{"id":410,"date":"2016-10-27T13:38:26","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T13:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/ivytech-engl206-master\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=410"},"modified":"2016-11-10T23:46:42","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T23:46:42","slug":"walden-by-henry-david-thoreau","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/chapter\/walden-by-henry-david-thoreau\/","title":{"raw":"Henry David Thoreau, \"Walden,\" 1854","rendered":"Henry David Thoreau, &#8220;Walden,&#8221; 1854"},"content":{"raw":"<pre>Economy\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived\r\nalone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had\r\nbuilt myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts,\r\nand earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two\r\nyears and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life\r\nagain.\r\n\r\nI should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if\r\nvery particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning\r\nmy mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not\r\nappear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances,\r\nvery natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did\r\nnot feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been\r\ncurious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable\r\npurposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children\r\nI maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no\r\nparticular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of\r\nthese questions in this book. In most books, the _I_, or first person, is\r\nomitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is\r\nthe main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all,\r\nalways the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so\r\nmuch about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.\r\nUnfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my\r\nexperience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or\r\nlast, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what\r\nhe has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to\r\nhis kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it\r\nmust have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more\r\nparticularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers,\r\nthey will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will\r\nstretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to\r\nhim whom it fits.\r\n\r\nI would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and\r\nSandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live\r\nin New England; something about your condition, especially your outward\r\ncondition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is,\r\nwhether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot\r\nbe improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord;\r\nand everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have\r\nappeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What\r\nI have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the\r\nface of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over\r\nflames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders \"until it becomes\r\nimpossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the\r\ntwist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach\"; or\r\ndwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with\r\ntheir bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or\r\nstanding on one leg on the tops of pillars--even these forms of\r\nconscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than\r\nthe scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were\r\ntrifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken;\r\nfor they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that\r\nthese men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have\r\nno friend Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head,\r\nbut as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up.\r\n\r\nI see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited\r\nfarms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more\r\neasily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the\r\nopen pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with\r\nclearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them\r\nserfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is\r\ncondemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging\r\ntheir graves as soon as they are born? They have got to live a man's\r\nlife, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they\r\ncan. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and\r\nsmothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before\r\nit a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed,\r\nand one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot!\r\nThe portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited\r\nencumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic\r\nfeet of flesh.\r\n\r\nBut men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed\r\ninto the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity,\r\nthey are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which\r\nmoth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is\r\na fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not\r\nbefore. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing\r\nstones over their heads behind them:--\r\n\r\n           Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,\r\n           Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati.\r\n\r\nOr, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,--\r\n\r\n  \"From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care,\r\n   Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.\"\r\n\r\nSo much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the\r\nstones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell.\r\n\r\nMost men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere\r\nignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and\r\nsuperfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be\r\nplucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and\r\ntremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure\r\nfor a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the\r\nmanliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market.\r\nHe has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well\r\nhis ignorance--which his growth requires--who has so often to use his\r\nknowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and\r\nrecruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest\r\nqualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only\r\nby the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one\r\nanother thus tenderly.\r\n\r\nSome of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes,\r\nas it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who\r\nread this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have\r\nactually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are\r\nalready worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen\r\ntime, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean\r\nand sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by\r\nexperience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying\r\nto get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins _aes\r\nalienum_, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass;\r\nstill living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always\r\npromising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today,\r\ninsolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes,\r\nonly not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting\r\nyourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of\r\nthin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let\r\nyou make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import\r\nhis groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up\r\nsomething against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old\r\nchest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the\r\nbrick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.\r\n\r\nI sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to\r\nattend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro\r\nSlavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both\r\nNorth and South. It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to\r\nhave a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver\r\nof yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the\r\nhighway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir\r\nwithin him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his\r\ndestiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive\r\nfor Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he\r\ncowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal\r\nnor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a\r\nfame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with\r\nour own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which\r\ndetermines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the\r\nWest Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination--what Wilberforce\r\nis there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land\r\nweaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green\r\nan interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring\r\neternity.\r\n\r\nThe mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called\r\nresignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you\r\ngo into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the\r\nbravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair\r\nis concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of\r\nmankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is\r\na characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.\r\n\r\nWhen we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief\r\nend of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it\r\nappears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living\r\nbecause they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is\r\nno choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun\r\nrose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of\r\nthinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What\r\neverybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to\r\nbe falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted\r\nfor a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What\r\nold people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds\r\nfor old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough\r\nonce, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new\r\npeople put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the\r\nglobe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the\r\nphrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor\r\nas youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may\r\nalmost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by\r\nliving. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the\r\nyoung, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have\r\nbeen such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must\r\nbelieve; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that\r\nexperience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived\r\nsome thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first\r\nsyllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have\r\ntold me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose.\r\nHere is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does\r\nnot avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I\r\nthink valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing\r\nabout.\r\n\r\nOne farmer says to me, \"You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it\r\nfurnishes nothing to make bones with\"; and so he religiously devotes a\r\npart of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of\r\nbones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with\r\nvegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite\r\nof every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some\r\ncircles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries\r\nmerely, and in others still are entirely unknown.\r\n\r\nThe whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by\r\ntheir predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to\r\nhave been cared for. According to Evelyn, \"the wise Solomon prescribed\r\nordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman pr\u00e6tors have\r\ndecided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the\r\nacorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that\r\nneighbor.\" Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our\r\nnails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor\r\nlonger. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have\r\nexhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's\r\ncapacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can\r\ndo by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy\r\nfailures hitherto, \"be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to\r\nthee what thou hast left undone?\"\r\n\r\nWe might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance,\r\nthat the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of\r\nearths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some\r\nmistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the\r\napexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in\r\nthe various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at\r\nthe same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several\r\nconstitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could\r\na greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's\r\neyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an\r\nhour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!--I\r\nknow of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as\r\nthis would be.\r\n\r\nThe greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul\r\nto be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good\r\nbehavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say\r\nthe wisest thing you can, old man--you who have lived seventy years, not\r\nwithout honor of a kind--I hear an irresistible voice which invites me\r\naway from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another\r\nlike stranded vessels.\r\n\r\nI think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may\r\nwaive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.\r\nNature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The\r\nincessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of\r\ndisease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do;\r\nand yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick?\r\nHow vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it;\r\nall the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers\r\nand commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are\r\nwe compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility\r\nof change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as\r\nthere can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to\r\ncontemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.\r\nConfucius said, \"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not\r\nknow what we do not know, that is true knowledge.\" When one man has\r\nreduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I\r\nforesee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.\r\n\r\nLet us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which\r\nI have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be\r\ntroubled, or at least careful. It would be some advantage to live\r\na primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward\r\ncivilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life\r\nand what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look over\r\nthe old day-books of the merchants, to see what it was that men most\r\ncommonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the\r\ngrossest groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but little\r\ninfluence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons,\r\nprobably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.\r\n\r\nBy the words, _necessary of life_, I mean whatever, of all that man\r\nobtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use\r\nhas become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from\r\nsavageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it. To\r\nmany creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food.\r\nTo the bison of the prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass,\r\nwith water to drink; unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest or the\r\nmountain's shadow. None of the brute creation requires more than Food\r\nand Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may,\r\naccurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food,\r\nShelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are\r\nwe prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a\r\nprospect of success. Man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and\r\ncooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of\r\nfire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present\r\nnecessity to sit by it. We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same\r\nsecond nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain\r\nour own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that\r\nis, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not\r\ncookery properly be said to begin? Darwin, the naturalist, says of the\r\ninhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own party, who were well\r\nclothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked\r\nsavages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, \"to\r\nbe streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.\" So, we\r\nare told, the New Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European\r\nshivers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of\r\nthese savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? According\r\nto Liebig, man's body is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the\r\ninternal combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, in warm\r\nless. The animal heat is the result of a slow combustion, and disease\r\nand death take place when this is too rapid; or for want of fuel, or\r\nfrom some defect in the draught, the fire goes out. Of course the vital\r\nheat is not to be confounded with fire; but so much for analogy. It\r\nappears, therefore, from the above list, that the expression, _animal\r\nlife_, is nearly synonymous with the expression, _animal heat_; for while\r\nFood may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire within us--and\r\nFuel serves only to prepare that Food or to increase the warmth of our\r\nbodies by addition from without--Shelter and Clothing also serve only to\r\nretain the heat thus generated and absorbed.\r\n\r\nThe grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep warm, to keep\r\nthe vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, not only with\r\nour Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our beds, which are our\r\nnight-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this\r\nshelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grass and leaves at\r\nthe end of its burrow! The poor man is wont to complain that this is a\r\ncold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer directly\r\na great part of our ails. The summer, in some climates, makes possible\r\nto man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is\r\nthen unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are\r\nsufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more various,\r\nand more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half\r\nunnecessary. At the present day, and in this country, as I find by\r\nmy own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a\r\nwheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and\r\naccess to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained\r\nat a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the\r\nglobe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to\r\ntrade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live--that is,\r\nkeep comfortably warm--and die in New England at last. The luxuriously\r\nrich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I\r\nimplied before, they are cooked, of course _\u00e0 la mode_.\r\n\r\nMost of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are\r\nnot only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation\r\nof mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have\r\never lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient\r\nphilosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than\r\nwhich none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We\r\nknow not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them\r\nas we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors\r\nof their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life\r\nbut from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.\r\nOf a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or\r\ncommerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of\r\nphilosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because\r\nit was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have\r\nsubtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as\r\nto live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,\r\nmagnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not\r\nonly theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and\r\nthinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.\r\nThey make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their\r\nfathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men.\r\nBut why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the\r\nnature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure\r\nthat there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in\r\nadvance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed,\r\nsheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a\r\nphilosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other\r\nmen?\r\n\r\nWhen a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what\r\ndoes he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and\r\nricher food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant\r\nclothing, more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires, and the like.\r\nWhen he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is\r\nanother alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to\r\nadventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.\r\nThe soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle\r\ndownward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why\r\nhas man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in\r\nthe same proportion into the heavens above?--for the nobler plants are\r\nvalued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from\r\nthe ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents, which,\r\nthough they may be biennials, are cultivated only till they have\r\nperfected their root, and often cut down at top for this purpose, so\r\nthat most would not know them in their flowering season.\r\n\r\nI do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will\r\nmind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build\r\nmore magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without\r\never impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live--if, indeed,\r\nthere are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their\r\nencouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of\r\nthings, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers--and,\r\nto some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those\r\nwho are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether\r\nthey are well employed or not;--but mainly to the mass of men who are\r\ndiscontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of\r\nthe times, when they might improve them. There are some who complain\r\nmost energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they\r\nsay, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy,\r\nbut most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross,\r\nbut know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their\r\nown golden or silver fetters.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nIf I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years\r\npast, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat\r\nacquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those\r\nwho know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises\r\nwhich I have cherished.\r\n\r\nIn any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to\r\nimprove the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the\r\nmeeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the\r\npresent moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities,\r\nfor there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not\r\nvoluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly\r\ntell all that I know about it, and never paint \"No Admittance\" on my\r\ngate.\r\n\r\nI long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove, and am still\r\non their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them,\r\ndescribing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one\r\nor two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even\r\nseen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to\r\nrecover them as if they had lost them themselves.\r\n\r\nTo anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible,\r\nNature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any\r\nneighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No\r\ndoubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise,\r\nfarmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going\r\nto their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his\r\nrising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present\r\nat it.\r\n\r\nSo many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to\r\nhear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh\r\nsunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain,\r\nrunning in the face of it. If it had concerned either of the political\r\nparties, depend upon it, it would have appeared in the Gazette with the\r\nearliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of\r\nsome cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening\r\non the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something,\r\nthough I never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again\r\nin the sun.\r\n\r\nFor a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide\r\ncirculation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my\r\ncontributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor\r\nfor my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward.\r\n\r\nFor many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and\r\nrain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways,\r\nthen of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and\r\nravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had\r\ntestified to their utility.\r\n\r\nI have looked after the wild stock of the town, which give a faithful\r\nherdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an\r\neye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did\r\nnot always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular\r\nfield to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red\r\nhuckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and\r\nthe black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have\r\nwithered else in dry seasons.\r\n\r\nIn short, I went on thus for a long time (I may say it without\r\nboasting), faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more\r\nevident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of\r\ntown officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance.\r\nMy accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed,\r\nnever got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled.\r\nHowever, I have not set my heart on that.\r\n\r\nNot long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house\r\nof a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. \"Do you wish to buy any\r\nbaskets?\" he asked. \"No, we do not want any,\" was the reply. \"What!\"\r\nexclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, \"do you mean to starve\r\nus?\" Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off--that\r\nthe lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth and\r\nstanding followed--he had said to himself: I will go into business; I\r\nwill weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he\r\nhad made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be\r\nthe white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary\r\nfor him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make\r\nhim think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be\r\nworth his while to buy. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate\r\ntexture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet\r\nnot the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them,\r\nand instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my\r\nbaskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.\r\nThe life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why\r\nshould we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?\r\n\r\nFinding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in\r\nthe court house, or any curacy or living anywhere else, but I must shift\r\nfor myself, I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods,\r\nwhere I was better known. I determined to go into business at once, and\r\nnot wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had\r\nalready got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply\r\nnor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the\r\nfewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a\r\nlittle common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared\r\nnot so sad as foolish.\r\n\r\nI have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are\r\nindispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire,\r\nthen some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will\r\nbe fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords,\r\npurely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite,\r\nalways in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all\r\nthe details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and\r\nowner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to\r\nread every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to\r\nsuperintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many\r\nparts of the coast almost at the same time--often the richest freight\r\nwill be discharged upon a Jersey shore;--to be your own telegraph,\r\nunweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels bound\r\ncoastwise; to keep up a steady despatch of commodities, for the supply\r\nof such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of\r\nthe state of the markets, prospects of war and peace everywhere, and\r\nanticipate the tendencies of trade and civilization--taking advantage\r\nof the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all\r\nimprovements in navigation;--charts to be studied, the position of reefs\r\nand new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the\r\nlogarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator\r\nthe vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly\r\npier--there is the untold fate of La Prouse;--universal science to\r\nbe kept pace with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and\r\nnavigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the\r\nPhoenicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock to be taken from\r\ntime to time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties\r\nof a man--such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and\r\ntret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.\r\n\r\nI have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for business,\r\nnot solely on account of the railroad and the ice trade; it offers\r\nadvantages which it may not be good policy to divulge; it is a good port\r\nand a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you must\r\neverywhere build on piles of your own driving. It is said that a\r\nflood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice in the Neva, would sweep St.\r\nPetersburg from the face of the earth.\r\n\r\nAs this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it\r\nmay not be easy to conjecture where those means, that will still be\r\nindispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for\r\nClothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps\r\nwe are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions\r\nof men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to\r\ndo recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital\r\nheat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and\r\nhe may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be\r\naccomplished without adding to his wardrobe. Kings and queens who wear\r\na suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their\r\nmajesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are\r\nno better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our\r\ngarments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of\r\nthe wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside without such\r\ndelay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.\r\nNo man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his\r\nclothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have\r\nfashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a\r\nsound conscience. But even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst\r\nvice betrayed is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by such\r\ntests as this--Who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over\r\nthe knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life\r\nwould be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to\r\nhobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if\r\nan accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a\r\nsimilar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help\r\nfor it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is\r\nrespected. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress\r\na scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not\r\nsoonest salute the scarecrow? Passing a cornfield the other day, close\r\nby a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. He was\r\nonly a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last. I have\r\nheard of a dog that barked at every stranger who approached his master's\r\npremises with clothes on, but was easily quieted by a naked thief. It is\r\nan interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank\r\nif they were divested of their clothes. Could you, in such a case,\r\ntell surely of any company of civilized men which belonged to the most\r\nrespected class? When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round\r\nthe world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia,\r\nshe says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling\r\ndress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she \"was now in a\r\ncivilized country, where... people are judged of by their clothes.\" Even\r\nin our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth,\r\nand its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the\r\npossessor almost universal respect. But they yield such respect,\r\nnumerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to have a missionary\r\nsent to them. Beside, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which\r\nyou may call endless; a woman's dress, at least, is never done.\r\n\r\nA man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new\r\nsuit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in the\r\ngarret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero longer\r\nthan they have served his valet--if a hero ever has a valet--bare feet\r\nare older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only they who go to\r\nsoir\u00e9es and legislative balls must have new coats, coats to change as\r\noften as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat\r\nand shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not? Who\r\never saw his old clothes--his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into\r\nits primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow\r\nit on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer\r\nstill, or shall we say richer, who could do with less? I say, beware of\r\nall enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of\r\nclothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to\r\nfit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.\r\nAll men want, not something to _do with_, but something to _do_, or rather\r\nsomething to _be_. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however\r\nragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or\r\nsailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to\r\nretain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting\r\nseason, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon\r\nretires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its\r\nslough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry\r\nand expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal\r\ncoil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be\r\ninevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of\r\nmankind.\r\n\r\nWe don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by\r\naddition without. Our outside and often thin and fanciful clothes are\r\nour epidermis, or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may be\r\nstripped off here and there without fatal injury; our thicker garments,\r\nconstantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but our shirts\r\nare our liber, or true bark, which cannot be removed without girdling\r\nand so destroying the man. I believe that all races at some seasons wear\r\nsomething equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a man be clad\r\nso simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he\r\nlive in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if an enemy\r\ntake the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate\r\nempty-handed without anxiety. While one thick garment is, for most\r\npurposes, as good as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be obtained\r\nat prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat can be bought for\r\nfive dollars, which will last as many years, thick pantaloons for two\r\ndollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for\r\na quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents,\r\nor a better be made at home at a nominal cost, where is he so poor that,\r\nclad in such a suit, of _his own earning_, there will not be found wise\r\nmen to do him reverence?\r\n\r\nWhen I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me\r\ngravely, \"They do not make them so now,\" not emphasizing the \"They\" at\r\nall, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I\r\nfind it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot\r\nbelieve that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this\r\noracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to\r\nmyself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I\r\nmay find out by what degree of consanguinity _They_ are related to _me_,\r\nand what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so\r\nnearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery,\r\nand without any more emphasis of the \"they\"--\"It is true, they did not\r\nmake them so recently, but they do now.\" Of what use this measuring of\r\nme if she does not measure my character, but only the breadth of my\r\nshoulders, as it were a peg to hang the coat on? We worship not the\r\nGraces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with\r\nfull authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and\r\nall the monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of getting\r\nanything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men.\r\nThey would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze\r\ntheir old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon\r\ntheir legs again; and then there would be some one in the company with a\r\nmaggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows\r\nwhen, for not even fire kills these things, and you would have lost your\r\nlabor. Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was\r\nhanded down to us by a mummy.\r\n\r\nOn the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in\r\nthis or any country risen to the dignity of an art. At present men make\r\nshift to wear what they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, they put on\r\nwhat they can find on the beach, and at a little distance, whether of\r\nspace or time, laugh at each other's masquerade. Every generation laughs\r\nat the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. We are amused at\r\nbeholding the costume of Henry VIII, or Queen Elizabeth, as much as if\r\nit was that of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands. All costume\r\noff a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only the serious eye peering\r\nfrom and the sincere life passed within it which restrain laughter and\r\nconsecrate the costume of any people. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit\r\nof the colic and his trappings will have to serve that mood too. When\r\nthe soldier is hit by a cannonball, rags are as becoming as purple.\r\n\r\nThe childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps\r\nhow many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may\r\ndiscover the particular figure which this generation requires today. The\r\nmanufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two\r\npatterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular\r\ncolor, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though\r\nit frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter\r\nbecomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the\r\nhideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because\r\nthe printing is skin-deep and unalterable.\r\n\r\nI cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men\r\nmay get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day\r\nmore like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since,\r\nas far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not\r\nthat mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that\r\ncorporations may be enriched. In the long run men hit only what they aim\r\nat. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim\r\nat something high.\r\n\r\nAs for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of\r\nlife, though there are instances of men having done without it for\r\nlong periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that \"the\r\nLaplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his\r\nhead and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow... in a\r\ndegree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in\r\nany woollen clothing.\" He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, \"They\r\nare not hardier than other people.\" But, probably, man did not live long\r\non the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a\r\nhouse, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified\r\nthe satisfactions of the house more than of the family; though these\r\nmust be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the\r\nhouse is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season\r\nchiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol, is\r\nunnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost\r\nsolely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the\r\nsymbol of a day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of\r\na tree signified that so many times they had camped. Man was not made\r\nso large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world\r\nand wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of\r\ndoors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather,\r\nby daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the\r\ntorrid sun, would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not\r\nmade haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve,\r\naccording to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted\r\na home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of warmth, then the warmth\r\nof the affections.\r\n\r\nWe may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human race, some\r\nenterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter. Every\r\nchild begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay\r\noutdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having\r\nan instinct for it. Who does not remember the interest with which, when\r\nyoung, he looked at shelving rocks, or any approach to a cave? It was\r\nthe natural yearning of that portion, any portion of our most primitive\r\nancestor which still survived in us. From the cave we have advanced to\r\nroofs of palm leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven and stretched,\r\nof grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At\r\nlast, we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are\r\ndomestic in more senses than we think. From the hearth the field is a\r\ngreat distance. It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of\r\nour days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial\r\nbodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the\r\nsaint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves\r\ncherish their innocence in dovecots.\r\n\r\nHowever, if one designs to construct a dwelling-house, it behooves him\r\nto exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself\r\nin a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a\r\nprison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a\r\nshelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this\r\ntown, living in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a\r\nfoot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have\r\nit deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living\r\nhonestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question\r\nwhich vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become\r\nsomewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet\r\nlong by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at\r\nnight; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might\r\nget such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it,\r\nto admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and\r\nhook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul\r\nbe free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable\r\nalternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you\r\ngot up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for\r\nrent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and\r\nmore luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as\r\nthis. I am far from jesting. Economy is a subject which admits of being\r\ntreated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of. A comfortable\r\nhouse for a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was\r\nonce made here almost entirely of such materials as Nature furnished\r\nready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians\r\nsubject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, \"The best\r\nof their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of\r\ntrees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up,\r\nand made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty timber, when they\r\nare green.... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of\r\na kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not\r\nso good as the former.... Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet\r\nlong and thirty feet broad.... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and\r\nfound them as warm as the best English houses.\" He adds that they were\r\ncommonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats,\r\nand were furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so\r\nfar as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the\r\nhole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first\r\ninstance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up\r\nin a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.\r\n\r\nIn the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and\r\nsufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I speak\r\nwithin bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their\r\nnests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in\r\nmodern civilized society not more than one half the families own a\r\nshelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially\r\nprevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction\r\nof the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of\r\nall, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village\r\nof Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live.\r\nI do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with\r\nowning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it\r\ncosts so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he\r\ncannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford\r\nto hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this tax, the poor civilized\r\nman secures an abode which is a palace compared with the savage's. An\r\nannual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars (these are the\r\ncountry rates) entitles him to the benefit of the improvements\r\nof centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and paper, Rumford\r\nfire-place, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock,\r\na commodious cellar, and many other things. But how happens it that he\r\nwho is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized\r\nman, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a savage? If it\r\nis asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition\r\nof man--and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their\r\nadvantages--it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings\r\nwithout making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount\r\nof what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it,\r\nimmediately or in the long run. An average house in this neighborhood\r\ncosts perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take\r\nfrom ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life, even if he is not\r\nencumbered with a family--estimating the pecuniary value of every man's\r\nlabor at one dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive\r\nless;--so that he must have spent more than half his life commonly\r\nbefore his wigwam will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent\r\ninstead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage have\r\nbeen wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?\r\n\r\nIt may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding\r\nthis superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so\r\nfar as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of\r\nfuneral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.\r\nNevertheless this points to an important distinction between the\r\ncivilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have designs on us for\r\nour benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an _institution_, in\r\nwhich the life of the individual is to a great extent absorbed, in order\r\nto preserve and perfect that of the race. But I wish to show at what a\r\nsacrifice this advantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we\r\nmay possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering\r\nany of the disadvantage. What mean ye by saying that the poor ye have\r\nalways with you, or that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the\r\nchildren's teeth are set on edge?\r\n\r\n\"As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to\r\nuse this proverb in Israel.\r\n\r\n\"Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul\r\nof the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.\"\r\n\r\nWhen I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, who are at least\r\nas well off as the other classes, I find that for the most part they\r\nhave been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, that they may become\r\nthe real owners of their farms, which commonly they have inherited with\r\nencumbrances, or else bought with hired money--and we may regard one\r\nthird of that toil as the cost of their houses--but commonly they have\r\nnot paid for them yet. It is true, the encumbrances sometimes outweigh\r\nthe value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one great\r\nencumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well\r\nacquainted with it, as he says. On applying to the assessors, I am\r\nsurprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who\r\nown their farms free and clear. If you would know the history of these\r\nhomesteads, inquire at the bank where they are mortgaged. The man who\r\nhas actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every\r\nneighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in\r\nConcord. What has been said of the merchants, that a very large\r\nmajority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail, is equally\r\ntrue of the farmers. With regard to the merchants, however, one of them\r\nsays pertinently that a great part of their failures are not genuine\r\npecuniary failures, but merely failures to fulfil their engagements,\r\nbecause it is inconvenient; that is, it is the moral character that\r\nbreaks down. But this puts an infinitely worse face on the matter, and\r\nsuggests, beside, that probably not even the other three succeed in\r\nsaving their souls, but are perchance bankrupt in a worse sense than\r\nthey who fail honestly. Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards\r\nfrom which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but\r\nthe savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine. Yet the Middlesex\r\nCattle Show goes off here with _\u00e9clat_ annually, as if all the joints of\r\nthe agricultural machine were suent.\r\n\r\nThe farmer is endeavoring to solve the problem of a livelihood by a\r\nformula more complicated than the problem itself. To get his shoestrings\r\nhe speculates in herds of cattle. With consummate skill he has set his\r\ntrap with a hair spring to catch comfort and independence, and then, as\r\nhe turned away, got his own leg into it. This is the reason he is poor;\r\nand for a similar reason we are all poor in respect to a thousand savage\r\ncomforts, though surrounded by luxuries. As Chapman sings,\r\n\r\n             \"The false society of men--\r\n                --for earthly greatness\r\n              All heavenly comforts rarefies to air.\"\r\n\r\nAnd when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the\r\npoorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. As I understand\r\nit, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which\r\nMinerva made, that she \"had not made it movable, by which means a bad\r\nneighborhood might be avoided\"; and it may still be urged, for our\r\nhouses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather\r\nthan housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own\r\nscurvy selves. I know one or two families, at least, in this town, who,\r\nfor nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell their houses in\r\nthe outskirts and move into the village, but have not been able to\r\naccomplish it, and only death will set them free.\r\n\r\nGranted that the majority are able at last either to own or hire the\r\nmodern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been\r\nimproving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to\r\ninhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create\r\nnoblemen and kings. And _if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier\r\nthan the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in\r\nobtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a\r\nbetter dwelling than the former?_\r\n\r\nBut how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found that just in\r\nproportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the\r\nsavage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one class\r\nis counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side is the\r\npalace, on the other are the almshouse and \"silent poor.\" The myriads\r\nwho built the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on\r\ngarlic, and it may be were not decently buried themselves. The mason who\r\nfinishes the cornice of the palace returns at night perchance to a hut\r\nnot so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a country\r\nwhere the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of a very\r\nlarge body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages.\r\nI refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich. To know this\r\nI should not need to look farther than to the shanties which everywhere\r\nborder our railroads, that last improvement in civilization; where I see\r\nin my daily walks human beings living in sties, and all winter with an\r\nopen door, for the sake of light, without any visible, often imaginable,\r\nwood-pile, and the forms of both old and young are permanently\r\ncontracted by the long habit of shrinking from cold and misery, and the\r\ndevelopment of all their limbs and faculties is checked. It certainly\r\nis fair to look at that class by whose labor the works which distinguish\r\nthis generation are accomplished. Such too, to a greater or less extent,\r\nis the condition of the operatives of every denomination in England,\r\nwhich is the great workhouse of the world. Or I could refer you to\r\nIreland, which is marked as one of the white or enlightened spots on the\r\nmap. Contrast the physical condition of the Irish with that of the North\r\nAmerican Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race\r\nbefore it was degraded by contact with the civilized man. Yet I have no\r\ndoubt that that people's rulers are as wise as the average of civilized\r\nrulers. Their condition only proves what squalidness may consist with\r\ncivilization. I hardly need refer now to the laborers in our Southern\r\nStates who produce the staple exports of this country, and are\r\nthemselves a staple production of the South. But to confine myself to\r\nthose who are said to be in _moderate_ circumstances.\r\n\r\nMost men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are\r\nactually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that\r\nthey must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were\r\nto wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or,\r\ngradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain\r\nof hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is\r\npossible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we\r\nhave, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for.\r\nShall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes\r\nto be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely\r\nteach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man's\r\nproviding a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas, and\r\nempty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should not\r\nour furniture be as simple as the Arab's or the Indian's? When I think\r\nof the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers\r\nfrom heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any\r\nretinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable furniture. Or what\r\nif I were to allow--would it not be a singular allowance?--that our\r\nfurniture should be more complex than the Arab's, in proportion as we\r\nare morally and intellectually his superiors! At present our houses are\r\ncluttered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out\r\nthe greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's work\r\nundone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon,\r\nwhat should be man's _morning work_ in this world? I had three pieces of\r\nlimestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to\r\nbe dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still,\r\nand threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a\r\nfurnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers\r\non the grass, unless where man has broken ground.\r\n\r\nIt is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd\r\nso diligently follow. The traveller who stops at the best houses, so\r\ncalled, soon discovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a\r\nSardanapalus, and if he resigned himself to their tender mercies he\r\nwould soon be completely emasculated. I think that in the railroad car\r\nwe are inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience,\r\nand it threatens without attaining these to become no better than a\r\nmodern drawing-room, with its divans, and ottomans, and sun-shades,\r\nand a hundred other oriental things, which we are taking west with us,\r\ninvented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the\r\nCelestial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the names\r\nof. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be\r\ncrowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox\r\ncart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an\r\nexcursion train and breathe a _malaria_ all the way.\r\n\r\nThe very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages\r\nimply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner\r\nin nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep, he contemplated\r\nhis journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and\r\nwas either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing\r\nthe mountain-tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The\r\nman who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a\r\nfarmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We\r\nnow no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and\r\nforgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved\r\nmethod of _agri_-culture. We have built for this world a family mansion,\r\nand for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression\r\nof man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect\r\nof our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher\r\nstate to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a\r\nwork of _fine_ art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives,\r\nour houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not\r\na nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero\r\nor a saint. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or\r\nnot paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder\r\nthat the floor does not give way under the visitor while he is admiring\r\nthe gewgaws upon the mantelpiece, and let him through into the cellar,\r\nto some solid and honest though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive\r\nthat this so-called rich and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I\r\ndo not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts which adorn it, my\r\nattention being wholly occupied with the jump; for I remember that the\r\ngreatest genuine leap, due to human muscles alone, on record, is that of\r\ncertain wandering Arabs, who are said to have cleared twenty-five feet\r\non level ground. Without factitious support, man is sure to come to\r\nearth again beyond that distance. The first question which I am tempted\r\nto put to the proprietor of such great impropriety is, Who bolsters\r\nyou? Are you one of the ninety-seven who fail, or the three who succeed?\r\nAnswer me these questions, and then perhaps I may look at your bawbles\r\nand find them ornamental. The cart before the horse is neither beautiful\r\nnor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the\r\nwalls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful\r\nhousekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste\r\nfor the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no\r\nhouse and no housekeeper.\r\n\r\nOld Johnson, in his \"Wonder-Working Providence,\" speaking of the first\r\nsettlers of this town, with whom he was contemporary, tells us that\r\n\"they burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some\r\nhillside, and, casting the soil aloft upon timber, they make a smoky\r\nfire against the earth, at the highest side.\" They did not \"provide them\r\nhouses,\" says he, \"till the earth, by the Lord's blessing, brought forth\r\nbread to feed them,\" and the first year's crop was so light that\r\n\"they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season.\" The\r\nsecretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in 1650,\r\nfor the information of those who wished to take up land there, states\r\nmore particularly that \"those in New Netherland, and especially in New\r\nEngland, who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to\r\ntheir wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or\r\nseven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the\r\nearth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the\r\nbark of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth;\r\nfloor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling,\r\nraise a roof of spars clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green\r\nsods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their\r\nentire families for two, three, and four years, it being understood that\r\npartitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size\r\nof the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the\r\nbeginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling-houses in\r\nthis fashion for two reasons: firstly, in order not to waste time in\r\nbuilding, and not to want food the next season; secondly, in order not\r\nto discourage poor laboring people whom they brought over in numbers\r\nfrom Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, when the country\r\nbecame adapted to agriculture, they built themselves handsome houses,\r\nspending on them several thousands.\"\r\n\r\nIn this course which our ancestors took there was a show of prudence\r\nat least, as if their principle were to satisfy the more pressing wants\r\nfirst. But are the more pressing wants satisfied now? When I think of\r\nacquiring for myself one of our luxurious dwellings, I am deterred, for,\r\nso to speak, the country is not yet adapted to _human_ culture, and we are\r\nstill forced to cut our _spiritual_ bread far thinner than our forefathers\r\ndid their wheaten. Not that all architectural ornament is to be\r\nneglected even in the rudest periods; but let our houses first be\r\nlined with beauty, where they come in contact with our lives, like the\r\ntenement of the shellfish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas! I have\r\nbeen inside one or two of them, and know what they are lined with.\r\n\r\nThough we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly live in a\r\ncave or a wigwam or wear skins today, it certainly is better to accept\r\nthe advantages, though so dearly bought, which the invention and\r\nindustry of mankind offer. In such a neighborhood as this, boards and\r\nshingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and more easily obtained than\r\nsuitable caves, or whole logs, or bark in sufficient quantities, or\r\neven well-tempered clay or flat stones. I speak understandingly on this\r\nsubject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both theoretically\r\nand practically. With a little more wit we might use these materials so\r\nas to become richer than the richest now are, and make our civilization\r\na blessing. The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage.\r\nBut to make haste to my own experiment.\r\n\r\nNear the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the\r\nwoods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and\r\nbegan to cut down some tall, arrowy white pines, still in their youth,\r\nfor timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it\r\nis the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an\r\ninterest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his\r\nhold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it\r\nsharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked,\r\ncovered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a\r\nsmall open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing\r\nup. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some\r\nopen spaces, and it was all dark-colored and saturated with water. There\r\nwere some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there;\r\nbut for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my\r\nway home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy\r\natmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark\r\nand pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us.\r\nThey were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent\r\nwas thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid\r\nbegan to stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and I had cut\r\na green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had placed the\r\nwhole to soak in a pond-hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped\r\nsnake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without\r\ninconvenience, as long as I stayed there, or more than a quarter of\r\nan hour; perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid\r\nstate. It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their\r\npresent low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the\r\ninfluence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of\r\nnecessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen\r\nthe snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies\r\nstill numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st\r\nof April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day,\r\nwhich was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond\r\nand cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog.\r\n\r\nSo I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs\r\nand rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable or\r\nscholar-like thoughts, singing to myself,--\r\n\r\n                  Men say they know many things;\r\n                  But lo! they have taken wings--\r\n                  The arts and sciences,\r\n                  And a thousand appliances;\r\n                  The wind that blows\r\n                  Is all that any body knows.\r\n\r\nI hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two\r\nsides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving\r\nthe rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much\r\nstronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned\r\nby its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in\r\nthe woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of\r\nbread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at\r\nnoon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my\r\nbread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered\r\nwith a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than\r\nthe foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having\r\nbecome better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was\r\nattracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the\r\nchips which I had made.\r\n\r\nBy the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made\r\nthe most of it, my house was framed and ready for the raising. I had\r\nalready bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on\r\nthe Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins' shanty was considered\r\nan uncommonly fine one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I\r\nwalked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window\r\nwas so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage\r\nroof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all\r\naround as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part,\r\nthough a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Doorsill there\r\nwas none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board.\r\nMrs. C. came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The\r\nhens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor\r\nfor the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there\r\na board which would not bear removal. She lighted a lamp to show me the\r\ninside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended\r\nunder the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust\r\nhole two feet deep. In her own words, they were \"good boards overhead,\r\ngood boards all around, and a good window\"--of two whole squares\r\noriginally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a\r\nstove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it\r\nwas born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new\r\ncoffee-mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon\r\nconcluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four\r\ndollars and twenty-five cents tonight, he to vacate at five tomorrow\r\nmorning, selling to nobody else meanwhile: I to take possession at\r\nsix. It were well, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain\r\nindistinct but wholly unjust claims on the score of ground rent and\r\nfuel. This he assured me was the only encumbrance. At six I passed\r\nhim and his family on the road. One large bundle held their all--bed,\r\ncoffee-mill, looking-glass, hens--all but the cat; she took to the woods\r\nand became a wild cat, and, as I learned afterward, trod in a trap set\r\nfor woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last.\r\n\r\nI took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails, and\r\nremoved it to the pond-side by small cartloads, spreading the boards\r\non the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early\r\nthrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path. I\r\nwas informed treacherously by a young Patrick that neighbor Seeley,\r\nan Irishman, in the intervals of the carting, transferred the still\r\ntolerable, straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his\r\npocket, and then stood when I came back to pass the time of day, and\r\nlook freshly up, unconcerned, with spring thoughts, at the devastation;\r\nthere being a dearth of work, as he said. He was there to represent\r\nspectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignificant event one with\r\nthe removal of the gods of Troy.\r\n\r\nI dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where\r\na woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and\r\nblackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square\r\nby seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any\r\nwinter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun having\r\nnever shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two\r\nhours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground,\r\nfor in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable\r\ntemperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be\r\nfound the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after\r\nthe superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the\r\nearth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a\r\nburrow.\r\n\r\nAt length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my\r\nacquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness\r\nthan from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever\r\nmore honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined,\r\nI trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began\r\nto occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and\r\nroofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that\r\nit was perfectly impervious to rain, but before boarding I laid the\r\nfoundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up\r\nthe hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing\r\nin the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking\r\nin the meanwhile out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which\r\nmode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable\r\nthan the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed\r\na few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and\r\npassed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands\r\nwere much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper\r\nwhich lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much\r\nentertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nIt would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did,\r\nconsidering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar,\r\na garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any\r\nsuperstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal\r\nnecessities even. There is some of the same fitness in a man's building\r\nhis own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who\r\nknows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and\r\nprovided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough,\r\nthe poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally\r\nsing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and\r\ncuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and\r\ncheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we\r\nforever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does\r\narchitecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never\r\nin all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an\r\noccupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is\r\nnot the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the\r\npreacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of\r\nlabor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another\r\n_may_ also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should\r\ndo so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.\r\n\r\nTrue, there are architects so called in this country, and I have\r\nheard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural\r\nornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if\r\nit were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point\r\nof view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism. A\r\nsentimental reformer in architecture, he began at the cornice, not\r\nat the foundation. It was only how to put a core of truth within the\r\nornaments, that every sugarplum, in fact, might have an almond or\r\ncaraway seed in it--though I hold that almonds are most wholesome\r\nwithout the sugar--and not how the inhabitant, the indweller, might\r\nbuild truly within and without, and let the ornaments take care of\r\nthemselves. What reasonable man ever supposed that ornaments were\r\nsomething outward and in the skin merely--that the tortoise got his\r\nspotted shell, or the shell-fish its mother-o'-pearl tints, by such a\r\ncontract as the inhabitants of Broadway their Trinity Church? But a man\r\nhas no more to do with the style of architecture of his house than a\r\ntortoise with that of its shell: nor need the soldier be so idle as to\r\ntry to paint the precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy\r\nwill find it out. He may turn pale when the trial comes. This man seemed\r\nto me to lean over the cornice, and timidly whisper his half truth\r\nto the rude occupants who really knew it better than he. What of\r\narchitectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown from within\r\noutward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller, who is\r\nthe only builder--out of some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness,\r\nwithout ever a thought for the appearance and whatever additional beauty\r\nof this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like\r\nunconscious beauty of life. The most interesting dwellings in this\r\ncountry, as the painter knows, are the most unpretending, humble\r\nlog huts and cottages of the poor commonly; it is the life of the\r\ninhabitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their\r\nsurfaces merely, which makes them picturesque; and equally interesting\r\nwill be the citizen's suburban box, when his life shall be as simple and\r\nas agreeable to the imagination, and there is as little straining after\r\neffect in the style of his dwelling. A great proportion of architectural\r\nornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale would strip them\r\noff, like borrowed plumes, without injury to the substantials. They can\r\ndo without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar. What\r\nif an equal ado were made about the ornaments of style in literature,\r\nand the architects of our bibles spent as much time about their cornices\r\nas the architects of our churches do? So are made the _belles-lettres_ and\r\nthe _beaux-arts_ and their professors. Much it concerns a man, forsooth,\r\nhow a few sticks are slanted over him or under him, and what colors\r\nare daubed upon his box. It would signify somewhat, if, in any earnest\r\nsense, he slanted them and daubed it; but the spirit having departed out\r\nof the tenant, it is of a piece with constructing his own coffin--the\r\narchitecture of the grave--and \"carpenter\" is but another name for\r\n\"coffin-maker.\" One man says, in his despair or indifference to life,\r\ntake up a handful of the earth at your feet, and paint your house that\r\ncolor. Is he thinking of his last and narrow house? Toss up a copper for\r\nit as well. What an abundance of leisure he must have! Why do you take\r\nup a handful of dirt? Better paint your house your own complexion; let\r\nit turn pale or blush for you. An enterprise to improve the style of\r\ncottage architecture! When you have got my ornaments ready, I will wear\r\nthem.\r\n\r\nBefore winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house,\r\nwhich were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles\r\nmade of the first slice of the log, whose edges I was obliged to\r\nstraighten with a plane.\r\n\r\nI have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by\r\nfifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large\r\nwindow on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick\r\nfireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price\r\nfor such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which\r\nwas done by myself, was as follows; and I give the details because very\r\nfew are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if\r\nany, the separate cost of the various materials which compose them:--\r\n\r\n    Boards.......................... $ 8.03-1\/2, mostly shanty boards.\r\n    Refuse shingles for roof sides...  4.00\r\n    Laths............................  1.25\r\n    Two second-hand windows\r\n       with glass....................  2.43\r\n    One thousand old brick...........  4.00\r\n    Two casks of lime................  2.40  That was high.\r\n    Hair.............................  0.31  More than I needed.\r\n    Mantle-tree iron.................  0.15\r\n    Nails............................  3.90\r\n    Hinges and screws................  0.14\r\n    Latch............................  0.10\r\n    Chalk............................  0.01\r\n    Transportation...................  1.40  I carried a good part\r\n                                     -------- on my back.\r\n        In all...................... $28.12-1\/2\r\n\r\nThese are all the materials, excepting the timber, stones, and sand,\r\nwhich I claimed by squatter's right. I have also a small woodshed\r\nadjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left after building the\r\nhouse.\r\n\r\nI intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street\r\nin Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and\r\nwill cost me no more than my present one.\r\n\r\nI thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one\r\nfor a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays\r\nannually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that\r\nI brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and\r\ninconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding\r\nmuch cant and hypocrisy--chaff which I find it difficult to separate\r\nfrom my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as any man--I will breathe\r\nfreely and stretch myself in this respect, it is such a relief to both\r\nthe moral and physical system; and I am resolved that I will not through\r\nhumility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good\r\nword for the truth. At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student's\r\nroom, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each\r\nyear, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two\r\nside by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers the\r\ninconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a residence in\r\nthe fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom\r\nin these respects, not only less education would be needed, because,\r\nforsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary\r\nexpense of getting an education would in a great measure vanish. Those\r\nconveniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost\r\nhim or somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they\r\nwould with proper management on both sides. Those things for which\r\nthe most money is demanded are never the things which the student most\r\nwants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill,\r\nwhile for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating\r\nwith the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made. The\r\nmode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of\r\ndollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a\r\ndivision of labor to its extreme--a principle which should never be\r\nfollowed but with circumspection--to call in a contractor who makes this\r\na subject of speculation, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives\r\nactually to lay the foundations, while the students that are to be\r\nare said to be fitting themselves for it; and for these oversights\r\nsuccessive generations have to pay. I think that it would be better _than\r\nthis_, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even\r\nto lay the foundation themselves. The student who secures his coveted\r\nleisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to\r\nman obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself\r\nof the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. \"But,\" says\r\none, \"you do not mean that the students should go to work with their\r\nhands instead of their heads?\" I do not mean that exactly, but I mean\r\nsomething which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they\r\nshould not _play_ life, or _study_ it merely, while the community supports\r\nthem at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to\r\nend. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the\r\nexperiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much\r\nas mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and\r\nsciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which\r\nis merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where\r\nanything is professed and practised but the art of life;--to survey the\r\nworld through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural\r\neye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or\r\nmechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to\r\nNeptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he\r\nis a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all\r\naround him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar. Which\r\nwould have advanced the most at the end of a month--the boy who had made\r\nhis own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading\r\nas much as would be necessary for this--or the boy who had attended\r\nthe lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had\r\nreceived a Rodgers' penknife from his father? Which would be most likely\r\nto cut his fingers?... To my astonishment I was informed on leaving\r\ncollege that I had studied navigation!--why, if I had taken one turn\r\ndown the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student\r\nstudies and is taught only _political_ economy, while that economy\r\nof living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely\r\nprofessed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading\r\nAdam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.\r\n\r\nAs with our colleges, so with a hundred \"modern improvements\"; there\r\nis an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The\r\ndevil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share\r\nand numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to\r\nbe pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They\r\nare but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already\r\nbut too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York.\r\nWe are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine\r\nto Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to\r\ncommunicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was\r\nearnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was\r\npresented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had\r\nnothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk\r\nsensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old\r\nWorld some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that\r\nwill leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the\r\nPrincess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse\r\ntrots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages;\r\nhe is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild\r\nhoney. I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to mill.\r\n\r\nOne says to me, \"I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to\r\ntravel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg today and see the\r\ncountry.\" But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest\r\ntraveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try\r\nwho will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety\r\ncents. That is almost a day's wages. I remember when wages were sixty\r\ncents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot,\r\nand get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week\r\ntogether. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive\r\nthere some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky\r\nenough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will\r\nbe working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad\r\nreached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and\r\nas for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should\r\nhave to cut your acquaintance altogether.\r\n\r\nSuch is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit, and with regard\r\nto the railroad even we may say it is as broad as it is long. To make\r\na railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to\r\ngrading the whole surface of the planet. Men have an indistinct notion\r\nthat if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long\r\nenough all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for\r\nnothing; but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor\r\nshouts \"All aboard!\" when the smoke is blown away and the vapor\r\ncondensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are\r\nrun over--and it will be called, and will be, \"A melancholy accident.\"\r\nNo doubt they can ride at last who shall have earned their fare, that\r\nis, if they survive so long, but they will probably have lost their\r\nelasticity and desire to travel by that time. This spending of the\r\nbest part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable\r\nliberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the\r\nEnglishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he\r\nmight return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone\r\nup garret at once. \"What!\" exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from\r\nall the shanties in the land, \"is not this railroad which we have built\r\na good thing?\" Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might\r\nhave done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could\r\nhave spent your time better than digging in this dirt.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nBefore I finished my house, wishing to earn ten or twelve dollars by\r\nsome honest and agreeable method, in order to meet my unusual expenses,\r\nI planted about two acres and a half of light and sandy soil near it\r\nchiefly with beans, but also a small part with potatoes, corn, peas, and\r\nturnips. The whole lot contains eleven acres, mostly growing up to pines\r\nand hickories, and was sold the preceding season for eight dollars and\r\neight cents an acre. One farmer said that it was \"good for nothing but\r\nto raise cheeping squirrels on.\" I put no manure whatever on this\r\nland, not being the owner, but merely a squatter, and not expecting to\r\ncultivate so much again, and I did not quite hoe it all once. I got out\r\nseveral cords of stumps in plowing, which supplied me with fuel for\r\na long time, and left small circles of virgin mould, easily\r\ndistinguishable through the summer by the greater luxuriance of the\r\nbeans there. The dead and for the most part unmerchantable wood behind\r\nmy house, and the driftwood from the pond, have supplied the remainder\r\nof my fuel. I was obliged to hire a team and a man for the plowing,\r\nthough I held the plow myself. My farm outgoes for the first season\r\nwere, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14.72-1\/2. The seed corn was given\r\nme. This never costs anything to speak of, unless you plant more than\r\nenough. I got twelve bushels of beans, and eighteen bushels of potatoes,\r\nbeside some peas and sweet corn. The yellow corn and turnips were too\r\nlate to come to anything. My whole income from the farm was\r\n\r\n                                       $ 23.44\r\n      Deducting the outgoes............  14.72-1\/2\r\n                                         --------\r\n      There are left.................. $  8.71-1\/2\r\n\r\nbeside produce consumed and on hand at the time this estimate was made\r\nof the value of $4.50--the amount on hand much more than balancing a\r\nlittle grass which I did not raise. All things considered, that is,\r\nconsidering the importance of a man's soul and of today, notwithstanding\r\nthe short time occupied by my experiment, nay, partly even because of\r\nits transient character, I believe that that was doing better than any\r\nfarmer in Concord did that year.\r\n\r\nThe next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land which I\r\nrequired, about a third of an acre, and I learned from the experience\r\nof both years, not being in the least awed by many celebrated works on\r\nhusbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply\r\nand eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate,\r\nand not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and\r\nexpensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground,\r\nand that it would be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen to plow\r\nit, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old,\r\nand he could do all his necessary farm work as it were with his left\r\nhand at odd hours in the summer; and thus he would not be tied to an ox,\r\nor horse, or cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially\r\non this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of\r\nthe present economical and social arrangements. I was more independent\r\nthan any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm,\r\nbut could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one,\r\nevery moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had\r\nbeen burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well\r\noff as before.\r\n\r\nI am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as\r\nherds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer. Men and\r\noxen exchange work; but if we consider necessary work only, the oxen\r\nwill be seen to have greatly the advantage, their farm is so much the\r\nlarger. Man does some of his part of the exchange work in his six weeks\r\nof haying, and it is no boy's play. Certainly no nation that lived\r\nsimply in all respects, that is, no nation of philosophers, would commit\r\nso great a blunder as to use the labor of animals. True, there never was\r\nand is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain\r\nit is desirable that there should be. However, _I_ should never have\r\nbroken a horse or bull and taken him to board for any work he might do\r\nfor me, for fear I should become a horseman or a herdsman merely; and if\r\nsociety seems to be the gainer by so doing, are we certain that what is\r\none man's gain is not another's loss, and that the stable-boy has equal\r\ncause with his master to be satisfied? Granted that some public works\r\nwould not have been constructed without this aid, and let man share the\r\nglory of such with the ox and horse; does it follow that he could not\r\nhave accomplished works yet more worthy of himself in that case? When\r\nmen begin to do, not merely unnecessary or artistic, but luxurious and\r\nidle work, with their assistance, it is inevitable that a few do all the\r\nexchange work with the oxen, or, in other words, become the slaves of\r\nthe strongest. Man thus not only works for the animal within him, but,\r\nfor a symbol of this, he works for the animal without him. Though we\r\nhave many substantial houses of brick or stone, the prosperity of the\r\nfarmer is still measured by the degree to which the barn overshadows the\r\nhouse. This town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, and\r\nhorses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its public buildings; but\r\nthere are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county.\r\nIt should not be by their architecture, but why not even by their power\r\nof abstract thought, that nations should seek to commemorate themselves?\r\nHow much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the\r\nEast! Towers and temples are the luxury of princes. A simple and\r\nindependent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince. Genius is\r\nnot a retainer to any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or\r\nmarble, except to a trifling extent. To what end, pray, is so much stone\r\nhammered? In Arcadia, when I was there, I did not see any hammering\r\nstone. Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the\r\nmemory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if\r\nequal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of\r\ngood sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.\r\nI love better to see stones in place. The grandeur of Thebes was a\r\nvulgar grandeur. More sensible is a rod of stone wall that bounds an\r\nhonest man's field than a hundred-gated Thebes that has wandered farther\r\nfrom the true end of life. The religion and civilization which are\r\nbarbaric and heathenish build splendid temples; but what you might call\r\nChristianity does not. Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward\r\nits tomb only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, there is\r\nnothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could\r\nbe found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for\r\nsome ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to\r\nhave drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might\r\npossibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it.\r\nAs for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same\r\nall the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the\r\nUnited States Bank. It costs more than it comes to. The mainspring is\r\nvanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter. Mr. Balcom,\r\na promising young architect, designs it on the back of his Vitruvius,\r\nwith hard pencil and ruler, and the job is let out to Dobson &amp; Sons,\r\nstonecutters. When the thirty centuries begin to look down on it,\r\nmankind begin to look up at it. As for your high towers and monuments,\r\nthere was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through\r\nto China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots\r\nand kettles rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to\r\nadmire the hole which he made. Many are concerned about the monuments\r\nof the West and the East--to know who built them. For my part, I should\r\nlike to know who in those days did not build them--who were above such\r\ntrifling. But to proceed with my statistics.\r\n\r\nBy surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the\r\nvillage in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers, I had\r\nearned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely, from July\r\n4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I\r\nlived there more than two years--not counting potatoes, a little green\r\ncorn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value of\r\nwhat was on hand at the last date--was\r\n\r\n    Rice.................... $ 1.73-1\/2\r\n    Molasses.................  1.73     Cheapest form of the\r\n                                         saccharine.\r\n    Rye meal.................  1.04-3\/4\r\n    Indian meal..............  0.99-3\/4  Cheaper than rye.\r\n    Pork.....................  0.22\r\n    All experiments which failed:\r\n    Flour....................  0.88  Costs more than Indian meal,\r\n                                      both money and trouble.\r\n    Sugar....................  0.80\r\n    Lard.....................  0.65\r\n    Apples...................  0.25\r\n    Dried apple..............  0.22\r\n    Sweet potatoes...........  0.10\r\n    One pumpkin..............  0.06\r\n    One watermelon...........  0.02\r\n    Salt.....................  0.03\r\n\r\nYes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly\r\npublish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally\r\nguilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print.\r\nThe next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and\r\nonce I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my\r\nbean-field--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say--and devour\r\nhim, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary\r\nenjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use\r\nwould not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your\r\nwoodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.\r\n\r\nClothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though\r\nlittle can be inferred from this item, amounted to\r\n\r\n                                            $8.40-3\/4\r\n    Oil and some household utensils........  2.00\r\n\r\nSo that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending,\r\nwhich for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have\r\nnot yet been received--and these are all and more than all the ways by\r\nwhich money necessarily goes out in this part of the world--were\r\n\r\n    House................................. $ 28.12-1\/2\r\n    Farm one year........................... 14.72-1\/2\r\n    Food eight months.......................  8.74\r\n    Clothing, etc., eight months............  8.40-3\/4\r\n    Oil, etc., eight months.................  2.00\r\n                                           ------------\r\n        In all............................ $ 61.99-3\/4\r\n\r\nI address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get.\r\nAnd to meet this I have for farm produce sold\r\n\r\n                                            $23.44\r\n    Earned by day-labor....................  13.34\r\n                                           --------\r\n        In all............................. $36.78,\r\n\r\nwhich subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21-3\/4\r\non the one side--this being very nearly the means with which I\r\nstarted, and the measure of expenses to be incurred--and on the\r\nother, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a\r\ncomfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.\r\n\r\nThese statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they\r\nmay appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value\r\nalso. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account.\r\nIt appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money\r\nabout twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after\r\nthis, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little\r\nsalt pork, molasses, and salt; and my drink, water. It was fit that I\r\nshould live on rice, mainly, who love so well the philosophy of India.\r\nTo meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well\r\nstate, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I\r\ntrust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the\r\ndetriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as\r\nI have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a\r\ncomparative statement like this.