separated from the rest as if by an invisible cob^-eb,'
boom of top
you
the water nymphs, resting on it. can see a fish leap in almost any
From
a
nill-
part; for not
a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooui surface but it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the
whole lake. this
It is
simple fact
will out,
is
wonderful with what elaborateness advertised,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and from my
eircling undulations
diameter.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
this piscine
murder
distant perch I distinguish the
when You can even
they are half a dozen rods in detect a water-bug {Gyrmus)
ceaselessly progressing over the smooth surfiice a quarof a mile off; for they furrow the water slightly,
ter
making a conspicuous lines,
ripple
bounded by two diverging
but the skaters glide over
peiceptibly.
When the
surface
is
it
without rippling
it
considerably agitated
tnere are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparently, in calm days, they leave their havens and adventu-
rously glide forth from the shore by short impulses till .hey completely cover it. It is a soothing employment, on one of those fine days in the fall when all the wai'mth
!
WALDEN.
204 of the sun
on a stump on
fully appreciated, to sit
is
su(
h
a height as this, overlooking the pond, and study the
dimpling circles which are incessantly inscribed on
its
otherwise invisible surface amid the reflected skies and
Over
trees.
but
it is
suaged, as, circles
this great
expanse there
when a vase
of water
seek the shore and
can leap or an insect
fish
is
thus at once gently smoothed is
away and
as-
jarred, the trembling
Not a
smooth again.
all is fall
no disturbance
on the pond but
thus
it is
reported in circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as
were the constant welling up of pulsing of
its life,
fountain, the gentle
its
breast.
the heaving of
The
thrills
How
of joy and thrills of pain are undistinguishable. peaceful the
man
of
phenomena of the lake
shine as in the spring.
Again the works Ay, every leaf and !
twig and stone and cobweb sparkles
noon as when covered with dew
Every motion light
;
and
now
at mid-after-
a spring morning.
in
of an oar or an insect produces a flash of
an oar
if
it
its
how sweet
falls,
the echo
In such a day, in September or October, Walden
is
a
perfect forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to
my
eye as
if
pure, and at the lies
same time
Nothing so
fair,
so
so large, as a lake, perchance,
on the surface of the earth.
no fence. is
fewer or rarer.
Sky
water.
It
Nations come and go without defiling
needs it.
It
a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver
never wear
whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh a mirror in which aU impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun's hazy brush, this will
;
off,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the light dust-cloth,
breathed on
above
its
it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which
but sends
surface,
and be
its
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
retains
own
no breath that
ig
to float as clouds high
reflected in its
bosom
still.
THE PONDS.
A It
of water betrays the spirit that
field
continually receiving
is
above.
205
It
new
intermediate in
is
the air
and motion from
life
its
is in
nature between land
On
and sky.
land only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the breeze dashes across it by tue streaks or flakes of light It is
We
remarkable that we can look down on shall,
at length,
over
perhaps, look
down
and mark where a
its
surface.
thus on the surface of air still
subtler spirit sweeps
it.
The
and water-bugs
skaters
latter part of
October,
come; and then and day, there
in
when
finally
disappear in the
the severe frosts have
November,
usually, in a
calm
absolutely nothing to ripple the surface.
is
One November
afternoon, in the calm at the end of a
rain storm of several days' duration,
when the sky was completely overcast and the air was full of mist, I observed that the pond was remarkably smooth, so that
still
it
was
difficult to distinguish its
surface
;
though
it
no
longer reflected the bright tints of October, but the sombre 1
November
passed over
tions
colors of the surrounding hills.
it
Thoucrh
as gently as possible, the slight undula-
produced by
my
boat extended almost as far as I
could see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflec tions.
But, as I was looking over the surface, I saw
here and there at a distance a faint glimmer, as
if
some
skater insects which had escaped the frosts might be collected
there,
or,
perchance,
the surface, being so
Emooth, betrayed where a spring welled up from the bottom.
Paddling gently
surprised to find
one of these places, I was myself surrounded by myriads of small to
perch, about five inches long, of a rich bronze color ia the green water, sporting there and constantly rising
to
WALUEN.
206
the suiface and dimpling
on
it,
sometimes leaving bubbles
In such transparent and seemingly bottomless
it.
water, reflecting
the clouds, I
seemed
be floating
to
through the air as in a balloon, and their swimming impressed
me
as a kind of flight or hovering, as if they
were a compact level
flock of birds passing just
on the right or
left,
their fins,
lik'>
beneath
my
sails, set
all
There were many such schools
around them.
in the
pond, apparently improving the short season before winter
would draw an icy shutter over their broad sky-
light, if
sometimes giving
to the surface
a slight breeze struck
When
I
it,
an appearance as
or a few rain-drops
fell there.
approached carelessly and alarmed them, they
made a sudden
plash and rippling with their
tails,
as if
one had struck the water with a brushy bough, and stantly took refuge in the depths. rose, the mist increased,
At
in-
length the wind
and the waves began
to run,
and the perch leaped much higher than before, half out of water, a hundred black points, three inches long, at
once above the surface.
December, one year,
and thinking
it
I
Even
as late as the fifth of
saw some dimples on the
surface,
was going to rain hard immediately, the
made haste to take my place at and row homeward already the rain seemed
air being full of mist, I
the oars
;
rapidly increasing, though I
felt
none on
I anticipated a thorough soaking.
my
cheek, and
But suddenly the
dimples ceased, for they were produced by the perch,
which the noise of
my
oars had scared into the depths,
and I saw their schools dimly disappearing a dry afternoon after
An
old
man who that in
so I spent
to frequent this pond nearly was dark with surrounding forthose days he sometimes saw it all
used
Bixty years ago, Adien ests. tell& rae
;
all.
it
THE PONDS.
207
with ducks and other water fowl, and that there
ftlive
were many eagles about it. He came here a-fishir-g, and used an old I02: canoe which he found on the shore. It was made of two white-pine logs dug out and pinned
and was cut
together,
off
square at the ends.
It
was
very clumsy, but lasted a great many years before
it
became water-logged and f)erhaps sank to the bottom. He did not know whose it was it belonged to the j)ond. ;
He
used to
make
a cable for his anchor of strips of hick
An
cry bark tied together.
old
man, a
f)otter,
who
lived
by the pond before the Revolution, told him once that there was an iron chest at the bottom, and that he had Sometimes it would come floating up to the Been it. shore into
;
but when you went toward
deep water and disappear.
of the old log canoe, which took
I
it, it
would go back
was pleased
tlie
to
hear
place of an Indian
one of the same material but more graceful construction,
which perchance had then, as
it
were,
fell
flrst
been a tree on the bank, and
into the water, to float there for a
generation, the most proper vessel for the lake.
I re-
member that when I first looked into these depths there were many large trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom, which had either been blown over formerly, or left on the ice at the last cutting,
cheaper
;
When
but I
now they have mostly
first
when wood was
disappeared.
paddled a boat on Walden,
pletely surrounded
by thick and
woods, and in some of
its
lofty
it
was com-
pine and oak
coves grape vines had run
over the trees next the water and formed bowers under
which a boat could
pass.
The
hills
which form
its
shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so hidi, that, as a-ou looked
down from
the west end,
it
had \he appearance of an amphitheatre for some kind
;
WALDEN.
208
willed,
on
having paddled
my
many an
I have spent
of sylvan spectacle.
I was younger, floating over
my
back across the
hour,
when
surface as the zephyr
its
boat to the middle, and lying
a
seats, in
summer forenoon
was aroused by the boat touchmy fates had impelled me to days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have 1 dreaming awake,
until I
ing the sand, and 1 arose to see what shore ;
stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued
was
money, in sunthem lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk. But since I left those shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a year there will be no more
part of the day
;
for I
ny hours and summer
rambling through the vistas
may
rich, if not in
days, and spent
aisles of the
wood, with occasional
My
through which you see the water.
be excused
if
she
you expect the birds
silent henceforth.
is
to sing
when
Muse
How
can
their groves are cut
down ?
Now the
trunks of trees on the bottom, and the old
log canoe, and the dark surrounding woods, are gone,
and the
villagers,
who
scarcely
know where
it
lies, in-
stead of going to the pond to bathe or drink, are thinking to bring
Ganges
its
water, which should be as sacred as the
at least, to the village in
dishes with
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to
a pipe, to wash their
earn their "Walden by the turning of a
cock or drawing of a plug
whose ear-rending neigh
!
is
That
devilish Iron Horse,
heard throughout the town,
has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he is
that has
browsed
off all the
it
woods on Walden shore
that Trojan horse, with a thousand
^oduced by mercenary Greeks
!
men in Where
his belly, in is
the conn
THE PONDS.
209
champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet him Deep Gut and thrust an avenging lance between
try's
at the
^he ribs of the bloated pest
Nevertheless, of
Many men
rity.
best,
and best preserves
have been likened
Though
serve that h^nor.
bare
the characters I have known,
all
perhaps Walden wears
?
to
it,
its
pu-
but few de-
the woodchoppers have laid
shore and then that, and the Irish have
first this
by
built then- sties
and the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itsolf unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyec
fell
q'liied js
on
the change
all
;
it,
in
is
me.
one permanent wrinkle after
perennially young, and I
may
all its ripples.
it
me
It struck
It
stand and see a swallow
dip apparently to pick an insect from yoi-e.
It has not ac-
again to-night, as
its
if
surface as of
I had not seen
almost daily for more than twenty years,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Why, here
Walden, the same woodland lake that I discovered so many years ago where a forest was cut down last winis
;
ter another
ever
;
springing up by
is
the same thought
is
its
shore as lustily as
welling up to
its
surface that
was then it is the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its Maker, ay, and it may be to me. It is the work of a brave man surely, in w^hom there was no ;
guile
and it
!
He
clarified
rounded
this
water with
in his thought,
it
to Concord.
I see
Bam< reflection
;
by
its
and
his hand,
in his will
face that
it is
a line;
come nearer to God and Heavci live to Walden even.
I cannot
Than
am
I
its
stony shore,
A.nd the breeze that passes o'er *
u
by the
is it
no dream of mine,
To ornament
I
bequeathed
visited
and I can almost say, Walden,
It is
deepened
you
?
WALDEN.
210
In the hollow of my hand Are its water and its sand,
And
its
deepest resort
Lies high in
The
my
thought.
cars never pause to look at
it
;
yet I fancy
tl.at
the engineers and firemen and brakemen, and those pas-
who have a season ticket and see it men for the sight. The engineer does
sengers
often, are
better
not forget
at night, or his nature does not, that
vision of serenity
and purity once
day.
Though seen but
once,
street
and the engine's
soot.
he has beheld
helps to
it
One
this
at least during the
wash out
State-
proposes that
be
it
called " God's Drop."
I have said that let,
but
visible inlet
nor out-
on the one hand distantly and indirectly re-
it is
lated to
Walden has no
Pond, which
Flints'
more
is
by a
elevated,
chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on the
other directly and
which
is
which
in
flowed,
and by a
be made
by a
lower,
some other little
period
geological digging,
which
to flow thither again.
served and austere, it
manifestly to Concord River,
similar chain of ponds through
-like
God
it
may have
forbid,
it
can
If by hving thus re-
a hermit in the woods, so long,
has acquired such wonderful purity,
who would
not
regret that the comparatively impure waters of Flints
Pond to
should be mingled with
waste
its
Flints', or
ani
ii
much
it,
or itself should ever gc
sweetness in the ocean
Sandy Pond,
land sea,
lies
wave ?
in Lincoln, our greatest lake
about a mile east of Walden.
larger, being said to contain
ninety-seven acres, and
is
more
It is
one hundred and
fertile in fish
;
but
it
is
THE PONDS.
211
comparatively shallow, and not remarkably pure. A walk through the woods thither was often my recreation. It was worth the while, if only to feel the wind blow on youi cheek freely, and see the waves run, and remember the life of mariners. 1 went a-chestnutting there in
on windy days, when the nuts were dropping into the water and were washed to my feet; and one the
fall,
day, as I crept along
blowing
my
its
sedgy shore, the fresh spra}'
came upon the mouldering wreck of a boat, the sides gone, and hardly more than the im* pression of its flat bottom left amid the rushes yet its model was sharply defined, as if it were a large decayed in
face, I
;
pad, with
veins.
its
It
was
as impressive a
wreck as
one could imagine on the sea-shore, and had as good a moral.
It
is
by
this
time mere vegetable mould and
undistinguishable pond shore, through which rushes and
have pushed up.
flags
I used to admire the ripple
marks on the sandy bottom, pond,
made
at the north
end of
the pressure of the water, and the rushes which
Indian
file,
in
waving
lines,
marks, rank behind rank, as them. ties,
this
firm and hard to the feet of the wader
corresponding to
if
by
grew
in
these
the waves had planted
TJiere also I have found, in considerable quanti-
curious balls, composed apparently of fine grass or
roots, of pipe wort perhaps,
inches
diameter,
in
from half an inch
and perfectly
spherical.
to four
These
wash back and forth in shallow water on a sandy bottom, and are sometimes cast on the shore. They are eitlier solid graÂŤs,
At
first
tion of
or have a
little
sand in the middle.
you would say that they were formed by the tilt
waves, like a pebble
made of equally ^hey are
;
ac-
yet the smallest are
coarse materials, half an inch long, and
produced only at one season
of the year
WALDEN.
212
Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much coa« struct as wear down a material which has already ac
They preserve
quired consistency.
dry
an
for
form wlien
their
indefinite period.
Pond!
Such is the poverty of our nomenclaWhat right had the unclean and stupid farmer, ture. whose farm abutted on this sky water, whose shores he Flints*
has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his skin-flint,
who loved
dollar, or
a bright
who
to
Some
it ?
which he could see
cent, in
his
own
regarded even the wild ducks which
brazen face
;
settled in
as trespassers
it
name
better the reflecting surface of a
;
his fingers
grown
into crook-
ed and horny talons from the long habit of grasping har-
—
named for me. I go not there to see him nor to hear of him who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved it, who never protected it, who never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked God that he had made it. Rather let it be named from the fishes that swim in it, the wild fowl or
py-like
;
so
it is
not
;
quadrupeds which frequent
it,
the wild flowers which
grow by its shores, or some wild man or child the thread not from of whose history is interwoven with its own him who could show no title to it but the deed which a him like-minded neighbor or legislature gave him, who thought only of its money value whose presence ;
—
;
perchance cursed
around within
it,
it
;
all
the shore
and would
who
fain
;
who exhausted
the land
have exhausted the waters
regretted only that
it
was not English hay
redeem or cranberry meadow, — there was nothing — and would have drained and to
sold
forsooth, in his eyes, it
for the
and
it
mud
at its bottom.
It did not turn his mill,
him to behold it. I respect farm where every thing has its pri:e,
was no privilege
not his labors, his
it,
to
;
THE PONDS
21.^
who would carry hia he could get any thing for him ; who
wlio w^ould carry the landscape,
God,
to market, if
goes to market for his god as it is ; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose mead-
ows no
flowers,
whose
no
trees
but dollars
fruits,
who
;
loves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for
him
till
they are turned to dollars.
the poverty that enjoys true wealth. spectable and interesting to poor,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; poor
farmers.
me
Farmers are re
in proportion as
A model farm
me
Give
!
they are
where the house
stands like a fungus in a muck-heap, chambers for men,
and swine, cleansed and uncleansed,
horses, oxen,
contiguous to one another grease-spot, redolent of
Stocked with
!
men
!
all
A great
manures and buttermilk
Un-
!
der a high state of cultivation, being manured with the hearts and brains of potatoes
m
No, no to
;
men
the church-yard if
As
!
if
you were
Such
!
is
to raise
your
a model farm.
the fairest features of the landscape are
be named after men,
worthiest
men
alone.
let them be the noblest and Let our lakes receive as true
names
at least as the Icarian Sea, where "stiU the ehore " a " brave attempt resounds."
Goose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to FHnts' Fair-Haven, an expansion of Concord River, said to contain some seventy acres,
is
a mile south-west
;
and
White Pond, of about forty acres, is a mile and a half bejond Fair-Haven. This is my lake country. These, with Concord River, are my water privileges and night ;
and day, year
in
year
out,
they grind such grist as I
carry to them.
Since the woodcutters, and the railroad, and I myseli
WALDEN.
214 ^
have profaned Walden, perhaps the most if
not the most beautiful, of
the woods,
White Pond
is
;
attractive,
gem
our lakes, the
all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a poor name from
its
of
com-
monness, whether derived from the remarkable puritj of
waters or the color of
its
other respects, however,
much
its
In these as
sands.
in
a lesser twin of Walden.
it is
you would say they must be connected under ground. It has the same stony As at Walshore, and its waters are of the same hue.
Thej are so
alike that
down through
den, in sultry dog-day weather, looking
some of
the woods on
bays which are not so deep
its
but that the reflection from the bottom tinges them,
its
waters are of a misty bluish-green or glaucous color.
Many by
years since I used to go there to collect the sand
cart-loads, to
tinued to visit
poses to call
it
it
make sand-paper with, and I have ever since. One who frequents it
Virid Lake.
Perhaps
it
conpro-
might be called
Yellow-Pine Lake, from the following circumstance.
About
fifteen
years ago you could see the top of a pitch-
pine, of the kind called yellow-pine hereabouts,
though
not a distinct species, projecting above the surface
it
is
in
deep water,
many
rods from the shore.
It
was even
supposed by some that the pond had sunk, and
this v/as
one of the primitive forest that formerly stood there. lind that ical
even so long ago as 1792, in a " Topograph-
D ascription
of the
Town
of Concord,"
citizens, in the Collections of the
torical
seen,
appears as
when
if it
;
:
its
Walden
" In the middle of the latter
the water
grew
is
very low, a tree which
in the place
although the roots are
water
by one of
Massachusetts His-
Society, the author, after speaking of
and White Ponds, adds
may be
I
fifty feet
the top of this tree
is
where
it
now
stands,
below the surface of the broken
off,
and
at that
THE PONDS.
215
place measui-es fourteen inches in diameter."
In the
man who lives nearest pond in Sudbury, who told me that it was he who out this tree ten or fifteen years before. As near
spring of '49 I talked with the the got
as he could
remember, it stood twelve or fifteen rods from the shore, where the water was thirty or forty feet
was
deep.
It
out ice
m
aud he had been getting the forenoon, and had resolved that in the in the winter,
afternoon, with the aid of his neighbors, he would take
He sawed
out the old yellow-pine.
toward the shore, and hauled
on
to the ice with
his work,
oxen
;
it
a channel in the ice
over and along and out
but, before
he was surprised
he had gone far in
to find that
it
was wrong end
upward, with the stumps of the branches pointing down,
and the small end firmly fastened
sandy bottom.
in the
was about a foot in diameter at the big end, and he had expected to get a good saw-log, but it was so rotten He had some of it as to be fit only for fuel, if for that. There were marks of an axe and of in his shed then. It
woodpeckers on the
but.
He
thought that
been a dead tree on the shore, but was
it
might have
finally
blown
over into the pond, and after the top had become waterlogged, while the but-end was drifted out
still
and sunk wrong end up.
years old, could not remember
Several pretty large logs bottom, where, owing
may
to the
when
stiU
dry and
His it
light,
had
father, eighty
was not
there.
be seen lying on the
undulation of the surface,
they look like huge water snakes in motion.
This pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, there
white flag,
is little lily,
in
it
to
tempt a fisherman.
for
Instead of the
which requires mud, or the common sweet
the blue flag {Iris versicolor) grows thinly in the
pure water, rising from the stony bottom
all
around the
WALDEN.
216 shore,
where
it
is
by humming
visited
birds in June,
and the color both of its bluish blades and its flowers, and especially their reflections, are in singular harmony with the glaucous water. "White
Pond and Walden
surface of the earth,
are great crystals on the
Lakes of Light.
If they were per-
manently congealed, and small enough
to
be clutched,
they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors
;
but
being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our suc-
we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a market value they contain no muck. How much more cessors forever,
;
beautiful than our, hves,
how much more
than our characters, are they ness of them.
How much
transparent
We never learned mean-
!
fairer than the pool before
ducks swim
the farmer's door, in which
liis
the clean wild ducks come.
Nature has no human
habitant
who
appreciates her.
!
Hither
The birds with harmony with the
in-
their
plumage and their notes are in flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature ? She flourishes moot alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of Leaven I 5re
disgrace earth.
BAKER FARM.
Sometimes I rambled iemples, or
like
fleets
to pine groves, standing like
at
sea, full-rigged,
with
wavy
boughs, and rippling with light, so soft and green and
shady that the Druids would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them ; or to the cedar wood beyond Flints*
Pond, where the spiring higher
trees,
covered with hoary blue berries,
and higher, are
fit
to stand before Val-
and the creeping juniper covers the ground with
halla,
wreaths full of fruit ; or to swamps where the usnea lichen
hangs in festoons from the white-spruce stools,
round
md more flies
tables of the
swamp
trees,
and toad-
gods, cover the ground,
hke butterwhere the swamp-pink
beautiful fungi adorn the stumps,
or shells,
vegetable winkles
;
and dogwood grow, the red alder-berry glows like eyes of imps, the waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest and the wild-holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their beauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild forbidden Instead of calling on fruit;'., too fair for mortal taste. woods
some
in its folds,
scholar, I paid
many a
visit to particular trees,
of
kinds which are rare in this neighborhood, standing fai (217)
WALDEN.
218
away in the middle of some pasture, or in the dejiths of a wood or swamp, or on a hill-top such as the blackbirch, of which we have some handsome specimens two ;
feet in diameter
its
;
loose golden vest,
cousin the yellow- birch, with
perfumed
like the first
;
it3
the beech,
which has so neat a bole and beautifully lichen-painted, perfect in all
details,
of which, excepting scattered
know but one
specimens, I left in
itÂŤÂť
small grove of sizable trees
the township, supposed
by some
to
have been
planted by the pigeons that were once baited with beech nuts near by
;
it
is
worth the while
to see the silver
when you split this wood the bass the hornbeam; ihQceltis occidentalis, or false elm, of which grain sparkle
we have
;
but one well-grown
a shingle
tree,
or a
more
;
some
taller
;
mast of a pine,
perfect hemlock than usual,
standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods
many
Once
it
summer and
and
These were the shrines
others I could mention.
I visited both
;
winter.
chanced that I stood in the very abutment of
a rainbow's arch, which
filled
the lower stratum of the
atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around, and
dazzhng
me
as if I looked through colored crystal.
was a lake of rainbow I lived like a dolphin.
my
have tinged
light, in
If
it
It
which, for a short while,
had
employments and
lasted longer life.
As
it
might
I walked on
the raiboad causeway, I used to wonder at the halo of light
around
one of the
my
elect.
shadow, and would fain fancy myself
One who
visited
me
declared that the
shadows of some Irishmen before him had no halo it was only natives that were so disBenvenuto Cellini tells us in his memoirs,
about them, that tinguished. that, after
had during
a certain terrible dream or vision which
lit)
his confinement in the castle of S*Âť Angeles
BAKER ""f ARM.
219
A resplendent light appeared over the shadow of hia head at morning and evening, whether he was in Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous
when the grass was moist with dew. This was probably the same phenomenon to which I have referred, Tvhich
especially observed.in the morning, but also at other times, and even by moonlight. Though a conis
stant one,
it is
not
commonly
an excitable imagination enough for superstition.
showed
it
tinguished
to
very few.
who
noticed, and, in the case of
like CeUini's,
Beside, he
it
would be basis
tells
us that he
But are they not indeed
dis-
are conscious that they are regarded
ataU?
I
set
out one
afternoon
Haven, through the woods,
My
vegetables.
way
to
to
go a-fishing to Fair-
eke out
my scanty fare
led through Pleasant
of
Meadow, an
adjunct of the Baker Farm, that retreat of which a poet has since sung, beginning,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" Thy entry is a pleasant field, Which some mossy fruit trees yield Partly to a ruddy brook,
By
gliding
And
musquash undertook,
mercurial trout,
Darting about."
I thought
of living there before I went to Walden.
I "hooked" the apples, leaped the brook, and scared the
musquash and the trout. It was one of those afternoons which ÂŤ;eem indefinitely long before one, in which
many life,
events
though
it
may
happen, a large portion of our natural
was already half spent when I started.
By
220 the
Waldt:n.
way
there
to stand half
my
came up a shower, which compelled m%
ac hour under a pine, piling boughs over
my handkerchief for
head, and wearing
when
at length I
had made one
a shed
;
and
cast over the pickerel-
my middle in water, I found myself
weed, standing up to
suddenly in the shadow of a cloud, and the thunder
began
to
rumble with such emphasis that I could do
no more than thought
I,
to
listen
The gods must be
it.
proud,
with such forked flashes to rout a poor un-
armed fisherman.
So
I
made
haste for shelter to the
nearest hut, which stood half a mile from any road, but 80
much
the nearer to the pond, and
uninhabited
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
"
had long been
And here
a poet builded, In the completed years, For behold a trivial cabin
That
to destruction steers."
So the Muse fables. But therein, as I found, dwelt now John Field, an Irishman, and his wife, and several children, from the broad-faced boy who assisted his father at his work, and now came running by his side from the bog like,
to escape the rain, to the wrinkled, sibyl-
cone-headed infant that sat upon
father's
its
knee
as in the palaces of nobles, and looked out from
home
in the midst of
the stranger, with the privilege of infancy, not
but
it
was the
its
wet and hunger inquisitively upon a noble
last of
line,
knowing
and the hope and cy-
nosure of the world, instead of John Field's poor starveling brat.
There we
sat
together under that part of
the roof which leaked the least, while
ihundered without.
I
had
sat there
it
showered and
many
times of old
before the ship was built that floated this family to
BAKER FARM.
An
America. plainly to
;
many
that lofty s'lOve Btill
honest, hard-working, but shiftless
was John Field and
cook so
221
;
his wife, she too
man
was brave
successive dinners in the recesses or
with round greasy
fiice
and bare
thinking to improve her condition one day
the never absent
mop
breast^ ;
with
one hand, and yet no effects any where. The chickens, which had also taken shelter here from the rain, stalked about the room of
in
it ^'isible
like
members of the family, too humanized methought They stood and looked in my c-ye or
to roast well.
pecked
me
at
my
shoe significantly.
Meanwhile
my
host
how hard he worked " bogging " for a neighboring farmer, turning up a meadow with a spade told
his story,
ur bog hoe at the rate of ten dollars an acre and the use
manure for one year, and his little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his father's sido the while, not knowing how poor a bargain the latter had made. I tried to help him with my experience, telling him that he was one of my nearest neighbors, and that I too, who came a-fishing here, and looked like a loafer, was getting my living like himself; that I lived in a tight, light, and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his commonly amounts to and how, if he chose, he might in a month of the land with
;
or two build himself a palace of his
use
tea,
nor
coffee,
own
;
that I did not
nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat,
and so did not have to work to get them did not
me and
work hard,
but a trifle for coffee,
and
have
I did not
my
butter,
food
;
;
to eat hard,
again, as I
and
it
cost
but as he began with tea,
and milk, and
beef,
he had
to
them, and when he had worked
work hard to pay for hard he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of hia and so it was as broad as it was long, indeed gystem,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
WALDEN.
