Walden

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VISITORS

WINTER ANIMALS

SPRING

CONCLUSION

WHERE I LIVED, & WHAT I LIVED FOR

ECONOMY


HIGHER LAWS

SOLITUDE

SOUNDS

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BUT WHILE WE ARE CONFINED to books,

afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present

though the most select and classic, and

moment to any work, whether of the head

read only particular written languages,

or hands. I love a broad margin to my life.

which are themselves but dialects and

Sometimes, in a summer morning, having

provincial, we are in danger of forgetting

taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my

the language which all things and events

sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt

speak without metaphor, which alone is

in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories

copious and standard. The rays which

and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and

stream through the shutter will be no lon-

stillness, while the birds sing around or

ger remembered when the shutter is wholly

flitted noiseless through the house, until by

removed. No method nor discipline can

the sun falling in at my west window.

supersede the necessity of being forever

I WAS REMINDED OF the lapse of time. I

on the alert. What is a course of history or

grew in those seasons like corn in the night,

philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well

and they were far better than any work of

selected, or the best society, or the most

the hands would have been. They were not

admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity. I DID NOT READ BOOKS the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did better than this. There were times when I could not


DECEMBER 1 – To Cliffs. The snow keeps off unusually. The landscape is the color of a russet apple which has no golden cheek. The sunset sky supplies that. The year looks back toward summer, and a summer smile is reflected in her face. There is in these days a coolness in the air which makes me hesitate to call them Indian

time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above

summer. At this season I observe

my usual allowance. I realized

the form of the buds which are

what Orientals mean by con-

prepared for spring,-the large

templation and the forsaking

bright yellowish and reddish buds

works. Mostly, I minded not

of the swamp-pink, the already

how the hours went.

downy once of the Populus

THE DAY ADVANCED if to

tremuloides and the willows, the

light some work of mine; it was

red ones of the blueberry, etc., the long, sharp ones of the amelanchier, the spear-shaped ones of the viburnum.

morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the spar- row had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like Puri Indians, of whom it is said that “for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they


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express the variety

indeed, getting our living, and regulating

of meaning by

our lives according to the last and best

pointing backward

mode we had learned, we should never be

for yesterday for-

troubled with ennui. Follow your genius

ward for tomorrow,

closely enough, and it will not fail to show

and overhead for

you a fresh prospect every hour. House

the passing day.�

work was a pleasant pastime.

This was sheer

I WAS SOMETIMES TEMPTED to stretch an

idleness to my

awning over them and take my seat there. It

fellow townsmen,

was worth the while to see the sun shine on

no doubt; but if

these things, and hear the free wind blow

the birds and flowers had tried me by their

on them; so much more interesting most

standard, I should not have been found

familiar objects look out of doors than in

wanting. A man must find his occasions in

the house. A bird sits on the next bough,

himself, it is true. The natural day is very

life-everlasting grows under the table, and

calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

blackberry vines run round its legs; pine

I HAD THIS ADVANTAGE, at least, in my

cones, chestnut burs, and strawberry leaves

mode of life, over those who were obliged

are strewn about. It looked as if this was

to look abroad for amusement, to society

the way these forms came to be trans-

and the theatre, that my life itself was

ferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, and

become my amusement and never ceased

bedsteads—because they once stood in

to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes

their midst. My house was on the side of a

and without an end. If we were always,

hill, immediately on the edge of the larger



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wood, in the midst of a young forest of

and handsome cherries, fell over in wreaths

pitch pines and hickories, and half a dozen

like rays on every side. I tasted them out of

rods from the pond, to which a narrow

compliment to Nature, though they were

footpath led down the hill. In my front yard

scarcely palatable. The sumach grew luxuri-

grew the strawberry, blackberry, and life-

antly about the house, pushing up through

everlasting, johnswort.

the embankment which I had made, and

NEAR THE END OF MAY, the sand cherry

growing five or six feet the first season.

adorned the sides of the path with its

Its broad pinnate tropical leaf was pleasant

THE TRANSCENDENTAL CLUB BEGAN IN MAIN IN 1836 AND WAS FIRST CALLED THE HEDGE CLUB.

delicate flowers

though strange to look on. The large buds,

arranged in umbels

suddenly pushing out late in the spring

cylindrically about

from dry sticks which had seemed to be

its short stems,

dead, developed themselves as by magic

which last, in the

into graceful green and tender boughs, an

fall, weighed down

inch in diameter; and sometimes, as I sat

with good sized

at my window, so heedlessly did they grow


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Henry David Thoreau was no one-man wolf pack. He had large gang that even started an official club. The Transcendentalism movement involved many people, though these are popular names from the philosophical era.