\r\n\r\nI learned from my two years' experience that it would cost incredibly\r\nlittle trouble to obtain one's necessary food, even in this latitude;\r\nthat a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain\r\nhealth and strength. I have made a satisfactory dinner, satisfactory\r\non several accounts, simply off a dish of purslane (_Portulaca oleracea_)\r\nwhich I gathered in my cornfield, boiled and salted. I give the Latin on\r\naccount of the savoriness of the trivial name. And pray what more can\r\na reasonable man desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a\r\nsufficient number of ears of green sweet corn boiled, with the addition\r\nof salt? Even the little variety which I used was a yielding to the\r\ndemands of appetite, and not of health. Yet men have come to such a pass\r\nthat they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want\r\nof luxuries; and I know a good woman who thinks that her son lost his\r\nlife because he took to drinking water only.\r\n\r\nThe reader will perceive that I am treating the subject rather from an\r\neconomic than a dietetic point of view, and he will not venture to put\r\nmy abstemiousness to the test unless he has a well-stocked larder.\r\n\r\nBread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoe-cakes,\r\nwhich I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle or the end of a\r\nstick of timber sawed off in building my house; but it was wont to get\r\nsmoked and to have a piny flavor. I tried flour also; but have at last\r\nfound a mixture of rye and Indian meal most convenient and agreeable. In\r\ncold weather it was no little amusement to bake several small loaves of\r\nthis in succession, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian\r\nhis hatching eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and\r\nthey had to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble fruits, which\r\nI kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths. I made a study\r\nof the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making, consulting such\r\nauthorities as offered, going back to the primitive days and first\r\ninvention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and\r\nmeats men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and\r\ntravelling gradually down in my studies through that accidental souring\r\nof the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and\r\nthrough the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to \"good,\r\nsweet, wholesome bread,\" the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem the\r\nsoul of bread, the _spiritus_ which fills its cellular tissue, which is\r\nreligiously preserved like the vestal fire--some precious bottleful,\r\nI suppose, first brought over in the Mayflower, did the business for\r\nAmerica, and its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading, in\r\ncerealian billows over the land--this seed I regularly and faithfully\r\nprocured from the village, till at length one morning I forgot the\r\nrules, and scalded my yeast; by which accident I discovered that even\r\nthis was not indispensable--for my discoveries were not by the synthetic\r\nbut analytic process--and I have gladly omitted it since, though most\r\nhousewives earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without\r\nyeast might not be, and elderly people prophesied a speedy decay of the\r\nvital forces. Yet I find it not to be an essential ingredient, and after\r\ngoing without it for a year am still in the land of the living; and I\r\nam glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket,\r\nwhich would sometimes pop and discharge its contents to my discomfiture.\r\nIt is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who\r\nmore than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.\r\nNeither did I put any sal-soda, or other acid or alkali, into my bread.\r\nIt would seem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus\r\nPorcius Cato gave about two centuries before Christ. \"Panem depsticium\r\nsic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium\r\nindito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris,\r\ndefingito, coquitoque sub testu.\" Which I take to mean,--\"Make kneaded\r\nbread thus. Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the\r\ntrough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have\r\nkneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover,\" that is, in a\r\nbaking kettle. Not a word about leaven. But I did not always use this\r\nstaff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw\r\nnone of it for more than a month.\r\n\r\nEvery New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this\r\nland of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating\r\nmarkets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence\r\nthat, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and\r\nhominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the\r\nmost part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own\r\nproducing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a\r\ngreater cost, at the store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel\r\nor two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow on the poorest\r\nland, and the latter does not require the best, and grind them in a\r\nhand-mill, and so do without rice and pork; and if I must have some\r\nconcentrated sweet, I found by experiment that I could make a very good\r\nmolasses either of pumpkins or beets, and I knew that I needed only to\r\nset out a few maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these\r\nwere growing I could use various substitutes beside those which I have\r\nnamed. \"For,\" as the Forefathers sang,--\r\n\r\n                \"we can make liquor to sweeten our lips\r\n        Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.\"\r\n\r\nFinally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might\r\nbe a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it\r\naltogether, I should probably drink the less water. I do not learn that\r\nthe Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it.\r\n\r\nThus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food was\r\nconcerned, and having a shelter already, it would only remain to get\r\nclothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a\r\nfarmer's family--thank Heaven there is so much virtue still in man; for\r\nI think the fall from the farmer to the operative as great and memorable\r\nas that from the man to the farmer;--and in a new country, fuel is an\r\nencumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still to squat,\r\nI might purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I\r\ncultivated was sold--namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it\r\nwas, I considered that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on\r\nit.\r\n\r\nThere is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such\r\nquestions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and\r\nto strike at the root of the matter at once--for the root is faith--I\r\nam accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they\r\ncannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.\r\nFor my part, I am glad to hear of experiments of this kind being tried;\r\nas that a young man tried for a fortnight to live on hard, raw corn on\r\nthe ear, using his teeth for all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the\r\nsame and succeeded. The human race is interested in these experiments,\r\nthough a few old women who are incapacitated for them, or who own their\r\nthirds in mills, may be alarmed.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nMy furniture, part of which I made myself--and the rest cost me nothing\r\nof which I have not rendered an account--consisted of a bed, a table, a\r\ndesk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of\r\ntongs and andirons, a kettle, a skillet, and a frying-pan, a dipper, a\r\nwash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug\r\nfor oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so poor that\r\nhe need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness. There is a plenty of\r\nsuch chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for taking\r\nthem away. Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the\r\naid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher would not\r\nbe ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up country\r\nexposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account\r\nof empty boxes? That is Spaulding's furniture. I could never tell from\r\ninspecting such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a\r\npoor one; the owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the more\r\nyou have of such things the poorer you are. Each load looks as if it\r\ncontained the contents of a dozen shanties; and if one shanty is poor,\r\nthis is a dozen times as poor. Pray, for what do we _move_ ever but to\r\nget rid of our furniture, our _exuvi\u00e6_: at last to go from this world to\r\nanother newly furnished, and leave this to be burned? It is the same as\r\nif all these traps were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not\r\nmove over the rough country where our lines are cast without dragging\r\nthem--dragging his trap. He was a lucky fox that left his tail in the\r\ntrap. The muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to be free. No wonder man\r\nhas lost his elasticity. How often he is at a dead set! \"Sir, if I may\r\nbe so bold, what do you mean by a dead set?\" If you are a seer, whenever\r\nyou meet a man you will see all that he owns, ay, and much that he\r\npretends to disown, behind him, even to his kitchen furniture and all\r\nthe trumpery which he saves and will not burn, and he will appear to be\r\nharnessed to it and making what headway he can. I think that the man\r\nis at a dead set who has got through a knot-hole or gateway where his\r\nsledge load of furniture cannot follow him. I cannot but feel compassion\r\nwhen I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded\r\nand ready, speak of his \"furniture,\" as whether it is insured or not.\r\n\"But what shall I do with my furniture?\"--My gay butterfly is entangled\r\nin a spider's web then. Even those who seem for a long while not to\r\nhave any, if you inquire more narrowly you will find have some stored\r\nin somebody's barn. I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is\r\ntravelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated\r\nfrom long housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn; great\r\ntrunk, little trunk, bandbox, and bundle. Throw away the first three at\r\nleast. It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his\r\nbed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his\r\nbed and run. When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which\r\ncontained his all--looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of\r\nthe nape of his neck--I have pitied him, not because that was his all,\r\nbut because he had all _that_ to carry. If I have got to drag my trap, I\r\nwill take care that it be a light one and do not nip me in a vital part.\r\nBut perchance it would be wisest never to put one's paw into it.\r\n\r\nI would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for\r\nI have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that\r\nthey should look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine,\r\nnor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is\r\nsometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat\r\nbehind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single item\r\nto the details of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat, but as\r\nI had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or\r\nwithout to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the\r\nsod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.\r\n\r\nNot long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's effects, for\r\nhis life had not been ineffectual:--\r\n\r\n      \"The evil that men do lives after them.\"\r\n\r\nAs usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun to accumulate\r\nin his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after\r\nlying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things\r\nwere not burned; instead of a _bonfire_, or purifying destruction of\r\nthem, there was an _auction_, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly\r\ncollected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them\r\nto their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are\r\nsettled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust.\r\n\r\nThe customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably\r\nimitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting\r\ntheir slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they\r\nhave the reality or not. Would it not be well if we were to celebrate\r\nsuch a \"busk,\" or \"feast of first fruits,\" as Bartram describes to have\r\nbeen the custom of the Mucclasse Indians? \"When a town celebrates the\r\nbusk,\" says he, \"having previously provided themselves with new clothes,\r\nnew pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture, they collect\r\nall their worn out clothes and other despicable things, sweep and\r\ncleanse their houses, squares, and the whole town of their filth, which\r\nwith all the remaining grain and other old provisions they cast together\r\ninto one common heap, and consume it with fire. After having taken\r\nmedicine, and fasted for three days, all the fire in the town is\r\nextinguished. During this fast they abstain from the gratification of\r\nevery appetite and passion whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed;\r\nall malefactors may return to their town.\"\r\n\r\n\"On the fourth morning, the high priest, by rubbing dry wood together,\r\nproduces new fire in the public square, from whence every habitation in\r\nthe town is supplied with the new and pure flame.\"\r\n\r\nThey then feast on the new corn and fruits, and dance and sing for three\r\ndays, \"and the four following days they receive visits and rejoice with\r\ntheir friends from neighboring towns who have in like manner purified\r\nand prepared themselves.\"\r\n\r\nThe Mexicans also practised a similar purification at the end of every\r\nfifty-two years, in the belief that it was time for the world to come to\r\nan end.\r\n\r\nI have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament, that is, as the dictionary\r\ndefines it, \"outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,\"\r\nthan this, and I have no doubt that they were originally inspired\r\ndirectly from Heaven to do thus, though they have no Biblical record of\r\nthe revelation.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nFor more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor\r\nof my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I\r\ncould meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well\r\nas most of my summers, I had free and clear for study. I have thoroughly\r\ntried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or\r\nrather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and\r\ntrain, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time\r\ninto the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but\r\nsimply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade but I\r\nfound that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that\r\nthen I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid\r\nthat I might by that time be doing what is called a good business. When\r\nformerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some\r\nsad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in\r\nmy mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking\r\nhuckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might\r\nsuffice--for my greatest skill has been to want but little--so little\r\ncapital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I\r\nfoolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade\r\nor the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs;\r\nranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way,\r\nand thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep the flocks of\r\nAdmetus. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or carry\r\nevergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods, even\r\nto the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since learned that trade\r\ncurses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from\r\nheaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.\r\n\r\nAs I preferred some things to others, and especially valued my freedom,\r\nas I could fare hard and yet succeed well, I did not wish to spend\r\nmy time in earning rich carpets or other fine furniture, or delicate\r\ncookery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just yet. If\r\nthere are any to whom it is no interruption to acquire these things,\r\nand who know how to use them when acquired, I relinquish to them the\r\npursuit. Some are \"industrious,\" and appear to love labor for its own\r\nsake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I\r\nhave at present nothing to say. Those who would not know what to do with\r\nmore leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as\r\nhard as they do--work till they pay for themselves, and get their free\r\npapers. For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the\r\nmost independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty\r\ndays in a year to support one. The laborer's day ends with the going\r\ndown of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen\r\npursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from\r\nmonth to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.\r\n\r\nIn short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain\r\none's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will\r\nlive simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still\r\nthe sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should\r\nearn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I\r\ndo.\r\n\r\nOne young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me\r\nthat he thought he should live as I did, _if he had the means_. I would\r\nnot have any one adopt _my_ mode of living on any account; for, beside\r\nthat before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for\r\nmyself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the\r\nworld as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find\r\nout and pursue _his own_ way, and not his father's or his mother's or his\r\nneighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him\r\nnot be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.\r\nIt is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or\r\nthe fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient\r\nguidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a\r\ncalculable period, but we would preserve the true course.\r\n\r\nUndoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a\r\nthousand, as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a\r\nsmall one, since one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall\r\nseparate several apartments. But for my part, I preferred the solitary\r\ndwelling. Moreover, it will commonly be cheaper to build the whole\r\nyourself than to convince another of the advantage of the common wall;\r\nand when you have done this, the common partition, to be much cheaper,\r\nmust be a thin one, and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also\r\nnot keep his side in repair. The only co-operation which is commonly\r\npossible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true\r\nco-operation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible\r\nto men. If a man has faith, he will co-operate with equal faith\r\neverywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest\r\nof the world, whatever company he is joined to. To co-operate in the\r\nhighest as well as the lowest sense, means _to get our living together_. I\r\nheard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over\r\nthe world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before\r\nthe mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in\r\nhis pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or\r\nco-operate, since one would not _operate_ at all. They would part at\r\nthe first interesting crisis in their adventures. Above all, as I have\r\nimplied, the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with\r\nanother must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time\r\nbefore they get off.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nBut all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say.\r\nI confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic\r\nenterprises. I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among\r\nothers have sacrificed this pleasure also. There are those who have\r\nused all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some\r\npoor family in the town; and if I had nothing to do--for the devil finds\r\nemployment for the idle--I might try my hand at some such pastime as\r\nthat. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect,\r\nand lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor\r\npersons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have\r\neven ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all\r\nunhesitatingly preferred to remain poor. While my townsmen and women are\r\ndevoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one\r\nat least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have\r\na genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for Doing-good,\r\nthat is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it\r\nfairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree\r\nwith my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately\r\nforsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of\r\nme, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like\r\nbut infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves\r\nit. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who\r\ndoes this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life,\r\nI would say, Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is\r\nmost likely they will.\r\n\r\nI am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar one; no doubt many of\r\nmy readers would make a similar defence. At doing something--I will not\r\nengage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good--I do not hesitate to\r\nsay that I should be a capital fellow to hire; but what that is, it is\r\nfor my employer to find out. What _good_ I do, in the common sense of\r\nthat word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly\r\nunintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such as you\r\nare, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness\r\naforethought go about doing good. If I were to preach at all in this\r\nstrain, I should say rather, Set about being good. As if the sun should\r\nstop when he had kindled his fires up to the splendor of a moon or\r\na star of the sixth magnitude, and go about like a Robin Goodfellow,\r\npeeping in at every cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting\r\nmeats, and making darkness visible, instead of steadily increasing his\r\ngenial heat and beneficence till he is of such brightness that no mortal\r\ncan look him in the face, and then, and in the meanwhile too, going\r\nabout the world in his own orbit, doing it good, or rather, as a truer\r\nphilosophy has discovered, the world going about him getting good. When\r\nPhaeton, wishing to prove his heavenly birth by his beneficence, had the\r\nsun's chariot but one day, and drove out of the beaten track, he burned\r\nseveral blocks of houses in the lower streets of heaven, and scorched\r\nthe surface of the earth, and dried up every spring, and made the great\r\ndesert of Sahara, till at length Jupiter hurled him headlong to the\r\nearth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, through grief at his death, did\r\nnot shine for a year.\r\n\r\nThere is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It\r\nis human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man\r\nwas coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good,\r\nI should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the\r\nAfrican deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and\r\nears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should\r\nget some of his good done to me--some of its virus mingled with my\r\nblood. No--in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way.\r\nA man is not a good _man_ to me because he will feed me if I should be\r\nstarving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch\r\nif I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that\r\nwill do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one's fellow-man in the\r\nbroadest sense. Howard was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy man\r\nin his way, and has his reward; but, comparatively speaking, what are a\r\nhundred Howards to _us_, if their philanthropy do not help us in our\r\nbest estate, when we are most worthy to be helped? I never heard of a\r\nphilanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed to do any good\r\nto me, or the like of me.\r\n\r\nThe Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at\r\nthe stake, suggested new modes of torture to their tormentors. Being\r\nsuperior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were\r\nsuperior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the\r\nlaw to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the\r\nears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by,\r\nwho loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely\r\nforgiving them all they did.\r\n\r\nBe sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your\r\nexample which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself\r\nwith it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes\r\nsometimes. Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is\r\ndirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his\r\nmisfortune. If you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with\r\nit. I was wont to pity the clumsy Irish laborers who cut ice on the\r\npond, in such mean and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my more tidy\r\nand somewhat more fashionable garments, till, one bitter cold day, one\r\nwho had slipped into the water came to my house to warm him, and I saw\r\nhim strip off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings ere he got\r\ndown to the skin, though they were dirty and ragged enough, it is true,\r\nand that he could afford to refuse the _extra_ garments which I offered\r\nhim, he had so many _intra_ ones. This ducking was the very thing he\r\nneeded. Then I began to pity myself, and I saw that it would be a\r\ngreater charity to bestow on me a flannel shirt than a whole slop-shop\r\non him. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who\r\nis striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest\r\namount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of\r\nlife to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. It is\r\nthe pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to\r\nbuy a Sunday's liberty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the\r\npoor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if\r\nthey employed themselves there? You boast of spending a tenth part of\r\nyour income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and\r\ndone with it. Society recovers only a tenth part of the property then.\r\nIs this owing to the generosity of him in whose possession it is found,\r\nor to the remissness of the officers of justice?\r\n\r\nPhilanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated\r\nby mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness\r\nwhich overrates it. A robust poor man, one sunny day here in Concord,\r\npraised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, he was kind to the\r\npoor; meaning himself. The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more\r\nesteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a\r\nreverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence,\r\nafter enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies,\r\nShakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of\r\nher Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him,\r\nhe elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the greatest of the\r\ngreat. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the\r\nfalsehood and cant of this. The last were not England's best men and\r\nwomen; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists.\r\n\r\nI would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to\r\nphilanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives\r\nand works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's\r\nuprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves.\r\nThose plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick\r\nserve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the\r\nflower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him\r\nto me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not\r\nbe a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs\r\nhim nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides\r\na multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with\r\nthe remembrance of his own castoff griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it\r\nsympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health\r\nand ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread\r\nby contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing?\r\nUnder what latitudes reside the heathen to whom we would send light? Who\r\nis that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If anything ail\r\na man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in\r\nhis bowels even--for that is the seat of sympathy--he forthwith sets\r\nabout reforming--the world. Being a microcosm himself, he discovers--and\r\nit is a true discovery, and he is the man to make it--that the world has\r\nbeen eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is\r\na great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the\r\nchildren of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his\r\ndrastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimau and the Patagonian, and\r\nembraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few\r\nyears of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him\r\nfor their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the\r\nglobe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were\r\nbeginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more sweet\r\nand wholesome to live. I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I\r\nhave committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than\r\nmyself.\r\n\r\nI believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his\r\nfellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is\r\nhis private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the\r\nmorning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions\r\nwithout apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of\r\ntobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed\r\ntobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have\r\nchewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed\r\ninto any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what\r\nyour right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning\r\nand tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.\r\n\r\nOur manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our\r\nhymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him\r\nforever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather\r\nconsoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere\r\nrecorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of\r\nlife, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good,\r\nhowever far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure\r\nhelps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have\r\nwith me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly\r\nIndian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple\r\nand well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own\r\nbrows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an\r\noverseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the\r\nworld.\r\n\r\nI read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that\r\n\"they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the\r\nMost High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or\r\nfree, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there\r\nin this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed\r\nseason, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and\r\nduring their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the\r\ncypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the\r\nazads, or religious independents.--Fix not thy heart on that which is\r\ntransitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through\r\nBagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be\r\nliberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an\r\nazad, or free man, like the cypress.\"\r\n\r\n                        COMPLEMENTAL VERSES\r\n\r\n                    The Pretensions of Poverty\r\n\r\n          Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch,\r\n          To claim a station in the firmament\r\n          Because thy humble cottage, or thy tub,\r\n          Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue\r\n          In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs,\r\n          With roots and pot-herbs; where thy right hand,\r\n          Tearing those humane passions from the mind,\r\n          Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish,\r\n          Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense,\r\n          And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.\r\n          We not require the dull society\r\n          Of your necessitated temperance,\r\n          Or that unnatural stupidity\r\n          That knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forc'd\r\n          Falsely exalted passive fortitude\r\n          Above the active.  This low abject brood,\r\n          That fix their seats in mediocrity,\r\n          Become your servile minds; but we advance\r\n          Such virtues only as admit excess,\r\n          Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence,\r\n          All-seeing prudence, magnanimity\r\n          That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue\r\n          For which antiquity hath left no name,\r\n          But patterns only, such as Hercules,\r\n          Achilles, Theseus.  Back to thy loath'd cell;\r\n          And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere,\r\n          Study to know but what those worthies were.\r\n                                 T. CAREW\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWhere I Lived, and What I Lived For\r\n\r\n\r\nAt a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot\r\nas the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on\r\nevery side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have\r\nbought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I\r\nknew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild\r\napples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at\r\nany price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on\r\nit--took everything but a deed of it--took his word for his deed, for I\r\ndearly love to talk--cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust,\r\nand withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it\r\non. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate\r\nbroker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the\r\nlandscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a _sedes_, a\r\nseat?--better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house\r\nnot likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far\r\nfrom the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well,\r\nthere I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer\r\nand a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the\r\nwinter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of\r\nthis region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they\r\nhave been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into\r\norchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines\r\nshould be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree\r\ncould be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow,\r\nperchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which\r\nhe can afford to let alone.\r\n\r\nMy imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several\r\nfarms--the refusal was all I wanted--but I never got my fingers burned\r\nby actual possession. The nearest that I came to actual possession was\r\nwhen I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and\r\ncollected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or\r\noff with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife--every man\r\nhas such a wife--changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered\r\nme ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten\r\ncents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was\r\nthat man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all\r\ntogether. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for\r\nI had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the\r\nfarm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made\r\nhim a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and\r\nmaterials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich\r\nman without any damage to my poverty. But I retained the landscape, and\r\nI have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.\r\nWith respect to landscapes,\r\n\r\n               \"I am monarch of all I _survey_,\r\n                My right there is none to dispute.\"\r\n\r\nI have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable\r\npart of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few\r\nwild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when\r\na poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible\r\nfence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the\r\ncream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk.\r\n\r\nThe real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its complete\r\nretirement, being, about two miles from the village, half a mile from\r\nthe nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field;\r\nits bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs\r\nfrom frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color\r\nand ruinous state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences,\r\nwhich put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow\r\nand lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits, showing what kind of\r\nneighbors I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of it\r\nfrom my earliest voyages up the river, when the house was concealed\r\nbehind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog\r\nbark. I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting\r\nout some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up\r\nsome young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had\r\nmade any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready\r\nto carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders--I never\r\nheard what compensation he received for that--and do all those things\r\nwhich had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and\r\nbe unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all the while that it\r\nwould yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted, if I could only\r\nafford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said.\r\n\r\nAll that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale--I\r\nhave always cultivated a garden--was, that I had had my seeds ready.\r\nMany think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time\r\ndiscriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall\r\nplant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my\r\nfellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It\r\nmakes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the\r\ncounty jail.\r\n\r\nOld Cato, whose \"De Re Rustic\u00e2\" is my \"Cultivator,\" says--and the only\r\ntranslation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage--\"When you\r\nthink of getting a farm turn it thus in your mind, not to buy greedily;\r\nnor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it enough to go\r\nround it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if\r\nit is good.\" I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it\r\nas long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the\r\nmore at last.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to\r\ndescribe more at length, for convenience putting the experience of two\r\nyears into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode\r\nto dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning,\r\nstanding on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.\r\n\r\nWhen first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my\r\nnights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence\r\nDay, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter,\r\nbut was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or\r\nchimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide\r\nchinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and\r\nfreshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look,\r\nespecially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so\r\nthat I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my\r\nimagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral\r\ncharacter, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had\r\nvisited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit\r\nto entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her\r\ngarments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep\r\nover the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial\r\nparts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the\r\npoem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.\r\nOlympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.\r\n\r\nThe only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a boat, was\r\na tent, which I used occasionally when making excursions in the summer,\r\nand this is still rolled up in my garret; but the boat, after passing\r\nfrom hand to hand, has gone down the stream of time. With this more\r\nsubstantial shelter about me, I had made some progress toward\r\nsettling in the world. This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of\r\ncrystallization around me, and reacted on the builder. It was suggestive\r\nsomewhat as a picture in outlines. I did not need to go outdoors to take\r\nthe air, for the atmosphere within had lost none of its freshness. It\r\nwas not so much within doors as behind a door where I sat, even in the\r\nrainiest weather. The Harivansa says, \"An abode without birds is like\r\na meat without seasoning.\" Such was not my abode, for I found myself\r\nsuddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having\r\ncaged myself near them. I was not only nearer to some of those which\r\ncommonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those smaller and\r\nmore thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, serenade\r\na villager--the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field\r\nsparrow, the whip-poor-will, and many others.\r\n\r\nI was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south\r\nof the village of Concord and somewhat higher than it, in the midst of\r\nan extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two miles\r\nsouth of that our only field known to fame, Concord Battle Ground; but\r\nI was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like\r\nthe rest, covered with wood, was my most distant horizon. For the first\r\nweek, whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn high\r\nup on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above the surface of other\r\nlakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing\r\nof mist, and here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth\r\nreflecting surface was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were\r\nstealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods, as at the\r\nbreaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. The very dew seemed to\r\nhang upon the trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of\r\nmountains.\r\n\r\nThis small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a\r\ngentle rain-storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly\r\nstill, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of\r\nevening, and the wood thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to\r\nshore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the\r\nclear portion of the air above it being, shallow and darkened by clouds,\r\nthe water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself\r\nso much the more important. From a hill-top near by, where the wood had\r\nbeen recently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across\r\nthe pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore\r\nthere, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a\r\nstream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream\r\nthere was none. That way I looked between and over the near green\r\nhills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue.\r\nIndeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of\r\nthe peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the\r\nnorthwest, those true-blue coins from heaven's own mint, and also of\r\nsome portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this\r\npoint, I could not see over or beyond the woods which surrounded me. It\r\nis well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and\r\nfloat the earth. One value even of the smallest well is, that when you\r\nlook into it you see that earth is not continent but insular. This is\r\nas important as that it keeps butter cool. When I looked across the\r\npond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood\r\nI distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley,\r\nlike a coin in a basin, all the earth beyond the pond appeared like\r\na thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of\r\ninterverting water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt was\r\nbut _dry land_.\r\n\r\nThough the view from my door was still more contracted, I did not\r\nfeel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture enough for my\r\nimagination. The low shrub oak plateau to which the opposite shore\r\narose stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the steppes of\r\nTartary, affording ample room for all the roving families of men.\r\n\"There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a\r\nvast horizon\"--said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger\r\npastures.\r\n\r\nBoth place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of\r\nthe universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted\r\nme. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by\r\nastronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some\r\nremote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation\r\nof Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that\r\nmy house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and\r\nunprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle\r\nin those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or\r\nAltair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life\r\nwhich I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to\r\nmy nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such\r\nwas that part of creation where I had squatted;\r\n\r\n              \"There was a shepherd that did live,\r\n                  And held his thoughts as high\r\n               As were the mounts whereon his flocks\r\n                  Did hourly feed him by.\"\r\n\r\nWhat should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always\r\nwandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?\r\n\r\nEvery morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal\r\nsimplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as\r\nsincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed\r\nin the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things\r\nwhich I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub\r\nof King Tchingthang to this effect: \"Renew thyself completely each\r\nday; do it again, and again, and forever again.\" I can understand that.\r\nMorning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint\r\nhum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through\r\nmy apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows\r\nopen, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was\r\nHomer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own\r\nwrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing\r\nadvertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of\r\nthe world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day,\r\nis the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an\r\nhour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of\r\nthe day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be\r\ncalled a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the\r\nmechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own\r\nnewly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by\r\nthe undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a\r\nfragrance filling the air--to a higher life than we fell asleep from;\r\nand thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good,\r\nno less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day\r\ncontains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet\r\nprofaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and\r\ndarkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul\r\nof man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius\r\ntries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should\r\nsay, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas\r\nsay, \"All intelligences awake with the morning.\" Poetry and art, and\r\nthe fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an\r\nhour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and\r\nemit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought\r\nkeeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not\r\nwhat the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when\r\nI am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to\r\nthrow off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day\r\nif they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators.\r\nIf they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed\r\nsomething. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only\r\none in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion,\r\nonly one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake\r\nis to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How\r\ncould I have looked him in the face?\r\n\r\nWe must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical\r\naids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake\r\nus in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than\r\nthe unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious\r\nendeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or\r\nto carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far\r\nmore glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through\r\nwhich we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the\r\nday, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life,\r\neven in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated\r\nand critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry\r\ninformation as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this\r\nmight be done.\r\n\r\nI went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only\r\nthe essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to\r\nteach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did\r\nnot wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish\r\nto practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to\r\nlive deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and\r\nSpartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad\r\nswath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its\r\nlowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole\r\nand genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or\r\nif it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true\r\naccount of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are\r\nin a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God,\r\nand have _somewhat hastily_ concluded that it is the chief end of man here\r\nto \"glorify God and enjoy him forever.\"\r\n\r\nStill we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were\r\nlong ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is\r\nerror upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its\r\noccasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered\r\naway by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten\r\nfingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest.\r\nSimplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or\r\nthree, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half\r\na dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of\r\nthis chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and\r\nquicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has\r\nto live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his\r\nport at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed\r\nwho succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it\r\nbe necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce\r\nother things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made\r\nup of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even\r\na German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation\r\nitself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way\r\nare all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown\r\nestablishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps,\r\nruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a\r\nworthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for\r\nit, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan\r\nsimplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men\r\nthink that it is essential that the _Nation_ have commerce, and export\r\nice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour,\r\nwithout a doubt, whether _they_ do or not; but whether we should live\r\nlike baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out\r\nsleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work,\r\nbut go to tinkering upon our _lives_ to improve _them_, who will build\r\nrailroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven\r\nin season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want\r\nrailroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you\r\never think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one\r\nis a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and\r\nthey are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They\r\nare sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid\r\ndown and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a\r\nrail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when they run\r\nover a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the\r\nwrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make\r\na hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception. I am glad to know\r\nthat it takes a gang of men for every five miles to keep the sleepers\r\ndown and level in their beds as it is, for this is a sign that they may\r\nsometime get up again.\r\n\r\nWhy should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined\r\nto be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves\r\nnine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.\r\nAs for _work_, we haven't any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus'\r\ndance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give\r\na few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without\r\nsetting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of\r\nConcord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse\r\nso many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say,\r\nbut would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property\r\nfrom the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see\r\nit burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on\r\nfire--or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as\r\nhandsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man\r\ntakes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his\r\nhead and asks, \"What's the news?\" as if the rest of mankind had stood\r\nhis sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour,\r\ndoubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what\r\nthey have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable\r\nas the breakfast. \"Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man\r\nanywhere on this globe\"--and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that\r\na man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River;\r\nnever dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth\r\ncave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.\r\n\r\nFor my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that\r\nthere are very few important communications made through it. To speak\r\ncritically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life--I\r\nwrote this some years ago--that were worth the postage. The penny-post\r\nis, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man\r\nthat penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest.\r\nAnd I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we\r\nread of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house\r\nburned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow\r\nrun over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot\r\nof grasshoppers in the winter--we never need read of another. One is\r\nenough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for\r\na myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all _news_, as it\r\nis called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over\r\ntheir tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such\r\na rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the\r\nforeign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate\r\nglass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure--news\r\nwhich I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelve-month, or\r\ntwelve years, beforehand with sufficient accuracy. As for Spain, for\r\ninstance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta,\r\nand Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right\r\nproportions--they may have changed the names a little since I saw the\r\npapers--and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it\r\nwill be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact\r\nstate or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports\r\nunder this head in the newspapers: and as for England, almost the last\r\nsignificant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649;\r\nand if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year,\r\nyou never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are\r\nof a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into\r\nthe newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French\r\nrevolution not excepted.\r\n\r\nWhat news! how much more important to know what that is which was never\r\nold! \"Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to\r\nKhoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be\r\nseated near him, and questioned him in these terms: What is your\r\nmaster doing? The messenger answered with respect: My master desires\r\nto diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of\r\nthem. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: What a worthy\r\nmessenger! What a worthy messenger!\" The preacher, instead of vexing the\r\nears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest at the end of the week--for\r\nSunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh\r\nand brave beginning of a new one--with this one other draggle-tail of\r\na sermon, should shout with thundering voice, \"Pause! Avast! Why so\r\nseeming fast, but deadly slow?\"\r\n\r\nShams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is\r\nfabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow\r\nthemselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we\r\nknow, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.\r\nIf we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and\r\npoetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise,\r\nwe perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and\r\nabsolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the\r\nshadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime. By\r\nclosing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by\r\nshows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and\r\nhabit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations.\r\nChildren, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly\r\nthan men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are\r\nwiser by experience, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo book,\r\nthat \"there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his\r\nnative city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity\r\nin that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with\r\nwhich he lived. One of his father's ministers having discovered him,\r\nrevealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was\r\nremoved, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul,\" continues the\r\nHindoo philosopher, \"from the circumstances in which it is placed,\r\nmistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some\r\nholy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme.\" I perceive that\r\nwe inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our\r\nvision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that _is_\r\nwhich _appears_ to be. If a man should walk through this town and see only\r\nthe reality, where, think you, would the \"Mill-dam\" go to? If he should\r\ngive us an account of the realities he beheld there, we should not\r\nrecognize the place in his description. Look at a meeting-house, or a\r\ncourt-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what\r\nthat thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to pieces\r\nin your account of them. Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of\r\nthe system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last\r\nman. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all\r\nthese times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself\r\nculminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the\r\nlapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is\r\nsublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of\r\nthe reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently\r\nanswers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is\r\nlaid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or\r\nthe artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his\r\nposterity at least could accomplish it.\r\n\r\nLet us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off\r\nthe track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the\r\nrails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without\r\nperturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring\r\nand the children cry--determined to make a day of it. Why should we\r\nknock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed\r\nin that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the\r\nmeridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of\r\nthe way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail\r\nby it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine\r\nwhistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell\r\nrings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are\r\nlike. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward\r\nthrough the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and\r\ndelusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through\r\nParis and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through\r\nChurch and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we\r\ncome to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call _reality_, and\r\nsay, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a _point d'appui_,\r\nbelow freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a\r\nwall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not\r\na Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a\r\nfreshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you\r\nstand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun\r\nglimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its\r\nsweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will\r\nhappily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only\r\nreality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats\r\nand feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our\r\nbusiness.\r\n\r\nTime is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I\r\ndrink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin\r\ncurrent slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in\r\nthe sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know\r\nnot the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that\r\nI was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it\r\ndiscerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to\r\nbe any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and\r\nfeet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells\r\nme that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their\r\nsnout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through\r\nthese hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts;\r\nso by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will\r\nbegin to mine.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nReading\r\n\r\n\r\nWith a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men\r\nwould perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly\r\ntheir nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. In accumulating\r\nproperty for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a\r\nstate, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with\r\ntruth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident. The oldest\r\nEgyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the\r\nstatue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and\r\nI gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was\r\nthen so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust\r\nhas settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was\r\nrevealed. That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is\r\nneither past, present, nor future.\r\n\r\nMy residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious\r\nreading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the\r\nordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the\r\ninfluence of those books which circulate round the world, whose\r\nsentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from\r\ntime to time on to linen paper. Says the poet M\u00eer Camar Udd\u00een Mast,\r\n\"Being seated, to run through the region of the spiritual world; I have\r\nhad this advantage in books. To be intoxicated by a single glass of\r\nwine; I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of\r\nthe esoteric doctrines.\" I kept Homer's Iliad on my table through the\r\nsummer, though I looked at his page only now and then. Incessant labor\r\nwith my hands, at first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to\r\nhoe at the same time, made more study impossible. Yet I sustained myself\r\nby the prospect of such reading in future. I read one or two shallow\r\nbooks of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made\r\nme ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that _I_ lived.\r\n\r\nThe student may read Homer or \u00c6schylus in the Greek without danger of\r\ndissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that he in some measure\r\nemulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages. The\r\nheroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue,\r\nwill always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must\r\nlaboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a\r\nlarger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and\r\ngenerosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its\r\ntranslations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers\r\nof antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they\r\nare printed as rare and curious, as ever. It is worth the expense of\r\nyouthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an\r\nancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street,\r\nto be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the\r\nfarmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men\r\nsometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way\r\nfor more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will\r\nalways study classics, in whatever language they may be written and\r\nhowever ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest\r\nrecorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not\r\ndecayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them\r\nas Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature\r\nbecause she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true\r\nspirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than\r\nany exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training\r\nsuch as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole\r\nlife to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly\r\nas they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the\r\nlanguage of that nation by which they are written, for there is a\r\nmemorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the\r\nlanguage heard and the language read. The one is commonly transitory,\r\na sound, a tongue, a dialect merely, almost brutish, and we learn\r\nit unconsciously, like the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the\r\nmaturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is\r\nour father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too significant to\r\nbe heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak. The\r\ncrowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the Middle\r\nAges were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of\r\ngenius written in those languages; for these were not written in\r\nthat Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select language of\r\nliterature. They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome,\r\nbut the very materials on which they were written were waste paper to\r\nthem, and they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature. But when\r\nthe several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude written\r\nlanguages of their own, sufficient for the purposes of their rising\r\nliteratures, then first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to\r\ndiscern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. What the Roman\r\nand Grecian multitude could not _hear_, after the lapse of ages a few\r\nscholars _read_, and a few scholars only are still reading it.\r\n\r\nHowever much we may admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence,\r\nthe noblest written words are commonly as far behind or above the\r\nfleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind\r\nthe clouds. _There_ are the stars, and they who can may read them.\r\nThe astronomers forever comment on and observe them. They are not\r\nexhalations like our daily colloquies and vaporous breath. What is\r\ncalled eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the\r\nstudy. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and\r\nspeaks to the mob before him, to those who can _hear_ him; but the writer,\r\nwhose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted\r\nby the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the\r\nintellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can _understand_\r\nhim.\r\n\r\nNo wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions\r\nin a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is\r\nsomething at once more intimate with us and more universal than any\r\nother work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may\r\nbe translated into every language, and not only be read but actually\r\nbreathed from all human lips;--not be represented on canvas or in marble\r\nonly, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of\r\nan ancient man's thought becomes a modern man's speech. Two thousand\r\nsummers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her\r\nmarbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried\r\ntheir own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them\r\nagainst the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the\r\nworld and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the\r\noldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of\r\nevery cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they\r\nenlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse\r\nthem. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in\r\nevery society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on\r\nmankind. When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader has earned by\r\nenterprise and industry his coveted leisure and independence, and is\r\nadmitted to the circles of wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at\r\nlast to those still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and\r\ngenius, and is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the\r\nvanity and insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his\r\ngood sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that\r\nintellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it is that\r\nhe becomes the founder of a family.\r\n\r\nThose who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language\r\nin which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the\r\nhistory of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of\r\nthem has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization\r\nitself may be regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been\r\nprinted in English, nor \u00c6schylus, nor Virgil even--works as refined, as\r\nsolidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for\r\nlater writers, say what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever,\r\nequalled the elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic\r\nliterary labors of the ancients. They only talk of forgetting them who\r\nnever knew them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we have the\r\nlearning and the genius which will enable us to attend to and appreciate\r\nthem. That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call\r\nClassics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known\r\nScriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when\r\nthe Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with\r\nHomers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall\r\nhave successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By\r\nsuch a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.\r\n\r\nThe works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind,\r\nfor only great poets can read them. They have only been read as the\r\nmultitude read the stars, at most astrologically, not astronomically.\r\nMost men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they\r\nhave learned to cipher in order to keep accounts and not be cheated in\r\ntrade; but of reading as a noble intellectual exercise they know little\r\nor nothing; yet this only is reading, in a high sense, not that which\r\nlulls us as a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the\r\nwhile, but what we have to stand on tip-toe to read and devote our most\r\nalert and wakeful hours to.\r\n\r\nI think that having learned our letters we should read the best that is\r\nin literature, and not be forever repeating our a-b-abs, and words of\r\none syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on the lowest and\r\nforemost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied if they read or hear\r\nread, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book,\r\nthe Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their\r\nfaculties in what is called easy reading. There is a work in several\r\nvolumes in our Circulating Library entitled \"Little Reading,\" which I\r\nthought referred to a town of that name which I had not been to. There\r\nare those who, like cormorants and ostriches, can digest all sorts of\r\nthis, even after the fullest dinner of meats and vegetables, for they\r\nsuffer nothing to be wasted. If others are the machines to provide\r\nthis provender, they are the machines to read it. They read the nine\r\nthousandth tale about Zebulon and Sophronia, and how they loved as none\r\nhad ever loved before, and neither did the course of their true love run\r\nsmooth--at any rate, how it did run and stumble, and get up again and\r\ngo on! how some poor unfortunate got up on to a steeple, who had better\r\nnever have gone up as far as the belfry; and then, having needlessly\r\ngot him up there, the happy novelist rings the bell for all the world to\r\ncome together and hear, O dear! how he did get down again! For my part,\r\nI think that they had better metamorphose all such aspiring heroes of\r\nuniversal noveldom into man weather-cocks, as they used to put heroes\r\namong the constellations, and let them swing round there till they are\r\nrusty, and not come down at all to bother honest men with their pranks.\r\nThe next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the\r\nmeeting-house burn down. \"The Skip of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the\r\nMiddle Ages, by the celebrated author of 'Tittle-Tol-Tan,' to appear\r\nin monthly parts; a great rush; don't all come together.\" All this\r\nthey read with saucer eyes, and erect and primitive curiosity, and with\r\nunwearied gizzard, whose corrugations even yet need no sharpening, just\r\nas some little four-year-old bencher his two-cent gilt-covered\r\nedition of Cinderella--without any improvement, that I can see, in the\r\npronunciation, or accent, or emphasis, or any more skill in extracting\r\nor inserting the moral. The result is dulness of sight, a stagnation of\r\nthe vital circulations, and a general deliquium and sloughing off of all\r\nthe intellectual faculties. This sort of gingerbread is baked daily and\r\nmore sedulously than pure wheat or rye-and-Indian in almost every oven,\r\nand finds a surer market.\r\n\r\nThe best books are not read even by those who are called good readers.\r\nWhat does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a\r\nvery few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even\r\nin English literature, whose words all can read and spell. Even the\r\ncollege-bred and so-called liberally educated men here and elsewhere\r\nhave really little or no acquaintance with the English classics; and\r\nas for the recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles,\r\nwhich are accessible to all who will know of them, there are the\r\nfeeblest efforts anywhere made to become acquainted with them. I know a\r\nwoodchopper, of middle age, who takes a French paper, not for news as he\r\nsays, for he is above that, but to \"keep himself in practice,\" he being\r\na Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing\r\nhe can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to\r\nhis English. This is about as much as the college-bred generally do or\r\naspire to do, and they take an English paper for the purpose. One who\r\nhas just come from reading perhaps one of the best English books will\r\nfind how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he comes\r\nfrom reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose praises are\r\nfamiliar even to the so-called illiterate; he will find nobody at all\r\nto speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed, there is hardly the\r\nprofessor in our colleges, who, if he has mastered the difficulties of\r\nthe language, has proportionally mastered the difficulties of the wit\r\nand poetry of a Greek poet, and has any sympathy to impart to the\r\nalert and heroic reader; and as for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of\r\nmankind, who in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not\r\nknow that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture. A man, any\r\nman, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but\r\nhere are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered,\r\nand whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us\r\nof;--and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers\r\nand class-books, and when we leave school, the \"Little Reading,\" and\r\nstory-books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our\r\nconversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of\r\npygmies and manikins.\r\n\r\nI aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has\r\nproduced, whose names are hardly known here. Or shall I hear the name of\r\nPlato and never read his book? As if Plato were my townsman and I never\r\nsaw him--my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to\r\nthe wisdom of his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, which\r\ncontain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, and yet I never\r\nread them. We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this\r\nrespect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between\r\nthe illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the\r\nilliterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for\r\nchildren and feeble intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of\r\nantiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were. We are a race\r\nof tit-men, and soar but little higher in our intellectual flights than\r\nthe columns of the daily paper.\r\n\r\nIt is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are\r\nprobably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could\r\nreally hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or\r\nthe spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of\r\nthings for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the\r\nreading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain\r\nour miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we\r\nmay find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle\r\nand confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one\r\nhas been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability,\r\nby his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn\r\nliberality. The solitary hired man on a farm in the outskirts of\r\nConcord, who has had his second birth and peculiar religious experience,\r\nand is driven as he believes into the silent gravity and exclusiveness\r\nby his faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of\r\nyears ago, travelled the same road and had the same experience; but\r\nhe, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors\r\naccordingly, and is even said to have invented and established worship\r\namong men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and through the\r\nliberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus Christ himself,\r\nand let \"our church\" go by the board.\r\n\r\nWe boast that we belong to the Nineteenth Century and are making the\r\nmost rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village\r\ndoes for its own culture. I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor to\r\nbe flattered by them, for that will not advance either of us. We need\r\nto be provoked--goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trot. We have a\r\ncomparatively decent system of common schools, schools for infants only;\r\nbut excepting the half-starved Lyceum in the winter, and latterly\r\nthe puny beginning of a library suggested by the State, no school for\r\nourselves. We spend more on almost any article of bodily aliment or\r\nailment than on our mental aliment. It is time that we had uncommon\r\nschools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men\r\nand women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder\r\ninhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure--if they are,\r\nindeed, so well off--to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives.\r\nShall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxford forever? Cannot\r\nstudents be boarded here and get a liberal education under the skies of\r\nConcord? Can we not hire some Abelard to lecture to us? Alas! what with\r\nfoddering the cattle and tending the store, we are kept from school too\r\nlong, and our education is sadly neglected. In this country, the village\r\nshould in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe. It\r\nshould be the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants only\r\nthe magnanimity and refinement. It can spend money enough on such things\r\nas farmers and traders value, but it is thought Utopian to propose\r\nspending money for things which more intelligent men know to be of\r\nfar more worth. This town has spent seventeen thousand dollars on a\r\ntown-house, thank fortune or politics, but probably it will not spend so\r\nmuch on living wit, the true meat to put into that shell, in a hundred\r\nyears. The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annually subscribed for a\r\nLyceum in the winter is better spent than any other equal sum raised in\r\nthe town. If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy\r\nthe advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life\r\nbe in any respect provincial? If we will read newspapers, why not\r\nskip the gossip of Boston and take the best newspaper in the world at\r\nonce?--not be sucking the pap of \"neutral family\" papers, or browsing\r\n\"Olive Branches\" here in New England. Let the reports of all the learned\r\nsocieties come to us, and we will see if they know anything. Why\r\nshould we leave it to Harper &amp; Brothers and Redding &amp; Co. to select\r\nour reading? As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself\r\nwith whatever conduces to his culture--genius--learning--wit--books--\r\npaintings--statuary--music--philosophical instruments, and the like; so\r\nlet the village do--not stop short at a pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a\r\nparish library, and three selectmen, because our Pilgrim forefathers got\r\nthrough a cold winter once on a bleak rock with these. To act\r\ncollectively is according to the spirit of our institutions; and I am\r\nconfident that, as our circumstances are more flourishing, our means are\r\ngreater than the nobleman's. New England can hire all the wise men in\r\nthe world to come and teach her, and board them round the while, and not\r\nbe provincial at all. That is the _uncommon_ school we want. Instead of\r\nnoblemen, let us have noble villages of men. If it is necessary, omit\r\none bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch\r\nat least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSounds\r\n\r\n\r\nBut while we are confined to books, though the most select and classic,\r\nand read only particular written languages, which are themselves but\r\ndialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language\r\nwhich all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is\r\ncopious and standard. Much is published, but little printed. The rays\r\nwhich stream through the shutter will be no longer remembered when the\r\nshutter is wholly removed. No method nor discipline can supersede the\r\nnecessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or\r\nphilosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society,\r\nor the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of\r\nlooking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student\r\nmerely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on\r\ninto futurity.\r\n\r\nI did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did\r\nbetter than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice\r\nthe bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or\r\nhands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning,\r\nhaving taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise\r\ntill noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs,\r\nin undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or\r\nflitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at\r\nmy west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant\r\nhighway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons\r\nlike corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the\r\nhands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but\r\nso much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals\r\nmean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I\r\nminded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some\r\nwork of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing\r\nmemorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently\r\nsmiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill,\r\nsitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed\r\nwarble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days of the\r\nweek, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into\r\nhours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri\r\nIndians, of whom it is said that \"for yesterday, today, and tomorrow\r\nthey have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by\r\npointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for\r\nthe passing day.\" This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no\r\ndoubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I\r\nshould not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in\r\nhimself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly\r\nreprove his indolence.\r\n\r\nI had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were\r\nobliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that\r\nmy life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel.\r\nIt was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always,\r\nindeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the\r\nlast and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with\r\nennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show\r\nyou a fresh prospect every hour. Housework was a pleasant pastime. When\r\nmy floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of\r\ndoors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water\r\non the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then\r\nwith a broom scrubbed it clean and white; and by the time the villagers\r\nhad broken their fast the morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to\r\nallow me to move in again, and my meditations were almost uninterupted.\r\nIt was pleasant to see my whole household effects out on the grass,\r\nmaking a little pile like a gypsy's pack, and my three-legged table,\r\nfrom which I did not remove the books and pen and ink, standing amid the\r\npines and hickories. They seemed glad to get out themselves, and as if\r\nunwilling to be brought in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning\r\nover them and take my seat there. It was worth the while to see the sun\r\nshine on these things, and hear the free wind blow on them; so much more\r\ninteresting most familiar objects look out of doors than in the house. A\r\nbird sits on the next bough, life-everlasting grows under the table,\r\nand blackberry vines run round its legs; pine cones, chestnut burs, and\r\nstrawberry leaves are strewn about. It looked as if this was the way\r\nthese forms came to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs,\r\nand bedsteads--because they once stood in their midst.\r\n\r\nMy house was on the side of a hill, immediately on the edge of\r\nthe larger wood, in the midst of a young forest of pitch pines and\r\nhickories, and half a dozen rods from the pond, to which a narrow\r\nfootpath led down the hill. In my front yard grew the strawberry,\r\nblackberry, and life-everlasting, johnswort and goldenrod, shrub oaks\r\nand sand cherry, blueberry and groundnut. Near the end of May, the sand\r\ncherry (_Cerasus pumila_) adorned the sides of the path with its delicate\r\nflowers arranged in umbels cylindrically about its short stems, which\r\nlast, in the fall, weighed down with good-sized and handsome cherries,\r\nfell over in wreaths like rays on every side. I tasted them out of\r\ncompliment to Nature, though they were scarcely palatable. The sumach\r\n(_Rhus glabra_) grew luxuriantly about the house, pushing up through the\r\nembankment which I had made, and growing five or six feet the first\r\nseason. Its broad pinnate tropical leaf was pleasant though strange to\r\nlook on. The large buds, suddenly pushing out late in the spring from\r\ndry sticks which had seemed to be dead, developed themselves as by\r\nmagic into graceful green and tender boughs, an inch in diameter; and\r\nsometimes, as I sat at my window, so heedlessly did they grow and tax\r\ntheir weak joints, I heard a fresh and tender bough suddenly fall like\r\na fan to the ground, when there was not a breath of air stirring, broken\r\noff by its own weight. In August, the large masses of berries, which,\r\nwhen in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their\r\nbright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and\r\nbroke the tender limbs.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAs I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling about my\r\nclearing; the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by two and threes athwart\r\nmy view, or perching restless on the white pine boughs behind my house,\r\ngives a voice to the air; a fish hawk dimples the glassy surface of the\r\npond and brings up a fish; a mink steals out of the marsh before my door\r\nand seizes a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending under the weight of\r\nthe reed-birds flitting hither and thither; and for the last half-hour I\r\nhave heard the rattle of railroad cars, now dying away and then reviving\r\nlike the beat of a partridge, conveying travellers from Boston to the\r\ncountry. For I did not live so out of the world as that boy who, as I\r\nhear, was put out to a farmer in the east part of the town, but ere long\r\nran away and came home again, quite down at the heel and homesick. He\r\nhad never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place; the folks were all\r\ngone off; why, you couldn't even hear the whistle! I doubt if there is\r\nsuch a place in Massachusetts now:--\r\n\r\n      \"In truth, our village has become a butt\r\n       For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o'er\r\n       Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is--Concord.\"\r\n\r\nThe Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of\r\nwhere I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am,\r\nas it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight\r\ntrains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old\r\nacquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an\r\nemployee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in\r\nthe orbit of the earth.\r\n\r\nThe whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter,\r\nsounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer's yard,\r\ninforming me that many restless city merchants are arriving within the\r\ncircle of the town, or adventurous country traders from the other side.\r\nAs they come under one horizon, they shout their warning to get off the\r\ntrack to the other, heard sometimes through the circles of two towns.\r\nHere come your groceries, country; your rations, countrymen! Nor is\r\nthere any man so independent on his farm that he can say them nay. And\r\nhere's your pay for them! screams the countryman's whistle; timber like\r\nlong battering-rams going twenty miles an hour against the city's walls,\r\nand chairs enough to seat all the weary and heavy-laden that dwell\r\nwithin them. With such huge and lumbering civility the country hands a\r\nchair to the city. All the Indian huckleberry hills are stripped, all\r\nthe cranberry meadows are raked into the city. Up comes the cotton, down\r\ngoes the woven cloth; up comes the silk, down goes the woollen; up come\r\nthe books, but down goes the wit that writes them.\r\n\r\nWhen I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary\r\nmotion--or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with\r\nthat velocity and with that direction it will ever revisit this system,\r\nsince its orbit does not look like a returning curve--with its steam\r\ncloud like a banner streaming behind in golden and silver wreaths, like\r\nmany a downy cloud which I have seen, high in the heavens, unfolding its\r\nmasses to the light--as if this traveling demigod, this cloud-compeller,\r\nwould ere long take the sunset sky for the livery of his train; when\r\nI hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder,\r\nshaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his\r\nnostrils (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into\r\nthe new Mythology I don't know), it seems as if the earth had got a\r\nrace now worthy to inhabit it. If all were as it seems, and men made the\r\nelements their servants for noble ends! If the cloud that hangs over the\r\nengine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that\r\nwhich floats over the farmer's fields, then the elements and Nature\r\nherself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their\r\nescort.\r\n\r\nI watch the passage of the morning cars with the same feeling that I\r\ndo the rising of the sun, which is hardly more regular. Their train\r\nof clouds stretching far behind and rising higher and higher, going to\r\nheaven while the cars are going to Boston, conceals the sun for a minute\r\nand casts my distant field into the shade, a celestial train beside\r\nwhich the petty train of cars which hugs the earth is but the barb\r\nof the spear. The stabler of the iron horse was up early this winter\r\nmorning by the light of the stars amid the mountains, to fodder and\r\nharness his steed. Fire, too, was awakened thus early to put the vital\r\nheat in him and get him off. If the enterprise were as innocent as it is\r\nearly! If the snow lies deep, they strap on his snowshoes, and, with the\r\ngiant plow, plow a furrow from the mountains to the seaboard, in which\r\nthe cars, like a following drill-barrow, sprinkle all the restless men\r\nand floating merchandise in the country for seed. All day the fire-steed\r\nflies over the country, stopping only that his master may rest, and I am\r\nawakened by his tramp and defiant snort at midnight, when in some remote\r\nglen in the woods he fronts the elements incased in ice and snow; and he\r\nwill reach his stall only with the morning star, to start once more on\r\nhis travels without rest or slumber. Or perchance, at evening, I hear\r\nhim in his stable blowing off the superfluous energy of the day, that he\r\nmay calm his nerves and cool his liver and brain for a few hours of\r\niron slumber. If the enterprise were as heroic and commanding as it is\r\nprotracted and unwearied!\r\n\r\nFar through unfrequented woods on the confines of towns, where once only\r\nthe hunter penetrated by day, in the darkest night dart these bright\r\nsaloons without the knowledge of their inhabitants; this moment stopping\r\nat some brilliant station-house in town or city, where a social crowd\r\nis gathered, the next in the Dismal Swamp, scaring the owl and fox. The\r\nstartings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village\r\nday. They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their\r\nwhistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them,\r\nand thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole country.\r\nHave not men improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was\r\ninvented? Do they not talk and think faster in the depot than they did\r\nin the stage-office? There is something electrifying in the atmosphere\r\nof the former place. I have been astonished at the miracles it has\r\nwrought; that some of my neighbors, who, I should have prophesied, once\r\nfor all, would never get to Boston by so prompt a conveyance, are on\r\nhand when the bell rings. To do things \"railroad fashion\" is now the\r\nbyword; and it is worth the while to be warned so often and so sincerely\r\nby any power to get off its track. There is no stopping to read the\r\nriot act, no firing over the heads of the mob, in this case. We have\r\nconstructed a fate, an _Atropos_, that never turns aside. (Let that be\r\nthe name of your engine.) Men are advertised that at a certain hour and\r\nminute these bolts will be shot toward particular points of the compass;\r\nyet it interferes with no man's business, and the children go to school\r\non the other track. We live the steadier for it. We are all educated\r\nthus to be sons of Tell. The air is full of invisible bolts. Every path\r\nbut your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.\r\n\r\nWhat recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does\r\nnot clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter. I see these men every day go\r\nabout their business with more or less courage and content, doing more\r\neven than they suspect, and perchance better employed than they could\r\nhave consciously devised. I am less affected by their heroism who stood\r\nup for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady\r\nand cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snowplow for their winter\r\nquarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage,\r\nwhich Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to\r\nrest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews\r\nof their iron steed are frozen. On this morning of the Great Snow,\r\nperchance, which is still raging and chilling men's blood, I bear the\r\nmuffled tone of their engine bell from out the fog bank of their chilled\r\nbreath, which announces that the cars _are coming_, without long delay,\r\nnotwithstanding the veto of a New England northeast snow-storm, and\r\nI behold the plowmen covered with snow and rime, their heads peering,\r\nabove the mould-board which is turning down other than daisies and the\r\nnests of field mice, like bowlders of the Sierra Nevada, that occupy an\r\noutside place in the universe.\r\n\r\nCommerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and\r\nunwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than\r\nmany fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its\r\nsingular success. I am refreshed and expanded when the freight train\r\nrattles past me, and I smell the stores which go dispensing their odors\r\nall the way from Long Wharf to Lake Champlain, reminding me of foreign\r\nparts, of coral reefs, and Indian oceans, and tropical climes, and the\r\nextent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the world at the\r\nsight of the palm-leaf which will cover so many flaxen New England heads\r\nthe next summer, the Manilla hemp and cocoanut husks, the old junk,\r\ngunny bags, scrap iron, and rusty nails. This carload of torn sails is\r\nmore legible and interesting now than if they should be wrought into\r\npaper and printed books. Who can write so graphically the history of\r\nthe storms they have weathered as these rents have done? They are\r\nproof-sheets which need no correction. Here goes lumber from the Maine\r\nwoods, which did not go out to sea in the last freshet, risen four\r\ndollars on the thousand because of what did go out or was split up;\r\npine, spruce, cedar--first, second, third, and fourth qualities,\r\nso lately all of one quality, to wave over the bear, and moose, and\r\ncaribou. Next rolls Thomaston lime, a prime lot, which will get far\r\namong the hills before it gets slacked. These rags in bales, of all hues\r\nand qualities, the lowest condition to which cotton and linen descend,\r\nthe final result of dress--of patterns which are now no longer cried up,\r\nunless it be in Milwaukee, as those splendid articles, English, French,\r\nor American prints, ginghams, muslins, etc., gathered from all quarters\r\nboth of fashion and poverty, going to become paper of one color or a\r\nfew shades only, on which, forsooth, will be written tales of real life,\r\nhigh and low, and founded on fact! This closed car smells of salt fish,\r\nthe strong New England and commercial scent, reminding me of the Grand\r\nBanks and the fisheries. Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly\r\ncured for this world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting the\r\nperseverance of the saints to the blush? with which you may sweep or\r\npave the streets, and split your kindlings, and the teamster shelter\r\nhimself and his lading against sun, wind, and rain behind it--and the\r\ntrader, as a Concord trader once did, hang it up by his door for a sign\r\nwhen he commences business, until at last his oldest customer cannot\r\ntell surely whether it be animal, vegetable, or mineral, and yet it\r\nshall be as pure as a snowflake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled,\r\nwill come out an excellent dun-fish for a Saturday's dinner. Next\r\nSpanish hides, with the tails still preserving their twist and the angle\r\nof elevation they had when the oxen that wore them were careering over\r\nthe pampas of the Spanish Main--a type of all obstinacy, and evincing\r\nhow almost hopeless and incurable are all constitutional vices. I\r\nconfess, that practically speaking, when I have learned a man's real\r\ndisposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse\r\nin this state of existence. As the Orientals say, \"A cur's tail may be\r\nwarmed, and pressed, and bound round with ligatures, and after a twelve\r\nyears' labor bestowed upon it, still it will retain its natural form.\"\r\nThe only effectual cure for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is\r\nto make glue of them, which I believe is what is usually done with them,\r\nand then they will stay put and stick. Here is a hogshead of molasses\r\nor of brandy directed to John Smith, Cuttingsville, Vermont, some\r\ntrader among the Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near his\r\nclearing, and now perchance stands over his bulkhead and thinks of\r\nthe last arrivals on the coast, how they may affect the price for him,\r\ntelling his customers this moment, as he has told them twenty times\r\nbefore this morning, that he expects some by the next train of prime\r\nquality. It is advertised in the Cuttingsville Times.\r\n\r\nWhile these things go up other things come down. Warned by the whizzing\r\nsound, I look up from my book and see some tall pine, hewn on far\r\nnorthern hills, which has winged its way over the Green Mountains and\r\nthe Connecticut, shot like an arrow through the township within ten\r\nminutes, and scarce another eye beholds it; going\r\n\r\n                          \"to be the mast\r\n                 Of some great ammiral.\"\r\n\r\nAnd hark! here comes the cattle-train bearing the cattle of a thousand\r\nhills, sheepcots, stables, and cow-yards in the air, drovers with their\r\nsticks, and shepherd boys in the midst of their flocks, all but the\r\nmountain pastures, whirled along like leaves blown from the mountains by\r\nthe September gales. The air is filled with the bleating of calves and\r\nsheep, and the hustling of oxen, as if a pastoral valley were going by.\r\nWhen the old bell-wether at the head rattles his bell, the mountains\r\ndo indeed skip like rams and the little hills like lambs. A carload\r\nof drovers, too, in the midst, on a level with their droves now, their\r\nvocation gone, but still clinging to their useless sticks as their badge\r\nof office. But their dogs, where are they? It is a stampede to them;\r\nthey are quite thrown out; they have lost the scent. Methinks I hear\r\nthem barking behind the Peterboro' Hills, or panting up the western\r\nslope of the Green Mountains. They will not be in at the death. Their\r\nvocation, too, is gone. Their fidelity and sagacity are below par now.\r\nThey will slink back to their kennels in disgrace, or perchance run wild\r\nand strike a league with the wolf and the fox. So is your pastoral life\r\nwhirled past and away. But the bell rings, and I must get off the track\r\nand let the cars go by;--\r\n\r\n                  What's the railroad to me?\r\n                  I never go to see\r\n                  Where it ends.\r\n                  It fills a few hollows,\r\n                  And makes banks for the swallows,\r\n                  It sets the sand a-blowing,\r\n                  And the blackberries a-growing,\r\n\r\nbut I cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will not have my eyes\r\nput out and my ears spoiled by its smoke and steam and hissing.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nNow that the cars are gone by and all the restless world with them, and\r\nthe fishes in the pond no longer feel their rumbling, I am more alone\r\nthan ever. For the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, my meditations\r\nare interrupted only by the faint rattle of a carriage or team along the\r\ndistant highway.\r\n\r\nSometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford,\r\nor Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as\r\nit were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At\r\na sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain\r\nvibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of\r\na harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance\r\nproduces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre,\r\njust as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth\r\ninteresting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came\r\nto me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had\r\nconversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the\r\nsound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale\r\nto vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein\r\nis the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was\r\nworth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same\r\ntrivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph.\r\n\r\nAt evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the horizon beyond the\r\nwoods sounded sweet and melodious, and at first I would mistake it for\r\nthe voices of certain minstrels by whom I was sometimes serenaded, who\r\nmight be straying over hill and dale; but soon I was not unpleasantly\r\ndisappointed when it was prolonged into the cheap and natural music of\r\nthe cow. I do not mean to be satirical, but to express my appreciation\r\nof those youths' singing, when I state that I perceived clearly that\r\nit was akin to the music of the cow, and they were at length one\r\narticulation of Nature.\r\n\r\nRegularly at half-past seven, in one part of the summer, after the\r\nevening train had gone by, the whip-poor-wills chanted their vespers for\r\nhalf an hour, sitting on a stump by my door, or upon the ridge-pole of\r\nthe house. They would begin to sing almost with as much precision as a\r\nclock, within five minutes of a particular time, referred to the setting\r\nof the sun, every evening. I had a rare opportunity to become acquainted\r\nwith their habits. Sometimes I heard four or five at once in different\r\nparts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so near me\r\nthat I distinguished not only the cluck after each note, but often that\r\nsingular buzzing sound like a fly in a spider's web, only proportionally\r\nlouder. Sometimes one would circle round and round me in the woods a few\r\nfeet distant as if tethered by a string, when probably I was near its\r\neggs. They sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as\r\nmusical as ever just before and about dawn.\r\n\r\nWhen other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like\r\nmourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben\r\nJonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who\r\nof the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the\r\nmutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the\r\ndelights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear\r\ntheir wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside;\r\nreminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the\r\ndark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be\r\nsung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings,\r\nof fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did\r\nthe deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns\r\nor threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a\r\nnew sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common\r\ndwelling. _Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n!_ sighs one on\r\nthis side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair\r\nto some new perch on the gray oaks. Then--_that I never had been\r\nbor-r-r-r-n!_ echoes another on the farther side with tremulous\r\nsincerity, and--_bor-r-r-r-n!_ comes faintly from far in the Lincoln\r\nwoods.\r\n\r\nI was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy\r\nit the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to\r\nstereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human\r\nbeing--some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and\r\nhowls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley,\r\nmade more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness--I find myself\r\nbeginning with the letters _gl_ when I try to imitate it--expressive of\r\na mind which has reached the gelatinous, mildewy stage in the\r\nmortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me\r\nof ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far\r\nwoods in a strain made really melodious by distance--_Hoo hoo hoo,\r\nhoorer hoo_; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing\r\nassociations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter.\r\n\r\nI rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal\r\nhooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight\r\nwoods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature\r\nwhich men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and\r\nunsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the\r\nsurface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with\r\nusnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps\r\namid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now\r\na more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures\r\nawakes to express the meaning of Nature there.\r\n\r\nLate in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over\r\nbridges--a sound heard farther than almost any other at night--the\r\nbaying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of some disconsolate cow\r\nin a distant barn-yard. In the mean-while all the shore rang with the\r\ntrump of bullfrogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and\r\nwassailers, still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian\r\nlake--if the Walden nymphs will pardon the comparison, for though there\r\nare almost no weeds, there are frogs there--who would fain keep up the\r\nhilarious rules of their old festal tables, though their voices have\r\nwaxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost\r\nits flavor, and become only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet\r\nintoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, but mere\r\nsaturation and waterloggedness and distention. The most aldermanic, with\r\nhis chin upon a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling\r\nchaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the\r\nonce scorned water, and passes round the cup with the ejaculation\r\n_tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r--oonk, tr-r-r-oonk!_ and straightway comes over the\r\nwater from some distant cove the same password repeated, where the\r\nnext in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this\r\nobservance has made the circuit of the shores, then ejaculates the\r\nmaster of ceremonies, with satisfaction, _tr-r-r-oonk!_ and each in\r\nhis turn repeats the same down to the least distended, leakiest, and\r\nflabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the howl goes\r\nround again and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and\r\nonly the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing _troonk_\r\nfrom time to time, and pausing for a reply.\r\n\r\nI am not sure that I ever heard the sound of cock-crowing from my\r\nclearing, and I thought that it might be worth the while to keep a\r\ncockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once\r\nwild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and\r\nif they could be naturalized without being domesticated, it would soon\r\nbecome the most famous sound in our woods, surpassing the clangor of the\r\ngoose and the hooting of the owl; and then imagine the cackling of the\r\nhens to fill the pauses when their lords' clarions rested! No wonder\r\nthat man added this bird to his tame stock--to say nothing of the eggs\r\nand drumsticks. To walk in a winter morning in a wood where these birds\r\nabounded, their native woods, and hear the wild cockerels crow on the\r\ntrees, clear and shrill for miles over the resounding earth, drowning\r\nthe feebler notes of other birds--think of it! It would put nations on\r\nthe alert. Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier\r\nevery successive day of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy,\r\nwealthy, and wise? This foreign bird's note is celebrated by the poets\r\nof all countries along with the notes of their native songsters. All\r\nclimates agree with brave Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than\r\nthe natives. His health is ever good, his lungs are sound, his spirits\r\nnever flag. Even the sailor on the Atlantic and Pacific is awakened by\r\nhis voice; but its shrill sound never roused me from my slumbers. I kept\r\nneither dog, cat, cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said\r\nthere was a deficiency of domestic sounds; neither the churn, nor the\r\nspinning-wheel, nor even the singing of the kettle, nor the hissing of\r\nthe urn, nor children crying, to comfort one. An old-fashioned man would\r\nhave lost his senses or died of ennui before this. Not even rats in the\r\nwall, for they were starved out, or rather were never baited in--only\r\nsquirrels on the roof and under the floor, a whip-poor-will on the\r\nridge-pole, a blue jay screaming beneath the window, a hare or woodchuck\r\nunder the house, a screech owl or a cat owl behind it, a flock of wild\r\ngeese or a laughing loon on the pond, and a fox to bark in the night.\r\nNot even a lark or an oriole, those mild plantation birds, ever visited\r\nmy clearing. No cockerels to crow nor hens to cackle in the yard. No\r\nyard! but unfenced nature reaching up to your very sills. A young forest\r\ngrowing up under your meadows, and wild sumachs and blackberry vines\r\nbreaking through into your cellar; sturdy pitch pines rubbing and\r\ncreaking against the shingles for want of room, their roots reaching\r\nquite under the house. Instead of a scuttle or a blind blown off in the\r\ngale--a pine tree snapped off or torn up by the roots behind your\r\nhouse for fuel. Instead of no path to the front-yard gate in the Great\r\nSnow--no gate--no front-yard--and no path to the civilized world.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSolitude\r\n\r\n\r\nThis is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and\r\nimbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty\r\nin Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the\r\npond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy,\r\nand I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually\r\ncongenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note\r\nof the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water.\r\nSympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away\r\nmy breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled.\r\nThese small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm\r\nas the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still\r\nblows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures\r\nlull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The\r\nwildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and\r\nskunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are\r\nNature's watchmen--links which connect the days of animated life.\r\n\r\nWhen I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left\r\ntheir cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a\r\nname in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They who come rarely\r\nto the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands\r\nto play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally or\r\naccidentally. One has peeled a willow wand, woven it into a ring, and\r\ndropped it on my table. I could always tell if visitors had called in\r\nmy absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their\r\nshoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some\r\nslight trace left, as a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and\r\nthrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half a mile distant, or by\r\nthe lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. Nay, I was frequently notified of\r\nthe passage of a traveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent\r\nof his pipe.\r\n\r\nThere is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite\r\nat our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but\r\nsomewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and\r\nfenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I\r\nthis vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest,\r\nfor my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile\r\ndistant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within\r\nhalf a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself;\r\na distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one\r\nhand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But\r\nfor the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It\r\nis as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun\r\nand moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. At night there was\r\nnever a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if\r\nI were the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when at long\r\nintervals some came from the village to fish for pouts--they plainly\r\nfished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited\r\ntheir hooks with darkness--but they soon retreated, usually with light\r\nbaskets, and left \"the world to darkness and to me,\" and the black\r\nkernel of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. I\r\nbelieve that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark,\r\nthough the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been\r\nintroduced.\r\n\r\nYet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most\r\ninnocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object,\r\neven for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no\r\nvery black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has\r\nhis senses still. There was never yet such a storm but it was \u00c6olian\r\nmusic to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple\r\nand brave man to a vulgar sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the\r\nseasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle\r\nrain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear\r\nand melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them,\r\nit is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as\r\nto cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the\r\nlow lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and,\r\nbeing good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, when I\r\ncompare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the\r\ngods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had\r\na warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were\r\nespecially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be\r\npossible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least\r\noppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks\r\nafter I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near\r\nneighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To\r\nbe alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious\r\nof a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery.\r\nIn the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was\r\nsuddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in\r\nthe very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my\r\nhouse, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like\r\nan atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human\r\nneighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since.\r\nEvery little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and\r\nbefriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of\r\nsomething kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call\r\nwild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest\r\nwas not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be\r\nstrange to me again.\r\n\r\n          \"Mourning untimely consumes the sad;\r\n           Few are their days in the land of the living,\r\n           Beautiful daughter of Toscar.\"\r\n\r\nSome of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the\r\nspring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well\r\nas the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an\r\nearly twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time\r\nto take root and unfold themselves. In those driving northeast rains\r\nwhich tried the village houses so, when the maids stood ready with mop\r\nand pail in front entries to keep the deluge out, I sat behind my door\r\nin my little house, which was all entry, and thoroughly enjoyed its\r\nprotection. In one heavy thunder-shower the lightning struck a large\r\npitch pine across the pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly\r\nregular spiral groove from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four\r\nor five inches wide, as you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it\r\nagain the other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding\r\nthat mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resistless\r\nbolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago. Men frequently\r\nsay to me, \"I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want\r\nto be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially.\" I\r\nam tempted to reply to such--This whole earth which we inhabit is but\r\na point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant\r\ninhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be\r\nappreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our\r\nplanet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the\r\nmost important question. What sort of space is that which separates\r\na man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no\r\nexertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.\r\nWhat do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely,\r\nthe depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the\r\nschool-house, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men\r\nmost congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all\r\nour experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near\r\nthe water and sends out its roots in that direction. This will vary with\r\ndifferent natures, but this is the place where a wise man will dig\r\nhis cellar.... I one evening overtook one of my townsmen, who has\r\naccumulated what is called \"a handsome property\"--though I never got a\r\n_fair_ view of it--on the Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to market,\r\nwho inquired of me how I could bring my mind to give up so many of the\r\ncomforts of life. I answered that I was very sure I liked it passably\r\nwell; I was not joking. And so I went home to my bed, and left him\r\nto pick his way through the darkness and the mud to Brighton--or\r\nBright-town--which place he would reach some time in the morning.\r\n\r\nAny prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes\r\nindifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is\r\nalways the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the\r\nmost part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our\r\noccasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest\r\nto all things is that power which fashions their being. _Next_ to us the\r\ngrandest laws are continually being executed. _Next_ to us is not the\r\nworkman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the\r\nworkman whose work we are.\r\n\r\n\"How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven\r\nand of Earth!\"\r\n\r\n\"We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them,\r\nand we do not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they\r\ncannot be separated from them.\"\r\n\r\n\"They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their\r\nhearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer\r\nsacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile\r\nintelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, on our right;\r\nthey environ us on all sides.\"\r\n\r\nWe are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting\r\nto me. Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while\r\nunder these circumstances--have our own thoughts to cheer us? Confucius\r\nsays truly, \"Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of\r\nnecessity have neighbors.\"\r\n\r\nWith thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a\r\nconscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their\r\nconsequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We\r\nare not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the\r\nstream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I _may_ be affected by a\r\ntheatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I _may not_ be affected by an\r\nactual event which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself\r\nas a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections;\r\nand am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote\r\nfrom myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am\r\nconscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it\r\nwere, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but\r\ntaking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play,\r\nit may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It\r\nwas a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was\r\nconcerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends\r\nsometimes.\r\n\r\nI find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in\r\ncompany, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love\r\nto be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as\r\nsolitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among\r\nmen than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is\r\nalways alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the\r\nmiles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really\r\ndiligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as\r\nsolitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the\r\nfield or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome,\r\nbecause he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit\r\ndown in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he\r\ncan \"see the folks,\" and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself\r\nfor his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit\r\nalone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and \"the\r\nblues\"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house,\r\nis still at work in _his_ field, and chopping in _his_ woods, as the farmer\r\nin his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the\r\nlatter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.\r\n\r\nSociety is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not\r\nhaving had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at\r\nmeals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old\r\nmusty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of\r\nrules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting\r\ntolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the\r\npost-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night;\r\nwe live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another,\r\nand I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.\r\nCertainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty\r\ncommunications. Consider the girls in a factory--never alone, hardly in\r\ntheir dreams. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to\r\na square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin,\r\nthat we should touch him.\r\n\r\nI have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and\r\nexhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the\r\ngrotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased\r\nimagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also,\r\nowing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually\r\ncheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know\r\nthat we are never alone.\r\n\r\nI have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning,\r\nwhen nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, that some one may\r\nconvey an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon in the\r\npond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has\r\nthat lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the\r\nblue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone,\r\nexcept in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to be two, but one\r\nis a mock sun. God is alone--but the devil, he is far from being alone;\r\nhe sees a great deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than\r\na single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel,\r\nor a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook,\r\nor a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April\r\nshower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.\r\n\r\nI have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when the snow\r\nfalls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an old settler and\r\noriginal proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned\r\nit, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time\r\nand of new eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening\r\nwith social mirth and pleasant views of things, even without apples\r\nor cider--a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps\r\nhimself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is\r\nthought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame,\r\ntoo, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose\r\nodorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and\r\nlistening to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility,\r\nand her memory runs back farther than mythology, and she can tell me the\r\noriginal of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the\r\nincidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old dame, who\r\ndelights in all weathers and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her\r\nchildren yet.\r\n\r\nThe indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature--of sun and wind\r\nand rain, of summer and winter--such health, such cheer, they afford\r\nforever! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature\r\nwould be affected, and the sun's brightness fade, and the winds would\r\nsigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their\r\nleaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a\r\njust cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I\r\nnot partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?\r\n\r\nWhat is the pill which will keep us well, serene, contented? Not my or\r\nthy great-grandfather's, but our great-grandmother Nature's universal,\r\nvegetable, botanic medicines, by which she has kept herself young\r\nalways, outlived so many old Parrs in her day, and fed her health with\r\ntheir decaying fatness. For my panacea, instead of one of those quack\r\nvials of a mixture dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come out\r\nof those long shallow black-schooner looking wagons which we sometimes\r\nsee made to carry bottles, let me have a draught of undiluted morning\r\nair. Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead\r\nof the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the\r\nshops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket\r\nto morning time in this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till\r\nnoonday even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long\r\nere that and follow westward the steps of Aurora. I am no worshipper of\r\nHygeia, who was the daughter of that old herb-doctor \u00c6sculapius, and\r\nwho is represented on monuments holding a serpent in one hand, and in\r\nthe other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes drinks; but rather\r\nof Hebe, cup-bearer to Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild\r\nlettuce, and who had the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of\r\nyouth. She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy,\r\nand robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever she came\r\nit was spring.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nVisitors\r\n\r\n\r\nI think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to\r\nfasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man\r\nthat comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit\r\nout the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me\r\nthither.\r\n\r\nI had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship,\r\nthree for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected\r\nnumbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally\r\neconomized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men\r\nand women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty\r\nsouls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted\r\nwithout being aware that we had come very near to one another. Many\r\nof our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable\r\napartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines\r\nand other munitions of peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their\r\ninhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be\r\nonly vermin which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his\r\nsummons before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come\r\ncreeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse,\r\nwhich soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement.\r\n\r\nOne inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the\r\ndifficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we\r\nbegan to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your\r\nthoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they\r\nmake their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its\r\nlateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course\r\nbefore it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again\r\nthrough the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold\r\nand form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must\r\nhave suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral\r\nground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across\r\nthe pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so\r\nnear that we could not begin to hear--we could not speak low enough to\r\nbe heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they\r\nbreak each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud\r\ntalkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by\r\njowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak reservedly and\r\nthoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and\r\nmoisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most\r\nintimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above,\r\nbeing spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart\r\nbodily that we cannot possibly hear each other's voice in any case.\r\nReferred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who\r\nare hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say\r\nif we have to shout. As the conversation began to assume a loftier and\r\ngrander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they\r\ntouched the wall in opposite corners, and then commonly there was not\r\nroom enough.\r\n\r\nMy \"best\" room, however, my withdrawing room, always ready for company,\r\non whose carpet the sun rarely fell, was the pine wood behind my house.\r\nThither in summer days, when distinguished guests came, I took them, and\r\na priceless domestic swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept\r\nthe things in order.\r\n\r\nIf one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, and it was no\r\ninterruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty-pudding, or\r\nwatching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the\r\nmeanwhile. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said\r\nabout dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if\r\neating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and\r\nthis was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most\r\nproper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life,\r\nwhich so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a\r\ncase, and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a\r\nthousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or\r\nhungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon\r\nit that I sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many\r\nhousekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place\r\nof the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give.\r\nFor my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a\r\nman's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made\r\nabout dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint\r\nnever to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those\r\nscenes. I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines\r\nof Spenser which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf\r\nfor a card:--\r\n\r\n       \"Arriv\u00e8d there, the little house they fill,\r\n           Ne looke for entertainment where none was;\r\n        Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:\r\n           The noblest mind the best contentment has.\"\r\n\r\nWhen Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a\r\ncompanion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit on foot through the woods,\r\nand arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by\r\nthe king, but nothing was said about eating that day. When the night\r\narrived, to quote their own words--\"He laid us on the bed with himself\r\nand his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only\r\nplanks laid a foot from the ground and a thin mat upon them. Two more of\r\nhis chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were\r\nworse weary of our lodging than of our journey.\" At one o'clock the next\r\nday Massasoit \"brought two fishes that he had shot,\" about thrice as big\r\nas a bream. \"These being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a\r\nshare in them; the most eat of them. This meal only we had in two nights\r\nand a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our\r\njourney fasting.\" Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of\r\nfood and also sleep, owing to \"the savages' barbarous singing, (for they\r\nuse to sing themselves asleep,)\" and that they might get home while they\r\nhad strength to travel, they departed. As for lodging, it is true they\r\nwere but poorly entertained, though what they found an inconvenience was\r\nno doubt intended for an honor; but as far as eating was concerned, I do\r\nnot see how the Indians could have done better. They had nothing to\r\neat themselves, and they were wiser than to think that apologies could\r\nsupply the place of food to their guests; so they drew their belts\r\ntighter and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow visited\r\nthem, it being a season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in\r\nthis respect.\r\n\r\nAs for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more visitors\r\nwhile I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean\r\nthat I had some. I met several there under more favorable circumstances\r\nthan I could anywhere else. But fewer came to see me on trivial\r\nbusiness. In this respect, my company was winnowed by my mere distance\r\nfrom town. I had withdrawn so far within the great ocean of solitude,\r\ninto which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so\r\nfar as my needs were concerned, only the finest sediment was deposited\r\naround me. Beside, there were wafted to me evidences of unexplored and\r\nuncultivated continents on the other side.\r\n\r\nWho should come to my lodge this morning but a true Homeric or\r\nPaphlagonian man--he had so suitable and poetic a name that I am sorry I\r\ncannot print it here--a Canadian, a woodchopper and post-maker, who can\r\nhole fifty posts in a day, who made his last supper on a woodchuck which\r\nhis dog caught. He, too, has heard of Homer, and, \"if it were not for\r\nbooks,\" would \"not know what to do rainy days,\" though perhaps he has\r\nnot read one wholly through for many rainy seasons. Some priest who\r\ncould pronounce the Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the\r\nTestament in his native parish far away; and now I must translate to\r\nhim, while he holds the book, Achilles' reproof to Patroclus for his sad\r\ncountenance.--\"Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?\"--\r\n\r\n      \"Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia?\r\n       They say that Menoetius lives yet, son of Actor,\r\n       And Peleus lives, son of \u00c6acus, among the Myrmidons,\r\n       Either of whom having died, we should greatly grieve.\"\r\n\r\nHe says, \"That's good.\" He has a great bundle of white oak bark under\r\nhis arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning. \"I suppose there's\r\nno harm in going after such a thing to-day,\" says he. To him Homer was a\r\ngreat writer, though what his writing was about he did not know. A more\r\nsimple and natural man it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which\r\ncast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed to have hardly any\r\nexistence for him. He was about twenty-eight years old, and had left\r\nCanada and his father's house a dozen years before to work in the\r\nStates, and earn money to buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native\r\ncountry. He was cast in the coarsest mould; a stout but sluggish body,\r\nyet gracefully carried, with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and\r\ndull sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression.\r\nHe wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat, and\r\ncowhide boots. He was a great consumer of meat, usually carrying his\r\ndinner to his work a couple of miles past my house--for he chopped all\r\nsummer--in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold woodchucks, and coffee in\r\na stone bottle which dangled by a string from his belt; and sometimes he\r\noffered me a drink. He came along early, crossing my bean-field, though\r\nwithout anxiety or haste to get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit.\r\nHe wasn't a-going to hurt himself. He didn't care if he only earned his\r\nboard. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his\r\ndog had caught a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to\r\ndress it and leave it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after\r\ndeliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in the\r\npond safely till nightfall--loving to dwell long upon these themes. He\r\nwould say, as he went by in the morning, \"How thick the pigeons are! If\r\nworking every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should\r\nwant by hunting-pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges--by gosh! I\r\ncould get all I should want for a week in one day.\"\r\n\r\nHe was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flourishes and ornaments\r\nin his art. He cut his trees level and close to the ground, that the\r\nsprouts which came up afterward might be more vigorous and a sled might\r\nslide over the stumps; and instead of leaving a whole tree to support\r\nhis corded wood, he would pare it away to a slender stake or splinter\r\nwhich you could break off with your hand at last.\r\n\r\nHe interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy\r\nwithal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his\r\neyes. His mirth was without alloy. Sometimes I saw him at his work\r\nin the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with a laugh of\r\ninexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian French, though\r\nhe spoke English as well. When I approached him he would suspend his\r\nwork, and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a pine which\r\nhe had felled, and, peeling off the inner bark, roll it up into a ball\r\nand chew it while he laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal\r\nspirits had he that he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the ground\r\nwith laughter at anything which made him think and tickled him. Looking\r\nround upon the trees he would exclaim--\"By George! I can enjoy myself\r\nwell enough here chopping; I want no better sport.\" Sometimes, when at\r\nleisure, he amused himself all day in the woods with a pocket pistol,\r\nfiring salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked. In the\r\nwinter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in a kettle;\r\nand as he sat on a log to eat his dinner the chickadees would sometimes\r\ncome round and alight on his arm and peck at the potato in his fingers;\r\nand he said that he \"liked to have the little _fellers_ about him.\"\r\n\r\nIn him the animal man chiefly was developed. In physical endurance and\r\ncontentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock. I asked him once\r\nif he was not sometimes tired at night, after working all day; and he\r\nanswered, with a sincere and serious look, \"Gorrappit, I never was tired\r\nin my life.\" But the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in\r\nhim were slumbering as in an infant. He had been instructed only in that\r\ninnocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the\r\naborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to the degree of\r\nconsciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a\r\nchild is not made a man, but kept a child. When Nature made him, she\r\ngave him a strong body and contentment for his portion, and propped him\r\non every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his\r\nthreescore years and ten a child. He was so genuine and unsophisticated\r\nthat no introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if you\r\nintroduced a woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out as\r\nyou did. He would not play any part. Men paid him wages for work, and\r\nso helped to feed and clothe him; but he never exchanged opinions with\r\nthem. He was so simply and naturally humble--if he can be called humble\r\nwho never aspires--that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor\r\ncould he conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. If you told\r\nhim that such a one was coming, he did as if he thought that anything so\r\ngrand would expect nothing of himself, but take all the responsibility\r\non itself, and let him be forgotten still. He never heard the sound of\r\npraise. He particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their\r\nperformances were miracles. When I told him that I wrote considerably,\r\nhe thought for a long time that it was merely the handwriting which I\r\nmeant, for he could write a remarkably good hand himself. I sometimes\r\nfound the name of his native parish handsomely written in the snow by\r\nthe highway, with the proper French accent, and knew that he had passed.\r\nI asked him if he ever wished to write his thoughts. He said that he had\r\nread and written letters for those who could not, but he never tried to\r\nwrite thoughts--no, he could not, he could not tell what to put first,\r\nit would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the\r\nsame time!\r\n\r\nI heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer asked him if he did\r\nnot want the world to be changed; but he answered with a chuckle of\r\nsurprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had ever\r\nbeen entertained before, \"No, I like it well enough.\" It would have\r\nsuggested many things to a philosopher to have dealings with him. To\r\na stranger he appeared to know nothing of things in general; yet I\r\nsometimes saw in him a man whom I had not seen before, and I did not\r\nknow whether he was as wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as\r\na child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of\r\nstupidity. A townsman told me that when he met him sauntering through\r\nthe village in his small close-fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he\r\nreminded him of a prince in disguise.\r\n\r\nHis only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which last he was\r\nconsiderably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopaedia to him, which\r\nhe supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it does\r\nto a considerable extent. I loved to sound him on the various reforms\r\nof the day, and he never failed to look at them in the most simple and\r\npractical light. He had never heard of such things before. Could he do\r\nwithout factories? I asked. He had worn the home-made Vermont gray, he\r\nsaid, and that was good. Could he dispense with tea and coffee? Did this\r\ncountry afford any beverage beside water? He had soaked hemlock leaves\r\nin water and drank it, and thought that was better than water in warm\r\nweather. When I asked him if he could do without money, he showed the\r\nconvenience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide with the\r\nmost philosophical accounts of the origin of this institution, and the\r\nvery derivation of the word _pecunia_. If an ox were his property, and he\r\nwished to get needles and thread at the store, he thought it would be\r\ninconvenient and impossible soon to go on mortgaging some portion of\r\nthe creature each time to that amount. He could defend many institutions\r\nbetter than any philosopher, because, in describing them as they\r\nconcerned him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and\r\nspeculation had not suggested to him any other. At another time, hearing\r\nPlato's definition of a man--a biped without feathers--and that one\r\nexhibited a cock plucked and called it Plato's man, he thought it\r\nan important difference that the _knees_ bent the wrong way. He would\r\nsometimes exclaim, \"How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all\r\nday!\" I asked him once, when I had not seen him for many months, if he\r\nhad got a new idea this summer. \"Good Lord\"--said he, \"a man that has\r\nto work as I do, if he does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do\r\nwell. May be the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, by gorry,\r\nyour mind must be there; you think of weeds.\" He would sometimes ask me\r\nfirst on such occasions, if I had made any improvement. One winter day I\r\nasked him if he was always satisfied with himself, wishing to suggest a\r\nsubstitute within him for the priest without, and some higher motive for\r\nliving. \"Satisfied!\" said he; \"some men are satisfied with one thing,\r\nand some with another. One man, perhaps, if he has got enough, will be\r\nsatisfied to sit all day with his back to the fire and his belly to the\r\ntable, by George!\" Yet I never, by any manoeuvring, could get him to\r\ntake the spiritual view of things; the highest that he appeared to\r\nconceive of was a simple expediency, such as you might expect an\r\nanimal to appreciate; and this, practically, is true of most men. If\r\nI suggested any improvement in his mode of life, he merely answered,\r\nwithout expressing any regret, that it was too late. Yet he thoroughly\r\nbelieved in honesty and the like virtues.\r\n\r\nThere was a certain positive originality, however slight, to be detected\r\nin him, and I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and\r\nexpressing his own opinion, a phenomenon so rare that I would any day\r\nwalk ten miles to observe it, and it amounted to the re-origination of\r\nmany of the institutions of society. Though he hesitated, and perhaps\r\nfailed to express himself distinctly, he always had a presentable\r\nthought behind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and immersed in his\r\nanimal life, that, though more promising than a merely learned man's,\r\nit rarely ripened to anything which can be reported. He suggested that\r\nthere might be men of genius in the lowest grades of life, however\r\npermanently humble and illiterate, who take their own view always, or do\r\nnot pretend to see at all; who are as bottomless even as Walden Pond was\r\nthought to be, though they may be dark and muddy.\r\n\r\nMany a traveller came out of his way to see me and the inside of my\r\nhouse, and, as an excuse for calling, asked for a glass of water. I told\r\nthem that I drank at the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend\r\nthem a dipper. Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from the annual\r\nvisitation which occurs, methinks, about the first of April, when\r\neverybody is on the move; and I had my share of good luck, though there\r\nwere some curious specimens among my visitors. Half-witted men from the\r\nalmshouse and elsewhere came to see me; but I endeavored to make them\r\nexercise all the wit they had, and make their confessions to me; in such\r\ncases making wit the theme of our conversation; and so was compensated.\r\nIndeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so-called _overseers_\r\nof the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the\r\ntables were turned. With respect to wit, I learned that there was not\r\nmuch difference between the half and the whole. One day, in particular,\r\nan inoffensive, simple-minded pauper, whom with others I had often seen\r\nused as fencing stuff, standing or sitting on a bushel in the fields to\r\nkeep cattle and himself from straying, visited me, and expressed a wish\r\nto live as I did. He told me, with the utmost simplicity and truth,\r\nquite superior, or rather _inferior_, to anything that is called humility,\r\nthat he was \"deficient in intellect.\" These were his words. The Lord\r\nhad made him so, yet he supposed the Lord cared as much for him as for\r\nanother. \"I have always been so,\" said he, \"from my childhood; I never\r\nhad much mind; I was not like other children; I am weak in the head. It\r\nwas the Lord's will, I suppose.\" And there he was to prove the truth\r\nof his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely met a\r\nfellowman on such promising ground--it was so simple and sincere and so\r\ntrue all that he said. And, true enough, in proportion as he appeared\r\nto humble himself was he exalted. I did not know at first but it was the\r\nresult of a wise policy. It seemed that from such a basis of truth and\r\nfrankness as the poor weak-headed pauper had laid, our intercourse might\r\ngo forward to something better than the intercourse of sages.\r\n\r\nI had some guests from those not reckoned commonly among the town's\r\npoor, but who should be; who are among the world's poor, at any rate;\r\nguests who appeal, not to your hospitality, but to your _hospitalality_;\r\nwho earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their appeal with the\r\ninformation that they are resolved, for one thing, never to help\r\nthemselves. I require of a visitor that he be not actually starving,\r\nthough he may have the very best appetite in the world, however he got\r\nit. Objects of charity are not guests. Men who did not know when their\r\nvisit had terminated, though I went about my business again, answering\r\nthem from greater and greater remoteness. Men of almost every degree of\r\nwit called on me in the migrating season. Some who had more wits than\r\nthey knew what to do with; runaway slaves with plantation manners, who\r\nlistened from time to time, like the fox in the fable, as if they heard\r\nthe hounds a-baying on their track, and looked at me beseechingly, as\r\nmuch as to say,--\r\n\r\n           \"O Christian, will you send me back?\r\n\r\nOne real runaway slave, among the rest, whom I helped to forward toward\r\nthe north star. Men of one idea, like a hen with one chicken, and that\r\na duckling; men of a thousand ideas, and unkempt heads, like those hens\r\nwhich are made to take charge of a hundred chickens, all in pursuit\r\nof one bug, a score of them lost in every morning's dew--and become\r\nfrizzled and mangy in consequence; men of ideas instead of legs, a sort\r\nof intellectual centipede that made you crawl all over. One man proposed\r\na book in which visitors should write their names, as at the White\r\nMountains; but, alas! I have too good a memory to make that necessary.\r\n\r\nI could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors. Girls\r\nand boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods. They\r\nlooked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time. Men of\r\nbusiness, even farmers, thought only of solitude and employment, and of\r\nthe great distance at which I dwelt from something or other; and though\r\nthey said that they loved a ramble in the woods occasionally, it was\r\nobvious that they did not. Restless committed men, whose time was an\r\ntaken up in getting a living or keeping it; ministers who spoke of God\r\nas if they enjoyed a monopoly of the subject, who could not bear all\r\nkinds of opinions; doctors, lawyers, uneasy housekeepers who pried\r\ninto my cupboard and bed when I was out--how came Mrs.--to know that my\r\nsheets were not as clean as hers?--young men who had ceased to be young,\r\nand had concluded that it was safest to follow the beaten track of the\r\nprofessions--all these generally said that it was not possible to do so\r\nmuch good in my position. Ay! there was the rub. The old and infirm and\r\nthe timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most of sickness, and sudden\r\naccident and death; to them life seemed full of danger--what danger is\r\nthere if you don't think of any?--and they thought that a prudent man\r\nwould carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might be\r\non hand at a moment's warning. To them the village was literally a\r\n_com-munity_, a league for mutual defence, and you would suppose that they\r\nwould not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of\r\nit is, if a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die,\r\nthough the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is\r\ndead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.\r\nFinally, there were the self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of\r\nall, who thought that I was forever singing,--\r\n\r\n       This is the house that I built;\r\n       This is the man that lives in the house that I built;\r\n\r\nbut they did not know that the third line was,\r\n\r\n              These are the folks that worry the man\r\n              That lives in the house that I built.\r\n\r\nI did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I feared\r\nthe men-harriers rather.\r\n\r\nI had more cheering visitors than the last. Children come a-berrying,\r\nrailroad men taking a Sunday morning walk in clean shirts, fishermen and\r\nhunters, poets and philosophers; in short, all honest pilgrims, who came\r\nout to the woods for freedom's sake, and really left the village behind,\r\nI was ready to greet with--\"Welcome, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!\"\r\nfor I had had communication with that race.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Bean-Field\r\n\r\n\r\nMeanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven\r\nmiles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had\r\ngrown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they\r\nwere not easily to be put off. What was the meaning of this so steady\r\nand self-respecting, this small Herculean labor, I knew not. I came to\r\nlove my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached\r\nme to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus. But why should I\r\nraise them? Only Heaven knows. This was my curious labor all summer--to\r\nmake this portion of the earth's surface, which had yielded only\r\ncinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild\r\nfruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. What shall I\r\nlearn of beans or beans of me? I cherish them, I hoe them, early and\r\nlate I have an eye to them; and this is my day's work. It is a fine\r\nbroad leaf to look on. My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water\r\nthis dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the\r\nmost part is lean and effete. My enemies are worms, cool days, and most\r\nof all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre\r\nclean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the rest, and break\r\nup their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the remaining beans will be\r\ntoo tough for them, and go forward to meet new foes.\r\n\r\nWhen I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought from Boston\r\nto this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to\r\nthe pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. And now\r\nto-night my flute has waked the echoes over that very water. The pines\r\nstill stand here older than I; or, if some have fallen, I have cooked\r\nmy supper with their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around,\r\npreparing another aspect for new infant eyes. Almost the same johnswort\r\nsprings from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even I have at\r\nlength helped to clothe that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and\r\none of the results of my presence and influence is seen in these bean\r\nleaves, corn blades, and potato vines.\r\n\r\nI planted about two acres and a half of upland; and as it was only about\r\nfifteen years since the land was cleared, and I myself had got out\r\ntwo or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any manure; but in the\r\ncourse of the summer it appeared by the arrowheads which I turned up in\r\nhoeing, that an extinct nation had anciently dwelt here and planted corn\r\nand beans ere white men came to clear the land, and so, to some extent,\r\nhad exhausted the soil for this very crop.\r\n\r\nBefore yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or the\r\nsun had got above the shrub oaks, while all the dew was on, though the\r\nfarmers warned me against it--I would advise you to do all your work\r\nif possible while the dew is on--I began to level the ranks of haughty\r\nweeds in my bean-field and throw dust upon their heads. Early in the\r\nmorning I worked barefooted, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy\r\nand crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet.\r\nThere the sun lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and\r\nforward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green rows,\r\nfifteen rods, the one end terminating in a shrub oak copse where I\r\ncould rest in the shade, the other in a blackberry field where the\r\ngreen berries deepened their tints by the time I had made another\r\nbout. Removing the weeds, putting fresh soil about the bean stems, and\r\nencouraging this weed which I had sown, making the yellow soil express\r\nits summer thought in bean leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood\r\nand piper and millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of\r\ngrass--this was my daily work. As I had little aid from horses or\r\ncattle, or hired men or boys, or improved implements of husbandry, I was\r\nmuch slower, and became much more intimate with my beans than usual.\r\nBut labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery,\r\nis perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has a constant and\r\nimperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a classic result. A\r\nvery _agricola laboriosus_ was I to travellers bound westward through\r\nLincoln and Wayland to nobody knows where; they sitting at their ease in\r\ngigs, with elbows on knees, and reins loosely hanging in festoons; I the\r\nhome-staying, laborious native of the soil. But soon my homestead was\r\nout of their sight and thought. It was the only open and cultivated\r\nfield for a great distance on either side of the road, so they made the\r\nmost of it; and sometimes the man in the field heard more of travellers'\r\ngossip and comment than was meant for his ear: \"Beans so late! peas\r\nso late!\"--for I continued to plant when others had begun to hoe--the\r\nministerial husbandman had not suspected it. \"Corn, my boy, for fodder;\r\ncorn for fodder.\" \"Does he _live_ there?\" asks the black bonnet of the\r\ngray coat; and the hard-featured farmer reins up his grateful dobbin to\r\ninquire what you are doing where he sees no manure in the furrow, and\r\nrecommends a little chip dirt, or any little waste stuff, or it may be\r\nashes or plaster. But here were two acres and a half of furrows, and\r\nonly a hoe for cart and two hands to draw it--there being an aversion\r\nto other carts and horses--and chip dirt far away. Fellow-travellers as\r\nthey rattled by compared it aloud with the fields which they had passed,\r\nso that I came to know how I stood in the agricultural world. This was\r\none field not in Mr. Coleman's report. And, by the way, who estimates\r\nthe value of the crop which nature yields in the still wilder fields\r\nunimproved by man? The crop of _English_ hay is carefully weighed, the\r\nmoisture calculated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and\r\npond-holes in the woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various\r\ncrop only unreaped by man. Mine was, as it were, the connecting link\r\nbetween wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and\r\nothers half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was,\r\nthough not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. They were\r\nbeans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I\r\ncultivated, and my hoe played the _Ranz des Vaches_ for them.\r\n\r\nNear at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the brown\r\nthrasher--or red mavis, as some love to call him--all the morning, glad\r\nof your society, that would find out another farmer's field if yours\r\nwere not here. While you are planting the seed, he cries--\"Drop it, drop\r\nit--cover it up, cover it up--pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.\" But\r\nthis was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may\r\nwonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one\r\nstring or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to\r\nleached ashes or plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I\r\nhad entire faith.\r\n\r\nAs I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed\r\nthe ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under\r\nthese heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were\r\nbrought to the light of this modern day. They lay mingled with other\r\nnatural stones, some of which bore the marks of having been burned by\r\nIndian fires, and some by the sun, and also bits of pottery and glass\r\nbrought hither by the recent cultivators of the soil. When my hoe\r\ntinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the\r\nsky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and\r\nimmeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed\r\nbeans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at\r\nall, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios.\r\nThe nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons--for I sometimes\r\nmade a day of it--like a mote in the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling\r\nfrom time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent,\r\ntorn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained;\r\nsmall imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare\r\nsand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few have found them; graceful\r\nand slender like ripples caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised\r\nby the wind to float in the heavens; such kindredship is in nature.\r\nThe hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys,\r\nthose his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental\r\nunfledged pinions of the sea. Or sometimes I watched a pair of\r\nhen-hawks circling high in the sky, alternately soaring and descending,\r\napproaching, and leaving one another, as if they were the embodiment of\r\nmy own thoughts. Or I was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons from\r\nthis wood to that, with a slight quivering winnowing sound and carrier\r\nhaste; or from under a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish\r\nportentous and outlandish spotted salamander, a trace of Egypt and\r\nthe Nile, yet our contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, these\r\nsounds and sights I heard and saw anywhere in the row, a part of the\r\ninexhaustible entertainment which the country offers.\r\n\r\nOn gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo like popguns to\r\nthese woods, and some waifs of martial music occasionally penetrate thus\r\nfar. To me, away there in my bean-field at the other end of the town,\r\nthe big guns sounded as if a puffball had burst; and when there was a\r\nmilitary turnout of which I was ignorant, I have sometimes had a vague\r\nsense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon,\r\nas if some eruption would break out there soon, either scarlatina or\r\ncanker-rash, until at length some more favorable puff of wind, making\r\nhaste over the fields and up the Wayland road, brought me information of\r\nthe \"trainers.\" It seemed by the distant hum as if somebody's bees had\r\nswarmed, and that the neighbors, according to Virgil's advice, by a\r\nfaint _tintinnabulum_ upon the most sonorous of their domestic utensils,\r\nwere endeavoring to call them down into the hive again. And when the\r\nsound died quite away, and the hum had ceased, and the most favorable\r\nbreezes told no tale, I knew that they had got the last drone of them\r\nall safely into the Middlesex hive, and that now their minds were bent\r\non the honey with which it was smeared.\r\n\r\nI felt proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and of our\r\nfatherland were in such safe keeping; and as I turned to my hoeing again\r\nI was filled with an inexpressible confidence, and pursued my labor\r\ncheerfully with a calm trust in the future.\r\n\r\nWhen there were several bands of musicians, it sounded as if all the\r\nvillage was a vast bellows and all the buildings expanded and collapsed\r\nalternately with a din. But sometimes it was a really noble and\r\ninspiring strain that reached these woods, and the trumpet that sings\r\nof fame, and I felt as if I could spit a Mexican with a good relish--for\r\nwhy should we always stand for trifles?--and looked round for a\r\nwoodchuck or a skunk to exercise my chivalry upon. These martial strains\r\nseemed as far away as Palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders\r\nin the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm\r\ntree tops which overhang the village. This was one of the _great_ days;\r\nthough the sky had from my clearing only the same everlastingly great\r\nlook that it wears daily, and I saw no difference in it.\r\n\r\nIt was a singular experience that long acquaintance which I cultivated\r\nwith beans, what with planting, and hoeing, and harvesting, and\r\nthreshing, and picking over and selling them--the last was the hardest\r\nof all--I might add eating, for I did taste. I was determined to know\r\nbeans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o'clock in the\r\nmorning till noon, and commonly spent the rest of the day about other\r\naffairs. Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with\r\nvarious kinds of weeds--it will bear some iteration in the account, for\r\nthere was no little iteration in the labor--disturbing their delicate\r\norganizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions\r\nwith his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously\r\ncultivating another. That's Roman wormwood--that's pigweed--that's\r\nsorrel--that's piper-grass--have at him, chop him up, turn his roots\r\nupward to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do\r\nhe'll turn himself t' other side up and be as green as a leek in two\r\ndays. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who\r\nhad sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come\r\nto their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies,\r\nfilling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest--waving\r\nHector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell\r\nbefore my weapon and rolled in the dust.\r\n\r\nThose summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted to the fine\r\narts in Boston or Rome, and others to contemplation in India, and others\r\nto trade in London or New York, I thus, with the other farmers of New\r\nEngland, devoted to husbandry. Not that I wanted beans to eat, for I\r\nam by nature a Pythagorean, so far as beans are concerned, whether they\r\nmean porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, perchance, as\r\nsome must work in fields if only for the sake of tropes and expression,\r\nto serve a parable-maker one day. It was on the whole a rare amusement,\r\nwhich, continued too long, might have become a dissipation. Though I\r\ngave them no manure, and did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusually\r\nwell as far as I went, and was paid for it in the end, \"there being in\r\ntruth,\" as Evelyn says, \"no compost or laetation whatsoever comparable\r\nto this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with\r\nthe spade.\" \"The earth,\" he adds elsewhere, \"especially if fresh, has a\r\ncertain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue\r\n(call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor\r\nand stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid\r\ntemperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement.\"\r\nMoreover, this being one of those \"worn-out and exhausted lay fields\r\nwhich enjoy their sabbath,\" had perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks\r\nlikely, attracted \"vital spirits\" from the air. I harvested twelve\r\nbushels of beans.\r\n\r\nBut to be more particular, for it is complained that Mr. Coleman has\r\nreported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen farmers, my\r\noutgoes were,--\r\n\r\n    For a hoe................................... $ 0.54\r\n    Plowing, harrowing, and furrowing............  7.50  Too much.\r\n    Beans for seed...............................  3.12-1\/2\r\n    Potatoes for seed............................  1.33\r\n    Peas for seed................................  0.40\r\n    Turnip seed..................................  0.06\r\n    White line for crow fence....................  0.02\r\n    Horse cultivator and boy three hours.........  1.00\r\n    Horse and cart to get crop...................  0.75\r\n                                                --------\r\n        In all.................................. $14.72-1\/2\r\n\r\nMy income was (patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet), from\r\n\r\n    Nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold.. $16.94\r\n    Five    \"    large potatoes..................... 2.50\r\n    Nine    \"    small.............................. 2.25\r\n    Grass........................................... 1.00\r\n    Stalks.......................................... 0.75\r\n                                                  --------\r\n        In all.................................... $23.44\r\n    Leaving a pecuniary profit,\r\n        as I have elsewhere said, of.............. $8.71-1\/2\r\n\r\nThis is the result of my experience in raising beans: Plant the common\r\nsmall white bush bean about the first of June, in rows three feet by\r\neighteen inches apart, being careful to select fresh round and unmixed\r\nseed. First look out for worms, and supply vacancies by planting anew.\r\nThen look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will\r\nnibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and\r\nagain, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice\r\nof it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting\r\nerect like a squirrel. But above all harvest as early as possible, if\r\nyou would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save\r\nmuch loss by this means.\r\n\r\nThis further experience also I gained: I said to myself, I will not\r\nplant beans and corn with so much industry another summer, but such\r\nseeds, if the seed is not lost, as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith,\r\ninnocence, and the like, and see if they will not grow in this soil,\r\neven with less toil and manurance, and sustain me, for surely it has\r\nnot been exhausted for these crops. Alas! I said this to myself; but now\r\nanother summer is gone, and another, and another, and I am obliged to\r\nsay to you, Reader, that the seeds which I planted, if indeed they _were_\r\nthe seeds of those virtues, were wormeaten or had lost their vitality,\r\nand so did not come up. Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers\r\nwere brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to plant corn and\r\nbeans each new year precisely as the Indians did centuries ago and\r\ntaught the first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it. I saw an\r\nold man the other day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe\r\nfor the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to lie down in!\r\nBut why should not the New Englander try new adventures, and not lay\r\nso much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his\r\norchards--raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves so much\r\nabout our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new\r\ngeneration of men? We should really be fed and cheered if when we met a\r\nman we were sure to see that some of the qualities which I have named,\r\nwhich we all prize more than those other productions, but which are\r\nfor the most part broadcast and floating in the air, had taken root\r\nand grown in him. Here comes such a subtile and ineffable quality,\r\nfor instance, as truth or justice, though the slightest amount or new\r\nvariety of it, along the road. Our ambassadors should be instructed to\r\nsend home such seeds as these, and Congress help to distribute them over\r\nall the land. We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We\r\nshould never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if\r\nthere were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not\r\nmeet thus in haste. Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to\r\nhave time; they are busy about their beans. We would not deal with a man\r\nthus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as a staff between his\r\nwork, not as a mushroom, but partially risen out of the earth, something\r\nmore than erect, like swallows alighted and walking on the ground:--\r\n\r\n        \"And as he spake, his wings would now and then\r\n         Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again--\"\r\n\r\nso that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an angel.\r\nBread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even\r\ntakes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when\r\nwe knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature,\r\nto share any unmixed and heroic joy.\r\n\r\nAncient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once\r\na sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness\r\nby us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely.\r\nWe have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our\r\ncattle-shows and so-called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses\r\na sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred\r\norigin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacrifices\r\nnot to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal Plutus\r\nrather. By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which\r\nnone of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means\r\nof acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is\r\ndegraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows\r\nNature but as a robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are\r\nparticularly pious or just (_maximeque pius quaestus_), and according\r\nto Varro the old Romans \"called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and\r\nthought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and\r\nthat they alone were left of the race of King Saturn.\"\r\n\r\nWe are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and\r\non the prairies and forests without distinction. They all reflect and\r\nabsorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the\r\nglorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his view\r\nthe earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should\r\nreceive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and\r\nmagnanimity. What though I value the seed of these beans, and harvest\r\nthat in the fall of the year? This broad field which I have looked at\r\nso long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to\r\ninfluences more genial to it, which water and make it green. These\r\nbeans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for\r\nwoodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin _spica_, obsoletely _speca_,\r\nfrom _spe_, hope) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its\r\nkernel or grain (_granum_ from _gerendo_, bearing) is not all that it\r\nbears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at\r\nthe abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? It\r\nmatters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns.\r\nThe true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest\r\nno concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and\r\nfinish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce\r\nof his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his\r\nlast fruits also.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Village\r\n\r\n\r\nAfter hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I usually\r\nbathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its coves for a stint,\r\nand washed the dust of labor from my person, or smoothed out the last\r\nwrinkle which study had made, and for the afternoon was absolutely free.\r\nEvery day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip\r\nwhich is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to\r\nmouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homoeopathic\r\ndoses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and\r\nthe peeping of frogs. As I walked in the woods to see the birds and\r\nsquirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead\r\nof the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction\r\nfrom my house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under\r\nthe grove of elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village\r\nof busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie-dogs, each\r\nsitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor's to\r\ngossip. I went there frequently to observe their habits. The village\r\nappeared to me a great news room; and on one side, to support it, as\r\nonce at Redding &amp; Company's on State Street, they kept nuts and raisins,\r\nor salt and meal and other groceries. Some have such a vast appetite\r\nfor the former commodity, that is, the news, and such sound digestive\r\norgans, that they can sit forever in public avenues without stirring,\r\nand let it simmer and whisper through them like the Etesian winds, or\r\nas if inhaling ether, it only producing numbness and insensibility to\r\npain--otherwise it would often be painful to bear--without affecting the\r\nconsciousness. I hardly ever failed, when I rambled through the village,\r\nto see a row of such worthies, either sitting on a ladder sunning\r\nthemselves, with their bodies inclined forward and their eyes glancing\r\nalong the line this way and that, from time to time, with a voluptuous\r\nexpression, or else leaning against a barn with their hands in their\r\npockets, like caryatides, as if to prop it up. They, being commonly out\r\nof doors, heard whatever was in the wind. These are the coarsest mills,\r\nin which all gossip is first rudely digested or cracked up before it is\r\nemptied into finer and more delicate hoppers within doors. I observed\r\nthat the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the\r\npost-office, and the bank; and, as a necessary part of the machinery,\r\nthey kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire-engine, at convenient places;\r\nand the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in\r\nlanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the\r\ngauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him. Of\r\ncourse, those who were stationed nearest to the head of the line, where\r\nthey could most see and be seen, and have the first blow at him, paid\r\nthe highest prices for their places; and the few straggling inhabitants\r\nin the outskirts, where long gaps in the line began to occur, and the\r\ntraveller could get over walls or turn aside into cow-paths, and so\r\nescape, paid a very slight ground or window tax. Signs were hung out\r\non all sides to allure him; some to catch him by the appetite, as the\r\ntavern and victualling cellar; some by the fancy, as the dry goods store\r\nand the jeweller's; and others by the hair or the feet or the skirts,\r\nas the barber, the shoemaker, or the tailor. Besides, there was a still\r\nmore terrible standing invitation to call at every one of these houses,\r\nand company expected about these times. For the most part I escaped\r\nwonderfully from these dangers, either by proceeding at once boldly and\r\nwithout deliberation to the goal, as is recommended to those who run the\r\ngauntlet, or by keeping my thoughts on high things, like Orpheus, who,\r\n\"loudly singing the praises of the gods to his lyre, drowned the voices\r\nof the Sirens, and kept out of danger.\" Sometimes I bolted suddenly,\r\nand nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not stand much about\r\ngracefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a fence. I was even\r\naccustomed to make an irruption into some houses, where I was well\r\nentertained, and after learning the kernels and very last sieveful of\r\nnews--what had subsided, the prospects of war and peace, and whether the\r\nworld was likely to hold together much longer--I was let out through the\r\nrear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again.\r\n\r\nIt was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to launch myself into\r\nthe night, especially if it was dark and tempestuous, and set sail from\r\nsome bright village parlor or lecture room, with a bag of rye or Indian\r\nmeal upon my shoulder, for my snug harbor in the woods, having made all\r\ntight without and withdrawn under hatches with a merry crew of thoughts,\r\nleaving only my outer man at the helm, or even tying up the helm when it\r\nwas plain sailing. I had many a genial thought by the cabin fire \"as I\r\nsailed.\" I was never cast away nor distressed in any weather, though\r\nI encountered some severe storms. It is darker in the woods, even in\r\ncommon nights, than most suppose. I frequently had to look up at the\r\nopening between the trees above the path in order to learn my route,\r\nand, where there was no cart-path, to feel with my feet the faint track\r\nwhich I had worn, or steer by the known relation of particular trees\r\nwhich I felt with my hands, passing between two pines for instance, not\r\nmore than eighteen inches apart, in the midst of the woods, invariably,\r\nin the darkest night. Sometimes, after coming home thus late in a dark\r\nand muggy night, when my feet felt the path which my eyes could not see,\r\ndreaming and absent-minded all the way, until I was aroused by having to\r\nraise my hand to lift the latch, I have not been able to recall a single\r\nstep of my walk, and I have thought that perhaps my body would find its\r\nway home if its master should forsake it, as the hand finds its way to\r\nthe mouth without assistance. Several times, when a visitor chanced to\r\nstay into evening, and it proved a dark night, I was obliged to conduct\r\nhim to the cart-path in the rear of the house, and then point out to him\r\nthe direction he was to pursue, and in keeping which he was to be guided\r\nrather by his feet than his eyes. One very dark night I directed thus\r\non their way two young men who had been fishing in the pond. They lived\r\nabout a mile off through the woods, and were quite used to the route.\r\nA day or two after one of them told me that they wandered about the\r\ngreater part of the night, close by their own premises, and did not get\r\nhome till toward morning, by which time, as there had been several\r\nheavy showers in the meanwhile, and the leaves were very wet, they were\r\ndrenched to their skins. I have heard of many going astray even in the\r\nvillage streets, when the darkness was so thick that you could cut it\r\nwith a knife, as the saying is. Some who live in the outskirts, having\r\ncome to town a-shopping in their wagons, have been obliged to put up for\r\nthe night; and gentlemen and ladies making a call have gone half a mile\r\nout of their way, feeling the sidewalk only with their feet, and not\r\nknowing when they turned. It is a surprising and memorable, as well\r\nas valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. Often in a\r\nsnow-storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and\r\nyet find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village. Though he\r\nknows that he has travelled it a thousand times, he cannot recognize\r\na feature in it, but it is as strange to him as if it were a road in\r\nSiberia. By night, of course, the perplexity is infinitely greater.\r\nIn our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously,\r\nsteering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if\r\nwe go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing\r\nof some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned\r\nround--for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut\r\nin this world to be lost--do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness\r\nof nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often\r\nas he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are\r\nlost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to\r\nfind ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our\r\nrelations.\r\n\r\nOne afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the\r\nvillage to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into\r\njail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or\r\nrecognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women,\r\nand children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house. I had gone\r\ndown to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men\r\nwill pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can,\r\nconstrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is\r\ntrue, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might\r\nhave run \"amok\" against society; but I preferred that society should run\r\n\"amok\" against me, it being the desperate party. However, I was released\r\nthe next day, obtained my mended shoe, and returned to the woods in\r\nseason to get my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill. I was never\r\nmolested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no\r\nlock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail\r\nto put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day,\r\nthough I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall\r\nI spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more\r\nrespected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers. The\r\ntired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, the literary amuse\r\nhimself with the few books on my table, or the curious, by opening my\r\ncloset door, see what was left of my dinner, and what prospect I had of\r\na supper. Yet, though many people of every class came this way to the\r\npond, I suffered no serious inconvenience from these sources, and I\r\nnever missed anything but one small book, a volume of Homer, which\r\nperhaps was improperly gilded, and this I trust a soldier of our camp\r\nhas found by this time. I am convinced, that if all men were to live as\r\nsimply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take\r\nplace only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient\r\nwhile others have not enough. The Pope's Homers would soon get properly\r\ndistributed.\r\n\r\n                      \"Nec bella fuerunt,\r\n         Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes.\"\r\n\r\n                         \"Nor wars did men molest,\r\n         When only beechen bowls were in request.\"\r\n\r\n\"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ\r\npunishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues\r\nof a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are\r\nlike the grass--the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Ponds\r\n\r\n\r\nSometimes, having had a surfeit of human society and gossip, and worn\r\nout all my village friends, I rambled still farther westward than I\r\nhabitually dwell, into yet more unfrequented parts of the town, \"to\r\nfresh woods and pastures new,\" or, while the sun was setting, made my\r\nsupper of huckleberries and blueberries on Fair Haven Hill, and laid up\r\na store for several days. The fruits do not yield their true flavor to\r\nthe purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There\r\nis but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way. If you would know\r\nthe flavor of huckleberries, ask the cowboy or the partridge. It is a\r\nvulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never\r\nplucked them. A huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been\r\nknown there since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial and\r\nessential part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off\r\nin the market cart, and they become mere provender. As long as Eternal\r\nJustice reigns, not one innocent huckleberry can be transported thither\r\nfrom the country's hills.\r\n\r\nOccasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, I joined some\r\nimpatient companion who had been fishing on the pond since morning,\r\nas silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and, after\r\npractising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, by the\r\ntime I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient sect of C\u00e6nobites.\r\nThere was one older man, an excellent fisher and skilled in all kinds of\r\nwoodcraft, who was pleased to look upon my house as a building erected\r\nfor the convenience of fishermen; and I was equally pleased when he sat\r\nin my doorway to arrange his lines. Once in a while we sat together on\r\nthe pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not many\r\nwords passed between us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but\r\nhe occasionally hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with my\r\nphilosophy. Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken harmony,\r\nfar more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on by speech.\r\nWhen, as was commonly the case, I had none to commune with, I used\r\nto raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my boat,\r\nfilling the surrounding woods with circling and dilating sound, stirring\r\nthem up as the keeper of a menagerie his wild beasts, until I elicited a\r\ngrowl from every wooded vale and hillside.\r\n\r\nIn warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat playing the flute, and\r\nsaw the perch, which I seem to have charmed, hovering around me, and\r\nthe moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed with the\r\nwrecks of the forest. Formerly I had come to this pond adventurously,\r\nfrom time to time, in dark summer nights, with a companion, and, making\r\na fire close to the water's edge, which we thought attracted the fishes,\r\nwe caught pouts with a bunch of worms strung on a thread, and when we\r\nhad done, far in the night, threw the burning brands high into the air\r\nlike skyrockets, which, coming down into the pond, were quenched with\r\na loud hissing, and we were suddenly groping in total darkness. Through\r\nthis, whistling a tune, we took our way to the haunts of men again. But\r\nnow I had made my home by the shore.\r\n\r\nSometimes, after staying in a village parlor till the family had all\r\nretired, I have returned to the woods, and, partly with a view to the\r\nnext day's dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a boat by\r\nmoonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from time to time,\r\nthe creaking note of some unknown bird close at hand. These experiences\r\nwere very memorable and valuable to me--anchored in forty feet of\r\nwater, and twenty or thirty rods from the shore, surrounded sometimes\r\nby thousands of small perch and shiners, dimpling the surface with their\r\ntails in the moonlight, and communicating by a long flaxen line with\r\nmysterious nocturnal fishes which had their dwelling forty feet below,\r\nor sometimes dragging sixty feet of line about the pond as I drifted in\r\nthe gentle night breeze, now and then feeling a slight vibration along\r\nit, indicative of some life prowling about its extremity, of dull\r\nuncertain blundering purpose there, and slow to make up its mind.\r\nAt length you slowly raise, pulling hand over hand, some horned pout\r\nsqueaking and squirming to the upper air. It was very queer, especially\r\nin dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal\r\nthemes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to\r\ninterrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if I\r\nmight next cast my line upward into the air, as well as downward into\r\nthis element, which was scarcely more dense. Thus I caught two fishes as\r\nit were with one hook.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very beautiful,\r\ndoes not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not\r\nlong frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable\r\nfor its depth and purity as to merit a particular description. It is\r\na clear and deep green well, half a mile long and a mile and three\r\nquarters in circumference, and contains about sixty-one and a half\r\nacres; a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without\r\nany visible inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation. The\r\nsurrounding hills rise abruptly from the water to the height of forty to\r\neighty feet, though on the southeast and east they attain to about one\r\nhundred and one hundred and fifty feet respectively, within a quarter\r\nand a third of a mile. They are exclusively woodland. All our Concord\r\nwaters have two colors at least; one when viewed at a distance, and\r\nanother, more proper, close at hand. The first depends more on the\r\nlight, and follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they appear\r\nblue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great\r\ndistance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are sometimes of a\r\ndark slate-color. The sea, however, is said to be blue one day and green\r\nanother without any perceptible change in the atmosphere. I have seen\r\nour river, when, the landscape being covered with snow, both water and\r\nice were almost as green as grass. Some consider blue \"to be the color\r\nof pure water, whether liquid or solid.\" But, looking directly down into\r\nour waters from a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors.\r\nWalden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same\r\npoint of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of\r\nthe color of both. Viewed from a hilltop it reflects the color of the\r\nsky; but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where\r\nyou can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a\r\nuniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed\r\neven from a hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore. Some have\r\nreferred this to the reflection of the verdure; but it is equally green\r\nthere against the railroad sandbank, and in the spring, before the\r\nleaves are expanded, and it may be simply the result of the prevailing\r\nblue mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color of its iris.\r\nThis is that portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being warmed\r\nby the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also transmitted\r\nthrough the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the still\r\nfrozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when much agitated, in clear\r\nweather, so that the surface of the waves may reflect the sky at the\r\nright angle, or because there is more light mixed with it, it appears\r\nat a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; and at such\r\na time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so as to\r\nsee the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and indescribable light\r\nblue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more\r\ncerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the original dark green\r\non the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in\r\ncomparison. It is a vitreous greenish blue, as I remember it, like those\r\npatches of the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in the west before\r\nsundown. Yet a single glass of its water held up to the light is as\r\ncolorless as an equal quantity of air. It is well known that a large\r\nplate of glass will have a green tint, owing, as the makers say, to its\r\n\"body,\" but a small piece of the same will be colorless. How large a\r\nbody of Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint I have\r\nnever proved. The water of our river is black or a very dark brown to\r\none looking directly down on it, and, like that of most ponds, imparts\r\nto the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge; but this water is\r\nof such crystalline purity that the body of the bather appears of an\r\nalabaster whiteness, still more unnatural, which, as the limbs are\r\nmagnified and distorted withal, produces a monstrous effect, making fit\r\nstudies for a Michael Angelo.\r\n\r\nThe water is so transparent that the bottom can easily be discerned at\r\nthe depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. Paddling over it, you may see,\r\nmany feet beneath the surface, the schools of perch and shiners,\r\nperhaps only an inch long, yet the former easily distinguished by their\r\ntransverse bars, and you think that they must be ascetic fish that find\r\na subsistence there. Once, in the winter, many years ago, when I had\r\nbeen cutting holes through the ice in order to catch pickerel, as I\r\nstepped ashore I tossed my axe back on to the ice, but, as if some evil\r\ngenius had directed it, it slid four or five rods directly into one of\r\nthe holes, where the water was twenty-five feet deep. Out of curiosity,\r\nI lay down on the ice and looked through the hole, until I saw the axe\r\na little on one side, standing on its head, with its helve erect and\r\ngently swaying to and fro with the pulse of the pond; and there it\r\nmight have stood erect and swaying till in the course of time the handle\r\nrotted off, if I had not disturbed it. Making another hole directly over\r\nit with an ice chisel which I had, and cutting down the longest\r\nbirch which I could find in the neighborhood with my knife, I made a\r\nslip-noose, which I attached to its end, and, letting it down carefully,\r\npassed it over the knob of the handle, and drew it by a line along the\r\nbirch, and so pulled the axe out again.\r\n\r\nThe shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded white stones like\r\npaving-stones, excepting one or two short sand beaches, and is so steep\r\nthat in many places a single leap will carry you into water over your\r\nhead; and were it not for its remarkable transparency, that would be the\r\nlast to be seen of its bottom till it rose on the opposite side. Some\r\nthink it is bottomless. It is nowhere muddy, and a casual observer would\r\nsay that there were no weeds at all in it; and of noticeable plants,\r\nexcept in the little meadows recently overflowed, which do not properly\r\nbelong to it, a closer scrutiny does not detect a flag nor a bulrush,\r\nnor even a lily, yellow or white, but only a few small heart-leaves and\r\npotamogetons, and perhaps a water-target or two; all which however a\r\nbather might not perceive; and these plants are clean and bright like\r\nthe element they grow in. The stones extend a rod or two into the water,\r\nand then the bottom is pure sand, except in the deepest parts, where\r\nthere is usually a little sediment, probably from the decay of the\r\nleaves which have been wafted on to it so many successive falls, and a\r\nbright green weed is brought up on anchors even in midwinter.