222 it
was broader than
and wasted rated
it
it
was
as a gain in
was discontented and yet he had
long, for he
his life into the bargain
coming
;
America, that here you
to
could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day.
only true America
is
mode
of
life
do without these, and where the to
where you are
that country
erty to pursue such a
But the
as
may
at lib-
enable you to
state does not
endeavor
compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other
superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result
from the use of such
him
a wild
state, if that
to study history to find out
But
alas
!
meadows on the earth were
what
A man is
will not
best for his
the culture of an Irishman
prise to be undertaken with a sort of moral told him, that as
be one.
to
were the consequence of men's
beginning to redeem themselves.
ture.
I purposely talked to
were a philosopher, or desired
as if he
I should be glad if all the left in
For
things.
is
need
own
cul-
an enter-
bog hoe.
I
he worked so hard at bogging, he re-
quired thick boots and stout clothing, which yet were
soon soiled and worn out, but I wore light shoes and thin clothing,
which cost not half so much, though he
might think that I was dressed
like
a gentleman, (which,
however, was not the case,) and in an hour or two, without labor, but as a recreation, I could, as
many
fish
as I should
enough money
to support
want
me
for
if
two days, or earn
a week.
family would live simply, they might
summer
I wished, catch
If he and Ina all
go a-huckle-
John heaved a sigh at this, and his wife stared with arms a-kimbo, and both appeared to be wondering if they had
berrying in the
capital tic
enough
enough
to
for their
amusement.
begin such a course with, or aritkmo-
to carry
it
through.
It
was
sailing
by dead
reckoning to them, and they saw not clearly hoif to
BAKER FARM, make life
tlieir
port so
und
nail,
not having skill to split
umns with any
still
take
But they living, John
thistle.
disadvantage,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and faihng
metic,
Do you
it
it
col-
in de-
roughly, as one should
it
an overwhelming
fight at
Field, alas! without arith-
so.
fish ? "
ever
I asked.
mess now and then when I
am
" What's your bait
catch."
massive
its
wedge, and rout
fine entering
;-- thinking to deal with
handle a
"
therefore I suppose they
bravely, after their fashion, face to face, giving
tooth
tail
;
223
?
"
lying
"I
"
yes, I catch a
by
good perch 1
;
catch shiners with
fish-worms, and bait the perch with them."
"
You'd
better go now, John," said his wife with glistening and
hopeful face
;
but John demurred.
The shower was now
over,
and a rainbow above the
eastern woods promised a fair evening
When
departure.
hoping
to get
my
so I took
;
I had got without I asked for a dish,
my
a sight of the well bottom, to complete
survey of the premises
but there, alas
;
and quicksands, and rope broken
are shallows
!
withal,
and bucket
ir-
Meanwhile the right culinary vessel wa<? selected, water was seemingly distilled, and after consultation and long delay passed out to the thirsty one,â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not Such gruel susyet suffered to cool, not yet to settle. my eyes, and extains life here, I thought so, shutting recoverable.
;
cluding the motes by a skilfully du-ected under-current,
1 drank to genuine hospitality the heartiest draught I I
could.
am
not squeamish in such cases
when man-
ners are concerned.
As
I
was leaving the Irishman's roof
after the rain,
my
haste to catch
bending pickerel,
my
steps again to the pond,
wading
in
bog-holes, in forlorn
retired
meadows,
and savage
places,
in sloughs
appeared
and
for
an
!
WALDEN.
224 instant trivial to college
;
me who had
but as I ran
down
been sent to school and
the
hill
toward the redden-
my shoulder, and some my ear through the cleansed quarter, my Good Genius
ing west, with the rainbow over faint tinkling sounds air,
borne to
from I know not what
—
seemed to say, Go fish and hunt far and wide day farther and wider, and rest thee by many by day, brooks and hearth-sides without misorivinnr. Remember
—
—
Rise free from
thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
care before the dawn, and seek adventures.
noon
find thee
by other
lakes,
thee every where at >\ome.
There are no larger
than these, no worthier games than
Grow
Let the
and the night overtake
may
wild according to thy nature, like these sedges
and brakes, which
will
the thunder rumble
crops ? that
not
is
;
its
never become English hay.
what
if it
flee to carts
Take
shelter un-
and sheds.
not to get a Hving be thy trade, but thy sport. the land, but faith
own
men
not.
Through want of
Let
Enjoy
enterprise
are where they are, buying and selling,
and spending their
O
it
Let
threaten ruin to farmers
errand to thee.
der the cloud, while they
and
fields
here be played.
lives like serfs.
Baker Farm **
Landscape where the richest element * •
Is a little sunshine innocent." **
No one runs to revel On thy rail-fenced lea." *
*•
Debate with no
man
hast thou,
With questions art never perplexcid, As tame at the first sight as now, In thy plain russet gabardine dressed.' **
Come ye who love, And ye who hate.
•
•
BAKER FARM.
225
Children of the Holy Dove,
Faux
Aiivl (Juj
cf
Men come
ktiM^
liie
And hang conspiracies From the tough rafters
of the trees
'* !
tamely home at night only from the next
field
or street, where their household echoes haunt, and
their
life
again
pines because
their
;
it
breathes
We
ther than their daily steps.
from
far,
it3
cvvn breath over
shadows morning and evening reach
from adventures, and
should come
perils,
far-
home
and discoveries
every day, with new experience and character. Before I had reached the pond some fresh impulse
had brought out John Field, with altered mind, go " bogging " ere
this
turbed only a couple of string,
and he said
it
Field!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;I
improve by country
he, poor
letting
man,
dis-
while I was catching a fair
his luck
changed
;
but when
we changed
seats too.
Poor John
trust he does not read this, unless he will it,
mode
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; thinking It is
his horizon all his
by some derivative old
to live
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to catch
good bait sometimes,
I allow.
in this primitive
perch with shiners.
With
fins
was
seats in the boat luck
But
sunset.
new
country,
own, yet he a poor man, born
be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor
Adam's grandmother and
to his
]?oggy ways, not to rise in this
world, he nor his posterity,
till
their
wading webbed
bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels.
15
life,
HIGHER LAWS.
As of
1
fisli,
my
came home through the woods with trailing
my
pole,
it
being
now
string
quite dark, I
caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across path,
and
felt
my
a strange thrill of savage delight, and was
strongly tempted to seize and devour
him raw
;
not that
I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.
Once or
twice, however, while I lived at
the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-
starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking
some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. myself, and
still find,
an
named,
spiritual
life,
it is
instinct
as do
I found in
toward a higher,
or, aa
most men, and another
toward a primitive rank and savage one, and 1 reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
The wildness and adventure that are in fishing still recommended it to me. I like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do. Pernaps 1 have owed to this employment and to hunting, vrhan quite young,
my closest
acquaintance with Nature. f226)
flIGHER LAWS.
They
227
and detain us in scenery with we should have little ac-
oarly introduce us to
â&#x20AC;˘which otherwise, at that age,
quaintance.
Fishermen,
hunters,
woodchoppers, and
others, spending their lives in the fields
and woods,
in ?
peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in
a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to is
them.
The
traveller
on the prairie
naturally a hunter, on the head waters of the Mis-
souri
and Columbia a trapper, and
Mary
a fisherman.
He who
things at second-hand and
is
at the Falls of St.
only a traveller learns
by the
halves,
and
is
poor
We are most interested when science what those men already know practically or
authority.
re-
ports
in-
stinctively, for that alone is
of
human experience. They mistake who
a true humanity, or account
assert that the
Yankee has few
amusements, because he has not so many public holidays,
and men and boys do not play so many games as they do in England, for here the more primitive but solitary
amusements of hunting
fishing
given place to the former.
and the
like
Almost every
have not yet
New England
boy among my contemporaries shouldered a fowling piece between the ages of ten and fourteen and his hunting ;
were not limited like the preserves of an English nobleman, but were more boundless even than those of a savage. No wonder, then, that he did and
fishing grounds
not oftener stay to play on the common.
change ity,
is
But already a
taking place, owing, not to an increased human-
but to an increased scarcity of game, for perhaps the
nunter
is
the greatest friend of the animals hunted,
excepting the
Humane
Society.
xiot
228
"WALDEiT.
Moreover, when at the pond, I wished sometimes
add
fish to
my
from the same kind of necessity that the
Whatever humanity
did.
was
factitious,
all
my
than
had long
I
felt diffe*'ep+ly
my
much
it
philosophy more
about fowling, and sold ray gun
Not
that I
am
others, but I did not perceive that affected.
less
my
hufeel*
I did not pity the fishes nor
As
This was habit.
the worms.
fishers
I speak of fishing only now, for I
before I went to the woods.
mane than
first
might conjure up against
and concerned
feelings.
ings were
tc
I have actually fished
fare for variety.
for fowling, during
my excuse was that was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think the last years that I carried a gun I
that there
is
a finer
It requires so
this.
of the birds, that,
way of studying ornithology than much closer attention to the habits
if for that
willing to omit the gun. jection
doubt these
Yet notwithstanding the ob-
on the score of humanity, I
if ;
reason only, I have been
am
compelled to
equally valuable sports are ever substituted for
my
and when some of
friends have asked
them it was make them
anxiously about their boys, whether they should hunt, I have answered, yes,
one of the best parts of hunters,
am
education,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
first,
if
possible,
at last, so that they shall not find
them
large enough for
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; hunters
let
remembering that
though sportsmen only at
mighty hunters ness,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
my
me
in this or
game
any vegetable wilder-
as well as fishers of
of the opinion of Chaucer's nun,
men.
Thus
far I
who
" yave not of the text a pulled hen
That
There
is
saith that hunters
hen not holy men."
a period in the history of the individual, as of
the,
race,
HIGHER LAWS.
22&
when the hunters are the
" best men," as the
We
Algonquins called them.
who has never
fired
a gun
cannot but pity the boy
he
;
is
no more humane,
while his education has been sadly neglected.
my on
answer with respect
tc those
this pursuit, trusting that
No humane
it.
youths
This was
who were bent
they would soon outgrow
being, past the thoughtless age of boy-
hood, will wantonly murder any creature, which holds
by the same tenure
life
its
extremity cries like a child.
that
my
The hare
that he does.
its
I
in
warn you, mothers,
sympathies do not always make the usual phil-
anthropic distinctions.
Such is oftenest the young man's introduction to the and the most original part of himself. He goes
forest,
thither at first as a hunter
has the seeds of a better his
and life
fisher, until at last, if
in
proper objects, as a poet or naturalist
leaves the
gun and
fish-pole
he
him, he distinguishes
behind.
may be, and The mass of
it
men
are still and always young in this respect. In some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far
from being the Good Shepherd.
I have been sur-
prised to consider that the only obvious employment,
except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the like business,
which ever for
to
my
knowledge detained
a whole half day any of
at
Walden Pond
my fellow-citizens,
whether
fathers or children of the town, with just one exception,
was fishing. Commonly they did not think that they were lucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a long string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond
all
the while.
They might go
there
a thousand times before the sediment of fishing would gink to the bottom
and leave their purpose pure ; but nn
WALDEN.
230
doubt such a clarifying process would be going on
The governor and
the while.
now they are and so they know
a-fishing,
;
but
even they expect lature regards
hooks
to
to
go
it, it is
to
too old
when they
and dignified
no more forever.
it
heaven at
last.
but they
;
know
to
go
Yet
If the legis-
chiefly to regulate the
be used there
renKjm
his council faintly
ber the pond, for they went a-fishing there
were boys
ail
number of
nothing about
the hook of hooks with which to angle for the pond itself,
impaling the legislature for a
civilized communities, the
Thus, even in
bait.
embryo man passes through
the hunter stage of development. I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish it
of
without falling a
little in
again and again.
my it
but always
to time,
BO are the
first
orders of creation
;
at present I
that if I
were
if I
me which
which revives
had not
am
fished.
There
is
is
I
unques-
am
less a
more humanity or even wisBut I see all.
no fisherman at
to live in
a wilderness I should again be
tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest. side, there
I feel
belongs to the lower
yet with every year I
fisherman, though without ;
it,
many
It is a faint intimation, yet
streaks of morning.
tionably this instinct in
I have tried
and, like
when I have done
would have been better
think that I do not mistake.
dom
it,
fellows, a certain instinct for
from time that
self-respect.
I have skill at
Be-
something essentially unclean about this
and
where housework commences, and whence the endeavor, which costs so much, to wear a tidy and respectable appearance each day, to keep the house sweet and free from all ill odors and sights. Having been my own butcher and scullion diet
and
all flesh,
I
began
to see
and cook, as well as the gentleman for
whom
the dishea
HIGHLH LAWS.
231
irere served up, I
can speak from an unusually complc.te
The
practical objection to animal food in
experience.
my
case was
its
uncleanness
and, besides, Avhen I bad
;
caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten
Beemed not
me
have fed
to
essentially.
It
my
cant and unnecessary, and cost more than
A
little
insignifi-
came
it
to.
bread or a few potatoes would have done as
and
well, with less trouble
filth.
contemporaries, I had rarely for
mal
they
fish,
was
food, or tea, or coffee,
&c.
;
Like many of
many
not so
my
years used ani-
much because
of
any ill effects which I had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable to my imagination. The repugnance to animal food
not the effect of experience, but
is
appeared more beautiful
stinct.
It
hard in
many
respects
went far enough that every
;
my
an
hi
low and fare
and though I never did
to please
man who
to live
is
imagination.
I
so,
I believe
has ever been earnest to preserve
his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition
has
been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food,
and from much food of any kind. It is a significant fact, stated by entomologists, I find it in Kirby and Spence, that " some insects in their perfect state, though furnished with organs of feeding,
and they lay
it
down
make no use
of them
" ;
as " a general rule, that almost all
much less than in that of larvae. when transformed into a butgluttonous maggot when become
insects in this state eat
The
voracious caterpillar
terfly,"
.
.
"and
the
a fly," content themselves with a drop or two of honey The abdomen under the or some other sweet liquid.
wings of the butterfly still represents th3 larva. This The is the tid-bit which tempts his insectivorous fate. nro thers and state larva the ; gross f :ieder is a man in
WALDEN.
232 whole nations
without fancy or
in that condition, nations
imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them. It is
hard
to
provide and cook so simple and clean a
diet as will not offend the imagination
but
;
this, I think,
be fed when we feed the body they should both down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us is
to
;
sit
ashamed of our
But put an extra condiment
pursuits.
and
by
appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest
will poison you.
it
rich cookery.
It is not
Most men would
preparing with their
own hands
we
are not civilized, and,
not true
change
men and women. to
is
be made.
if
shame
feel
to live
caught
if
precisely such a dinner,
whether of animal or vegetable prepared for them by others.
your dish,
into
worth the while
food, as
Yet
till
is
every day otherwise
this is
gentlemen and
ladies, are
This certainly suggests what
It
may be
why
vain to ask
imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and
am
satisfied that
it is
not.
Is
it
not a reproach
is
a carniverous animal
in
a great measure, by preying on other animals
is
a miserable way,
—
any one who
rabbits, or slaughtering lambs,
may
will
learn,
be regarded as a benefactor of his race
man
to confine himself to
some
diet.
:io
Whatever
doubt that
•Hce, in its
it is
other
;
live,
but this
to snaring
— and he
who
will
shall teach
a more innocent and whole-
my own
practice
may
be, I
have
a part of the destiny of the human
gradual improvement, to leave off eating an-
imals, as surely as the savage tribes t^ach
go
I
man
tliat
True, he can and does
?
as
fat.
the
when they came
have
in contact
left off
eating
with the more civ-
ilized.
£f
one
listens to the faintest
but constant sug-gestion?
HIGHER LAWS.
233
his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his fif
;
road
The
lies.
healthy
man
faintest assured objection
feels will at length prevail
which one over the argu-
ments and customs of mankind. his genius
till
it
misled him.
No man ever followed Though the result were
bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the
consequences were to be regretted, for these were a in conformity, to higher principles.
night are such that you greet them with joy, and emits a fragrance Hke flowers and sweet-scented is
more
elastic,
your success.
more
starry,
All nature
is
life
If the day and the
more immortal,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
life
herbs,
that
is
your congratulation, and
you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them.
They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never
communicated by man
my
daily
life is
to
man.
The
true harvest of
somewhat as intangible and indescribamorning or evening. It is a httle
ble as the tints of star-dust caught, a
segment of the rainbow which
I
have
clutched.
my part, I was never unusually squeamish ; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if Yet, for
it
were necessary.
long, for the
I
am
same reason
glad to have arunk water so that I prefer
),ne natural sky an opium-eater's heaven. I would lam keep sober always ; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness.
to
I believe that water
wine
is
is
the only drink for a wise
not so noble a liquor
;
man
;
and think of dashing the
hopes of a morning with a cup of
warm
coffee, or
of an
;
WALDEN.
234
evening with a dish of tea
I
am
tempted by them
Ah, how low I
!
fall
Even music may be
!
when
intoxicat-
Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes ? I have found it to be the most ing.
serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that
they comnelled to
tell
me
to eat
and drink coarsely
the truth, I find myself at present
no blessing
am
was, but, I
much
is
it
;
less
I carry less religion to the
particular in these respects. table, ask
But
also.
somewhat
not because I
am
wiser than I
obliged to confess, because, however
be regretted, with years I have grown
to
more coarse and
Perhaps these questions
indifferent.
are entertained only in youth, as most believe of poetry.
My practice is theless I
am
"
far
nowhere,"
is
Never-
here.
from regarding myself as one of those
privileged ones to that " he
my opinion
who has
whom
the
Ved
refers
when
it
says,
true faith in the Omnipresent Su-
preme Being may eat all that exists," that is, is not bound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it and even in their case it is to be observed, as a Hindoo commentator has remarked, that the Vedant limits this privilege to
Who isfaction
''
the time of distress."
has not sometimes derived an inexpressible
from
his food in
I have been thrilled to think that I
ception to the
commonly
sat-
which appetite had no share
r
owed a mental per-
gross sense of taste, that I have
been inspired through the palate, that some berries which I
had eaten on a
hill-side
had fed
my
genius.
"
The
soul not being mistress of herself," says Thseng-tseu, " one lvX)ks, df es
and one does not see
;
one
listens,
not bear: one eats, and one does not
and one
know
the
HIGHER LAWS.
He who
savor of fo)d."
distinguishes the true savor of
can never be a glutton
his food
A
be otherwise.
235
;
may
puritan
he who does not cannot go
brown-bread
to his
crust with as gross an appetite as ever an aldeiinAn to
Not
his turtle.
defileth
which entereth
that food
into the
a man, but the appetite with which
It is neither the quality
tion to sensual savors
mouth
is
eaten.
nor the quantity, but the devo-
when
;
it
that Avhich
is
eaten
is
not
a viand to sustain our animal, or inspire our spiritual life,
but food for the worms that possess us.
If the hunt-
er has a taste for mud-turtles, muskrats, and other such
savage
made
tid-bits,
the fine lady indulges a taste for jelly
of a calf's foot, or for sardines from over the sea,
He
and they are even. can live
this
Our whole an is
goes to the mill-pond, she to her
The wonder
preserve-pot.
slimy beastly
how
they,
how you and
between virtue and
the only investment that never
There
on
this
which
thrills
us.
is
In the music it
The harp
travelling patterer for the Universe's Insurance
pany, recommending
the assessment that
all
last
grows
indifferent,
it.
we
indifferent, the
We
is
Though
the
Com
goodness
the youth at
laws of the universe are not
cannot touch a string or
go a long
is
way
off,
is
it
who does not hear move a stop but the
unfortunate
charming moral transfixes
Wc
pay.
the
but are forever on the side of the most sen-
surely there, and he
satire
and our
little
is is
Listen to every zephyr for some reproof, for
sitive. is
laws,
its
never
Goodness
vice.
fails.
of the harp which trembles round the world insisting
I,
eating and drinking.
life,
startlingly moral.
life is
instant's truce
is
us.
Many
an irksome
noise,
heard as music, a proud sweet
on the meanness of our
lives.
are conscious of an animal in us, which awakenj
;
23G
"WALDEN.
.
in projortion as our higher nature slumbers.
It is rep-
and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy tile
.
we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own that we may be well, yet not pure. The other day I picked up the lower jaw of a our bodies.
Possi^^ly
;
hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, which sug-
gested that there was an animal health and vigor dis-
from the
tinct
spiritual.
This creature succeeded by
other means than temperance and purity.
which men
superior
;
men
knows what
sort of life
to purity ?
If I
knew
;
common herd
the
preserve
in
so wise a
if
man
lose
we had
it
Who
carefully."
it
would result
attained
as could teach
purity I would go to seek him forthwith.
mand
That
diifer from brute beasts," says Mencius, " is
a thing very inconsiderable
very soon
"
"
A
me
com-
over our passions, and over the external senses
of the body, and good acts, are declared by the
be indispensable
Yet the
in the mind's
Ved
to
approximation to God.'*
can for the time pervade and control
spirit
every member and function of the body, and transmute
what
in
form
is
The
devotion.
the grossest sensuality into purity and
and makes us unclean,
loose, dissipates
tinent invigorates
ering of
man
when we are when we are con-
generative energy, which,
and inspires
Chastity
us.
is
the flow-
and what are called Genius, Heroism,
;
Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which suc-
ceed
it.
of purity
Man is
flows at once to
oper..
By
our impurity casts us down. sured that the animal
and
the divine
is
God when
the channel
turns our purity inspires and
He
is
blessed
who
is
as-
dying out in him day by day,
being established.
Perhaps there
ia
!
HIGHER LAWS.
237
none but has cause for shame on account of the inferior
and brutish nature
we
to
which he
I fear that
is allied.
are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs,
the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to
some "
extent, our very
How happy 's he who To
Can use
his
And
is
Else
man
But
not ass himself to
one.
is
not only
to a
sensuality
puritj
!
many forms all same whether a man eat, or sensually. They are but one
one, though
is
It is the
and we only need
The impure can
if
he
have heard of
We
sj)eak
sloth ignorance ity is
What
chaste
person do any one
sit
mouth
of his
is
burrow, he
but
How
chastity ?
He
?
this virtue,
exertion
and
is.
"When
with purity.
shall not
we know
know
shall it.
not what
conformably to the rumor which
From
lieard.
is
;
If you would be chaste, you
at another.
must be temperate.
takes
great a sensualist he
neither stand nor
the reptile is attacked at one
shows himself
it
to see a
know how
of these things to
man know
the rest
which did incline headlong rage, and made them worse.*
drink, or cohabit, or sleep appetite,
all
the herd of swine,
is
he's those devils too
Them I.
hath due place assigned and disaforested his mind * * Âť * horse, goat, wolf, and ev'ry beast.
his beasts
*
A
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
our disgrace.
life is
a sluggish habit of mind.
it
is.
we have
come wisdom and purity
sensuality.
a
We
;
from
In the student sensual-
An
unclean person
is
who sits by a stove, whom who reposes without being
universally a slothful one, one
the sun shines on prostrate, fatigued. sins,
work
Nature
is
If you would avoid uncleanness, and all the earnestly, though
hard
to
it
be at cleaning a
stable*
be overcome, but she must b^ over
WALDEN.
£38
What
come.
avails
it
that
you are Christian,
are not purer than the heathen,
more,
if
you are not more
if
if
you
you deny yourself no I
religious ?
know
of
many
systems of religion esteemed heathenish whose precepts the reader witli shame, and provoke
fill
deavors, though
it
I hesitate to say these things, but
—
the subject,
him
be to the performance of
I care not
how
it is
obscene
to
new
rites
en-
merely.
not because of
my
words
are,
—
but because I cannot speak of them without betraying
my
We
impurity.
discourse freely without
one form of sensuality, and are
We
about another,
we cannot speak simply of the human nature. In earlier ages,
are so degraded that
necessary functions of in
silent
shame of
some
countries, every function
of and regulated by law.
was reverently spoken
Nothing was too
trivial for
the Hindoo lawgiver, however offensive it may be to modern taste. He teaches how to eat, drink, cohabit, void excrement and urine, and the like, elevating what is mean, and does not falsely excuse himself by calling these things
trifles.
Every man to the
is
the builder of a temple, called his body,
god he worships, after a
style purely his
own, nor
by hammering marble instead. We are painters, and our material is our own Any nobleness begins at flesh and blood and bones. once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sencan he get
off
all sculptors
and
suality to imbrute them.
John Farmer after a
sat at his door
one September evening,
hard day's work, his mind
still
running on his
Having bathed he sat down to recIt was a rather cool evenreate his intellectual man. ing, and some of his neighbors were apprehending a
labor
frost.
more or
He
less.
hai not attended
to the train of his thoughts
HIGHER LAWS.
239
when he heard some one playing on a
long
that sound
harmonized with
of his work
though
his
mood.
Still
flute,
and
he thought
but the burden of his thought was, that this kept running in his head, and he found hiia;
self planning
and contriving it against his will, yet it concerned him very little. It was no more than the scurf of his pkin, which was constantly sljuffled off. But the notes of the flute came home to his cars out of
a
different sphere
work
for
They
gently did
and the
state in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Why do you life,
from that he worked faculties
in, and suggested which slumbered in him.
away with
the street, and the village,
certain
when a
which he
lived.
A
voice said to him,
stay here and hve this
glorious
mean moiling
existence
is possible for you? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; But how to come out of this condition and actually mi-
grate thither
All that he could think of was to prac^tise ? some new austerity, to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treat himself with ever increasing respect.
!
BRUTE NEIGHBORS.
Sometimes 1 had a companion in my fishing, who came through the village to my house from the other Bide of the town, and the catching of the dinner was as
much a
social exercise as the eating of
it.
Hermit, I wonder what the world is doing now. I have not heard so much as a locust over the sweet-fern
The
these three hours.
er's
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no
pigeons are
all
asleep upon
flutter from them. Was that a farm noon horn which sounded from beyond the woods
their roosts,
now ? The hands are coming in to boiled salt beef and cider and Indian bread. Why will men worry
just
themselves so I wonder live there
of Bose
?
He
?
that does not eat need not work.
how much they have
would
for the barking
And
keep bright tho
O, the housekeeping
and scour
Better not keep a house.
then for morning
pecker tapping. ;
Who
where a body can never think
devil's door-knobs,
there
reaped.
calls
!
to
day
his tubs this bright
Say, some hollow tree
and dinner-parties
O, they swarm
they are born too far into
;
!
the sun life
for
and Only a woodis
me.
too
;
warm
I have
Water from the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the
BRFTE NEIGHBORS. ehelf.
— Hark,
some
ill-fed village
chase?
hew
I
a nistling
bound
jf
241 the leaves
or the lost pig -which
is
is it
See those clouds
Poet.
greatest thing I it
;
how they hang
have seen to-day.
in old paintings, nothing like
less
when we were
oflf
Mediterranean sky. get,
ing.
it
!
comes on
— Eh,
That's the
There's nothing like
the coast of Spain.
That's the true industry for poets.
be gone.
Come,
I cannot resist.
let's
My
my
living to
near the end of that
Leave me
it.
we may
a-fish-
It is the
only
along.
brown bread
will
soon
am
just
I think that I
am
I will go with you gladly soon, but I
concluding a serious meditation.
— un-
That's a true
and have not eaten to-day, that I might go
Hermit.
IMr.
to-day ?
in foreign lands,
I thought, as I have
trade 1 have learned.
But
It
my sumachs and s\\ eet-briers tremble. you ? How do you like the world
;
Poet,
ifc
said to be in these
woods, whose tracks I saw after the rain ?
apace
Is
\'ielding to the instinct of the
alone, then, for a while.
not be delayed, you shall be digging
the bait meanwhile.