WALDO EMERSON

DICKINSON

Ralph Waldo Emerson is truly the center of

Emily Dickinson, regarded as one of Amer-

American transcendentalism, setting most

ica’s greatest poets, is well known for her

of its ideas and values in a little book, Na-

unusual life of self imposed social seclusion.

ture, that represented ten years of intense

Living a life of simplicity and seclusion she

study in philosophy, religion, and literature,

wrote poetry of great power; questioning

and in his First Series of essays.

the nature of immortality and death.


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WHITMAN Walt Whitman was an essayist, poet and journalist, as well as a volunteer nurse in the course of the American Civil War. Whitman, being one of the most influential American poets, is often referred to as “the father of the free verse�.


EMERSON CLIFF

WALDEN ROAD

EMERSON TRAIL

CABIN REPLICA


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WALDEN POND

THOREAU’S COVE

ORIGINAL CABIN SITE


and tax their weak joints, I heard a fresh

of a partridge, conveying travellers from

and tender bough suddenly fall like a fan to

Boston to the country.

the ground, when there was not a breath of

FOR I DID NOT LIVE SO out of the world

air stirring, broken off by its own weight. In

as that boy who, as I hear, was put out to a

August, the large masses of berries, which,

farmer in the east part of the town, but ere

when in flower, had attracted many wild

long ran away and came home again, quite

bees, gradually assumed their bright vel-

down at the heel and homesick. He had

vety crimson hue, and by their weight again

never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way

bent down and broke the tender limbs.

place; the folks were all gone off; why, you

AS I SIT AT MY WINDOW this summer

couldn’t even hear the whistle! “In truth, our

afternoon, hawks are circling about my

village has become a butt For one of those

clearing; the tensity of wild pigeons, flying

fleet railroad shafts, and o’er Our peaceful

by two and threes athwart my view, or

plain its soothing sound is—Concord.”

perching restless on the white pine boughs

THE FITCHBURG Railroad touches the

behind my house, gives a voice to the air;

pond about a hundred rods south of where

a fish hawk dimples the glassy surface of

I dwell. I usually

the pond and brings up a fish; a mink steals

go to the village

HENRY DAVID

out of the marsh before my door and seizes

along its causeway,

THOREAU REMAINED

a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending

and am, as it were,

AT WALDEN POND

under the weight of the reed-birds flitting

related to society

FOR TWO YEARS

hither and thither; and for the last half-hour

by this link. The

WHILE HE WROTE

I have heard the rattle of railroad cars, now

men on the freight

HIS BOOK.

dying away and then reviving like the beat

trains, who go over


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the whole length of the road, bow to me

sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing

as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so

over some farmer’s yard, informing me that

often, and apparently they take me for an

many restless city merchants are arriving

employee; and so I am. I too would fain be

within the circle of the town, or adventur-

a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of

ous country traders from the other side. As

the earth.

they come under one horizon, they shout

THE WHISTLE OF THE locomotive pen-

their warning to get off the track to the

etrates my woods summer and winter,

other, heard sometimes through the circles



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the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me 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 HENRY DAVID THOREAU’S

penetrates my woods summer and winter,

INTERESTING FAMILY

sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing

BUSINESS OUTSIDE OF HIS WRITINGS WAS PENCIL MANUFACTURING.