\r\n\r\nWe have one other pond just like this, White Pond, in Nine Acre Corner,\r\nabout two and a half miles westerly; but, though I am acquainted with\r\nmost of the ponds within a dozen miles of this centre I do not know a\r\nthird of this pure and well-like character. Successive nations perchance\r\nhave drank at, admired, and fathomed it, and passed away, and still its\r\nwater is green and pellucid as ever. Not an intermitting spring! Perhaps\r\non that spring morning when Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden Walden\r\nPond was already in existence, and even then breaking up in a gentle\r\nspring rain accompanied with mist and a southerly wind, and covered with\r\nmyriads of ducks and geese, which had not heard of the fall, when still\r\nsuch pure lakes sufficed them. Even then it had commenced to rise and\r\nfall, and had clarified its waters and colored them of the hue they now\r\nwear, and obtained a patent of Heaven to be the only Walden Pond in\r\nthe world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows in how many\r\nunremembered nations' literatures this has been the Castalian Fountain?\r\nor what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is a gem of the\r\nfirst water which Concord wears in her coronet.\r\n\r\nYet perchance the first who came to this well have left some trace of\r\ntheir footsteps. I have been surprised to detect encircling the pond,\r\neven where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow\r\nshelf-like path in the steep hillside, alternately rising and falling,\r\napproaching and receding from the water's edge, as old probably as the\r\nrace of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from\r\ntime to time unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the land.\r\nThis is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond\r\nin winter, just after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear\r\nundulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious\r\na quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly\r\ndistinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in\r\nclear white type alto-relievo. The ornamented grounds of villas which\r\nwill one day be built here may still preserve some trace of this.\r\n\r\nThe pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and within what\r\nperiod, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. It is\r\ncommonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer, though not\r\ncorresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can remember when it\r\nwas a foot or two lower, and also when it was at least five feet higher,\r\nthan when I lived by it. There is a narrow sand-bar running into it,\r\nwith very deep water on one side, on which I helped boil a kettle of\r\nchowder, some six rods from the main shore, about the year 1824, which\r\nit has not been possible to do for twenty-five years; and, on the other\r\nhand, my friends used to listen with incredulity when I told them, that\r\na few years later I was accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded\r\ncove in the woods, fifteen rods from the only shore they knew, which\r\nplace was long since converted into a meadow. But the pond has risen\r\nsteadily for two years, and now, in the summer of '52, is just five feet\r\nhigher than when I lived there, or as high as it was thirty years ago,\r\nand fishing goes on again in the meadow. This makes a difference of\r\nlevel, at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by\r\nthe surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this overflow must\r\nbe referred to causes which affect the deep springs. This same\r\nsummer the pond has begun to fall again. It is remarkable that this\r\nfluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many\r\nyears for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a part of two\r\nfalls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will\r\nagain be as low as I have ever known it. Flint's Pond, a mile eastward,\r\nallowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlets,\r\nand the smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and\r\nrecently attained their greatest height at the same time with the\r\nlatter. The same is true, as far as my observation goes, of White Pond.\r\n\r\nThis rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use at least;\r\nthe water standing at this great height for a year or more, though it\r\nmakes it difficult to walk round it, kills the shrubs and trees which\r\nhave sprung up about its edge since the last rise--pitch pines, birches,\r\nalders, aspens, and others--and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed\r\nshore; for, unlike many ponds and all waters which are subject to a\r\ndaily tide, its shore is cleanest when the water is lowest. On the side\r\nof the pond next my house a row of pitch pines, fifteen feet high, has\r\nbeen killed and tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to\r\ntheir encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have\r\nelapsed since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond\r\nasserts its title to a shore, and thus the _shore_ is _shorn_, and the\r\ntrees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of the\r\nlake, on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps from time to time.\r\nWhen the water is at its height, the alders, willows, and maples send\r\nforth a mass of fibrous red roots several feet long from all sides of\r\ntheir stems in the water, and to the height of three or four feet from\r\nthe ground, in the effort to maintain themselves; and I have known the\r\nhigh blueberry bushes about the shore, which commonly produce no fruit,\r\nbear an abundant crop under these circumstances.\r\n\r\nSome have been puzzled to tell how the shore became so regularly paved.\r\nMy townsmen have all heard the tradition--the oldest people tell me that\r\nthey heard it in their youth--that anciently the Indians were holding\r\na pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high into the heavens as the\r\npond now sinks deep into the earth, and they used much profanity, as\r\nthe story goes, though this vice is one of which the Indians were never\r\nguilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly\r\nsank, and only one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and from her the\r\npond was named. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook these\r\nstones rolled down its side and became the present shore. It is very\r\ncertain, at any rate, that once there was no pond here, and now there\r\nis one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the\r\naccount of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers\r\nso well when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor\r\nrising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he\r\nconcluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still think that\r\nthey are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the waves on these\r\nhills; but I observe that the surrounding hills are remarkably full of\r\nthe same kind of stones, so that they have been obliged to pile them\r\nup in walls on both sides of the railroad cut nearest the pond; and,\r\nmoreover, there are most stones where the shore is most abrupt; so that,\r\nunfortunately, it is no longer a mystery to me. I detect the paver. If\r\nthe name was not derived from that of some English locality--Saffron\r\nWalden, for instance--one might suppose that it was called originally\r\n_Walled-in_ Pond.\r\n\r\nThe pond was my well ready dug. For four months in the year its water is\r\nas cold as it is pure at all times; and I think that it is then as good\r\nas any, if not the best, in the town. In the winter, all water which is\r\nexposed to the air is colder than springs and wells which are protected\r\nfrom it. The temperature of the pond water which had stood in the room\r\nwhere I sat from five o'clock in the afternoon till noon the next day,\r\nthe sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer having been up to 65\u00ba or 70\u00ba\r\nsome of the time, owing partly to the sun on the roof, was 42\u00ba, or one\r\ndegree colder than the water of one of the coldest wells in the village\r\njust drawn. The temperature of the Boiling Spring the same day was 45\u00ba,\r\nor the warmest of any water tried, though it is the coldest that I know\r\nof in summer, when, beside, shallow and stagnant surface water is not\r\nmingled with it. Moreover, in summer, Walden never becomes so warm as\r\nmost water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth. In the\r\nwarmest weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar, where it\r\nbecame cool in the night, and remained so during the day; though I also\r\nresorted to a spring in the neighborhood. It was as good when a week old\r\nas the day it was dipped, and had no taste of the pump. Whoever camps\r\nfor a week in summer by the shore of a pond, needs only bury a pail of\r\nwater a few feet deep in the shade of his camp to be independent of the\r\nluxury of ice.\r\n\r\nThere have been caught in Walden pickerel, one weighing seven pounds--to\r\nsay nothing of another which carried off a reel with great velocity,\r\nwhich the fisherman safely set down at eight pounds because he did\r\nnot see him--perch and pouts, some of each weighing over two pounds,\r\nshiners, chivins or roach (_Leuciscus pulchellus_), a very few breams, and\r\na couple of eels, one weighing four pounds--I am thus particular because\r\nthe weight of a fish is commonly its only title to fame, and these are\r\nthe only eels I have heard of here;--also, I have a faint recollection\r\nof a little fish some five inches long, with silvery sides and a\r\ngreenish back, somewhat dace-like in its character, which I mention here\r\nchiefly to link my facts to fable. Nevertheless, this pond is not very\r\nfertile in fish. Its pickerel, though not abundant, are its chief boast.\r\nI have seen at one time lying on the ice pickerel of at least three\r\ndifferent kinds: a long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those\r\ncaught in the river; a bright golden kind, with greenish reflections\r\nand remarkably deep, which is the most common here; and another,\r\ngolden-colored, and shaped like the last, but peppered on the sides with\r\nsmall dark brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint blood-red\r\nones, very much like a trout. The specific name _reticulatus_ would not\r\napply to this; it should be _guttatus_ rather. These are all very firm\r\nfish, and weigh more than their size promises. The shiners, pouts, and\r\nperch also, and indeed all the fishes which inhabit this pond, are much\r\ncleaner, handsomer, and firmer-fleshed than those in the river and most\r\nother ponds, as the water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished\r\nfrom them. Probably many ichthyologists would make new varieties of some\r\nof them. There are also a clean race of frogs and tortoises, and a\r\nfew mussels in it; muskrats and minks leave their traces about it, and\r\noccasionally a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I pushed\r\noff my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle which had\r\nsecreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent\r\nit in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (_Hirundo bicolor_)\r\nskim over it, and the peetweets (_Totanus macularius_) \"teeter\" along its\r\nstony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting\r\non a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by\r\nthe wind of a gull, like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual\r\nloon. These are all the animals of consequence which frequent it now.\r\n\r\nYou may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy eastern shore,\r\nwhere the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also in some other parts\r\nof the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot\r\nin height, consisting of small stones less than a hen's egg in size,\r\nwhere all around is bare sand. At first you wonder if the Indians\r\ncould have formed them on the ice for any purpose, and so, when the ice\r\nmelted, they sank to the bottom; but they are too regular and some of\r\nthem plainly too fresh for that. They are similar to those found in\r\nrivers; but as there are no suckers nor lampreys here, I know not by\r\nwhat fish they could be made. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin.\r\nThese lend a pleasing mystery to the bottom.\r\n\r\nThe shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind's\r\neye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the\r\nbeautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes overlap\r\neach other and suggest unexplored coves between. The forest has never\r\nso good a setting, nor is so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the\r\nmiddle of a small lake amid hills which rise from the water's edge; for\r\nthe water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in\r\nsuch a case, but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable\r\nboundary to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there,\r\nas where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it.\r\nThe trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each sends\r\nforth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There Nature has woven\r\na natural selvage, and the eye rises by just gradations from the low\r\nshrubs of the shore to the highest trees. There are few traces of man's\r\nhand to be seen. The water laves the shore as it did a thousand years\r\nago.\r\n\r\nA lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is\r\nearth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of\r\nhis own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender\r\neyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are\r\nits overhanging brows.\r\n\r\nStanding on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond, in\r\na calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite\r\nshore-line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, \"the\r\nglassy surface of a lake.\" When you invert your head, it looks like\r\na thread of finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and gleaming\r\nagainst the distant pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere\r\nfrom another. You would think that you could walk dry under it to the\r\nopposite hills, and that the swallows which skim over might perch on it.\r\nIndeed, they sometimes dive below this line, as it were by mistake, and\r\nare undeceived. As you look over the pond westward you are obliged to\r\nemploy both your hands to defend your eyes against the reflected as well\r\nas the true sun, for they are equally bright; and if, between the two,\r\nyou survey its surface critically, it is literally as smooth as glass,\r\nexcept where the skater insects, at equal intervals scattered over its\r\nwhole extent, by their motions in the sun produce the finest imaginable\r\nsparkle on it, or, perchance, a duck plumes itself, or, as I have said,\r\na swallow skims so low as to touch it. It may be that in the distance a\r\nfish describes an arc of three or four feet in the air, and there is one\r\nbright flash where it emerges, and another where it strikes the water;\r\nsometimes the whole silvery arc is revealed; or here and there, perhaps,\r\nis a thistle-down floating on its surface, which the fishes dart at and\r\nso dimple it again. It is like molten glass cooled but not congealed,\r\nand the few motes in it are pure and beautiful like the imperfections in\r\nglass. You may often detect a yet smoother and darker water, separated\r\nfrom the rest as if by an invisible cobweb, boom of the water nymphs,\r\nresting on it. From a hilltop you can see a fish leap in almost any\r\npart; for not a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth\r\nsurface but it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake.\r\nIt is wonderful with what elaborateness this simple fact is\r\nadvertised--this piscine murder will out--and from my distant perch I\r\ndistinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods\r\nin diameter. You can even detect a water-bug (_Gyrinus_) ceaselessly\r\nprogressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off; for they\r\nfurrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded by two\r\ndiverging lines, but the skaters glide over it without rippling it\r\nperceptibly. When the surface is considerably agitated there are no\r\nskaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparently, in calm days, they leave\r\ntheir havens and adventurously glide forth from the shore by short\r\nimpulses till they completely cover it. It is a soothing employment,\r\non one of those fine days in the fall when all the warmth of the sun\r\nis fully appreciated, to sit on a stump on such a height as this,\r\noverlooking the pond, and study the dimpling circles which are\r\nincessantly inscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the\r\nreflected skies and trees. Over this great expanse there is no\r\ndisturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged,\r\nas, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling circles seek the shore\r\nand all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on the\r\npond but it is thus reported in circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as\r\nit were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of\r\nits life, the heaving of its breast. The thrills of joy and thrills\r\nof pain are undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the lake!\r\nAgain the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, every leaf and twig\r\nand stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered with\r\ndew in a spring morning. Every motion of an oar or an insect produces a\r\nflash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo!\r\n\r\nIn such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect forest\r\nmirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or\r\nrarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a\r\nlake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water. It needs\r\nno fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which\r\nno stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding\r\nNature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever\r\nfresh;--a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and\r\ndusted by the sun's hazy brush--this the light dust-cloth--which retains\r\nno breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds\r\nhigh above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.\r\n\r\nA field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is\r\ncontinually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate\r\nin its nature between land and sky. On land only the grass and trees\r\nwave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the\r\nbreeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of light. It is\r\nremarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps,\r\nlook down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still\r\nsubtler spirit sweeps over it.\r\n\r\nThe skaters and water-bugs finally disappear in the latter part of\r\nOctober, when the severe frosts have come; and then and in November,\r\nusually, in a calm day, there is absolutely nothing to ripple the\r\nsurface. One November afternoon, in the calm at the end of a rain-storm\r\nof several days' duration, when the sky was still completely overcast\r\nand the air was full of mist, I observed that the pond was remarkably\r\nsmooth, so that it was difficult to distinguish its surface; though it\r\nno longer reflected the bright tints of October, but the sombre November\r\ncolors of the surrounding hills. Though I passed over it as gently as\r\npossible, the slight undulations produced by my boat extended almost\r\nas far as I could see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflections.\r\nBut, as I was looking over the surface, I saw here and there at a\r\ndistance a faint glimmer, as if some skater insects which had escaped\r\nthe frosts might be collected there, or, perchance, the surface, being\r\nso smooth, betrayed where a spring welled up from the bottom. Paddling\r\ngently to one of these places, I was surprised to find myself surrounded\r\nby myriads of small perch, about five inches long, of a rich bronze\r\ncolor in the green water, sporting there, and constantly rising to\r\nthe surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving bubbles on it. In such\r\ntransparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting the clouds,\r\nI seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon, and their\r\nswimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as if they were\r\na compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level on the right or\r\nleft, their fins, like sails, set all around them. There were many such\r\nschools in the pond, apparently improving the short season before winter\r\nwould draw an icy shutter over their broad skylight, sometimes giving\r\nto the surface an appearance as if a slight breeze struck it, or a few\r\nrain-drops fell there. When I approached carelessly and alarmed them,\r\nthey made a sudden splash and rippling with their tails, as if one had\r\nstruck the water with a brushy bough, and instantly took refuge in the\r\ndepths. At length the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves began\r\nto run, and the perch leaped much higher than before, half out of water,\r\na hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface.\r\nEven as late as the fifth of December, one year, I saw some dimples on\r\nthe surface, and thinking it was going to rain hard immediately, the\r\nair being full of mist, I made haste to take my place at the oars and row\r\nhomeward; already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though I felt\r\nnone on my cheek, and I anticipated a thorough soaking. But suddenly the\r\ndimples ceased, for they were produced by the perch, which the noise\r\nof my oars had seared into the depths, and I saw their schools dimly\r\ndisappearing; so I spent a dry afternoon after all.\r\n\r\nAn old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years ago, when\r\nit was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that in those days he\r\nsometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other water-fowl, and that\r\nthere were many eagles about it. He came here a-fishing, and used an\r\nold log canoe which he found on the shore. It was made of two white pine\r\nlogs dug out and pinned together, and was cut off square at the ends.\r\nIt was very clumsy, but lasted a great many years before it became\r\nwater-logged and perhaps sank to the bottom. He did not know whose it\r\nwas; it belonged to the pond. He used to make a cable for his anchor of\r\nstrips of hickory bark tied together. An old man, a potter, who lived\r\nby the pond before the Revolution, told him once that there was an iron\r\nchest at the bottom, and that he had seen it. Sometimes it would come\r\nfloating up to the shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back\r\ninto deep water and disappear. I was pleased to hear of the old log\r\ncanoe, which took the place of an Indian one of the same material but\r\nmore graceful construction, which perchance had first been a tree on the\r\nbank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to float there for a\r\ngeneration, the most proper vessel for the lake. I remember that when I\r\nfirst looked into these depths there were many large trunks to be seen\r\nindistinctly lying on the bottom, which had either been blown over\r\nformerly, or left on the ice at the last cutting, when wood was cheaper;\r\nbut now they have mostly disappeared.\r\n\r\nWhen I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by\r\nthick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its coves grape-vines\r\nhad run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a\r\nboat could pass. The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the\r\nwoods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from the west\r\nend, it had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some land of sylvan\r\nspectacle. I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over\r\nits surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle,\r\nand lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming\r\nawake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to\r\nsee what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the\r\nmost attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen\r\naway, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I\r\nwas rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent\r\nthem lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in\r\nthe workshop or the teacher's desk. But since I left those shores the\r\nwoodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a\r\nyear there will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood,\r\nwith occasional vistas through which you see the water. My Muse may be\r\nexcused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to\r\nsing when their groves are cut down?\r\n\r\nNow the trunks of trees on the bottom, and the old log canoe, and the\r\ndark surrounding woods, are gone, and the villagers, who scarcely know\r\nwhere it lies, instead of going to the pond to bathe or drink, are\r\nthinking to bring its water, which should be as sacred as the Ganges\r\nat least, to the village in a pipe, to wash their dishes with!--to\r\nearn their Walden by the turning of a cock or drawing of a plug! That\r\ndevilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the\r\ntown, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that\r\nhas browsed off all the woods on Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a\r\nthousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the\r\ncountry's champion, the Moore of Moore Hill, to meet him at the Deep Cut\r\nand thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?\r\n\r\nNevertheless, of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden wears\r\nbest, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been likened to it,\r\nbut few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have laid bare first\r\nthis shore and then that, and the Irish have built their sties by it,\r\nand the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have\r\nskimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which my\r\nyouthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me. It has not acquired one\r\npermanent wrinkle after all its ripples. It is perennially young, and\r\nI may stand and see a swallow dip apparently to pick an insect from its\r\nsurface as of yore. It struck me again tonight, as if I had not seen it\r\nalmost daily for more than twenty years--Why, here is Walden, the same\r\nwoodland lake that I discovered so many years ago; where a forest was\r\ncut down last winter another is springing up by its shore as lustily as\r\never; the same thought is welling up to its surface that was then; it\r\nis the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its Maker, ay, and it\r\nmay be to me. It is the work of a brave man surely, in whom there was no\r\nguile! He rounded this water with his hand, deepened and clarified it in\r\nhis thought, and in his will bequeathed it to Concord. I see by its face\r\nthat it is visited by the same reflection; and I can almost say, Walden,\r\nis it you?\r\n\r\n              It is no dream of mine,\r\n              To ornament a line;\r\n              I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven\r\n              Than I live to Walden even.\r\n              I am its stony shore,\r\n              And the breeze that passes o'er;\r\n              In the hollow of my hand\r\n              Are its water and its sand,\r\n              And its deepest resort\r\n              Lies high in my thought.\r\n\r\nThe cars never pause to look at it; yet I fancy that the engineers and\r\nfiremen and brakemen, and those passengers who have a season ticket and\r\nsee it often, are better men for the sight. The engineer does not forget\r\nat night, or his nature does not, that he has beheld this vision of\r\nserenity and purity once at least during the day. Though seen but once,\r\nit helps to wash out State Street and the engine's soot. One proposes\r\nthat it be called \"God's Drop.\"\r\n\r\nI have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is on\r\nthe one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond, which is\r\nmore elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and\r\non the other directly and manifestly to Concord River, which is lower,\r\nby a similar chain of ponds through which in some other geological\r\nperiod it may have flowed, and by a little digging, which God forbid,\r\nit can be made to flow thither again. If by living thus reserved and\r\naustere, like a hermit in the woods, so long, it has acquired such\r\nwonderful purity, who would not regret that the comparatively impure\r\nwaters of Flint's Pond should be mingled with it, or itself should ever\r\ngo to waste its sweetness in the ocean wave?\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nFlint's, or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest lake and inland sea,\r\nlies about a mile east of Walden. It is much larger, being said to\r\ncontain one hundred and ninety-seven acres, and is more fertile in fish;\r\nbut it is comparatively shallow, and not remarkably pure. A walk through\r\nthe woods thither was often my recreation. It was worth the while, if\r\nonly to feel the wind blow on your cheek freely, and see the waves run,\r\nand remember the life of mariners. I went a-chestnutting there in the\r\nfall, on windy days, when the nuts were dropping into the water and were\r\nwashed to my feet; and one day, as I crept along its sedgy shore, the\r\nfresh spray blowing in my face, I came upon the mouldering wreck of a\r\nboat, the sides gone, and hardly more than the impression of its flat\r\nbottom left amid the rushes; yet its model was sharply defined, as if it\r\nwere a large decayed pad, with its veins. It was as impressive a wreck\r\nas one could imagine on the seashore, and had as good a moral. It is by\r\nthis time mere vegetable mould and undistinguishable pond shore, through\r\nwhich rushes and flags have pushed up. I used to admire the ripple marks\r\non the sandy bottom, at the north end of this pond, made firm and hard\r\nto the feet of the wader by the pressure of the water, and the rushes\r\nwhich grew in Indian file, in waving lines, corresponding to these\r\nmarks, rank behind rank, as if the waves had planted them. There also\r\nI have found, in considerable quantities, curious balls, composed\r\napparently of fine grass or roots, of pipewort perhaps, from half an\r\ninch to four inches in diameter, and perfectly spherical. These wash\r\nback and forth in shallow water on a sandy bottom, and are sometimes\r\ncast on the shore. They are either solid grass, or have a little sand in\r\nthe middle. At first you would say that they were formed by the action\r\nof the waves, like a pebble; yet the smallest are made of equally coarse\r\nmaterials, half an inch long, and they are produced only at one season\r\nof the year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much construct\r\nas wear down a material which has already acquired consistency. They\r\npreserve their form when dry for an indefinite period.\r\n\r\n_Flint's Pond!_ Such is the poverty of our nomenclature. What right had\r\nthe unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm abutted on this sky water,\r\nwhose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his name to it? Some\r\nskin-flint, who loved better the reflecting surface of a dollar, or a\r\nbright cent, in which he could see his own brazen face; who regarded\r\neven the wild ducks which settled in it as trespassers; his fingers\r\ngrown into crooked and bony talons from the long habit of grasping\r\nharpy-like;--so it is not named for me. I go not there to see him nor to\r\nhear of him; who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved\r\nit, who never protected it, who never spoke a good word for it, nor\r\nthanked God that He had made it. Rather let it be named from the fishes\r\nthat swim in it, the wild fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild\r\nflowers which grow by its shores, or some wild man or child the thread\r\nof whose history is interwoven with its own; not from him who could show\r\nno title to it but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legislature\r\ngave him--him who thought only of its money value; whose presence\r\nperchance cursed all the shores; who exhausted the land around it, and\r\nwould fain have exhausted the waters within it; who regretted only that\r\nit was not English hay or cranberry meadow--there was nothing to redeem\r\nit, forsooth, in his eyes--and would have drained and sold it for the\r\nmud at its bottom. It did not turn his mill, and it was no _privilege_ to\r\nhim to behold it. I respect not his labors, his farm where everything\r\nhas its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God,\r\nto market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market _for_ his\r\ngod as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no\r\ncrops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars; who\r\nloves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him\r\ntill they are turned to dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true\r\nwealth. Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as\r\nthey are poor--poor farmers. A model farm! where the house stands like a\r\nfungus in a muckheap, chambers for men, horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed\r\nand uncleansed, all contiguous to one another! Stocked with men! A great\r\ngrease-spot, redolent of manures and buttermilk! Under a high state of\r\ncultivation, being manured with the hearts and brains of men! As if you\r\nwere to raise your potatoes in the churchyard! Such is a model farm.\r\n\r\nNo, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after\r\nmen, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. Let our lakes\r\nreceive as true names at least as the Icarian Sea, where \"still the\r\nshore\" a \"brave attempt resounds.\"\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nGoose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to Flint's; Fair Haven, an\r\nexpansion of Concord River, said to contain some seventy acres, is a\r\nmile southwest; and White Pond, of about forty acres, is a mile and a\r\nhalf beyond Fair Haven. This is my lake country. These, with Concord\r\nRiver, are my water privileges; and night and day, year in year out,\r\nthey grind such grist as I carry to them.\r\n\r\nSince the wood-cutters, and the railroad, and I myself have profaned\r\nWalden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most beautiful, of all\r\nour lakes, the gem of the woods, is White Pond;--a poor name from its\r\ncommonness, whether derived from the remarkable purity of its waters or\r\nthe color of its sands. In these as in other respects, however, it is\r\na lesser twin of Walden. They are so much alike that you would say they\r\nmust be connected under ground. It has the same stony shore, and its\r\nwaters are of the same hue. As at Walden, in sultry dog-day weather,\r\nlooking down through the woods on some of its bays which are not so deep\r\nbut that the reflection from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of\r\na misty bluish-green or glaucous color. Many years since I used to go\r\nthere to collect the sand by cartloads, to make sandpaper with, and I\r\nhave continued to visit it ever since. One who frequents it proposes to\r\ncall it Virid Lake. Perhaps it might be called Yellow Pine Lake, from\r\nthe following circumstance. About fifteen years ago you could see the\r\ntop of a pitch pine, of the kind called yellow pine hereabouts, though\r\nit is not a distinct species, projecting above the surface in deep\r\nwater, many rods from the shore. It was even supposed by some that the\r\npond had sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest that formerly\r\nstood there. I find that even so long ago as 1792, in a \"Topographical\r\nDescription of the Town of Concord,\" by one of its citizens, in the\r\nCollections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the author, after\r\nspeaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds, \"In the middle of the latter\r\nmay be seen, when the water is very low, a tree which appears as if it\r\ngrew in the place where it now stands, although the roots are fifty feet\r\nbelow the surface of the water; the top of this tree is broken off, and\r\nat that place measures fourteen inches in diameter.\" In the spring of\r\n'49 I talked with the man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who\r\ntold me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years\r\nbefore. As near as he could remember, it stood twelve or fifteen rods\r\nfrom the shore, where the water was thirty or forty feet deep. It was\r\nin the winter, and he had been getting out ice in the forenoon, and had\r\nresolved that in the afternoon, with the aid of his neighbors, he would\r\ntake out the old yellow pine. He sawed a channel in the ice toward the\r\nshore, and hauled it over and along and out on to the ice with oxen;\r\nbut, before he had gone far in his work, he was surprised to find that\r\nit was wrong end upward, with the stumps of the branches pointing down,\r\nand the small end firmly fastened in the sandy bottom. It was about\r\na foot in diameter at the big end, and he had expected to get a good\r\nsaw-log, but it was so rotten as to be fit only for fuel, if for that.\r\nHe had some of it in his shed then. There were marks of an axe and of\r\nwoodpeckers on the butt. He thought that it might have been a dead tree\r\non the shore, but was finally blown over into the pond, and after the\r\ntop had become water-logged, while the butt-end was still dry and light,\r\nhad drifted out and sunk wrong end up. His father, eighty years old,\r\ncould not remember when it was not there. Several pretty large logs may\r\nstill be seen lying on the bottom, where, owing to the undulation of the\r\nsurface, they look like huge water snakes in motion.\r\n\r\nThis pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, for there is little in it\r\nto tempt a fisherman. Instead of the white lily, which requires mud, or\r\nthe common sweet flag, the blue flag (_Iris versicolor_) grows thinly in\r\nthe pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shore, where\r\nit is visited by hummingbirds in June; and the color both of its bluish\r\nblades and its flowers and especially their reflections, is in singular\r\nharmony with the glaucous water.\r\n\r\nWhite Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth,\r\nLakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough\r\nto be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like\r\nprecious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and\r\nample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them,\r\nand run after the diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a\r\nmarket value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our\r\nlives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We\r\nnever learned meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before the\r\nfarmer's door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come.\r\nNature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their\r\nplumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what\r\nyouth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She\r\nflourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of\r\nheaven! ye disgrace earth.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBaker Farm\r\n\r\n\r\nSometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like\r\nfleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with light,\r\nso soft and green and shady that the Druids would have forsaken their\r\noaks to worship in them; or to the cedar wood beyond Flint's Pond, where\r\nthe trees, covered with hoary blue berries, spiring higher and higher,\r\nare fit to stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the\r\nground with wreaths full of fruit; or to swamps where the usnea lichen\r\nhangs in festoons from the white spruce trees, and toadstools, round\r\ntables of the swamp gods, cover the ground, and more beautiful fungi\r\nadorn the stumps, like butterflies or shells, vegetable winkles; where\r\nthe swamp-pink and dogwood grow, the red alderberry glows like eyes of\r\nimps, the waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds,\r\nand the wild holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their\r\nbeauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild forbidden\r\nfruits, too fair for mortal taste. Instead of calling on some scholar,\r\nI paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in this\r\nneighborhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the\r\ndepths of a wood or swamp, or on a hilltop; such as the black birch, of\r\nwhich we have some handsome specimens two feet in diameter; its cousin,\r\nthe yellow birch, with its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first;\r\nthe beech, which has so neat a bole and beautifully lichen-painted,\r\nperfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, I\r\nknow but one small grove of sizable trees left in the township, supposed\r\nby some to have been planted by the pigeons that were once baited with\r\nbeechnuts near by; it is worth the while to see the silver grain\r\nsparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam; the _Celtis\r\noccidentalis_, or false elm, of which we have but one well-grown; some\r\ntaller mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect hemlock than\r\nusual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods; and many\r\nothers I could mention. These were the shrines I visited both summer and\r\nwinter.\r\n\r\nOnce it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbow's arch,\r\nwhich filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the grass and\r\nleaves around, and dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal.\r\nIt was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a short while, I lived\r\nlike a dolphin. If it had lasted longer it might have tinged my\r\nemployments and life. As I walked on the railroad causeway, I used\r\nto wonder at the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain fancy\r\nmyself one of the elect. One who visited me declared that the shadows\r\nof some Irishmen before him had no halo about them, that it was only\r\nnatives that were so distinguished. Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his\r\nmemoirs, that, after a certain terrible dream or vision which he had\r\nduring his confinement in the castle of St. Angelo a resplendent light\r\nappeared over the shadow of his head at morning and evening, whether\r\nhe was in Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous when the\r\ngrass was moist with dew. This was probably the same phenomenon to which\r\nI have referred, which is especially observed in the morning, but also\r\nat other times, and even by moonlight. Though a constant one, it is\r\nnot commonly noticed, and, in the case of an excitable imagination like\r\nCellini's, it would be basis enough for superstition. Beside, he tells\r\nus that he showed it to very few. But are they not indeed distinguished\r\nwho are conscious that they are regarded at all?\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nI set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair Haven, through the\r\nwoods, to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. My way led through\r\nPleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the Baker Farm, that retreat of which a\r\npoet has since sung, beginning,--\r\n\r\n               \"Thy entry is a pleasant field,\r\n                Which some mossy fruit trees yield\r\n                Partly to a ruddy brook,\r\n                By gliding musquash undertook,\r\n                And mercurial trout,\r\n                Darting about.\"\r\n\r\nI thought of living there before I went to Walden. I \"hooked\" the\r\napples, leaped the brook, and scared the musquash and the trout. It\r\nwas one of those afternoons which seem indefinitely long before one,\r\nin which many events may happen, a large portion of our natural life,\r\nthough it was already half spent when I started. By the way there came\r\nup a shower, which compelled me to stand half an hour under a pine,\r\npiling boughs over my head, and wearing my handkerchief for a shed; and\r\nwhen at length I had made one cast over the pickerelweed, standing up\r\nto my middle in water, I found myself suddenly in the shadow of a cloud,\r\nand the thunder began to rumble with such emphasis that I could do no\r\nmore than listen to it. The gods must be proud, thought I, with such\r\nforked flashes to rout a poor unarmed fisherman. So I made haste for\r\nshelter to the nearest hut, which stood half a mile from any road, but\r\nso much the nearer to the pond, and had long been uninhabited:--\r\n\r\n                 \"And here a poet builded,\r\n                     In the completed years,\r\n                  For behold a trivial cabin\r\n                     That to destruction steers.\"\r\n\r\nSo the Muse fables. But therein, as I found, dwelt now John Field, an\r\nIrishman, and his wife, and several children, from the broad-faced boy\r\nwho assisted his father at his work, and now came running by his\r\nside from the bog to escape the rain, to the wrinkled, sibyl-like,\r\ncone-headed infant that sat upon its father's knee as in the palaces\r\nof nobles, and looked out from its home in the midst of wet and hunger\r\ninquisitively upon the stranger, with the privilege of infancy, not\r\nknowing but it was the last of a noble line, and the hope and cynosure\r\nof the world, instead of John Field's poor starveling brat. There we sat\r\ntogether under that part of the roof which leaked the least, while it\r\nshowered and thundered without. I had sat there many times of old\r\nbefore the ship was built that floated his family to America. An honest,\r\nhard-working, but shiftless man plainly was John Field; and his wife,\r\nshe too was brave to cook so many successive dinners in the recesses of\r\nthat lofty stove; with round greasy face and bare breast, still thinking\r\nto improve her condition one day; with the never absent mop in one hand,\r\nand yet no effects of it visible anywhere. The chickens, which had also\r\ntaken shelter here from the rain, stalked about the room like members\r\nof the family, too humanized, methought, to roast well. They stood and\r\nlooked in my eye or pecked at my shoe significantly. Meanwhile my\r\nhost told me his story, how hard he worked \"bogging\" for a neighboring\r\nfarmer, turning up a meadow with a spade or bog hoe at the rate of ten\r\ndollars an acre and the use of the land with manure for one year, and\r\nhis little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his father's side the\r\nwhile, not knowing how poor a bargain the latter had made. I tried to\r\nhelp him with my experience, telling him that he was one of my nearest\r\nneighbors, and that I too, who came a-fishing here, and looked like a\r\nloafer, was getting my living like himself; that I lived in a tight,\r\nlight, and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of\r\nsuch a ruin as his commonly amounts to; and how, if he chose, he might\r\nin a month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use\r\ntea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not\r\nhave to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did not have\r\nto eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food; but as he began\r\nwith tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work\r\nhard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had to eat hard\r\nagain to repair the waste of his system--and so it was as broad as\r\nit was long, indeed it was broader than it was long, for he was\r\ndiscontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated\r\nit as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and\r\ncoffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country\r\nwhere you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you\r\nto do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel\r\nyou to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses\r\nwhich directly or indirectly result from the use of such things. For I\r\npurposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be\r\none. I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a\r\nwild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning to redeem\r\nthemselves. A man will not need to study history to find out what is\r\nbest for his own culture. But alas! the culture of an Irishman is an\r\nenterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. I told him,\r\nthat as he worked so hard at bogging, he required thick boots and stout\r\nclothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out, but I wore light\r\nshoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much, though he might\r\nthink that I was dressed like a gentleman (which, however, was not the\r\ncase), and in an hour or two, without labor, but as a recreation, I\r\ncould, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should want for two days, or\r\nearn enough money to support me a week. If he and his family would\r\nlive simply, they might all go a-huckleberrying in the summer for their\r\namusement. John heaved a sigh at this, and his wife stared with arms\r\na-kimbo, and both appeared to be wondering if they had capital enough to\r\nbegin such a course with, or arithmetic enough to carry it through. It\r\nwas sailing by dead reckoning to them, and they saw not clearly how to\r\nmake their port so; therefore I suppose they still take life bravely,\r\nafter their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having\r\nskill to split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge, and\r\nrout it in detail;--thinking to deal with it roughly, as one\r\nshould handle a thistle. But they fight at an overwhelming\r\ndisadvantage--living, John Field, alas! without arithmetic, and failing\r\nso.\r\n\r\n\"Do you ever fish?\" I asked. \"Oh yes, I catch a mess now and then when\r\nI am lying by; good perch I catch.\"--\"What's your bait?\" \"I catch shiners\r\nwith fishworms, and bait the perch with them.\" \"You'd better go now,\r\nJohn,\" said his wife, with glistening and hopeful face; but John\r\ndemurred.\r\n\r\nThe shower was now over, and a rainbow above the eastern woods promised\r\na fair evening; so I took my departure. When I had got without I asked\r\nfor a drink, hoping to get a sight of the well bottom, to complete my\r\nsurvey of the premises; but there, alas! are shallows and quicksands,\r\nand rope broken withal, and bucket irrecoverable. Meanwhile the right\r\nculinary vessel was selected, water was seemingly distilled, and after\r\nconsultation and long delay passed out to the thirsty one--not yet\r\nsuffered to cool, not yet to settle. Such gruel sustains life here, I\r\nthought; so, shutting my eyes, and excluding the motes by a skilfully\r\ndirected undercurrent, I drank to genuine hospitality the heartiest\r\ndraught I could. I am not squeamish in such cases when manners are\r\nconcerned.\r\n\r\nAs I was leaving the Irishman's roof after the rain, bending my steps\r\nagain to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel, wading in retired\r\nmeadows, in sloughs and bog-holes, in forlorn and savage places,\r\nappeared for an instant trivial to me who had been sent to school and\r\ncollege; but as I ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the\r\nrainbow over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear\r\nthrough the cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good Genius\r\nseemed to say--Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day--farther and\r\nwider--and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving.\r\nRemember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care\r\nbefore the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other\r\nlakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no\r\nlarger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.\r\nGrow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which\r\nwill never become English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it\r\nthreaten ruin to farmers' crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take\r\nshelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not\r\nto get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it\r\nnot. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying\r\nand selling, and spending their lives like serfs.\r\n\r\nO Baker Farm!\r\n\r\n               \"Landscape where the richest element\r\n                Is a little sunshine innocent.\"...\r\n\r\n               \"No one runs to revel\r\n                On thy rail-fenced lea.\"...\r\n\r\n               \"Debate with no man hast thou,\r\n                   With questions art never perplexed,\r\n                As tame at the first sight as now,\r\n                   In thy plain russet gabardine dressed.\"...\r\n\r\n               \"Come ye who love,\r\n                   And ye who hate,\r\n                Children of the Holy Dove,\r\n                   And Guy Faux of the state,\r\n                And hang conspiracies\r\n                From the tough rafters of the trees!\"\r\n\r\nMen come tamely home at night only from the next field or street, where\r\ntheir household echoes haunt, and their life pines because it breathes\r\nits own breath over again; their shadows, morning and evening, reach\r\nfarther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from\r\nadventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience\r\nand character.\r\n\r\nBefore I had reached the pond some fresh impulse had brought out John\r\nField, with altered mind, letting go \"bogging\" ere this sunset. But he,\r\npoor man, disturbed only a couple of fins while I was catching a fair\r\nstring, and he said it was his luck; but when we changed seats in the\r\nboat luck changed seats too. Poor John Field!--I trust he does not read\r\nthis, unless he will improve by it--thinking to live by some derivative\r\nold-country mode in this primitive new country--to catch perch with\r\nshiners. It is good bait sometimes, I allow. With his horizon all\r\nhis own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish\r\npoverty or poor life, his Adam's grandmother and boggy ways, not to\r\nrise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed\r\nbog-trotting feet get _talaria_ to their heels.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nHigher Laws\r\n\r\n\r\nAs I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing\r\nmy pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck\r\nstealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight,\r\nand was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was\r\nhungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. Once or\r\ntwice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the\r\nwoods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking\r\nsome kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been\r\ntoo savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar.\r\nI found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or,\r\nas it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a\r\nprimitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the\r\nwild not less than the good. The wildness and adventure that are in\r\nfishing still recommended it to me. I like sometimes to take rank hold\r\non life and spend my day more as the animals do. Perhaps I have owed\r\nto this employment and to hunting, when quite young, my closest\r\nacquaintance with Nature. They early introduce us to and detain us\r\nin scenery with which otherwise, at that age, we should have little\r\nacquaintance. Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending\r\ntheir lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of\r\nNature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her,\r\nin the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who\r\napproach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to\r\nthem. The traveller on the prairie is naturally a hunter, on the head\r\nwaters of the Missouri and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of\r\nSt. Mary a fisherman. He who is only a traveller learns things at\r\nsecond-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most\r\ninterested when science reports what those men already know practically\r\nor instinctively, for that alone is a true _humanity_, or account of human\r\nexperience.\r\n\r\nThey mistake who assert that the Yankee has few amusements, because he\r\nhas not so many public holidays, and men and boys do not play so many\r\ngames as they do in England, for here the more primitive but solitary\r\namusements of hunting, fishing, and the like have not yet given place\r\nto the former. Almost every New England boy among my contemporaries\r\nshouldered a fowling-piece between the ages of ten and fourteen; and his\r\nhunting and fishing grounds were not limited, like the preserves of an\r\nEnglish nobleman, but were more boundless even than those of a savage.\r\nNo wonder, then, that he did not oftener stay to play on the common. But\r\nalready a change is taking place, owing, not to an increased humanity,\r\nbut to an increased scarcity of game, for perhaps the hunter is the\r\ngreatest friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society.\r\n\r\nMoreover, when at the pond, I wished sometimes to add fish to my fare\r\nfor variety. I have actually fished from the same kind of necessity that\r\nthe first fishers did. Whatever humanity I might conjure up against it\r\nwas all factitious, and concerned my philosophy more than my feelings.\r\nI speak of fishing only now, for I had long felt differently about\r\nfowling, and sold my gun before I went to the woods. Not that I am less\r\nhumane than others, but I did not perceive that my feelings were much\r\naffected. I did not pity the fishes nor the worms. This was habit. As\r\nfor fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was\r\nthat I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But\r\nI confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of\r\nstudying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention\r\nto the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been\r\nwilling to omit the gun. Yet notwithstanding the objection on the score\r\nof humanity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are\r\never substituted for these; and when some of my friends have asked me\r\nanxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have\r\nanswered, yes--remembering that it was one of the best parts of my\r\neducation--_make_ them hunters, though sportsmen only at first, if\r\npossible, mighty hunters at last, so that they shall not find game large\r\nenough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness--hunters as well as\r\nfishers of men. Thus far I am of the opinion of Chaucer's nun, who\r\n\r\n                 \"yave not of the text a pulled hen\r\n            That saith that hunters ben not holy men.\"\r\n\r\nThere is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when\r\nthe hunters are the \"best men,\" as the Algonquins called them. We cannot\r\nbut pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while\r\nhis education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect\r\nto those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would\r\nsoon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood,\r\nwill wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same\r\ntenure that he does. The hare in its extremity cries like a child.\r\nI warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual\r\nphil-_anthropic_ distinctions.\r\n\r\nSuch is oftenest the young man's introduction to the forest, and the\r\nmost original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and\r\nfisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he\r\ndistinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be,\r\nand leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and\r\nalways young in this respect. In some countries a hunting parson is no\r\nuncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far\r\nfrom being the Good Shepherd. I have been surprised to consider that the\r\nonly obvious employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the like\r\nbusiness, which ever to my knowledge detained at Walden Pond for a whole\r\nhalf-day any of my fellow-citizens, whether fathers or children of the\r\ntown, with just one exception, was fishing. Commonly they did not think\r\nthat they were lucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a\r\nlong string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond\r\nall the while. They might go there a thousand times before the sediment\r\nof fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure; but\r\nno doubt such a clarifying process would be going on all the while.\r\nThe Governor and his Council faintly remember the pond, for they went\r\na-fishing there when they were boys; but now they are too old and\r\ndignified to go a-fishing, and so they know it no more forever. Yet even\r\nthey expect to go to heaven at last. If the legislature regards it, it\r\nis chiefly to regulate the number of hooks to be used there; but they\r\nknow nothing about the hook of hooks with which to angle for the pond\r\nitself, impaling the legislature for a bait. Thus, even in civilized\r\ncommunities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of\r\ndevelopment.\r\n\r\nI have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without\r\nfalling a little in self-respect. I have tried it again and again. I\r\nhave skill at it, and, like many of my fellows, a certain instinct for\r\nit, which revives from time to time, but always when I have done I feel\r\nthat it would have been better if I had not fished. I think that I do\r\nnot mistake. It is a faint intimation, yet so are the first streaks of\r\nmorning. There is unquestionably this instinct in me which belongs to\r\nthe lower orders of creation; yet with every year I am less a fisherman,\r\nthough without more humanity or even wisdom; at present I am no\r\nfisherman at all. But I see that if I were to live in a wilderness\r\nI should again be tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest.\r\nBeside, there is something essentially unclean about this diet and all\r\nflesh, and I began to see where housework commences, and whence the\r\nendeavor, which costs so much, to wear a tidy and respectable appearance\r\neach day, to keep the house sweet and free from all ill odors and\r\nsights. Having been my own butcher and scullion and cook, as well as\r\nthe gentleman for whom the dishes were served up, I can speak from an\r\nunusually complete experience. The practical objection to animal food in\r\nmy case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and\r\ncleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me\r\nessentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it\r\ncame to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with\r\nless trouble and filth. Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely\r\nfor many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, etc.; not so much\r\nbecause of any ill effects which I had traced to them, as because they\r\nwere not agreeable to my imagination. The repugnance to animal food\r\nis not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more\r\nbeautiful to live low and fare hard in many respects; and though I never\r\ndid so, I went far enough to please my imagination. I believe that every\r\nman who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties\r\nin the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from\r\nanimal food, and from much food of any kind. It is a significant fact,\r\nstated by entomologists--I find it in Kirby and Spence--that \"some\r\ninsects in their perfect state, though furnished with organs of feeding,\r\nmake no use of them\"; and they lay it down as \"a general rule, that\r\nalmost all insects in this state eat much less than in that of larv\u00e6.\r\nThe voracious caterpillar when transformed into a butterfly... and the\r\ngluttonous maggot when become a fly\" content themselves with a drop or\r\ntwo of honey or some other sweet liquid. The abdomen under the wings\r\nof the butterfly still represents the larva. This is the tidbit which\r\ntempts his insectivorous fate. The gross feeder is a man in the larva\r\nstate; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without\r\nfancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.\r\n\r\nIt is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not\r\noffend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the\r\nbody; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may\r\nbe done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of\r\nour appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra\r\ncondiment into your dish, and it will poison you. It is not worth the\r\nwhile to live by rich cookery. Most men would feel shame if caught\r\npreparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of\r\nanimal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others.\r\nYet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and\r\nladies, are not true men and women. This certainly suggests what change\r\nis to be made. It may be vain to ask why the imagination will not be\r\nreconciled to flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a\r\nreproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live,\r\nin a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable\r\nway--as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs,\r\nmay learn--and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall\r\nteach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet.\r\nWhatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of\r\nthe destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off\r\neating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each\r\nother when they came in contact with the more civilized.\r\n\r\nIf one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius,\r\nwhich are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even\r\ninsanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more resolute\r\nand faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured objection which one\r\nhealthy man feels will at length prevail over the arguments and customs\r\nof mankind. No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though\r\nthe result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the\r\nconsequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity\r\nto higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet\r\nthem with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented\r\nherbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your\r\nsuccess. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause\r\nmomentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are\r\nfarthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist.\r\nWe soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts\r\nmost astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.\r\nThe true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and\r\nindescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little\r\nstar-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.\r\n\r\nYet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat\r\na fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. I am glad to have\r\ndrunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky\r\nto an opium-eater's heaven. I would fain keep sober always; and there\r\nare infinite degrees of drunkenness. I believe that water is the only\r\ndrink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of\r\ndashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an\r\nevening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by\r\nthem! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes\r\ndestroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of all\r\nebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?\r\nI have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long\r\ncontinued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also. But\r\nto tell the truth, I find myself at present somewhat less particular in\r\nthese respects. I carry less religion to the table, ask no blessing; not\r\nbecause I am wiser than I was, but, I am obliged to confess, because,\r\nhowever much it is to be regretted, with years I have grown more coarse\r\nand indifferent. Perhaps these questions are entertained only in youth,\r\nas most believe of poetry. My practice is \"nowhere,\" my opinion is here.\r\nNevertheless I am far from regarding myself as one of those privileged\r\nones to whom the Ved refers when it says, that \"he who has true faith in\r\nthe Omnipresent Supreme Being may eat all that exists,\" that is, is not\r\nbound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it; and even in their\r\ncase it is to be observed, as a Hindoo commentator has remarked, that\r\nthe Vedant limits this privilege to \"the time of distress.\"\r\n\r\nWho has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from his\r\nfood in which appetite had no share? I have been thrilled to think that\r\nI owed a mental perception to the commonly gross sense of taste, that\r\nI have been inspired through the palate, that some berries which I had\r\neaten on a hillside had fed my genius. \"The soul not being mistress\r\nof herself,\" says Thseng-tseu, \"one looks, and one does not see; one\r\nlistens, and one does not hear; one eats, and one does not know the\r\nsavor of food.\" He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can\r\nnever be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. A puritan\r\nmay go to his brown-bread crust with as gross an appetite as ever an\r\nalderman to his turtle. Not that food which entereth into the mouth\r\ndefileth a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten. It is neither\r\nthe quality nor the quantity, but the devotion to sensual savors; when\r\nthat which is eaten is not a viand to sustain our animal, or inspire our\r\nspiritual life, but food for the worms that possess us. If the hunter\r\nhas a taste for mud-turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tidbits,\r\nthe fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf's foot, or for\r\nsardines from over the sea, and they are even. He goes to the mill-pond,\r\nshe to her preserve-pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live\r\nthis slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.\r\n\r\nOur whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce\r\nbetween virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never\r\nfails. In the music of the harp which trembles round the world it is the\r\ninsisting on this which thrills us. The harp is the travelling patterer\r\nfor the Universe's Insurance Company, recommending its laws, and our\r\nlittle goodness is all the assessment that we pay. Though the youth at\r\nlast grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent,\r\nbut are forever on the side of the most sensitive. Listen to every\r\nzephyr for some reproof, for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate\r\nwho does not hear it. We cannot touch a string or move a stop but the\r\ncharming moral transfixes us. Many an irksome noise, go a long way off,\r\nis heard as music, a proud, sweet satire on the meanness of our lives.\r\n\r\nWe are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our\r\nhigher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be\r\nwholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy\r\nour bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its\r\nnature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we\r\nmay be well, yet not pure. The other day I picked up the lower jaw of\r\na hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, which suggested that\r\nthere was an animal health and vigor distinct from the spiritual. This\r\ncreature succeeded by other means than temperance and purity. \"That\r\nin which men differ from brute beasts,\" says Mencius, \"is a thing very\r\ninconsiderable; the common herd lose it very soon; superior men preserve\r\nit carefully.\" Who knows what sort of life would result if we had\r\nattained to purity? If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity I\r\nwould go to seek him forthwith. \"A command over our passions, and over\r\nthe external senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by the Ved\r\nto be indispensable in the mind's approximation to God.\" Yet the spirit\r\ncan for the time pervade and control every member and function of the\r\nbody, and transmute what in form is the grossest sensuality into\r\npurity and devotion. The generative energy, which, when we are loose,\r\ndissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates\r\nand inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called\r\nGenius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which\r\nsucceed it. Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is\r\nopen. By turns our purity inspires and our impurity casts us down. He is\r\nblessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day,\r\nand the divine being established. Perhaps there is none but has cause\r\nfor shame on account of the inferior and brutish nature to which he\r\nis allied. I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and\r\nsatyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and\r\nthat, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.--\r\n\r\n            \"How happy's he who hath due place assigned\r\n             To his beasts and disafforested his mind!\r\n                          . . . . . . .\r\n             Can use this horse, goat, wolf, and ev'ry beast,\r\n             And is not ass himself to all the rest!\r\n             Else man not only is the herd of swine,\r\n             But he's those devils too which did incline\r\n             Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse.\"\r\n\r\nAll sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; all purity is one. It\r\nis the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually.\r\nThey are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one\r\nof these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can\r\nneither stand nor sit with purity. When the reptile is attacked at\r\none mouth of his burrow, he shows himself at another. If you would be\r\nchaste, you must be temperate. What is chastity? How shall a man know if\r\nhe is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but\r\nwe know not what it is. We speak conformably to the rumor which we have\r\nheard. From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and\r\nsensuality. In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. An\r\nunclean person is universally a slothful one, one who sits by a stove,\r\nwhom the sun shines on prostrate, who reposes without being fatigued. If\r\nyou would avoid uncleanness, and all the sins, work earnestly, though it\r\nbe at cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be\r\novercome. What avails it that you are Christian, if you are not purer\r\nthan the heathen, if you deny yourself no more, if you are not more\r\nreligious? I know of many systems of religion esteemed heathenish whose\r\nprecepts fill the reader with shame, and provoke him to new endeavors,\r\nthough it be to the performance of rites merely.\r\n\r\nI hesitate to say these things, but it is not because of the subject--I\r\ncare not how obscene my _words_ are--but because I cannot speak of them\r\nwithout betraying my impurity. We discourse freely without shame of one\r\nform of sensuality, and are silent about another. We are so degraded\r\nthat we cannot speak simply of the necessary functions of human nature.\r\nIn earlier ages, in some countries, every function was reverently\r\nspoken of and regulated by law. Nothing was too trivial for the Hindoo\r\nlawgiver, however offensive it may be to modern taste. He teaches how to\r\neat, drink, cohabit, void excrement and urine, and the like, elevating\r\nwhat is mean, and does not falsely excuse himself by calling these\r\nthings trifles.\r\n\r\nEvery man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he\r\nworships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering\r\nmarble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material\r\nis our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to\r\nrefine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.\r\n\r\nJohn Farmer sat at his door one September evening, after a hard day's\r\nwork, his mind still running on his labor more or less. Having bathed,\r\nhe sat down to re-create his intellectual man. It was a rather cool\r\nevening, and some of his neighbors were apprehending a frost. He had\r\nnot attended to the train of his thoughts long when he heard some one\r\nplaying on a flute, and that sound harmonized with his mood. Still he\r\nthought of his work; but the burden of his thought was, that though this\r\nkept running in his head, and he found himself planning and contriving\r\nit against his will, yet it concerned him very little. It was no more\r\nthan the scurf of his skin, which was constantly shuffled off. But the\r\nnotes of the flute came home to his ears out of a different sphere\r\nfrom that he worked in, and suggested work for certain faculties which\r\nslumbered in him. They gently did away with the street, and the village,\r\nand the state in which he lived. A voice said to him--Why do you stay\r\nhere and live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is\r\npossible for you? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than\r\nthese.--But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate\r\nthither? All that he could think of was to practise some new austerity,\r\nto let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treat himself\r\nwith ever increasing respect.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBrute Neighbors\r\n\r\n\r\nSometimes I had a companion in my fishing, who came through the village\r\nto my house from the other side of the town, and the catching of the\r\ndinner was as much a social exercise as the eating of it.\r\n\r\n_Hermit._ I wonder what the world is doing now. I have not heard so much\r\nas a locust over the sweet-fern these three hours. The pigeons are all\r\nasleep upon their roosts--no flutter from them. Was that a farmer's noon\r\nhorn which sounded from beyond the woods just now? The hands are coming\r\nin to boiled salt beef and cider and Indian bread. Why will men worry\r\nthemselves so? He that does not eat need not work. I wonder how much\r\nthey have reaped. Who would live there where a body can never think\r\nfor the barking of Bose? And oh, the housekeeping! to keep bright the\r\ndevil's door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! Better not\r\nkeep a house. Say, some hollow tree; and then for morning calls and\r\ndinner-parties! Only a woodpecker tapping. Oh, they swarm; the sun is\r\ntoo warm there; they are born too far into life for me. I have water\r\nfrom the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf.--Hark! I hear a\r\nrustling of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound yielding to\r\nthe instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is said to be in these\r\nwoods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs\r\nand sweetbriers tremble.--Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like the\r\nworld to-day?\r\n\r\n_Poet._ See those clouds; how they hang! That's the greatest thing I have\r\nseen to-day. There's nothing like it in old paintings, nothing like it\r\nin foreign lands--unless when we were off the coast of Spain. That's a\r\ntrue Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I have my living to get, and have\r\nnot eaten to-day, that I might go a-fishing. That's the true industry\r\nfor poets. It is the only trade I have learned. Come, let's along.\r\n\r\n_Hermit._ I cannot resist. My brown bread will soon be gone. I will go\r\nwith you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I\r\nthink that I am near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while.\r\nBut that we may not be delayed, you shall be digging the bait meanwhile.\r\nAngleworms are rarely to be met with in these parts, where the soil was\r\nnever fattened with manure; the race is nearly extinct. The sport of\r\ndigging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when\r\none's appetite is not too keen; and this you may have all to yourself\r\ntoday. I would advise you to set in the spade down yonder among the\r\nground-nuts, where you see the johnswort waving. I think that I may\r\nwarrant you one worm to every three sods you turn up, if you look well\r\nin among the roots of the grass, as if you were weeding. Or, if you\r\nchoose to go farther, it will not be unwise, for I have found the\r\nincrease of fair bait to be very nearly as the squares of the distances.\r\n\r\n_Hermit alone._ Let me see; where was I? Methinks I was nearly in this\r\nframe of mind; the world lay about at this angle. Shall I go to heaven\r\nor a-fishing? If I should soon bring this meditation to an end, would\r\nanother so sweet occasion be likely to offer? I was as near being\r\nresolved into the essence of things as ever I was in my life. I fear\r\nmy thoughts will not come back to me. If it would do any good, I would\r\nwhistle for them. When they make us an offer, is it wise to say, We will\r\nthink of it? My thoughts have left no track, and I cannot find the path\r\nagain. What was it that I was thinking of? It was a very hazy day. I\r\nwill just try these three sentences of Confut-see; they may fetch that\r\nstate about again. I know not whether it was the dumps or a budding\r\necstasy. Mem. There never is but one opportunity of a kind.\r\n\r\n_Poet._ How now, Hermit, is it too soon? I have got just thirteen whole\r\nones, beside several which are imperfect or undersized; but they will\r\ndo for the smaller fry; they do not cover up the hook so much. Those\r\nvillage worms are quite too large; a shiner may make a meal off one\r\nwithout finding the skewer.\r\n\r\n_Hermit._ Well, then, let's be off. Shall we to the Concord? There's good\r\nsport there if the water be not too high.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nWhy do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has\r\nman just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but\r\na mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay &amp; Co. have\r\nput animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a\r\nsense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.\r\n\r\nThe mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said\r\nto have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind not\r\nfound in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and\r\nit interested him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest\r\nunderneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept\r\nout the shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the\r\ncrumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before; and it soon\r\nbecame quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes.\r\nIt could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a\r\nsquirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, as I leaned\r\nwith my elbow on the bench one day, it ran up my clothes, and along my\r\nsleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept\r\nthe latter close, and dodged and played at bopeep with it; and when at\r\nlast I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and finger, it came\r\nand nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and afterward cleaned its face and\r\npaws, like a fly, and walked away.\r\n\r\nA ph\u0153be soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine\r\nwhich grew against the house. In June the partridge (_Tetrao umbellus_),\r\nwhich is so shy a bird, led her brood past my windows, from the woods in\r\nthe rear to the front of my house, clucking and calling to them like a\r\nhen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. The\r\nyoung suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother,\r\nas if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the\r\ndried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the\r\nmidst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off,\r\nand her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract\r\nhis attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will\r\nsometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you\r\ncannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young\r\nsquat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind\r\nonly their mother's directions given from a distance, nor will your\r\napproach make them run again and betray themselves. You may even tread\r\non them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering\r\nthem. I have held them in my open hand at such a time, and still their\r\nonly care, obedient to their mother and their instinct, was to squat\r\nthere without fear or trembling. So perfect is this instinct, that once,\r\nwhen I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on\r\nits side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten\r\nminutes afterward. They are not callow like the young of most birds,\r\nbut more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. The\r\nremarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene\r\neyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They\r\nsuggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by\r\nexperience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval\r\nwith the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem. The\r\ntraveller does not often look into such a limpid well. The ignorant or\r\nreckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a time, and leaves\r\nthese innocents to fall a prey to some prowling beast or bird, or\r\ngradually mingle with the decaying leaves which they so much resemble.\r\nIt is said that when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse on\r\nsome alarm, and so are lost, for they never hear the mother's call which\r\ngathers them again. These were my hens and chickens.\r\n\r\nIt is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free though secret in\r\nthe woods, and still sustain themselves in the neighborhood of towns,\r\nsuspected by hunters only. How retired the otter manages to live here!\r\nHe grows to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without\r\nany human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in\r\nthe woods behind where my house is built, and probably still heard their\r\nwhinnering at night. Commonly I rested an hour or two in the shade at\r\nnoon, after planting, and ate my lunch, and read a little by a spring\r\nwhich was the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing from under\r\nBrister's Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this was\r\nthrough a succession of descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch\r\npines, into a larger wood about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and\r\nshaded spot, under a spreading white pine, there was yet a clean, firm\r\nsward to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray\r\nwater, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I\r\nwent for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was\r\nwarmest. Thither, too, the woodcock led her brood, to probe the mud for\r\nworms, flying but a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in\r\na troop beneath; but at last, spying me, she would leave her young and\r\ncircle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five\r\nfeet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my attention, and get\r\noff her young, who would already have taken up their march, with faint,\r\nwiry peep, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard\r\nthe peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird. There too\r\nthe turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough\r\nof the soft white pines over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing down\r\nthe nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive. You only\r\nneed sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all\r\nits inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.\r\n\r\nI was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I\r\nwent out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two\r\nlarge ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch\r\nlong, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got\r\nhold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the\r\nchips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the\r\nchips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a _duellum_, but\r\na _bellum_, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against\r\nthe black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of\r\nthese Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the\r\nground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and\r\nblack. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only\r\nbattle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war;\r\nthe red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the\r\nother. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any\r\nnoise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely.\r\nI watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in\r\na little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight\r\ntill the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had\r\nfastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all\r\nthe tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one\r\nof his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by\r\nthe board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side,\r\nand, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of\r\nhis members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither\r\nmanifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their\r\nbattle-cry was \"Conquer or die.\" In the meanwhile there came along\r\na single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of\r\nexcitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part\r\nin the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs;\r\nwhose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or\r\nperchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and\r\nhad now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal\r\ncombat from afar--for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the\r\nred--he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half\r\nan inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang\r\nupon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of\r\nhis right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and\r\nso there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had\r\nbeen invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should\r\nnot have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective\r\nmusical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national\r\nairs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was\r\nmyself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think\r\nof it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight\r\nrecorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America,\r\nthat will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers\r\nengaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers\r\nand for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two\r\nkilled on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here\r\nevery ant was a Buttrick--\"Fire! for God's sake fire!\"--and thousands\r\nshared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there.\r\nI have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as\r\nour ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the\r\nresults of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom\r\nit concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.\r\n\r\nI took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were\r\nstruggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on\r\nmy window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the\r\nfirst-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing\r\nat the near fore leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler,\r\nhis own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there\r\nto the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too\r\nthick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes\r\nshone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half\r\nan hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black\r\nsoldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the\r\nstill living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly\r\ntrophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever,\r\nand he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and\r\nwith only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds,\r\nto divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he\r\naccomplished. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill\r\nin that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and\r\nspent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do\r\nnot know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much\r\nthereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of\r\nthe war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings\r\nexcited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and\r\ncarnage, of a human battle before my door.\r\n\r\nKirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been\r\ncelebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber\r\nis the only modern author who appears to have witnessed them. \"\u00c6neas\r\nSylvius,\" say they, \"after giving a very circumstantial account of one\r\ncontested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk\r\nof a pear tree,\" adds that \"this action was fought in the pontificate\r\nof Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an\r\neminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the\r\ngreatest fidelity.\" A similar engagement between great and small ants is\r\nrecorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are\r\nsaid to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of\r\ntheir giant enemies a prey to the birds. This event happened previous\r\nto the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden. The\r\nbattle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five\r\nyears before the passage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill.\r\n\r\nMany a village Bose, fit only to course a mud-turtle in a victualling\r\ncellar, sported his heavy quarters in the woods, without the knowledge\r\nof his master, and ineffectually smelled at old fox burrows and\r\nwoodchucks' holes; led perchance by some slight cur which nimbly\r\nthreaded the wood, and might still inspire a natural terror in its\r\ndenizens;--now far behind his guide, barking like a canine bull toward\r\nsome small squirrel which had treed itself for scrutiny, then, cantering\r\noff, bending the bushes with his weight, imagining that he is on the\r\ntrack of some stray member of the jerbilla family. Once I was surprised\r\nto see a cat walking along the stony shore of the pond, for they rarely\r\nwander so far from home. The surprise was mutual. Nevertheless the most\r\ndomestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at\r\nhome in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself\r\nmore native there than the regular inhabitants. Once, when berrying,\r\nI met with a cat with young kittens in the woods, quite wild, and they\r\nall, like their mother, had their backs up and were fiercely spitting at\r\nme. A few years before I lived in the woods there was what was called a\r\n\"winged cat\" in one of the farm-houses in Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr.\r\nGilian Baker's. When I called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone\r\na-hunting in the woods, as was her wont (I am not sure whether it was\r\na male or female, and so use the more common pronoun), but her mistress\r\ntold me that she came into the neighborhood a little more than a year\r\nbefore, in April, and was finally taken into their house; that she was\r\nof a dark brownish-gray color, with a white spot on her throat, and\r\nwhite feet, and had a large bushy tail like a fox; that in the winter\r\nthe fur grew thick and flatted out along her sides, forming stripes ten\r\nor twelve inches long by two and a half wide, and under her chin like\r\na muff, the upper side loose, the under matted like felt, and in the\r\nspring these appendages dropped off. They gave me a pair of her \"wings,\"\r\nwhich I keep still. There is no appearance of a membrane about them.\r\nSome thought it was part flying squirrel or some other wild animal,\r\nwhich is not impossible, for, according to naturalists, prolific hybrids\r\nhave been produced by the union of the marten and domestic cat. This\r\nwould have been the right kind of cat for me to keep, if I had kept any;\r\nfor why should not a poet's cat be winged as well as his horse?\r\n\r\nIn the fall the loon (_Colymbus glacialis_) came, as usual, to moult and\r\nbathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his wild laughter before I\r\nhad risen. At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen are on the\r\nalert, in gigs and on foot, two by two and three by three, with patent\r\nrifles and conical balls and spy-glasses. They come rustling through\r\nthe woods like autumn leaves, at least ten men to one loon. Some station\r\nthemselves on this side of the pond, some on that, for the poor bird\r\ncannot be omnipresent; if he dive here he must come up there. But\r\nnow the kind October wind rises, rustling the leaves and rippling the\r\nsurface of the water, so that no loon can be heard or seen, though his\r\nfoes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, and make the woods resound with\r\ntheir discharges. The waves generously rise and dash angrily, taking\r\nsides with all water-fowl, and our sportsmen must beat a retreat to town\r\nand shop and unfinished jobs. But they were too often successful. When\r\nI went to get a pail of water early in the morning I frequently saw this\r\nstately bird sailing out of my cove within a few rods. If I endeavored\r\nto overtake him in a boat, in order to see how he would manoeuvre, he\r\nwould dive and be completely lost, so that I did not discover him again,\r\nsometimes, till the latter part of the day. But I was more than a match\r\nfor him on the surface. He commonly went off in a rain.\r\n\r\nAs I was paddling along the north shore one very calm October afternoon,\r\nfor such days especially they settle on to the lakes, like the milkweed\r\ndown, having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one,\r\nsailing out from the shore toward the middle a few rods in front of me,\r\nset up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and\r\nhe dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again,\r\nbut I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods\r\napart when he came to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen\r\nthe interval; and again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason\r\nthan before. He manoeuvred so cunningly that I could not get within half\r\na dozen rods of him. Each time, when he came to the surface, turning his\r\nhead this way and that, he cooly surveyed the water and the land, and\r\napparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the\r\nwidest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from the boat. It\r\nwas surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into\r\nexecution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could\r\nnot be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain,\r\nI was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game,\r\nplayed on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly\r\nyour adversary's checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem\r\nis to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he\r\nwould come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having\r\napparently passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he and so\r\nunweariable, that when he had swum farthest he would immediately plunge\r\nagain, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep\r\npond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a\r\nfish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in\r\nits deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New York\r\nlakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout--though\r\nWalden is deeper than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see\r\nthis ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their\r\nschools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on\r\nthe surface, and swam much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple\r\nwhere he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre,\r\nand instantly dived again. I found that it was as well for me to rest\r\non my oars and wait his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he\r\nwould rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the\r\nsurface one way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh\r\nbehind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably\r\nbetray himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his\r\nwhite breast enough betray him? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I\r\ncould commonly hear the splash of the water when he came up, and so also\r\ndetected him. But after an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as\r\nwillingly, and swam yet farther than at first. It was surprising to see\r\nhow serenely he sailed off with unruffled breast when he came to the\r\nsurface, doing all the work with his webbed feet beneath. His usual note\r\nwas this demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that of a water-fowl; but\r\noccasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long\r\nway off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that\r\nof a wolf than any bird; as when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground\r\nand deliberately howls. This was his looning--perhaps the wildest sound\r\nthat is ever heard here, making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded\r\nthat he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own\r\nresources. Though the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so\r\nsmooth that I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear\r\nhim. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of\r\nthe water were all against him. At length having come up fifty rods off,\r\nhe uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of\r\nloons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and\r\nrippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was\r\nimpressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was\r\nangry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous\r\nsurface.\r\n\r\nFor hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and\r\nhold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they\r\nwill have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous. When compelled to\r\nrise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a\r\nconsiderable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds\r\nand the river, like black motes in the sky; and, when I thought they had\r\ngone off thither long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight\r\nof a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which was left free; but\r\nwhat beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not\r\nknow, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nHouse-Warming\r\n\r\n\r\nIn October I went a-graping to the river meadows, and loaded myself with\r\nclusters more precious for their beauty and fragrance than for food.\r\nThere, too, I admired, though I did not gather, the cranberries, small\r\nwaxen gems, pendants of the meadow grass, pearly and red, which the\r\nfarmer plucks with an ugly rake, leaving the smooth meadow in a snarl,\r\nheedlessly measuring them by the bushel and the dollar only, and sells\r\nthe spoils of the meads to Boston and New York; destined to be _jammed_,\r\nto satisfy the tastes of lovers of Nature there. So butchers rake the\r\ntongues of bison out of the prairie grass, regardless of the torn and\r\ndrooping plant. The barberry's brilliant fruit was likewise food for my\r\neyes merely; but I collected a small store of wild apples for coddling,\r\nwhich the proprietor and travellers had overlooked. When chestnuts were\r\nripe I laid up half a bushel for winter. It was very exciting at that\r\nseason to roam the then boundless chestnut woods of Lincoln--they now\r\nsleep their long sleep under the railroad--with a bag on my shoulder,\r\nand a stick to open burs with in my hand, for I did not always wait for\r\nthe frost, amid the rustling of leaves and the loud reproofs of the red\r\nsquirrels and the jays, whose half-consumed nuts I sometimes stole,\r\nfor the burs which they had selected were sure to contain sound ones.