Angle-worms are rarely to be met soil was never fattened
with in these parts, where the with manure
;
the race
digging the bait fish,
when
may have Bet in the
is
is
sport of
nearly equal to that of catching the
one's appetite all to
The
nearly extinct.
is
not too keen
yourself to-day.
you I would advise you to ;
and
this
spade down yonder among the ground-nuts,
where you see the johnswort waving. I think that I may warrant you one worm to every three sods you turn up, if you look well in among the roots of the Or, if you choose to go grass, as if you were weeding. farther, it will not be u'awise, for I have found the increase of fair bait to b
the dista?ices.
16
;
very nearly as the squares of
WALDEN.
24:2
Hermit
me
Let
alone.
mind
;
the worid
Shall I go to heaven or a-fish-
lay about at this angle.
ing
Mv
see; where was I?
thinks I was nearly in this frame of
If I should soon bring this meditation to an end,
?
would another so sweet occasion be
likely to offer
?
I
was as near being resolved into the essence of things ns ever I was in my life. I fear my thoughts will n<>t come back to me. If it would do any good, I would whistle for them.
no
was
it
they
make
us an
offer, is it
We will
think of it ? My thoughts have and I cannot find the path again. What that I was thinking of? It was a very hazy day.
wise to say, left
When
track,
I will just try these three sentences of Con-fut-see;
they
may
whether
fetch that state
it
was the dumps or a budding
There never
is
How
Poet,
just thirteen
;
know
ecstasy.
now. Hermit,
worms are
off
not
Mem.
too soon
is it
I have got
?
whole ones, beside several which are imbut they will do for the smaller
;
they do not cover up the hook so much.
village
meal
I
but one opportunity of a kind.
perfect or undersized
fry
about again.
quite too large
;
a shiner
Those
may make a
one without finding the skewer.
Hermit,
Concord ?
Well, then,
let's
be
Shall
off.
There's good sport there
if
we
to the
the water be not
too high.
Why
do precisely these objects which we behold
make a world ?
Why
imals for his neighbors
have
filled this
has
crevice
have put animals
man just
these species of an-
as if nothing but a
;
?
mouse could
I suspect that Pilpay
&
Co.
to their best use, for they are all
beasts of burden, in tion of our thoughts.
a
sense,
made
to carry
some
per*
BRUTE NEIGHBORS.
2ÂŤ*3 â&#x20AC;˘
The mite which haunted my house were
men
ones, which are said to
not ihe comhave been introduced into
the country, but a wild native kind not found in the vilI sent one to a distinguished naturalist,
lage.
and
terested
had
its
him much.
When
I
was
nest underneath the house,
it
in-
building, one of these
and before I had
laid
the second floor, and
swept out ihe shavings, would come out regularly at lunch iime and pick up the crums at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before and it soon became quite familiar, and Avould ;
run over
my
shoes and up mjr-clothes.
It could readily
ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one day, it
my clothes, and along my sleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept the latter close, and dodged and played at bo-peep with it ; and when at last I held still a piece of cheese between ran up
my thumb and finger, it came and my hand, and afterward cleaned its a
fly,
nibbled face
it,
sitting in
and paws,
like
and Avalked away.
A phoebe soon tection in
built in my shed, and a robin for proa pine which grew against the house. In
June the partridge, (T'etrao umhellus,) a
bird, led
her brood past
in the rear to the front of
Avhich
is
so shy
my windows, from the woods my house, clucking and call-
them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. The young suddenly dising to
perse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as
a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a if
traveller has placed his foot in the midst of a brood,
beard the whir of the old bird as she flew
off,
and
and her
WALDEN.
2 4 'A
anxious
calls
and mewing, or seen her
trail
her wings
tt
attract his attention, Avithout suspecting their neighbor-
The parent
hood.
sometimes
will
roll
and spin round
before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a
few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a
leaf,
and mind only
from a distance, nor
will
their mother's directions given
your approach make them run
You may even
again and betray themselves.
tread on
them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering them. at such a time,
J
and
mother and their
have held them
still
in
my
open hand
their only care, obedient to their
instinct,
was
to squat there without
that once, So when I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten minutes afterward. They are not callow like the young of most birds, but more
perfect
fear or trembling.
perfectly developed
The remarkably
is this instinct,
and precocious even than chickens.
adult yet innocent expression of their
open and serene eyes
is
very memorable.
gence seems reflected in them.
They
All
intelli-
suggest not mere-
ly the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarifled by expe-
rience.
but
is
Such an eye was not born when the bird was, The woods ÂŤlo coeval with the sky it reflects.
not yield another such a gem.
The
often look into such a limpid well.
traveller dees njt
The
ignorant or
reckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a time,
and leaves these innocents
to fall
a prey to some
prowling beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the dv-
much resemble. It is said when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse
caying leaves which they so that
on some alarm, and so are
lost, for
they never hear the
!
BRUTE NEIGHBORS. inoilier*3 call
my
245
which gathers them again.
These were
hens and chickens.
It
is
remarkable
how many
creatures live wild and
free though secret in the woods,
and
still
sustain them-
selves in the neighborhood of towns, suspected
ers only.
How
He
to
grows
retired the otter
manages
by hunt-
to live
here
be four feet long, as big as a small boy,
perhaps without any human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in the woods behind
where
my
house
is built,
and probably
Commonly
still
heard their
whinnering
al night.
two
shade at noon, after planting, and ate
in the
lunch, and read a
of a
swamp and
little
I rested an hour or
my
by a spring which was the source
of a brook, oozing from under Brister's
Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this was through a succession of descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch-pines, into a larger wood about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and shaded spot, under a spreading white-pine, there was yet a clean firm sward to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray water, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I went for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was
warmest.
Thither too the wood-cock led her brood, to
probe the
mud
down
for
worms,
flying but a foot
above them
the bank, while they ran in a troop beneath
at last, spying me, she
would leave her young and
;
but
circle
round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract
my
attention, a'ld get off
her young, who would already
ha\ e taken up their march,
w- itli
faint
wiry peep, single
swamp, as she directed. Or I heard when I could not see the parent young the peep of the file
through
th'j
WALDEN.
246 bii'd.
There too the turtle-doves sat over the spring, or from bough to bough of the soft white-pines
fiutlered
over
my
head
or the red squirrel, coursing
;
was
nearest bough,
You
only need
down
the
particularly familiar and inquisitive.
long enough in some attractive
sit still
spot in the woods that
may
inhabitants
all its
exhibit
themselves to you by turns. I was witness to events of a less peaceful character.
One day when
my
much
wood-pile, or rather
observed two large ants, the one
pile of stumps, I
red, the other
my
I went out to
larger, nearly half
black, fiercely contending with one
once got hold they never
and
Avrestled
rolled
Having and
another.
go, but struggled
let
Looking
on the chips incessantly.
was surprised
farther, I
an inch long, and
to find that the chips
ered with such combatants, that
it
were cov-
was not a duellum,
but a helium^ a war between two races of ants, the red
always pitted against the black, and frequently two red
The
Dues to one black.
covered
all tlie hills
legions of these
and vales
in
my
Myrmidons
wood-yard, and
the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying,
both red and black.
It
was the only
have ever witnessed, the only while the battle
was raging
;
battle Avhich I
battle-field
I
war
internecine
ever trod ;
the red
republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists
on the other.
On
every side they were engaged in
deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear,
and
human
soldiers
never fought so
resolutely.
I
watclied a couple that were fast locked in each other's
embraces, in a
little
sunny valley amid the
noon-day prepared to life
went
out.
The
fight
till
chips,
now
at
the sun went down, or
smaller red champion had fastened
himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through
;
BRUTE NEIGHBORS. all
the tumblings
ed to
cea!
gnaw
at
on that
247
never for an instant
field
one of his feelers near the
root,
ing already caused the other to go
hav-
by the board while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, anr^ as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more ;
,
than
pertinacity
Neither
bull-dogs.
least disposition to retreat.
It
manifested
was evident that
the their
was Conquer or die. In the mean while there came along a single red ant on the hill-side of this
battle-cry
valley, evidently full of excitement,
spatched his
who
either
had de-
or had not yet taken part in the battle
foe,
latter, for he had lost none of his limbs whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who Kad nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar, for the blacks were nearly twice
probably the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he drew near with
the size of the red,
he stood on batants
;
his
rapid pace
till
guard within half an inch of the com-
then, watching his opportunity, he sprang
upon
commenced
near
the black warrior, and
his operations
the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select
among
his
ed for
life,
own members and so there were three unitas if a new kind of attraction had been in;
vented which put
all
other locks and cements to shame.
I should not have wondered by
this
time to find that
they had their respective musical bands stationed on
some eminent
chip,
and playing their national
while, to excite the slow ants.
and cheer the dying combat-
I was myself excited somewhat even as
had been men. lifference.
And
airs the
The more you certainly there
think of is
it,
if
they
the less the
not the fight recorderl
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 248 in
TTALDEN.
Concord history, at
the histoiy of Ameiica,
.east, if in
that will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether
numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight Two
for the
!
on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick, "Fire! for God's sake fire!" and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hirehng there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, killed
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
at least.
I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described
and placed
it
were
struggling, carried
under a tumbler on
der to see the issue.
mentioned red ly
gnawing
ant, I
my
it
my house,
window-sill, in or-
Holding a microscope to the firstsaw that, though he was assiduous-
at the near fore-leg of his
severed his remaining feeler, his torn away, exposing
into
what
vitals
own
enemy, having breast was
all
he had there to the
jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for
him
to pierce
cles of the sufferer's eyes
war only could longer under the
;
and the dark carbun-
shone with ferocity such as
They struggled half an hour tumbler, and when I looked again the
excite.
black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies,
and the
either side of
bow, tvafl
him
still livinor
heads were
han<rinjr
en
like ghastly trophies at his saddle-
still appai'ently as firmly fastened as ever, and he endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without
;
BRUTE NEIGHBORS. feelers
not
and with only the remnant of a
how many
which
249
oilier
at length, after half
plished.
leg,
and I know
wounds, to divest himself of them
an hour more, he accom-
I raised the glass, and he went off over the
window-sill in that crippled state.
survived that combat,
Whether he
finally
and spent the remainder of
days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not know
;
thought that his industry would not be worth thereafter.
I
if I
but I
much
never learned which party was victorious,
nor the cause of the war
day as
his
had had
my
;
but I
tell
for the rest of that
feelings excited
by witnessing the struggle, the human battle before my door. Kirby and Spence
felt
ferocity
and harrowed
and carnage, of a
us that the battles of ants have
long been celebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber is the only modern author
who appears
to
have witnessed them,
"^neas
Syl-
vius," say they, " after giving a very circumstantial ac-
count of one contested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk of a pear tree," adds that
This action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an
"
'
eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the batsimilar engagement tle with the greatest fidehty.'
A
between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are said to
have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but lef* those This Kivent of their giant enemies a prey to the birds.
happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant ChrisThe battle which I witti(;rn the Second from Sweden." nessed took place in the Presiiency of Polk, five years before the passage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill.
Many
a village Bose,
fit
only to course a mud-turtl*
,
WALDEN.
250 in
a victualling
cellar,
sported his heavy qiarters in iht
woods, without the knowledge of his master, and inef-
burrows and woodchucks* by some slight cur which nimbly threaded the wood, and might still inspire a natural terfecvually smelled at old fox
holes
led perchance
;
ror in
denizens
its
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; now
far
behind his guide, bark-
ing like a canine bull toward some small squirrel wliich
had treed
itself for scrutiny, then,
cantering
the bushes with his weight, imagining that he
track
Once
of some I
member
stray
was surprised
to
bending
off,
on thÂŤ
in
of the jerbilla family.
see a cat walking along the
stony shore of the pond, for they rarely wander so far
from home.
The
surprise
was mutual.
Nevertheless
the most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug days, appears quite at sly
home
in the woods, and,
all
her
by her
and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native
there than the regular inhabitants.
Once, when berry-
met with a cat with young kittens in the woods, and they all, like their mother, had their backs up and were fiercely spitting at me. A few years before I lived in the woods there was what was called a " winged cat " in one of the farm-houses in Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr. Gilian Baker's. When ing, I
quite wild,
I called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone a-hunting
was her wont, was a male or female, and
in the woods, as
(I
whether
it
common
pronoun,) but her mistress told
came
into the
neighborhood a
little
am
not sure
so use the
me
more
that she
more than a year
and was finally taken into their house was of a dark brownish-gray (?olor, with a white spot on her throat, and white feet, and had a large bushy tail like a fox that in the winter the fur gi*ew Jhiek ard flatted out along her sides, forming strips ten before, in April,
that she
;
BRUTE NEIGHBORS.
251
or twelve inclies long by two and a half wide, and under her chin like a muff, the upper side loose, the under matted like felt, and in the spring these aj^pendages
dropped
off.
which I keep
They gave me a There
still.
sible, for,
no appearance of a
Some thought
brane about them. squirrel or
is
pair of her "wings,"
mem-
was part flyingsome other wild animal, which is not imposit
according to naturalists, prolific hybrids have
been produced by the union of the marten and domestic cat. This would have been the right kind of cat for
me
had kept any for why should not a cat be winged as well as his horse ?
to keep, if I
poet's
In the
fall
;
the loon [Golymhus glacialis) came, as
usual, to moult
and bathe
woods ring with At rumor of his
his wild laughter before I
on the
by
and on
three, with patent rifles
autumn
had
risen.
arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen are
alert, in gigs
glasses.
pond, making the
in the
They come on
two by two and three balls
rustling through the
leaves, at least ten
station themselves
foot,
and conical
men
to
this side of the
and spy-
woods
one loon.
like
Some
pond, some on that,
for the poor bird cannot be omnipresent
;
if
he dive here
he must come up there. But now the kind October wind rises, rustling the leaves and rippling the surface of the water, so that no loon can be heard or seen,
though his foes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, and
make
the woods resound with their discharges.
waves generously with
all
rise
and dash
The
angrily, taking sidts
waterfowl, and our sportsmen must beat a re-
treat to town and shop and unfinished jobs. But they were too often successful. When I went to get a pail vf water early in the morning I frequently saw thig stately bird sailing out of
my
cove within a few roda.
WALDEN.
252
If I endeavored to overtake Bee
him
in a boat, in oTxler tâ&#x201A;Ź
how he would manoeuvre, he would
completely
lost,
sometimes,
till
dive and be
him But
so that I did not discover
the latter part of the daj.
again, I
was
more than a match for him on the surface. He commonly went off in a rain. As I was paddling along the north shore one very calm October afternoon, for such days especially they settle
on to the lakes, like the milkweed down, having
looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one. sailing out
from the shore toward the middle a few rods
in front of me, set self.
up
his wild
laugh and betrayed him-
I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but
He
he came up I was nearer than before. but I miscalculated the direction he
were
rods apart
fifty
time, for I
would
when he came
had helped
to
when
dived again, take,
and we
to the surface this
widen the interval
and again
;
he laughed long and loud, and with more reason than before.
He
manoeuvred
so cunningly that I could not
Each
get within half a dozen rods of him.
he came that,
he
head
to the surface, turning his
when way and
time,
this
coolly surveyed the water ajid the land,
parently chose his course so that he might
and ap-
come up
where there was the widest expanse of water and at It was surprising the greatest distance from the boat.
how quickly he made up into execution.
He
led
his
me
mind and put at
once
to the
his resolve
widest part
it. While he was endeavoring was a pretty game,
of the pond, and could not be driven from
was thinking one thing to divine his
in his brain, I
thought in mine.
It
played on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon.
Suddenly your adversary's checker disappears
beneath the board, and the problem
is
to place yours
BRUTE NEIGHBORS.
2^)3
nearest to wliere his will appear again. ÂŤrould
Sometimes he come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me,
having apparently passed directly under the boat.
So
iong-winded was he and so unweariable, that when he
had swum
would immediately plunge again,
farthest he
and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be
nevertheless
;
speeding his
way
to visit the is
like
a
for
fish,
he had time and
bottom of the pond in
said that loons
its
have been caught
ability
deepest part. in the
It
New York
lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; though Walden
is
deeper than
How sur-
that.
prised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from
way amid
another sphere speeding his
Yet he appeared
know
to
water as on the surface, and
Once
or twice I
isurface, just
saw a
put his
rest
on
when
I
faster there.
straining
it
was
my
rise
;
me
as well for
his reappearing as to
where he would
was
swam much
where he approached the head out to reconnoitre, and instant-
my oars and wait
to calculate
!
ripple
I found that
ly dived again.
their schools
course as surely under
his
for again
to
endeavor
and again,
eyes over the surface
one
way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me.
But why,
he came up by that loud laugh breast enough betray him
I thought.
I
could
?
?
He was
Did not
his white
indeed a
silly loon,
commonly hear the plash
water when he came up, and so *fter
much moment
after displaying so
cunning, did he invariably betray himself the
of the
also detected him.
But
an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived aa
willingly
and swam yet farther than
surprising to see
how
at
first.
If
was
serenely he sailed off with unruf*
;
WALDEN.
254 fled breast
when he came
to the surface, doing all the
work Avith his webbed feet beneath. His usual note was this demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that of a water-fowl but occasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than any bird as when a beast puts his muzzle ;
;
to
the ground and deliberately howls.
looning, here,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; perhaps the
wildest sound that
making the woods ring
far
own
Though
resources.
is
ever heard
and wide.
cluded that he laughed in derision of dent of his
This was his
my
I con-
efforts, confi-
the sky was
by
this
time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see
where he broke the surface when I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of the water were all against him. At length, having come up
fifty
prolonged howls, as
rods
off,
he uttered one of those
on the god of loons to aid
if calling
him, and immediately there came a wind from the east
and rippled the
surface,
and
filled
misty rain, and I was impressed as
the whole air with
if it
were the prayer
of the loon answered, and his god was angry with
and
so I left
him disappearing
far
away on
me
the tumultu-
3us surface.
For ly tack
hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunning-
and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far
from the sportsman
need
to practise in
;
which they
tricks
Louisiana bayous.
will
When
have
less
compelled
would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height, from which
to rise they
they could easily see like black
to other
motes in the sky
;
ponds and the river,
and,
when
I thought they
BRUTE NEIGHBORS.
255
had gone off thither long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part
which was
left free
;
but what beside safety
they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not
know, unless they love that I do.
its
water for the same reason
HOUSE-WARMING.
In October I went a-graping to the river meadowa, and loaded myself with clusters more precious for their beauty and fragrance than for food.
There too I ad-
mired, though I did not gather, the cranberries, small
waxen gems, pendants
meadow
of the
grass, pearly
and
red, which the farmer plucks with an ugly rake, leaving
the smooth
meadow
in
a snarl, heedlessly measuring
them by the bushel and the dollar only, and sells the destined spoils of the meads to Boston and New York to be jammed^ to satisfy the tastes of lovers of Na;
So butchers rake the tongues of bison out of the prairie grass, regardless of the torn and droopThe barberry's brilliant fruit was likewise ing plant.
ture there.
food for
my
eyes merely
;
but I collected a small store
of wild apples for coddling, which the proprietor and travellers
had overlooked.
When
chestnuts were ripe
I laid up half a bushel for winter.
citing at that season to
It
was very ex-
roam the then boundless
nut woods of Lincoln, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they now â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with a bag on my under the
chest-
sleep their long sleep
railroad,
fttick to
open burrs with in
my
shoulder, and a
hand, for I did not alwayi (256)
;
HOUSE-WARMING. wait for
amid the
tlie frost,
257 and the
rustling of leaves
loud reproofs of the red-squirrels and the jajs, whose
half-consumed nuts I sometimes
stole, for the burrs which they had selected were sure to contain sound ones.
Occasionally I climbed and shook the
grew
my
also behind
trees.
They
house, and one large tree which
it, was, when in flower, a bouquet which scented the whole neighborhood, but the squirrels and the jays got most of its fruit the last coming in
almost overshadowed
;
flocks early in the
morning and picking the nuts out of
the burrs before they
fell.
them and
more distant woods composed These nuts, as far as they went,
wholly of chestnut.
were a good
I relinquished these trees to
the
visited
substitute for bread.
tutes might, perhaps, be found.
INIany other substi-
Digging one day for
fish-worms I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tube' rosa) on
its string,
the potato of the aborigines, a sort
of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt
if I
ever dug and eaten in childhood, as I had
and had
not dreamed
it.
I had often since seen
told,
its
had
crimpled red
velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants
without knowing
it
nigh exterminated like that of
to
be the same.
it.
It has
Cultivation has well
a sweetish
taste,
a frostbitten potato, and I found
boiled than roasted.
it
much better
This tuber seemed like a faint
promise of Nature to rear her own children and feed
some future period. In these days of fatted cattle and waving grain-fields, this humble root, which was once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, or known only by its flowering vine but let wild Nature reign here once more, and tlie ten-
them simply here
at
der and luxurious English grains will pro]Âťably disap-
pear before a myriad of
17
foes,
and without the care of
WALDEN.
258
man
the crow
may
carry back even the last seed of
God
corn to the great corn-field of the Indian's south-west,
the
whence he
is
said to
have brought
now almost exterminated ground-nut
will
in the it
but
;
perhaps
revive and flourish in spite of frosts and wildness, prove itself
indigenous, and
and dignity as the
resume
its
ancient importance
Some
diet of the hunter tribe.
In-
dian Ceres or Minerva must have been the inventor and
bestower of
it;
mences here,
its
and when the reign of poetry comleaves and string of nuts may be repre-
sented on our works of art.
Already, by the
first
of September, I had seen two
or three small maples turned scarlet across the pond,
beneath where the white stems of three aspens di verged, at the point of a promontory, next the water.
Ah, many a tale their color told And gradually from week to week the character of each tree came out, and !
it
admired
lake.
the smooth mirror of the
itself reflected in
Each morning the manager of this gallery some new picture, distinguished by more
sub-
stituted
bril-
liant or
harmonious coloring, for the old upon the walls.
The wasps came by
thousands to
ber, as to winter quarters,
and
my
settled
lodge in Octo-
on
my
windows
within and on the walls over-head, sometimes deterring
Each morning, when they were numbed with cold, I swept some of them out, but I did not trouble myself much to get rid of them I even felt complimented by their regarding my house as a desiraThey never molested me seriously, though ble shelter. visitors
from entering.
;
they bedded with vnto
what crevices
me and ;
they gradually disappeared,
I do not
know, avoiding winter and
unspeakable cold.
Like the wasps, before I
finally
went
into wintei
HOUSE-WARMING.
259
quarters in November, I used to resort to the north- east
Waldcn, which the sun, reflected from the pitchpine woods tmd the stony shore, made the fire-side of the pond it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be side of
;
warmed by
the sun while you can be, than by an
I thus
cial fire.
warmed myself by
embers which the summer,
had
the
still
glowing
a departed hunter,
left.
When
My
like
artifi-
I
came
to build
my chimney I
bricks being second-hand
cleaned with
ones
studied masonry
required
to
be
a trowel, so that I learned more than
usual of the qualities of bricks and trowels.
The mor-
them was fifty years old, and was said to be still growing harder but this is one of those sayings which men love to repeat whether they are true or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and adhere more firmly tar on
;
with age, and to clean
it
would take many blows with a trowel
an old wiseacre of them.
Many
of the villages
of Mesopotamia are built of second-hand bricks of a
very good quality, obtained from the ruins of Babylon, and the cement on them is older and probably harder
may
was struck by the peculiar toughness of the steel which bore so many violent blows without being worn out. As my bricks had been
still.
However
that
be, I
in a chimney before, though I did not read the name of Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out as many fireplace bricks as I could find, to save woi'k and waste, and
between the bricks about the fireplace with stones from the pond shore, and also made my mortar with the white sand from the same place. I I filled
the spaces
lint^ered
most about the
fireplace, as tlie roost vital part
WALDEN.
260 of the house.
Indeed, I worked so deliberately",
ihtit
though I commenced at the ground in the mornhig,
a
course of bricks raised a few inches above the fioor
served for
neck for
my
pilloAV at night
that I
it
remember
;
yet I did not get a
;
my
stiff
neck
is
stiff
of older
I took a poet to board for a fortnight about those
date.
times,
which caused
me
to
be put to
it
for
He
room.
own knife, though I had two, and we used them by thrusting them into the earth. He shared with me the labors of cooking. I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by degrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated to endure a long time. The chimney is to some brought his to scour
extent an independent structure, standing on the ground
and
rising through the house
after the house is
burned
to
it still
the heavens
even
;
stands sometimes, and
importance and independence are apparent. Thiii was toward the end of summer. It was now November. its
The
north wind had already begun to cool the pond,
though
it
took
many weeks
of steady blowing to accom-
When I began to have a fire at evening, before I plastered my house, the chimney carried
plish
is
it, it
smoke
so deep.
numerous chinks between the boards. Yet I passed some cheerful evenings in that cool and airy apartment, surrounded by particularly well, because of the
the rough the bark
my
brown boards
on
eye so much after
obligod to confess that no',
full
higli over-head.
it
it
of knots, and raders with
My
was plastered,
to create
nev-^^i-
man
pleased
thoufÂť-h I
was more comfortabxc.
every apartment in which
enough
house
dwells be
some obscurity over-head,
was
Should
vÂťher'^
lofty
i^hh
HOL!SE->V ARMING.
261
eiing shadows may play at evening about the rafters These forms are more agreeable to the fancy and
?
imagi-
nation
than fresco paintings or other the most expeii-
sive furniture.
I
may
say,
I
when
well as shelter.
now
first
began
to inhabit
my
house,
I began to
use it for warmth as I had got a couple of old fire-dogs to
keep the wood from the hearth, and it did me good to see the soot form on the back of the chimney which I
had
built,
and I poked the
satisfaction than usual.
fire
My
with more right and more
dwelling was small, and I
could hardly entertain an echo in
it but it seemed larger and remote from neighbors. All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping;
for being a single apartment
room ; and whatever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I enjoyed it all. Cato says, the master of a family {patremfamilU must have in his rustic villa " cellam oleariam, vinariam, dolia multa, uti lubeat caritatem expectare, et rei, as)
et virtuti, et gloriae erit," that
many
casks, so that
tmies;
it
may
is,
"an
oil
be pleasant
and wine to
cellar,
expect hard
be for his advantage, and virtue, and had in my cellar a firkin of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with the weevil in them, and on my glory."
shelf a
will
it
I
little rice,
a jug of molasses, and of rye and In-
dian meal a peck each. I sometimes
dream of a larger and more populous standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without ginger-bread work, which shall still consist Jionse,
of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters lind purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over ore's 6ead, useful to keep off rain acd sncw j where the ki ag
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
WALDEN.