AS I CAME HOME THROUGH the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a wood- chuck stealing across my path, and



I FOUND IN MYSELF, and still find, an

in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense

instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named,

a part of Nature themselves, are often in a

spiritual life, as do most men, and another

more favorable mood for observing her, in

toward a primitive rank and savage one, and

the intervals of their pursuits, than philoso-

I reverence them both.

phers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them. The traveller on the prairie is naturally a hunter, on the head waters of the

The wildness and adventure that are in fish-

Missouri and Columbia a trapper, and at the

ing still recommended it to me. I like some-

Falls of St. Mary a fisherman. He who is only

times to take rank hold on life and spend

a traveller learns things at second-hand and

my day more as the animals do. Perhaps I

by the halves, and is poor authority. We are

have owed to this employment and to hunt-

most interested when science reports what

ing, when quite young, my closest acquain-

those men already know practically or in-

tance with Nature. They early introduce

stinctively, for that alone is a true humanity,

us to and detain us in scenery with which

or account of human experience.

otherwise, at that age, we should have little

THEY MISTAKE WHO assert that the Yan-

acquaintance. Fishermen, hunters, wood-

kee has few amusements, because he has

choppers, and others, spending their lives

not so many public holidays, and men and


boys do not play so many games as they

all factitious, and concerned my philosophy

do in England, for here the more primitive

more than my feelings. I speak of fishing

but solitary amusements of hunting, fish-

only now, for I had long felt differently

ing, and the like have not yet given place

about fowling, and sold my gun before

to the former. Almost every New England boy among my contemporaries shouldered a fowling-piece between the ages of ten and fourteen; and his hunting and fishing grounds 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 not oftener stay to play on the common. But already a change is taking place, owing, not to an increased humanity, but to an increased scarcity of game, for perhaps the hunter is the greatest friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society. MOREOVER, WHEN AT THE pond, I wished sometimes to add fish to my fare for variety. I have actually fished from the same kind of necessity that the first fishers did. Whatever humanity I might con- jure up against it was


AUGUST 16 – Cassia Field. Diplopappus linariifolius, apparently several days. Ambrosia pollen now begins to yellow my clothes. Cynoglossum ofcinale, a long time, mostly gone to seed, at Bull’s Path and north roadside below Leppleman’s. Its great radical leaves made me think of smooth mullein. The flower has a very peculiar, rather sickening odor; Sophia thought like a warm

I went to the woods. Not that I am less

apple pie just from the oven (I

humane than others, but I did not perceive

did not perceive this). A pretty

that my feelings were much affected. I did

flower, however. I thoughtlessly

not pity the fishes nor the worms. This was

put a handful of the nutlets into

habit. As for fowling, during the last years

my pocket with my handkerchief.

that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. BUT I CONFESS THAT I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun. Yet notwithstanding the objection on the score of humanity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are ever substituted for these; and when some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they

But it took me a long time to pick them out of my handkerchief when I got home, and I pulled out many threads in the process.

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1. ABANDONED STYLING HAIR, BUT USES BOBBY PINS TO KEEP IT OUT OF FACE. 2. THREW AWAY YOUR MAKEUP, EMBRACED NATURAL BEAUTY 3. INVESTS IN COMFORTABLE V-NECK T-SHIRTS 4. ALEARNED MOST ACCESSORIES ARE USELESS EXCEPT WATCH 5. GOOD QUALITY, WELL FITTING JEANS ARE NECESSITIES. 6. INVESTS IN GOOD LAYERING SHIRTS, HOODIES AND SWEATSHIRTS 7. RENOUNCED COLOR COORDINATING OUTFITS 9. ALLOWS SOLID COMPANY ALONG FOR THE RIDE 10. LIVES SIMPLY


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1. HOPES THAT HAIR LOOKS GOOD PUSHED BACK SINCE NICE HAIRCUTS ARE OVER 2. BRINGS COMB TO TAME BEARD, WHICH IS ALMOST TO FULL CAVE MAN BEARD 3. INVESTS IN SOLID V-NECK T-SHIRTS FOR THE ROAD 4. FINDS DURABLE, STURDY JEANS THAT WILL LAST 5. ALONG WITH THE JEANS HE DEFINITELY HAS A MANLY LEATHER BELT 6. FOUND PACK THAT WON’T BREAK AND WILL CARRY ALL NECESSITIES 7. BRINGS CLOTHES TO LAYER WITH DURING COLD TIMES 8. ALLOWS SOLID COMPANY ALONG FOR THE RIDE 10. LIVES SIMPLY