\r\nOccasionally I climbed and shook the trees. They grew also behind my\r\nhouse, and one large tree, which almost overshadowed it, was, when\r\nin flower, a bouquet which scented the whole neighborhood, but the\r\nsquirrels and the jays got most of its fruit; the last coming in flocks\r\nearly in the morning and picking the nuts out of the burs before they\r\nfell, I relinquished these trees to them and visited the more distant\r\nwoods composed wholly of chestnut. These nuts, as far as they went, were\r\na good substitute for bread. Many other substitutes might, perhaps, be\r\nfound. Digging one day for fishworms, I discovered the ground-nut\r\n(_Apios tuberosa_) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of\r\nfabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten\r\nin childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it. I had often since\r\nseen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other\r\nplants without knowing it to be the same. Cultivation has well-nigh\r\nexterminated it. It has a sweetish taste, much like that of a\r\nfrost-bitten potato, and I found it better boiled than roasted. This\r\ntuber seemed like a faint promise of Nature to rear her own children\r\nand feed them simply here at some future period. In these days of fatted\r\ncattle and waving grain-fields this humble root, which was once the\r\n_totem_ of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, or known only by its\r\nflowering vine; but let wild Nature reign here once more, and the tender\r\nand luxurious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of\r\nfoes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even the\r\nlast seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian's God in the\r\nsouthwest, whence he is said to have brought it; but the now almost\r\nexterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of\r\nfrosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient\r\nimportance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe. Some Indian\r\nCeres or Minerva must have been the inventor and bestower of it; and\r\nwhen the reign of poetry commences here, its leaves and string of nuts\r\nmay be represented on our works of art.\r\n\r\nAlready, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maples\r\nturned scarlet across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three\r\naspens diverged, at the point of a promontory, next the water. Ah, many\r\na tale their color told! And gradually from week to week the character\r\nof each tree came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth\r\nmirror of the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery substituted\r\nsome new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious\r\ncoloring, for the old upon the walls.\r\n\r\nThe wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October, as to winter\r\nquarters, and settled on my windows within and on the walls overhead,\r\nsometimes deterring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they were\r\nnumbed with cold, I swept some of them out, but I did not trouble myself\r\nmuch to get rid of them; I even felt complimented by their regarding my\r\nhouse as a desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, though\r\nthey bedded with me; and they gradually disappeared, into what crevices\r\nI do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold.\r\n\r\nLike the wasps, before I finally went into winter quarters in November,\r\nI used to resort to the northeast side of Walden, which the sun,\r\nreflected from the pitch pine woods and the stony shore, made the\r\nfireside of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be\r\nwarmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus\r\nwarmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a\r\ndeparted hunter, had left.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nWhen I came to build my chimney I studied masonry. My bricks, being\r\nsecond-hand ones, required to be cleaned with a trowel, so that I\r\nlearned more than usual of the qualities of bricks and trowels. The\r\nmortar on them was fifty years old, and was said to be still growing\r\nharder; but this is one of those sayings which men love to repeat\r\nwhether they are true or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and\r\nadhere more firmly with age, and it would take many blows with a trowel\r\nto clean an old wiseacre of them. Many of the villages of Mesopotamia\r\nare built of second-hand bricks of a very good quality, obtained from\r\nthe ruins of Babylon, and the cement on them is older and probably\r\nharder still. However that may be, I was struck by the peculiar\r\ntoughness of the steel which bore so many violent blows without being\r\nworn out. As my bricks had been in a chimney before, though I did not\r\nread the name of Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out as many fireplace\r\nbricks as I could find, to save work and waste, and I filled the spaces\r\nbetween the bricks about the fireplace with stones from the pond shore,\r\nand also made my mortar with the white sand from the same place. I\r\nlingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house.\r\nIndeed, I worked so deliberately, that though I commenced at the ground\r\nin the morning, a course of bricks raised a few inches above the floor\r\nserved for my pillow at night; yet I did not get a stiff neck for it\r\nthat I remember; my stiff neck is of older date. I took a poet to board\r\nfor a fortnight about those times, which caused me to be put to it for\r\nroom. He brought his own knife, though I had two, and we used to scour\r\nthem by thrusting them into the earth. He shared with me the labors\r\nof cooking. I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by\r\ndegrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated\r\nto endure a long time. The chimney is to some extent an independent\r\nstructure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the\r\nheavens; even after the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and\r\nits importance and independence are apparent. This was toward the end of\r\nsummer. It was now November.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe north wind had already begun to cool the pond, though it took many\r\nweeks of steady blowing to accomplish it, it is so deep. When I began to\r\nhave a fire at evening, before I plastered my house, the chimney carried\r\nsmoke particularly well, because of the numerous chinks between the\r\nboards. Yet I passed some cheerful evenings in that cool and airy\r\napartment, surrounded by the rough brown boards full of knots, and\r\nrafters with the bark on high overhead. My house never pleased my eye so\r\nmuch after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess that it\r\nwas more comfortable. Should not every apartment in which man dwells be\r\nlofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows\r\nmay play at evening about the rafters? These forms are more agreeable\r\nto the fancy and imagination than fresco paintings or other the most\r\nexpensive furniture. I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say,\r\nwhen I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter. I had got a couple\r\nof old fire-dogs to keep the wood from the hearth, and it did me good\r\nto see the soot form on the back of the chimney which I had built, and\r\nI poked the fire with more right and more satisfaction than usual. My\r\ndwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it\r\nseemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors.\r\nAll the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was\r\nkitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and whatever satisfaction\r\nparent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I\r\nenjoyed it all. Cato says, the master of a family (_patremfamilias_) must\r\nhave in his rustic villa \"cellam oleariam, vinariam, dolia multa, uti\r\nlubeat caritatem expectare, et rei, et virtuti, et gloriae erit,\" that\r\nis, \"an oil and wine cellar, many casks, so that it may be pleasant to\r\nexpect hard times; it will be for his advantage, and virtue, and glory.\"\r\nI had in my cellar a firkin of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with\r\nthe weevil in them, and on my shelf a little rice, a jug of molasses,\r\nand of rye and Indian meal a peck each.\r\n\r\nI sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a\r\ngolden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work,\r\nwhich shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial,\r\nprimitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and\r\npurlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head--useful to\r\nkeep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to\r\nreceive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate\r\nSaturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house,\r\nwherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where\r\nsome may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some\r\non settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft\r\non rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got\r\ninto when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over;\r\nwhere the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep,\r\nwithout further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach\r\nin a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and\r\nnothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the\r\nhouse at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should\r\nuse; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret;\r\nwhere you can see so necessary a thing, as a barrel or a ladder, so\r\nconvenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your\r\nrespects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes\r\nyour bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief\r\nornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the\r\nmistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the\r\ntrap-door, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn\r\nwhether the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without stamping. A\r\nhouse whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest, and you\r\ncannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some\r\nof its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the\r\nfreedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven\r\neighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself\r\nat home there--in solitary confinement. Nowadays the host does not\r\nadmit you to _his_ hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself\r\nsomewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of _keeping_ you at the\r\ngreatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he\r\nhad a design to poison you. I am aware that I have been on many a man's\r\npremises, and might have been legally ordered off, but I am not aware\r\nthat I have been in many men's houses. I might visit in my old clothes a\r\nking and queen who lived simply in such a house as I have described, if\r\nI were going their way; but backing out of a modern palace will be all\r\nthat I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in one.\r\n\r\nIt would seem as if the very language of our parlors would lose all\r\nits nerve and degenerate into _palaver_ wholly, our lives pass at\r\nsuch remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are\r\nnecessarily so far fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it were;\r\nin other words, the parlor is so far from the kitchen and workshop. The\r\ndinner even is only the parable of a dinner, commonly. As if only the\r\nsavage dwelt near enough to Nature and Truth to borrow a trope from\r\nthem. How can the scholar, who dwells away in the North West Territory\r\nor the Isle of Man, tell what is parliamentary in the kitchen?\r\n\r\nHowever, only one or two of my guests were ever bold enough to stay and\r\neat a hasty-pudding with me; but when they saw that crisis approaching\r\nthey beat a hasty retreat rather, as if it would shake the house to its\r\nfoundations. Nevertheless, it stood through a great many hasty-puddings.\r\n\r\nI did not plaster till it was freezing weather. I brought over some\r\nwhiter and cleaner sand for this purpose from the opposite shore of the\r\npond in a boat, a sort of conveyance which would have tempted me to go\r\nmuch farther if necessary. My house had in the meanwhile been shingled\r\ndown to the ground on every side. In lathing I was pleased to be able\r\nto send home each nail with a single blow of the hammer, and it was my\r\nambition to transfer the plaster from the board to the wall neatly and\r\nrapidly. I remembered the story of a conceited fellow, who, in fine\r\nclothes, was wont to lounge about the village once, giving advice to\r\nworkmen. Venturing one day to substitute deeds for words, he turned\r\nup his cuffs, seized a plasterer's board, and having loaded his trowel\r\nwithout mishap, with a complacent look toward the lathing overhead,\r\nmade a bold gesture thitherward; and straightway, to his complete\r\ndiscomfiture, received the whole contents in his ruffled bosom. I\r\nadmired anew the economy and convenience of plastering, which so\r\neffectually shuts out the cold and takes a handsome finish, and I\r\nlearned the various casualties to which the plasterer is liable. I was\r\nsurprised to see how thirsty the bricks were which drank up all the\r\nmoisture in my plaster before I had smoothed it, and how many pailfuls\r\nof water it takes to christen a new hearth. I had the previous winter\r\nmade a small quantity of lime by burning the shells of the _Unio\r\nfluviatilis_, which our river affords, for the sake of the experiment;\r\nso that I knew where my materials came from. I might have got good\r\nlimestone within a mile or two and burned it myself, if I had cared to\r\ndo so.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe pond had in the meanwhile skimmed over in the shadiest and\r\nshallowest coves, some days or even weeks before the general freezing.\r\nThe first ice is especially interesting and perfect, being hard, dark,\r\nand transparent, and affords the best opportunity that ever offers for\r\nexamining the bottom where it is shallow; for you can lie at your length\r\non ice only an inch thick, like a skater insect on the surface of the\r\nwater, and study the bottom at your leisure, only two or three inches\r\ndistant, like a picture behind a glass, and the water is necessarily\r\nalways smooth then. There are many furrows in the sand where some\r\ncreature has travelled about and doubled on its tracks; and, for wrecks,\r\nit is strewn with the cases of caddis-worms made of minute grains of\r\nwhite quartz. Perhaps these have creased it, for you find some of their\r\ncases in the furrows, though they are deep and broad for them to make.\r\nBut the ice itself is the object of most interest, though you must\r\nimprove the earliest opportunity to study it. If you examine it closely\r\nthe morning after it freezes, you find that the greater part of the\r\nbubbles, which at first appeared to be within it, are against its under\r\nsurface, and that more are continually rising from the bottom; while the\r\nice is as yet comparatively solid and dark, that is, you see the water\r\nthrough it. These bubbles are from an eightieth to an eighth of an inch\r\nin diameter, very clear and beautiful, and you see your face reflected\r\nin them through the ice. There may be thirty or forty of them to\r\na square inch. There are also already within the ice narrow oblong\r\nperpendicular bubbles about half an inch long, sharp cones with the apex\r\nupward; or oftener, if the ice is quite fresh, minute spherical bubbles\r\none directly above another, like a string of beads. But these within the\r\nice are not so numerous nor obvious as those beneath. I sometimes used\r\nto cast on stones to try the strength of the ice, and those which\r\nbroke through carried in air with them, which formed very large and\r\nconspicuous white bubbles beneath. One day when I came to the same place\r\nforty-eight hours afterward, I found that those large bubbles were\r\nstill perfect, though an inch more of ice had formed, as I could see\r\ndistinctly by the seam in the edge of a cake. But as the last two\r\ndays had been very warm, like an Indian summer, the ice was not now\r\ntransparent, showing the dark green color of the water, and the bottom,\r\nbut opaque and whitish or gray, and though twice as thick was hardly\r\nstronger than before, for the air bubbles had greatly expanded under\r\nthis heat and run together, and lost their regularity; they were no\r\nlonger one directly over another, but often like silvery coins poured\r\nfrom a bag, one overlapping another, or in thin flakes, as if occupying\r\nslight cleavages. The beauty of the ice was gone, and it was too late to\r\nstudy the bottom. Being curious to know what position my great bubbles\r\noccupied with regard to the new ice, I broke out a cake containing a\r\nmiddling sized one, and turned it bottom upward. The new ice had formed\r\naround and under the bubble, so that it was included between the two\r\nices. It was wholly in the lower ice, but close against the upper, and\r\nwas flattish, or perhaps slightly lenticular, with a rounded edge, a\r\nquarter of an inch deep by four inches in diameter; and I was surprised\r\nto find that directly under the bubble the ice was melted with great\r\nregularity in the form of a saucer reversed, to the height of five\r\neighths of an inch in the middle, leaving a thin partition there between\r\nthe water and the bubble, hardly an eighth of an inch thick; and in many\r\nplaces the small bubbles in this partition had burst out downward, and\r\nprobably there was no ice at all under the largest bubbles, which were a\r\nfoot in diameter. I inferred that the infinite number of minute bubbles\r\nwhich I had first seen against the under surface of the ice were now\r\nfrozen in likewise, and that each, in its degree, had operated like\r\na burning-glass on the ice beneath to melt and rot it. These are the\r\nlittle air-guns which contribute to make the ice crack and whoop.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAt length the winter set in good earnest, just as I had finished\r\nplastering, and the wind began to howl around the house as if it had\r\nnot had permission to do so till then. Night after night the geese came\r\nlumbering in the dark with a clangor and a whistling of wings, even\r\nafter the ground was covered with snow, some to alight in Walden, and\r\nsome flying low over the woods toward Fair Haven, bound for Mexico.\r\nSeveral times, when returning from the village at ten or eleven o'clock\r\nat night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or else ducks, on the\r\ndry leaves in the woods by a pond-hole behind my dwelling, where they\r\nhad come up to feed, and the faint honk or quack of their leader as they\r\nhurried off. In 1845 Walden froze entirely over for the first time on\r\nthe night of the 22d of December, Flint's and other shallower ponds and\r\nthe river having been frozen ten days or more; in '46, the 16th; in '49,\r\nabout the 31st; and in '50, about the 27th of December; in '52, the 5th\r\nof January; in '53, the 31st of December. The snow had already covered\r\nthe ground since the 25th of November, and surrounded me suddenly\r\nwith the scenery of winter. I withdrew yet farther into my shell, and\r\nendeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my\r\nbreast. My employment out of doors now was to collect the dead wood in\r\nthe forest, bringing it in my hands or on my shoulders, or sometimes\r\ntrailing a dead pine tree under each arm to my shed. An old forest fence\r\nwhich had seen its best days was a great haul for me. I sacrificed it\r\nto Vulcan, for it was past serving the god Terminus. How much more\r\ninteresting an event is that man's supper who has just been forth in the\r\nsnow to hunt, nay, you might say, steal, the fuel to cook it with! His\r\nbread and meat are sweet. There are enough fagots and waste wood of all\r\nkinds in the forests of most of our towns to support many fires, but\r\nwhich at present warm none, and, some think, hinder the growth of the\r\nyoung wood. There was also the driftwood of the pond. In the course of\r\nthe summer I had discovered a raft of pitch pine logs with the bark on,\r\npinned together by the Irish when the railroad was built. This I hauled\r\nup partly on the shore. After soaking two years and then lying high six\r\nmonths it was perfectly sound, though waterlogged past drying. I amused\r\nmyself one winter day with sliding this piecemeal across the pond,\r\nnearly half a mile, skating behind with one end of a log fifteen feet\r\nlong on my shoulder, and the other on the ice; or I tied several logs\r\ntogether with a birch withe, and then, with a longer birch or alder\r\nwhich had a hook at the end, dragged them across. Though completely\r\nwaterlogged and almost as heavy as lead, they not only burned long, but\r\nmade a very hot fire; nay, I thought that they burned better for the\r\nsoaking, as if the pitch, being confined by the water, burned longer, as\r\nin a lamp.\r\n\r\nGilpin, in his account of the forest borderers of England, says that\r\n\"the encroachments of trespassers, and the houses and fences thus raised\r\non the borders of the forest,\" were \"considered as great nuisances\r\nby the old forest law, and were severely punished under the name of\r\n_purprestures_, as tending _ad terrorem ferarum--ad nocumentum forestae_,\r\netc.,\" to the frightening of the game and the detriment of the forest.\r\nBut I was interested in the preservation of the venison and the vert\r\nmore than the hunters or woodchoppers, and as much as though I had been\r\nthe Lord Warden himself; and if any part was burned, though I burned it\r\nmyself by accident, I grieved with a grief that lasted longer and was\r\nmore inconsolable than that of the proprietors; nay, I grieved when it\r\nwas cut down by the proprietors themselves. I would that our farmers\r\nwhen they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans\r\ndid when they came to thin, or let in the light to, a consecrated grove\r\n(_lucum conlucare_), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some\r\ngod. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed, Whatever god or\r\ngoddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my\r\nfamily, and children, etc.\r\n\r\nIt is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age\r\nand in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that\r\nof gold. After all our discoveries and inventions no man will go by a\r\npile of wood. It is as precious to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman\r\nancestors. If they made their bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it.\r\nMichaux, more than thirty years ago, says that the price of wood for\r\nfuel in New York and Philadelphia \"nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds,\r\nthat of the best wood in Paris, though this immense capital annually\r\nrequires more than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded to\r\nthe distance of three hundred miles by cultivated plains.\" In this town\r\nthe price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how\r\nmuch higher it is to be this year than it was the last. Mechanics and\r\ntradesmen who come in person to the forest on no other errand, are sure\r\nto attend the wood auction, and even pay a high price for the privilege\r\nof gleaning after the woodchopper. It is now many years that men have\r\nresorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New\r\nEnglander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer\r\nand Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world\r\nthe prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require\r\nstill a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food.\r\nNeither could I do without them.\r\n\r\nEvery man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection. I love to\r\nhave mine before my window, and the more chips the better to remind me\r\nof my pleasing work. I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which\r\nby spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about\r\nthe stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied\r\nwhen I was plowing, they warmed me twice--once while I was splitting\r\nthem, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could\r\ngive out more heat. As for the axe, I was advised to get the village\r\nblacksmith to \"jump\" it; but I jumped him, and, putting a hickory helve\r\nfrom the woods into it, made it do. If it was dull, it was at least hung\r\ntrue.\r\n\r\nA few pieces of fat pine were a great treasure. It is interesting to\r\nremember how much of this food for fire is still concealed in the bowels\r\nof the earth. In previous years I had often gone prospecting over some\r\nbare hillside, where a pitch pine wood had formerly stood, and got out\r\nthe fat pine roots. They are almost indestructible. Stumps thirty or\r\nforty years old, at least, will still be sound at the core, though the\r\nsapwood has all become vegetable mould, as appears by the scales of\r\nthe thick bark forming a ring level with the earth four or five inches\r\ndistant from the heart. With axe and shovel you explore this mine, and\r\nfollow the marrowy store, yellow as beef tallow, or as if you had struck\r\non a vein of gold, deep into the earth. But commonly I kindled my fire\r\nwith the dry leaves of the forest, which I had stored up in my shed\r\nbefore the snow came. Green hickory finely split makes the woodchopper's\r\nkindlings, when he has a camp in the woods. Once in a while I got a\r\nlittle of this. When the villagers were lighting their fires beyond the\r\nhorizon, I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden\r\nvale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake.--\r\n\r\n           Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,\r\n           Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,\r\n           Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,\r\n           Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;\r\n           Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form\r\n           Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;\r\n           By night star-veiling, and by day\r\n           Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;\r\n           Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,\r\n           And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.\r\n\r\nHard green wood just cut, though I used but little of that, answered my\r\npurpose better than any other. I sometimes left a good fire when I went\r\nto take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four\r\nhours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not\r\nempty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper\r\nbehind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper\r\nproved trustworthy. One day, however, as I was splitting wood, I thought\r\nthat I would just look in at the window and see if the house was not on\r\nfire; it was the only time I remember to have been particularly anxious\r\non this score; so I looked and saw that a spark had caught my bed, and\r\nI went in and extinguished it when it had burned a place as big as my\r\nhand. But my house occupied so sunny and sheltered a position, and\r\nits roof was so low, that I could afford to let the fire go out in the\r\nmiddle of almost any winter day.\r\n\r\nThe moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, and making\r\na snug bed even there of some hair left after plastering and of brown\r\npaper; for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as\r\nman, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to\r\nsecure them. Some of my friends spoke as if I was coming to the woods on\r\npurpose to freeze myself. The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms\r\nwith his body, in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire,\r\nboxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of\r\nrobbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested\r\nof more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of\r\nwinter, and by means of windows even admit the light, and with a lamp\r\nlengthen out the day. Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and\r\nsaves a little time for the fine arts. Though, when I had been exposed\r\nto the rudest blasts a long time, my whole body began to grow torpid,\r\nwhen I reached the genial atmosphere of my house I soon recovered my\r\nfaculties and prolonged my life. But the most luxuriously housed has\r\nlittle to boast of in this respect, nor need we trouble ourselves to\r\nspeculate how the human race may be at last destroyed. It would be\r\neasy to cut their threads any time with a little sharper blast from the\r\nnorth. We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a little\r\ncolder Friday, or greater snow would put a period to man's existence on\r\nthe globe.\r\n\r\nThe next winter I used a small cooking-stove for economy, since I\r\ndid not own the forest; but it did not keep fire so well as the open\r\nfireplace. Cooking was then, for the most part, no longer a poetic, but\r\nmerely a chemic process. It will soon be forgotten, in these days of\r\nstoves, that we used to roast potatoes in the ashes, after the Indian\r\nfashion. The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it\r\nconcealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can\r\nalways see a face in the fire. The laborer, looking into it at evening,\r\npurifies his thoughts of the dross and earthiness which they have\r\naccumulated during the day. But I could no longer sit and look into\r\nthe fire, and the pertinent words of a poet recurred to me with new\r\nforce.--\r\n\r\n     \"Never, bright flame, may be denied to me\r\n      Thy dear, life imaging, close sympathy.\r\n      What but my hopes shot upward e'er so bright?\r\n      What but my fortunes sunk so low in night?\r\n      Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall,\r\n      Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all?\r\n      Was thy existence then too fanciful\r\n      For our life's common light, who are so dull?\r\n      Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold\r\n      With our congenial souls? secrets too bold?\r\n\r\n      Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit\r\n      Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit,\r\n      Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire\r\n      Warms feet and hands--nor does to more aspire;\r\n      By whose compact utilitarian heap\r\n      The present may sit down and go to sleep,\r\n      Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked,\r\n      And with us by the unequal light of the old wood fire talked.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFormer Inhabitants and Winter Visitors\r\n\r\n\r\nI weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheerful winter\r\nevenings by my fireside, while the snow whirled wildly without, and even\r\nthe hooting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks I met no one in my\r\nwalks but those who came occasionally to cut wood and sled it to the\r\nvillage. The elements, however, abetted me in making a path through the\r\ndeepest snow in the woods, for when I had once gone through the wind\r\nblew the oak leaves into my tracks, where they lodged, and by absorbing\r\nthe rays of the sun melted the snow, and so not only made a my bed\r\nfor my feet, but in the night their dark line was my guide. For human\r\nsociety I was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these woods.\r\nWithin the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house\r\nstands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods\r\nwhich border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little\r\ngardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the\r\nforest than now. In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines\r\nwould scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children who\r\nwere compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on foot did it with\r\nfear, and often ran a good part of the distance. Though mainly but a\r\nhumble route to neighboring villages, or for the woodman's team, it once\r\namused the traveller more than now by its variety, and lingered longer\r\nin his memory. Where now firm open fields stretch from the village to\r\nthe woods, it then ran through a maple swamp on a foundation of logs,\r\nthe remnants of which, doubtless, still underlie the present dusty\r\nhighway, from the Stratton, now the Alms-House Farm, to Brister's Hill.\r\n\r\nEast of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of\r\nDuncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, who built his\r\nslave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;--Cato,\r\nnot Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro.\r\nThere are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which\r\nhe let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and\r\nwhiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally\r\nnarrow house at present. Cato's half-obliterated cellar-hole still\r\nremains, though known to few, being concealed from the traveller by a\r\nfringe of pines. It is now filled with the smooth sumach (_Rhus glabra_),\r\nand one of the earliest species of goldenrod (_Solidago stricta_) grows\r\nthere luxuriantly.\r\n\r\nHere, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to town, Zilpha,\r\na colored woman, had her little house, where she spun linen for the\r\ntownsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill singing, for\r\nshe had a loud and notable voice. At length, in the war of 1812, her\r\ndwelling was set on fire by English soldiers, prisoners on parole, when\r\nshe was away, and her cat and dog and hens were all burned up together.\r\nShe led a hard life, and somewhat inhumane. One old frequenter of these\r\nwoods remembers, that as he passed her house one noon he heard her\r\nmuttering to herself over her gurgling pot--\"Ye are all bones, bones!\" I\r\nhave seen bricks amid the oak copse there.\r\n\r\nDown the road, on the right hand, on Brister's Hill, lived Brister\r\nFreeman, \"a handy Negro,\" slave of Squire Cummings once--there where\r\ngrow still the apple trees which Brister planted and tended; large old\r\ntrees now, but their fruit still wild and ciderish to my taste. Not long\r\nsince I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on\r\none side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell\r\nin the retreat from Concord--where he is styled \"Sippio Brister\"--Scipio\r\nAfricanus he had some title to be called--\"a man of color,\" as if he\r\nwere discolored. It also told me, with staring emphasis, when he died;\r\nwhich was but an indirect way of informing me that he ever lived.\r\nWith him dwelt Fenda, his hospitable wife, who told fortunes, yet\r\npleasantly--large, round, and black, blacker than any of the children of\r\nnight, such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since.\r\n\r\nFarther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in the woods, are\r\nmarks of some homestead of the Stratton family; whose orchard once\r\ncovered all the slope of Brister's Hill, but was long since killed out\r\nby pitch pines, excepting a few stumps, whose old roots furnish still\r\nthe wild stocks of many a thrifty village tree.\r\n\r\nNearer yet to town, you come to Breed's location, on the other side of\r\nthe way, just on the edge of the wood; ground famous for the pranks of\r\na demon not distinctly named in old mythology, who has acted a prominent\r\nand astounding part in our New England life, and deserves, as much as\r\nany mythological character, to have his biography written one day; who\r\nfirst comes in the guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs and\r\nmurders the whole family--New-England Rum. But history must not yet\r\ntell the tragedies enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to\r\nassuage and lend an azure tint to them. Here the most indistinct and\r\ndubious tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the same,\r\nwhich tempered the traveller's beverage and refreshed his steed. Here\r\nthen men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and went\r\ntheir ways again.\r\n\r\nBreed's hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long\r\nbeen unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by\r\nmischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on\r\nthe edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant's\r\n\"Gondibert,\" that winter that I labored with a lethargy--which, by the\r\nway, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having\r\nan uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout\r\npotatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the\r\nSabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers'\r\ncollection of English poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my\r\nNervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in\r\nhot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of\r\nmen and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook.\r\nWe thought it was far south over the woods--we who had run to fires\r\nbefore--barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. \"It's Baker's\r\nbarn,\" cried one. \"It is the Codman place,\" affirmed another. And then\r\nfresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all\r\nshouted \"Concord to the rescue!\" Wagons shot past with furious speed\r\nand crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the\r\nInsurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon\r\nthe engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure; and rearmost of all,\r\nas it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the\r\nalarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence\r\nof our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling and\r\nactually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized,\r\nalas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but cooled our\r\nardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded\r\nto let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood round\r\nour engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through\r\nspeaking-trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations\r\nwhich the world has witnessed, including Bascom's shop, and, between\r\nourselves, we thought that, were we there in season with our \"tub,\" and\r\na full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universal\r\none into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any\r\nmischief--returned to sleep and \"Gondibert.\" But as for \"Gondibert,\"\r\nI would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul's\r\npowder--\"but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to\r\npowder.\"\r\n\r\nIt chanced that I walked that way across the fields the following night,\r\nabout the same hour, and hearing a low moaning at this spot, I drew near\r\nin the dark, and discovered the only survivor of the family that I know,\r\nthe heir of both its virtues and its vices, who alone was interested in\r\nthis burning, lying on his stomach and looking over the cellar wall at\r\nthe still smouldering cinders beneath, muttering to himself, as is his\r\nwont. He had been working far off in the river meadows all day, and had\r\nimproved the first moments that he could call his own to visit the home\r\nof his fathers and his youth. He gazed into the cellar from all sides\r\nand points of view by turns, always lying down to it, as if there was\r\nsome treasure, which he remembered, concealed between the stones, where\r\nthere was absolutely nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes. The house\r\nbeing gone, he looked at what there was left. He was soothed by the\r\nsympathy which my mere presence implied, and showed me, as well as the\r\ndarkness permitted, where the well was covered up; which, thank Heaven,\r\ncould never be burned; and he groped long about the wall to find the\r\nwell-sweep which his father had cut and mounted, feeling for the iron\r\nhook or staple by which a burden had been fastened to the heavy end--all\r\nthat he could now cling to--to convince me that it was no common\r\n\"rider.\" I felt it, and still remark it almost daily in my walks, for by\r\nit hangs the history of a family.\r\n\r\nOnce more, on the left, where are seen the well and lilac bushes by the\r\nwall, in the now open field, lived Nutting and Le Grosse. But to return\r\ntoward Lincoln.\r\n\r\nFarther in the woods than any of these, where the road approaches\r\nnearest to the pond, Wyman the potter squatted, and furnished his\r\ntownsmen with earthenware, and left descendants to succeed him. Neither\r\nwere they rich in worldly goods, holding the land by sufferance while\r\nthey lived; and there often the sheriff came in vain to collect the\r\ntaxes, and \"attached a chip,\" for form's sake, as I have read in his\r\naccounts, there being nothing else that he could lay his hands on. One\r\nday in midsummer, when I was hoeing, a man who was carrying a load\r\nof pottery to market stopped his horse against my field and inquired\r\nconcerning Wyman the younger. He had long ago bought a potter's wheel\r\nof him, and wished to know what had become of him. I had read of the\r\npotter's clay and wheel in Scripture, but it had never occurred to me\r\nthat the pots we use were not such as had come down unbroken from those\r\ndays, or grown on trees like gourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear\r\nthat so fictile an art was ever practiced in my neighborhood.\r\n\r\nThe last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irishman, Hugh\r\nQuoil (if I have spelt his name with coil enough), who occupied Wyman's\r\ntenement--Col. Quoil, he was called. Rumor said that he had been a\r\nsoldier at Waterloo. If he had lived I should have made him fight his\r\nbattles over again. His trade here was that of a ditcher. Napoleon went\r\nto St. Helena; Quoil came to Walden Woods. All I know of him is tragic.\r\nHe was a man of manners, like one who had seen the world, and was\r\ncapable of more civil speech than you could well attend to. He wore a\r\ngreatcoat in midsummer, being affected with the trembling delirium, and\r\nhis face was the color of carmine. He died in the road at the foot of\r\nBrister's Hill shortly after I came to the woods, so that I have not\r\nremembered him as a neighbor. Before his house was pulled down, when his\r\ncomrades avoided it as \"an unlucky castle,\" I visited it. There lay his\r\nold clothes curled up by use, as if they were himself, upon his raised\r\nplank bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken\r\nat the fountain. The last could never have been the symbol of his death,\r\nfor he confessed to me that, though he had heard of Brister's Spring,\r\nhe had never seen it; and soiled cards, kings of diamonds, spades,\r\nand hearts, were scattered over the floor. One black chicken which the\r\nadministrator could not catch, black as night and as silent, not even\r\ncroaking, awaiting Reynard, still went to roost in the next apartment.\r\nIn the rear there was the dim outline of a garden, which had been\r\nplanted but had never received its first hoeing, owing to those terrible\r\nshaking fits, though it was now harvest time. It was overrun with Roman\r\nwormwood and beggar-ticks, which last stuck to my clothes for all fruit.\r\nThe skin of a woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the\r\nhouse, a trophy of his last Waterloo; but no warm cap or mittens would\r\nhe want more.\r\n\r\nNow only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings, with\r\nburied cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble-berries,\r\nhazel-bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny sward there; some\r\npitch pine or gnarled oak occupies what was the chimney nook, and a\r\nsweet-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where the door-stone was.\r\nSometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed; now dry\r\nand tearless grass; or it was covered deep--not to be discovered till\r\nsome late day--with a flat stone under the sod, when the last of the\r\nrace departed. What a sorrowful act must that be--the covering up of\r\nwells! coincident with the opening of wells of tears. These cellar\r\ndents, like deserted fox burrows, old holes, are all that is left where\r\nonce were the stir and bustle of human life, and \"fate, free will,\r\nforeknowledge absolute,\" in some form and dialect or other were by turns\r\ndiscussed. But all I can learn of their conclusions amounts to just\r\nthis, that \"Cato and Brister pulled wool\"; which is about as edifying as\r\nthe history of more famous schools of philosophy.\r\n\r\nStill grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel\r\nand the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring,\r\nto be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by\r\nchildren's hands, in front-yard plots--now standing by wallsides in\r\nretired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests;--the last of\r\nthat stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children\r\nthink that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the\r\nground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself\r\nso, and outlive them, and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and\r\ngrown man's garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone\r\nwanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died--blossoming as\r\nfair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still\r\ntender, civil, cheerful lilac colors.\r\n\r\nBut this small village, germ of something more, why did it fail while\r\nConcord keeps its ground? Were there no natural advantages--no water\r\nprivileges, forsooth? Ay, the deep Walden Pond and cool Brister's\r\nSpring--privilege to drink long and healthy draughts at these, all\r\nunimproved by these men but to dilute their glass. They were universally\r\na thirsty race. Might not the basket, stable-broom, mat-making,\r\ncorn-parching, linen-spinning, and pottery business have thrived here,\r\nmaking the wilderness to blossom like the rose, and a numerous posterity\r\nhave inherited the land of their fathers? The sterile soil would at\r\nleast have been proof against a low-land degeneracy. Alas! how little\r\ndoes the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the\r\nlandscape! Again, perhaps, Nature will try, with me for a first settler,\r\nand my house raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet.\r\n\r\nI am not aware that any man has ever built on the spot which I occupy.\r\nDeliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient city, whose\r\nmaterials are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is blanched and\r\naccursed there, and before that becomes necessary the earth itself will\r\nbe destroyed. With such reminiscences I repeopled the woods and lulled\r\nmyself asleep.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAt this season I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay deepest no\r\nwanderer ventured near my house for a week or fortnight at a time, but\r\nthere I lived as snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle and poultry which\r\nare said to have survived for a long time buried in drifts, even without\r\nfood; or like that early settler's family in the town of Sutton, in this\r\nState, whose cottage was completely covered by the great snow of 1717\r\nwhen he was absent, and an Indian found it only by the hole which the\r\nchimney's breath made in the drift, and so relieved the family. But\r\nno friendly Indian concerned himself about me; nor needed he, for the\r\nmaster of the house was at home. The Great Snow! How cheerful it is to\r\nhear of! When the farmers could not get to the woods and swamps with\r\ntheir teams, and were obliged to cut down the shade trees before their\r\nhouses, and, when the crust was harder, cut off the trees in the swamps,\r\nten feet from the ground, as it appeared the next spring.\r\n\r\nIn the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to\r\nmy house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a\r\nmeandering dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots. For a week\r\nof even weather I took exactly the same number of steps, and of the same\r\nlength, coming and going, stepping deliberately and with the precision\r\nof a pair of dividers in my own deep tracks--to such routine the winter\r\nreduces us--yet often they were filled with heaven's own blue. But no\r\nweather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for\r\nI frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to\r\nkeep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old\r\nacquaintance among the pines; when the ice and snow causing their limbs\r\nto droop, and so sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir\r\ntrees; wading to the tops of the highest hills when the show was nearly\r\ntwo feet deep on a level, and shaking down another snow-storm on my head\r\nat every step; or sometimes creeping and floundering thither on my hands\r\nand knees, when the hunters had gone into winter quarters. One afternoon\r\nI amused myself by watching a barred owl (_Strix nebulosa_) sitting on one\r\nof the lower dead limbs of a white pine, close to the trunk, in broad\r\ndaylight, I standing within a rod of him. He could hear me when I moved\r\nand cronched the snow with my feet, but could not plainly see me. When\r\nI made most noise he would stretch out his neck, and erect his neck\r\nfeathers, and open his eyes wide; but their lids soon fell again, and he\r\nbegan to nod. I too felt a slumberous influence after watching him half\r\nan hour, as he sat thus with his eyes half open, like a cat, winged\r\nbrother of the cat. There was only a narrow slit left between their\r\nlids, by which he preserved a peninsular relation to me; thus, with\r\nhalf-shut eyes, looking out from the land of dreams, and endeavoring\r\nto realize me, vague object or mote that interrupted his visions. At\r\nlength, on some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy\r\nand sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impatient at having his\r\ndreams disturbed; and when he launched himself off and flapped through\r\nthe pines, spreading his wings to unexpected breadth, I could not hear\r\nthe slightest sound from them. Thus, guided amid the pine boughs rather\r\nby a delicate sense of their neighborhood than by sight, feeling his\r\ntwilight way, as it were, with his sensitive pinions, he found a new\r\nperch, where he might in peace await the dawning of his day.\r\n\r\nAs I walked over the long causeway made for the railroad through the\r\nmeadows, I encountered many a blustering and nipping wind, for nowhere\r\nhas it freer play; and when the frost had smitten me on one cheek,\r\nheathen as I was, I turned to it the other also. Nor was it much better\r\nby the carriage road from Brister's Hill. For I came to town still, like\r\na friendly Indian, when the contents of the broad open fields were all\r\npiled up between the walls of the Walden road, and half an hour sufficed\r\nto obliterate the tracks of the last traveller. And when I returned new\r\ndrifts would have formed, through which I floundered, where the busy\r\nnorthwest wind had been depositing the powdery snow round a sharp angle\r\nin the road, and not a rabbit's track, nor even the fine print, the\r\nsmall type, of a meadow mouse was to be seen. Yet I rarely failed to\r\nfind, even in midwinter, some warm and springly swamp where the grass\r\nand the skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial verdure, and some\r\nhardier bird occasionally awaited the return of spring.\r\n\r\nSometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from my walk at\r\nevening I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper leading from my door,\r\nand found his pile of whittlings on the hearth, and my house filled with\r\nthe odor of his pipe. Or on a Sunday afternoon, if I chanced to be\r\nat home, I heard the cronching of the snow made by the step of a\r\nlong-headed farmer, who from far through the woods sought my house, to\r\nhave a social \"crack\"; one of the few of his vocation who are \"men on\r\ntheir farms\"; who donned a frock instead of a professor's gown, and is\r\nas ready to extract the moral out of church or state as to haul a load\r\nof manure from his barn-yard. We talked of rude and simple times, when\r\nmen sat about large fires in cold, bracing weather, with clear heads;\r\nand when other dessert failed, we tried our teeth on many a nut which\r\nwise squirrels have long since abandoned, for those which have the\r\nthickest shells are commonly empty.\r\n\r\nThe one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and\r\nmost dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a\r\nreporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a\r\npoet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings\r\nand goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors\r\nsleep. We made that small house ring with boisterous mirth and resound\r\nwith the murmur of much sober talk, making amends then to Walden vale\r\nfor the long silences. Broadway was still and deserted in comparison. At\r\nsuitable intervals there were regular salutes of laughter, which might\r\nhave been referred indifferently to the last-uttered or the forth-coming\r\njest. We made many a \"bran new\" theory of life over a thin dish\r\nof gruel, which combined the advantages of conviviality with the\r\nclear-headedness which philosophy requires.\r\n\r\nI should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was\r\nanother welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village,\r\nthrough snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the\r\ntrees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One of the last of\r\nthe philosophers--Connecticut gave him to the world--he peddled first\r\nher wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles\r\nstill, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain\r\nonly, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the\r\nmost faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better\r\nstate of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the\r\nlast man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in\r\nthe present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day\r\ncomes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of\r\nfamilies and rulers will come to him for advice.\r\n\r\n               \"How blind that cannot see serenity!\"\r\n\r\nA true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An Old\r\nMortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience and faith\r\nmaking plain the image engraven in men's bodies, the God of whom they\r\nare but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect\r\nhe embraces children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the\r\nthought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I\r\nthink that he should keep a caravansary on the world's highway, where\r\nphilosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be\r\nprinted, \"Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that\r\nhave leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.\" He is\r\nperhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance\r\nto know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and\r\ntalked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to\r\nno institution in it, freeborn, _ingenuus_. Whichever way we turned,\r\nit seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he\r\nenhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest\r\nroof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see\r\nhow he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.\r\n\r\nHaving each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled\r\nthem, trying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the\r\npumpkin pine. We waded so gently and reverently, or we pulled together\r\nso smoothly, that the fishes of thought were not scared from the stream,\r\nnor feared any angler on the bank, but came and went grandly, like the\r\nclouds which float through the western sky, and the mother-o'-pearl\r\nflocks which sometimes form and dissolve there. There we worked,\r\nrevising mythology, rounding a fable here and there, and building\r\ncastles in the air for which earth offered no worthy foundation. Great\r\nLooker! Great Expecter! to converse with whom was a New England Night's\r\nEntertainment. Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and\r\nthe old settler I have spoken of--we three--it expanded and racked my\r\nlittle house; I should not dare to say how many pounds' weight there\r\nwas above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its\r\nseams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop\r\nthe consequent leak;--but I had enough of that kind of oakum already\r\npicked.\r\n\r\nThere was one other with whom I had \"solid seasons,\" long to be\r\nremembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me from\r\ntime to time; but I had no more for society there.\r\n\r\nThere too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the Visitor who never\r\ncomes. The Vishnu Purana says, \"The house-holder is to remain at\r\neventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer\r\nif he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest.\" I often performed this\r\nduty of hospitality, waited long enough to milk a whole herd of cows,\r\nbut did not see the man approaching from the town.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWinter Animals\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded not only new and\r\nshorter routes to many points, but new views from their surfaces of the\r\nfamiliar landscape around them. When I crossed Flint's Pond, after it\r\nwas covered with snow, though I had often paddled about and skated over\r\nit, it was so unexpectedly wide and so strange that I could think of\r\nnothing but Baffin's Bay. The Lincoln hills rose up around me at the\r\nextremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not remember to have stood\r\nbefore; and the fishermen, at an indeterminable distance over the ice,\r\nmoving slowly about with their wolfish dogs, passed for sealers, or\r\nEsquimaux, or in misty weather loomed like fabulous creatures, and I did\r\nnot know whether they were giants or pygmies. I took this course when\r\nI went to lecture in Lincoln in the evening, travelling in no road and\r\npassing no house between my own hut and the lecture room. In Goose Pond,\r\nwhich lay in my way, a colony of muskrats dwelt, and raised their cabins\r\nhigh above the ice, though none could be seen abroad when I crossed it.\r\nWalden, being like the rest usually bare of snow, or with only shallow\r\nand interrupted drifts on it, was my yard where I could walk freely when\r\nthe snow was nearly two feet deep on a level elsewhere and the villagers\r\nwere confined to their streets. There, far from the village street, and\r\nexcept at very long intervals, from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid\r\nand skated, as in a vast moose-yard well trodden, overhung by oak woods\r\nand solemn pines bent down with snow or bristling with icicles.\r\n\r\nFor sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the\r\nforlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far; such\r\na sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable\r\nplectrum, the very _lingua vernacula_ of Walden Wood, and quite familiar\r\nto me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it. I\r\nseldom opened my door in a winter evening without hearing it; _Hoo hoo\r\nhoo, hoorer, hoo,_ sounded sonorously, and the first three syllables\r\naccented somewhat like _how der do_; or sometimes _hoo, hoo_ only. One\r\nnight in the beginning of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine\r\no'clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, and, stepping to\r\nthe door, heard the sound of their wings like a tempest in the woods\r\nas they flew low over my house. They passed over the pond toward Fair\r\nHaven, seemingly deterred from settling by my light, their commodore\r\nhonking all the while with a regular beat. Suddenly an unmistakable\r\ncat-owl from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice\r\nI ever heard from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular\r\nintervals to the goose, as if determined to expose and disgrace this\r\nintruder from Hudson's Bay by exhibiting a greater compass and volume of\r\nvoice in a native, and _boo-hoo_ him out of Concord horizon. What do you\r\nmean by alarming the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me? Do\r\nyou think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I have not\r\ngot lungs and a larynx as well as yourself? _Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo!_\r\nIt was one of the most thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, if you\r\nhad a discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a concord\r\nsuch as these plains never saw nor heard.\r\n\r\nI also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in\r\nthat part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain\r\nturn over, were troubled with flatulency and had dreams; or I was waked\r\nby the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a\r\nteam against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth\r\na quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.\r\n\r\nSometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow-crust, in\r\nmoonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking\r\nraggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some\r\nanxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs\r\noutright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our\r\naccount, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as\r\nwell as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still\r\nstanding on their defence, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one\r\ncame near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at\r\nme, and then retreated.\r\n\r\nUsually the red squirrel (_Sciurus Hudsonius_) waked me in the dawn,\r\ncoursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if\r\nsent out of the woods for this purpose. In the course of the winter I\r\nthrew out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had not got ripe,\r\non to the snow-crust by my door, and was amused by watching the motions\r\nof the various animals which were baited by it. In the twilight and the\r\nnight the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. All day long\r\nthe red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by\r\ntheir manoeuvres. One would approach at first warily through the shrub\r\noaks, running over the snow-crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown\r\nby the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste\r\nof energy, making inconceivable haste with his \"trotters,\" as if it were\r\nfor a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more\r\nthan half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous\r\nexpression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe\r\nwere eyed on him--for all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most\r\nsolitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a\r\ndancing girl--wasting more time in delay and circumspection than would\r\nhave sufficed to walk the whole distance--I never saw one walk--and then\r\nsuddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top\r\nof a young pitch pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary\r\nspectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same\r\ntime--for no reason that I could ever detect, or he himself was aware\r\nof, I suspect. At length he would reach the corn, and selecting a\r\nsuitable ear, frisk about in the same uncertain trigonometrical way to\r\nthe topmost stick of my wood-pile, before my window, where he looked me\r\nin the face, and there sit for hours, supplying himself with a new\r\near from time to time, nibbling at first voraciously and throwing the\r\nhalf-naked cobs about; till at length he grew more dainty still and\r\nplayed with his food, tasting only the inside of the kernel, and the\r\near, which was held balanced over the stick by one paw, slipped from\r\nhis careless grasp and fell to the ground, when he would look over at it\r\nwith a ludicrous expression of uncertainty, as if suspecting that it had\r\nlife, with a mind not made up whether to get it again, or a new one,\r\nor be off; now thinking of corn, then listening to hear what was in\r\nthe wind. So the little impudent fellow would waste many an ear in\r\na forenoon; till at last, seizing some longer and plumper one,\r\nconsiderably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he would\r\nset out with it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, by the same\r\nzig-zag course and frequent pauses, scratching along with it as if it\r\nwere too heavy for him and falling all the while, making its fall a\r\ndiagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being determined to\r\nput it through at any rate;--a singularly frivolous and whimsical\r\nfellow;--and so he would get off with it to where he lived, perhaps\r\ncarry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty rods distant, and\r\nI would afterwards find the cobs strewn about the woods in various\r\ndirections.\r\n\r\nAt length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams were heard long\r\nbefore, as they were warily making their approach an eighth of a mile\r\noff, and in a stealthy and sneaking manner they flit from tree to tree,\r\nnearer and nearer, and pick up the kernels which the squirrels have\r\ndropped. Then, sitting on a pitch pine bough, they attempt to swallow in\r\ntheir haste a kernel which is too big for their throats and chokes\r\nthem; and after great labor they disgorge it, and spend an hour in\r\nthe endeavor to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. They\r\nwere manifestly thieves, and I had not much respect for them; but the\r\nsquirrels, though at first shy, went to work as if they were taking what\r\nwas their own.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile also came the chickadees in flocks, which, picking up the\r\ncrumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew to the nearest twig and, placing\r\nthem under their claws, hammered away at them with their little bills,\r\nas if it were an insect in the bark, till they were sufficiently reduced\r\nfor their slender throats. A little flock of these titmice came daily to\r\npick a dinner out of my woodpile, or the crumbs at my door, with faint\r\nflitting lisping notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass, or\r\nelse with sprightly _day day day_, or more rarely, in spring-like days,\r\na wiry summery _phe-be_ from the woodside. They were so familiar that at\r\nlength one alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying in, and\r\npecked at the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight upon my\r\nshoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt\r\nthat I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have\r\nbeen by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels also grew at last\r\nto be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped upon my shoe, when that\r\nwas the nearest way.\r\n\r\nWhen the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near the end of\r\nwinter, when the snow was melted on my south hillside and about my\r\nwood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to\r\nfeed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts\r\naway on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs\r\non high, which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust, for\r\nthis brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered\r\nup by drifts, and, it is said, \"sometimes plunges from on wing into the\r\nsoft snow, where it remains concealed for a day or two.\" I used to start\r\nthem in the open land also, where they had come out of the woods at\r\nsunset to \"bud\" the wild apple trees. They will come regularly every\r\nevening to particular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies in wait\r\nfor them, and the distant orchards next the woods suffer thus not\r\na little. I am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is\r\nNature's own bird which lives on buds and diet drink.\r\n\r\nIn dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes\r\nheard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with hounding cry and\r\nyelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase, and the note of the\r\nhunting-horn at intervals, proving that man was in the rear. The woods\r\nring again, and yet no fox bursts forth on to the open level of the\r\npond, nor following pack pursuing their Act\u00e6on. And perhaps at evening\r\nI see the hunters returning with a single brush trailing from their\r\nsleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the fox\r\nwould remain in the bosom of the frozen earth he would be safe, or if he\r\nwould run in a straight line away no foxhound could overtake him; but,\r\nhaving left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest and listen till\r\nthey come up, and when he runs he circles round to his old haunts, where\r\nthe hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many\r\nrods, and then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that\r\nwater will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw a fox\r\npursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was covered with\r\nshallow puddles, run part way across, and then return to the same shore.\r\nEre long the hounds arrived, but here they lost the scent. Sometimes\r\na pack hunting by themselves would pass my door, and circle round my\r\nhouse, and yelp and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a\r\nspecies of madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit.\r\nThus they circle until they fall upon the recent trail of a fox, for a\r\nwise hound will forsake everything else for this. One day a man came\r\nto my hut from Lexington to inquire after his hound that made a large\r\ntrack, and had been hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he\r\nwas not the wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to\r\nanswer his questions he interrupted me by asking, \"What do you do here?\"\r\nHe had lost a dog, but found a man.\r\n\r\nOne old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to come to bathe in Walden\r\nonce every year when the water was warmest, and at such times looked in\r\nupon me, told me that many years ago he took his gun one afternoon and\r\nwent out for a cruise in Walden Wood; and as he walked the Wayland road\r\nhe heard the cry of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the\r\nwall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall out of\r\nthe road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some way behind came\r\nan old hound and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own\r\naccount, and disappeared again in the woods. Late in the afternoon, as\r\nhe was resting in the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice\r\nof the hounds far over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; and\r\non they came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sounding\r\nnearer and nearer, now from Well Meadow, now from the Baker Farm. For\r\na long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to\r\na hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the solemn\r\naisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed by a\r\nsympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the round,\r\nleaving his pursuers far behind; and, leaping upon a rock amid the\r\nwoods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the hunter. For\r\na moment compassion restrained the latter's arm; but that was a\r\nshort-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow thought his piece\r\nwas levelled, and _whang!_--the fox, rolling over the rock, lay dead on\r\nthe ground. The hunter still kept his place and listened to the hounds.\r\nStill on they came, and now the near woods resounded through all their\r\naisles with their demoniac cry. At length the old hound burst into view\r\nwith muzzle to the ground, and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran\r\ndirectly to the rock; but, spying the dead fox, she suddenly ceased her\r\nhounding as if struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and round\r\nhim in silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother,\r\nwere sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the hunter came forward\r\nand stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They waited in\r\nsilence while he skinned the fox, then followed the brush a while, and\r\nat length turned off into the woods again. That evening a Weston squire\r\ncame to the Concord hunter's cottage to inquire for his hounds, and told\r\nhow for a week they had been hunting on their own account from Weston\r\nwoods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and offered him the\r\nskin; but the other declined it and departed. He did not find his hounds\r\nthat night, but the next day learned that they had crossed the river and\r\nput up at a farmhouse for the night, whence, having been well fed, they\r\ntook their departure early in the morning.\r\n\r\nThe hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nutting, who used\r\nto hunt bears on Fair Haven Ledges, and exchange their skins for rum\r\nin Concord village; who told him, even, that he had seen a moose\r\nthere. Nutting had a famous foxhound named Burgoyne--he pronounced it\r\nBugine--which my informant used to borrow. In the \"Wast Book\" of an\r\nold trader of this town, who was also a captain, town-clerk, and\r\nrepresentative, I find the following entry. Jan. 18th, 1742-3, \"John\r\nMelven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox 0--2--3\"; they are not now found here; and in\r\nhis ledger, Feb, 7th, 1743, Hezekiah Stratton has credit \"by 1\/2 a Catt\r\nskin 0--1--4-1\/2\"; of course, a wild-cat, for Stratton was a sergeant in\r\nthe old French war, and would not have got credit for hunting less noble\r\ngame. Credit is given for deerskins also, and they were daily sold. One\r\nman still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this\r\nvicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which\r\nhis uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry\r\ncrew here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod who would catch up a leaf\r\nby the roadside and play a strain on it wilder and more melodious, if my\r\nmemory serves me, than any hunting-horn.\r\n\r\nAt midnight, when there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my\r\npath prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way, as if\r\nafraid, and stand silent amid the bushes till I had passed.\r\n\r\nSquirrels and wild mice disputed for my store of nuts. There were scores\r\nof pitch pines around my house, from one to four inches in diameter,\r\nwhich had been gnawed by mice the previous winter--a Norwegian winter\r\nfor them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they were obliged to mix\r\na large proportion of pine bark with their other diet. These trees were\r\nalive and apparently flourishing at midsummer, and many of them had\r\ngrown a foot, though completely girdled; but after another winter such\r\nwere without exception dead. It is remarkable that a single mouse should\r\nthus be allowed a whole pine tree for its dinner, gnawing round instead\r\nof up and down it; but perhaps it is necessary in order to thin these\r\ntrees, which are wont to grow up densely.\r\n\r\nThe hares (_Lepus Americanus_) were very familiar. One had her form under\r\nmy house all winter, separated from me only by the flooring, and\r\nshe startled me each morning by her hasty departure when I began to\r\nstir--thump, thump, thump, striking her head against the floor timbers\r\nin her hurry. They used to come round my door at dusk to nibble the\r\npotato parings which I had thrown out, and were so nearly the color of\r\nthe ground that they could hardly be distinguished when still. Sometimes\r\nin the twilight I alternately lost and recovered sight of one sitting\r\nmotionless under my window. When I opened my door in the evening, off\r\nthey would go with a squeak and a bounce. Near at hand they only excited\r\nmy pity. One evening one sat by my door two paces from me, at first\r\ntrembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor wee thing, lean and\r\nbony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws. It\r\nlooked as if Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, but\r\nstood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy,\r\nalmost dropsical. I took a step, and lo, away it scud with an elastic\r\nspring over the snow-crust, straightening its body and its limbs into\r\ngraceful length, and soon put the forest between me and itself--the wild\r\nfree venison, asserting its vigor and the dignity of Nature. Not without\r\nreason was its slenderness. Such then was its nature. (_Lepus_, _levipes_,\r\nlight-foot, some think.)\r\n\r\nWhat is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the\r\nmost simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable\r\nfamilies known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and\r\nsubstance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground--and to\r\none another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you\r\nhad seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only\r\na natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves. The partridge\r\nand the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil,\r\nwhatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and\r\nbushes which spring up afford them concealment, and they become more\r\nnumerous than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not\r\nsupport a hare. Our woods teem with them both, and around every swamp\r\nmay be seen the partridge or rabbit walk, beset with twiggy fences and\r\nhorse-hair snares, which some cow-boy tends.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Pond in Winter\r\n\r\n\r\nAfter a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some\r\nquestion had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to\r\nanswer in my sleep, as what--how--when--where? But there was dawning\r\nNature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with\r\nserene and satisfied face, and no question on _her_ lips. I awoke to an\r\nanswered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the\r\nearth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which\r\nmy house is placed, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question\r\nand answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her\r\nresolution. \"O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit\r\nto the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe. The\r\nnight veils without doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day\r\ncomes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even\r\ninto the plains of the ether.\"\r\n\r\nThen to my morning work. First I take an axe and pail and go in search\r\nof water, if that be not a dream. After a cold and snowy night it needed\r\na divining-rod to find it. Every winter the liquid and trembling surface\r\nof the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every\r\nlight and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a\r\nhalf, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow\r\ncovers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any\r\nlevel field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its\r\neyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more. Standing on the\r\nsnow-covered plain, as if in a pasture amid the hills, I cut my way\r\nfirst through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window\r\nunder my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet\r\nparlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window\r\nof ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer;\r\nthere a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight\r\nsky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of the inhabitants.\r\nHeaven is under our feet is well as over our heads.\r\n\r\nEarly in the morning, while all things are crisp with frost, men come\r\nwith fishing-reels and slender lunch, and let down their fine lines\r\nthrough the snowy field to take pickerel and perch; wild men, who\r\ninstinctively follow other fashions and trust other authorities than\r\ntheir townsmen, and by their goings and comings stitch towns together in\r\nparts where else they would be ripped. They sit and eat their luncheon\r\nin stout fear-naughts on the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise in\r\nnatural lore as the citizen is in artificial. They never consulted with\r\nbooks, and know and can tell much less than they have done. The things\r\nwhich they practice are said not yet to be known. Here is one fishing\r\nfor pickerel with grown perch for bait. You look into his pail with\r\nwonder as into a summer pond, as if he kept summer locked up at home, or\r\nknew where she had retreated. How, pray, did he get these in midwinter?\r\nOh, he got worms out of rotten logs since the ground froze, and so he\r\ncaught them. His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies\r\nof the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist.\r\nThe latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of\r\ninsects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss\r\nand bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a\r\nman has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.\r\nThe perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and\r\nthe fisher-man swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale\r\nof being are filled.\r\n\r\nWhen I strolled around the pond in misty weather I was sometimes amused\r\nby the primitive mode which some ruder fisherman had adopted. He would\r\nperhaps have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the ice,\r\nwhich were four or five rods apart and an equal distance from the shore,\r\nand having fastened the end of the line to a stick to prevent its being\r\npulled through, have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a\r\nfoot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, which, being\r\npulled down, would show when he had a bite. These alders loomed through\r\nthe mist at regular intervals as you walked half way round the pond.\r\n\r\nAh, the pickerel of Walden! when I see them lying on the ice, or in the\r\nwell which the fisherman cuts in the ice, making a little hole to admit\r\nthe water, I am always surprised by their rare beauty, as if they were\r\nfabulous fishes, they are so foreign to the streets, even to the woods,\r\nforeign as Arabia to our Concord life. They possess a quite dazzling\r\nand transcendent beauty which separates them by a wide interval from the\r\ncadaverous cod and haddock whose fame is trumpeted in our streets. They\r\nare not green like the pines, nor gray like the stones, nor blue like\r\nthe sky; but they have, to my eyes, if possible, yet rarer colors, like\r\nflowers and precious stones, as if they were the pearls, the animalized\r\nnuclei or crystals of the Walden water. They, of course, are Walden\r\nall over and all through; are themselves small Waldens in the animal\r\nkingdom, Waldenses. It is surprising that they are caught here--that\r\nin this deep and capacious spring, far beneath the rattling teams and\r\nchaises and tinkling sleighs that travel the Walden road, this great\r\ngold and emerald fish swims. I never chanced to see its kind in any\r\nmarket; it would be the cynosure of all eyes there. Easily, with a\r\nfew convulsive quirks, they give up their watery ghosts, like a mortal\r\ntranslated before his time to the thin air of heaven.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAs I was desirous to recover the long lost bottom of Walden Pond, I\r\nsurveyed it carefully, before the ice broke up, early in '46, with\r\ncompass and chain and sounding line. There have been many stories told\r\nabout the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, which certainly had\r\nno foundation for themselves. It is remarkable how long men will believe\r\nin the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound\r\nit. I have visited two such Bottomless Ponds in one walk in this\r\nneighborhood. Many have believed that Walden reached quite through to\r\nthe other side of the globe. Some who have lain flat on the ice for\r\na long time, looking down through the illusive medium, perchance with\r\nwatery eyes into the bargain, and driven to hasty conclusions by the\r\nfear of catching cold in their breasts, have seen vast holes \"into which\r\na load of hay might be driven,\" if there were anybody to drive it, the\r\nundoubted source of the Styx and entrance to the Infernal Regions from\r\nthese parts. Others have gone down from the village with a \"fifty-six\"\r\nand a wagon load of inch rope, but yet have failed to find any bottom;\r\nfor while the \"fifty-six\" was resting by the way, they were paying out\r\nthe rope in the vain attempt to fathom their truly immeasurable capacity\r\nfor marvellousness. But I can assure my readers that Walden has a\r\nreasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual,\r\ndepth. I fathomed it easily with a cod-line and a stone weighing about\r\na pound and a half, and could tell accurately when the stone left the\r\nbottom, by having to pull so much harder before the water got underneath\r\nto help me. The greatest depth was exactly one hundred and two feet; to\r\nwhich may be added the five feet which it has risen since, making one\r\nhundred and seven. This is a remarkable depth for so small an area; yet\r\nnot an inch of it can be spared by the imagination. What if all ponds\r\nwere shallow? Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that\r\nthis pond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the\r\ninfinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.\r\n\r\nA factory-owner, hearing what depth I had found, thought that it could\r\nnot be true, for, judging from his acquaintance with dams, sand would\r\nnot lie at so steep an angle. But the deepest ponds are not so deep in\r\nproportion to their area as most suppose, and, if drained, would not\r\nleave very remarkable valleys. They are not like cups between the hills;\r\nfor this one, which is so unusually deep for its area, appears in a\r\nvertical section through its centre not deeper than a shallow plate.\r\nMost ponds, emptied, would leave a meadow no more hollow than we\r\nfrequently see. William Gilpin, who is so admirable in all that relates\r\nto landscapes, and usually so correct, standing at the head of Loch\r\nFyne, in Scotland, which he describes as \"a bay of salt water, sixty\r\nor seventy fathoms deep, four miles in breadth,\" and about fifty miles\r\nlong, surrounded by mountains, observes, \"If we could have seen it\r\nimmediately after the diluvian crash, or whatever convulsion of nature\r\noccasioned it, before the waters gushed in, what a horrid chasm must it\r\nhave appeared!\r\n\r\n            \"So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low\r\n             Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,\r\n             Capacious bed of waters.\"\r\n\r\nBut if, using the shortest diameter of Loch Fyne, we apply these\r\nproportions to Walden, which, as we have seen, appears already in a\r\nvertical section only like a shallow plate, it will appear four times\r\nas shallow. So much for the increased horrors of the chasm of Loch\r\nFyne when emptied. No doubt many a smiling valley with its stretching\r\ncornfields occupies exactly such a \"horrid chasm,\" from which the waters\r\nhave receded, though it requires the insight and the far sight of the\r\ngeologist to convince the unsuspecting inhabitants of this fact. Often\r\nan inquisitive eye may detect the shores of a primitive lake in the\r\nlow horizon hills, and no subsequent elevation of the plain have been\r\nnecessary to conceal their history. But it is easiest, as they who work\r\non the highways know, to find the hollows by the puddles after a shower.\r\nThe amount of it is, the imagination give it the least license, dives\r\ndeeper and soars higher than Nature goes. So, probably, the depth of the\r\nocean will be found to be very inconsiderable compared with its breadth.\r\n\r\nAs I sounded through the ice I could determine the shape of the bottom\r\nwith greater accuracy than is possible in surveying harbors which do\r\nnot freeze over, and I was surprised at its general regularity. In the\r\ndeepest part there are several acres more level than almost any field\r\nwhich is exposed to the sun, wind, and plow. In one instance, on a line\r\narbitrarily chosen, the depth did not vary more than one foot in thirty\r\nrods; and generally, near the middle, I could calculate the variation\r\nfor each one hundred feet in any direction beforehand within three or\r\nfour inches. Some are accustomed to speak of deep and dangerous holes\r\neven in quiet sandy ponds like this, but the effect of water under these\r\ncircumstances is to level all inequalities. The regularity of the bottom\r\nand its conformity to the shores and the range of the neighboring\r\nhills were so perfect that a distant promontory betrayed itself in the\r\nsoundings quite across the pond, and its direction could be determined\r\nby observing the opposite shore. Cape becomes bar, and plain shoal, and\r\nvalley and gorge deep water and channel.\r\n\r\nWhen I had mapped the pond by the scale of ten rods to an inch, and\r\nput down the soundings, more than a hundred in all, I observed this\r\nremarkable coincidence. Having noticed that the number indicating the\r\ngreatest depth was apparently in the centre of the map, I laid a rule\r\non the map lengthwise, and then breadthwise, and found, to my surprise,\r\nthat the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest\r\nbreadth _exactly_ at the point of greatest depth, notwithstanding that the\r\nmiddle is so nearly level, the outline of the pond far from regular, and\r\nthe extreme length and breadth were got by measuring into the coves; and\r\nI said to myself, Who knows but this hint would conduct to the deepest\r\npart of the ocean as well as of a pond or puddle? Is not this the rule\r\nalso for the height of mountains, regarded as the opposite of valleys?\r\nWe know that a hill is not highest at its narrowest part.\r\n\r\nOf five coves, three, or all which had been sounded, were observed to\r\nhave a bar quite across their mouths and deeper water within, so that\r\nthe bay tended to be an expansion of water within the land not only\r\nhorizontally but vertically, and to form a basin or independent pond,\r\nthe direction of the two capes showing the course of the bar. Every\r\nharbor on the sea-coast, also, has its bar at its entrance. In\r\nproportion as the mouth of the cove was wider compared with its length,\r\nthe water over the bar was deeper compared with that in the basin.\r\nGiven, then, the length and breadth of the cove, and the character of\r\nthe surrounding shore, and you have almost elements enough to make out a\r\nformula for all cases.\r\n\r\nIn order to see how nearly I could guess, with this experience, at the\r\ndeepest point in a pond, by observing the outlines of a surface and\r\nthe character of its shores alone, I made a plan of White Pond, which\r\ncontains about forty-one acres, and, like this, has no island in it, nor\r\nany visible inlet or outlet; and as the line of greatest breadth fell\r\nvery near the line of least breadth, where two opposite capes approached\r\neach other and two opposite bays receded, I ventured to mark a point a\r\nshort distance from the latter line, but still on the line of greatest\r\nlength, as the deepest. The deepest part was found to be within one\r\nhundred feet of this, still farther in the direction to which I had\r\ninclined, and was only one foot deeper, namely, sixty feet. Of course, a\r\nstream running through, or an island in the pond, would make the problem\r\nmuch more complicated.\r\n\r\nIf we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or\r\nthe description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular\r\nresults at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is\r\nvitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature,\r\nbut by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our\r\nnotions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances\r\nwhich we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number\r\nof seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not\r\ndetected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points\r\nof view, as, to the traveller, a mountain outline varies with every\r\nstep, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but\r\none form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its\r\nentireness.\r\n\r\nWhat I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics. It is the\r\nlaw of average. Such a rule of the two diameters not only guides us\r\ntoward the sun in the system and the heart in man, but draws lines\r\nthrough the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man's particular\r\ndaily behaviors and waves of life into his coves and inlets, and where\r\nthey intersect will be the height or depth of his character. Perhaps\r\nwe need only to know how his shores trend and his adjacent country\r\nor circumstances, to infer his depth and concealed bottom. If he is\r\nsurrounded by mountainous circumstances, an Achillean shore, whose peaks\r\novershadow and are reflected in his bosom, they suggest a corresponding\r\ndepth in him. But a low and smooth shore proves him shallow on that\r\nside. In our bodies, a bold projecting brow falls off to and indicates a\r\ncorresponding depth of thought. Also there is a bar across the entrance\r\nof our every cove, or particular inclination; each is our harbor for\r\na season, in which we are detained and partially land-locked. These\r\ninclinations are not whimsical usually, but their form, size, and\r\ndirection are determined by the promontories of the shore, the ancient\r\naxes of elevation. When this bar is gradually increased by storms,\r\ntides, or currents, or there is a subsidence of the waters, so that it\r\nreaches to the surface, that which was at first but an inclination in\r\nthe shore in which a thought was harbored becomes an individual\r\nlake, cut off from the ocean, wherein the thought secures its own\r\nconditions--changes, perhaps, from salt to fresh, becomes a sweet sea,\r\ndead sea, or a marsh. At the advent of each individual into this life,\r\nmay we not suppose that such a bar has risen to the surface somewhere?\r\nIt is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most\r\npart, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with\r\nthe bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry,\r\nand go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this\r\nworld, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.\r\n\r\nAs for the inlet or outlet of Walden, I have not discovered any but rain\r\nand snow and evaporation, though perhaps, with a thermometer and a line,\r\nsuch places may be found, for where the water flows into the pond it\r\nwill probably be coldest in summer and warmest in winter. When the\r\nice-men were at work here in '46-7, the cakes sent to the shore were one\r\nday rejected by those who were stacking them up there, not being\r\nthick enough to lie side by side with the rest; and the cutters thus\r\ndiscovered that the ice over a small space was two or three inches\r\nthinner than elsewhere, which made them think that there was an inlet\r\nthere. They also showed me in another place what they thought was a\r\n\"leach-hole,\" through which the pond leaked out under a hill into a\r\nneighboring meadow, pushing me out on a cake of ice to see it. It was a\r\nsmall cavity under ten feet of water; but I think that I can warrant the\r\npond not to need soldering till they find a worse leak than that.\r\nOne has suggested, that if such a \"leach-hole\" should be found, its\r\nconnection with the meadow, if any existed, might be proved by conveying\r\nsome colored powder or sawdust to the mouth of the hole, and then\r\nputting a strainer over the spring in the meadow, which would catch some\r\nof the particles carried through by the current.\r\n\r\nWhile I was surveying, the ice, which was sixteen inches thick,\r\nundulated under a slight wind like water. It is well known that a\r\nlevel cannot be used on ice. At one rod from the shore its greatest\r\nfluctuation, when observed by means of a level on land directed toward\r\na graduated staff on the ice, was three quarters of an inch, though the\r\nice appeared firmly attached to the shore. It was probably greater in\r\nthe middle. Who knows but if our instruments were delicate enough we\r\nmight detect an undulation in the crust of the earth? When two legs of\r\nmy level were on the shore and the third on the ice, and the sights\r\nwere directed over the latter, a rise or fall of the ice of an almost\r\ninfinitesimal amount made a difference of several feet on a tree across\r\nthe pond. When I began to cut holes for sounding there were three or\r\nfour inches of water on the ice under a deep snow which had sunk it\r\nthus far; but the water began immediately to run into these holes, and\r\ncontinued to run for two days in deep streams, which wore away the ice\r\non every side, and contributed essentially, if not mainly, to dry the\r\nsurface of the pond; for, as the water ran in, it raised and floated the\r\nice. This was somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of a ship to\r\nlet the water out. When such holes freeze, and a rain succeeds,\r\nand finally a new freezing forms a fresh smooth ice over all, it is\r\nbeautifully mottled internally by dark figures, shaped somewhat like a\r\nspider's web, what you may call ice rosettes, produced by the channels\r\nworn by the water flowing from all sides to a centre. Sometimes, also,\r\nwhen the ice was covered with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of\r\nmyself, one standing on the head of the other, one on the ice, the other\r\non the trees or hillside.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nWhile yet it is cold January, and snow and ice are thick and solid, the\r\nprudent landlord comes from the village to get ice to cool his summer\r\ndrink; impressively, even pathetically, wise, to foresee the heat and\r\nthirst of July now in January--wearing a thick coat and mittens! when so\r\nmany things are not provided for. It may be that he lays up no treasures\r\nin this world which will cool his summer drink in the next. He cuts and\r\nsaws the solid pond, unroofs the house of fishes, and carts off their\r\nvery element and air, held fast by chains and stakes like corded wood,\r\nthrough the favoring winter air, to wintry cellars, to underlie the\r\nsummer there. It looks like solidified azure, as, far off, it is drawn\r\nthrough the streets. These ice-cutters are a merry race, full of jest\r\nand sport, and when I went among them they were wont to invite me to saw\r\npit-fashion with them, I standing underneath.\r\n\r\nIn the winter of '46-7 there came a hundred men of Hyperborean\r\nextraction swoop down on to our pond one morning, with many carloads\r\nof ungainly-looking farming tools--sleds, plows, drill-barrows,\r\nturf-knives, spades, saws, rakes, and each man was armed with a\r\ndouble-pointed pike-staff, such as is not described in the New-England\r\nFarmer or the Cultivator. I did not know whether they had come to sow a\r\ncrop of winter rye, or some other kind of grain recently introduced from\r\nIceland. As I saw no manure, I judged that they meant to skim the land,\r\nas I had done, thinking the soil was deep and had lain fallow long\r\nenough. They said that a gentleman farmer, who was behind the scenes,\r\nwanted to double his money, which, as I understood, amounted to half\r\na million already; but in order to cover each one of his dollars with\r\nanother, he took off the only coat, ay, the skin itself, of Walden\r\nPond in the midst of a hard winter. They went to work at once, plowing,\r\nbarrowing, rolling, furrowing, in admirable order, as if they were bent\r\non making this a model farm; but when I was looking sharp to see what\r\nkind of seed they dropped into the furrow, a gang of fellows by my side\r\nsuddenly began to hook up the virgin mould itself, with a peculiar jerk,\r\nclean down to the sand, or rather the water--for it was a very springy\r\nsoil--indeed all the _terra firma_ there was--and haul it away on sleds,\r\nand then I guessed that they must be cutting peat in a bog. So they came\r\nand went every day, with a peculiar shriek from the locomotive, from and\r\nto some point of the polar regions, as it seemed to me, like a flock\r\nof arctic snow-birds. But sometimes Squaw Walden had her revenge, and\r\na hired man, walking behind his team, slipped through a crack in the\r\nground down toward Tartarus, and he who was so brave before suddenly\r\nbecame but the ninth part of a man, almost gave up his animal heat, and\r\nwas glad to take refuge in my house, and acknowledged that there was\r\nsome virtue in a stove; or sometimes the frozen soil took a piece of\r\nsteel out of a plowshare, or a plow got set in the furrow and had to be\r\ncut out.\r\n\r\nTo speak literally, a hundred Irishmen, with Yankee overseers, came from\r\nCambridge every day to get out the ice. They divided it into cakes by\r\nmethods too well known to require description, and these, being sledded\r\nto the shore, were rapidly hauled off on to an ice platform, and raised\r\nby grappling irons and block and tackle, worked by horses, on to a\r\nstack, as surely as so many barrels of flour, and there placed evenly\r\nside by side, and row upon row, as if they formed the solid base of an\r\nobelisk designed to pierce the clouds. They told me that in a good day\r\nthey could get out a thousand tons, which was the yield of about one\r\nacre. Deep ruts and \"cradle-holes\" were worn in the ice, as on _terra\r\nfirma_, by the passage of the sleds over the same track, and the horses\r\ninvariably ate their oats out of cakes of ice hollowed out like buckets.\r\nThey stacked up the cakes thus in the open air in a pile thirty-five\r\nfeet high on one side and six or seven rods square, putting hay between\r\nthe outside layers to exclude the air; for when the wind, though never\r\nso cold, finds a passage through, it will wear large cavities, leaving\r\nslight supports or studs only here and there, and finally topple it\r\ndown. At first it looked like a vast blue fort or Valhalla; but when\r\nthey began to tuck the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this\r\nbecame covered with rime and icicles, it looked like a venerable\r\nmoss-grown and hoary ruin, built of azure-tinted marble, the abode of\r\nWinter, that old man we see in the almanac--his shanty, as if he had\r\na design to estivate with us. They calculated that not twenty-five per\r\ncent of this would reach its destination, and that two or three per cent\r\nwould be wasted in the cars. However, a still greater part of this heap\r\nhad a different destiny from what was intended; for, either because the\r\nice was found not to keep so well as was expected, containing more air\r\nthan usual, or for some other reason, it never got to market. This heap,\r\nmade in the winter of '46-7 and estimated to contain ten thousand tons,\r\nwas finally covered with hay and boards; and though it was unroofed the\r\nfollowing July, and a part of it carried off, the rest remaining exposed\r\nto the sun, it stood over that summer and the next winter, and was not\r\nquite melted till September, 1848. Thus the pond recovered the greater\r\npart.\r\n\r\nLike the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but\r\nat a distance is beautifully blue, and you can easily tell it from the\r\nwhite ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a\r\nquarter of a mile off. Sometimes one of those great cakes slips from the\r\nice-man's sled into the village street, and lies there for a week like a\r\ngreat emerald, an object of interest to all passers. I have noticed that\r\na portion of Walden which in the state of water was green will often,\r\nwhen frozen, appear from the same point of view blue. So the hollows\r\nabout this pond will, sometimes, in the winter, be filled with a\r\ngreenish water somewhat like its own, but the next day will have frozen\r\nblue. Perhaps the blue color of water and ice is due to the light and\r\nair they contain, and the most transparent is the bluest. Ice is an\r\ninteresting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some\r\nin the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as\r\never. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen\r\nremains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference\r\nbetween the affections and the intellect.\r\n\r\nThus for sixteen days I saw from my window a hundred men at work like\r\nbusy husbandmen, with teams and horses and apparently all the implements\r\nof farming, such a picture as we see on the first page of the almanac;\r\nand as often as I looked out I was reminded of the fable of the lark and\r\nthe reapers, or the parable of the sower, and the like; and now they are\r\nall gone, and in thirty days more, probably, I shall look from the same\r\nwindow on the pure sea-green Walden water there, reflecting the clouds\r\nand the trees, and sending up its evaporations in solitude, and no\r\ntraces will appear that a man has ever stood there. Perhaps I shall hear\r\na solitary loon laugh as he dives and plumes himself, or shall see a\r\nlonely fisher in his boat, like a floating leaf, beholding his form\r\nreflected in the waves, where lately a hundred men securely labored.\r\n\r\nThus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New\r\nOrleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. In the\r\nmorning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy\r\nof the Bhagvat-Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods\r\nhave elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its\r\nliterature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is\r\nnot to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its\r\nsublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well\r\nfor water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of\r\nBrahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges\r\nreading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and\r\nwater jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and\r\nour buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden\r\nwater is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. With favoring\r\nwinds it is wafted past the site of the fabulous islands of Atlantis and\r\nthe Hesperides, makes the periplus of Hanno, and, floating by Ternate\r\nand Tidore and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, melts in the tropic gales\r\nof the Indian seas, and is landed in ports of which Alexander only heard\r\nthe names.