ÂŁ62
and queen posts stand out
your homage, when
to receive
you have done reverence
to the prostrate
older dynasty on stepping over the
some at
;
a cavernous
up a torch upon a pole
house, wherein you must reach to sec the roof;
sill
Saturn of an
where some may live in the fire-place, window, and some on settles, some
in the recess of a
one end of the
hall,
some
on rafters with the spiders,
you have got
into
at another,
they choose
if
;
and some aloft a house which
when you have opened
door,
and the ceremony
eller
may
wash, and
out further journey
is
eat, ;
over
;
the outside
where the weary trav-
and converse, and
sleep, with'
such a shelter as you would be
glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing essentials of a house,
all
the
and nothing for house-keeping
where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and every thing hangs upon its peg that a man should use
;
store-house,
at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber,
and garret; where yDu can see so necessary
a thing as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot to the fire that cooks
boil,
and pay your respects
your dinner and the oven that
bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils
are the chief ornaments
put out, nor the
fire,
are sometimes'requested to
when
;
where the washing
is
not
nor the mistress, and perhaps you
move from
off the trap-door,
the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn
whether the ground
solid or
A house whose
stamping. fest as
is
hollow beneath you without
inside
as open
is
and mani-
a bird's nest, and you cannot go in at the front
door aid out at the back without seeing some of habitants
;
where
to
be a guest
the freedom of the house,
is
to
and not
cluded from seven eighths of
it,
to
shut
its in-
be presented with be carefully ex-
up
in
a
pai'ticulaj
;
HOUSE-WARMING. cell,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
make yourself at home there, confinement. Nowadays the host does not
and
solitary
2o3
told
to
mit you to his hearth, but has got the mason
somewhere
onii for yourself is
the
There
of keeping you
art
as
is
much
had a design
in his alley,
the
at
I
am
<td-
to baild
and hospitality
greatest
distance.
secrecy about the cooking as
to poison you.
in
if
ho
aware that I have
been on many a man's premises, and might have been legally ordered in
many men's
am
but I
off,
not aware that I have been
I might visit in
houses.
a king and queen who lived simply have described,
if
out of a modern palace will be learn, if ever I It
am
lose
all its
all
old clothes
such a house as I
way
;
but backing
that I shall desire to
caught in one.
would seem as
would
in
I were going their
my
the very language of our parlors
if
nerve and degenerate into parlaver
wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from bols,
and
its
its
sym-
metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far
and dumb-waiters, as it were in other words, the parlor is so far from the kitchen and fetched, through slides
workshop. ner,
The
;
dinner even
commonly. As
if
is
only the parable of a din
only the savage dwelt near enough
borrow a trope from them. How can the scholar, who dwells away in the North West Territory or the Isle of Man, tell what is x^arto
Nature and Truth
to
liamentary in the kitchen
?
However, only one or two of
my
guests were ever
bold enough to stay and eat a hasty-pudding with me but when they saw that crisis approaching they beai a
hasty retreat rather, as its
foundations.
many
if it
would shake the house to
Nevertheless,
it
stood through a great
hasty-puddings.
I did not plaster
till it
was freezing w^,ather I brought
;
264
TTALDEN.
over some whiter and cleaner sand for this purpose from the opposite shore of the pond in a boat, a sort of con-
veyance which would have tempted ther
My
necessary.
if
me
to
go much
been shingled down to the ground on every lathing I
was pleased
to
far-
house had in the mean while
be able
side.
In
send home each nail
to
with a single blow of the hammer, and
it
was
my
ambi-
from the board to the wall
tion to transfer the plaster
remembered the story of a conceited fellow, who, in fine clothes, was wont to lounge about the village once, giving advice to workmen. Venneat'y and rapidly.
I
turing one day to substitute deeds for words, he turned
up
his cuffs, seized a plasterer's board,
and having load-
ed his trowel without mishap, with a complacent look
toward the lathing overhead, made a bold gesture thith-
erward
;
and straightway,
to his
complete discomfiture,
received the whole contents in his ruffled bosom.
I ad-
mired anew the economy and convenience of plastering,
which so
effectually shuts out the cold and takes a handsome finish, and I learned the various casualties to which the plasterer is liable. I was surprised to see how thirsty the bricks were which drank up all the
moisture in
how many hearth. tity
my
plaster before I
pailfuls of
water
it
had smoothed
it,
takes to christen a
I had the previous winter
made a
and
new
small quan-
of lime by burning the shells of the Unio JluviatiUsy
which our river BO that I
affords, for the
knew where my
sake of the experiment
materials
came from.
I might
have got good limestone within a mile or two and burned it
myself, if I
had
The pond had
cai'ed to
in the
do
so.
mean while skimmed over in
the
HOUSE-WARMING. iliadiest
and shallcwest coves, some days or even weeks
before the general freezing.
and
interesting ent,
and
The
first ice is
perfect, being hard, dark,
especially
and transpar-
affords the best opportunity that ever offers for
examining the bottom where lie at
265
your length on
teT insect
it is
shallow
for
;
you can
only an inch thick, like a ska-
ice
on the surface of the water, and study the bot-
tom at your
leisure,
a picture behind a
only two or three inches distant, like
glass,
and the water
is
necessarily al-
ways smooth then. There are many furrows in the sand where some creature has travelled about and doubled on
its
tracks
the cases of cadis
;
and, for wrecks,
worms made
it is
strewn with
of minute grains of white
Perhaps these have creased it, for you find some of their cases in the furrows, though they are deep and broad for them to make. But the ice itself is the
quartz.
you must improve the opportunity to study it. If you examine it the morning after it freezes, you find that the
object of most interest, though earliest
closely
greater part of the bubbles, which at
be within jxre
it,
are against
its
first
appeared to
under surface, and that more
continually rising from the bottom
;
while the ice
as yet comparatively solid and dark, that
is,
is
you see the
These bubbles are from an eightieth to an eighth of an inch in diameter, very clear and beautiful, and you see your face reflected in them through water through
the
it.
There may be thirty or forty of them to a There are also already within the ice nar-
ice.
square inch.
row oblong perpendicular bubbles about long, sharp cones with the apex upward ;
the ice rectly
is
half an inch or oftener, if
quite fresh, minute spherical bubbles one di-
above another,
irithin the ice
like
a string of beads.
But these
are not so numerous nor obvious as those
;
WALDEN.
266
I sometimes used to cast on stones to try
beneath.
tlio
strength of the ice, and those which broke through carried in air with them, which formed very large and con-
One day when
spicuous white bubbles beneath. to the
same place
came
I
forty-eight hours afterward, I found
that those large bubbles
were
still
perfect,
though an inch
more of ice had formed, as I could see distinctly by the seam in the edge of a cake. But as the last two days had been very warm, like an Indian summer, the ice was not now transparent, showing the dark green color of the water, and the bottom, but opaque and whitish or gray, and though twice as thick
was hardly stronger
than before, for the air bubbles had greatly expanded
under ity
this heat
and run together, and
lost their regular-
they were no longer one directly over another, but
;
often like silvery coins poured from a bag, one overlap-
ping another, or in thin cleavages.
The beauty
flakes, as if
too late to study the bottom.
what
position
new
the
ice,
my
occupying slight
of the ice was gone, and
Being curious
was
it
to
know
great bubbles occupied with regard to
I broke out a cake containing a middling
sized one, and turned
it
bottom upward.
The new
ice
had formed around and under the bubble, so that it was It was wholly in the included between the two ices. lower ice, but close against the upper, and was flattish, or perhaps slightly lenticular, with a rounded edge, a quarter of an inch deep by four inches in diameter
;
and
I was surprised to find that directly under the bubble the ice
was melted with great
regularity in the form of a sau-
cer revei*sed, to the height of five eighths of an inch in the middle, leaving a thin partition there between the
water and the bubble, hardly an eighth of an inch thick
and
in
many places
the small bubbles in this partition ha^
MOUSE-WARMING. burst out
under
tlo-n
ilic
267
nward, and probably there was no ice at
which Avere a
largest bubbles,
I infenvd that the infinite
number
all
foot iu diameter.
of minute bubbles
which
I had first seen against the under surface of the were now frozen in likewise, and that each, in its
ice
degree, had operated like a burning glass on the ice be-
neath
to
melt and rot
which contribute
At had
to
make
little
air-guns
the ice crack and whoop.
length the winter set in in good earnest, just as I
finished
then.
till
and the wind began
plastering,
around the house as so
These are the
it.
to
had not had permission
if it
howl do
to
Night after night the geese came lumber-
ing in in the dark with a clangor and a whistling of wings, even after the ground was covered with snow,
some to alight in Walden, and some flying low over the woods toward Fair Haven, bound for Mexico. Several
when returning from
times,
the village at ten or eleven
o'clock at night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or else ducks, on the dry leaves in the woods by a pond-
hole behind
my
where they had come up
dwelling,
to
honk or quack of their leader as they hurried off. In 1845 Walden froze entirely over for the first time on the night of the 2 2d of December, feed,
and the
faint
and other shallower ponds and the river having been frozen ten days or more; in '46, the ICth; in '49, about the 31st; and in '50, about the 27th of December; in '52, the 5th of January in '53, the 31st of December. Flints'
;
The snow had
already covered the ground since the
25th of November, and surrounded the scenery of wii:ter. shell,
and endiavorei
me
suddenly with
I withdrew yet farther into to
keep a bright
fire
my
both withia
WALDEN.
268
my
house and
my
-within
of doors
now was
to collect the
bringing
it
my
hands or on
in
My
breast.
employment ouj
dead wood
my
in the forest,
shoulders, or some-
times trailing a dead pine tree under each shed.
An
which had seen
old forest fence
was a great haul for me. I sacrificed it was past serving the god Terminus. interesting
an event
to hunt, nay,
the fuel to cook
!
with
There are enough in the forests of
figots
warm
raft
built.
more who has just
you might
say, steal,
to support
all
kinds
many
tires,
none, and, some think, hin-
There was
also the
In the course of the summer I
drift-wood of the pond.
on, pinned together
Vulcan, for
and waste wood of
der the growth of the young wood.
had discovered a
my
best days
His bread and meat are sweet.
most of our towns
but Avhieh at present
to
to
How much
that man's supp(>i
is
been forth in the snow it
it
arm
its
of pitch-pine logs with the bark
by the
Irish
when
the railroad was
This I hauled up partly on the shore.
After
soaking two years and then lying high six months
it
was perfectly sound, though waterlogged past drying. I amused myself one winter day with sliding this piece-
meal across the pond, nearly half a mile, skating behind with one end of a log fifteen feet long on my shoulder, and the other on the
ice
;
or I tied several logs together
with a birch withe, and then, with a longer birch or
al-
der which had a hook at the end, dragged them across.
Though completely waterlogged and almost as heavy as lead, they not only burned long, but made a very hot fire
;
nay, I thought that they burned better for the
soaking, as if the pitch, being confined
by the water,
burned longer as in a lamp. Gilpin, in his account of the forest borderers of
Eng-
land, says that " the encroachments of trespassers, an(J
HOUSE--WAKMING.
269
the lioiises and fences thus raised on the holders of the
were " considered as great nuisances by the old law, and were severely punished under the name
forest,"
forest
of purprestures^ as tending ad terrorem ferarum
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ad
nocumentiim forestcB, Sec." to the frightening of the game
and the detriment of the
But
forest.
in the preservation of the venison
I
was interested
and the vert more
than the hunters or wood-choppers, and as
much
though I had been the Lord Warden himself; and
any part was burned, though
I burned
it
as if
myself by acci-
and was more inconsolable than tliat of the proprietors nay, I grieved when it was cut down by the proprietors themselves. I would that our farmers when tiiey cut down a iorest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or let in the light tc^ a consecrated grove, (lucum conlucare,) that is, wouJ. believe that it is sacred to some god. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed. Whatever god or goddent, I grieved with a grief that lasted longer
;
dess thou art to to
me, It is
even
my
whom
family,
and
this
grove
age and in
permanent and
this
new
is still
put upon wood
country, a value
universal than that of gold.
our discoveries and inventions no of wood.
sacred, be propitious
children, &;c.
remarkable Avhat a value
in this
is
man
It is as precious to us as
and Norman ancestors.
it
made
will
was
more
After
all
go by a pile to
our Saxon
bows of it, wo make our gun-stocks of it. Michaux, more than thirty years ago, says that the price of wood for fuel io If they
their
New York
and Philadelphia " nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds, that of the best wood in Paris, though this immense capital annually requires more than three bundi-ed thousand cords, and
is
surrounded
to the dis-
WALDEN.
270
tance of three hundred miles
town the price of wood
this
only question than
come
is,
was the
it
in
hrw much
per.
In
cultivated plains."
higher
it is
be
to
and the
this
year
Mechanics and tradesmen who
last.
person to the forest on no other errand, are
sure, to attend the pric-^ for
by
rises almost steadily,
wood
auction,
and even pay a high
the privilege of gleaning after the wood-chop-
It is
now many
years that
men have
resorted to
the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts; the
New
Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robinhood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill, in most parts of the world the prince
and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally quire
cook their food.
Every man the
Neither could I do without them.
looks at his wood-pile with a kind of af-
I loved to have mine before
fection.
warm them and
a few sticks from the forest to
still
re-
more chips the better
to
remind
my
me
of
window, and
my
pleasing
I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with
work.
which by
spells in winter days,
on the sunny side of the
house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of
my
As my
bean-field.
driver prophesied
when
I
was
warmed me twice, once while I was splitwhen they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe, I was advised to get the village blacksmith to "jump " it; but I jumped him, and, putting a hickory helve from the woods into it, made it do. If it was dull, it was at least ploughing, they
ting them, and again
hung
true.
A few is still
were a great treasure. It is remember how much of this food for fire
pieces of fat pine
interesting to
concealed in the bowels of the earth.
vious years I
In pre-
had often gone " prospecting " ovei some
;
;
HOUSE-WARMING. bare
liill
stood,
side,
where
least, will still
wood has
all
wood had fonnerly pine roots. They are almost
pitch-pine
.1
and got out the
indeslructible.
27J
iat
forty years
thirty or
Stu?i,ips
old,
at
be sound at the core, though the sap-
become vegetable mould, as appears by
the scales of the thick bark forming a ring level with the earth four or five inches distant from the heart.
With axe and shovel you explore this mine, and follow maiTowy store, yellow as beef tallow, or as if you had struck on a vein of gold, deep into the earth. But commonly I kindled my fire with the dry leaves of the
the
snow came.
Green hickory
chopper's kindlings,
Once
my
which I had stored up in
forest,
finely split
shed before the
makes
when he has a camp
in a while I got
a
little
of
this.
the wood-
in the
When
woods. the vil-
lagers were lighting their fires beyond the horizon, I too
gave notice vale,
to the various wild inhabitants of
by a smoky streamer from
awake.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
my
Walden
chimney, that I was
Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, Circling above the hamlets as thy nest Or else, departing dream, and shadow)' form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts By night star-veiling, and by day Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
Hard green wood of that,
answered
sometimes
left
just cut, though I used but
my
a good
in a winter afternoon
four hours afterward,
little
purpose better than any other.
;
it
fire
when
I
went
to take a
I
walk
and when I returned, three or wouii be still alive and glowing
WALDEN.
272
My house if
was not empty though I was gone. 1 had left a cheerful housekeeper behind.
It It
was I
and commonly
my
house-
and Fire
that lived there
;
One
keeper proved trustworthy. splitting
was fu
day, however, as 1
was
wood, I thought that I would just look in at the
window and
see if the house
was not on
fire
;
it
was the
only time I remember to have been particularly anxious
on
this score
Šaught
my
;
so I looked
and saw that a spark had
bed, and I went in and extinguished
it
when
had burned a place as big as my hand. But my house occupied so sunny and sheltered a position, and its roof
it
was
so low, that I could afford to let the fire go out in
the middle of almost any winter day.
The moles potato,
nested in
my
cellar,
nibbhng every third
and making a snug bed even there of some hair
and of brown paper for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive the winter only because they are left after
plastering
;
so careful to secure them.
as if
Some
of
my
friends spoke
I was coming to the woods on purpose to freeze
myself.
The animal merely makes a
warms with
his
bed, which he
body in a sheltered place but man, fire, boxes up some air in a spacious ;
having discovered
apartment, and warms that, instead of robbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by means of windowa even admit the light, and with a lamp lengthen out the Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and day. saves a little time for the fine arts. Though, when I had been exposed to the rudest blasts a long time, my whole body began to grow torpid, when I reached the genial atmosphere of
my
house I soon recovered
my
HOUSE-WAKAIING.
my
and prolonged
faculties
ously housed has
little
may
be at
last destroyed.
We
the north.
to speculate It
any time with a
their threads
Great SnoAvs
would put a period
The next
how
fire so
the
nor
human
would be easy
little
to cut
sharper blast from
little
to
colder Friday, or greater snow,
man's existence on the globe.
winter I used a small cooking-stove for
economy, since I did not own the forest
keep
luxuri-
go on dating from Cold Fridays and
but a
;
But the most
life.
to boast of in this respect,
need we trouble ourselves race
273
;
but
well as the open fire-place.
then, for the
most
chemic process. of stoves, that
part,
no longer a
It will soon
we used
it
Cooking was merely a
poetic, but
be forgotten,
did not
in these
days
to roast potatoes in the ashes,
The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire. The laborer, looking into
after the Indian fashion.
it
at
evening, purifies his thoughts of the dross and
earthiness
day.
which they have accumulated during the
But I could no longer
sit
and look into the
and the pertinent words of a poet recurred
new
force.
**
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to
me
Never, bright flame, may be denied to me dear, life imaging, close sympathy.
Thy
What but my What but my
Why
art
hopes shot upward e'er so bright ? fortunes sunk so low in night i
thou banished from our hearth and art welcomed and beloved by all ?
hall.
Thou who
Was
thy existence then too fanciful
For our life's common light, who arc so dull ? Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold
With our congenial
18
souls
?
secrets too bold
?
fire,
with
WALDEN.
274 Well,
we
are safe
and strong,
for
now we
Beside a hearth where no dim shadows
Where nothing
Warms
cheers nor saddens, but a
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
sit
flit,
fire
and hands nor does to more aspiie; By whose compact utilitarian, heap The present may sit down and go to sleep. Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked, And with us by the unequal light of the old wood hit feet
talked.*'
FORMER INHABITANTS; AND WINTER VISITORS,
WEATHERED some merry snow storms, and spent some cheerful winter evenings by my fire-side, while the 1
enow whirled wildly without, and even the hooting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks I met no one in my walks but those who came occasionally to cut wood and Bled
me
it
to the village.
The
elements, however, abetted
making a path through the deepest snow in the woods, for when I had once gone through the wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks, where they lodged, and by absorbing the rays of the sun melted the snow, and in
so not only their
dark
made line
a dry bed for
was
my
my
guide.
feet,
but in the night
For human
society I
was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these
Within the memory of many of
woods.
my townsmen
which my house stands resounded with and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which were notched and dotted here and there with
the road near the laugh
border
it
was then much more shut in by the forest than now. In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines woidd their
little
gardens and dwellings, though
it
(275)
WALDEN.
276
women una way to Lincoln
scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and
who were compslled
children
alone and on foot did
once amused the traveller more than
and lingered longer in
rariety,
now
firm open fields
woods,
this
neighboring villages, or for the woodman's
route to it
go
Though mainly but a humble
part of the distance.
team,
to
with fear, and often ran a good
it
stretch
his
tion of logs, the
its
When
from the village
to the
swamp on a
then ran through a maple
it
now by
memory.
founda-
remnants of which, doubtless,
still
un-
derlie the present dusty highway, from the Stratten,
now
the
Alms House, Farm,
East of
my
to Brister's Hill.
Cato In-
bean-field, across the road, lived
graham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman of Concord village
;
who
built his slave a house,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and
Walden Woods Cato, Some say that he not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. There are few who remember Guinea Negro. a was a his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up but a younger and till he should be old and need them gave him permission to
live in
;
;
whiter speculator got them at
last.
He
however,
too,
occupies an equally narrow house at present. half-obliterated cellar hole to few,
known
being concealed from the traveller by a fringe
of pines.
(Rhus
Cato's
remains, though
still
It
is
now
filled
with the smooth sumach,
glabra,) and one of the earliest species of golden-
rod (Solidago stricta) grows there luxuriantly.
Here, by the very corner of town, Zilpha, a colored
wher3 she spun linen
Walden Woods fi
my
field, still
woman, had her
nearer to
little
house,
making the singing, for she had
for the to^vnsfolk,
ring with her shrill
loud and notable voice.
At
1812, her dwelling was set on
length, in the wai' of
fire
by English
soldiers,
;;
FORMER INHABITANTS.
277
on parole, when she was away, and her cat and dog and hens were all burned up together. She prisonei
j
led a hard
life,
One
and somewhat inhumane.
old fre^
quenter of these woods remembers, that as he passed her
house one noon he heard her muttering to herself over her gurgling pot,
—
"
Ye are
!
all
I have
bones, bones "
seen bricks amid the oak copse there.
Down
the road, on the right hand, on Brister's Hill,
Freeman, " a handy Negro," slave of Squire Cummings once, there where grow still the apple-trees which Brister planted and tended large old Brister
lived
—
;
trees
now, but their
Not long
taste.
fruit still wild
little
marked graves of some the retreat from Concord,
called,
on one
side,
It also told
man
near the un-
British grenadiers
— where he
Scipio Africanus he had
Brister,"
is
who
wife,
in
some
title
be
to
of color," as if he were discolored.
me, with staring emphasis, when he died
lived.
who
fell
styled " Sippio
which was but an indirect way of informing he ever
my
to
since I read his epitaph in the old Lin-
coln burying-ground, a
— — "a
and ciderish
With him dwelt Fenda,
told fortunes, yet pleasantly,
me
that
his hospitable
—
large, round,
and black, blacker than any of the children of night, such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since.
Farther down the
hill,
on the
left,
on the old road in
marks of some homestead of the Stratwhose orchard once covered all the slope of Hill, but was long since killed out by pitch
the woods, are ten
famil}--
Brister's
;
pines, excepting a Uill
few stumps, whose old roots furnish
the wild stocks of
many a
thrifty village tree.
^
Nearer yet to town, you come to Breed's location, on he other
side of the way, just
on the edge of the wood
— WALDEN.
278
gi'ound famous for the pranks of a
named
in old
mythology,
who
demon not
distinctly
has acted a prominent
and astounding part in our New England Hfe, and deserves, as much as any mythological character, to have who first comes in the his biography written one day guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs and murNew-England Rum. But hisders the whole family, ;
—
tory must not yet
the tragedies enacted here
tell
let
;
time intervene in some measure to assuage and lend
an azure
tint to
Here the most
them.
indistinct
and
dubious tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the same, which tempered the traveller's beverage
and refreshed
another, and heard
ways
Here then men
his steed.
and
told the news,
saluted one
and went
their
again.
Breed's hut was standing only a dozen years ago, It was about the by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over
though
it
had long been unoccupied.
size of mine.
It
was
set
on
fire
Davenant's Gondiberfc, that winter that I labored with a lethargy,
— which, by the way,
regard as a family complaint, to sleep shaving himself,
knew whether to having an uncle who goes
and
I never
is
obliged to sprout pota-
keep awake and
toes in a cellar Sundays, in order to
keep the Sabbath, or as the consequence of to
my
attempt
read Chalmers' collection of English poetry without
skipping.
?unk
my
It fairly
head on
overcame
this
when
my
had jusl rung fire, and in
Nervii.
the bells
I
by a stragand I among the foremost,
dot haste the engines rolled that way, led gling troop of for
men and
boys,
I had leaped the brook.
oTcr the woods,
— we
We thought
who had run
it
was
far south
to fires before,
rORMER INHABITANTS. bani, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. bara," cried one. "It is the
ker's
Codman
firmed another.
And
279 «
It's
Ba-
riace," af-
then fresh sparks went up above
wood, as if the roof Concord to the rescue ''
tlie
!
nous speed and crushing
fell
in,
and we
Wagons loads,
all
shouted
shot past with fu-
bearing,
perchance,
among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon
the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure, and rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered,
they
who
set the fire
and gave the alarm.
came Thus we
kept on hke true ideahsts, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the cracklin<.
and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the waU, and realized, alas that we were there. The very !
nearness of the
but cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so fire
worthless.
So we
stood round our engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through speaking trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations which the world
has witnessed, including Bascom's shop, and, between we thought that, were we there in season with our "tub," and a full frog-pond by, we ourselves,
could turn that threatened last and universal one into another flood We finally retreated without doing any mischief,
—
re-
turned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert, I would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul's powder, "but most of mankind are etrangers to wit, as Indians are to powder.'*
—
It
chanced that I walked that way across the
the following night, about the
bw
moaning
at this spot, I
fields
same hour, and hearing a drew near in the dark, and
WALDEN.
280
discovered the only survivor of the family that I know, the heir of both
its
and
virtues
its
vices,
who
alone was
interested in this burning, lying on his stomach and
looking over the cellar wall at the
still
ders beneath, muttering to himself, as
smouldering cinis
He
his wont.
had been working far off in the river meadows all day, and had improved the first moments that he could call his own to visit the home of his fathers and hi3 youth.
He
gazed into the
points of view
by
there was some
cellar
from
turns, always lying
treasure,
sides
all
down
to
it,
and
as if
which he remembered, con-
cealed between the stones, where there was absolutely
nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes. being gone, he looked at what there was
my
soothed by the sympathy which plied,
The house
He was
left.
mere presence im-
and showed me, as well as the darkness permitted,
where the well was covered up which, thank Heaven, could never be burned and he groped long about the wall to find the well-sweep which his father had cut and mounted, feeling for the iron hook or staple by which a all that burden had been fastened to the heavy end, to, to that it was no convince me he could now cling common " rider." I felt it, and still remark it almost ;
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
daily in
my
walks, for
by
it
hangs the history of a
family.
Once more, on the left, where are seen the well and bushes by the wall, in the now open field, lived Nutting and Le Grosse. But to return toward Lincoln. Farther in the woods than any of these, where the
lilac
road approaches nearest to the pond, i.er
squatted,
ware, and
and furnished
left
were they rich
his
Wyman
the pot
townsmen with earthen
descendants to succeed him.
Neithel
in worldly goods, holding the land
b^
;
FORMER INHABITANTS. BufFerance
came
whue
tliey lived
and there
;
in vain to collect the taxes,
have read
for form's sake, as I
281
often the sherifT
and " attached a chip," his accounts, there
in
being nothing else that he could lay his hands on.
One
was hoeing, a man who was carrying a load of pottery to market stopped his horse against my field and inquired concerning Wyman the younger. He had long ago bought a potter's wheel of him, and wished to know what had become of him. I day
in
midsummer, when
had read of the but
it
I
potter's clay
had never occurred
to
and wheel
me
in Scripture,
that the pots
we uso
were not such as had come down unbroken from those grown on trees like gourds somewhere, and I
days, or
was pleased tised in
The iin
my
to
coil
Hugh
enough,)
Col. Quoil,
fictile
an art was ever prac-
inhabitant of these woods before
last
Irishman,
with
hear that so
neighborhood.
he was
me was
Quoil, (if I have spelt his
who
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Wyman's tenement, Rumor said that he had been
occupied
called.
If he
a soldier at Waterloo.
name
had lived
I should
have
made him fight his battles over again. His trade here was that of a ditcher. Napoleon went to St. Helena Quoil came to "Walden Woods. All I know of liim is He was a man of manners, like one who had tragic. seen the world, and was capable of more civil speech than you could well attend
to.
He
wore a great coat
in
mid-summer, being affected with the trembling delirium,
and
his face
was the
color of carmine.
He
died in the
came to have not remembered him as a house was pulled down, when hia
road at the foot of Brister's Hill shortly after I (he woods, so that I
neighbor.