Henry David Thoreau and

at Walden Pond was Emerson’s

Ralph Waldo Emerson have the

gift to Thoreau. Thoreau would

greatest bromance of all time.

baby-sit Emerson’s kiddos

They first met at Emerson’s

while Emerson went away to

lecture, “The American Scholar”

lecture, and other times the two

at Harvard. Thoreau was pro-

would sit and chat about deep

foundly moved by the lecture

things no one will ever know

and shortly after the boys

or understand. The two were

became best buddies. Together

simply made to know each

they joined the Transcendental

other, and without the influence

Club, and laughed as Thoreau

of each other, neither of them

changed his name to ‘David

would have achieved as much

Henry.’ Emerson was constantly

as they did. Due to their awe-

a support and mentor to Tho-

some and adorable bromance,

reau, even letting Thoreau live

Thoreau and Emerson had a

with he and his family on many

profound intellectual impact on

occasions. The property that

American Literature forever.

the writer spent two years on


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THOREAU EMERSON


should let them hunt, I have answered, yes– remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education–make them hunters, though sportsmen only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at last, so that they shall not find game large enough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness—hunters as well as fishers of men. Thus far I am of the opinion of Chaucer’s nun, who “yave not of the text a pulled hen That saith that hunters ben not holy men.” THERE IS A PERIOD in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the hunters are the “best men,—as the Algonquins

called them. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless

TRANSCENDENTALIST WRITERS OFTEN WRITE ABOUT NATURE AND THE CONNECTION TO IT AS HUMANS. MOST BELIEVED THAT WE INNATELY BELONG IN NATUTE AND THAT IT HELPS US SEE THE GRANDER THINGS IN LIFE INSTEAD OF THE CHAOS WE INVOLVE OURSELVES IN WITH SOCIETY.

age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. The hare in its extremity cries like a child. I warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual philanthropic distinctions. SUCH IS OFTENEST THE young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most


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fish-pole behind. The mass of 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 surprised to consider that the only obvious employment, except wood- chopping, ice-cutting, or the like business, which ever to my knowledge detained at Walden Pond for a whole halfday any of 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 original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and

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 sedi-


ment of fishing would sink to the bottom

beat in him and get him off. If the enterprise

and leave their purpose pure; but no doubt

were as innocent as it is early! If the snow

such a clarifying process would be going

lies deep, they strap on his snow- shoes,

on all the while. The Governor and his

and, with the giant plow, plow a furrow

Council faintly remember the pond, for they

from the mountains to the seaboard, in

went a-fishing there when they were boys; but now they are too old and dignified to go a-fishing, and so they know. I WATCH THE PASSAGE of the morning cars with the same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, which is hardly more regular. 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 celestial train beside which the petty train of cars which bugs the earth is but the barb of the spear. The stabler of the iron horse was up early this winter morning by the light of the stars amid the mountains, to fodder and harness his steed. Fire, too, was awakened thus early to put the vital


OCTOBER 1 – To Hubbard’s Close. Clintonia Maple Swamp is very fair now,especially a quarter of a mile off, where you get the effect of the light colors without detecting the imperfections of the leaves. Look now at such a swamp, of maples mixed with the

which the cars, like a following drill barrow,

ever green pines, at the base of a

sprinkle all the restless men and floating

pine-clad hill, and see their yellow

merchandise in the country for seed.

and scarlet and crimson fires of all

ALL DAY THE FIRE-STEED flies over the

tints, mingled and contrasted with

country, stopping only that his master may

the green. Some maples are yet

rest, and I am awakened by his tramp and defiant snort at midnight, when in some remote glen in the woods

green, only yellow-tipped on the edges of their flakes, as the edges of a hazelnut bur. Some are wholly brilliant scarlet, raying out regularly and finely every way. Others,

he fronts the elements in-

of more regular form, seem to rest

cased in ice and snow; and

heavily, flake on flake, like yellow

he will reach his stall only

or scarlet snow-drifts.’ The

with the morning star, to

cinnamon ferns are crisp and

start once more on his trav-

sour in open grounds.

els without rest or slumber. Or 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 for a few hours of iron slumber. If the

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