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSpring\r\n\r\n\r\nThe opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters commonly causes a pond\r\nto break up earlier; for the water, agitated by the wind, even in cold\r\nweather, wears away the surrounding ice. But such was not the effect on\r\nWalden that year, for she had soon got a thick new garment to take the\r\nplace of the old. This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in\r\nthis neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having\r\nno stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice. I never knew\r\nit to open in the course of a winter, not excepting that of '52-3, which\r\ngave the ponds so severe a trial. It commonly opens about the first\r\nof April, a week or ten days later than Flint's Pond and Fair Haven,\r\nbeginning to melt on the north side and in the shallower parts where\r\nit began to freeze. It indicates better than any water hereabouts the\r\nabsolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient\r\nchanges of temperature. A severe cold of a few days' duration in\r\nMarch may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the\r\ntemperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly. A thermometer\r\nthrust into the middle of Walden on the 6th of March, 1847, stood at\r\n32\u00ba, or freezing point; near the shore at 33\u00ba; in the middle of Flint's\r\nPond, the same day, at 32\u00ba; at a dozen rods from the shore, in shallow\r\nwater, under ice a foot thick, at 36\u00ba. This difference of three and a\r\nhalf degrees between the temperature of the deep water and the shallow\r\nin the latter pond, and the fact that a great proportion of it is\r\ncomparatively shallow, show why it should break up so much sooner than\r\nWalden. The ice in the shallowest part was at this time several inches\r\nthinner than in the middle. In midwinter the middle had been the warmest\r\nand the ice thinnest there. So, also, every one who has waded about the\r\nshores of the pond in summer must have perceived how much warmer the\r\nwater is close to the shore, where only three or four inches deep, than\r\na little distance out, and on the surface where it is deep, than near\r\nthe bottom. In spring the sun not only exerts an influence through the\r\nincreased temperature of the air and earth, but its heat passes through\r\nice a foot or more thick, and is reflected from the bottom in shallow\r\nwater, and so also warms the water and melts the under side of the ice,\r\nat the same time that it is melting it more directly above, making\r\nit uneven, and causing the air bubbles which it contains to extend\r\nthemselves upward and downward until it is completely honeycombed, and\r\nat last disappears suddenly in a single spring rain. Ice has its grain\r\nas well as wood, and when a cake begins to rot or \"comb,\" that is,\r\nassume the appearance of honeycomb, whatever may be its position, the\r\nair cells are at right angles with what was the water surface. Where\r\nthere is a rock or a log rising near to the surface the ice over it is\r\nmuch thinner, and is frequently quite dissolved by this reflected heat;\r\nand I have been told that in the experiment at Cambridge to freeze water\r\nin a shallow wooden pond, though the cold air circulated underneath, and\r\nso had access to both sides, the reflection of the sun from the bottom\r\nmore than counterbalanced this advantage. When a warm rain in the middle\r\nof the winter melts off the snow-ice from Walden, and leaves a hard dark\r\nor transparent ice on the middle, there will be a strip of rotten though\r\nthicker white ice, a rod or more wide, about the shores, created by this\r\nreflected heat. Also, as I have said, the bubbles themselves within the\r\nice operate as burning-glasses to melt the ice beneath.\r\n\r\nThe phenomena of the year take place every day in a pond on a small\r\nscale. Every morning, generally speaking, the shallow water is being\r\nwarmed more rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so warm\r\nafter all, and every evening it is being cooled more rapidly until the\r\nmorning. The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the\r\nmorning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.\r\nThe cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature.\r\nOne pleasant morning after a cold night, February 24th, 1850, having\r\ngone to Flint's Pond to spend the day, I noticed with surprise, that\r\nwhen I struck the ice with the head of my axe, it resounded like a gong\r\nfor many rods around, or as if I had struck on a tight drum-head.\r\nThe pond began to boom about an hour after sunrise, when it felt the\r\ninfluence of the sun's rays slanted upon it from over the hills;\r\nit stretched itself and yawned like a waking man with a gradually\r\nincreasing tumult, which was kept up three or four hours. It took a\r\nshort siesta at noon, and boomed once more toward night, as the sun\r\nwas withdrawing his influence. In the right stage of the weather a pond\r\nfires its evening gun with great regularity. But in the middle of the\r\nday, being full of cracks, and the air also being less elastic, it had\r\ncompletely lost its resonance, and probably fishes and muskrats could\r\nnot then have been stunned by a blow on it. The fishermen say that the\r\n\"thundering of the pond\" scares the fishes and prevents their biting.\r\nThe pond does not thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when\r\nto expect its thundering; but though I may perceive no difference in\r\nthe weather, it does. Who would have suspected so large and cold and\r\nthick-skinned a thing to be so sensitive? Yet it has its law to which\r\nit thunders obedience when it should as surely as the buds expand in the\r\nspring. The earth is all alive and covered with papillae. The largest\r\npond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in\r\nits tube.\r\n\r\nOne attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have\r\nleisure and opportunity to see the Spring come in. The ice in the pond\r\nat length begins to be honeycombed, and I can set my heel in it as I\r\nwalk. Fogs and rains and warmer suns are gradually melting the snow; the\r\ndays have grown sensibly longer; and I see how I shall get through the\r\nwinter without adding to my wood-pile, for large fires are no longer\r\nnecessary. I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the\r\nchance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for\r\nhis stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture\r\nout of his winter quarters. On the 13th of March, after I had heard the\r\nbluebird, song sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot\r\nthick. As the weather grew warmer it was not sensibly worn away by the\r\nwater, nor broken up and floated off as in rivers, but, though it was\r\ncompletely melted for half a rod in width about the shore, the middle\r\nwas merely honeycombed and saturated with water, so that you could put\r\nyour foot through it when six inches thick; but by the next day evening,\r\nperhaps, after a warm rain followed by fog, it would have wholly\r\ndisappeared, all gone off with the fog, spirited away. One year I went\r\nacross the middle only five days before it disappeared entirely. In 1845\r\nWalden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in '46, the 25th\r\nof March; in '47, the 8th of April; in '51, the 28th of March; in '52,\r\nthe 18th of April; in '53, the 23d of March; in '54, about the 7th of\r\nApril.\r\n\r\nEvery incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds\r\nand the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who\r\nlive in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they\r\nwho dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling\r\nwhoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to\r\nend, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator\r\ncomes out of the mud with quakings of the earth. One old man, who has\r\nbeen a close observer of Nature, and seems as thoroughly wise in regard\r\nto all her operations as if she had been put upon the stocks when he was\r\na boy, and he had helped to lay her keel--who has come to his growth,\r\nand can hardly acquire more of natural lore if he should live to the age\r\nof Methuselah--told me--and I was surprised to hear him express wonder\r\nat any of Nature's operations, for I thought that there were no secrets\r\nbetween them--that one spring day he took his gun and boat, and thought\r\nthat he would have a little sport with the ducks. There was ice still on\r\nthe meadows, but it was all gone out of the river, and he dropped down\r\nwithout obstruction from Sudbury, where he lived, to Fair Haven Pond,\r\nwhich he found, unexpectedly, covered for the most part with a firm\r\nfield of ice. It was a warm day, and he was surprised to see so great\r\na body of ice remaining. Not seeing any ducks, he hid his boat on the\r\nnorth or back side of an island in the pond, and then concealed himself\r\nin the bushes on the south side, to await them. The ice was melted for\r\nthree or four rods from the shore, and there was a smooth and warm sheet\r\nof water, with a muddy bottom, such as the ducks love, within, and he\r\nthought it likely that some would be along pretty soon. After he had\r\nlain still there about an hour he heard a low and seemingly very distant\r\nsound, but singularly grand and impressive, unlike anything he had ever\r\nheard, gradually swelling and increasing as if it would have a universal\r\nand memorable ending, a sullen rush and roar, which seemed to him all\r\nat once like the sound of a vast body of fowl coming in to settle there,\r\nand, seizing his gun, he started up in haste and excited; but he found,\r\nto his surprise, that the whole body of the ice had started while he lay\r\nthere, and drifted in to the shore, and the sound he had heard was made\r\nby its edge grating on the shore--at first gently nibbled and crumbled\r\noff, but at length heaving up and scattering its wrecks along the island\r\nto a considerable height before it came to a standstill.\r\n\r\nAt length the sun's rays have attained the right angle, and warm winds\r\nblow up mist and rain and melt the snowbanks, and the sun, dispersing\r\nthe mist, smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white smoking\r\nwith incense, through which the traveller picks his way from islet to\r\nislet, cheered by the music of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets\r\nwhose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they are bearing\r\noff.\r\n\r\nFew phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the forms which\r\nthawing sand and clay assume in flowing down the sides of a deep cut\r\non the railroad through which I passed on my way to the village, a\r\nphenomenon not very common on so large a scale, though the number of\r\nfreshly exposed banks of the right material must have been greatly\r\nmultiplied since railroads were invented. The material was sand of every\r\ndegree of fineness and of various rich colors, commonly mixed with\r\na little clay. When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a\r\nthawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes like\r\nlava, sometimes bursting out through the snow and overflowing it where\r\nno sand was to be seen before. Innumerable little streams overlap and\r\ninterlace one with another, exhibiting a sort of hybrid product, which\r\nobeys half way the law of currents, and half way that of vegetation. As\r\nit flows it takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines, making heaps of\r\npulpy sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, as you look\r\ndown on them, the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some\r\nlichens; or you are reminded of coral, of leopard's paws or birds' feet,\r\nof brains or lungs or bowels, and excrements of all kinds. It is a truly\r\n_grotesque_ vegetation, whose forms and color we see imitated in bronze,\r\na sort of architectural foliage more ancient and typical than acanthus,\r\nchiccory, ivy, vine, or any vegetable leaves; destined perhaps, under\r\nsome circumstances, to become a puzzle to future geologists. The whole\r\ncut impressed me as if it were a cave with its stalactites laid open\r\nto the light. The various shades of the sand are singularly rich and\r\nagreeable, embracing the different iron colors, brown, gray, yellowish,\r\nand reddish. When the flowing mass reaches the drain at the foot of the\r\nbank it spreads out flatter into _strands_, the separate streams losing\r\ntheir semi-cylindrical form and gradually becoming more flat and broad,\r\nrunning together as they are more moist, till they form an almost flat\r\n_sand_, still variously and beautifully shaded, but in which you can trace\r\nthe original forms of vegetation; till at length, in the water itself,\r\nthey are converted into _banks_, like those formed off the mouths of\r\nrivers, and the forms of vegetation are lost in the ripple marks on the\r\nbottom.\r\n\r\nThe whole bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high, is sometimes\r\noverlaid with a mass of this kind of foliage, or sandy rupture, for a\r\nquarter of a mile on one or both sides, the produce of one spring day.\r\nWhat makes this sand foliage remarkable is its springing into existence\r\nthus suddenly. When I see on the one side the inert bank--for the sun\r\nacts on one side first--and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the\r\ncreation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood\r\nin the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me--had come to\r\nwhere he was still at work, sporting on this bank, and with excess of\r\nenergy strewing his fresh designs about. I feel as if I were nearer to\r\nthe vitals of the globe, for this sandy overflow is something such a\r\nfoliaceous mass as the vitals of the animal body. You find thus in the\r\nvery sands an anticipation of the vegetable leaf. No wonder that the\r\nearth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea\r\ninwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by\r\nit. The overhanging leaf sees here its prototype. _Internally_, whether\r\nin the globe or animal body, it is a moist thick _lobe_, a word especially\r\napplicable to the liver and lungs and the leaves of fat\r\n(\u03b3\u03b5\u1f31\u03b2\u03c9, _labor_, _lapsus_, to flow or slip downward, a lapsing; \u03bb\u03bf\u03b2\u1f41\u03c2,\r\n_globus_, lobe, globe; also lap, flap, and many other words); _externally_\r\na dry thin _leaf_, even as the _f_ and _v_ are a pressed and dried _b_.\r\nThe radicals of _lobe_ are _lb_, the soft mass of the _b_ (single lobed,\r\nor B, double lobed), with the liquid _l_ behind it pressing it forward.\r\nIn globe, _glb_, the guttural _g_ adds to the meaning the capacity of\r\nthe throat. The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner\r\nleaves. Thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub in the earth to the\r\nairy and fluttering butterfly. The very globe continually transcends and\r\ntranslates itself, and becomes winged in its orbit. Even ice begins with\r\ndelicate crystal leaves, as if it had flowed into moulds which the fronds\r\nof waterplants have impressed on the watery mirror. The whole tree itself\r\nis but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening\r\nearth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils.\r\n\r\nWhen the sun withdraws the sand ceases to flow, but in the morning the\r\nstreams will start once more and branch and branch again into a myriad\r\nof others. You here see perchance how blood-vessels are formed. If\r\nyou look closely you observe that first there pushes forward from the\r\nthawing mass a stream of softened sand with a drop-like point, like the\r\nball of the finger, feeling its way slowly and blindly downward, until\r\nat last with more heat and moisture, as the sun gets higher, the most\r\nfluid portion, in its effort to obey the law to which the most inert\r\nalso yields, separates from the latter and forms for itself a meandering\r\nchannel or artery within that, in which is seen a little silvery stream\r\nglancing like lightning from one stage of pulpy leaves or branches to\r\nanother, and ever and anon swallowed up in the sand. It is wonderful how\r\nrapidly yet perfectly the sand organizes itself as it flows, using the\r\nbest material its mass affords to form the sharp edges of its channel.\r\nSuch are the sources of rivers. In the silicious matter which the water\r\ndeposits is perhaps the bony system, and in the still finer soil and\r\norganic matter the fleshy fibre or cellular tissue. What is man but\r\na mass of thawing clay? The ball of the human finger is but a drop\r\ncongealed. The fingers and toes flow to their extent from the thawing\r\nmass of the body. Who knows what the human body would expand and flow\r\nout to under a more genial heaven? Is not the hand a spreading _palm_\r\nleaf with its lobes and veins? The ear may be regarded, fancifully, as a\r\nlichen, _Umbilicaria_, on the side of the head, with its lobe or drop.\r\nThe lip--_labium_, from _labor_ (?)--laps or lapses from the sides of the\r\ncavernous mouth. The nose is a manifest congealed drop or stalactite.\r\nThe chin is a still larger drop, the confluent dripping of the face. The\r\ncheeks are a slide from the brows into the valley of the face, opposed\r\nand diffused by the cheek bones. Each rounded lobe of the vegetable\r\nleaf, too, is a thick and now loitering drop, larger or smaller; the\r\nlobes are the fingers of the leaf; and as many lobes as it has, in\r\nso many directions it tends to flow, and more heat or other genial\r\ninfluences would have caused it to flow yet farther.\r\n\r\nThus it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all\r\nthe operations of Nature. The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf.\r\nWhat Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may\r\nturn over a new leaf at last? This phenomenon is more exhilarating to\r\nme than the luxuriance and fertility of vineyards. True, it is somewhat\r\nexcrementitious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps\r\nof liver, lights, and bowels, as if the globe were turned wrong side\r\noutward; but this suggests at least that Nature has some bowels, and\r\nthere again is mother of humanity. This is the frost coming out of the\r\nground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as\r\nmythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of\r\nwinter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in\r\nher swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side.\r\nFresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.\r\nThese foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace,\r\nshowing that Nature is \"in full blast\" within. The earth is not a mere\r\nfragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a\r\nbook, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living\r\npoetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit--not a\r\nfossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life\r\nall animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave\r\nour exuviae from their graves. You may melt your metals and cast them\r\ninto the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like\r\nthe forms which this molten earth flows out into. And not only it,\r\nbut the institutions upon it are plastic like clay in the hands of the\r\npotter.\r\n\r\nEre long, not only on these banks, but on every hill and plain and in\r\nevery hollow, the frost comes out of the ground like a dormant quadruped\r\nfrom its burrow, and seeks the sea with music, or migrates to other\r\nclimes in clouds. Thaw with his gentle persuasion is more powerful than\r\nThor with his hammer. The one melts, the other but breaks in pieces.\r\n\r\nWhen the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had\r\ndried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender\r\nsigns of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately\r\nbeauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the\r\nwinter--life-everlasting, goldenrods, pinweeds, and graceful wild\r\ngrasses, more obvious and interesting frequently than in summer even,\r\nas if their beauty was not ripe till then; even cotton-grass, cat-tails,\r\nmulleins, johnswort, hard-hack, meadow-sweet, and other strong-stemmed\r\nplants, those unexhausted granaries which entertain the earliest\r\nbirds--decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears. I am\r\nparticularly attracted by the arching and sheaf-like top of the\r\nwool-grass; it brings back the summer to our winter memories, and is\r\namong the forms which art loves to copy, and which, in the vegetable\r\nkingdom, have the same relation to types already in the mind of man that\r\nastronomy has. It is an antique style, older than Greek or Egyptian.\r\nMany of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible\r\ntenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king\r\ndescribed as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a\r\nlover he adorns the tresses of Summer.\r\n\r\nAt the approach of spring the red squirrels got under my house, two at\r\na time, directly under my feet as I sat reading or writing, and kept up\r\nthe queerest chuckling and chirruping and vocal pirouetting and gurgling\r\nsounds that ever were heard; and when I stamped they only chirruped the\r\nlouder, as if past all fear and respect in their mad pranks, defying\r\nhumanity to stop them. No, you don't--chickaree--chickaree. They were\r\nwholly deaf to my arguments, or failed to perceive their force, and fell\r\ninto a strain of invective that was irresistible.\r\n\r\nThe first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than\r\never! The faint silvery warblings heard over the partially bare and\r\nmoist fields from the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing, as\r\nif the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell! What at such a time\r\nare histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations?\r\nThe brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. The marsh hawk, sailing\r\nlow over the meadow, is already seeking the first slimy life that\r\nawakes. The sinking sound of melting snow is heard in all dells, and the\r\nice dissolves apace in the ponds. The grass flames up on the hillsides\r\nlike a spring fire--\"et primitus oritur herba imbribus primoribus\r\nevocata\"--as if the earth sent forth an inward heat to greet the\r\nreturning sun; not yellow but green is the color of its flame;--the\r\nsymbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green ribbon,\r\nstreams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but\r\nanon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year's hay with the\r\nfresh life below. It grows as steadily as the rill oozes out of the\r\nground. It is almost identical with that, for in the growing days of\r\nJune, when the rills are dry, the grass-blades are their channels, and\r\nfrom year to year the herds drink at this perennial green stream, and\r\nthe mower draws from it betimes their winter supply. So our human life\r\nbut dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to\r\neternity.\r\n\r\nWalden is melting apace. There is a canal two rods wide along the\r\nnortherly and westerly sides, and wider still at the east end. A great\r\nfield of ice has cracked off from the main body. I hear a song sparrow\r\nsinging from the bushes on the shore,--_olit_, _olit_, _olit,_--_chip_,\r\n_chip_, _chip_, _che char_,--_che wiss_, _wiss_, _wiss_. He too is\r\nhelping to crack it. How handsome the great sweeping curves in the edge\r\nof the ice, answering somewhat to those of the shore, but more regular!\r\nIt is unusually hard, owing to the recent severe but transient cold, and\r\nall watered or waved like a palace floor. But the wind slides eastward\r\nover its opaque surface in vain, till it reaches the living surface\r\nbeyond. It is glorious to behold this ribbon of water sparkling in the\r\nsun, the bare face of the pond full of glee and youth, as if it spoke\r\nthe joy of the fishes within it, and of the sands on its shore--a\r\nsilvery sheen as from the scales of a leuciscus, as it were all one\r\nactive fish. Such is the contrast between winter and spring. Walden was\r\ndead and is alive again. But this spring it broke up more steadily, as I\r\nhave said.\r\n\r\nThe change from storm and winter to serene and mild weather, from dark\r\nand sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis\r\nwhich all things proclaim. It is seemingly instantaneous at last.\r\nSuddenly an influx of light filled my house, though the evening was at\r\nhand, and the clouds of winter still overhung it, and the eaves were\r\ndripping with sleety rain. I looked out the window, and lo! where\r\nyesterday was cold gray ice there lay the transparent pond already calm\r\nand full of hope as in a summer evening, reflecting a summer evening\r\nsky in its bosom, though none was visible overhead, as if it had\r\nintelligence with some remote horizon. I heard a robin in the distance,\r\nthe first I had heard for many a thousand years, methought, whose note\r\nI shall not forget for many a thousand more--the same sweet and powerful\r\nsong as of yore. O the evening robin, at the end of a New England summer\r\nday! If I could ever find the twig he sits upon! I mean _he_; I mean the\r\n_twig_. This at least is not the _Turdus migratorius_. The pitch pines and\r\nshrub oaks about my house, which had so long drooped, suddenly resumed\r\ntheir several characters, looked brighter, greener, and more erect and\r\nalive, as if effectually cleansed and restored by the rain. I knew that\r\nit would not rain any more. You may tell by looking at any twig of the\r\nforest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.\r\nAs it grew darker, I was startled by the honking of geese flying low\r\nover the woods, like weary travellers getting in late from Southern\r\nlakes, and indulging at last in unrestrained complaint and mutual\r\nconsolation. Standing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings;\r\nwhen, driving toward my house, they suddenly spied my light, and with\r\nhushed clamor wheeled and settled in the pond. So I came in, and shut\r\nthe door, and passed my first spring night in the woods.\r\n\r\nIn the morning I watched the geese from the door through the mist,\r\nsailing in the middle of the pond, fifty rods off, so large and\r\ntumultuous that Walden appeared like an artificial pond for their\r\namusement. But when I stood on the shore they at once rose up with a\r\ngreat flapping of wings at the signal of their commander, and when they\r\nhad got into rank circled about over my head, twenty-nine of them, and\r\nthen steered straight to Canada, with a regular _honk_ from the leader at\r\nintervals, trusting to break their fast in muddier pools. A \"plump\" of\r\nducks rose at the same time and took the route to the north in the wake\r\nof their noisier cousins.\r\n\r\nFor a week I heard the circling, groping clangor of some solitary goose\r\nin the foggy mornings, seeking its companion, and still peopling the\r\nwoods with the sound of a larger life than they could sustain. In April\r\nthe pigeons were seen again flying express in small flocks, and in due\r\ntime I heard the martins twittering over my clearing, though it had not\r\nseemed that the township contained so many that it could afford me any,\r\nand I fancied that they were peculiarly of the ancient race that dwelt\r\nin hollow trees ere white men came. In almost all climes the tortoise\r\nand the frog are among the precursors and heralds of this season, and\r\nbirds fly with song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom,\r\nand winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the poles and\r\npreserve the equilibrium of nature.\r\n\r\nAs every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring\r\nis like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the\r\nGolden Age.--\r\n\r\n  \"Eurus ad Auroram Nabathaeaque regna recessit,\r\n   Persidaque, et radiis juga subdita matutinis.\"\r\n\r\n  \"The East-Wind withdrew to Aurora and the Nabath\u00e6n kingdom,\r\n   And the Persian, and the ridges placed under the morning rays.\r\n                        . . . . . . .\r\n   Man was born.  Whether that Artificer of things,\r\n   The origin of a better world, made him from the divine seed;\r\n   Or the earth, being recent and lately sundered from the high\r\n   Ether, retained some seeds of cognate heaven.\"\r\n\r\nA single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our\r\nprospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be\r\nblessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every\r\naccident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence\r\nof the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in\r\natoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our\r\nduty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant\r\nspring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to\r\nvice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.\r\nThrough our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our\r\nneighbors. You may have known your neighbor yesterday for a thief,\r\na drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or despised him, and\r\ndespaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first\r\nspring morning, recreating the world, and you meet him at some serene\r\nwork, and see how it is exhausted and debauched veins expand with still\r\njoy and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence\r\nof infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. There is not only an\r\natmosphere of good will about him, but even a savor of holiness groping\r\nfor expression, blindly and ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born\r\ninstinct, and for a short hour the south hill-side echoes to no vulgar\r\njest. You see some innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his\r\ngnarled rind and try another year's life, tender and fresh as the\r\nyoungest plant. Even he has entered into the joy of his Lord. Why the\r\njailer does not leave open his prison doors--why the judge does not\r\ndismis his case--why the preacher does not dismiss his congregation! It\r\nis because they do not obey the hint which God gives them, nor accept\r\nthe pardon which he freely offers to all.\r\n\r\n\"A return to goodness produced each day in the tranquil and beneficent\r\nbreath of the morning, causes that in respect to the love of virtue and\r\nthe hatred of vice, one approaches a little the primitive nature of man,\r\nas the sprouts of the forest which has been felled. In like manner\r\nthe evil which one does in the interval of a day prevents the germs of\r\nvirtues which began to spring up again from developing themselves and\r\ndestroys them.\r\n\r\n\"After the germs of virtue have thus been prevented many times from\r\ndeveloping themselves, then the beneficent breath of evening does not\r\nsuffice to preserve them. As soon as the breath of evening does not\r\nsuffice longer to preserve them, then the nature of man does not differ\r\nmuch from that of the brute. Men seeing the nature of this man like that\r\nof the brute, think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of\r\nreason. Are those the true and natural sentiments of man?\"\r\n\r\n   \"The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger\r\n    Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude.\r\n    Punishment and fear were not; nor were threatening words read\r\n    On suspended brass; nor did the suppliant crowd fear\r\n    The words of their judge; but were safe without an avenger.\r\n    Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended\r\n    To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world,\r\n    And mortals knew no shores but their own.\r\n                          . . . . . . .\r\n    There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm\r\n    Blasts soothed the flowers born without seed.\"\r\n\r\nOn the 29th of April, as I was fishing from the bank of the river near\r\nthe Nine-Acre-Corner bridge, standing on the quaking grass and willow\r\nroots, where the muskrats lurk, I heard a singular rattling sound,\r\nsomewhat like that of the sticks which boys play with their fingers,\r\nwhen, looking up, I observed a very slight and graceful hawk, like a\r\nnighthawk, alternately soaring like a ripple and tumbling a rod or two\r\nover and over, showing the under side of its wings, which gleamed like\r\na satin ribbon in the sun, or like the pearly inside of a shell.\r\nThis sight reminded me of falconry and what nobleness and poetry are\r\nassociated with that sport. The Merlin it seemed to me it might be\r\ncalled: but I care not for its name. It was the most ethereal flight I\r\nhad ever witnessed. It did not simply flutter like a butterfly, nor soar\r\nlike the larger hawks, but it sported with proud reliance in the fields\r\nof air; mounting again and again with its strange chuckle, it repeated\r\nits free and beautiful fall, turning over and over like a kite, and then\r\nrecovering from its lofty tumbling, as if it had never set its foot on\r\n_terra firma_. It appeared to have no companion in the universe--sporting\r\nthere alone--and to need none but the morning and the ether with which\r\nit played. It was not lonely, but made all the earth lonely beneath it.\r\nWhere was the parent which hatched it, its kindred, and its father in\r\nthe heavens? The tenant of the air, it seemed related to the earth but\r\nby an egg hatched some time in the crevice of a crag;--or was its native\r\nnest made in the angle of a cloud, woven of the rainbow's trimmings and\r\nthe sunset sky, and lined with some soft midsummer haze caught up from\r\nearth? Its eyry now some cliffy cloud.\r\n\r\nBeside this I got a rare mess of golden and silver and bright cupreous\r\nfishes, which looked like a string of jewels. Ah! I have penetrated to\r\nthose meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from\r\nhummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river\r\nvalley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would\r\nhave waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as\r\nsome suppose. There needs no stronger proof of immortality. All things\r\nmust live in such a light. O Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where\r\nwas thy victory, then?\r\n\r\nOur village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored\r\nforests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness--to\r\nwade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and\r\nhear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only\r\nsome wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls\r\nwith its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are\r\nearnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things\r\nbe mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild,\r\nunsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have\r\nenough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible\r\nvigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the\r\nwilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud,\r\nand the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need\r\nto witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely\r\nwhere we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture\r\nfeeding on the carrion which disgusts and disheartens us, and deriving\r\nhealth and strength from the repast. There was a dead horse in the\r\nhollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go\r\nout of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the\r\nassurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of\r\nNature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is\r\nso rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and\r\nsuffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so\r\nserenely squashed out of existence like pulp--tadpoles which herons\r\ngobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that\r\nsometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident,\r\nwe must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made\r\non a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous\r\nafter all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable\r\nground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be\r\nstereotyped.\r\n\r\nEarly in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, just putting\r\nout amidst the pine woods around the pond, imparted a brightness like\r\nsunshine to the landscape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were\r\nbreaking through mists and shining faintly on the hillsides here and\r\nthere. On the third or fourth of May I saw a loon in the pond, and\r\nduring the first week of the month I heard the whip-poor-will, the brown\r\nthrasher, the veery, the wood pewee, the chewink, and other birds. I had\r\nheard the wood thrush long before. The ph\u0153be had already come once more\r\nand looked in at my door and window, to see if my house was cavern-like\r\nenough for her, sustaining herself on humming wings with clinched\r\ntalons, as if she held by the air, while she surveyed the premises.\r\nThe sulphur-like pollen of the pitch pine soon covered the pond and the\r\nstones and rotten wood along the shore, so that you could have collected\r\na barrelful. This is the \"sulphur showers\" we hear of. Even in Calidas'\r\ndrama of Sacontala, we read of \"rills dyed yellow with the golden dust\r\nof the lotus.\" And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one\r\nrambles into higher and higher grass.\r\n\r\nThus was my first year's life in the woods completed; and the second\r\nyear was similar to it. I finally left Walden September 6th, 1847.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nConclusion\r\n\r\n\r\nTo the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery.\r\nThank Heaven, here is not all the world. The buckeye does not grow in\r\nNew England, and the mockingbird is rarely heard here. The wild goose\r\nis more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes\r\na luncheon in the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern\r\nbayou. Even the bison, to some extent, keeps pace with the seasons\r\ncropping the pastures of the Colorado only till a greener and sweeter\r\ngrass awaits him by the Yellowstone. Yet we think that if rail fences\r\nare pulled down, and stone walls piled up on our farms, bounds are\r\nhenceforth set to our lives and our fates decided. If you are chosen\r\ntown clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer: but\r\nyou may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is\r\nwider than our views of it.\r\n\r\nYet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, like curious\r\npassengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum.\r\nThe other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our\r\nvoyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for\r\ndiseases of the skin merely. One hastens to southern Africa to chase the\r\ngiraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after. How long,\r\npray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also\r\nmay afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot\r\none's self.--\r\n\r\n          \"Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find\r\n           A thousand regions in your mind\r\n           Yet undiscovered.  Travel them, and be\r\n           Expert in home-cosmography.\"\r\n\r\nWhat does Africa--what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior\r\nwhite on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast,\r\nwhen discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the\r\nMississippi, or a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would\r\nfind? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the\r\nonly man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him?\r\nDoes Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park,\r\nthe Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans;\r\nexplore your own higher latitudes--with shiploads of preserved meats to\r\nsupport you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for\r\na sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be\r\na Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new\r\nchannels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm\r\nbeside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state,\r\na hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no\r\nself-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil\r\nwhich makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may\r\nstill animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads. What\r\nwas the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its\r\nparade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact that there\r\nare continents and seas in the moral world to which every man is an\r\nisthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to\r\nsail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a\r\ngovernment ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it\r\nis to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's\r\nbeing alone.\r\n\r\n          \"Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos.\r\n           Plus habet hic vitae, plus habet ille viae.\"\r\n\r\n   Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians.\r\n   I have more of God, they more of the road.\r\n\r\nIt is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in\r\nZanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, and you may perhaps\r\nfind some \"Symmes' Hole\" by which to get at the inside at last. England\r\nand France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front\r\non this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of\r\nland, though it is without doubt the direct way to India. If you would\r\nlearn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations,\r\nif you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all\r\nclimes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even\r\nobey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are\r\ndemanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to\r\nthe wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest\r\nwestern way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor\r\nconduct toward a worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct, a tangent\r\nto this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down,\r\nand at last earth down too.\r\n\r\nIt is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery \"to ascertain what\r\ndegree of resolution was necessary in order to place one's self in\r\nformal opposition to the most sacred laws of society.\" He declared that\r\n\"a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage\r\nas a footpad\"--\"that honor and religion have never stood in the way of a\r\nwell-considered and a firm resolve.\" This was manly, as the world goes;\r\nand yet it was idle, if not desperate. A saner man would have found\r\nhimself often enough \"in formal opposition\" to what are deemed \"the most\r\nsacred laws of society,\" through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and\r\nso have tested his resolution without going out of his way. It is not\r\nfor a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain\r\nhimself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the\r\nlaws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just\r\ngovernment, if he should chance to meet with such.\r\n\r\nI left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed\r\nto me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any\r\nmore time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we\r\nfall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I\r\nhad not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to\r\nthe pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it\r\nis still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen\r\ninto it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft\r\nand impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind\r\ntravels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world,\r\nhow deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a\r\ncabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the\r\nworld, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do\r\nnot wish to go below now.\r\n\r\nI learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances\r\nconfidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the\r\nlife which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in\r\ncommon hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible\r\nboundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish\r\nthemselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and\r\ninterpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with\r\nthe license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies\r\nhis life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and\r\nsolitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness\r\nweakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be\r\nlost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.\r\n\r\nIt is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall\r\nspeak so that they can understand you. Neither men nor toadstools grow\r\nso. As if that were important, and there were not enough to understand\r\nyou without them. As if Nature could support but one order of\r\nunderstandings, could not sustain birds as well as quadrupeds, flying as\r\nwell as creeping things, and _hush_ and _whoa_, which Bright can\r\nunderstand, were the best English. As if there were safety in stupidity\r\nalone. I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be _extra-vagant_\r\nenough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily\r\nexperience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been\r\nconvinced. _Extra vagance!_ it depends on how you are yarded. The\r\nmigrating buffalo, which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not\r\nextravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail, leaps the cowyard\r\nfence, and runs after her calf, in milking time. I desire to speak\r\nsomewhere _without_ bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in\r\ntheir waking moments; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough\r\neven to lay the foundation of a true expression. Who that has heard a\r\nstrain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more\r\nforever? In view of the future or possible, we should live quite laxly\r\nand undefined in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our\r\nshadows reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The volatile\r\ntruth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the\r\nresidual statement. Their truth is instantly _translated_; its literal\r\nmonument alone remains. The words which express our faith and piety are\r\nnot definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to\r\nsuperior natures.\r\n\r\nWhy level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as\r\ncommon sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they\r\nexpress by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are\r\nonce-and-a-half-witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only\r\na third part of their wit. Some would find fault with the morning red,\r\nif they ever got up early enough. \"They pretend,\" as I hear, \"that the\r\nverses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion, spirit, intellect,\r\nand the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas\"; but in this part of the world\r\nit is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writings admit\r\nof more than one interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the\r\npotato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails\r\nso much more widely and fatally?\r\n\r\nI do not suppose that I have attained to obscurity, but I should be\r\nproud if no more fatal fault were found with my pages on this score than\r\nwas found with the Walden ice. Southern customers objected to its blue\r\ncolor, which is the evidence of its purity, as if it were muddy, and\r\npreferred the Cambridge ice, which is white, but tastes of weeds. The\r\npurity men love is like the mists which envelop the earth, and not like\r\nthe azure ether beyond.\r\n\r\nSome are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally,\r\nare intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the\r\nElizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better\r\nthan a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to\r\nthe race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every\r\none mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.\r\n\r\nWhy should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such\r\ndesperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions,\r\nperhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the\r\nmusic which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important\r\nthat he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn\r\nhis spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made\r\nfor is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will\r\nnot be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven\r\nof blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to\r\ngaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were\r\nnot?\r\n\r\nThere was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive\r\nafter perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having\r\nconsidered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into\r\na perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be\r\nperfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life.\r\nHe proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it\r\nshould not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and\r\nrejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they\r\ngrew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His\r\nsingleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed\r\nhim, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no\r\ncompromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a\r\ndistance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock\r\nin all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he\r\nsat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the\r\nproper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the\r\npoint of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in\r\nthe sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and\r\npolished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had\r\nput on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma\r\nhad awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these\r\nthings? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly\r\nexpanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of\r\nall the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff,\r\na world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities\r\nand dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken\r\ntheir places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his\r\nfeet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been\r\nan illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a\r\nsingle scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the\r\ntinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure;\r\nhow could the result be other than wonderful?\r\n\r\nNo face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as\r\nthe truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where\r\nwe are, but in a false position. Through an infinity of our natures, we\r\nsuppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at\r\nthe same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. In sane moments we\r\nregard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not\r\nwhat you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the\r\ntinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say.\r\n\"Tell the tailors,\" said he, \"to remember to make a knot in their thread\r\nbefore they take the first stitch.\" His companion's prayer is forgotten.\r\n\r\nHowever mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call\r\nit hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you\r\nare richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love\r\nyour life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling,\r\nglorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from\r\nthe windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode;\r\nthe snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see\r\nbut a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering\r\nthoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the\r\nmost independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough\r\nto receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being\r\nsupported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not\r\nabove supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more\r\ndisreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not\r\ntrouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.\r\nTurn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell\r\nyour clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want\r\nsociety. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a\r\nspider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts\r\nabout me. The philosopher said: \"From an army of three divisions one\r\ncan take away its general, and put it in disorder; from the man the\r\nmost abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought.\" Do not seek so\r\nanxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to\r\nbe played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the\r\nheavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us,\r\n\"and lo! creation widens to our view.\" We are often reminded that if\r\nthere were bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still\r\nbe the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you\r\nare restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and\r\nnewspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant\r\nand vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with the material which\r\nyields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone\r\nwhere it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No man\r\nloses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous\r\nwealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one\r\nnecessary of the soul.\r\n\r\nI live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured\r\na little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there\r\nreaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise\r\nof my contemporaries. My neighbors tell me of their adventures\r\nwith famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the\r\ndinner-table; but I am no more interested in such things than in the\r\ncontents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about\r\ncostume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it\r\nas you will. They tell me of California and Texas, of England and the\r\nIndies, of the Hon. Mr.----of Georgia or of Massachusetts, all transient\r\nand fleeting phenomena, till I am ready to leap from their court-yard\r\nlike the Mameluke bey. I delight to come to my bearings--not walk in\r\nprocession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk\r\neven with the Builder of the universe, if I may--not to live in this\r\nrestless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or\r\nsit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? They are\r\nall on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from\r\nsomebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his\r\norator. I love to weigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which most\r\nstrongly and rightfully attracts me--not hang by the beam of the scale\r\nand try to weigh less--not suppose a case, but take the case that is; to\r\ntravel the only path I can, and that on which no power can resist me. It\r\naffords me no satisfaction to commence to spring an arch before I have\r\ngot a solid foundation. Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a\r\nsolid bottom everywhere. We read that the traveller asked the boy if\r\nthe swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had.\r\nBut presently the traveller's horse sank in up to the girths, and\r\nhe observed to the boy, \"I thought you said that this bog had a hard\r\nbottom.\" \"So it has,\" answered the latter, \"but you have not got half\r\nway to it yet.\" So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but\r\nhe is an old boy that knows it. Only what is thought, said, or done at\r\na certain rare coincidence is good. I would not be one of those who will\r\nfoolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would\r\nkeep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the\r\nfurring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so\r\nfaithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with\r\nsatisfaction--a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the\r\nMuse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as\r\nanother rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.\r\n\r\nRather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table\r\nwhere were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance,\r\nbut sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the\r\ninhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought\r\nthat there was no need of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the\r\nage of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older,\r\na newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had\r\nnot got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and\r\n\"entertainment\" pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he\r\nmade me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for\r\nhospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow\r\ntree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I\r\ncalled on him.\r\n\r\nHow long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty\r\nvirtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were to begin\r\nthe day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in\r\nthe afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity\r\nwith goodness aforethought! Consider the China pride and stagnant\r\nself-complacency of mankind. This generation inclines a little to\r\ncongratulate itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in\r\nBoston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent,\r\nit speaks of its progress in art and science and literature with\r\nsatisfaction. There are the Records of the Philosophical Societies, and\r\nthe public Eulogies of Great Men! It is the good Adam contemplating his\r\nown virtue. \"Yes, we have done great deeds, and sung divine songs, which\r\nshall never die\"--that is, as long as we can remember them. The learned\r\nsocieties and great men of Assyria--where are they? What youthful\r\nphilosophers and experimentalists we are! There is not one of my readers\r\nwho has yet lived a whole human life. These may be but the spring months\r\nin the life of the race. If we have had the seven-years' itch, we have\r\nnot seen the seventeen-year locust yet in Concord. We are acquainted\r\nwith a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved\r\nsix feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. We know not\r\nwhere we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we\r\nesteem ourselves wise, and have an established order on the surface.\r\nTruly, we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits! As I stand over\r\nthe insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and\r\nendeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will\r\ncherish those humble thoughts, and bide its head from me who might,\r\nperhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering\r\ninformation, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence\r\nthat stands over me the human insect.\r\n\r\nThere is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we\r\ntolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what kind of sermons\r\nare still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are such\r\nwords as joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a psalm, sung\r\nwith a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary and mean. We think\r\nthat we can change our clothes only. It is said that the British\r\nEmpire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a\r\nfirst-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind\r\nevery man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should\r\never harbor it in his mind. Who knows what sort of seventeen-year locust\r\nwill next come out of the ground? The government of the world I live in\r\nwas not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over\r\nthe wine.\r\n\r\nThe life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year\r\nhigher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even\r\nthis may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It\r\nwas not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks\r\nwhich the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its\r\nfreshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New\r\nEngland, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of\r\nan old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's\r\nkitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in\r\nMassachusetts--from an egg deposited in the living tree many years\r\nearlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it;\r\nwhich was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by\r\nthe heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and\r\nimmortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful\r\nand winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many\r\nconcentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society,\r\ndeposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which\r\nhas been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned\r\ntomb--heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family\r\nof man, as they sat round the festive board--may unexpectedly come forth\r\nfrom amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy\r\nits perfect summer life at last!\r\n\r\nI do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is\r\nthe character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to\r\ndawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day\r\ndawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a\r\nmorning star.<\/pre>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\r\n\r\n<b>Henry David Thoreau<\/b> (July 12, 1817\u00a0\u2013 May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist,\u00a0Thoreau is best known for his book <i>Walden<\/i>, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay \"Civil Disobedience\" (originally published as \"Resistance to Civil Government\"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.\r\n\r\nThoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and Yankee attention to practical detail.\u00a0He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n&nbsp;","rendered":"<pre>Economy\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived\r\nalone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had\r\nbuilt myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts,\r\nand earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two\r\nyears and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life\r\nagain.\r\n\r\nI should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if\r\nvery particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning\r\nmy mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not\r\nappear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances,\r\nvery natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did\r\nnot feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been\r\ncurious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable\r\npurposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children\r\nI maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no\r\nparticular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of\r\nthese questions in this book. In most books, the _I_, or first person, is\r\nomitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is\r\nthe main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all,\r\nalways the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so\r\nmuch about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.\r\nUnfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my\r\nexperience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or\r\nlast, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what\r\nhe has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to\r\nhis kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it\r\nmust have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more\r\nparticularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers,\r\nthey will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will\r\nstretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to\r\nhim whom it fits.\r\n\r\nI would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and\r\nSandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live\r\nin New England; something about your condition, especially your outward\r\ncondition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is,\r\nwhether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot\r\nbe improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord;\r\nand everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have\r\nappeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What\r\nI have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the\r\nface of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over\r\nflames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders \"until it becomes\r\nimpossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the\r\ntwist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach\"; or\r\ndwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with\r\ntheir bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or\r\nstanding on one leg on the tops of pillars--even these forms of\r\nconscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than\r\nthe scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were\r\ntrifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken;\r\nfor they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that\r\nthese men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have\r\nno friend Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head,\r\nbut as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up.\r\n\r\nI see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited\r\nfarms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more\r\neasily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the\r\nopen pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with\r\nclearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them\r\nserfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is\r\ncondemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging\r\ntheir graves as soon as they are born? They have got to live a man's\r\nlife, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they\r\ncan. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and\r\nsmothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before\r\nit a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed,\r\nand one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot!\r\nThe portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited\r\nencumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic\r\nfeet of flesh.\r\n\r\nBut men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed\r\ninto the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity,\r\nthey are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which\r\nmoth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is\r\na fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not\r\nbefore. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing\r\nstones over their heads behind them:--\r\n\r\n           Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,\r\n           Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati.\r\n\r\nOr, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,--\r\n\r\n  \"From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care,\r\n   Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.\"\r\n\r\nSo much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the\r\nstones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell.\r\n\r\nMost men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere\r\nignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and\r\nsuperfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be\r\nplucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and\r\ntremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure\r\nfor a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the\r\nmanliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market.\r\nHe has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well\r\nhis ignorance--which his growth requires--who has so often to use his\r\nknowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and\r\nrecruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest\r\nqualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only\r\nby the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one\r\nanother thus tenderly.\r\n\r\nSome of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes,\r\nas it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who\r\nread this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have\r\nactually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are\r\nalready worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen\r\ntime, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean\r\nand sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by\r\nexperience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying\r\nto get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins _aes\r\nalienum_, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass;\r\nstill living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always\r\npromising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today,\r\ninsolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes,\r\nonly not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting\r\nyourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of\r\nthin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let\r\nyou make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import\r\nhis groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up\r\nsomething against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old\r\nchest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the\r\nbrick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.\r\n\r\nI sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to\r\nattend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro\r\nSlavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both\r\nNorth and South. It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to\r\nhave a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver\r\nof yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the\r\nhighway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir\r\nwithin him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his\r\ndestiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive\r\nfor Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he\r\ncowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal\r\nnor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a\r\nfame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with\r\nour own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which\r\ndetermines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the\r\nWest Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination--what Wilberforce\r\nis there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land\r\nweaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green\r\nan interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring\r\neternity.\r\n\r\nThe mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called\r\nresignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you\r\ngo into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the\r\nbravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair\r\nis concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of\r\nmankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is\r\na characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.\r\n\r\nWhen we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief\r\nend of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it\r\nappears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living\r\nbecause they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is\r\nno choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun\r\nrose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of\r\nthinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What\r\neverybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to\r\nbe falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted\r\nfor a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What\r\nold people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds\r\nfor old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough\r\nonce, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new\r\npeople put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the\r\nglobe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the\r\nphrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor\r\nas youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may\r\nalmost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by\r\nliving. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the\r\nyoung, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have\r\nbeen such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must\r\nbelieve; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that\r\nexperience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived\r\nsome thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first\r\nsyllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have\r\ntold me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose.\r\nHere is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does\r\nnot avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I\r\nthink valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing\r\nabout.\r\n\r\nOne farmer says to me, \"You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it\r\nfurnishes nothing to make bones with\"; and so he religiously devotes a\r\npart of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of\r\nbones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with\r\nvegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite\r\nof every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some\r\ncircles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries\r\nmerely, and in others still are entirely unknown.\r\n\r\nThe whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by\r\ntheir predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to\r\nhave been cared for. According to Evelyn, \"the wise Solomon prescribed\r\nordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman pr\u00e6tors have\r\ndecided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the\r\nacorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that\r\nneighbor.\" Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our\r\nnails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor\r\nlonger. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have\r\nexhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's\r\ncapacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can\r\ndo by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy\r\nfailures hitherto, \"be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to\r\nthee what thou hast left undone?\"\r\n\r\nWe might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance,\r\nthat the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of\r\nearths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some\r\nmistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the\r\napexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in\r\nthe various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at\r\nthe same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several\r\nconstitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could\r\na greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's\r\neyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an\r\nhour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!--I\r\nknow of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as\r\nthis would be.\r\n\r\nThe greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul\r\nto be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good\r\nbehavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say\r\nthe wisest thing you can, old man--you who have lived seventy years, not\r\nwithout honor of a kind--I hear an irresistible voice which invites me\r\naway from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another\r\nlike stranded vessels.\r\n\r\nI think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may\r\nwaive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.\r\nNature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The\r\nincessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of\r\ndisease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do;\r\nand yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick?\r\nHow vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it;\r\nall the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers\r\nand commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are\r\nwe compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility\r\nof change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as\r\nthere can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to\r\ncontemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.\r\nConfucius said, \"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not\r\nknow what we do not know, that is true knowledge.\" When one man has\r\nreduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I\r\nforesee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.\r\n\r\nLet us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which\r\nI have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be\r\ntroubled, or at least careful. It would be some advantage to live\r\na primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward\r\ncivilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life\r\nand what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look over\r\nthe old day-books of the merchants, to see what it was that men most\r\ncommonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the\r\ngrossest groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but little\r\ninfluence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons,\r\nprobably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.\r\n\r\nBy the words, _necessary of life_, I mean whatever, of all that man\r\nobtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use\r\nhas become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from\r\nsavageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it. To\r\nmany creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food.\r\nTo the bison of the prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass,\r\nwith water to drink; unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest or the\r\nmountain's shadow. None of the brute creation requires more than Food\r\nand Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may,\r\naccurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food,\r\nShelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are\r\nwe prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a\r\nprospect of success. Man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and\r\ncooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of\r\nfire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present\r\nnecessity to sit by it. We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same\r\nsecond nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain\r\nour own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that\r\nis, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not\r\ncookery properly be said to begin? Darwin, the naturalist, says of the\r\ninhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own party, who were well\r\nclothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked\r\nsavages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, \"to\r\nbe streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.\" So, we\r\nare told, the New Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European\r\nshivers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of\r\nthese savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? According\r\nto Liebig, man's body is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the\r\ninternal combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, in warm\r\nless. The animal heat is the result of a slow combustion, and disease\r\nand death take place when this is too rapid; or for want of fuel, or\r\nfrom some defect in the draught, the fire goes out. Of course the vital\r\nheat is not to be confounded with fire; but so much for analogy. It\r\nappears, therefore, from the above list, that the expression, _animal\r\nlife_, is nearly synonymous with the expression, _animal heat_; for while\r\nFood may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire within us--and\r\nFuel serves only to prepare that Food or to increase the warmth of our\r\nbodies by addition from without--Shelter and Clothing also serve only to\r\nretain the heat thus generated and absorbed.\r\n\r\nThe grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep warm, to keep\r\nthe vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, not only with\r\nour Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our beds, which are our\r\nnight-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this\r\nshelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grass and leaves at\r\nthe end of its burrow! The poor man is wont to complain that this is a\r\ncold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer directly\r\na great part of our ails. The summer, in some climates, makes possible\r\nto man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is\r\nthen unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are\r\nsufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more various,\r\nand more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half\r\nunnecessary. At the present day, and in this country, as I find by\r\nmy own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a\r\nwheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and\r\naccess to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained\r\nat a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the\r\nglobe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to\r\ntrade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live--that is,\r\nkeep comfortably warm--and die in New England at last. The luxuriously\r\nrich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I\r\nimplied before, they are cooked, of course _\u00e0 la mode_.\r\n\r\nMost of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are\r\nnot only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation\r\nof mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have\r\never lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient\r\nphilosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than\r\nwhich none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We\r\nknow not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them\r\nas we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors\r\nof their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life\r\nbut from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.\r\nOf a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or\r\ncommerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of\r\nphilosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because\r\nit was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have\r\nsubtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as\r\nto live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,\r\nmagnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not\r\nonly theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and\r\nthinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.\r\nThey make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their\r\nfathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men.\r\nBut why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the\r\nnature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure\r\nthat there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in\r\nadvance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed,\r\nsheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a\r\nphilosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other\r\nmen?\r\n\r\nWhen a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what\r\ndoes he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and\r\nricher food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant\r\nclothing, more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires, and the like.\r\nWhen he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is\r\nanother alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to\r\nadventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.\r\nThe soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle\r\ndownward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why\r\nhas man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in\r\nthe same proportion into the heavens above?--for the nobler plants are\r\nvalued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from\r\nthe ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents, which,\r\nthough they may be biennials, are cultivated only till they have\r\nperfected their root, and often cut down at top for this purpose, so\r\nthat most would not know them in their flowering season.\r\n\r\nI do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will\r\nmind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build\r\nmore magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without\r\never impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live--if, indeed,\r\nthere are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their\r\nencouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of\r\nthings, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers--and,\r\nto some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those\r\nwho are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether\r\nthey are well employed or not;--but mainly to the mass of men who are\r\ndiscontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of\r\nthe times, when they might improve them. There are some who complain\r\nmost energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they\r\nsay, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy,\r\nbut most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross,\r\nbut know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their\r\nown golden or silver fetters.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nIf I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years\r\npast, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat\r\nacquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those\r\nwho know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises\r\nwhich I have cherished.\r\n\r\nIn any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to\r\nimprove the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the\r\nmeeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the\r\npresent moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities,\r\nfor there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not\r\nvoluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly\r\ntell all that I know about it, and never paint \"No Admittance\" on my\r\ngate.\r\n\r\nI long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove, and am still\r\non their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them,\r\ndescribing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one\r\nor two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even\r\nseen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to\r\nrecover them as if they had lost them themselves.\r\n\r\nTo anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible,\r\nNature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any\r\nneighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No\r\ndoubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise,\r\nfarmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going\r\nto their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his\r\nrising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present\r\nat it.\r\n\r\nSo many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to\r\nhear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh\r\nsunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain,\r\nrunning in the face of it. If it had concerned either of the political\r\nparties, depend upon it, it would have appeared in the Gazette with the\r\nearliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of\r\nsome cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening\r\non the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something,\r\nthough I never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again\r\nin the sun.\r\n\r\nFor a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide\r\ncirculation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my\r\ncontributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor\r\nfor my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward.\r\n\r\nFor many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and\r\nrain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways,\r\nthen of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and\r\nravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had\r\ntestified to their utility.\r\n\r\nI have looked after the wild stock of the town, which give a faithful\r\nherdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an\r\neye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did\r\nnot always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular\r\nfield to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red\r\nhuckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and\r\nthe black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have\r\nwithered else in dry seasons.\r\n\r\nIn short, I went on thus for a long time (I may say it without\r\nboasting), faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more\r\nevident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of\r\ntown officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance.\r\nMy accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed,\r\nnever got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled.\r\nHowever, I have not set my heart on that.\r\n\r\nNot long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house\r\nof a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. \"Do you wish to buy any\r\nbaskets?\" he asked. \"No, we do not want any,\" was the reply. \"What!\"\r\nexclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, \"do you mean to starve\r\nus?\" Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off--that\r\nthe lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth and\r\nstanding followed--he had said to himself: I will go into business; I\r\nwill weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he\r\nhad made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be\r\nthe white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary\r\nfor him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make\r\nhim think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be\r\nworth his while to buy. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate\r\ntexture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet\r\nnot the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them,\r\nand instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my\r\nbaskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.\r\nThe life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why\r\nshould we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?\r\n\r\nFinding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in\r\nthe court house, or any curacy or living anywhere else, but I must shift\r\nfor myself, I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods,\r\nwhere I was better known. I determined to go into business at once, and\r\nnot wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had\r\nalready got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply\r\nnor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the\r\nfewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a\r\nlittle common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared\r\nnot so sad as foolish.\r\n\r\nI have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are\r\nindispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire,\r\nthen some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will\r\nbe fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords,\r\npurely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite,\r\nalways in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all\r\nthe details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and\r\nowner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to\r\nread every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to\r\nsuperintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many\r\nparts of the coast almost at the same time--often the richest freight\r\nwill be discharged upon a Jersey shore;--to be your own telegraph,\r\nunweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels bound\r\ncoastwise; to keep up a steady despatch of commodities, for the supply\r\nof such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of\r\nthe state of the markets, prospects of war and peace everywhere, and\r\nanticipate the tendencies of trade and civilization--taking advantage\r\nof the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all\r\nimprovements in navigation;--charts to be studied, the position of reefs\r\nand new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the\r\nlogarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator\r\nthe vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly\r\npier--there is the untold fate of La Prouse;--universal science to\r\nbe kept pace with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and\r\nnavigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the\r\nPhoenicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock to be taken from\r\ntime to time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties\r\nof a man--such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and\r\ntret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.\r\n\r\nI have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for business,\r\nnot solely on account of the railroad and the ice trade; it offers\r\nadvantages which it may not be good policy to divulge; it is a good port\r\nand a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you must\r\neverywhere build on piles of your own driving. It is said that a\r\nflood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice in the Neva, would sweep St.\r\nPetersburg from the face of the earth.\r\n\r\nAs this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it\r\nmay not be easy to conjecture where those means, that will still be\r\nindispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for\r\nClothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps\r\nwe are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions\r\nof men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to\r\ndo recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital\r\nheat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and\r\nhe may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be\r\naccomplished without adding to his wardrobe. Kings and queens who wear\r\na suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their\r\nmajesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are\r\nno better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our\r\ngarments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of\r\nthe wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside without such\r\ndelay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.\r\nNo man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his\r\nclothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have\r\nfashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a\r\nsound conscience. But even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst\r\nvice betrayed is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by such\r\ntests as this--Who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over\r\nthe knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life\r\nwould be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to\r\nhobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if\r\nan accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a\r\nsimilar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help\r\nfor it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is\r\nrespected. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress\r\na scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not\r\nsoonest salute the scarecrow? Passing a cornfield the other day, close\r\nby a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. He was\r\nonly a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last. I have\r\nheard of a dog that barked at every stranger who approached his master's\r\npremises with clothes on, but was easily quieted by a naked thief. It is\r\nan interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank\r\nif they were divested of their clothes. Could you, in such a case,\r\ntell surely of any company of civilized men which belonged to the most\r\nrespected class? When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round\r\nthe world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia,\r\nshe says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling\r\ndress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she \"was now in a\r\ncivilized country, where... people are judged of by their clothes.\" Even\r\nin our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth,\r\nand its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the\r\npossessor almost universal respect. But they yield such respect,\r\nnumerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to have a missionary\r\nsent to them. Beside, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which\r\nyou may call endless; a woman's dress, at least, is never done.\r\n\r\nA man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new\r\nsuit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in the\r\ngarret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero longer\r\nthan they have served his valet--if a hero ever has a valet--bare feet\r\nare older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only they who go to\r\nsoir\u00e9es and legislative balls must have new coats, coats to change as\r\noften as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat\r\nand shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not? Who\r\never saw his old clothes--his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into\r\nits primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow\r\nit on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer\r\nstill, or shall we say richer, who could do with less? I say, beware of\r\nall enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of\r\nclothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to\r\nfit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.\r\nAll men want, not something to _do with_, but something to _do_, or rather\r\nsomething to _be_. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however\r\nragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or\r\nsailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to\r\nretain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting\r\nseason, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon\r\nretires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its\r\nslough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry\r\nand expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal\r\ncoil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be\r\ninevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of\r\nmankind.\r\n\r\nWe don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by\r\naddition without. Our outside and often thin and fanciful clothes are\r\nour epidermis, or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may be\r\nstripped off here and there without fatal injury; our thicker garments,\r\nconstantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but our shirts\r\nare our liber, or true bark, which cannot be removed without girdling\r\nand so destroying the man. I believe that all races at some seasons wear\r\nsomething equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a man be clad\r\nso simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he\r\nlive in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if an enemy\r\ntake the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate\r\nempty-handed without anxiety. While one thick garment is, for most\r\npurposes, as good as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be obtained\r\nat prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat can be bought for\r\nfive dollars, which will last as many years, thick pantaloons for two\r\ndollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for\r\na quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents,\r\nor a better be made at home at a nominal cost, where is he so poor that,\r\nclad in such a suit, of _his own earning_, there will not be found wise\r\nmen to do him reverence?\r\n\r\nWhen I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me\r\ngravely, \"They do not make them so now,\" not emphasizing the \"They\" at\r\nall, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I\r\nfind it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot\r\nbelieve that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this\r\noracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to\r\nmyself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I\r\nmay find out by what degree of consanguinity _They_ are related to _me_,\r\nand what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so\r\nnearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery,\r\nand without any more emphasis of the \"they\"--\"It is true, they did not\r\nmake them so recently, but they do now.\" Of what use this measuring of\r\nme if she does not measure my character, but only the breadth of my\r\nshoulders, as it were a peg to hang the coat on? We worship not the\r\nGraces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with\r\nfull authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and\r\nall the monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of getting\r\nanything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men.\r\nThey would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze\r\ntheir old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon\r\ntheir legs again; and then there would be some one in the company with a\r\nmaggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows\r\nwhen, for not even fire kills these things, and you would have lost your\r\nlabor. Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was\r\nhanded down to us by a mummy.\r\n\r\nOn the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in\r\nthis or any country risen to the dignity of an art. At present men make\r\nshift to wear what they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, they put on\r\nwhat they can find on the beach, and at a little distance, whether of\r\nspace or time, laugh at each other's masquerade. Every generation laughs\r\nat the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. We are amused at\r\nbeholding the costume of Henry VIII, or Queen Elizabeth, as much as if\r\nit was that of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands. All costume\r\noff a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only the serious eye peering\r\nfrom and the sincere life passed within it which restrain laughter and\r\nconsecrate the costume of any people. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit\r\nof the colic and his trappings will have to serve that mood too. When\r\nthe soldier is hit by a cannonball, rags are as becoming as purple.\r\n\r\nThe childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps\r\nhow many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may\r\ndiscover the particular figure which this generation requires today. The\r\nmanufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two\r\npatterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular\r\ncolor, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though\r\nit frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter\r\nbecomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the\r\nhideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because\r\nthe printing is skin-deep and unalterable.