Before his
comrades avoided
Th
5re
it
as " an unlucky castle," I visited
lay his old cbthes curled up
by
it.
use, as if th 3y
282
WALDEN-.
were himself, upon
His pipe lay
his raised plank bed.
broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken at the fountain.
The
last
could never have been the symbol
of his death, for he confessed to
me
that,
though he had
heard of Brister's Spring, he had never seen soiled
cards,
kings
of
were scattered over the
it
;
and
diamonds spades and hearts, floor.
One black chicken which
the administrator could not catch, black as night and as silent,
not even croaking, awaiting Reynard,
to roost in the next apartment.
went
still
In the rear there was
the dim outline of a garden, which had been planted
but had never received terrible shaking
It
fits,
its first
though
it
hoeing, owing to those
was now harvest time.
was over-run with Roman wormwood and bejrffarCO which last stuck to my clothes for all fruit. The
ticks,
skin of a
woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the
back of the house, a trophy of his last Waterloo no warm cap or mittens would he want more.
Now
only a dent in the earth marks the
dwellings, with buried cellar stones,
in the
sunny sward there
;
but
of these
and strawberries,
raspberries, thimble-berries, hazel-bushes,
growing
site
;
and sumachs
some pitch-pine or
gnarled oak occupies what was the chimney nook, and
a sweet-scented black-birch, perhaps, waves where the door-stone was. Sometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed now dry and tearless grass or it was covered deep, not to be discovered till some
—
;
— with a when under the race departed. What a sorrowful must — covering up of with
late day, last
;
flat
stone
the
sod,
of the
thnt be,
act
the
wells
openii.^T of wells
of tears.
These
!
coincident
cellar dents, like de-
sertod ibx burrows, old holes, are all that
one ^ were the
stir
the
and bustle of human
Is
life,
left
where
and " fate
FORMER INHABITANTS. free
'Will,
foreknowledge absolute," in some form and
alect or other
were by turns discussed.
learn of their conclusions amounts "
283
to just
Cato and Brister pulled wool " which ;
more famous
fying as the history of
But is
di«
I can
all
this,
that
about as edi-
schools of philo3«
ophy. Still
grows the vivacious
door and
lintel
and the
lilac
a generation after the
are gone, unfolding
sill
sweet-
its
scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the mus-
ing traveller
;
planted and tended once by childi-en's
hands, in front-yard plots,
ests
;
— the
with
blip
ground
its
in the
dusky children think that the puny
and outlive them, and house
rear that shaded
— blossoming
first
spring.
I
it,
after they
as fair,
mark
itself
and grown man's garden
their story faintly to
tell
wanderer a half century that
in the
shadow of the house and daily watered,
itself so,
and orchard, and died,
to new-rising for-
two eyes only, which they stuck
in the
would root
wall-sides
survivor of that fam-
last of that stirp, sole
Little did the
ily.
— now standing by
and giving place
in retired pastures,
the lone
had grown up and
and smelling as sweet, as in
its still
tender, civil, cheerful,
lilac colors.
But did
this
it fail
small village,
germ of something more, why
while Concord keeps
no natural advantages,
its
— no water
Ay, the deep Walden Pond and
?
Were
unimproved by these
men
there
privileges, forsooth ?
cool Brister's Spring,
and healthy draughts
privilege to drink long nil
ground
—
at these,
but to dilute their glass,
riioy were universally a thirsty race.
Might not the
basket, stable-broom, mat-making, corn-parching, linenspinning, and pottery business have thrived here,
making the wilderness
to blossoir
li^ie
the rose, and 9
WALDEN.
284
numerous fathers ?
have inherited the land uf their The sterile soil would at least have been posterity
proof against a low-land degeneracy. does the
memory
human
of these
the beauty of the landscape
!
Alas
my
me
be the oldest in the hamlet.
for a first settler,
and
man has ever Deliver me from a
not aware that any
spot which I occupy. the site of a
more ancient
little
inhabitants enhance
will try, with
am
how
Again, perhaps, Nature
last spring to
I
!
city,
house raised
built
on the
city built on whose materials are
whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is blanched and accursed there, and before that becomes necessary ruins,
the earth itself will be destroyed. <jences I repeopled the
woods and
With such reminislulled
myself asleep.
At this season I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay deepest no wanderer ventured near my house for a week or fortnight at a time, but there I lived as snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle and poultry which are said to have survived for a long time buried in or like that early settler's fam-
drifts,
even without food
ily in
the town of Sutton, in this state, whose cottage
;
was completely covered by the great snoAV of 1717 when he was absent, and an Indian found it only by the
made in the drift, and But no friendly Indian con-
hole which the chimney's breath so relieved the family.
cerned himself about
me
;
nor needed he, for the master
of the house was at home. cheerful
get to
\t is tlie
hear of!
When
!
How
the farmers could not
woods and swamps with their teams, and
were obliged houses, and
to
The Great Snow
to cut
when
down
the shade trees before their
the crust was harder cut off the trees
WINTER in the
swamps ten
feet
285
VISITORS.
from the ground, as
it
appeared
the next spring.
In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the liighway to
my
house, about half a mile long, might
have been represented by a meandering dotted
line,
For a week of
with wide intervals between the dots.
even weather I took exactly the same number of
steps,
and of the same length, coming and going, stepping deand with the precision of a pair of dividers
liberately
my own
deep tracks,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yet
duces us,
own
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to
such routine the winter re-
often they
But no weather
blue.
walks, or rather
my
in
were
filled
with heaven's
interfered fatally with
my
going abroad, for I frequently
tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow
to
keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellowbirch, or
an old acquaintance among the pines
the ice and
snow causing
their limbs to droop,
;
when
and so
sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into
fir-
when
the
trees
;
wading
to the tops of the highest hills
snow was nearly two
feet
deep on a
down another snow-storm on
my
level,
and shaking
head at every step
or sometimes creeping and floundering thither on
;
my
hands and knees, when the hunters had gone into winter quarters. One afternoon I amused myself by watching a barred owl
(Sirix nebulosa) sitting on one of the
lower dead limbs of a white-pine, close to the trunk, in broad daylight, I standing within a rod of him. He could hear
with
my
me when
feet,
I
moved and cronched
his
stretch out his neck,
neck feathers, and open his eyes wide fell
again,
and he began
to nod.
;
snow
When
but could not plainly see me.
mad3 most noise he would soon
the
T
and erect
but their
I too felt
lids
a slum-
be*ous influence after watching him half an hour, as h6
;
WALDEW.
286
a cat, winged brother of the cat. There was only a narrow slit left between their lids, ly which he preserved a peninsular
sat thus with his eyes half open, like
me
relation to
;
thus, with half-shut eyes, looking out
from the land of dreams, and endeavoring
to realize
me,
vague object or mote that interrupted his visions. At length, on some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy and sluggishly turn about on his perch, as
impatient at having his dreams disturbed
if
and when he launched himself off and flapped through the pines, spreading his wings to unexpected breadth, I could not hear the slightest sound from them.
amid the pine boughs rather by a neighborhood than by
were with
As
in
delicate sense of their
way as it he found a new perch,
sight, feeling his twilight
his sensitive pinions,
where he might
Thus, guided
peace await the dawning of his day.
I walked over the long causeway
made
for the
railroad through the meadows, I encountered many a blustering and nipping wind, for nowhere has it freer
play
;
and when the
frost
had smitten me on one cheek,
heathen as I was, I turned to
was
it
Hill.
much
better
For
came
I
it
the other also.
by the carriage road from town
to
still,
like
Nor
Brister's
a friendly Indian,
when
the contents of the broad open fields were all up between the walls of the "Walden road, and half an hour sufficed to obliterate the tracks of the last And when I returned new drifts would havo traveller. formed, through which I floundered, where the busy north-west wind had been depositing the powdery snow round a sharp angle in the road, and not a rabbit's track, piled
nor even the fine print, the small type, of a
mouse was ji
to
be seen.
mid-winter, some
Yet
meadow
I rai*ely failed to find,
warm and
springy
even
swamp where
WIXIER VISITORS. the glass and the skunk-cabbage
287 put forth with
still
perennial verdure, and some hardier bird occasionally
awaited the return of spring.
Scmitimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from my walk at evening I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper leading from my door, and found his pile of whittlings on the hearth,
my
house
Or on a Sunday
with the odor of his pipe. if
and
filled
afternoon^
I chanced to be at home, I heard the crouching of
made by
the snow
who from
a social " crack
have
who
the step of a long-headed farmer
woods sought my house, to " one of the few of his vocation
far through the
are "
men on
;
their farms
;
"
who donned a frock
stead of a professor's gown, and
is
in-
as ready to extiact
the moral out of church or state as to haul a load of
manure from
his barn-yard.
simple times,
when men
bracing weather, sert failed,
squirrels
we
talked of rude and
sat about large
Avith clear
tried
We
heads
our teeth on
;
many
have long since abandoned,
have the thickest
shells are
The one who came from
fires
in cold
and when other desa nut which wise for those
which
commonly empty. farthest to ray lodge, through
deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet.
A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher,
he
is
may be daunted
;
but nothing can deter a poet, for
"Who can predict his His business calls him out at all
actuated by pure love.
comings and goings hours, even
when
?
doctors sleep.
We
made
that small
house ring with boisterous mirth and resound with the
murmur of much sober talk, making amends tlien to Walden vale for the long silences. Broadway was still and deserted in comparison. At suitable intervals there were, regular salutes of laughter, which might have
— WALDEN.
288
been referred indifferently to the
uttered or the
We made many a " bran new " theory
forth-coming jest. of
last
over a thin dish of gruel, which combined the
life
advantages of conviviality with the clear-headedness
which philosophy requires. I should not forget that during
my
last
winter at the
pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One Connecticut gave him to of the last of the philosophers, the world,
— he peddled
—
first
her wares, afterwards, as he
These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, I think that he must be the like the nut its kernel. declares, his brains.
man
of the most faith of any alive.
attitude always suppose a better state
men
other
man
to
His words and of things than
are acquainted with, and he will be the last
He has
be disappointed as the ages revolve.
But though comparatively
venture in the present.
no
dis-
regarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by
most will
will take effect,
come
to *•
A
him
How blind that
true friend of
man
progress.
tality,
and masters of families and rulers
for advice.
man
;
cannot see serenity
" I
almost the only friend of hu*
An Old Mortahty, say rather
Immor
an
with unwearied patience and faith making plain
the image engraven in men's bodies, the
God
of
they are but defaced and leaning monuments. his
whom With
hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars,
insane,
and
adding to
it
and entertains the thought of commonly some breadth and elegance. scholars,
all,
I
WINTER VISITORS.
he should keep a caravansary on the world's
tliink that
high^\a7,
where philosophers of
up,
and on
for
man, but not
all nations might put be printed, " Entertainment
his sign should
who
He
sanest
the
p(».rhaps
and
man and
has the fewest
know the same yesterOf yore we had sauntered and
day and to-morrow. talked,
lei-
earnestly seek the right road."
any I chance
crotchets of
Enter ye that have
for his beast.
sure and a quiet mind, is
28&
to
effectually put the
;
world behind us ; for he
was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the
A
beauty of the landscape. roof
fittest
is
I do not see
serenity.
blue-robed man, whose
sky which
the overarching
how he can
reflects his
ever die
;
Nature
cannot spare him.
Having each some
shingles of thought well dried,
we
sat and whittled them, trying our knives, and admiring
We
the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine.
waded so
so gently
and reverently, or we pulled together
smoothly, that
the
of thought were
fishes
not
scared from the stream, nor feared any angler on the
bank, but came and went grandly, like the clouds which
through the western sky, and the mother-o'-pearl
float
flocks
There
which sometimes form and dissolve there.
we worked,
revising mythology, rounding a fable here
and
and building
there,
castles
in the air
to converse
with
England Night's Entertainment.
we had, hermit and have spoken
my
little
of,
house
!
a
New
such discourse
philosopher, and the old settler I
— we ;
whom was
Ah
which
Great Looker!
earth offered no worthy foundation.
Great Expecter!
for
three,
—
it
expanded and racked
I should not dare to say
19
how many
WALDEN.
290
pounds' weight there was above the atmospheric press*
ure on every circular
incli
;
they had to be calked with stop the consequent leak
;
it
opened
much
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but
its
seams so
tliat
dulness thereafter to I had enough of that
kind of oakum already picked.
There was one other with whom I had " solid seaeons," long to be remembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me from time to lime but I had no more for society there. There too, as every where, I sometimes expected tho Visitor who never comes. The Vishnu Purana, says, ;
*'
The
house-holder
yard as long as
it
is
to
remain at eventide
takes to milk a cow, or lotiger
pleases, to await the arrival of a guest."
formed
this
in nis courtif
he
1 often per-
duty of hospitality, waited long enough to
milk a whole herd of cows, but did not approaching from the town.
&^.e
the
man
WINTER ANIMALS.
When
the ponds were fimily frozen, they afforded
new and shorter routes to many points, but new views from their surfaces of the familiar landscape not only
around them.
When
I crossed Flints'
Pond, after
it
was covered with snow, though I had often paddled about and skated over it, it was so unexpectedly Avide and 60 strange that I could think of nothing but Baffin's
up around me at the extremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not remember and the fishermen, at an indeterto have stood before minable distance over the ice, moving slowly about with their wolfish dogs, passed for sealers or Esquimaux, or
The Lincoln
Bay.
hills
rose
;
in misty
did
weather loomed
like fabulous creatures,
and I
know whether they were giants or pygmies. this courf.e when I went to lecture in Lincoln in
not
I took
the evening, travelling in no road and passing no house
between
my own
hut and the lecture room.
Pond, which lay in
my
In Goose
way, a colony of muskrats
dwelt, and raised their cabins high above the ice, though
none could be seen abroad when I crossed it. Walden, being like the rest usually bare of snow, or with onl;^ (291)
292
WALDEJf.
on it, was my yard where I could walk freely when the snow was nearly
shallow and
two
feet
interrupted
drifts
deep on a level elsewhere and the villagers
were confined
There, far from the
to their streets.
vil-
lage street, ar d except at very long intervals, from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid
and skated, as
a vast
in
moose-yard well trodden, overhung by oak woods and solemn pines bent down with snow or bristling with icicles.
For sounds days,
I
hooting
and often
in winter nights,
heard the forlorn but melodious note of a
owl indefinitely far
frozen earth would
yield
a sound as
such
;
if
struck with
plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of
and
quite
familiar
saw the bird while
my
door
Hoo hoo
in winter
in
to it
me
at
Walden Wood,
though I never
last,
was making
a winter
opened
I seldom
it.
evening without
hoo^ hoorer hoo,
the
a suitable
hearing
it;
sounded sonorously, and the
first three syllables accented
somewhat
or sometimes hoo hoo only.
One
like
how der do ;
night in the beginning
of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine o'clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, and, step-
ping to the door, heard the sound of their wings tempest in the woods as they flew low over
They passed over all
like
a
house.
the pond toward Fair Haven, seem-
ingly deterred from settling
dore honking
my
by
my
light, their
commo-
the while with a regular beat.
Sud-
denly an unmistakable cat-ovl from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice I ever heard
from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular intervals to the goose, as if determined to expose
disgrace this intruder from Hudson's
Bay by
and
exhibiting
R greater compass and volume of voice in a native, and
"WINTER ANIMALS. loo-hoo him out of Concord mean by alarming the citadel Bccrated to
me ?
Do you
2D8
What
horizon. at this
think I
do you
time of night conÂŤ
am
ever caught nap-
ping at such an hour, and that I have not got lungs and
a larynx as hoo
It
!
heard.
were
in
a^sII
as yourself?
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, hoO'
was one of the most thrilling discords I evei yet, if you had a discriminating ear, there
And it
the elements of a concord such as these plains
never saw nor heard. I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond,
great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as restless
in
bed and would
its
if it
my
were
turn over, were
fain
troubled with flatulency and bad dreams
;
or I was
waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as some one had di'iven a team against my door, and
if
in
the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter
of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.
Sometimes
snow
crust, in
I
heard the foxes as they ranged over the
moonlight nights, in search of a partridge
or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as
if
laboring with some anxiety, or seeking
expression, struggling for light and to be dogs outright
and run freely
in the streets
into our account,
among
on to
may
;
for if
we
brutes as well as
men
?
be rudimental, burrowing men,
They seemed still
defence, awaiting their transformation.
came near to
my
take the ages
there not be a civilization going
window, attracted by
to
me
standing on their
Sometimes one
my
light,
barked
a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated. Usually the red squirrel {Sciurus Hndsonius) wak(:d
dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if sent out of the woods In the course of the winter [ threw for this purpose.
me
in the
"WALDEN.
294
out half a bushel of ears of sweet-corn,
got ripe, on to the snow crust by
•
my
Tv^hich
had not and was
door,
amused by watching lie motions of the various animals which were baited by
In the twilight and the night
it.
made a hearty
the rabbits came regularly and
meal.
All day long the red squirrels came and went, and
me much
afforded
entertainment by '^«ir manoeuvres.
One would approach
ihe shrub-
at first warily throuj,
by fits ana o'arts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, "with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making in-
oaks, running over the
snow
crust
conceivable haste with his " trotters," as
wager, and
now
as
many
more than half a rod
ting on
if it
were
for
a
paces that way, but never getat
a time
;
and then sud
denly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratui tons somerset, as fixed on
if all
him, — or
all
the eyes in the universe were the motions of a squirrel, even
most solitary recesses of the
in the tors as
much
imply specta-
forest,
as those of a dancing girl,
— wasting more
time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to
walk,
walk the whole distance,
— and
—
saw one
I never
then suddenly, before you could say Jack
Robinson, he would be in the top of a young pitch-pine,
winding up his clock and chiding
and talking
tors, soliloquizing
same
time,
—
for
all
imaginary specta-
to all the universe at the
no reason that I could ever
he himself was aware
of,
would reach the corn, and
I
suspect.
At
wliere
lie
looked
my
me
wood-pile, before
in the face,
su})plying himself with a
nibbling
at first
length he
selecting a suitable ear, brisk
about in the same uncertain trigonometrical top-most stick of
detect, or
new
and there
way
my sit
to the
window, for hours,
ear from time to time,
voraciously and throwing the half-naked
WINTER ANIMALS. cobs about
played
;
witli
till
at length
295
he grew more dainty
still
and
his food, tasting only the inside of the ker-
and the ear, Avhich was held balanced over the stick by one paw, slipped from his careless grasp and fell to nel,
the ground,
when he would
look over at
crous expression of uncertainty, as
had
if
it
with a ludi-
suspecting that
agahi, or a
new
one, or
then listening to hear what was in the wind.
So the
impudent fellow would waste many an ear
little
it
made up whether to get it be off; now thinking of com,
with a mind not
life,
a
in
some longer and plumper one, considerably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he would set out with it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, by the same zig-zag course and
forenoon
till
;
at last, seizing
it as if it were him and faUing all the while, making its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being determined to put it through at any rate; and so a singularly frivolous and whimsical fellow
frequent pauses, scratching along with too
heavy
for
;
he would get carry tant,
the
it
with
to the top of
and
I
woods
At
off
it
to
where he
would afterwards
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
lived,
a pine tree forty or
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
fifty
perhaps rods dis-
find the cobs strewn about
in various directions.
length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams
were heard long before, as they were warily making their approach an eighth of a mile off, and in a stealthy and sneaking manner they flit from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and pick up the kernels which the squirrels have dropped.
Then,
sitting
on a pitch-pine bough,
they attempt to swallow in their hasie a kernel which V too big for their throats and chokes them; and after great labor they disgorge the endeavor to crack
it
it,
and spend an hour
by repeated blows with
in
their
WALDEN.
296
They were
bills.
much
manifestly thieves, and I had
no",
them but the squirrels, though at first work as if they were taking what was
respect for
shy, went to
;
their own.
Meanwhile
also
came
the chicadees in flocks, which,
picking up the crums the squirrels had dropped, flew
claws,
as
them under
nearest twig, and, placing
the
to
hammered away
if it
were an
sufiiciently
them with
at
insect
in the
their
bark,
till
little
their bills,
they were
reduced for their slender throats.
A
little
came daily to pick a dinner out wood-pile, or the crums at my door, with faint
flock of these tit-mice
of
my
flitting lisping notes, like
grass, or
else
the tinkling of icicles in the
with sprightly day day day, or more
rarely, in spring-like days, a
the wood-side.
They were
wiry summery phe-he from so familiar that at length .
one alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying
in,
and pecked
at the sticks without fear.
I once
had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels also grew at last to be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped upon my shoe, when that was the nearest way.
When
the ground was not yet quite covered, and
again near the end of winter,
on
my
when
south hill-side and about
the snow was melted
my
wood-pile, the par-
came out of the woods morning and evening to Whichever side you walk in the woods the feed there. partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, whicb tomes sifting down in the sun-beams Hke golden dust
tridges
WINTER ANIMALS. tor
tlivs
brave bird
is
297
not to be scared by winter.
It is
by drifts, and, it is said, " sometimes plunges from on wing into the soft snow, where it frequently covered up
remahis concealed for a day or two."
them
in the
open land
the woods at sunset
They
also,
where they had come out of
"bud"
to
I used to start
the wild
apple-trees.
come regularly every evening to paiticular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies in wait for them, will
and the a
distant orchards next the
little.
rate.
am
I
woods
suffer thus not
glad that the partridge gets fed, at any
It is Nature's
own
bird which lives on buds
and
diet-drink.
In dark winter mornings, or
in short winter afternoons,
1 sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading
woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable instinct of the chase,
all
the
to resist the
and the note of the hunting horn
man was
the rear.
The
woods ring again, and yet no fox bursts forth on
to the
at intervals,
proving that
in
open level of the pond, nor following pack pursuing their Actoeon.
And
turnini; with
a
perhaps at evening I see the hunters resin^-le
brush
a trophy, seeking their inn. fox would remain in the
would be
safe,
or
if
trailincj
They
from their tell
that
if
for
the
bosom of the frozen earth he
he would run in a straight line
away no fox-hound could overtake him his pursuers far behind,
they come up, and
me
slei*!:!!
he stops
;
but,
to rest
when he runs he
having
and
circles
listen
round
left till
to his
where the hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many rods, and then leap off for to one side, and he appears to know old haunts,
that water will not retain his scent.
A
hunter told
me
that he once saw a fox pursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was covered with shallow pud
;
298
WALDF.N. run part
dies,
way
and then return
across,
to the
same
Ere long the hounds arrived, but here they lost Sometimes a pack hunting by tAiemselves would pass my door, and circle round my house, and shore.
the scent.
yelp and liound without regarding me, as if afflicted
by a species of madness, so that nothing could diver*
Thus they
them from the pursuit.
upon
llie
they faP
hound
will for-
recent trail of a fox, for a wise
sake every thing else for
my
circle until
this.
One day a man came
t<Âť
hut from Lexington to inquire after his hound that
made a
had been hunting
large track, and
But
for
a week
was not the wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to answer his questions he interrupted me by asking, " What do you do here? " He had lost a dog, but found a man. by
himself.
One come
I fear that he
old hunter
who used to once every year when the
who has a dry
to bathe in "VValden
tongue,
water was warmest, and at such times looked in upon
me,
told
me, that
many
years ago he took his gun one
afternoon and went out for a cruise in
Walden Wood
and as he walked the Wayland road he heard the ciy of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the wall into the road,
and as quick as thought leaped the other
wall out of the road, and his swift bullet had not touched
him.
Some way behind came an
three pups in
full pursuit,
old
hound and her
hunting on their
own
account,
Late in the and disappeared again in the woods. afternoon, as he was resting in the thick woods south of
Walden, he
heai-d
toward Fair Haven
the voice of the hounds far still
pursuing the fox
came, their hounding cry which made
all
;
over
and on they
the woods ring
sounding nearer and nearer,
now from Well-Meadow,
now from
For a long time he
the
Baker Farm.
stood
WINTER ANIMALS. 6till
ear,
299
avid lisjencd to their music, so sweet to
when suddenly
a hunter's
the fox appeared, threading the
solemn aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound wa; concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground, leaving his pursuers far
behind
sat erect
;
and, leaping upon a )'ock amid the woods, he
and
listening,
that
was a short
lived
For
with his back to the hunter.
a moment vompassion restrained the
latter's
arm
;
but
mood, and as quick as thought can
follow thought his piece
was
and whang!
levelled,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the fox rolling over the rock lay dead on the ground.
The hunter still kept Still
his place
and listened
to the hounds.
on they came, and now the near woods resounded
through
with their demoniac cry.
all their aisles
At
length the old hound burst into view with muzzle to the
ground, and snapping the air as rectly to the rock
;
if
possessed, and ran di-
but spying the dead fox she suddenly
ceased her hounding, as
if
dumb
struck
ment, and walked round and round him
one by one her pups arrived, and,
like their
sobered into silence by the mystery.
came forward and stood in was solved. They waited
their midst,
with amaze-
in silence
;
and
mother, were
Then
the hunter
and the mystery
in silence while
he skinned
the fox, then followed the brush a while, and at length
turned
off
ton Squire
into the
came
woods again.
to the
That evening a Wes-
Concord hunter's cottage
how
to in-
week they had quire for his been hunting on their own account from Weston woods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and ofFe -ed him the skin but the other declined it and departed. lie did not find his hounds thaf night, but the next day learned that they had crossed the river and put up at a hounds, and
;
told
for a
WALDEN.
500
farm-house for the night, whence, having been well
fed^
thej took their departure early in the morning.
The hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nutting, who used to hunt bears on Fair Haven Ledges, an.l exchange their skins for rum in Concord village who told him, even, that he had seen a moose there. Nutting had a famous fox-hound named Burgojne, ;
— he pronounced to
Bugine,
— which my informant used
In the " Wast Book
borrow.
town,
it
who was
" of
an old trader of
also a captain, trwn-clerk,
tative, I find the following entry.
this
and represen-
Jan. 18th, 1742-3,
— —
3;" they 2 "John Melven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox 7th, leger, Feb. his in now found here and are not 1743, Hezekiah Stratton has credit "by ^ a Catt skin ;
— — 4^ 1
;
" of course, a wild-cat, for Stratton was a
sergeant in the old French war, and would not have got credit for hunting less noble
deer skins
also,
game.
and they were
Credit
daily sold.
is
given for
One man
still
last deer that was killed in and another has told me the particulars of which his uncle was engaged. The hunters
preserves the horns of the this vicinity,
the hunt in
were formerly a numerous and merry crew here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod who would catch up a
by the road-side and play a strain on it wilder and more melodious, if my memory serves me, than any leaf
hunting horn.
At
midnight,
when
met with hounds in
there was a moon, I sometimes
my
path prowling about the woods,
which would skulk out of itand silent
amid the bushes
my till
way, as
if afraid,
and
I had passed.
my store of nuts, around my house, from
Squirrels and wild mice disputed for
There were scores of pitch-pines
WINTER ANIMALS.
301
one to four inches in diameter, which had been gnawed by mice the previous winter, a Norwegian winter for
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they were
mix a
obliged to
large proportion of pine bark with their
These
other diet.
trees
were
ishing at mid-summer, and foot,
alive
many
though completely girdled
;
and apparently
flour-
of them had grown a
but after another win-
were without exception dead. It is remarkable that a single mouse should thus be allowed a whole pine tree for its dinner, gnawing round instead of up and ter such
down
it
but perhaps
;
necessary in order to thin
it is
these trees, which are wont to
grow up densely. The hares (Lepus Americanus) were very familiar. One had her form under my house all winter, separated from me only by the flooring, and she startled me each morning by her hasty departure when I began to stir,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
thump, thump, thump, striking her head against the timbers in her hurry.
They used
to
floor
come round
my
door at dusk to nibble the potato parings which I had
thrown that
and were so nearly the color of the ground
out,
they could hardly be
Sometimes
ered sight of one sitting motionless under
When
I
my
opened
only excited
my
pity.
two paces from me, at
move
;
looked as
if
Near
One evening one first
my
window.
at
sat
hand they
by
my door
trembling with fear, yet un-
a poor wee thing, lean and bony, with
ragged ears and sharp nose, scant It
still.
and recov-
door in the evening, off they Avould
go with a squeak and a bounce.
willing to
when
distinguished
in the twilight I alternately lost
tail
and slender paws.
Nature no longer contained the breed of
nobler bloods, but stood on her last toes.
Its large
appeared young and unhealthy, almost dropsical. took a step, and
lo,
away
it
eyes I
scud with an elastic spring
WALDEN.
802
over Ihe snow crust, straightening into graceful length,
and
itself,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and soon put the
its
limlia
between its
me
visor
Not without reason was
Such then was some think.)
slenderness.
Wliat
forest
the wild free venison, assertinj?
and the dignity of Nature. light-fool,
body and
its
its
nature.
its
{Lepus, levipeSf
a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal is
products
;
ancient and venerable families
tiquity as to
modern times
;
known
to an-
of the very hue and sub-
stance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the
ground, is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
legged.
ture
It is
when a
one another
hardly as
if
;
it is
winged or
much
to
cut
off,
a
be expected as rustling leaves.
like true natives of the soil, is
it
you had seen a wild crea-
partridge and the rabbit are
If the forest
either
rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only
natural one, as
The
to
still
sure to thrive,
whatever revolutions occur.
the sprouts and bushes which
spring up afford them concealment, and they become
more numerous than ever.
That must be a poor counOur woods
try indeed that does not support a hare.
teem with them both, and around every swamp
may
be
seen the partridge or rabbit walk, beset Avith twiggy fences
and
horso-haii* snares,
which some cow-boy
t(
nds.
THE POND IN WINTER.
Aftek
a still winter night I awoke with the impressome question had been put to me, which I
sion that
had been endeavoring
what-— how Nature, in
whom
all
answer
in vain to
— when — where?
to
lips.
my
sleep, aa
But there was dawning
creatures live, looking in at
broad windows with serene and question on her
in
I
awoke
Nature and daylight.
to
satisfied face,
my
and no
an answered question,
The snow
lying deep on the
earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill
en which
ward
my
house
is
placed,
seemed
to say,
For-
Nature puts no question and answers none
I
which we mortals ask. resolution.
"
O
She has long ago taken her
Prince, our eyes contemplate with ad-
miration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and va-
The
ried spectacle of this universe.
this glorious creation
douV; a part of i*cve?l
night veils without ;
but day comes to
to us this great work, which extends from earth
evFD. iato the plains of the ether."
Th^n pail
f
jid
to
my
First I take an axe and
morning work-
go in search of water,
After % (old and «inowy night
it
if that
be not a dream.
needed a divining rod (303)
804
WALDEN. Every winter the of the pond, which was
to find
it.
surface
and trembling
liquid
so sensitive to every
breath, and reflected every light and shadow,
depth of a foot or a foot and a
solid to the it
will support the heaviest teams,
snow covers
it
to
dormant
for three
snow-covered cut
of
hills, it
my way
months or more.
plain, as if in
first
dow
down
Standing on the
a pasture amid the
pervaded by a softened
as in
and becomes
hills,
I
summer
;
my
feet,
where, kneel-
into the quiet parlor of the
of ground glass, with
same
not to be dis
through a foot of snow, and then a foot
ing to drink, I look fishes,
eye-lids
its
and open a window under
ice,
it is
Like the marmots in
field.
closes
half, so that
and perchance the
an equal depth, and
tinguished from any level the surrounding
becomes
its
light as
through a win
bright sanded floor the
there a perennial waveless seren-
to the cool
amber twilight sky, corresponding and even temperament of the inhabitants.
Heaven
under our feet as well as over our heads.
ity reigns as in the
is
Early in the morning, while frost,
and
men come
let
down
all
things are crisp with
with fishing reels and slendei lunch^
their fine lines through the
take pickerel and perch
;
wild men,
who
snowy
field tc
instinctively fol-
low other fashions and trust other authorities than their townsmen, and by their goings and comings together in parts where
They
sit
else
stitch
towns
they would be ripped.
and eat their luncheon in stout fear-naughts on
the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise in natural lore
They never consulted know and can tell much less than they have done. The things which they practise are said not yet to be known. Here is one fishing for pickerel as the
citizen is in artificial.
with books, and
with grown perch for bait.
You
look into his pail with
THE POND wonder as
IN WINTER.
305
summer pond, as if he kept summer home, or knew where she had retreated.
into a
locked up at
How, pray, did he get these in mid- winter ? O, he got worms out of rotten logs since the ground froze, and so he caught them.
His
passes deeper in Nature
life itself
than the studies of the naturalist penetrate
The
subject for the naturalist.
and bark gently with
;
himself a
latter raises the
his knife in search of insects
moss ;
the
former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees.
Such a man has some
right to
swallows the
grub-worm, the
pickerel
the chinks in the scale of being are
When
and
swallows the
perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel all
fish,
The perch
I love to see Nature carried out in him.
;
and so
filled.
I strolled around the pond in misty weather I
was sometimes amused by the primitive mode which some ruder fisherman had adopted. He would perhaps have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the
ice,
which were four or
five rods apart
and an equal
distance from the shore, and having fastened the end of
the line to a stick to prevent
have passed the slack foot or more above the
line ice,
its
being pulled through,
over a twig of the alder, a
and
tied
a dry oak leaf
which, being pulled down, would show
lo
it,
when he had a
These you walked half way round the pond. Ah, the pickerel of Walden when I see them lying on the ice, or in the well which the fisherman cuts in
alders loomed through the mist at regular
bite.
intervals as
!
the ice,
making a
little
hole to admit the Avater, 1
always surprised by their rare beauty, as
if
am
they were
fabulous fishes, they are so foreign to the streets, even to the woods, foreign as
20
Arabia
to oui*
Concord
lil'e
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ;
WALDEN.
SOG
They
possess a quite dazzling and transcendent beauty
them by a wide interval from the cadaverous cod and haddock whose fame is trumpeted in whicli separates
our
They are
streets.
not green like the pines, nor gray
like the stones, nor blue like the
my
sky
;
but they have, to
eyes, if possible, yet rarer colors, like flowers
and
precious stones, as if they were the pearls, the animal-
Walden
izcd nuclei or crystals of the course, are
selves
Walden
over and
all
small Waldens in the It is surprising that
denses.
all
They, of
water.
through
;
are them-
animal kingdom,
"VYal-
they are cnught here,
and capacious spring, far beneath the teams and chaises and tinklinsj sleij^hs that travel the Walden road, this great gold and emerald fish swims. I never chanced to see its kind in any market that in this deep
rattlinjir
it
would be the cynosure of all eyes
there.
Easily, with
a few convulsive quirks, they give up their watery ghosts, like a mortal translated before his time to the
thin air of heaven.
As I was desirous to recover the long lost bottom of Walden Pond, I surveyed it carefully, before the ice broke up, early in
'46,
with compass and chain and
There have been many stories told about the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, which certainly had no foundation for themselves. It sounding
is
line.
remarkable how long
lessness of a
men
bottom-
will believe in the
pond without taking the trouble
to
sound
it.
I have visited two such Bottomless Ponds in one walk in this
neighborhood.
Many have
believed that
Walden
reached quite through to the other side of the globe.
Some who have
lain flat
on the
ice for
a
lono: time, look*
THE POND IN WINTER.
307
down througli the illusive medium, perchance with watery eyes into the bargain, and driven to hasty con-
\ag
by the fear of catching cold in their breasts, have seen vast holes " into which a load of hay might be driven," if there were any body to drive it, the unclusions
doubted source of the Styx and entrance
Others have gone down
Regions from these parts.
from the village with a
''
to the Infernal
fifty-six "
and a wagon load of
inch rope, but yet have failed to find any bottom
while the "
fifty-six "
paying out the rope in the vain attempt
to
tight
my
for
fathom their
But I
truly immeasurable capacity for marvellousness.
can assure
;
was resting by the way, they were
readers that AValden has a reasonably
bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual,
depth.
I
fathomed
it
and a stone
easily witli a cod-hne
weighing about a pound and a
half,
and could
tell
accu-
when the stone left the bottom, by having to pull so much harder before the water got underneath to help me. The greatest depth was exactly one hundred and
rately
two
feet
;
to
which
has risen since, is
may
be added the five feet which
making one hundred and seven.
a remarkable depth for so small an area
inch of
it
yet not an
What
can be spared by the imagination.
ponds were shallow?
all
;
minds of men ?
I
am
Would
it
it
This
if
not react on the
thankful that this
pond was made
deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the infinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless. factory owner, hearing what depth I had found, thought that it could not be true, for, judging from his
A
acquaintance with dams, sand would not
an angle.
But
lie at
proportion to their area as most suppose, and,
vo
lid
so steep
the deepest ponds are not so die;) in
not leave very remarkable valleys.
if
drained,
They
are
!
"WALDEIC.
508
not like cups between the hills
unusually deep for
through
its
;
for this one,
is
so
area, appears in a vertical section
centre not deeper than
its
which
a shallow plate.
Most ponds, emptied, would leave a meadow no more hollow than we fi-equently see. Wilham Gilpin, who is so admirable in all that relates to landscapes, and usually so correct, standing at the head of Loch Fyne, in Scotland, which he describes as " a bay of salt water, sixty or seventy fathoms deep, four miles in breadth,'*
and about
fifty
observes, " If
miles long, surrounded
we
could have seen
it
by mountains,
immediately after
the diluvian crash, or whatever convulsion of Nature
occasioned
chasm
it,
before the waters gushed in,
what a horrid
must have appeared
it
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low Do\vn sunk a hollow bottom, broad, and deep, ."
Capacious bed of waters
But
if,
Loch Fyne, we ap Walden, which, as we have seen,
using the shortest diameter of
ply these proportions to
appears already in a vertical section only like a shallow plate,
it
will
emptied.
So much for chasm of Loch Fyne when
appear four times as shallow.
the increased horrors of the
No
doubt
many a
smiling valley with
its
stretching cornfields occupies exactly such a " horrid
chasm," from which the waters have receded, though
it
requires the insight and the far sight of the geologist to
convince the unsuspecting inhabitants of this
Often an inquisitive eye
may
detect
primitive lake in the low horizon
fact.
the shores of a
hills,
and no subse-
quent elevation of the plain have been necessary to conceal then* history.
But
it
is easiest,
as they
who
work on the highways know, to find the holbws by the
THE POND IN WINTER.
The amoant
nddles after a shower.
give
ftgin<ation,
Boars higher
it
depth of the ocean will be
sible in
its
fou^^id
So,
the im-
to
probably,
the
be very inconsider-
breadth.
bottom with greater accuracy than
is
pos-
surveying harbors which do not freeze over, and
was surprised field
which
In the deep-
at its general regularity.
est part there are several acres
any
it is,
I sounded through the ice I could determine the
-ihape of the
I
of
the least license, dives deeper and
than Nature goes.
able compared with
As
309
is
exposed
In one instance, on a
more
to the
level than almost
sun wind and plough.
line arbitrarily chosen, the
depth did
not vary more than one foot in thirty rods ; and generally,
near the middle, I could calculate the variation for each
one hundred feet in any direction beforehand within three or four inches.
Some
are accustomed to speak of
deep and dangerous holes even like this, but the effect of
stances
the
is
to level all inequalities.
bottom and
its
liills
promontory betrayed
across the pond,
and
The
regularity of
conformity to the shores and the
range of the neighboring tant
sandy ponds
in quiet
water under these circum-
its
were so perfect that a
itself in
dis-
the soundings quite
direction could be determined
Cape becomes bar, and and valley and gorge deep water and
by observing the opposite shore. plain
shoal,
channel.
AV hen I had -ods to an inch,
mapped
the pond
by the
scale of ten
and put down the soundings, more than
a hundred in all, I observed this remarkable coincidence. Having noticed that the number indicating the greatest deptli was apparently in the centre of the map, I laid a rule on the
ibuud, to
map
my
lengthwise, and then breadthwise, and
surprise, that the line of greatest leagth
WALDEN.
310
intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the
mid
point of greatest depth, notwithstanding that the die
is
so nearly level, the outline of the
pond
from
far
regular, and the extreme length and breadth were got
by measuring into the coves and knows but this hint would conduct ;
the ocean as well as of a
I said to myself,
Who
to the deepest part of
pond or puddle
Is not this
?
the rule also for the height of mountains, regarded as the
opposite of valleys
We know
that a hill
is
not high-
narrowest part.
est at its
Of
?
which had been sounded,
coves, three, or all
five
were observed
to
have a bar quite across
their
mouths
and deeper water within, so that the bay tended
to
be
an expansion of water within the land not only horizontally
but vertically, and to form a basin or independent
pond, the direction of the two capes showing the course of the bar.
bar at
its
its
Every harbor on entrance.
the sea-coast, also, has
In proportion as the mouth of
the cove was wider compared with
its
length, the water
over the bar was deeper compared with that in the basin.
Given, then, the length and breadth of the cove,
and the character of the surrounding shore, and you have almost elements enough to make out a formula for all cases.
In order to see how nearly I could guess, with
this
experience, at the deepest point in a pond, by observing the outlines of alone, I
its
surface and the character of
made a plan of White Pond, which
about forty-one acres, and, like
this,
nor any visible
and as the
est
breadth
inlet or outlet
fell
;
its
shores
contains
has no island in
it,
line of great-
very near the line of least breadth,
where two opposite capes approached each other and two opposite bays receded, I ventured to mark a poinJ
THE POND
IN WINTER.
a short distance from the latter line
line,
31 x
hut
The
of greatest length, as the deepest.
on the
still
deepest
part was found to be within one hundred feet of still
this,
farther in the direction to wliich I had inclined, and
was only one
foot deeper,
namely, sixty
Of course,
feet.
a stream running tln-ough, or an island in
pond,
tlie
wculd make the problem much more complicated.
knew
If we
only one
the laws of Nature,
we
should need
or the description of one actual phenome-
fact,
non, to infer
Now we
all
the particular results at that point.
all
knovv' only
ated, not, of course,
a few laws, and our result
by any confusion or
is viti-
irregularity in
Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in tht calculation.
Our
harmony are com
notions of law and
monly confined to those instances which we detect buÂť the harmony which results from a far greater numbci ;
of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring,
which we have not detected,
The
more wonderful.
a mountain outline varies with every step, and
number of Even when
has an infinite
but one form. is
still
particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the
traveller, it
is
law!.^
not comprehended in
What ethics.
its
profiles, thcuf cleft
or bored through
it
entireness.
I have observed of the pond It is the
h absolutely
law of average.
is no Such a
less true in
rule of the
two diameters not only guides us toward the sun in the system and the heart in man, but draw lines through the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man's particular daily behaviors
and
inlets,
and waves of
and where they intersect
or depth of his character.
know how
his
chores
trend
life
into his coves
will
be the height
Perhaps we need only and
his adjacent
trj or circumstances, to infer his depth
to
coun-
and concealed
WALDEN.
SI 2 If he
bottom.
is
surrounded by mountainous circura-
an Achillean shore, whose peaks overshadow and are reflected in his bosom, they suggest a But a low and smooth corresponding depth in him. stances,
shore proves him shallow on that side.
In our bodies,
a bold projecting brow falls responding depth of thought.
is
off to
and indicates a cor-
Also there
a bar across
the entrance of our every cove, or particular inclination
each
;
is
our harbor for a season, in which
we
are
detained and partially land-locked.
These
are not wliimsical usually, but
form, size, and di-
rection are determined
by the promontories of the
When
the ancient axes of elevation. ally increased
tlieir
by storms,
which was at
this
bar
tides, or currents, or
subsidence of the waters, so that face, that
inclinations
first
it
is
shore,
gradu-
there
is
a
reaches to the sur-
but an inclination in the
shore in which a thought was harbored becomes
an
individual lake,
cut off from the ocean, wherein the
thought secures
its
from
salt to fresh,
marsh.
may we surface
At
own
conditions, changes, perhaps,
becomes a sweet
sea,
dead
sea, or
a
the advent of each individual into this hfe,
not suppose that such a bar has risen to the
somewhere
?
It is true,
we
are such poor navi-
gators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off
and
on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the
pubhc porta
of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where
they merely
refit for this
world, and no natural currents
concur to individualize them.
As
for the inlet or outlet of
Walden,
I
have not
dis-
covered any but rain and snow and evaporation, thouojh perhaps, with a thermometer and a line, such places
may
be found, for where the water flows into the pond
THE PCND it
summer and warmest
will probably l>c coldest in
When
winter.
313
WINTER.
IN
in
ice-men were at work here in
the
*46-7, the cakes sent to the shore were one day rejected
by those who were stacking them up there, not being thick enough to lie side by side with the rest and the ;
cutlers thus discovered that the ice over a small space
was two or three inches thinner than elsewhere, which made them think that there was an inlet there. They also showed me in another place what they thought was a "leach hole," through which the pond leaked out under a hill into a neighboring meadow, pushing me out on a cake of ice to see it. It was a small cavity under ten feet of water but I think that I can warrant the pond ;
not to need soldering
One has
that.
till
they find a worse leak than
suggested, that if such a "leach hole"
should be found,
its
connection with the meadow,
if
any
might be proved by conveying some colored powder or sawdust to the mouth of the hole, and then putting a strainer over the spring in the meadow, which existed,
would catch some of the
particles carried through
by
the current.
While I was surveying, the inches thick, It
is
well
ice,
which was sixteen
undulated under a slight wind like water.
known
At when
that a level cannot be used on ice.
one rod from the shore
its
greatest fluctuation,
observed by means of a level on land directed toward
a graduated
staff
on the
ice,
was three quarters of an
inch, though the ice appeared firmly attached to the
shore.
It
knows but
was probably greater in the middle. Who if our instruments were delicate enough we
might detect an undulation in the crust of the earth ? When two legs of my level were on the shore and the third
r^n
the
ice,
and the
sights
were directed over the
WALDEN.
Bl^ a
latter,
of the ice of an almost infinitesimal
rise or fall
amount made a difference of several feet on a tree across the pond. AVhen I began to cut holes for sounding, there were three or four inches of water on the ice under a deep snow which had sunk it thus fav but the ;
and
water be:^an immediately to run into these holes, continued
run for two days in deep streams, which
to
wore away the
on every
ice
sentially, if not mainly, to
the water ran
for, as
in, it
and contributed
side,
dry the
sui-face
and
raised
eg-
of the pond
',
floated the ice.
This was somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of
a ship to let the water out. When such holes freeze, and a rain succeeds, and finally a ncAV freezing forms a fresh smooth ice over all, it is beautifully mottled inter-
by dark
'nally
shaped somewhat like a spider's
figures,
web, what you
may
ice rosettes,
call
produced by the
channels worn by the water flowing from centre.
Sometimes,
when
also,
the
all sides
to
a
was covered
ice
with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of myself,
one standing on the head of the other, one on the
ice,
the other on the trees or hill-side.
Wliile yet
and
thick
it
solid,
and snow and ice are the prudent landlord comes from (he vilis
cold January,
lage to get ice to cool his
even pathetically wise,
It
to foresee the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; wearing a
July tens
summer drink
!
now in January, when so many
may be
whi^h
things
that he lays
will cool his
and saws the
solid
are
;
heat and thirst of
thick coat
not
up no treasures
summer
impressively,
and
air,
held
for.
in this world
drink in the next.
pond, unroofs the house of
carts off their very element
and mit-
provided
fiist
He fishes,
cuts
and
by ch^ns
POND
THfi h\id italces like air, to
wintry
IN WINTER.
corded wood, through the favoring winter
^est
and
wont
Those
spoit, ar.d
to invito
summer
cellars, to underlie the
me
there.
It
drawn through merry race, full of went among them they were
looks like solidified axure, as, far the streets.
315
off, it is
ice-cutters are a
when
to
saw
I
pit-fashion with them, I sland-
ing underneath.
In the winter of '46-7 there came a hundred
down on
of Hyperborean extraction swoop
one morning, with farming
many
tools, sleds,
to
men
our pond
car-loads of ungainly-looking
ploughs, drill-barroAvs, turf-knives,
spades, saws, rakes, and each
man was armed
double- pointed pike-staff, such as
is
with a
not described in
Farmer or the Cultivator. know whether they had come to sow a crop the !New-England
I did not
of winter
some other kind of grain recently introduced As I saw no manure, I judged tliat they meant to skim the land, as I had done, thinking the soil was deep and had lain fallow long enough. They said that a gentleman farmer, who was behind the scenes, wanted to double his money, which, as I understood, rye, or
from Iceland.
amounted
to half
a miUion already
;
but in order to cover
each one of his dollars with another, he took off the only coat, ay, the skin itself, of
a hard winter.
Walden Pond
They went
to
work
in the
midst of
at once, ploughing,
harrowing, rolling, furrowing, in admirable order, as
vhey were bent on making
this
a model farm
;
but
if
when
I
what kind of seed they dropped into the furrow, a gang of fellows by my side suddenly began to hook up the virgin mould itself, with a pecu-
was looking sharp
liar jerk,
for
it
clean
to see
down
to the sand, or rather the
was a very springy soil,
there was,
— and haul
it
— indeed
all
water,—
the terra jirma
away on sleds, and then
I guessed
WALDEN.
316
So they came that they must be cutting peat in a bog. and went every day, with a peculiar shriek from the loCumotive, from and to some point of the polar regions, as it
seemed
to
me,
like
a flock of
But
arctic snow-birds.
sometimes Squaw Walden had her revenge, and a hired
man, walking behind his team, slipped through a crack ground down toward Tartarus, and he who
the
in
became but the ninth part of a man, almost gave up his animal heat, and was glad to take refuge in my house, and acknowledged that there was some virtue in a stove or sometimes the frozen
was
so brave before suddenly
;
took a piece of steel out of a ploughshare, or a
soil
plough got set in the furrow and had to be cut out.
To speak overseers,
the ice.
known
literally, a hundred Irishmen, with Yankee came from Cambridge every day to get out They divided it into cakes by methods too well
to require description,
and
these, being sledded to
the shore, were rapidly hauled ofFon to an ice platform, and raised
by grappling
irons
and block and
by
horses, on to a stack, as surely as so
of
flour,
tackle,
worked
many
barrels
and there placed evenly side by
upon row, as
if
they formed the
designed to pierce the clouds.
solid
side,
They
told
a good day they could get out a thousand
was
the yield of about one acre.
holes " were
worn
and row
base of an obelisk
Deep
me
that in
tons,
which
ruts and " cradle
on terra firma^ by tha passage of the sleds over the same track, and the horses in the ice, as
invariably ate their oats out of cakes of ice hollowed out like buckets.
They
stacked up the cakes thus in
the open air in a pile thirty-five feet high on one side
and six or seven rods square, putting hay between the outside
layers to exclude the air
though lever so
c?ld, finds
;
for
when
the wind,
a passage through,
it vt'iM
THE POND IN WINTER.
317
wear large cavities, leaving slight supports or sluvls only here and there, and finally topple it down. At first it looked like a vast blue fort or Vallialla
but when they
;
meadow hay into the became covered with rime and icicles, a venerable moss-grown and hoary ruin,
began
and
to tuck the coarse
this
like
crevices, it
looked
built
we
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
see in the almanac,
sign
estivate with
to
his shanty, as if
They
us.
and that two or three per
However, a
cars.
different destiny
cent,
destination,
its
tliis
from what was intended
;
not
that
would be wasted
greater part of
still
he had a de-
calculated
twenty-five per cent, of this would reach
of
mau
azure-tinted marble, the abode of Winter, that old
in the
heap had a
for, either
be-
cause the ice was found not to keep so well as was expected, containing
reason,
it
more
air than usual, or for
never got to market.
some other
This heap, made in the
winter of '46-7 and estimated to contain ten thousand
was
tons,
though of
it
covered with hay and boards
and
;
was unroofed the following July, and a part
carried
it
Bun,
it
finally
off,
the
stood over that
was not quite melted
rest
remaining exposed to the
summer and till
the next winter, and
Thus
September 1848.
pond recovered the greater part. Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near has a green
tint,
but at a distance
and you can easily tell
it
is
from the white
at
the
hand,
beautifully blue, ice of the river
or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a
mile
off.
Sometimes one of those great cakes
slips
from
the ice-man's sled into the village street, and lies there for
a
week like a great emerald, an
passers.
I
in the state of
appear
object of interest to all
have noticed that a portion of Walden which water was green will often, when frozen,
froni the
same point of view
blue.
So the
hoi-
WALDEN.
318 lows about this pond
be
filled
sometimes, in the winter,
a greenish water somewhat like
ith
\i
will,
blue color of water and ice
due
is
to the light
they contain, and the most transparent Ice told
is
Pond is it
is
and
that they had
five years old
some
in the ice-houses at
becomes
that a bucket of water soon
that this
is
They Fresh
Why
which was as good as ever.
frozen remains sweet forever?
It is
air
the bluest.
an interesting subject for contemplation.
me
own,
its
Perhaps the
but the next day will have frozen blue.
putrid, but
commonly
said
the difference between the affections and the
intellect.
Thus
for sixteen
men
dred
at
work
days I saw from like
and horses and apparently ing,
such a picture as
almanac
we
all
a hun-
the implements of farm-
see on the
and as often as
;
my window
busy husbandmen, with teams
I
first
looked out
I
page of the
was reminded
of the fable of the lark and the reapers, or the parable
of the sower, and the like
and
;
and now they are
all
gone,
days more, probably, I shall look from the
in thirty
same window on the pure sea-green WalJen water there, reflecting the clouds and the trees, and sending up its evaporations in solitude, and no traces will appear that a
man
shall see
a lonely fisher in his boat, like a floating
l>eholding his
a hundred
Thus
it
form reflected
men
leaf,
waves, where lately
securely labored.
New
and CtUcutta, drink at
phy
in the
appears that the sweltering inhabitants of
Charleston and
my
Perhaps I shall hear a he dives and plumes himself, or
has ever stood there.
solitary loon laugh as
well.
Madras and Bombay
In the morning I bathe
stupendous and cosmogonal philosoBhagvat Geeta, since whose composition
intellect in the
of the
Orleans, of
my
THE POND IN -WINTER.
819
years cf the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with
which our modern workl and
and
seem puny
literature
its
and I doubt if that philosopliy is net to he referred to a previous state of existence, so re-
mote
trivial;
is its
sublimity from our conceptions.
the book and go to
my
meet the servant of t;ie Bramin, Vishnu and Indra, who still sits
I lay
and
well for water, ))riest
of
in his
lo
!
down
there I
Brahma and
temple on the
Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells
at the root of a
tree with his crust
meet his servant and our buckets
come as
to
draw water
it v.'ere
is
I
for his master,
grate together in the
"Walden water
Ganges.
and water jug.
same
well.