\r\n\r\nI cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men\r\nmay get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day\r\nmore like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since,\r\nas far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not\r\nthat mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that\r\ncorporations may be enriched. In the long run men hit only what they aim\r\nat. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim\r\nat something high.\r\n\r\nAs for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of\r\nlife, though there are instances of men having done without it for\r\nlong periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that \"the\r\nLaplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his\r\nhead and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow... in a\r\ndegree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in\r\nany woollen clothing.\" He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, \"They\r\nare not hardier than other people.\" But, probably, man did not live long\r\non the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a\r\nhouse, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified\r\nthe satisfactions of the house more than of the family; though these\r\nmust be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the\r\nhouse is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season\r\nchiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol, is\r\nunnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost\r\nsolely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the\r\nsymbol of a day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of\r\na tree signified that so many times they had camped. Man was not made\r\nso large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world\r\nand wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of\r\ndoors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather,\r\nby daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the\r\ntorrid sun, would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not\r\nmade haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve,\r\naccording to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted\r\na home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of warmth, then the warmth\r\nof the affections.\r\n\r\nWe may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human race, some\r\nenterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter. Every\r\nchild begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay\r\noutdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having\r\nan instinct for it. Who does not remember the interest with which, when\r\nyoung, he looked at shelving rocks, or any approach to a cave? It was\r\nthe natural yearning of that portion, any portion of our most primitive\r\nancestor which still survived in us. From the cave we have advanced to\r\nroofs of palm leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven and stretched,\r\nof grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At\r\nlast, we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are\r\ndomestic in more senses than we think. From the hearth the field is a\r\ngreat distance. It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of\r\nour days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial\r\nbodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the\r\nsaint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves\r\ncherish their innocence in dovecots.\r\n\r\nHowever, if one designs to construct a dwelling-house, it behooves him\r\nto exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself\r\nin a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a\r\nprison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a\r\nshelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this\r\ntown, living in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a\r\nfoot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have\r\nit deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living\r\nhonestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question\r\nwhich vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become\r\nsomewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet\r\nlong by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at\r\nnight; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might\r\nget such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it,\r\nto admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and\r\nhook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul\r\nbe free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable\r\nalternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you\r\ngot up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for\r\nrent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and\r\nmore luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as\r\nthis. I am far from jesting. Economy is a subject which admits of being\r\ntreated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of. A comfortable\r\nhouse for a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was\r\nonce made here almost entirely of such materials as Nature furnished\r\nready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians\r\nsubject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, \"The best\r\nof their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of\r\ntrees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up,\r\nand made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty timber, when they\r\nare green.... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of\r\na kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not\r\nso good as the former.... Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet\r\nlong and thirty feet broad.... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and\r\nfound them as warm as the best English houses.\" He adds that they were\r\ncommonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats,\r\nand were furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so\r\nfar as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the\r\nhole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first\r\ninstance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up\r\nin a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.\r\n\r\nIn the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and\r\nsufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I speak\r\nwithin bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their\r\nnests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in\r\nmodern civilized society not more than one half the families own a\r\nshelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially\r\nprevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction\r\nof the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of\r\nall, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village\r\nof Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live.\r\nI do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with\r\nowning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it\r\ncosts so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he\r\ncannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford\r\nto hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this tax, the poor civilized\r\nman secures an abode which is a palace compared with the savage's. An\r\nannual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars (these are the\r\ncountry rates) entitles him to the benefit of the improvements\r\nof centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and paper, Rumford\r\nfire-place, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock,\r\na commodious cellar, and many other things. But how happens it that he\r\nwho is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized\r\nman, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a savage? If it\r\nis asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition\r\nof man--and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their\r\nadvantages--it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings\r\nwithout making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount\r\nof what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it,\r\nimmediately or in the long run. An average house in this neighborhood\r\ncosts perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take\r\nfrom ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life, even if he is not\r\nencumbered with a family--estimating the pecuniary value of every man's\r\nlabor at one dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive\r\nless;--so that he must have spent more than half his life commonly\r\nbefore his wigwam will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent\r\ninstead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage have\r\nbeen wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?\r\n\r\nIt may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding\r\nthis superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so\r\nfar as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of\r\nfuneral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.\r\nNevertheless this points to an important distinction between the\r\ncivilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have designs on us for\r\nour benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an _institution_, in\r\nwhich the life of the individual is to a great extent absorbed, in order\r\nto preserve and perfect that of the race. But I wish to show at what a\r\nsacrifice this advantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we\r\nmay possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering\r\nany of the disadvantage. What mean ye by saying that the poor ye have\r\nalways with you, or that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the\r\nchildren's teeth are set on edge?\r\n\r\n\"As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to\r\nuse this proverb in Israel.\r\n\r\n\"Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul\r\nof the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.\"\r\n\r\nWhen I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, who are at least\r\nas well off as the other classes, I find that for the most part they\r\nhave been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, that they may become\r\nthe real owners of their farms, which commonly they have inherited with\r\nencumbrances, or else bought with hired money--and we may regard one\r\nthird of that toil as the cost of their houses--but commonly they have\r\nnot paid for them yet. It is true, the encumbrances sometimes outweigh\r\nthe value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one great\r\nencumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well\r\nacquainted with it, as he says. On applying to the assessors, I am\r\nsurprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who\r\nown their farms free and clear. If you would know the history of these\r\nhomesteads, inquire at the bank where they are mortgaged. The man who\r\nhas actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every\r\nneighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in\r\nConcord. What has been said of the merchants, that a very large\r\nmajority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail, is equally\r\ntrue of the farmers. With regard to the merchants, however, one of them\r\nsays pertinently that a great part of their failures are not genuine\r\npecuniary failures, but merely failures to fulfil their engagements,\r\nbecause it is inconvenient; that is, it is the moral character that\r\nbreaks down. But this puts an infinitely worse face on the matter, and\r\nsuggests, beside, that probably not even the other three succeed in\r\nsaving their souls, but are perchance bankrupt in a worse sense than\r\nthey who fail honestly. Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards\r\nfrom which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but\r\nthe savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine. Yet the Middlesex\r\nCattle Show goes off here with _\u00e9clat_ annually, as if all the joints of\r\nthe agricultural machine were suent.\r\n\r\nThe farmer is endeavoring to solve the problem of a livelihood by a\r\nformula more complicated than the problem itself. To get his shoestrings\r\nhe speculates in herds of cattle. With consummate skill he has set his\r\ntrap with a hair spring to catch comfort and independence, and then, as\r\nhe turned away, got his own leg into it. This is the reason he is poor;\r\nand for a similar reason we are all poor in respect to a thousand savage\r\ncomforts, though surrounded by luxuries. As Chapman sings,\r\n\r\n             \"The false society of men--\r\n                --for earthly greatness\r\n              All heavenly comforts rarefies to air.\"\r\n\r\nAnd when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the\r\npoorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. As I understand\r\nit, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which\r\nMinerva made, that she \"had not made it movable, by which means a bad\r\nneighborhood might be avoided\"; and it may still be urged, for our\r\nhouses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather\r\nthan housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own\r\nscurvy selves. I know one or two families, at least, in this town, who,\r\nfor nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell their houses in\r\nthe outskirts and move into the village, but have not been able to\r\naccomplish it, and only death will set them free.\r\n\r\nGranted that the majority are able at last either to own or hire the\r\nmodern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been\r\nimproving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to\r\ninhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create\r\nnoblemen and kings. And _if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier\r\nthan the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in\r\nobtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a\r\nbetter dwelling than the former?_\r\n\r\nBut how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found that just in\r\nproportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the\r\nsavage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one class\r\nis counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side is the\r\npalace, on the other are the almshouse and \"silent poor.\" The myriads\r\nwho built the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on\r\ngarlic, and it may be were not decently buried themselves. The mason who\r\nfinishes the cornice of the palace returns at night perchance to a hut\r\nnot so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a country\r\nwhere the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of a very\r\nlarge body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages.\r\nI refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich. To know this\r\nI should not need to look farther than to the shanties which everywhere\r\nborder our railroads, that last improvement in civilization; where I see\r\nin my daily walks human beings living in sties, and all winter with an\r\nopen door, for the sake of light, without any visible, often imaginable,\r\nwood-pile, and the forms of both old and young are permanently\r\ncontracted by the long habit of shrinking from cold and misery, and the\r\ndevelopment of all their limbs and faculties is checked. It certainly\r\nis fair to look at that class by whose labor the works which distinguish\r\nthis generation are accomplished. Such too, to a greater or less extent,\r\nis the condition of the operatives of every denomination in England,\r\nwhich is the great workhouse of the world. Or I could refer you to\r\nIreland, which is marked as one of the white or enlightened spots on the\r\nmap. Contrast the physical condition of the Irish with that of the North\r\nAmerican Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race\r\nbefore it was degraded by contact with the civilized man. Yet I have no\r\ndoubt that that people's rulers are as wise as the average of civilized\r\nrulers. Their condition only proves what squalidness may consist with\r\ncivilization. I hardly need refer now to the laborers in our Southern\r\nStates who produce the staple exports of this country, and are\r\nthemselves a staple production of the South. But to confine myself to\r\nthose who are said to be in _moderate_ circumstances.\r\n\r\nMost men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are\r\nactually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that\r\nthey must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were\r\nto wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or,\r\ngradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain\r\nof hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is\r\npossible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we\r\nhave, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for.\r\nShall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes\r\nto be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely\r\nteach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man's\r\nproviding a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas, and\r\nempty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should not\r\nour furniture be as simple as the Arab's or the Indian's? When I think\r\nof the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers\r\nfrom heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any\r\nretinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable furniture. Or what\r\nif I were to allow--would it not be a singular allowance?--that our\r\nfurniture should be more complex than the Arab's, in proportion as we\r\nare morally and intellectually his superiors! At present our houses are\r\ncluttered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out\r\nthe greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's work\r\nundone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon,\r\nwhat should be man's _morning work_ in this world? I had three pieces of\r\nlimestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to\r\nbe dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still,\r\nand threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a\r\nfurnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers\r\non the grass, unless where man has broken ground.\r\n\r\nIt is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd\r\nso diligently follow. The traveller who stops at the best houses, so\r\ncalled, soon discovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a\r\nSardanapalus, and if he resigned himself to their tender mercies he\r\nwould soon be completely emasculated. I think that in the railroad car\r\nwe are inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience,\r\nand it threatens without attaining these to become no better than a\r\nmodern drawing-room, with its divans, and ottomans, and sun-shades,\r\nand a hundred other oriental things, which we are taking west with us,\r\ninvented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the\r\nCelestial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the names\r\nof. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be\r\ncrowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox\r\ncart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an\r\nexcursion train and breathe a _malaria_ all the way.\r\n\r\nThe very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages\r\nimply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner\r\nin nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep, he contemplated\r\nhis journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and\r\nwas either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing\r\nthe mountain-tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The\r\nman who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a\r\nfarmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We\r\nnow no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and\r\nforgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved\r\nmethod of _agri_-culture. We have built for this world a family mansion,\r\nand for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression\r\nof man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect\r\nof our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher\r\nstate to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a\r\nwork of _fine_ art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives,\r\nour houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not\r\na nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero\r\nor a saint. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or\r\nnot paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder\r\nthat the floor does not give way under the visitor while he is admiring\r\nthe gewgaws upon the mantelpiece, and let him through into the cellar,\r\nto some solid and honest though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive\r\nthat this so-called rich and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I\r\ndo not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts which adorn it, my\r\nattention being wholly occupied with the jump; for I remember that the\r\ngreatest genuine leap, due to human muscles alone, on record, is that of\r\ncertain wandering Arabs, who are said to have cleared twenty-five feet\r\non level ground. Without factitious support, man is sure to come to\r\nearth again beyond that distance. The first question which I am tempted\r\nto put to the proprietor of such great impropriety is, Who bolsters\r\nyou? Are you one of the ninety-seven who fail, or the three who succeed?\r\nAnswer me these questions, and then perhaps I may look at your bawbles\r\nand find them ornamental. The cart before the horse is neither beautiful\r\nnor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the\r\nwalls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful\r\nhousekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste\r\nfor the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no\r\nhouse and no housekeeper.\r\n\r\nOld Johnson, in his \"Wonder-Working Providence,\" speaking of the first\r\nsettlers of this town, with whom he was contemporary, tells us that\r\n\"they burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some\r\nhillside, and, casting the soil aloft upon timber, they make a smoky\r\nfire against the earth, at the highest side.\" They did not \"provide them\r\nhouses,\" says he, \"till the earth, by the Lord's blessing, brought forth\r\nbread to feed them,\" and the first year's crop was so light that\r\n\"they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season.\" The\r\nsecretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in 1650,\r\nfor the information of those who wished to take up land there, states\r\nmore particularly that \"those in New Netherland, and especially in New\r\nEngland, who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to\r\ntheir wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or\r\nseven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the\r\nearth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the\r\nbark of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth;\r\nfloor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling,\r\nraise a roof of spars clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green\r\nsods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their\r\nentire families for two, three, and four years, it being understood that\r\npartitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size\r\nof the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the\r\nbeginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling-houses in\r\nthis fashion for two reasons: firstly, in order not to waste time in\r\nbuilding, and not to want food the next season; secondly, in order not\r\nto discourage poor laboring people whom they brought over in numbers\r\nfrom Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, when the country\r\nbecame adapted to agriculture, they built themselves handsome houses,\r\nspending on them several thousands.\"\r\n\r\nIn this course which our ancestors took there was a show of prudence\r\nat least, as if their principle were to satisfy the more pressing wants\r\nfirst. But are the more pressing wants satisfied now? When I think of\r\nacquiring for myself one of our luxurious dwellings, I am deterred, for,\r\nso to speak, the country is not yet adapted to _human_ culture, and we are\r\nstill forced to cut our _spiritual_ bread far thinner than our forefathers\r\ndid their wheaten. Not that all architectural ornament is to be\r\nneglected even in the rudest periods; but let our houses first be\r\nlined with beauty, where they come in contact with our lives, like the\r\ntenement of the shellfish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas! I have\r\nbeen inside one or two of them, and know what they are lined with.\r\n\r\nThough we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly live in a\r\ncave or a wigwam or wear skins today, it certainly is better to accept\r\nthe advantages, though so dearly bought, which the invention and\r\nindustry of mankind offer. In such a neighborhood as this, boards and\r\nshingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and more easily obtained than\r\nsuitable caves, or whole logs, or bark in sufficient quantities, or\r\neven well-tempered clay or flat stones. I speak understandingly on this\r\nsubject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both theoretically\r\nand practically. With a little more wit we might use these materials so\r\nas to become richer than the richest now are, and make our civilization\r\na blessing. The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage.\r\nBut to make haste to my own experiment.\r\n\r\nNear the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the\r\nwoods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and\r\nbegan to cut down some tall, arrowy white pines, still in their youth,\r\nfor timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it\r\nis the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an\r\ninterest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his\r\nhold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it\r\nsharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked,\r\ncovered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a\r\nsmall open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing\r\nup. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some\r\nopen spaces, and it was all dark-colored and saturated with water. There\r\nwere some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there;\r\nbut for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my\r\nway home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy\r\natmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark\r\nand pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us.\r\nThey were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent\r\nwas thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid\r\nbegan to stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and I had cut\r\na green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had placed the\r\nwhole to soak in a pond-hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped\r\nsnake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without\r\ninconvenience, as long as I stayed there, or more than a quarter of\r\nan hour; perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid\r\nstate. It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their\r\npresent low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the\r\ninfluence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of\r\nnecessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen\r\nthe snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies\r\nstill numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st\r\nof April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day,\r\nwhich was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond\r\nand cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog.\r\n\r\nSo I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs\r\nand rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable or\r\nscholar-like thoughts, singing to myself,--\r\n\r\n                  Men say they know many things;\r\n                  But lo! they have taken wings--\r\n                  The arts and sciences,\r\n                  And a thousand appliances;\r\n                  The wind that blows\r\n                  Is all that any body knows.\r\n\r\nI hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two\r\nsides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving\r\nthe rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much\r\nstronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned\r\nby its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in\r\nthe woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of\r\nbread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at\r\nnoon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my\r\nbread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered\r\nwith a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than\r\nthe foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having\r\nbecome better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was\r\nattracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the\r\nchips which I had made.\r\n\r\nBy the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made\r\nthe most of it, my house was framed and ready for the raising. I had\r\nalready bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on\r\nthe Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins' shanty was considered\r\nan uncommonly fine one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I\r\nwalked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window\r\nwas so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage\r\nroof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all\r\naround as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part,\r\nthough a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Doorsill there\r\nwas none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board.\r\nMrs. C. came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The\r\nhens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor\r\nfor the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there\r\na board which would not bear removal. She lighted a lamp to show me the\r\ninside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended\r\nunder the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust\r\nhole two feet deep. In her own words, they were \"good boards overhead,\r\ngood boards all around, and a good window\"--of two whole squares\r\noriginally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a\r\nstove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it\r\nwas born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new\r\ncoffee-mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon\r\nconcluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four\r\ndollars and twenty-five cents tonight, he to vacate at five tomorrow\r\nmorning, selling to nobody else meanwhile: I to take possession at\r\nsix. It were well, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain\r\nindistinct but wholly unjust claims on the score of ground rent and\r\nfuel. This he assured me was the only encumbrance. At six I passed\r\nhim and his family on the road. One large bundle held their all--bed,\r\ncoffee-mill, looking-glass, hens--all but the cat; she took to the woods\r\nand became a wild cat, and, as I learned afterward, trod in a trap set\r\nfor woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last.\r\n\r\nI took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails, and\r\nremoved it to the pond-side by small cartloads, spreading the boards\r\non the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early\r\nthrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path. I\r\nwas informed treacherously by a young Patrick that neighbor Seeley,\r\nan Irishman, in the intervals of the carting, transferred the still\r\ntolerable, straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his\r\npocket, and then stood when I came back to pass the time of day, and\r\nlook freshly up, unconcerned, with spring thoughts, at the devastation;\r\nthere being a dearth of work, as he said. He was there to represent\r\nspectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignificant event one with\r\nthe removal of the gods of Troy.\r\n\r\nI dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where\r\na woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and\r\nblackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square\r\nby seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any\r\nwinter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun having\r\nnever shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two\r\nhours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground,\r\nfor in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable\r\ntemperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be\r\nfound the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after\r\nthe superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the\r\nearth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a\r\nburrow.\r\n\r\nAt length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my\r\nacquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness\r\nthan from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever\r\nmore honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined,\r\nI trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began\r\nto occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and\r\nroofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that\r\nit was perfectly impervious to rain, but before boarding I laid the\r\nfoundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up\r\nthe hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing\r\nin the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking\r\nin the meanwhile out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which\r\nmode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable\r\nthan the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed\r\na few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and\r\npassed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands\r\nwere much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper\r\nwhich lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much\r\nentertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nIt would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did,\r\nconsidering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar,\r\na garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any\r\nsuperstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal\r\nnecessities even. There is some of the same fitness in a man's building\r\nhis own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who\r\nknows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and\r\nprovided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough,\r\nthe poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally\r\nsing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and\r\ncuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and\r\ncheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we\r\nforever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does\r\narchitecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never\r\nin all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an\r\noccupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is\r\nnot the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the\r\npreacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of\r\nlabor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another\r\n_may_ also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should\r\ndo so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.\r\n\r\nTrue, there are architects so called in this country, and I have\r\nheard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural\r\nornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if\r\nit were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point\r\nof view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism. A\r\nsentimental reformer in architecture, he began at the cornice, not\r\nat the foundation. It was only how to put a core of truth within the\r\nornaments, that every sugarplum, in fact, might have an almond or\r\ncaraway seed in it--though I hold that almonds are most wholesome\r\nwithout the sugar--and not how the inhabitant, the indweller, might\r\nbuild truly within and without, and let the ornaments take care of\r\nthemselves. What reasonable man ever supposed that ornaments were\r\nsomething outward and in the skin merely--that the tortoise got his\r\nspotted shell, or the shell-fish its mother-o'-pearl tints, by such a\r\ncontract as the inhabitants of Broadway their Trinity Church? But a man\r\nhas no more to do with the style of architecture of his house than a\r\ntortoise with that of its shell: nor need the soldier be so idle as to\r\ntry to paint the precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy\r\nwill find it out. He may turn pale when the trial comes. This man seemed\r\nto me to lean over the cornice, and timidly whisper his half truth\r\nto the rude occupants who really knew it better than he. What of\r\narchitectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown from within\r\noutward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller, who is\r\nthe only builder--out of some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness,\r\nwithout ever a thought for the appearance and whatever additional beauty\r\nof this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like\r\nunconscious beauty of life. The most interesting dwellings in this\r\ncountry, as the painter knows, are the most unpretending, humble\r\nlog huts and cottages of the poor commonly; it is the life of the\r\ninhabitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their\r\nsurfaces merely, which makes them picturesque; and equally interesting\r\nwill be the citizen's suburban box, when his life shall be as simple and\r\nas agreeable to the imagination, and there is as little straining after\r\neffect in the style of his dwelling. A great proportion of architectural\r\nornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale would strip them\r\noff, like borrowed plumes, without injury to the substantials. They can\r\ndo without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar. What\r\nif an equal ado were made about the ornaments of style in literature,\r\nand the architects of our bibles spent as much time about their cornices\r\nas the architects of our churches do? So are made the _belles-lettres_ and\r\nthe _beaux-arts_ and their professors. Much it concerns a man, forsooth,\r\nhow a few sticks are slanted over him or under him, and what colors\r\nare daubed upon his box. It would signify somewhat, if, in any earnest\r\nsense, he slanted them and daubed it; but the spirit having departed out\r\nof the tenant, it is of a piece with constructing his own coffin--the\r\narchitecture of the grave--and \"carpenter\" is but another name for\r\n\"coffin-maker.\" One man says, in his despair or indifference to life,\r\ntake up a handful of the earth at your feet, and paint your house that\r\ncolor. Is he thinking of his last and narrow house? Toss up a copper for\r\nit as well. What an abundance of leisure he must have! Why do you take\r\nup a handful of dirt? Better paint your house your own complexion; let\r\nit turn pale or blush for you. An enterprise to improve the style of\r\ncottage architecture! When you have got my ornaments ready, I will wear\r\nthem.\r\n\r\nBefore winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house,\r\nwhich were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles\r\nmade of the first slice of the log, whose edges I was obliged to\r\nstraighten with a plane.\r\n\r\nI have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by\r\nfifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large\r\nwindow on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick\r\nfireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price\r\nfor such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which\r\nwas done by myself, was as follows; and I give the details because very\r\nfew are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if\r\nany, the separate cost of the various materials which compose them:--\r\n\r\n    Boards.......................... $ 8.03-1\/2, mostly shanty boards.\r\n    Refuse shingles for roof sides...  4.00\r\n    Laths............................  1.25\r\n    Two second-hand windows\r\n       with glass....................  2.43\r\n    One thousand old brick...........  4.00\r\n    Two casks of lime................  2.40  That was high.\r\n    Hair.............................  0.31  More than I needed.\r\n    Mantle-tree iron.................  0.15\r\n    Nails............................  3.90\r\n    Hinges and screws................  0.14\r\n    Latch............................  0.10\r\n    Chalk............................  0.01\r\n    Transportation...................  1.40  I carried a good part\r\n                                     -------- on my back.\r\n        In all...................... $28.12-1\/2\r\n\r\nThese are all the materials, excepting the timber, stones, and sand,\r\nwhich I claimed by squatter's right. I have also a small woodshed\r\nadjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left after building the\r\nhouse.\r\n\r\nI intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street\r\nin Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and\r\nwill cost me no more than my present one.\r\n\r\nI thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one\r\nfor a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays\r\nannually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that\r\nI brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and\r\ninconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding\r\nmuch cant and hypocrisy--chaff which I find it difficult to separate\r\nfrom my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as any man--I will breathe\r\nfreely and stretch myself in this respect, it is such a relief to both\r\nthe moral and physical system; and I am resolved that I will not through\r\nhumility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good\r\nword for the truth. At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student's\r\nroom, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each\r\nyear, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two\r\nside by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers the\r\ninconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a residence in\r\nthe fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom\r\nin these respects, not only less education would be needed, because,\r\nforsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary\r\nexpense of getting an education would in a great measure vanish. Those\r\nconveniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost\r\nhim or somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they\r\nwould with proper management on both sides. Those things for which\r\nthe most money is demanded are never the things which the student most\r\nwants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill,\r\nwhile for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating\r\nwith the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made. The\r\nmode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of\r\ndollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a\r\ndivision of labor to its extreme--a principle which should never be\r\nfollowed but with circumspection--to call in a contractor who makes this\r\na subject of speculation, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives\r\nactually to lay the foundations, while the students that are to be\r\nare said to be fitting themselves for it; and for these oversights\r\nsuccessive generations have to pay. I think that it would be better _than\r\nthis_, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even\r\nto lay the foundation themselves. The student who secures his coveted\r\nleisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to\r\nman obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself\r\nof the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. \"But,\" says\r\none, \"you do not mean that the students should go to work with their\r\nhands instead of their heads?\" I do not mean that exactly, but I mean\r\nsomething which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they\r\nshould not _play_ life, or _study_ it merely, while the community supports\r\nthem at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to\r\nend. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the\r\nexperiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much\r\nas mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and\r\nsciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which\r\nis merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where\r\nanything is professed and practised but the art of life;--to survey the\r\nworld through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural\r\neye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or\r\nmechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to\r\nNeptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he\r\nis a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all\r\naround him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar. Which\r\nwould have advanced the most at the end of a month--the boy who had made\r\nhis own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading\r\nas much as would be necessary for this--or the boy who had attended\r\nthe lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had\r\nreceived a Rodgers' penknife from his father? Which would be most likely\r\nto cut his fingers?... To my astonishment I was informed on leaving\r\ncollege that I had studied navigation!--why, if I had taken one turn\r\ndown the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student\r\nstudies and is taught only _political_ economy, while that economy\r\nof living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely\r\nprofessed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading\r\nAdam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.\r\n\r\nAs with our colleges, so with a hundred \"modern improvements\"; there\r\nis an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The\r\ndevil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share\r\nand numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to\r\nbe pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They\r\nare but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already\r\nbut too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York.\r\nWe are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine\r\nto Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to\r\ncommunicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was\r\nearnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was\r\npresented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had\r\nnothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk\r\nsensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old\r\nWorld some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that\r\nwill leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the\r\nPrincess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse\r\ntrots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages;\r\nhe is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild\r\nhoney. I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to mill.\r\n\r\nOne says to me, \"I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to\r\ntravel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg today and see the\r\ncountry.\" But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest\r\ntraveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try\r\nwho will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety\r\ncents. That is almost a day's wages. I remember when wages were sixty\r\ncents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot,\r\nand get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week\r\ntogether. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive\r\nthere some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky\r\nenough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will\r\nbe working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad\r\nreached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and\r\nas for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should\r\nhave to cut your acquaintance altogether.\r\n\r\nSuch is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit, and with regard\r\nto the railroad even we may say it is as broad as it is long. To make\r\na railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to\r\ngrading the whole surface of the planet. Men have an indistinct notion\r\nthat if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long\r\nenough all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for\r\nnothing; but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor\r\nshouts \"All aboard!\" when the smoke is blown away and the vapor\r\ncondensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are\r\nrun over--and it will be called, and will be, \"A melancholy accident.\"\r\nNo doubt they can ride at last who shall have earned their fare, that\r\nis, if they survive so long, but they will probably have lost their\r\nelasticity and desire to travel by that time. This spending of the\r\nbest part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable\r\nliberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the\r\nEnglishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he\r\nmight return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone\r\nup garret at once. \"What!\" exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from\r\nall the shanties in the land, \"is not this railroad which we have built\r\na good thing?\" Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might\r\nhave done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could\r\nhave spent your time better than digging in this dirt.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nBefore I finished my house, wishing to earn ten or twelve dollars by\r\nsome honest and agreeable method, in order to meet my unusual expenses,\r\nI planted about two acres and a half of light and sandy soil near it\r\nchiefly with beans, but also a small part with potatoes, corn, peas, and\r\nturnips. The whole lot contains eleven acres, mostly growing up to pines\r\nand hickories, and was sold the preceding season for eight dollars and\r\neight cents an acre. One farmer said that it was \"good for nothing but\r\nto raise cheeping squirrels on.\" I put no manure whatever on this\r\nland, not being the owner, but merely a squatter, and not expecting to\r\ncultivate so much again, and I did not quite hoe it all once. I got out\r\nseveral cords of stumps in plowing, which supplied me with fuel for\r\na long time, and left small circles of virgin mould, easily\r\ndistinguishable through the summer by the greater luxuriance of the\r\nbeans there. The dead and for the most part unmerchantable wood behind\r\nmy house, and the driftwood from the pond, have supplied the remainder\r\nof my fuel. I was obliged to hire a team and a man for the plowing,\r\nthough I held the plow myself. My farm outgoes for the first season\r\nwere, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14.72-1\/2. The seed corn was given\r\nme. This never costs anything to speak of, unless you plant more than\r\nenough. I got twelve bushels of beans, and eighteen bushels of potatoes,\r\nbeside some peas and sweet corn. The yellow corn and turnips were too\r\nlate to come to anything. My whole income from the farm was\r\n\r\n                                       $ 23.44\r\n      Deducting the outgoes............  14.72-1\/2\r\n                                         --------\r\n      There are left.................. $  8.71-1\/2\r\n\r\nbeside produce consumed and on hand at the time this estimate was made\r\nof the value of $4.50--the amount on hand much more than balancing a\r\nlittle grass which I did not raise. All things considered, that is,\r\nconsidering the importance of a man's soul and of today, notwithstanding\r\nthe short time occupied by my experiment, nay, partly even because of\r\nits transient character, I believe that that was doing better than any\r\nfarmer in Concord did that year.\r\n\r\nThe next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land which I\r\nrequired, about a third of an acre, and I learned from the experience\r\nof both years, not being in the least awed by many celebrated works on\r\nhusbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply\r\nand eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate,\r\nand not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and\r\nexpensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground,\r\nand that it would be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen to plow\r\nit, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old,\r\nand he could do all his necessary farm work as it were with his left\r\nhand at odd hours in the summer; and thus he would not be tied to an ox,\r\nor horse, or cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially\r\non this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of\r\nthe present economical and social arrangements. I was more independent\r\nthan any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm,\r\nbut could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one,\r\nevery moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had\r\nbeen burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well\r\noff as before.\r\n\r\nI am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as\r\nherds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer. Men and\r\noxen exchange work; but if we consider necessary work only, the oxen\r\nwill be seen to have greatly the advantage, their farm is so much the\r\nlarger. Man does some of his part of the exchange work in his six weeks\r\nof haying, and it is no boy's play. Certainly no nation that lived\r\nsimply in all respects, that is, no nation of philosophers, would commit\r\nso great a blunder as to use the labor of animals. True, there never was\r\nand is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain\r\nit is desirable that there should be. However, _I_ should never have\r\nbroken a horse or bull and taken him to board for any work he might do\r\nfor me, for fear I should become a horseman or a herdsman merely; and if\r\nsociety seems to be the gainer by so doing, are we certain that what is\r\none man's gain is not another's loss, and that the stable-boy has equal\r\ncause with his master to be satisfied? Granted that some public works\r\nwould not have been constructed without this aid, and let man share the\r\nglory of such with the ox and horse; does it follow that he could not\r\nhave accomplished works yet more worthy of himself in that case? When\r\nmen begin to do, not merely unnecessary or artistic, but luxurious and\r\nidle work, with their assistance, it is inevitable that a few do all the\r\nexchange work with the oxen, or, in other words, become the slaves of\r\nthe strongest. Man thus not only works for the animal within him, but,\r\nfor a symbol of this, he works for the animal without him. Though we\r\nhave many substantial houses of brick or stone, the prosperity of the\r\nfarmer is still measured by the degree to which the barn overshadows the\r\nhouse. This town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, and\r\nhorses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its public buildings; but\r\nthere are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county.\r\nIt should not be by their architecture, but why not even by their power\r\nof abstract thought, that nations should seek to commemorate themselves?\r\nHow much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the\r\nEast! Towers and temples are the luxury of princes. A simple and\r\nindependent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince. Genius is\r\nnot a retainer to any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or\r\nmarble, except to a trifling extent. To what end, pray, is so much stone\r\nhammered? In Arcadia, when I was there, I did not see any hammering\r\nstone. Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the\r\nmemory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if\r\nequal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of\r\ngood sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.\r\nI love better to see stones in place. The grandeur of Thebes was a\r\nvulgar grandeur. More sensible is a rod of stone wall that bounds an\r\nhonest man's field than a hundred-gated Thebes that has wandered farther\r\nfrom the true end of life. The religion and civilization which are\r\nbarbaric and heathenish build splendid temples; but what you might call\r\nChristianity does not. Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward\r\nits tomb only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, there is\r\nnothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could\r\nbe found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for\r\nsome ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to\r\nhave drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might\r\npossibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it.\r\nAs for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same\r\nall the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the\r\nUnited States Bank. It costs more than it comes to. The mainspring is\r\nvanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter. Mr. Balcom,\r\na promising young architect, designs it on the back of his Vitruvius,\r\nwith hard pencil and ruler, and the job is let out to Dobson &amp; Sons,\r\nstonecutters. When the thirty centuries begin to look down on it,\r\nmankind begin to look up at it. As for your high towers and monuments,\r\nthere was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through\r\nto China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots\r\nand kettles rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to\r\nadmire the hole which he made. Many are concerned about the monuments\r\nof the West and the East--to know who built them. For my part, I should\r\nlike to know who in those days did not build them--who were above such\r\ntrifling. But to proceed with my statistics.\r\n\r\nBy surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the\r\nvillage in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers, I had\r\nearned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely, from July\r\n4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I\r\nlived there more than two years--not counting potatoes, a little green\r\ncorn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value of\r\nwhat was on hand at the last date--was\r\n\r\n    Rice.................... $ 1.73-1\/2\r\n    Molasses.................  1.73     Cheapest form of the\r\n                                         saccharine.\r\n    Rye meal.................  1.04-3\/4\r\n    Indian meal..............  0.99-3\/4  Cheaper than rye.\r\n    Pork.....................  0.22\r\n    All experiments which failed:\r\n    Flour....................  0.88  Costs more than Indian meal,\r\n                                      both money and trouble.\r\n    Sugar....................  0.80\r\n    Lard.....................  0.65\r\n    Apples...................  0.25\r\n    Dried apple..............  0.22\r\n    Sweet potatoes...........  0.10\r\n    One pumpkin..............  0.06\r\n    One watermelon...........  0.02\r\n    Salt.....................  0.03\r\n\r\nYes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly\r\npublish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally\r\nguilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print.\r\nThe next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and\r\nonce I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my\r\nbean-field--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say--and devour\r\nhim, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary\r\nenjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use\r\nwould not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your\r\nwoodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.\r\n\r\nClothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though\r\nlittle can be inferred from this item, amounted to\r\n\r\n                                            $8.40-3\/4\r\n    Oil and some household utensils........  2.00\r\n\r\nSo that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending,\r\nwhich for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have\r\nnot yet been received--and these are all and more than all the ways by\r\nwhich money necessarily goes out in this part of the world--were\r\n\r\n    House................................. $ 28.12-1\/2\r\n    Farm one year........................... 14.72-1\/2\r\n    Food eight months.......................  8.74\r\n    Clothing, etc., eight months............  8.40-3\/4\r\n    Oil, etc., eight months.................  2.00\r\n                                           ------------\r\n        In all............................ $ 61.99-3\/4\r\n\r\nI address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get.\r\nAnd to meet this I have for farm produce sold\r\n\r\n                                            $23.44\r\n    Earned by day-labor....................  13.34\r\n                                           --------\r\n        In all............................. $36.78,\r\n\r\nwhich subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21-3\/4\r\non the one side--this being very nearly the means with which I\r\nstarted, and the measure of expenses to be incurred--and on the\r\nother, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a\r\ncomfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.\r\n\r\nThese statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they\r\nmay appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value\r\nalso. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account.\r\nIt appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money\r\nabout twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after\r\nthis, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little\r\nsalt pork, molasses, and salt; and my drink, water. It was fit that I\r\nshould live on rice, mainly, who love so well the philosophy of India.\r\nTo meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well\r\nstate, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I\r\ntrust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the\r\ndetriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as\r\nI have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a\r\ncomparative statement like this.\r\n\r\nI learned from my two years' experience that it would cost incredibly\r\nlittle trouble to obtain one's necessary food, even in this latitude;\r\nthat a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain\r\nhealth and strength. I have made a satisfactory dinner, satisfactory\r\non several accounts, simply off a dish of purslane (_Portulaca oleracea_)\r\nwhich I gathered in my cornfield, boiled and salted. I give the Latin on\r\naccount of the savoriness of the trivial name. And pray what more can\r\na reasonable man desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a\r\nsufficient number of ears of green sweet corn boiled, with the addition\r\nof salt? Even the little variety which I used was a yielding to the\r\ndemands of appetite, and not of health. Yet men have come to such a pass\r\nthat they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want\r\nof luxuries; and I know a good woman who thinks that her son lost his\r\nlife because he took to drinking water only.\r\n\r\nThe reader will perceive that I am treating the subject rather from an\r\neconomic than a dietetic point of view, and he will not venture to put\r\nmy abstemiousness to the test unless he has a well-stocked larder.\r\n\r\nBread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoe-cakes,\r\nwhich I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle or the end of a\r\nstick of timber sawed off in building my house; but it was wont to get\r\nsmoked and to have a piny flavor. I tried flour also; but have at last\r\nfound a mixture of rye and Indian meal most convenient and agreeable. In\r\ncold weather it was no little amusement to bake several small loaves of\r\nthis in succession, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian\r\nhis hatching eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and\r\nthey had to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble fruits, which\r\nI kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths. I made a study\r\nof the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making, consulting such\r\nauthorities as offered, going back to the primitive days and first\r\ninvention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and\r\nmeats men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and\r\ntravelling gradually down in my studies through that accidental souring\r\nof the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and\r\nthrough the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to \"good,\r\nsweet, wholesome bread,\" the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem the\r\nsoul of bread, the _spiritus_ which fills its cellular tissue, which is\r\nreligiously preserved like the vestal fire--some precious bottleful,\r\nI suppose, first brought over in the Mayflower, did the business for\r\nAmerica, and its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading, in\r\ncerealian billows over the land--this seed I regularly and faithfully\r\nprocured from the village, till at length one morning I forgot the\r\nrules, and scalded my yeast; by which accident I discovered that even\r\nthis was not indispensable--for my discoveries were not by the synthetic\r\nbut analytic process--and I have gladly omitted it since, though most\r\nhousewives earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without\r\nyeast might not be, and elderly people prophesied a speedy decay of the\r\nvital forces. Yet I find it not to be an essential ingredient, and after\r\ngoing without it for a year am still in the land of the living; and I\r\nam glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket,\r\nwhich would sometimes pop and discharge its contents to my discomfiture.\r\nIt is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who\r\nmore than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.\r\nNeither did I put any sal-soda, or other acid or alkali, into my bread.\r\nIt would seem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus\r\nPorcius Cato gave about two centuries before Christ. \"Panem depsticium\r\nsic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium\r\nindito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris,\r\ndefingito, coquitoque sub testu.\" Which I take to mean,--\"Make kneaded\r\nbread thus. Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the\r\ntrough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have\r\nkneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover,\" that is, in a\r\nbaking kettle. Not a word about leaven. But I did not always use this\r\nstaff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw\r\nnone of it for more than a month.\r\n\r\nEvery New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this\r\nland of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating\r\nmarkets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence\r\nthat, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and\r\nhominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the\r\nmost part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own\r\nproducing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a\r\ngreater cost, at the store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel\r\nor two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow on the poorest\r\nland, and the latter does not require the best, and grind them in a\r\nhand-mill, and so do without rice and pork; and if I must have some\r\nconcentrated sweet, I found by experiment that I could make a very good\r\nmolasses either of pumpkins or beets, and I knew that I needed only to\r\nset out a few maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these\r\nwere growing I could use various substitutes beside those which I have\r\nnamed. \"For,\" as the Forefathers sang,--\r\n\r\n                \"we can make liquor to sweeten our lips\r\n        Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.\"\r\n\r\nFinally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might\r\nbe a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it\r\naltogether, I should probably drink the less water. I do not learn that\r\nthe Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it.\r\n\r\nThus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food was\r\nconcerned, and having a shelter already, it would only remain to get\r\nclothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a\r\nfarmer's family--thank Heaven there is so much virtue still in man; for\r\nI think the fall from the farmer to the operative as great and memorable\r\nas that from the man to the farmer;--and in a new country, fuel is an\r\nencumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still to squat,\r\nI might purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I\r\ncultivated was sold--namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it\r\nwas, I considered that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on\r\nit.\r\n\r\nThere is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such\r\nquestions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and\r\nto strike at the root of the matter at once--for the root is faith--I\r\nam accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they\r\ncannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.\r\nFor my part, I am glad to hear of experiments of this kind being tried;\r\nas that a young man tried for a fortnight to live on hard, raw corn on\r\nthe ear, using his teeth for all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the\r\nsame and succeeded. The human race is interested in these experiments,\r\nthough a few old women who are incapacitated for them, or who own their\r\nthirds in mills, may be alarmed.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nMy furniture, part of which I made myself--and the rest cost me nothing\r\nof which I have not rendered an account--consisted of a bed, a table, a\r\ndesk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of\r\ntongs and andirons, a kettle, a skillet, and a frying-pan, a dipper, a\r\nwash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug\r\nfor oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so poor that\r\nhe need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness. There is a plenty of\r\nsuch chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for taking\r\nthem away. Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the\r\naid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher would not\r\nbe ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up country\r\nexposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account\r\nof empty boxes? That is Spaulding's furniture. I could never tell from\r\ninspecting such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a\r\npoor one; the owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the more\r\nyou have of such things the poorer you are. Each load looks as if it\r\ncontained the contents of a dozen shanties; and if one shanty is poor,\r\nthis is a dozen times as poor. Pray, for what do we _move_ ever but to\r\nget rid of our furniture, our _exuvi\u00e6_: at last to go from this world to\r\nanother newly furnished, and leave this to be burned? It is the same as\r\nif all these traps were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not\r\nmove over the rough country where our lines are cast without dragging\r\nthem--dragging his trap. He was a lucky fox that left his tail in the\r\ntrap. The muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to be free. No wonder man\r\nhas lost his elasticity. How often he is at a dead set! \"Sir, if I may\r\nbe so bold, what do you mean by a dead set?\" If you are a seer, whenever\r\nyou meet a man you will see all that he owns, ay, and much that he\r\npretends to disown, behind him, even to his kitchen furniture and all\r\nthe trumpery which he saves and will not burn, and he will appear to be\r\nharnessed to it and making what headway he can. I think that the man\r\nis at a dead set who has got through a knot-hole or gateway where his\r\nsledge load of furniture cannot follow him. I cannot but feel compassion\r\nwhen I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded\r\nand ready, speak of his \"furniture,\" as whether it is insured or not.\r\n\"But what shall I do with my furniture?\"--My gay butterfly is entangled\r\nin a spider's web then. Even those who seem for a long while not to\r\nhave any, if you inquire more narrowly you will find have some stored\r\nin somebody's barn. I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is\r\ntravelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated\r\nfrom long housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn; great\r\ntrunk, little trunk, bandbox, and bundle. Throw away the first three at\r\nleast. It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his\r\nbed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his\r\nbed and run. When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which\r\ncontained his all--looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of\r\nthe nape of his neck--I have pitied him, not because that was his all,\r\nbut because he had all _that_ to carry. If I have got to drag my trap, I\r\nwill take care that it be a light one and do not nip me in a vital part.\r\nBut perchance it would be wisest never to put one's paw into it.\r\n\r\nI would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for\r\nI have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that\r\nthey should look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine,\r\nnor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is\r\nsometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat\r\nbehind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single item\r\nto the details of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat, but as\r\nI had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or\r\nwithout to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the\r\nsod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.\r\n\r\nNot long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's effects, for\r\nhis life had not been ineffectual:--\r\n\r\n      \"The evil that men do lives after them.\"\r\n\r\nAs usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun to accumulate\r\nin his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after\r\nlying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things\r\nwere not burned; instead of a _bonfire_, or purifying destruction of\r\nthem, there was an _auction_, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly\r\ncollected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them\r\nto their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are\r\nsettled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust.\r\n\r\nThe customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably\r\nimitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting\r\ntheir slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they\r\nhave the reality or not. Would it not be well if we were to celebrate\r\nsuch a \"busk,\" or \"feast of first fruits,\" as Bartram describes to have\r\nbeen the custom of the Mucclasse Indians? \"When a town celebrates the\r\nbusk,\" says he, \"having previously provided themselves with new clothes,\r\nnew pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture, they collect\r\nall their worn out clothes and other despicable things, sweep and\r\ncleanse their houses, squares, and the whole town of their filth, which\r\nwith all the remaining grain and other old provisions they cast together\r\ninto one common heap, and consume it with fire. After having taken\r\nmedicine, and fasted for three days, all the fire in the town is\r\nextinguished. During this fast they abstain from the gratification of\r\nevery appetite and passion whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed;\r\nall malefactors may return to their town.\"\r\n\r\n\"On the fourth morning, the high priest, by rubbing dry wood together,\r\nproduces new fire in the public square, from whence every habitation in\r\nthe town is supplied with the new and pure flame.\"\r\n\r\nThey then feast on the new corn and fruits, and dance and sing for three\r\ndays, \"and the four following days they receive visits and rejoice with\r\ntheir friends from neighboring towns who have in like manner purified\r\nand prepared themselves.\"\r\n\r\nThe Mexicans also practised a similar purification at the end of every\r\nfifty-two years, in the belief that it was time for the world to come to\r\nan end.\r\n\r\nI have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament, that is, as the dictionary\r\ndefines it, \"outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,\"\r\nthan this, and I have no doubt that they were originally inspired\r\ndirectly from Heaven to do thus, though they have no Biblical record of\r\nthe revelation.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nFor more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor\r\nof my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I\r\ncould meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well\r\nas most of my summers, I had free and clear for study. I have thoroughly\r\ntried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or\r\nrather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and\r\ntrain, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time\r\ninto the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but\r\nsimply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade but I\r\nfound that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that\r\nthen I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid\r\nthat I might by that time be doing what is called a good business. When\r\nformerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some\r\nsad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in\r\nmy mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking\r\nhuckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might\r\nsuffice--for my greatest skill has been to want but little--so little\r\ncapital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I\r\nfoolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade\r\nor the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs;\r\nranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way,\r\nand thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep the flocks of\r\nAdmetus. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or carry\r\nevergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods, even\r\nto the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since learned that trade\r\ncurses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from\r\nheaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.\r\n\r\nAs I preferred some things to others, and especially valued my freedom,\r\nas I could fare hard and yet succeed well, I did not wish to spend\r\nmy time in earning rich carpets or other fine furniture, or delicate\r\ncookery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just yet. If\r\nthere are any to whom it is no interruption to acquire these things,\r\nand who know how to use them when acquired, I relinquish to them the\r\npursuit. Some are \"industrious,\" and appear to love labor for its own\r\nsake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I\r\nhave at present nothing to say. Those who would not know what to do with\r\nmore leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as\r\nhard as they do--work till they pay for themselves, and get their free\r\npapers. For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the\r\nmost independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty\r\ndays in a year to support one. The laborer's day ends with the going\r\ndown of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen\r\npursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from\r\nmonth to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.\r\n\r\nIn short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain\r\none's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will\r\nlive simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still\r\nthe sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should\r\nearn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I\r\ndo.\r\n\r\nOne young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me\r\nthat he thought he should live as I did, _if he had the means_. I would\r\nnot have any one adopt _my_ mode of living on any account; for, beside\r\nthat before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for\r\nmyself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the\r\nworld as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find\r\nout and pursue _his own_ way, and not his father's or his mother's or his\r\nneighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him\r\nnot be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.\r\nIt is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or\r\nthe fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient\r\nguidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a\r\ncalculable period, but we would preserve the true course.\r\n\r\nUndoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a\r\nthousand, as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a\r\nsmall one, since one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall\r\nseparate several apartments. But for my part, I preferred the solitary\r\ndwelling. Moreover, it will commonly be cheaper to build the whole\r\nyourself than to convince another of the advantage of the common wall;\r\nand when you have done this, the common partition, to be much cheaper,\r\nmust be a thin one, and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also\r\nnot keep his side in repair. The only co-operation which is commonly\r\npossible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true\r\nco-operation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible\r\nto men. If a man has faith, he will co-operate with equal faith\r\neverywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest\r\nof the world, whatever company he is joined to. To co-operate in the\r\nhighest as well as the lowest sense, means _to get our living together_. I\r\nheard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over\r\nthe world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before\r\nthe mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in\r\nhis pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or\r\nco-operate, since one would not _operate_ at all. They would part at\r\nthe first interesting crisis in their adventures. Above all, as I have\r\nimplied, the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with\r\nanother must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time\r\nbefore they get off.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nBut all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say.\r\nI confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic\r\nenterprises. I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among\r\nothers have sacrificed this pleasure also. There are those who have\r\nused all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some\r\npoor family in the town; and if I had nothing to do--for the devil finds\r\nemployment for the idle--I might try my hand at some such pastime as\r\nthat. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect,\r\nand lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor\r\npersons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have\r\neven ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all\r\nunhesitatingly preferred to remain poor. While my townsmen and women are\r\ndevoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one\r\nat least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have\r\na genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for Doing-good,\r\nthat is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it\r\nfairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree\r\nwith my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately\r\nforsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of\r\nme, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like\r\nbut infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves\r\nit. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who\r\ndoes this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life,\r\nI would say, Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is\r\nmost likely they will.\r\n\r\nI am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar one; no doubt many of\r\nmy readers would make a similar defence. At doing something--I will not\r\nengage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good--I do not hesitate to\r\nsay that I should be a capital fellow to hire; but what that is, it is\r\nfor my employer to find out. What _good_ I do, in the common sense of\r\nthat word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly\r\nunintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such as you\r\nare, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness\r\naforethought go about doing good. If I were to preach at all in this\r\nstrain, I should say rather, Set about being good. As if the sun should\r\nstop when he had kindled his fires up to the splendor of a moon or\r\na star of the sixth magnitude, and go about like a Robin Goodfellow,\r\npeeping in at every cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting\r\nmeats, and making darkness visible, instead of steadily increasing his\r\ngenial heat and beneficence till he is of such brightness that no mortal\r\ncan look him in the face, and then, and in the meanwhile too, going\r\nabout the world in his own orbit, doing it good, or rather, as a truer\r\nphilosophy has discovered, the world going about him getting good. When\r\nPhaeton, wishing to prove his heavenly birth by his beneficence, had the\r\nsun's chariot but one day, and drove out of the beaten track, he burned\r\nseveral blocks of houses in the lower streets of heaven, and scorched\r\nthe surface of the earth, and dried up every spring, and made the great\r\ndesert of Sahara, till at length Jupiter hurled him headlong to the\r\nearth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, through grief at his death, did\r\nnot shine for a year.\r\n\r\nThere is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It\r\nis human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man\r\nwas coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good,\r\nI should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the\r\nAfrican deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and\r\nears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should\r\nget some of his good done to me--some of its virus mingled with my\r\nblood. No--in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way.\r\nA man is not a good _man_ to me because he will feed me if I should be\r\nstarving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch\r\nif I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that\r\nwill do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one's fellow-man in the\r\nbroadest sense. Howard was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy man\r\nin his way, and has his reward; but, comparatively speaking, what are a\r\nhundred Howards to _us_, if their philanthropy do not help us in our\r\nbest estate, when we are most worthy to be helped? I never heard of a\r\nphilanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed to do any good\r\nto me, or the like of me.\r\n\r\nThe Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at\r\nthe stake, suggested new modes of torture to their tormentors. Being\r\nsuperior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were\r\nsuperior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the\r\nlaw to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the\r\nears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by,\r\nwho loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely\r\nforgiving them all they did.\r\n\r\nBe sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your\r\nexample which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself\r\nwith it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes\r\nsometimes. Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is\r\ndirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his\r\nmisfortune. If you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with\r\nit. I was wont to pity the clumsy Irish laborers who cut ice on the\r\npond, in such mean and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my more tidy\r\nand somewhat more fashionable garments, till, one bitter cold day, one\r\nwho had slipped into the water came to my house to warm him, and I saw\r\nhim strip off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings ere he got\r\ndown to the skin, though they were dirty and ragged enough, it is true,\r\nand that he could afford to refuse the _extra_ garments which I offered\r\nhim, he had so many _intra_ ones. This ducking was the very thing he\r\nneeded. Then I began to pity myself, and I saw that it would be a\r\ngreater charity to bestow on me a flannel shirt than a whole slop-shop\r\non him. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who\r\nis striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest\r\namount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of\r\nlife to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. It is\r\nthe pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to\r\nbuy a Sunday's liberty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the\r\npoor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if\r\nthey employed themselves there? You boast of spending a tenth part of\r\nyour income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and\r\ndone with it. Society recovers only a tenth part of the property then.\r\nIs this owing to the generosity of him in whose possession it is found,\r\nor to the remissness of the officers of justice?\r\n\r\nPhilanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated\r\nby mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness\r\nwhich overrates it. A robust poor man, one sunny day here in Concord,\r\npraised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, he was kind to the\r\npoor; meaning himself. The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more\r\nesteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a\r\nreverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence,\r\nafter enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies,\r\nShakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of\r\nher Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him,\r\nhe elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the greatest of the\r\ngreat. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the\r\nfalsehood and cant of this. The last were not England's best men and\r\nwomen; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists.\r\n\r\nI would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to\r\nphilanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives\r\nand works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's\r\nuprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves.\r\nThose plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick\r\nserve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the\r\nflower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him\r\nto me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not\r\nbe a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs\r\nhim nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides\r\na multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with\r\nthe remembrance of his own castoff griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it\r\nsympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health\r\nand ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread\r\nby contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing?\r\nUnder what latitudes reside the heathen to whom we would send light? Who\r\nis that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If anything ail\r\na man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in\r\nhis bowels even--for that is the seat of sympathy--he forthwith sets\r\nabout reforming--the world. Being a microcosm himself, he discovers--and\r\nit is a true discovery, and he is the man to make it--that the world has\r\nbeen eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is\r\na great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the\r\nchildren of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his\r\ndrastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimau and the Patagonian, and\r\nembraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few\r\nyears of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him\r\nfor their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the\r\nglobe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were\r\nbeginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more sweet\r\nand wholesome to live. I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I\r\nhave committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than\r\nmyself.\r\n\r\nI believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his\r\nfellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is\r\nhis private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the\r\nmorning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions\r\nwithout apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of\r\ntobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed\r\ntobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have\r\nchewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed\r\ninto any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what\r\nyour right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning\r\nand tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.\r\n\r\nOur manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our\r\nhymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him\r\nforever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather\r\nconsoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere\r\nrecorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of\r\nlife, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good,\r\nhowever far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure\r\nhelps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have\r\nwith me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly\r\nIndian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple\r\nand well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own\r\nbrows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an\r\noverseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the\r\nworld.\r\n\r\nI read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that\r\n\"they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the\r\nMost High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or\r\nfree, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there\r\nin this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed\r\nseason, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and\r\nduring their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the\r\ncypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the\r\nazads, or religious independents.--Fix not thy heart on that which is\r\ntransitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through\r\nBagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be\r\nliberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an\r\nazad, or free man, like the cypress.\"\r\n\r\n                        COMPLEMENTAL VERSES\r\n\r\n                    The Pretensions of Poverty\r\n\r\n          Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch,\r\n          To claim a station in the firmament\r\n          Because thy humble cottage, or thy tub,\r\n          Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue\r\n          In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs,\r\n          With roots and pot-herbs; where thy right hand,\r\n          Tearing those humane passions from the mind,\r\n          Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish,\r\n          Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense,\r\n          And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.\r\n          We not require the dull society\r\n          Of your necessitated temperance,\r\n          Or that unnatural stupidity\r\n          That knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forc'd\r\n          Falsely exalted passive fortitude\r\n          Above the active.  This low abject brood,\r\n          That fix their seats in mediocrity,\r\n          Become your servile minds; but we advance\r\n          Such virtues only as admit excess,\r\n          Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence,\r\n          All-seeing prudence, magnanimity\r\n          That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue\r\n          For which antiquity hath left no name,\r\n          But patterns only, such as Hercules,\r\n          Achilles, Theseus.  Back to thy loath'd cell;\r\n          And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere,\r\n          Study to know but what those worthies were.\r\n                                 T. CAREW\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWhere I Lived, and What I Lived For\r\n\r\n\r\nAt a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot\r\nas the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on\r\nevery side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have\r\nbought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I\r\nknew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild\r\napples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at\r\nany price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on\r\nit--took everything but a deed of it--took his word for his deed, for I\r\ndearly love to talk--cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust,\r\nand withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it\r\non. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate\r\nbroker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the\r\nlandscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a _sedes_, a\r\nseat?--better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house\r\nnot likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far\r\nfrom the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well,\r\nthere I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer\r\nand a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the\r\nwinter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of\r\nthis region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they\r\nhave been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into\r\norchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines\r\nshould be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree\r\ncould be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow,\r\nperchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which\r\nhe can afford to let alone.\r\n\r\nMy imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several\r\nfarms--the refusal was all I wanted--but I never got my fingers burned\r\nby actual possession. The nearest that I came to actual possession was\r\nwhen I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and\r\ncollected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or\r\noff with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife--every man\r\nhas such a wife--changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered\r\nme ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten\r\ncents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was\r\nthat man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all\r\ntogether. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for\r\nI had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the\r\nfarm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made\r\nhim a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and\r\nmaterials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich\r\nman without any damage to my poverty. But I retained the landscape, and\r\nI have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.\r\nWith respect to landscapes,\r\n\r\n               \"I am monarch of all I _survey_,\r\n                My right there is none to dispute.\"\r\n\r\nI have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable\r\npart of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few\r\nwild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when\r\na poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible\r\nfence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the\r\ncream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk.\r\n\r\nThe real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its complete\r\nretirement, being, about two miles from the village, half a mile from\r\nthe nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field;\r\nits bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs\r\nfrom frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color\r\nand ruinous state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences,\r\nwhich put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow\r\nand lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits, showing what kind of\r\nneighbors I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of it\r\nfrom my earliest voyages up the river, when the house was concealed\r\nbehind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog\r\nbark. I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting\r\nout some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up\r\nsome young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had\r\nmade any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready\r\nto carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders--I never\r\nheard what compensation he received for that--and do all those things\r\nwhich had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and\r\nbe unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all the while that it\r\nwould yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted, if I could only\r\nafford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said.\r\n\r\nAll that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale--I\r\nhave always cultivated a garden--was, that I had had my seeds ready.\r\nMany think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time\r\ndiscriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall\r\nplant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my\r\nfellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It\r\nmakes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the\r\ncounty jail.\r\n\r\nOld Cato, whose \"De Re Rustic\u00e2\" is my \"Cultivator,\" says--and the only\r\ntranslation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage--\"When you\r\nthink of getting a farm turn it thus in your mind, not to buy greedily;\r\nnor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it enough to go\r\nround it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if\r\nit is good.\" I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it\r\nas long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the\r\nmore at last.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to\r\ndescribe more at length, for convenience putting the experience of two\r\nyears into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode\r\nto dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning,\r\nstanding on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.\r\n\r\nWhen first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my\r\nnights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence\r\nDay, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter,\r\nbut was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or\r\nchimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide\r\nchinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and\r\nfreshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look,\r\nespecially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so\r\nthat I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my\r\nimagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral\r\ncharacter, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had\r\nvisited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit\r\nto entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her\r\ngarments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep\r\nover the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial\r\nparts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the\r\npoem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.\r\nOlympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.