The pure
mingled with the sacred water of the
With favoring winds
it is
wafted past the
site
of the fabulous islands of Atlantis and the Hesperides,
makes the periplus of Hanno, and, floating by Ternate and Tidore and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, melts in the tropic gales
ports of which
of the Indian seas, and
is
landed in
Alexander only heard the names.
SPRING.
The opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters offlnmonly causes a pond to break up earlier for the water, agitated by the wind, even in cold weather, wears away the surrounding ice. But such was not the effect on ;
Walden ment
that year, for she
had .soon got a thick new garThis pond never
to take the place of the old.
breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on
account both of
its
greater depth and
passing through it to melt or wear
knew
it
to
its
having no stream
away the
ice.
I never
open in the course of a winter, not excepting which gave the ponds so severe a trial
that of '52-3, It
commonly opens about the
ten days later than Flints'
first of April, a week or Pond and Fair-Haven, be-
ginning to melt on the north side and in the shallower parts
where
it
began
to freeze.
It indicates better
than
any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected ature.
A
by transient changes of temper-
severe cold of a few days' duration in
may very much
retard the opening of the former ponds,
while the temperature of mterruptedly.
March
A
Walden
increases almost un-
thermometer thrust into the middle (320^
SPRING. of
WaLlen on
freezing point
3*21
the 6th of March, 1847, stood at 32째, ;
near the shore at 33째
Fhnts' Pond, the same day, at 32^째
from the chore, at 36째.
in shallow water,
middle of
;
in the
;
at a
dozen rods
ice
a foot thick,
under
This difference of three and a half degrees be-
tween the temperature of the deep water and low in the tion of
)r
it
latter pond, is
and the
tluj
shal-
a great propor-
fact that
comparatively shallow, show
break up so much sooner than "VValden.
why it should The ice in the
shallowest part was at this time several inches thinner
than in the middle.
In mid-winter the middle had been
the warmest and the ice thinnest there.
So, also, every
one who has waded about the shores of a pond in sum-
mer must have perceived how much warmer
the water
where only three or four inches distance out, and on the surface where
close to the shore,
is
vleep, is
it
than a
little
In spring the sun
deep, than near the bottom.
not only exerts an influence through the increased tem-
perature of the air and earth, but ice
a foot or more thick, and
and so
in shallow water,
the under side of the
melting
it
more
is
its
heat passes through
reflected
from the bottom
warms the same time that it is above, making it uneven, and
the water and melts
also
ice, at
directly
causing the air bubbles which
it
contains to
themselves upward and downward until ly honey-combed, single spring rain.
and
it is
extend
complete-
at last disappears suddenly in
Ice has
its
a
grain as well as wood,
and when a cake begins to rot or " comb," that is, assume the appearance of honey-comb, whatever may be its position, the air cells are at right angles with what was the water surface.
Where
there
near to the surface the ice over is
frequently quite dissolved
21
by
is
a rock or a log rising
it is
much
thinner, and
this reflected
heat
;
and
WALDEN.
Si
I
havj hoen
to Triczo
told that in the
water
in
experiment at Cambridge
a shallow wooden pond, though Iho
cold air circulated underneath, Bidt.'.(.>,
the reflection of
tlie
and so had access
to both
sun from the bottom more
When
than counterbalanced this advantage.
a
warm
rain in the middle of the winter melts off the snow-ice
from Walden, and leaves a hard dark or transparent ice
on the middle, there will be a strip of rotten though
thicker white
ice,
a rod or more wide, about the shores,
created by this reflected heat.
AlsOj as I have said,
tlie
bubbles themselves within the ice operate as burning glasses to melt the ice beneath.
phenomena of the year take place every da}' in Every morning, generally speaking, the shallow water is being warmed more rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so warm after all, and every evening it is being cooled more rapidly until the morning. The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer. The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change Tlie
a pond on a small scale.
One pleasant morning after a cold February 24th, 1850, having gone to Flints'
of temperature. night,
Pond when
to
spend the day, I noticed with surprise, that
I struck the ice with the
sounded
like a
had struck on a
gong tight
boom about an hour
for
many
head of
;
it
after sunrise,
stretched itself and
axe,
it
re-
rods around, or as if I
drum-head.
The pond began to when it felt the influ-
ence of the sun*s rays slanted upon hills
my
yawned
it
like
from over the a waking
man
with a gradually increasing tumult, which was kept up three or four hours. It took a short siesta at noon, and
boomed once more toward
night, as the sun
was with
823
SPKING.
drawing
Bu'
In the right stage
his influence.
er a pond fires in the
oi the
weath-
evening gun with great regularity.
its
middle of the day, being
the air also being less elastic,
full
of cracks, and
had ccmpletely
it
lost its
musk rats could not it. The fishermen sa} that the "thundering of the pond" scares the The pond does not fishes and prevents their biting. thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when to resonance, and probably fishes and
then have
bcm
expect
thundering; but though I
its
stunned by a blow on
diiFerence in the weather,
may
perceive no would have
Who
does.
it
suspected so large and cold and thick-skinned a thing to
be so sensitive?
when
obedience
in the spring.
The
papillae.
Yet it
it
has
law
its
to
which
thunders
should as surely as the buds expand
The
earth
largest
all alive
is
pond
as
is
and covered with
attraction in
coming
woods
to the
atmos
sensitive to
pheric changes as the globule of mercury in
One
it
its
to live
tube
was that
I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring
come
The
in.
ice in the
pond
honey-combed, and I can set
Fogs and snow
the Bee to
I
how
my am
rains ;
at length begins to
my
heel in
it
be
as I walk.
and warmer suns are gradually melting
the days have
I shall get
grown
sensibly longer
and I
through the winter without adding
Avood-pile, for large fires are
on the alert for the
the chance note of
;
first
no longer necessary.
signs of spring, to hear
some arriving bird, or the striped must be now nearly ex-
squirrel's chirp, for his stores
hausted, or see the ter quarter?.
On
woodchuck venture out of
his win-
the 13th of March, after I had heard
the bluebird, song-sparrow, and red-wing,
tlie
ice
was
WALDEN,
S24.
it
As
nearly a foot thick.
Btill
grew wanner
the weather
was not sensibly worn away by the water, nor broken floated off as in rivers, but, though it was com-
up and
melted for half a rod in width about the shore,
pletelji
middle was merely honey-combed and saturated
the
with water, so that you could put your foot through
when
six inches thick
perhaps, after a
warm
rain followed
have wholly disappeared, away.
ited
One year
days before
five
den was '46, the
first
it
it
but by the next day evening,
;
gone
all
by
fog,
it
would
off with the fog, spir-
went across the middle only disappeared entirely. In 1845 WalI
completely open on the 1st of April; in
25th of March
;
in '47, the 8th of April
in '51,
;
March in '52, the 18th of April in '53, the 23d of March in '54, about the 7th of April. Every incident connected with the breaking up of the
the 28th of
;
;
;
and ponds and the
rivers
settling of the
ticularly interesting to us
great extremes.
who
When
weather
is
par-
who live in a climate of so warmer days come, they
the
dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night
with a startling whoop as loud as
artillery, as if its icy
were rent from end
and within a few days
fetters
rapidly going out.
see
it
the
mud with
to end,
So
the alligator comes out of
quakings of the earth.
One
old man,
who
has been a close observer of Nature, and seems as thor-
oughly wise in regard to
all
her operations as
if
she had
been put upon the stocks when he was a boy, and he had helped to lay her keel, who has come to his growth, and can hardly acquire more of natural lore if
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
he should live to the age of Methuselah, I
was surprised
to
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
told
me, and
hear him express wonder at any of
Nature's operations, for I thought that there were no secrets
between them, that one spring day he took
his
gun
325
SPRING.
and thought that he would have a little sport with the ducks. There was ice still on the meadows, but it was all gone out of the river, and he dropped and
boat,
down without
obstruction from Sudbury,
where he
lived,
Fair-Haven Pond, which he found, unexpectedU', It ijivered for the most part with a firm field of ice. R as a warm day, and he was surprised to see so great a body of ice remaining. Not seeing any ducks, he hid
f)
on the north or back side of an island in the pond, and then concealed himself in the bushes on the south side, to await them. The ice was melted for three his boat
or four rods from the shore, and there was a smooth and warm sheet of water, with a muddy bottom, such as the
ducks love, within, and he thought
it
hkely that some
After he had lain
still would be along pretty soon. there about an hour he heard a low and seemingly very distant sound, but singularly grand and impressive, unlike any thing he had ever heard, gradually swelling and
would have a universal and memorable ending, a sullen rush and roar, which seemed to him coming all at once like the sound of a vast body of fowl in to settle there, and, seizing his gun, he started up in increasing as
if it
haste and excited; but he found, to his surprise, that the whole body of the ice had started while he lay there,
and
drifted in to the shore,
was made by
its
and the sound he had heard
edge grating on the shore,
gently nibbled and crumbled
up and
scattering
its
off,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
at first
but at length heaving
wrecks along the island to a con-
siderable height before
it
came
to
a stand
still.
have attained the right anand melt gle, and warm winds blow up mist and rain smiles mist the snow banks, and the sun dispersing the smoking Âťn a checkered landscape of russet ana white
At
le.igth the sun's rays
WALDEN.
26
way
with inccns3, through which the traveller picks his
from
islet to islet,
tin kilns rills
cheered by the music of a thousand
and rivulets whose veins are
blood of winter which they arc bearing
Few phenomena
gave
me more
with the
filled
off.
delight than to ob-
serve the forms which thawing sand and clay assume in
down
flowing tlirough
the sides of a deep cut on the railroad
my way to the village, a on so large a scale, common very
which I passed on
phenomenon not
though the number of freshly exposed banks of the right material must have been greatly multiplied since rail-
roads were invented.
The
material was sand of every
degree of fineness and of various rich colors, commonly mixed with a httle clay. When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a thawing day in the winter, the
sand begins to flow down the slopes like lava, sometimes burstino; out
through the snow and overflowing
no sand was
to
be seen before.
where
it
Innumerable
little
streams overlap and interlace one with another, exhibit-
way the As it
ing a sort of hybrid product, which obeys half
law of currents, and half way that of vegetation. flows
it
takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines,
ing heaps of pulpy sprays a foot or
resembling, as you look
more
down on them,
mak-
in depth,
and
the laciniated
lobed and imbricated thalluses of some lichens
;
or you
are reminded of coral, of leopards' paws or birds' feet, of brains or lungs or bowels, and excrements of It is
we
all
kinds.
a truly grotesque vegetation, whose forms and color
see imitated in bronze, a sort of architectural foliage
more ancient and typical than acanthus, chiccory, ivy, vine, or any vegetable leaves destined perhaps, under som3 circumstances, to become a puzzle to future geolo;
gist 3.
'I'he
whole cut impressed
me
as if
it
were a cave
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 827
SPRING. with
open to the
laid
its stalactites
The
ll<!jht.
various
shades of the sand are singularly rich and agreeable,
embracing the ish,
different iron colors,
When
and reddish.
brown, gray, yellow-
the lowing mass reaches the
drain at the foot of the bank
spreads out flatter into
it
strands, the separate streams losing their semi-cylindrical
form and gradually becoming more
flat
running together as they are more moist,
an almost
flat
sand,
still
till
and broad, they form
variously and beautifully shaded,
but in which you can trace the original forms of vegetation
at length, in the water
till
;
itself,
they are convert-
ed into banks, like those formed off the mouths of rivers,
and the forms of vegetation are
lost in
the ripple marka
on the bottom.
The whole high,
is
bank, which
from twenty to forty
is
sometimes overlaid with a mass of
sandy rupture,
foliage, or
for
this
a quarter of a mile on one
What
or both sides, the produce of one spring day.
makes
sand foliage remarkable
this
existence thus suddenly.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the inert bank,
and on the an hour,
I
When
springing into
on one side
first,
other this luxuriant foliage, the creation of
am
affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; had come
who made
where he. was
to
on this bank, and with exQ^ fresh designs about. vitals
is its
I see on the one aide
for the sun acts
in the laboratory of the Artist
me,
feet
kind of
js
I feel as
still
the Avorld
and
at work, sporting
of energy strewing his if I
were nearer
of the globe, for *his sandy overflow
is
to the
something
such a foliaceous mass as the vitals of the animal body.
Yon
find thus in the
vegetable itself
leaf.
very sands an anticipation of the
No wonder
outwardly in leaves,
wardly.
The atoms have
it
that the
3arth expresses
so labors with the idea in-
already learned this law, and
WALDEN.
528
by
are pregnant prototype.
its
mal body,
The overhanging
it.
Internally,
it is
a moist thick
plicable to the liver {lel^ijjj
ing
many
globus,
leaf sees here
tlie
lobe,
globe
lap,
other words,) externally a dry thin
^ and v are a pressed and dried lobe are lb, the soft mass of the b ward.
In globe,
gib, the guttural
and
even as
radicals of
(single lobed, or it
pressing
g adds
The
ing the capacity of the throat.
laps-
flap,
leaf,
The
b.
behind
I
leaves of fat,
downward, a also
;
the
double lobed,) with a liquid
globe or ani-
a word especially apÂŤ
lobe,
and lungs and the
labor, lapsus, to flow or slip
lo^ocj
;
whether in
to the
feathers
B,
for-
it
mean-
and wings
of birds are still drier and thinner leaves. Thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub in the earth to the airy and fluttering butterfly. The very globe continually transcends and translates itself, and becomes winged in
Even
its orbit.
as if
it
plants
ice begins with delicate crystal leaves,
had flowed have
whole tree
into
moulds which the fronds of water
impressed on the watery mirror. itself is
but one
vaster leaves whose pulp
and
cities
When in the
is
leaf,
an4 rivers are
The still
intervening earth, and towns
are the ova of insects in their axils.
the sun withdraws the sand ceases to flow, but
morning the streams
will start
once more and
branch and branch again into a myriad of others. here see perchance
how blood
vessels are formed.
You If
you look closely you observe that first there pushes forward from the thawing mass a stream of softened sand with a drop-like point, like the ball of the finger, feeling
way slowly and blindly downward, until at last v/ith more heat and moisture, as the sun gets higher, the most its
fluid portion, in its effort to
most inert also
obey the law
yields, separates
to
fjom the
which the latter
and
SPRING. forms for that, in
329
a meandering channel or arteiy
itself
which
seen a
is
^itliin
silvery stream
little
glanc-
ing like lightning from one stage of pulpy leaves or
branches to another, and ever and anon swallowed up in the sand.
terial its
nel.
how
It is wonderful
the sand organizes itself as
mass
affords to
flows, using the best
it
form the sharp edges of
Such are the sources of still
finer soil
of thawing clay
The The
?
a drop congealed.
silicious
and organic matter the
ball of the
fingers
ma-
chan-
perhaps the bony
is
What
fleshy fibre or cellular tissue.
its
In the
rivers.
matter which the water deposits system, and in the
rapidly yet perfectly
man but a mass human finger is but is
and toes flow
to their
Who knows tJie body. what the human body would expand and flow out to under a more genial heaven ? Is not the hand a spreading palm leaf with its lobes and veins ? The ear may extent from the thawing mass of
be regarded,
fancifully, as a lichen, umbilicaria,
side of the head, with
um, from labor
(?)
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
lobe or drop.
stalactite.
confluent dripping of the face.
diffused
lip
labi-
laps or lapses from the sides of
tlie
Tlie cheeks are a slide
from the brows into the valley of the
by the cheek bones.
vegetable
The
on the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
The nose is a manifest congealed The chin is a still larger drop, the
cavernous mouth.
drop or
its
leaf, too, is
face,
opposed and
Each rounded lobe of the now loitering drop, larg-
a thick and
er or smaller; the lobes are the fingers of the leaf; and as
many
flow,
lobes as
it
has, in so
many
directions
it
tends to
and more heat or other genial influences would
have caused
Thus
it
it
to flow yet farther.
seemed that
this
one
hillside illustrated the
principle of all the operations of Nature.
of this earth but patented a
leaf.
The Maker
What ChampoUion
WALDEN.
530
new
turn over a
more exhilarating
me
and bowels, as
outward
side
than the luxuriance and
it is
character, and there
lights
This phenomenon
leaf at last ? to
True,
of vineyards. its
we may
decipher tins liieroglyphic for us, that
will
is
if
is
fertility
somewhat excrementitious no end to the heaps of
in
liver
the globe were turned wrong
but this suggests at least that Nature has
;
some bowels, and there again is mother of humanity. This is the frost coming out of the ground this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purIt convinces gative of winter fumes and indigestions. me that Earth is still in her swaddling clothes, and Fresh curlt^ stretches forth baby fingers on every side. ;
spring from the baldest brow.
These
ganic.
the
slao;
The
chiefly,
nothing inor-
be
is
by
is
like
" in full
not a mere fragment of
upon stratum
studied
bank
like the leaves of
geologists
and
a
antiquaries
but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which
precede flowers and living earth
;
fruit,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
not a fossil earth, but a
compared with whose great central
animal and vegetable will
earth
history, stratum
book, to
is
of a furnace, showinjr that Nature
blast" within.
dead
There
foliaceous heaps lie along the
merely
life all
parasitic.
Its throes
heave our exuvise from their graves.
You may
life is
melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful
moulds you can forms wliiUi only
ir,
in the
Ere
this
;
they will never excite
molten earth flows out
but the institutions upon
it, ai'e
me
into.
like
the
And
not
plastic like clay
hands of the potter.
Jong, not only
on these banks, but on every
liiU
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; SPRING.
and plain and
every
in
331
liollow, the frost
comes out of
the ground hke n dormant quadruped from
and seeks the sea with music, or migrates in
Thaw
clouds.
its
to other
gentle persuasion
witli his
burrow,
is
chmea more
The one meUs,
powerful than Thor with his hammer. the other but breaks in pieces.
When
was
the ground
partially bare of snow,
few warm days had dried pleasant to compare the
surface somewhat,
its
first
and a
was
it
tender signs of the infant
year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter, pinweeds,
golden-rods,
life-everlasting,
and
graceful
wild grasses, more obvious and interesting frequently
than in till
summer
then
stemmed
beauty was not ripe mulleins, johns-
cat-tails,
meadow-sweet,
plants, those
and
other
strong
unexhausted granaries which en-
tertain the earliest birds,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; decent weeds,
widowed Nature wears.
I
am
at least,
which
summer
to
by
particularly attracted
and sheaf-like top of the wool-grass
the arching
brings back the
among
if their
even cotton-grass,
;
hard-hack,
wort,
even, as
;
it
our winter memories, and
is
the forms which art loves to copy, and which, in
the vegetable kingdom, have the
already in the mind of
man
same
relation to types
that astronomy has.
It is
style older than Greek or Egyptian. Many phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inex-
an antique of the
pressible tenderness
customed
to
hear this
terous tyrant
;
and
fragile delicacy.
kincr described as
We
arc ac-
a rude and bois-
but with the gentleness of a lover he
adorns the tresses of Summer.
At
mj
the approach of spring the red-squirrels got under
house, two at a time, directly under
my
feet as I sat
reading or writing, and kept up the queerest chuck'.ing
WALDEN.
332
and chirruping and vocal pirouetting and gurgling sounds that ever were heard ; and when I stamped they only chirruped the louder, as if past all fear and respect
mad
in their
No you
don't
ly deaf to
and
— chickaree —
fii'st
They were whol-
chickaree.
my arguments, or failed
into
fell
The
pranks, defying humanity to stop them.
to perceive their force,
a strain of invective that was sparrow of spring!
with younger hope than ever
!
irresistible.
The year beginning The faint silvery war-
blings heard over the partially bare and moist fields from
the blue-bird, the song-sparrow, and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they
fell
What
!
such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and written revelations
is
already seeking the
The
awakes.
?
The marsh-hawk
to the spring.
meadow
The brooks
sinkinn^
at all
sing carols and glees sailing first
low over the
slimy
that
life
sound of meltin": snow
heard
is
in all dells, and the ice dissolves apace in the ponds.
The **
grass flames
up on the
et primitus oritur
—as
if
;
a spring
herba imbribus primoribus
fire,
—
evocata,**
the earth sent forth an inward heat to greet the
returning sun
flame
hillsides like
—
;
not yellow but green
is
the color of
its
the symbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade,
like a long green ribbon, streams
from the scd into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year's hay with the
fresh
life
below.
It
out of the ground. in the.
grows as steadily as the
rill
oozes
It is almost identical Avith that, for
growing days of June, when the
rills
are dry, the
grass blades are their channels, and from year to year the herds drink at this perennial green stream, and the
mower draws from our human life but forth
its
\t
betimes their winter supply.
dies
down
to its root,
green blade to eternity.
and
still
So puts
SPRING.
Walden
is
melting apace.
333
There
is
a canal two rods
wide along the northerly and westerly Btill
A great
at the east end.
field
sides,
and widbf
of ice has cracked
from the main body. I hear a song-sparrow from the bushes on the shore, olit, olit, olit, off
chip, chip, che char, helpijig to crack
— che
—
singin<y
—
wiss, wiss, wiss.
He
chip,
too
h
Hoav handsome the great sweeping curves in the edge of the ice, answering somewhat to those of the shore, but more regular It is unusually hard, owing to the recent severe but transient cold, and it.
!
all
watered or waved like a palace floor. But the wind eastward over its opaque surface in vain, till it
slides
reaches the living surface beyond. It is glorious to behold this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun, the bare face of the pond full of glee and youth, as if it spoke the joy of the fishes within
it, and of the sands on its shore, silvery sheen as from the scales of a leuciscus, as it were all one active fish. Such is the contrast between
—a
winter and spring.
But
this
spring
it
Walden was dead and is alive again. broke up more steadily, as I have
said.
The change from storm and winter to serene and mild weather, from dark and sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones, is
claim.
a memorable
crisis
which
all
things pro-
It is seemingly instantaneous at last.
Suddenly
an influx of
light filled
my
house, though the evening
was at hand, and the clouds of winter still overhung it, and the eaves were dripping with sleety rain. I looked out the window, and lo
!
where yesterday was cold gray pond already cahn and full of
ice there lay the transparent
hope as
a summer evening, reflecting a summer evenits bosom, though none was visible overhead, had intelligence with some remote horizon. T
in
ing sky in
as
if it
WALDEN.
S34
heard a robin in the distance, the
many
not forget for
I had heard for whose note I sliaD
first
a thousand years, methought,
many a thousand more,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the same sweet
and powerful song as of yore. O the evening robin, at New England summer day If I could
the end of a
!
ever find the twig he
The
sits
This at least
the twig.
is
upon!
mean/^e; I mean
I
not the Turdus migratoriua.
pitch-pines and shrub-oaks about
my
house, which
had so long drooped, suddenly resumed their several characters, looked brighter, greener, alive, as if
and more erect and
effectually cleansed and restored by the rain.
knew that it would not rain any more. You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very I
wood-pile, whether
its
winter
darker, I was startled
low over the woods,
like
is
past or not.
strained complaint
my door,
I
at
last
and mutual consolation.
in
my
house, they suddenly spied
unre-
Standing
could hear the rush of their wings
driving toward
grew
it
by the honking of geese flying weary travellers getting in late
from southern lakes, and indulging at
As
;
my
when, light,
and with hushed clamor wheeled and settled in the pond. So I came in, and shut the door, and passed my first spring night in the woods.
In the morning I watched the geese from the door through the mist, sailing in the middle of the pond, rods like
off,
an
so large artificial
fifty
and tumultuous that Walden appeared pond for their amusement. But when
I stood on the shore they at once rose up with a great flapping of wings at the signal of their commander, and
when they had got
into
rank circled about over
my
head, twenty-nine of them, and then steered straight to
Canada, with a regular honk from the leader at intervab, trusting to break their fast in muddier pools.
A
SPRING.
•plump"
of ducks rose at
route to the nortli in
the
335
same time and took the wake of their noisier tlic
cousins.
For a week I heard the circling groping chmgor of some solitary goose in the foggy mornings, seeking iti companion, and still peopling the woods with the sound of a larger
life
than they could sustain.
In April the
pigeons were seen again flying express in small flocks,
and
in
due time though
clearing,
heard the martins twittering over
I
it
many
contained so
my
had not seemed that the township that
it
could afford
me
any, and I
fancied that they were peculiarly of the ancient race that dwelt in hollow trees ere white
most
climes the tortoise and
all
tlie
men came. In alfrog are among the
precursors and lieralds of this season, and birds
fly
with
song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom,
and winds blow,
to correct this sliglit oscillation of the
poles and preserve the equilibrium of Nature.
As every coming
season seems best to us in
in of spring is like the creation of
its
turn, so the
Cosmos out of
Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age. **
Eurus ad Auroram, Nabathacaqiie regna
—
rccessit,
Persidaque, et radiis juga subdita matutiuis."
*
The East-Wind withdrew to Aurora and the Nabathcean kingdOBa,
And
the Persian, and
*
Man
tlie
ridges placed unccr the
*
«
morning
rajs.
«
was born.
Whetljer that Artificer of things, made him from the divine seed; Or the earth being recent and lately sundered from the high
The
origin of a better world,
Ether, retained some seeds of connate heaven."
A
single gentle rain
l^ceuer.
So our
makes the grass many shades
prospects brighten on the inlius of
WALDEN.
336
"We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the inbetter thoughts.
dew
fluence of the slightest
that falls on
it
;
and did not
bpend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities,
which we
winter while
morning
all
it is
innocence
loiter in
Such a day
is
a
While such a sun holds out to burn, the return. Through our own recovered
may
we
discern the innocence of our neighbors.
You may have known your neighbor thief,
We
In a pleasant spring
already spring.
men's sins are forgiven.
truce to vice. vilest sinner
doing our duty.
call
yesterday for a
a drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or
despised him, and despaired of the world shines bright and
warm
this first
;
but the sun
spring morning, re-
you meet him at some serene work, and see how his exhausted and debauched veins expand with still joy and bless the new day, feel the creating the world, and
spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and his faults are forgotten.
There
is
all
not only an atmos-
phere of good will about him, but even a savor of holiness groping for expression, blindly and ineffectually
perhaps, like a new-born instinct, and for a short hour the south hill-side echoes to no vulgar jest. You see some innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his gnarled rind and try another year's life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant. Even he has entered into
Why
the joy of his Lord.
open his prison doors, miss his case,
congregation
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; why
the jailer does not leave
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; w^hy
the judge does not dis-
the preacher does not dismiss his
It is because they
do not obey the hint
which God gives them, nor accept the pardon which ho freely offers to alL
387
SPRING.
"A
raturn to goodness produced each day in the
tranquil and beneficent breath of the morning, causes that in respect to the love of virtue
and the hatred of
vice, onj* approaches a little the primitive nature of man, as the sprouts of the forest which has been felled. In like manner the evil which one does in the interval
of a day prevents the germs of virtues which began to gpring up again from developing themselves and destroys them. " After the
many
germs of virtue have thus been prevented
times from developing themselves, then the be-
neficent breath of evening does not suffice to preserve
As
them. fice
soon as the breath of evening does not suf-
longer to preserve them, then the nature of
man
much from that of man like
Men
does not differ
seeing the nature of this
the brute.
that of the brute,
think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of
Are
reason.
of man
?
those the
true and natural
sentiments
"
"The Golden Age was
first
created,
which without any avenger
Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude. Punishment and fear were not ; nor were threatening words read On suspended brass ; nor did the suppliant crowd fear The words of their judge ; but were safe without an avenger.
Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world, And mortals knew no shores but their own. « « « « There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm Blasts soothed the flcvers
On
bom without seed."
the 29 th of April, as I was fishing from the baxic
of the river near the Nine- Acje- Comer bridge, standing
on the quaking grass and willow roots, where the muskrats -« 22
WALDEN.
838
heard a singular rattling sound, somewhat
lurk, I
like
that of the sticks Avliich boys play with their fingci's,
when, looking up, I observed a very
slight
and graceful
haAvk, like a night-hawk, alternately soaring like a lip-
and
ple and tumbling a rod or two over
the underside of
its
ovei',
showing
wings, which gleamed like a satin
ribbon in tho sun, or like the pearly inside of a shell.
This sight rdninded
me
of fiilconry and what nobleness
and poetry are associated with that it
seemed
its
name.
me
to
:
It did not
simply flutter like a butterfly, nor
soar like the larger hawks, but liance in the fields of air
with
its
ful fall,
strange chuckle,
foot
it
;
it
sported with proud re-
mounting again and again
repeated
its
free
and beauti-
turning over and over like a kite, and then re
covering from its
jMcrlin
it might be called but I care net for was the most ethereal flight I had ever
It
witnessed.
The
sport.
its
had never set have no com-
lofty tumbling, as if it
on terra Jirma,
It
appeared
— sporting
panion in the universe,
to
there alone,
— and
to
need none but the morning and the ether with which
it
played.
It
lonely beneath it,
was not
kindred, and
its
tenant of the
lonely, but
Where was
it.
air, it
its
made
the earth
all
the parent which hatched
The
father in the heavens ?
seemed related
to the earth
but by an
—
egg hatched some time in the crevice of a crag
;
was
woven
its
native nest
made
in the angle of a cloud,
or
of the rainbow's trimmings and the sunset sky, and lined with
earth
?
midsummer haze caught up from eyry now some cliffy cloud.
some
Its
soft
Beside this I got a rare mess of golden and silrer
and bright cupreous jewels. tlie
Ah
!
I.
fishes,
which looked
have penetrated
moi*mn« of many a
fii-st
like
to those
a string of
meadows on
spring day, jumping froxs
339
SPRING. hiiramock to
hummock, from willow
when the wild ill
and bright a
so pure
dead,
river valley and
root to willow root,
woods were bathed waked the
tlie
as Avould have
liglit
they had been slumbering in their graves, as
if
some suppose.
There needs no stronger proof of im-
All things must live in such a
mortality.
Death, where was thy sting
O
?
O
light.
Grave, where was thy
victory, then ?
Our
village life
unexplored
forests
would stagnate
were not
if it
and meadows which surround
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
need the tonic of wildness,
to
for the "\Ve
it.
wade sometimes
in
marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk,
and hear the booming of the snipe
;
to smell
the wliis-
pering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink craAvls with close to the ground.
At
the
earnest to explore and learn all
its
belly
same time that we are
all
things,
we
require that
and
things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land
sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us
We can never have enough of must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast because unfathomable.
We
Nature.
with
its
wrecks, the wilderness with
its
living and
its
caying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which three weeks and produces freshets. ness our
own
limits transgressed,
We
need
and some
life
de-
lasts
to wit-
pastur-
we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture feeding on the carrion ing freely where
which disgusts and disheartens us and deriving health
and strength from the la the hollow
mc
There was a dead liorse my house, which compelled
repast.
by the path
to
sometimes to go out of
Might
when
my way,
especially in the
the air was heavy, huX the assurance
it
gave
;
WARDEN.
B40
me
of tbc strong appetite and inviolable bealth of Nn«
tare was
Nature
my
compensation for
to be sacrificed tliat
myriads can be
so rife with life that
is
and
suflfcred
I love to see that
this.
afifordcd
to prey on one another;
tender organizations can be so serenely squastied
out of existence like pulp,
and
ble up,
tortoises
and that sometimes
it
—
tadpoles which herons gob-
and toads run over
in the road
With we must see how little account The impression made on a wise
has rained flesh and blood
!
the liability to accident, is
to be
man
is
made of
Poison
that of universal innocence.
sonous after is
it.
all,
nor are any wounds
a very untenable ground.
It
is
not poi-
Compassion
fatal.
must be expeditious.
Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped.
Early in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, just putting
out amidst the pine woods around
the pond, imparted a brightness like
sunshine to the
landscape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were
breaking
through mists
hill-sides
here
of
and
and shining
there.
On
the
faintly
third
on
the
or fourth
May
first
I saw a loon in the pond, and during the week of the month I heard the whippoorwill,
the brown-thrasher, the veery, the wood-pewee, the che-
I had heard the wood-thrush The phoebe had already come once more
wink, and other birds. long before.
and looked in at
my
my
door and window, to see if
house was cavern-like enough for her, sustaining hersQlf
on humming wings with clinched
talons, as if she held
the air, while she surveyed the premises. like pollen
by
The sulphur-
of the pitch-pine soon covered the pond and
the stones and rotten
wood along the
could have collected a barrel-ful.
showers " we hear o£
Even
shore, so that
This
is
in Calidas*
the
*'
you
sulphur
drama of Sa«
341
SPRING. contala,
we
read of "
dust of the lo'us." into
summer,
And
as one
dyed yellow with the golden so the seasons went rolling on
rills
rambles into higher and higher
grass.
Thus was
my
first
yenr's
life in
and the second year was similar "Walden Septembei- â&#x201A;Źth 18.17
the woods completed; to
it.
I finally
left
coNCL;3siojr.
To
the
sicl\
the doctors wisely
Thank Heaven, here
of an* and sceniriy.
The buck-eye does
world.
and the mocking-bird goose fast
is
in
is
not
grow
in
more of a cosmopolite than we the
for
the bison, to
is
night
in
;
in
not
New
rarely heard here.
Canada, takes a luncheon
plumes himself
Even
recommend a change the
all
England,
The
wild-
he breaks his the Ohio, and
a southern bayou.
some extent, keeps pace with the
seasons, cropping the pastures of the Colorado only
till
a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellowstone.
Yet we think
that if rail-fences are pulled
down,
and stone-walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth sei to our lives and our fates decided.
If
you arc chosen town-clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tieira del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the huul of infernal
wiJer
lliun
fire
The
nevertheless.
our views of
tafferel of
our
make the voyage The other side of
curious passengers, and not
like stupid sailors picking
the glebe
is
it.
Yet we should oftener look over the craft, like
universe
is
but the
home
oakum.
of our correspondent. r342)
Oui
CONCLUSION. royasfing
iJd3
J-ly great-circle sailing, and the doctora
is
One
prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. to
Southern Africa
is
not the
game he would be
would a man hunt
How
after.
afford rare sport
would be nobler game
;
to shoot one's self.
long, pray,
Snipes and
he could?
giraffes if
may
woodcocks also
hastens
chase the giraffe; but surely that
to
but I trust
—
it
" Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet ur discovered. Travel them, and be Expert
What Is
does Africa,
— what
does the "West stand foi?
own interior white on the chart? black may prove, like the coast, when discovered.
not our
though Is
in home-cosniograpliy."
it
it
the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Missis-
sippi, or
that
a North-West Passage around this continent,
we would fmd?
Are
most concern mankind?
who
is
lost,
these the problems which
Is
Franklin the only
man
that his wife should be so earnest to find
Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is ? Be rather the IMungo Park, the Lewis and Clarke and explore Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans with shiploads of preserved your own higher latitudes, you, if they meats to support be necessary and pile the
him ?
;
—
;
empty cans sky-high
for a sign.
Were
invented to preserve meat merely
bus to whole
new
?
preserved meats
Nay, be a Colum-
continents and worlds
within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Every man earl lily
mock Itave
the lord of a realm beside which the
empire of the Czar
loft
no
is
by the
but a petty
state,
a hum-
Yet some can be patriotic who and sacrifice the greater to the lass.
ice.
se//'-respect,
is
TTALDEN.
344
They
love the soil which
no sympathy with the their clay.
makes
spirit
Patriotism
is
their graves, but
may
which
a maggot
still
their
in
have
animate
heada
"What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploiting Expedition, with
parade and expense, but an
all its
in-
direct recognition of the fact, that there are continents
and seas
isthmus or an is
moral world, to which erery man
in the
inlet,
an
yet unexplored by him, but that
many thousand
easier to sail
is
it
miles through cold and
storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five
hundred men and boys
to assist one, *han
plore the private sea, the Atlantic
of one's being alone.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
it is
to ex-
and Pacific Ocean
" Erret, et extremes alter scrutetur Iberos. Plus habet hie vitse, plus habet ille vioe."
Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians I have more of God, they more of the road.
It is not
worth the while to go round the world to count
the cats in Zanzibar. better,
and you
may
Yet do
till you can do some " Symmes*
even
this
perhaps
find
"
by which to get at the inside at last. England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Holb
Coast, all front on this private sea
them has ventured out of without doubt the direct learn to speak
all
;
but no bark from
sight of land, though
way
to India.
it
is
If you would
tongues and conform to the customs
of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers,
to
be naturalized in
all climes,
and cause the Sphinx
dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept
of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself.
demanded
the eye and the nerve.
'
Herein are
Only the defeated
'
."45
CONCLUSION. tUi^.
^Ifiserters
rikI
enlist.
go to the wars, cowards that run away
now on
Start
that farthest western way,
which does not pause at the JMississippi or the
Pa.;ific,
nor conduct toward a worn-out Ciiina or Japan, but leads
on direct a tange/
1
to this sphere,
summer and
day and night, sun down, moon down, and at
down
winter,
earth
last
too.
highway robbery " to ascertain Avhat degree of resolution was necessary in orIt is said that
Mirabeau took
to
der to place one's self in formal opposition
He
sacred laws of society."
who
fights in the
never stood
was
in the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "that honor and
way
idle, if
much
religion Iiave
of a well-considered and a firm
This was manly, as the world goes
resolve." it
declared that " a soldier
ranks does not require half so
courage as a foot-pad,"
most
to the
A saner man
not desperate.
and yet
;
would have
found himself often enough "in formal opposition" to
what are deemed " the most sacred laws of society, through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his resolution without going out of his way. is
not for a
man
to put himself in such
society, but to maintain himself in
It
an attitude
to
whatever attitude he
find himself through obedience to the laws of his being,
which ment,
will if
Perhaps It is
he should chance
meet with such.
it
seemed
to
me
that I
had several more
1
and make a beaten
ti-ack
my door
five or six yeai's
to the pond-side
since
I
trod
it,
it
one
;
int*
fall
for our-
had not lived there a week before
wore a path from
lives
for that
remarkable how easily and insensibly we
selves.
is
a just govern-
and could not spare any more time
a particular route,
it
to
to
the woods for as good a reason as I went there.
I left
to live,
never be one of opposition
and
my tl
is still
lecv
oujj
quite
TTALDEN
iJ46
It is tine, I fear that others
distinct.
into
and so helped
it,
earth V'itli
soil
is
and
to
keep
it
open.
may have
fallcu
Tlie surface of the
by tlie ieet of men and so mind travels. How worn and
iinpressihle
the paths wiiich the
;
dusty, then, must be the highways of the world,
the ruts of tradition and conformity
how deep
I did not wish to
!
take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast
and on the deck of the the moonlight
Avorld, for there I could best see
amid the mountains.
I do not wish to
go below now.
by
I learned this, at least,
advances confidently endeavors
my experiment
in the direction of his
to live the life
;
that if one
dreams, and
which he has imagined, he
meet with a success unexpected
in
common
hours.
will
He
some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal Liws will begin to establish themselves around and within him or the will put
;
old laws be expanded,
more
and interpreted
and he
liberal sense,
a higher order of beings. fies his
life,
will live
in his favor in
a
with the license of
In proportion as he simpli-
the laws of the universe will appear less
complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty povei-ty,
nor weakness weakness.
castles in the air,
If you ha^â&#x20AC;˘e built your woi-k need not be lost that if ;
Avhere they should be.
Now
put the foundations undei
them. It is
ica
a ridiculous demand which England and
make, that you
stand you.
shall
Neither
Amer-
speak so that they can under-
men nor
toad-stools
grow
so.
As
were important, and there were not enough to understand you without them. As if Nature could support but one order of undei-standings, could not susÂť
if
that
tain bu'ds as well as
quadrupeds, Hying as well as creep-
;
CONCLUSION.
8-47
ing things, and JmsJi find tuho, which Bright can understand,
were the best Enghslj.
in stiipidity alone.
not be extra- vagant enough,
beyond the narrow be adequate
limits of
to the truth of
Extra vagance
!
it
buffalo,
another latitude,
is
over the
runs after her
there were safety
if
my expression may
may not wander far enough
my daily experience, so
which
as to
have been convinced.
I
depends on how you are yarded.
The migrating kicks
As
I fear cliiefly lest
which seeks new pastures in
not extravagant like the cow which leaps
pail,
cow-yard fence, and
the
milking time.
calf, in
I desire to
speak
somewhere loWiout bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay ;
the foundation of a true expression.
Who
heard a strain of music feared then
lest
speak extravagantly any more forever future or possible,
we
?
that has
he should
In view of the
should live quite laxly and unde-
fined in front, our outlines
dim and mLsty on
that side
as our shadows reveal an insensible perspiration toward
the sun.
The
volatile truth of
our words should con-
tinually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.
Their truth
is
instantly translated
;
The words which
alone remains.
piety are not definite
;
its literal
monument
express our faith and
yet they are significant and fra-
grant like frankincense to superior natures.
Why
level
downward
to
our dullest ))erception
al-
common sense ? The comsense of men asleep, which they exSometimes we are inclined to class
ways, and praise that as
monest sense press
the
by snoring.
who
those wit ted, wit.
is
are
once-and-a-half witted with
the
half'
because we appreciate only a third part of their
Some would
find fault with the morning-red, if
WALDEN.
S4:H
"
ever got up early enough.
tliey
hear, " that
senses
Vedas;" but
trine of the
pretend," us 1
of Kabir have four difTtront
the verses
illusion, spirit, intellect,
;
They
and the exoteric docworld
in this part of the
considered a ground for complaint
it is
if
a man's writings
admit of more than one interpretation.
While England
endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor cure the
to
brain-rot,
which prevails so much more
widely and fatally? 1 do not suppose that I
have attained
to obscurity,
but I should be proud if no more fatal fault were found
my
with
Walden color,
pages on this score than was found with the
Southern customers objected to
ice.
which
the evidence of
is
The
purity
blue
it
were
purity, as if
its
muddy, and preferred the Cambridge but tastes of weeds.
its
ice,
men
which
love
is
is
white,
like the
mists which envelop the earth, and not like the azure
ether beyond.
Some
are dinning in our ears that
and moderns generally, are
we Americans,
intellectual dwarfs
compared
with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men.
what
that to the purpose?
is
than a dead Hon.
Shall a
A
living
dog
man go and hang
is
But better
himself be-
cause he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest
own
pygmy
business,
Why ceed,
should
and
in
that he can
and endeavor
we be
?
to
Let every one mind his be what he was made.
in such desperate haste to suc-
such desperate enterprises?
If a
does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps
because he hears a diiferent drummer. to
far
man it
is
Let him step
the music which
awaj
.
us soon as
It is
he hears, however measured or not important that he should mature
an apple-tree or an oak.
Shall he turn his
CONCLUSION. upring iniv --jowTner
we were made
If the condition of things whi(;h
?
for
is
not yet, what Arere any reality
which we can substitute on a vain reahty.
349
We
?
Slmll
Avill
we with
not be sliipwrecked
pains erect a heaven
when
of blue glass over ourselves, though
we
shall
be sure to gaze
far above, as if the
There was an
still
it
is
done
at the true ethereal lieaTen
former were not
?
Kouroo wlo waa One day it came Having considered that
the city of
artist in
disposed to strive after perfection.
mind to make a staff. an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but
into his in
perfect
work time does not
enter,
shall be perfect in all respects,
my
ing else in forest for
made
He
life.
he said
into a
to himself, It
though I should do noth-
proceeded instantly to the
wood, being resolved that
it
should not be
of unsuitable material; and as he searched for
and rejected
stick after stick, his friends gradually de-
serted him, for they
grew
old in their
but he grew not older by a moment.
works and died,
His singleness of
purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As
he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of way, and only sighed at a distance because he could
his
not overcome him.
Before he had found a stock in
all
Kouroo was a hoary ruin, mounds to peel the stick. Be-
respects suitable the city of
and he fore he
sat
on one of
had given
it
its
the proper shape the dynasty of
the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick
he wrote the name of the
last
sand, and then resumed his work.
of that race in the
By
the time he had
smoothed and polished the the pole-star
;
staff Kalpa was no longer and ere he had put on the ferule and the
head adorned with precious stones,
Brahma had aw ok 3
)
WALDEN.
35
and slumbered many times.
When
tion these things ?
work,
to his
But wliy do I
stay to racnÂŤ
the finishing stroke
was put
suddenly expanded before the eyes of the
it
astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations oi
He
Brahma.
had made a new system in making a
a world with
6t:iff,
(hough the old
and
full
fair proportions
;
in whichj
and dynasties had passed away,
cities
and more glorious ones had taken their places.
fairer
And now
he saw by the heap of shavings
him and
his feet, that, for
his v/ork, the
still
frosli at
former lapse
of time had been an illusion, and that no more time Iiad elapsed than
is
required for a single scintillation from
Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder The material was pure, and his art how could the result be other than wonderful ? (\'as pure No face which we can give to a matter will stead U3
the brain of
of a mortal brain. ;
This alone wears well.
so well at last as the truth.
we are not where we are, but in a Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are m two cases at the same time, and it is doubly ditficult to get out. In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not what you For
the most part,
false position.
ought.
Any
truth
is
better than make-believe.
Tom
Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if ho had any tiling to say. " Tell tlie tailors," said he, " to re-
member
to
the
stitch."
first
make a knot
However mean your Dot shun
you
are.
it
and
call
it
life,
life
poor as
it
is,
meet
hard names.
It looks poorest
fault- finder will find
your
in their thread before they take
His companion's prayer
and
fcrgotten.
live
It is not so
when you
are richest.
it do bad as ;
The
Love You may perhaps have some
faults
is.
it
is
even
in
paradise.
CONCLUSION.
351
pleasant, thrilling, glorious lionrs, even in a poor-house.
The
setting sun
is
the
from the windows of the
retiectcd
from the rich man's abode;
alnis-iiouse as brightly as
snow melts before
its
door as early
do not see lut a quiet mind there,
The
may
in the spring.
live as
and have as cheering thoughts, as
town's poor seem to
pendent
enough
lives
me
in
a palace.
often to live the most inde-
they are simply great
INIay be
of any.
Most think that
without misgiving.
to rer,eive
they are above being supported by the town oftener
I
contentedly
;
but
it
happens that they are not above supporting
themselves by dishonest means, which should be more Cultivate poverty like a
disreputable.
Do
garden herb,
much to get new Turn the old; rethings, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change we change. Sell turn to them. your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see like sage.
not trouble yourself
;
that you do not want society.
corner of a garret
all
my
would be just as large
The
about me.
me
to
;
while I had
philosopher said
three divisions one can take in disorder
If I were confined to a
days, like a spider, the world
from the
man
away
:
thoughts of
general, and put
its
the most abject
cannot take away his thought."
my
From an army
"
Do
it
and vulgar one
not seek so anx-
many inHuheavenly lights. The
ously to be developed, to subject yourself to fluences to
be played on
;
it
is
mility like darkness reveals the
all
dissipation.
shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, " and lo creation widens to our view." We are often !
reminded that
if
there were bestowed on us the wealth
of Croesus, our aims must
means
essentially ihe same.
stricted in
still
be the same, and our
Moreover,
your range by poverty,
if
ii
you are
re-
you cannot bu^
WALDEN.
852
books and ne\vspapers, for instance, you are but con*
most
fined to the
and
significant
experiences
vital
you
;
are compelled to deal with the material which yields the
most sugar and the most starch.
where
is
it
You
are defended from being a
on a lower level by mag-
Superfluous wealth can buy su-
nanimity on a higher.
Money
only.
perfluities
near the bone
loses ever
sweetest.
No man
trifler.
It is life
not required
is
buy olo
to
necessary of the soul. I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into Avhose composition
was poured a
in the repose of
my
little
alloy of bell metal.
of
my
my
mid-day, there reaches
confused tititiniiahuhim from without.
My
contemporaries.
Often, ears a
It is the noise
neighbors
tell
me
of their
adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what no-
they met at the dinner-table
tabilities
more
;
am no
but I
interested in such things tlian in the contents of the
The
Daily Times.
interest
and the conversation are
about costume and manners chiefly goose
still,
dress
you
as
it
;
but a goose
They
will.
tell
me
is
a
of Cali-
and Texas, of England and the Indies, of the Hon. Mr. of Georgia or of Massachusetts, all
fornia
and
transient
phenomena,
fleeting
leap from their court-yard like the
come
delight to sion with to
my
to
pomp and
bearings,
am
Mameluke
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not walk
ready to bey.
I
in proces-
parade, in a conspicuous place, but
walk even with the Builder of the universe,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not
if I
may,
to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial
Nineteenth Century, but stand or it
I
till
goes by.
What
are
men
sit
thoughtfully while
celebrating
?
They
are
all
on a committee of arrange-nents, and liourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day,
and Webster
is
his orator.
I love to weigh, to
CONCLUSION. settle, to
gravitate toward that
rin^htfuUy attracts
and try
scale
353
to
me
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
weigh
take the case that
is
;
which most strongly and not hang by the beam of the
less,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not suppose
to travel
a
case, but
the only path I can.
and that on which no power can resist me. It affords me no satisfaction to commence to spring an arch before I liave got a sohd foundation. Let us not play at kittlybenders. There is a solid bottom every where. We read that the traveller asked the boy
if
the
swamp
be-
him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that had. But presently the traveller's horse sank in up
fore it
and he observed to the boy, " I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom." " So it has," answered the latter, " but you have not got half way to it yet." So it is with the bogs and quicksands of soto the girths,
ciety
;
but he
is
an old boy that knows
it.
Only what
thought said or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. I would not be one of those who will foolishly is
mere would keep me awake drive a nail into
let
me
lath
and plastering
nights.
feel for the furrowing.
Give
Do
me
;
such a deed
a hammer, and
not depend on the
Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your putty.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
work with satisfaciion, a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.
Rather thau love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity
and truth were not
and I went away hungry from the 23
;
WALDEN.
854
The
inhospitable board.
They
them.
talked to
fame of the vintage
me ;
was as cold as the
was no need of
I thought that tliere
ices.
tlie
hospitality
ice to freeze
of the age of the wine and
but I thought of an older, a
newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage,
which they had not
got,
stjle,
and grounds and "entertainment" pass
-he house
nothing with me.
man
for
made me
I called on the king, but he
wait in his hall, and conducted like a
incapacitated
There was a man in my neighborhood His manners were truly
for hospitality.
who
The
and could not buy.
lived in a hollow tree.
regah
I should
have done better had I called on
long shall
we
him.
How
&nd musty tinent
virtues,
As
?
sutFering,
if
sit in
our porticoes practising
idle
which any work would make imper-
one were to begin the day with long-
and hire a man
hoe his potatoes
to
and
;
in
meekness
the afternoon go forth to practise Christian
and charity
witli
Cliina pride
and stagnant self-complacency of mankind
goodness aforethouglit!
This generation reclines a being the
last
little to
scent,
it
speaks of
its
the Pliilosophical Societies,
own
Men
virtue.
!
;
great lil
men
in
Boston and
It is the
There are the Records of and the public Eulogies of
good
Adam
contemplating his
" Yes, Ave have done great deeds,
di\ine songs, which shnll never die," as u'c can
and
thinking: of its lonj? de-
progress in art and science and
literature with satisfjiction.
Great
congratulate itself on
of an illustrious line
London and Paris and Kome,
Consider tho
remember them. of Assyria,
The
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
and sung
is,
as ions
learned societies and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; where are they
philosophers and experimentalists
we
?
What
are
!
youth-
Tbcre
ig
355
CONCLUSION. not one of
my
man
Tlicse
may be
race.
If
life
life.
of
tlie
we have
yet lived a whole hu-
but the spring months
we have had
are acquainted with a
we
globe on which
not where
we
and
we
liave
mere
pellicle
of the
many above it. We we are sound asleep
Beside,
are.
Yet we esteem ourselves
we
are ambitious spirits
wise,
Truly,
an established order on the surface.
are deep thinkers,
Con-
Most have not delved six feet
live.
nearly half our time.
the
the seven-years' itch,
beneath the surface, nor leaped as
know
in
not seen the seventeen-year locust yet in
We
cord.
who has
readers
As
!
I
stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on t'.ie
forest floor,
my
siglit,
and ask myself why and hide
ble thoughts,
perhaps, be
to conceal itself
from
will cherish those
hum-
and endeavoring it
head
its
fi-om
me who
benefactor, and impart to
its
clieering information, I
am
its
some
reminded of the greater
Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over
human
might,
race
me
the
insect.
There
is
an incessant influx of novelty into the world,
and yet we
tolerate incredible dulness.
suggest what kind of sermons are
still
I need only
listened to in the
There are such words as
most enlightened countries.
joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a psalm,
suns with a nasal twancr, while we believe nary and mean. only.
clot lies
It
We is
think that
said
that
we can
the British
in the ordi-
changr; our
Empire
is
very large and respectable, and that the United States arc a fii>t-rate power. rircs
and
J>rilisli
in his
Empire
mind.
We
do not believe that a tide
behind every
fulls
like
Who
a chip,
if
man
Avhich can float the
he should ever harbor
knows what
it
sort of seventeen-yea/
;
!
WALDEN.
856
come out of the ground ? Tlie gov* ernment of the world I live in was not framed, like
locust will next
that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations ovei the
wine.
The
life in
us
is
like the
rise this
year higher than
flood the
parched uplands
water in the
man ;
has ever
even
this
river.
It
known
may
may and
it,
be the event-
It was drown out all not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before Bcience began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which pame out of the diy leaf of an old table ef apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitclien for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts, from an ful year,
which
our muskrats
will
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
egg deposited as appeared
many
in the living tree
years earlier
which was heard gnawincr out perchance by the heat
ot
it
for several weeks, hatched
Who does not
an urn.
feel his
a resurrection and immortality strengtliened by
faith in
heanng of
this ?
Who
knows what
beautiful
wmged life, whose egg has been buried for der many concentric layers of woodenness in dry
still,
by counting the annual layers beyond
life
of society, deposited at
first in
and
ages uu" the dead
the alburnum cf
the green and living tree, which has been gradually con
verted into the semblance of
its
heard perchance gnawing out
well-seasoned tomb,
now
for years
by
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
tlie as-
tonished family of man, as they sat round the festive Doard,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; may unexpectedly come
ciety's
most
perfect
trivial
summer
and handselled
life at last
forth
from amidst so
furniture, to enjoy
it
CONCLUSION. 1 do not say that John or Jonathan will realize
357 all
morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star^ this
;
but such
is
the character of that
THE END*
-^l ^A
J
J
^M&