\r\n\r\nThe only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a boat, was\r\na tent, which I used occasionally when making excursions in the summer,\r\nand this is still rolled up in my garret; but the boat, after passing\r\nfrom hand to hand, has gone down the stream of time. With this more\r\nsubstantial shelter about me, I had made some progress toward\r\nsettling in the world. This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of\r\ncrystallization around me, and reacted on the builder. It was suggestive\r\nsomewhat as a picture in outlines. I did not need to go outdoors to take\r\nthe air, for the atmosphere within had lost none of its freshness. It\r\nwas not so much within doors as behind a door where I sat, even in the\r\nrainiest weather. The Harivansa says, \"An abode without birds is like\r\na meat without seasoning.\" Such was not my abode, for I found myself\r\nsuddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having\r\ncaged myself near them. I was not only nearer to some of those which\r\ncommonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those smaller and\r\nmore thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, serenade\r\na villager--the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field\r\nsparrow, the whip-poor-will, and many others.\r\n\r\nI was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south\r\nof the village of Concord and somewhat higher than it, in the midst of\r\nan extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two miles\r\nsouth of that our only field known to fame, Concord Battle Ground; but\r\nI was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like\r\nthe rest, covered with wood, was my most distant horizon. For the first\r\nweek, whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn high\r\nup on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above the surface of other\r\nlakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing\r\nof mist, and here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth\r\nreflecting surface was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were\r\nstealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods, as at the\r\nbreaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. The very dew seemed to\r\nhang upon the trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of\r\nmountains.\r\n\r\nThis small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a\r\ngentle rain-storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly\r\nstill, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of\r\nevening, and the wood thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to\r\nshore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the\r\nclear portion of the air above it being, shallow and darkened by clouds,\r\nthe water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself\r\nso much the more important. From a hill-top near by, where the wood had\r\nbeen recently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across\r\nthe pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore\r\nthere, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a\r\nstream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream\r\nthere was none. That way I looked between and over the near green\r\nhills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue.\r\nIndeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of\r\nthe peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the\r\nnorthwest, those true-blue coins from heaven's own mint, and also of\r\nsome portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this\r\npoint, I could not see over or beyond the woods which surrounded me. It\r\nis well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and\r\nfloat the earth. One value even of the smallest well is, that when you\r\nlook into it you see that earth is not continent but insular. This is\r\nas important as that it keeps butter cool. When I looked across the\r\npond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood\r\nI distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley,\r\nlike a coin in a basin, all the earth beyond the pond appeared like\r\na thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of\r\ninterverting water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt was\r\nbut _dry land_.\r\n\r\nThough the view from my door was still more contracted, I did not\r\nfeel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture enough for my\r\nimagination. The low shrub oak plateau to which the opposite shore\r\narose stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the steppes of\r\nTartary, affording ample room for all the roving families of men.\r\n\"There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a\r\nvast horizon\"--said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger\r\npastures.\r\n\r\nBoth place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of\r\nthe universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted\r\nme. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by\r\nastronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some\r\nremote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation\r\nof Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that\r\nmy house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and\r\nunprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle\r\nin those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or\r\nAltair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life\r\nwhich I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to\r\nmy nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such\r\nwas that part of creation where I had squatted;\r\n\r\n              \"There was a shepherd that did live,\r\n                  And held his thoughts as high\r\n               As were the mounts whereon his flocks\r\n                  Did hourly feed him by.\"\r\n\r\nWhat should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always\r\nwandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?\r\n\r\nEvery morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal\r\nsimplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as\r\nsincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed\r\nin the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things\r\nwhich I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub\r\nof King Tchingthang to this effect: \"Renew thyself completely each\r\nday; do it again, and again, and forever again.\" I can understand that.\r\nMorning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint\r\nhum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through\r\nmy apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows\r\nopen, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was\r\nHomer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own\r\nwrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing\r\nadvertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of\r\nthe world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day,\r\nis the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an\r\nhour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of\r\nthe day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be\r\ncalled a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the\r\nmechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own\r\nnewly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by\r\nthe undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a\r\nfragrance filling the air--to a higher life than we fell asleep from;\r\nand thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good,\r\nno less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day\r\ncontains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet\r\nprofaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and\r\ndarkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul\r\nof man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius\r\ntries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should\r\nsay, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas\r\nsay, \"All intelligences awake with the morning.\" Poetry and art, and\r\nthe fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an\r\nhour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and\r\nemit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought\r\nkeeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not\r\nwhat the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when\r\nI am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to\r\nthrow off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day\r\nif they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators.\r\nIf they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed\r\nsomething. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only\r\none in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion,\r\nonly one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake\r\nis to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How\r\ncould I have looked him in the face?\r\n\r\nWe must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical\r\naids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake\r\nus in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than\r\nthe unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious\r\nendeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or\r\nto carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far\r\nmore glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through\r\nwhich we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the\r\nday, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life,\r\neven in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated\r\nand critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry\r\ninformation as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this\r\nmight be done.\r\n\r\nI went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only\r\nthe essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to\r\nteach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did\r\nnot wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish\r\nto practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to\r\nlive deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and\r\nSpartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad\r\nswath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its\r\nlowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole\r\nand genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or\r\nif it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true\r\naccount of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are\r\nin a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God,\r\nand have _somewhat hastily_ concluded that it is the chief end of man here\r\nto \"glorify God and enjoy him forever.\"\r\n\r\nStill we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were\r\nlong ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is\r\nerror upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its\r\noccasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered\r\naway by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten\r\nfingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest.\r\nSimplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or\r\nthree, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half\r\na dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of\r\nthis chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and\r\nquicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has\r\nto live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his\r\nport at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed\r\nwho succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it\r\nbe necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce\r\nother things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made\r\nup of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even\r\na German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation\r\nitself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way\r\nare all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown\r\nestablishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps,\r\nruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a\r\nworthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for\r\nit, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan\r\nsimplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men\r\nthink that it is essential that the _Nation_ have commerce, and export\r\nice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour,\r\nwithout a doubt, whether _they_ do or not; but whether we should live\r\nlike baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out\r\nsleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work,\r\nbut go to tinkering upon our _lives_ to improve _them_, who will build\r\nrailroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven\r\nin season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want\r\nrailroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you\r\never think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one\r\nis a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and\r\nthey are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They\r\nare sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid\r\ndown and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a\r\nrail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when they run\r\nover a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the\r\nwrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make\r\na hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception. I am glad to know\r\nthat it takes a gang of men for every five miles to keep the sleepers\r\ndown and level in their beds as it is, for this is a sign that they may\r\nsometime get up again.\r\n\r\nWhy should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined\r\nto be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves\r\nnine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.\r\nAs for _work_, we haven't any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus'\r\ndance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give\r\na few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without\r\nsetting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of\r\nConcord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse\r\nso many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say,\r\nbut would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property\r\nfrom the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see\r\nit burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on\r\nfire--or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as\r\nhandsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man\r\ntakes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his\r\nhead and asks, \"What's the news?\" as if the rest of mankind had stood\r\nhis sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour,\r\ndoubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what\r\nthey have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable\r\nas the breakfast. \"Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man\r\nanywhere on this globe\"--and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that\r\na man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River;\r\nnever dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth\r\ncave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.\r\n\r\nFor my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that\r\nthere are very few important communications made through it. To speak\r\ncritically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life--I\r\nwrote this some years ago--that were worth the postage. The penny-post\r\nis, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man\r\nthat penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest.\r\nAnd I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we\r\nread of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house\r\nburned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow\r\nrun over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot\r\nof grasshoppers in the winter--we never need read of another. One is\r\nenough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for\r\na myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all _news_, as it\r\nis called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over\r\ntheir tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such\r\na rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the\r\nforeign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate\r\nglass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure--news\r\nwhich I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelve-month, or\r\ntwelve years, beforehand with sufficient accuracy. As for Spain, for\r\ninstance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta,\r\nand Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right\r\nproportions--they may have changed the names a little since I saw the\r\npapers--and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it\r\nwill be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact\r\nstate or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports\r\nunder this head in the newspapers: and as for England, almost the last\r\nsignificant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649;\r\nand if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year,\r\nyou never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are\r\nof a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into\r\nthe newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French\r\nrevolution not excepted.\r\n\r\nWhat news! how much more important to know what that is which was never\r\nold! \"Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to\r\nKhoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be\r\nseated near him, and questioned him in these terms: What is your\r\nmaster doing? The messenger answered with respect: My master desires\r\nto diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of\r\nthem. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: What a worthy\r\nmessenger! What a worthy messenger!\" The preacher, instead of vexing the\r\nears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest at the end of the week--for\r\nSunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh\r\nand brave beginning of a new one--with this one other draggle-tail of\r\na sermon, should shout with thundering voice, \"Pause! Avast! Why so\r\nseeming fast, but deadly slow?\"\r\n\r\nShams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is\r\nfabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow\r\nthemselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we\r\nknow, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.\r\nIf we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and\r\npoetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise,\r\nwe perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and\r\nabsolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the\r\nshadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime. By\r\nclosing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by\r\nshows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and\r\nhabit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations.\r\nChildren, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly\r\nthan men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are\r\nwiser by experience, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo book,\r\nthat \"there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his\r\nnative city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity\r\nin that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with\r\nwhich he lived. One of his father's ministers having discovered him,\r\nrevealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was\r\nremoved, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul,\" continues the\r\nHindoo philosopher, \"from the circumstances in which it is placed,\r\nmistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some\r\nholy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme.\" I perceive that\r\nwe inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our\r\nvision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that _is_\r\nwhich _appears_ to be. If a man should walk through this town and see only\r\nthe reality, where, think you, would the \"Mill-dam\" go to? If he should\r\ngive us an account of the realities he beheld there, we should not\r\nrecognize the place in his description. Look at a meeting-house, or a\r\ncourt-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what\r\nthat thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to pieces\r\nin your account of them. Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of\r\nthe system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last\r\nman. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all\r\nthese times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself\r\nculminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the\r\nlapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is\r\nsublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of\r\nthe reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently\r\nanswers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is\r\nlaid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or\r\nthe artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his\r\nposterity at least could accomplish it.\r\n\r\nLet us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off\r\nthe track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the\r\nrails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without\r\nperturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring\r\nand the children cry--determined to make a day of it. Why should we\r\nknock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed\r\nin that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the\r\nmeridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of\r\nthe way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail\r\nby it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine\r\nwhistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell\r\nrings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are\r\nlike. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward\r\nthrough the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and\r\ndelusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through\r\nParis and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through\r\nChurch and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we\r\ncome to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call _reality_, and\r\nsay, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a _point d'appui_,\r\nbelow freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a\r\nwall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not\r\na Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a\r\nfreshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you\r\nstand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun\r\nglimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its\r\nsweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will\r\nhappily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only\r\nreality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats\r\nand feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our\r\nbusiness.\r\n\r\nTime is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I\r\ndrink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin\r\ncurrent slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in\r\nthe sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know\r\nnot the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that\r\nI was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it\r\ndiscerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to\r\nbe any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and\r\nfeet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells\r\nme that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their\r\nsnout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through\r\nthese hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts;\r\nso by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will\r\nbegin to mine.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nReading\r\n\r\n\r\nWith a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men\r\nwould perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly\r\ntheir nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. In accumulating\r\nproperty for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a\r\nstate, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with\r\ntruth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident. The oldest\r\nEgyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the\r\nstatue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and\r\nI gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was\r\nthen so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust\r\nhas settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was\r\nrevealed. That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is\r\nneither past, present, nor future.\r\n\r\nMy residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious\r\nreading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the\r\nordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the\r\ninfluence of those books which circulate round the world, whose\r\nsentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from\r\ntime to time on to linen paper. Says the poet M\u00eer Camar Udd\u00een Mast,\r\n\"Being seated, to run through the region of the spiritual world; I have\r\nhad this advantage in books. To be intoxicated by a single glass of\r\nwine; I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of\r\nthe esoteric doctrines.\" I kept Homer's Iliad on my table through the\r\nsummer, though I looked at his page only now and then. Incessant labor\r\nwith my hands, at first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to\r\nhoe at the same time, made more study impossible. Yet I sustained myself\r\nby the prospect of such reading in future. I read one or two shallow\r\nbooks of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made\r\nme ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that _I_ lived.\r\n\r\nThe student may read Homer or \u00c6schylus in the Greek without danger of\r\ndissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that he in some measure\r\nemulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages. The\r\nheroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue,\r\nwill always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must\r\nlaboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a\r\nlarger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and\r\ngenerosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its\r\ntranslations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers\r\nof antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they\r\nare printed as rare and curious, as ever. It is worth the expense of\r\nyouthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an\r\nancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street,\r\nto be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the\r\nfarmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men\r\nsometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way\r\nfor more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will\r\nalways study classics, in whatever language they may be written and\r\nhowever ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest\r\nrecorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not\r\ndecayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them\r\nas Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature\r\nbecause she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true\r\nspirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than\r\nany exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training\r\nsuch as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole\r\nlife to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly\r\nas they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the\r\nlanguage of that nation by which they are written, for there is a\r\nmemorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the\r\nlanguage heard and the language read. The one is commonly transitory,\r\na sound, a tongue, a dialect merely, almost brutish, and we learn\r\nit unconsciously, like the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the\r\nmaturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is\r\nour father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too significant to\r\nbe heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak. The\r\ncrowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the Middle\r\nAges were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of\r\ngenius written in those languages; for these were not written in\r\nthat Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select language of\r\nliterature. They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome,\r\nbut the very materials on which they were written were waste paper to\r\nthem, and they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature. But when\r\nthe several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude written\r\nlanguages of their own, sufficient for the purposes of their rising\r\nliteratures, then first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to\r\ndiscern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. What the Roman\r\nand Grecian multitude could not _hear_, after the lapse of ages a few\r\nscholars _read_, and a few scholars only are still reading it.\r\n\r\nHowever much we may admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence,\r\nthe noblest written words are commonly as far behind or above the\r\nfleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind\r\nthe clouds. _There_ are the stars, and they who can may read them.\r\nThe astronomers forever comment on and observe them. They are not\r\nexhalations like our daily colloquies and vaporous breath. What is\r\ncalled eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the\r\nstudy. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and\r\nspeaks to the mob before him, to those who can _hear_ him; but the writer,\r\nwhose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted\r\nby the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the\r\nintellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can _understand_\r\nhim.\r\n\r\nNo wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions\r\nin a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is\r\nsomething at once more intimate with us and more universal than any\r\nother work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may\r\nbe translated into every language, and not only be read but actually\r\nbreathed from all human lips;--not be represented on canvas or in marble\r\nonly, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of\r\nan ancient man's thought becomes a modern man's speech. Two thousand\r\nsummers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her\r\nmarbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried\r\ntheir own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them\r\nagainst the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the\r\nworld and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the\r\noldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of\r\nevery cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they\r\nenlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse\r\nthem. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in\r\nevery society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on\r\nmankind. When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader has earned by\r\nenterprise and industry his coveted leisure and independence, and is\r\nadmitted to the circles of wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at\r\nlast to those still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and\r\ngenius, and is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the\r\nvanity and insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his\r\ngood sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that\r\nintellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it is that\r\nhe becomes the founder of a family.\r\n\r\nThose who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language\r\nin which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the\r\nhistory of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of\r\nthem has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization\r\nitself may be regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been\r\nprinted in English, nor \u00c6schylus, nor Virgil even--works as refined, as\r\nsolidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for\r\nlater writers, say what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever,\r\nequalled the elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic\r\nliterary labors of the ancients. They only talk of forgetting them who\r\nnever knew them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we have the\r\nlearning and the genius which will enable us to attend to and appreciate\r\nthem. That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call\r\nClassics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known\r\nScriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when\r\nthe Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with\r\nHomers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall\r\nhave successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By\r\nsuch a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.\r\n\r\nThe works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind,\r\nfor only great poets can read them. They have only been read as the\r\nmultitude read the stars, at most astrologically, not astronomically.\r\nMost men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they\r\nhave learned to cipher in order to keep accounts and not be cheated in\r\ntrade; but of reading as a noble intellectual exercise they know little\r\nor nothing; yet this only is reading, in a high sense, not that which\r\nlulls us as a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the\r\nwhile, but what we have to stand on tip-toe to read and devote our most\r\nalert and wakeful hours to.\r\n\r\nI think that having learned our letters we should read the best that is\r\nin literature, and not be forever repeating our a-b-abs, and words of\r\none syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on the lowest and\r\nforemost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied if they read or hear\r\nread, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book,\r\nthe Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their\r\nfaculties in what is called easy reading. There is a work in several\r\nvolumes in our Circulating Library entitled \"Little Reading,\" which I\r\nthought referred to a town of that name which I had not been to. There\r\nare those who, like cormorants and ostriches, can digest all sorts of\r\nthis, even after the fullest dinner of meats and vegetables, for they\r\nsuffer nothing to be wasted. If others are the machines to provide\r\nthis provender, they are the machines to read it. They read the nine\r\nthousandth tale about Zebulon and Sophronia, and how they loved as none\r\nhad ever loved before, and neither did the course of their true love run\r\nsmooth--at any rate, how it did run and stumble, and get up again and\r\ngo on! how some poor unfortunate got up on to a steeple, who had better\r\nnever have gone up as far as the belfry; and then, having needlessly\r\ngot him up there, the happy novelist rings the bell for all the world to\r\ncome together and hear, O dear! how he did get down again! For my part,\r\nI think that they had better metamorphose all such aspiring heroes of\r\nuniversal noveldom into man weather-cocks, as they used to put heroes\r\namong the constellations, and let them swing round there till they are\r\nrusty, and not come down at all to bother honest men with their pranks.\r\nThe next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the\r\nmeeting-house burn down. \"The Skip of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the\r\nMiddle Ages, by the celebrated author of 'Tittle-Tol-Tan,' to appear\r\nin monthly parts; a great rush; don't all come together.\" All this\r\nthey read with saucer eyes, and erect and primitive curiosity, and with\r\nunwearied gizzard, whose corrugations even yet need no sharpening, just\r\nas some little four-year-old bencher his two-cent gilt-covered\r\nedition of Cinderella--without any improvement, that I can see, in the\r\npronunciation, or accent, or emphasis, or any more skill in extracting\r\nor inserting the moral. The result is dulness of sight, a stagnation of\r\nthe vital circulations, and a general deliquium and sloughing off of all\r\nthe intellectual faculties. This sort of gingerbread is baked daily and\r\nmore sedulously than pure wheat or rye-and-Indian in almost every oven,\r\nand finds a surer market.\r\n\r\nThe best books are not read even by those who are called good readers.\r\nWhat does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a\r\nvery few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even\r\nin English literature, whose words all can read and spell. Even the\r\ncollege-bred and so-called liberally educated men here and elsewhere\r\nhave really little or no acquaintance with the English classics; and\r\nas for the recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles,\r\nwhich are accessible to all who will know of them, there are the\r\nfeeblest efforts anywhere made to become acquainted with them. I know a\r\nwoodchopper, of middle age, who takes a French paper, not for news as he\r\nsays, for he is above that, but to \"keep himself in practice,\" he being\r\na Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing\r\nhe can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to\r\nhis English. This is about as much as the college-bred generally do or\r\naspire to do, and they take an English paper for the purpose. One who\r\nhas just come from reading perhaps one of the best English books will\r\nfind how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he comes\r\nfrom reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose praises are\r\nfamiliar even to the so-called illiterate; he will find nobody at all\r\nto speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed, there is hardly the\r\nprofessor in our colleges, who, if he has mastered the difficulties of\r\nthe language, has proportionally mastered the difficulties of the wit\r\nand poetry of a Greek poet, and has any sympathy to impart to the\r\nalert and heroic reader; and as for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of\r\nmankind, who in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not\r\nknow that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture. A man, any\r\nman, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but\r\nhere are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered,\r\nand whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us\r\nof;--and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers\r\nand class-books, and when we leave school, the \"Little Reading,\" and\r\nstory-books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our\r\nconversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of\r\npygmies and manikins.\r\n\r\nI aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has\r\nproduced, whose names are hardly known here. Or shall I hear the name of\r\nPlato and never read his book? As if Plato were my townsman and I never\r\nsaw him--my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to\r\nthe wisdom of his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, which\r\ncontain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, and yet I never\r\nread them. We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this\r\nrespect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between\r\nthe illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the\r\nilliterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for\r\nchildren and feeble intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of\r\nantiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were. We are a race\r\nof tit-men, and soar but little higher in our intellectual flights than\r\nthe columns of the daily paper.\r\n\r\nIt is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are\r\nprobably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could\r\nreally hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or\r\nthe spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of\r\nthings for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the\r\nreading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain\r\nour miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we\r\nmay find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle\r\nand confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one\r\nhas been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability,\r\nby his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn\r\nliberality. The solitary hired man on a farm in the outskirts of\r\nConcord, who has had his second birth and peculiar religious experience,\r\nand is driven as he believes into the silent gravity and exclusiveness\r\nby his faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of\r\nyears ago, travelled the same road and had the same experience; but\r\nhe, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors\r\naccordingly, and is even said to have invented and established worship\r\namong men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and through the\r\nliberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus Christ himself,\r\nand let \"our church\" go by the board.\r\n\r\nWe boast that we belong to the Nineteenth Century and are making the\r\nmost rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village\r\ndoes for its own culture. I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor to\r\nbe flattered by them, for that will not advance either of us. We need\r\nto be provoked--goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trot. We have a\r\ncomparatively decent system of common schools, schools for infants only;\r\nbut excepting the half-starved Lyceum in the winter, and latterly\r\nthe puny beginning of a library suggested by the State, no school for\r\nourselves. We spend more on almost any article of bodily aliment or\r\nailment than on our mental aliment. It is time that we had uncommon\r\nschools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men\r\nand women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder\r\ninhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure--if they are,\r\nindeed, so well off--to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives.\r\nShall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxford forever? Cannot\r\nstudents be boarded here and get a liberal education under the skies of\r\nConcord? Can we not hire some Abelard to lecture to us? Alas! what with\r\nfoddering the cattle and tending the store, we are kept from school too\r\nlong, and our education is sadly neglected. In this country, the village\r\nshould in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe. It\r\nshould be the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants only\r\nthe magnanimity and refinement. It can spend money enough on such things\r\nas farmers and traders value, but it is thought Utopian to propose\r\nspending money for things which more intelligent men know to be of\r\nfar more worth. This town has spent seventeen thousand dollars on a\r\ntown-house, thank fortune or politics, but probably it will not spend so\r\nmuch on living wit, the true meat to put into that shell, in a hundred\r\nyears. The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annually subscribed for a\r\nLyceum in the winter is better spent than any other equal sum raised in\r\nthe town. If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy\r\nthe advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life\r\nbe in any respect provincial? If we will read newspapers, why not\r\nskip the gossip of Boston and take the best newspaper in the world at\r\nonce?--not be sucking the pap of \"neutral family\" papers, or browsing\r\n\"Olive Branches\" here in New England. Let the reports of all the learned\r\nsocieties come to us, and we will see if they know anything. Why\r\nshould we leave it to Harper &amp; Brothers and Redding &amp; Co. to select\r\nour reading? As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself\r\nwith whatever conduces to his culture--genius--learning--wit--books--\r\npaintings--statuary--music--philosophical instruments, and the like; so\r\nlet the village do--not stop short at a pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a\r\nparish library, and three selectmen, because our Pilgrim forefathers got\r\nthrough a cold winter once on a bleak rock with these. To act\r\ncollectively is according to the spirit of our institutions; and I am\r\nconfident that, as our circumstances are more flourishing, our means are\r\ngreater than the nobleman's. New England can hire all the wise men in\r\nthe world to come and teach her, and board them round the while, and not\r\nbe provincial at all. That is the _uncommon_ school we want. Instead of\r\nnoblemen, let us have noble villages of men. If it is necessary, omit\r\none bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch\r\nat least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSounds\r\n\r\n\r\nBut while we are confined to books, though the most select and classic,\r\nand read only particular written languages, which are themselves but\r\ndialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language\r\nwhich all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is\r\ncopious and standard. Much is published, but little printed. The rays\r\nwhich stream through the shutter will be no longer remembered when the\r\nshutter is wholly removed. No method nor discipline can supersede the\r\nnecessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or\r\nphilosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society,\r\nor the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of\r\nlooking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student\r\nmerely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on\r\ninto futurity.\r\n\r\nI did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did\r\nbetter than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice\r\nthe bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or\r\nhands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning,\r\nhaving taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise\r\ntill noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs,\r\nin undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or\r\nflitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at\r\nmy west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant\r\nhighway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons\r\nlike corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the\r\nhands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but\r\nso much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals\r\nmean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I\r\nminded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some\r\nwork of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing\r\nmemorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently\r\nsmiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill,\r\nsitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed\r\nwarble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days of the\r\nweek, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into\r\nhours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri\r\nIndians, of whom it is said that \"for yesterday, today, and tomorrow\r\nthey have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by\r\npointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for\r\nthe passing day.\" This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no\r\ndoubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I\r\nshould not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in\r\nhimself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly\r\nreprove his indolence.\r\n\r\nI had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were\r\nobliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that\r\nmy life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel.\r\nIt was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always,\r\nindeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the\r\nlast and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with\r\nennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show\r\nyou a fresh prospect every hour. Housework was a pleasant pastime. When\r\nmy floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of\r\ndoors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water\r\non the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then\r\nwith a broom scrubbed it clean and white; and by the time the villagers\r\nhad broken their fast the morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to\r\nallow me to move in again, and my meditations were almost uninterupted.\r\nIt was pleasant to see my whole household effects out on the grass,\r\nmaking a little pile like a gypsy's pack, and my three-legged table,\r\nfrom which I did not remove the books and pen and ink, standing amid the\r\npines and hickories. They seemed glad to get out themselves, and as if\r\nunwilling to be brought in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning\r\nover them and take my seat there. It was worth the while to see the sun\r\nshine on these things, and hear the free wind blow on them; so much more\r\ninteresting most familiar objects look out of doors than in the house. A\r\nbird sits on the next bough, life-everlasting grows under the table,\r\nand blackberry vines run round its legs; pine cones, chestnut burs, and\r\nstrawberry leaves are strewn about. It looked as if this was the way\r\nthese forms came to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs,\r\nand bedsteads--because they once stood in their midst.\r\n\r\nMy house was on the side of a hill, immediately on the edge of\r\nthe larger wood, in the midst of a young forest of pitch pines and\r\nhickories, and half a dozen rods from the pond, to which a narrow\r\nfootpath led down the hill. In my front yard grew the strawberry,\r\nblackberry, and life-everlasting, johnswort and goldenrod, shrub oaks\r\nand sand cherry, blueberry and groundnut. Near the end of May, the sand\r\ncherry (_Cerasus pumila_) adorned the sides of the path with its delicate\r\nflowers arranged in umbels cylindrically about its short stems, which\r\nlast, in the fall, weighed down with good-sized and handsome cherries,\r\nfell over in wreaths like rays on every side. I tasted them out of\r\ncompliment to Nature, though they were scarcely palatable. The sumach\r\n(_Rhus glabra_) grew luxuriantly about the house, pushing up through the\r\nembankment which I had made, and growing five or six feet the first\r\nseason. Its broad pinnate tropical leaf was pleasant though strange to\r\nlook on. The large buds, suddenly pushing out late in the spring from\r\ndry sticks which had seemed to be dead, developed themselves as by\r\nmagic into graceful green and tender boughs, an inch in diameter; and\r\nsometimes, as I sat at my window, so heedlessly did they grow and tax\r\ntheir weak joints, I heard a fresh and tender bough suddenly fall like\r\na fan to the ground, when there was not a breath of air stirring, broken\r\noff by its own weight. In August, the large masses of berries, which,\r\nwhen in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their\r\nbright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and\r\nbroke the tender limbs.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAs I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling about my\r\nclearing; the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by two and threes athwart\r\nmy view, or perching restless on the white pine boughs behind my house,\r\ngives a voice to the air; a fish hawk dimples the glassy surface of the\r\npond and brings up a fish; a mink steals out of the marsh before my door\r\nand seizes a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending under the weight of\r\nthe reed-birds flitting hither and thither; and for the last half-hour I\r\nhave heard the rattle of railroad cars, now dying away and then reviving\r\nlike the beat of a partridge, conveying travellers from Boston to the\r\ncountry. For I did not live so out of the world as that boy who, as I\r\nhear, was put out to a farmer in the east part of the town, but ere long\r\nran away and came home again, quite down at the heel and homesick. He\r\nhad never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place; the folks were all\r\ngone off; why, you couldn't even hear the whistle! I doubt if there is\r\nsuch a place in Massachusetts now:--\r\n\r\n      \"In truth, our village has become a butt\r\n       For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o'er\r\n       Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is--Concord.\"\r\n\r\nThe Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of\r\nwhere I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am,\r\nas it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight\r\ntrains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old\r\nacquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an\r\nemployee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in\r\nthe orbit of the earth.\r\n\r\nThe whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter,\r\nsounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer's yard,\r\ninforming me that many restless city merchants are arriving within the\r\ncircle of the town, or adventurous country traders from the other side.\r\nAs they come under one horizon, they shout their warning to get off the\r\ntrack to the other, heard sometimes through the circles of two towns.\r\nHere come your groceries, country; your rations, countrymen! Nor is\r\nthere any man so independent on his farm that he can say them nay. And\r\nhere's your pay for them! screams the countryman's whistle; timber like\r\nlong battering-rams going twenty miles an hour against the city's walls,\r\nand chairs enough to seat all the weary and heavy-laden that dwell\r\nwithin them. With such huge and lumbering civility the country hands a\r\nchair to the city. All the Indian huckleberry hills are stripped, all\r\nthe cranberry meadows are raked into the city. Up comes the cotton, down\r\ngoes the woven cloth; up comes the silk, down goes the woollen; up come\r\nthe books, but down goes the wit that writes them.\r\n\r\nWhen I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary\r\nmotion--or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with\r\nthat velocity and with that direction it will ever revisit this system,\r\nsince its orbit does not look like a returning curve--with its steam\r\ncloud like a banner streaming behind in golden and silver wreaths, like\r\nmany a downy cloud which I have seen, high in the heavens, unfolding its\r\nmasses to the light--as if this traveling demigod, this cloud-compeller,\r\nwould ere long take the sunset sky for the livery of his train; when\r\nI hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder,\r\nshaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his\r\nnostrils (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into\r\nthe new Mythology I don't know), it seems as if the earth had got a\r\nrace now worthy to inhabit it. If all were as it seems, and men made the\r\nelements their servants for noble ends! If the cloud that hangs over the\r\nengine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that\r\nwhich floats over the farmer's fields, then the elements and Nature\r\nherself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their\r\nescort.\r\n\r\nI watch the passage of the morning cars with the same feeling that I\r\ndo the rising of the sun, which is hardly more regular. Their train\r\nof clouds stretching far behind and rising higher and higher, going to\r\nheaven while the cars are going to Boston, conceals the sun for a minute\r\nand casts my distant field into the shade, a celestial train beside\r\nwhich the petty train of cars which hugs the earth is but the barb\r\nof the spear. The stabler of the iron horse was up early this winter\r\nmorning by the light of the stars amid the mountains, to fodder and\r\nharness his steed. Fire, too, was awakened thus early to put the vital\r\nheat in him and get him off. If the enterprise were as innocent as it is\r\nearly! If the snow lies deep, they strap on his snowshoes, and, with the\r\ngiant plow, plow a furrow from the mountains to the seaboard, in which\r\nthe cars, like a following drill-barrow, sprinkle all the restless men\r\nand floating merchandise in the country for seed. All day the fire-steed\r\nflies over the country, stopping only that his master may rest, and I am\r\nawakened by his tramp and defiant snort at midnight, when in some remote\r\nglen in the woods he fronts the elements incased in ice and snow; and he\r\nwill reach his stall only with the morning star, to start once more on\r\nhis travels without rest or slumber. Or perchance, at evening, I hear\r\nhim in his stable blowing off the superfluous energy of the day, that he\r\nmay calm his nerves and cool his liver and brain for a few hours of\r\niron slumber. If the enterprise were as heroic and commanding as it is\r\nprotracted and unwearied!\r\n\r\nFar through unfrequented woods on the confines of towns, where once only\r\nthe hunter penetrated by day, in the darkest night dart these bright\r\nsaloons without the knowledge of their inhabitants; this moment stopping\r\nat some brilliant station-house in town or city, where a social crowd\r\nis gathered, the next in the Dismal Swamp, scaring the owl and fox. The\r\nstartings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village\r\nday. They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their\r\nwhistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them,\r\nand thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole country.\r\nHave not men improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was\r\ninvented? Do they not talk and think faster in the depot than they did\r\nin the stage-office? There is something electrifying in the atmosphere\r\nof the former place. I have been astonished at the miracles it has\r\nwrought; that some of my neighbors, who, I should have prophesied, once\r\nfor all, would never get to Boston by so prompt a conveyance, are on\r\nhand when the bell rings. To do things \"railroad fashion\" is now the\r\nbyword; and it is worth the while to be warned so often and so sincerely\r\nby any power to get off its track. There is no stopping to read the\r\nriot act, no firing over the heads of the mob, in this case. We have\r\nconstructed a fate, an _Atropos_, that never turns aside. (Let that be\r\nthe name of your engine.) Men are advertised that at a certain hour and\r\nminute these bolts will be shot toward particular points of the compass;\r\nyet it interferes with no man's business, and the children go to school\r\non the other track. We live the steadier for it. We are all educated\r\nthus to be sons of Tell. The air is full of invisible bolts. Every path\r\nbut your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.\r\n\r\nWhat recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does\r\nnot clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter. I see these men every day go\r\nabout their business with more or less courage and content, doing more\r\neven than they suspect, and perchance better employed than they could\r\nhave consciously devised. I am less affected by their heroism who stood\r\nup for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady\r\nand cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snowplow for their winter\r\nquarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage,\r\nwhich Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to\r\nrest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews\r\nof their iron steed are frozen. On this morning of the Great Snow,\r\nperchance, which is still raging and chilling men's blood, I bear the\r\nmuffled tone of their engine bell from out the fog bank of their chilled\r\nbreath, which announces that the cars _are coming_, without long delay,\r\nnotwithstanding the veto of a New England northeast snow-storm, and\r\nI behold the plowmen covered with snow and rime, their heads peering,\r\nabove the mould-board which is turning down other than daisies and the\r\nnests of field mice, like bowlders of the Sierra Nevada, that occupy an\r\noutside place in the universe.\r\n\r\nCommerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and\r\nunwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than\r\nmany fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its\r\nsingular success. I am refreshed and expanded when the freight train\r\nrattles past me, and I smell the stores which go dispensing their odors\r\nall the way from Long Wharf to Lake Champlain, reminding me of foreign\r\nparts, of coral reefs, and Indian oceans, and tropical climes, and the\r\nextent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the world at the\r\nsight of the palm-leaf which will cover so many flaxen New England heads\r\nthe next summer, the Manilla hemp and cocoanut husks, the old junk,\r\ngunny bags, scrap iron, and rusty nails. This carload of torn sails is\r\nmore legible and interesting now than if they should be wrought into\r\npaper and printed books. Who can write so graphically the history of\r\nthe storms they have weathered as these rents have done? They are\r\nproof-sheets which need no correction. Here goes lumber from the Maine\r\nwoods, which did not go out to sea in the last freshet, risen four\r\ndollars on the thousand because of what did go out or was split up;\r\npine, spruce, cedar--first, second, third, and fourth qualities,\r\nso lately all of one quality, to wave over the bear, and moose, and\r\ncaribou. Next rolls Thomaston lime, a prime lot, which will get far\r\namong the hills before it gets slacked. These rags in bales, of all hues\r\nand qualities, the lowest condition to which cotton and linen descend,\r\nthe final result of dress--of patterns which are now no longer cried up,\r\nunless it be in Milwaukee, as those splendid articles, English, French,\r\nor American prints, ginghams, muslins, etc., gathered from all quarters\r\nboth of fashion and poverty, going to become paper of one color or a\r\nfew shades only, on which, forsooth, will be written tales of real life,\r\nhigh and low, and founded on fact! This closed car smells of salt fish,\r\nthe strong New England and commercial scent, reminding me of the Grand\r\nBanks and the fisheries. Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly\r\ncured for this world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting the\r\nperseverance of the saints to the blush? with which you may sweep or\r\npave the streets, and split your kindlings, and the teamster shelter\r\nhimself and his lading against sun, wind, and rain behind it--and the\r\ntrader, as a Concord trader once did, hang it up by his door for a sign\r\nwhen he commences business, until at last his oldest customer cannot\r\ntell surely whether it be animal, vegetable, or mineral, and yet it\r\nshall be as pure as a snowflake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled,\r\nwill come out an excellent dun-fish for a Saturday's dinner. Next\r\nSpanish hides, with the tails still preserving their twist and the angle\r\nof elevation they had when the oxen that wore them were careering over\r\nthe pampas of the Spanish Main--a type of all obstinacy, and evincing\r\nhow almost hopeless and incurable are all constitutional vices. I\r\nconfess, that practically speaking, when I have learned a man's real\r\ndisposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse\r\nin this state of existence. As the Orientals say, \"A cur's tail may be\r\nwarmed, and pressed, and bound round with ligatures, and after a twelve\r\nyears' labor bestowed upon it, still it will retain its natural form.\"\r\nThe only effectual cure for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is\r\nto make glue of them, which I believe is what is usually done with them,\r\nand then they will stay put and stick. Here is a hogshead of molasses\r\nor of brandy directed to John Smith, Cuttingsville, Vermont, some\r\ntrader among the Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near his\r\nclearing, and now perchance stands over his bulkhead and thinks of\r\nthe last arrivals on the coast, how they may affect the price for him,\r\ntelling his customers this moment, as he has told them twenty times\r\nbefore this morning, that he expects some by the next train of prime\r\nquality. It is advertised in the Cuttingsville Times.\r\n\r\nWhile these things go up other things come down. Warned by the whizzing\r\nsound, I look up from my book and see some tall pine, hewn on far\r\nnorthern hills, which has winged its way over the Green Mountains and\r\nthe Connecticut, shot like an arrow through the township within ten\r\nminutes, and scarce another eye beholds it; going\r\n\r\n                          \"to be the mast\r\n                 Of some great ammiral.\"\r\n\r\nAnd hark! here comes the cattle-train bearing the cattle of a thousand\r\nhills, sheepcots, stables, and cow-yards in the air, drovers with their\r\nsticks, and shepherd boys in the midst of their flocks, all but the\r\nmountain pastures, whirled along like leaves blown from the mountains by\r\nthe September gales. The air is filled with the bleating of calves and\r\nsheep, and the hustling of oxen, as if a pastoral valley were going by.\r\nWhen the old bell-wether at the head rattles his bell, the mountains\r\ndo indeed skip like rams and the little hills like lambs. A carload\r\nof drovers, too, in the midst, on a level with their droves now, their\r\nvocation gone, but still clinging to their useless sticks as their badge\r\nof office. But their dogs, where are they? It is a stampede to them;\r\nthey are quite thrown out; they have lost the scent. Methinks I hear\r\nthem barking behind the Peterboro' Hills, or panting up the western\r\nslope of the Green Mountains. They will not be in at the death. Their\r\nvocation, too, is gone. Their fidelity and sagacity are below par now.\r\nThey will slink back to their kennels in disgrace, or perchance run wild\r\nand strike a league with the wolf and the fox. So is your pastoral life\r\nwhirled past and away. But the bell rings, and I must get off the track\r\nand let the cars go by;--\r\n\r\n                  What's the railroad to me?\r\n                  I never go to see\r\n                  Where it ends.\r\n                  It fills a few hollows,\r\n                  And makes banks for the swallows,\r\n                  It sets the sand a-blowing,\r\n                  And the blackberries a-growing,\r\n\r\nbut I cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will not have my eyes\r\nput out and my ears spoiled by its smoke and steam and hissing.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nNow that the cars are gone by and all the restless world with them, and\r\nthe fishes in the pond no longer feel their rumbling, I am more alone\r\nthan ever. For the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, my meditations\r\nare interrupted only by the faint rattle of a carriage or team along the\r\ndistant highway.\r\n\r\nSometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford,\r\nor Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as\r\nit were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At\r\na sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain\r\nvibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of\r\na harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance\r\nproduces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre,\r\njust as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth\r\ninteresting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came\r\nto me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had\r\nconversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the\r\nsound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale\r\nto vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein\r\nis the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was\r\nworth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same\r\ntrivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph.\r\n\r\nAt evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the horizon beyond the\r\nwoods sounded sweet and melodious, and at first I would mistake it for\r\nthe voices of certain minstrels by whom I was sometimes serenaded, who\r\nmight be straying over hill and dale; but soon I was not unpleasantly\r\ndisappointed when it was prolonged into the cheap and natural music of\r\nthe cow. I do not mean to be satirical, but to express my appreciation\r\nof those youths' singing, when I state that I perceived clearly that\r\nit was akin to the music of the cow, and they were at length one\r\narticulation of Nature.\r\n\r\nRegularly at half-past seven, in one part of the summer, after the\r\nevening train had gone by, the whip-poor-wills chanted their vespers for\r\nhalf an hour, sitting on a stump by my door, or upon the ridge-pole of\r\nthe house. They would begin to sing almost with as much precision as a\r\nclock, within five minutes of a particular time, referred to the setting\r\nof the sun, every evening. I had a rare opportunity to become acquainted\r\nwith their habits. Sometimes I heard four or five at once in different\r\nparts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so near me\r\nthat I distinguished not only the cluck after each note, but often that\r\nsingular buzzing sound like a fly in a spider's web, only proportionally\r\nlouder. Sometimes one would circle round and round me in the woods a few\r\nfeet distant as if tethered by a string, when probably I was near its\r\neggs. They sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as\r\nmusical as ever just before and about dawn.\r\n\r\nWhen other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like\r\nmourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben\r\nJonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who\r\nof the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the\r\nmutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the\r\ndelights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear\r\ntheir wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside;\r\nreminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the\r\ndark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be\r\nsung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings,\r\nof fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did\r\nthe deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns\r\nor threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a\r\nnew sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common\r\ndwelling. _Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n!_ sighs one on\r\nthis side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair\r\nto some new perch on the gray oaks. Then--_that I never had been\r\nbor-r-r-r-n!_ echoes another on the farther side with tremulous\r\nsincerity, and--_bor-r-r-r-n!_ comes faintly from far in the Lincoln\r\nwoods.\r\n\r\nI was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy\r\nit the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to\r\nstereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human\r\nbeing--some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and\r\nhowls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley,\r\nmade more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness--I find myself\r\nbeginning with the letters _gl_ when I try to imitate it--expressive of\r\na mind which has reached the gelatinous, mildewy stage in the\r\nmortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me\r\nof ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far\r\nwoods in a strain made really melodious by distance--_Hoo hoo hoo,\r\nhoorer hoo_; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing\r\nassociations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter.\r\n\r\nI rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal\r\nhooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight\r\nwoods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature\r\nwhich men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and\r\nunsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the\r\nsurface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with\r\nusnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps\r\namid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now\r\na more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures\r\nawakes to express the meaning of Nature there.\r\n\r\nLate in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over\r\nbridges--a sound heard farther than almost any other at night--the\r\nbaying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of some disconsolate cow\r\nin a distant barn-yard. In the mean-while all the shore rang with the\r\ntrump of bullfrogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and\r\nwassailers, still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian\r\nlake--if the Walden nymphs will pardon the comparison, for though there\r\nare almost no weeds, there are frogs there--who would fain keep up the\r\nhilarious rules of their old festal tables, though their voices have\r\nwaxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost\r\nits flavor, and become only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet\r\nintoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, but mere\r\nsaturation and waterloggedness and distention. The most aldermanic, with\r\nhis chin upon a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling\r\nchaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the\r\nonce scorned water, and passes round the cup with the ejaculation\r\n_tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r--oonk, tr-r-r-oonk!_ and straightway comes over the\r\nwater from some distant cove the same password repeated, where the\r\nnext in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this\r\nobservance has made the circuit of the shores, then ejaculates the\r\nmaster of ceremonies, with satisfaction, _tr-r-r-oonk!_ and each in\r\nhis turn repeats the same down to the least distended, leakiest, and\r\nflabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the howl goes\r\nround again and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and\r\nonly the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing _troonk_\r\nfrom time to time, and pausing for a reply.\r\n\r\nI am not sure that I ever heard the sound of cock-crowing from my\r\nclearing, and I thought that it might be worth the while to keep a\r\ncockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once\r\nwild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and\r\nif they could be naturalized without being domesticated, it would soon\r\nbecome the most famous sound in our woods, surpassing the clangor of the\r\ngoose and the hooting of the owl; and then imagine the cackling of the\r\nhens to fill the pauses when their lords' clarions rested! No wonder\r\nthat man added this bird to his tame stock--to say nothing of the eggs\r\nand drumsticks. To walk in a winter morning in a wood where these birds\r\nabounded, their native woods, and hear the wild cockerels crow on the\r\ntrees, clear and shrill for miles over the resounding earth, drowning\r\nthe feebler notes of other birds--think of it! It would put nations on\r\nthe alert. Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier\r\nevery successive day of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy,\r\nwealthy, and wise? This foreign bird's note is celebrated by the poets\r\nof all countries along with the notes of their native songsters. All\r\nclimates agree with brave Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than\r\nthe natives. His health is ever good, his lungs are sound, his spirits\r\nnever flag. Even the sailor on the Atlantic and Pacific is awakened by\r\nhis voice; but its shrill sound never roused me from my slumbers. I kept\r\nneither dog, cat, cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said\r\nthere was a deficiency of domestic sounds; neither the churn, nor the\r\nspinning-wheel, nor even the singing of the kettle, nor the hissing of\r\nthe urn, nor children crying, to comfort one. An old-fashioned man would\r\nhave lost his senses or died of ennui before this. Not even rats in the\r\nwall, for they were starved out, or rather were never baited in--only\r\nsquirrels on the roof and under the floor, a whip-poor-will on the\r\nridge-pole, a blue jay screaming beneath the window, a hare or woodchuck\r\nunder the house, a screech owl or a cat owl behind it, a flock of wild\r\ngeese or a laughing loon on the pond, and a fox to bark in the night.\r\nNot even a lark or an oriole, those mild plantation birds, ever visited\r\nmy clearing. No cockerels to crow nor hens to cackle in the yard. No\r\nyard! but unfenced nature reaching up to your very sills. A young forest\r\ngrowing up under your meadows, and wild sumachs and blackberry vines\r\nbreaking through into your cellar; sturdy pitch pines rubbing and\r\ncreaking against the shingles for want of room, their roots reaching\r\nquite under the house. Instead of a scuttle or a blind blown off in the\r\ngale--a pine tree snapped off or torn up by the roots behind your\r\nhouse for fuel. Instead of no path to the front-yard gate in the Great\r\nSnow--no gate--no front-yard--and no path to the civilized world.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSolitude\r\n\r\n\r\nThis is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and\r\nimbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty\r\nin Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the\r\npond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy,\r\nand I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually\r\ncongenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note\r\nof the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water.\r\nSympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away\r\nmy breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled.\r\nThese small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm\r\nas the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still\r\nblows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures\r\nlull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The\r\nwildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and\r\nskunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are\r\nNature's watchmen--links which connect the days of animated life.\r\n\r\nWhen I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left\r\ntheir cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a\r\nname in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They who come rarely\r\nto the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands\r\nto play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally or\r\naccidentally. One has peeled a willow wand, woven it into a ring, and\r\ndropped it on my table. I could always tell if visitors had called in\r\nmy absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their\r\nshoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some\r\nslight trace left, as a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and\r\nthrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half a mile distant, or by\r\nthe lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. Nay, I was frequently notified of\r\nthe passage of a traveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent\r\nof his pipe.\r\n\r\nThere is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite\r\nat our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but\r\nsomewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and\r\nfenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I\r\nthis vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest,\r\nfor my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile\r\ndistant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within\r\nhalf a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself;\r\na distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one\r\nhand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But\r\nfor the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It\r\nis as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun\r\nand moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. At night there was\r\nnever a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if\r\nI were the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when at long\r\nintervals some came from the village to fish for pouts--they plainly\r\nfished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited\r\ntheir hooks with darkness--but they soon retreated, usually with light\r\nbaskets, and left \"the world to darkness and to me,\" and the black\r\nkernel of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. I\r\nbelieve that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark,\r\nthough the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been\r\nintroduced.\r\n\r\nYet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most\r\ninnocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object,\r\neven for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no\r\nvery black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has\r\nhis senses still. There was never yet such a storm but it was \u00c6olian\r\nmusic to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple\r\nand brave man to a vulgar sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the\r\nseasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle\r\nrain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear\r\nand melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them,\r\nit is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as\r\nto cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the\r\nlow lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and,\r\nbeing good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, when I\r\ncompare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the\r\ngods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had\r\na warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were\r\nespecially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be\r\npossible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least\r\noppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks\r\nafter I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near\r\nneighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To\r\nbe alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious\r\nof a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery.\r\nIn the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was\r\nsuddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in\r\nthe very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my\r\nhouse, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like\r\nan atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human\r\nneighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since.\r\nEvery little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and\r\nbefriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of\r\nsomething kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call\r\nwild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest\r\nwas not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be\r\nstrange to me again.\r\n\r\n          \"Mourning untimely consumes the sad;\r\n           Few are their days in the land of the living,\r\n           Beautiful daughter of Toscar.\"\r\n\r\nSome of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the\r\nspring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well\r\nas the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an\r\nearly twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time\r\nto take root and unfold themselves. In those driving northeast rains\r\nwhich tried the village houses so, when the maids stood ready with mop\r\nand pail in front entries to keep the deluge out, I sat behind my door\r\nin my little house, which was all entry, and thoroughly enjoyed its\r\nprotection. In one heavy thunder-shower the lightning struck a large\r\npitch pine across the pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly\r\nregular spiral groove from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four\r\nor five inches wide, as you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it\r\nagain the other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding\r\nthat mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resistless\r\nbolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago. Men frequently\r\nsay to me, \"I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want\r\nto be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially.\" I\r\nam tempted to reply to such--This whole earth which we inhabit is but\r\na point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant\r\ninhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be\r\nappreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our\r\nplanet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the\r\nmost important question. What sort of space is that which separates\r\na man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no\r\nexertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.\r\nWhat do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely,\r\nthe depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the\r\nschool-house, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men\r\nmost congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all\r\nour experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near\r\nthe water and sends out its roots in that direction. This will vary with\r\ndifferent natures, but this is the place where a wise man will dig\r\nhis cellar.... I one evening overtook one of my townsmen, who has\r\naccumulated what is called \"a handsome property\"--though I never got a\r\n_fair_ view of it--on the Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to market,\r\nwho inquired of me how I could bring my mind to give up so many of the\r\ncomforts of life. I answered that I was very sure I liked it passably\r\nwell; I was not joking. And so I went home to my bed, and left him\r\nto pick his way through the darkness and the mud to Brighton--or\r\nBright-town--which place he would reach some time in the morning.\r\n\r\nAny prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes\r\nindifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is\r\nalways the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the\r\nmost part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our\r\noccasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest\r\nto all things is that power which fashions their being. _Next_ to us the\r\ngrandest laws are continually being executed. _Next_ to us is not the\r\nworkman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the\r\nworkman whose work we are.\r\n\r\n\"How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven\r\nand of Earth!\"\r\n\r\n\"We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them,\r\nand we do not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they\r\ncannot be separated from them.\"\r\n\r\n\"They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their\r\nhearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer\r\nsacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile\r\nintelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, on our right;\r\nthey environ us on all sides.\"\r\n\r\nWe are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting\r\nto me. Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while\r\nunder these circumstances--have our own thoughts to cheer us? Confucius\r\nsays truly, \"Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of\r\nnecessity have neighbors.\"\r\n\r\nWith thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a\r\nconscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their\r\nconsequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We\r\nare not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the\r\nstream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I _may_ be affected by a\r\ntheatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I _may not_ be affected by an\r\nactual event which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself\r\nas a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections;\r\nand am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote\r\nfrom myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am\r\nconscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it\r\nwere, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but\r\ntaking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play,\r\nit may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It\r\nwas a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was\r\nconcerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends\r\nsometimes.\r\n\r\nI find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in\r\ncompany, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love\r\nto be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as\r\nsolitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among\r\nmen than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is\r\nalways alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the\r\nmiles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really\r\ndiligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as\r\nsolitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the\r\nfield or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome,\r\nbecause he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit\r\ndown in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he\r\ncan \"see the folks,\" and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself\r\nfor his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit\r\nalone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and \"the\r\nblues\"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house,\r\nis still at work in _his_ field, and chopping in _his_ woods, as the farmer\r\nin his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the\r\nlatter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.\r\n\r\nSociety is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not\r\nhaving had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at\r\nmeals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old\r\nmusty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of\r\nrules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting\r\ntolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the\r\npost-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night;\r\nwe live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another,\r\nand I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.\r\nCertainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty\r\ncommunications. Consider the girls in a factory--never alone, hardly in\r\ntheir dreams. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to\r\na square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin,\r\nthat we should touch him.\r\n\r\nI have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and\r\nexhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the\r\ngrotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased\r\nimagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also,\r\nowing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually\r\ncheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know\r\nthat we are never alone.\r\n\r\nI have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning,\r\nwhen nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, that some one may\r\nconvey an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon in the\r\npond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has\r\nthat lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the\r\nblue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone,\r\nexcept in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to be two, but one\r\nis a mock sun. God is alone--but the devil, he is far from being alone;\r\nhe sees a great deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than\r\na single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel,\r\nor a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook,\r\nor a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April\r\nshower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.\r\n\r\nI have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when the snow\r\nfalls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an old settler and\r\noriginal proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned\r\nit, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time\r\nand of new eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening\r\nwith social mirth and pleasant views of things, even without apples\r\nor cider--a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps\r\nhimself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is\r\nthought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame,\r\ntoo, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose\r\nodorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and\r\nlistening to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility,\r\nand her memory runs back farther than mythology, and she can tell me the\r\noriginal of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the\r\nincidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old dame, who\r\ndelights in all weathers and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her\r\nchildren yet.\r\n\r\nThe indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature--of sun and wind\r\nand rain, of summer and winter--such health, such cheer, they afford\r\nforever! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature\r\nwould be affected, and the sun's brightness fade, and the winds would\r\nsigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their\r\nleaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a\r\njust cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I\r\nnot partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?\r\n\r\nWhat is the pill which will keep us well, serene, contented? Not my or\r\nthy great-grandfather's, but our great-grandmother Nature's universal,\r\nvegetable, botanic medicines, by which she has kept herself young\r\nalways, outlived so many old Parrs in her day, and fed her health with\r\ntheir decaying fatness. For my panacea, instead of one of those quack\r\nvials of a mixture dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come out\r\nof those long shallow black-schooner looking wagons which we sometimes\r\nsee made to carry bottles, let me have a draught of undiluted morning\r\nair. Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead\r\nof the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the\r\nshops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket\r\nto morning time in this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till\r\nnoonday even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long\r\nere that and follow westward the steps of Aurora. I am no worshipper of\r\nHygeia, who was the daughter of that old herb-doctor \u00c6sculapius, and\r\nwho is represented on monuments holding a serpent in one hand, and in\r\nthe other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes drinks; but rather\r\nof Hebe, cup-bearer to Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild\r\nlettuce, and who had the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of\r\nyouth. She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy,\r\nand robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever she came\r\nit was spring.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nVisitors\r\n\r\n\r\nI think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to\r\nfasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man\r\nthat comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit\r\nout the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me\r\nthither.\r\n\r\nI had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship,\r\nthree for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected\r\nnumbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally\r\neconomized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men\r\nand women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty\r\nsouls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted\r\nwithout being aware that we had come very near to one another. Many\r\nof our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable\r\napartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines\r\nand other munitions of peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their\r\ninhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be\r\nonly vermin which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his\r\nsummons before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come\r\ncreeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse,\r\nwhich soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement.\r\n\r\nOne inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the\r\ndifficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we\r\nbegan to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your\r\nthoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they\r\nmake their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its\r\nlateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course\r\nbefore it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again\r\nthrough the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold\r\nand form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must\r\nhave suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral\r\nground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across\r\nthe pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so\r\nnear that we could not begin to hear--we could not speak low enough to\r\nbe heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they\r\nbreak each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud\r\ntalkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by\r\njowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak reservedly and\r\nthoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and\r\nmoisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most\r\nintimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above,\r\nbeing spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart\r\nbodily that we cannot possibly hear each other's voice in any case.\r\nReferred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who\r\nare hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say\r\nif we have to shout. As the conversation began to assume a loftier and\r\ngrander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they\r\ntouched the wall in opposite corners, and then commonly there was not\r\nroom enough.\r\n\r\nMy \"best\" room, however, my withdrawing room, always ready for company,\r\non whose carpet the sun rarely fell, was the pine wood behind my house.\r\nThither in summer days, when distinguished guests came, I took them, and\r\na priceless domestic swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept\r\nthe things in order.\r\n\r\nIf one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, and it was no\r\ninterruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty-pudding, or\r\nwatching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the\r\nmeanwhile. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was nothing said\r\nabout dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if\r\neating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and\r\nthis was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most\r\nproper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life,\r\nwhich so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a\r\ncase, and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a\r\nthousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or\r\nhungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon\r\nit that I sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many\r\nhousekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place\r\nof the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give.\r\nFor my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a\r\nman's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made\r\nabout dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint\r\nnever to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those\r\nscenes. I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines\r\nof Spenser which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf\r\nfor a card:--\r\n\r\n       \"Arriv\u00e8d there, the little house they fill,\r\n           Ne looke for entertainment where none was;\r\n        Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:\r\n           The noblest mind the best contentment has.\"\r\n\r\nWhen Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a\r\ncompanion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit on foot through the woods,\r\nand arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by\r\nthe king, but nothing was said about eating that day. When the night\r\narrived, to quote their own words--\"He laid us on the bed with himself\r\nand his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only\r\nplanks laid a foot from the ground and a thin mat upon them. Two more of\r\nhis chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were\r\nworse weary of our lodging than of our journey.\" At one o'clock the next\r\nday Massasoit \"brought two fishes that he had shot,\" about thrice as big\r\nas a bream. \"These being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a\r\nshare in them; the most eat of them. This meal only we had in two nights\r\nand a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our\r\njourney fasting.\" Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of\r\nfood and also sleep, owing to \"the savages' barbarous singing, (for they\r\nuse to sing themselves asleep,)\" and that they might get home while they\r\nhad strength to travel, they departed. As for lodging, it is true they\r\nwere but poorly entertained, though what they found an inconvenience was\r\nno doubt intended for an honor; but as far as eating was concerned, I do\r\nnot see how the Indians could have done better. They had nothing to\r\neat themselves, and they were wiser than to think that apologies could\r\nsupply the place of food to their guests; so they drew their belts\r\ntighter and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow visited\r\nthem, it being a season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in\r\nthis respect.\r\n\r\nAs for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more visitors\r\nwhile I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean\r\nthat I had some. I met several there under more favorable circumstances\r\nthan I could anywhere else. But fewer came to see me on trivial\r\nbusiness. In this respect, my company was winnowed by my mere distance\r\nfrom town. I had withdrawn so far within the great ocean of solitude,\r\ninto which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so\r\nfar as my needs were concerned, only the finest sediment was deposited\r\naround me. Beside, there were wafted to me evidences of unexplored and\r\nuncultivated continents on the other side.\r\n\r\nWho should come to my lodge this morning but a true Homeric or\r\nPaphlagonian man--he had so suitable and poetic a name that I am sorry I\r\ncannot print it here--a Canadian, a woodchopper and post-maker, who can\r\nhole fifty posts in a day, who made his last supper on a woodchuck which\r\nhis dog caught. He, too, has heard of Homer, and, \"if it were not for\r\nbooks,\" would \"not know what to do rainy days,\" though perhaps he has\r\nnot read one wholly through for many rainy seasons. Some priest who\r\ncould pronounce the Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the\r\nTestament in his native parish far away; and now I must translate to\r\nhim, while he holds the book, Achilles' reproof to Patroclus for his sad\r\ncountenance.--\"Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?\"--\r\n\r\n      \"Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia?\r\n       They say that Menoetius lives yet, son of Actor,\r\n       And Peleus lives, son of \u00c6acus, among the Myrmidons,\r\n       Either of whom having died, we should greatly grieve.\"\r\n\r\nHe says, \"That's good.\" He has a great bundle of white oak bark under\r\nhis arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning. \"I suppose there's\r\nno harm in going after such a thing to-day,\" says he. To him Homer was a\r\ngreat writer, though what his writing was about he did not know. A more\r\nsimple and natural man it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which\r\ncast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed to have hardly any\r\nexistence for him. He was about twenty-eight years old, and had left\r\nCanada and his father's house a dozen years before to work in the\r\nStates, and earn money to buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native\r\ncountry. He was cast in the coarsest mould; a stout but sluggish body,\r\nyet gracefully carried, with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and\r\ndull sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression.\r\nHe wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat, and\r\ncowhide boots. He was a great consumer of meat, usually carrying his\r\ndinner to his work a couple of miles past my house--for he chopped all\r\nsummer--in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold woodchucks, and coffee in\r\na stone bottle which dangled by a string from his belt; and sometimes he\r\noffered me a drink. He came along early, crossing my bean-field, though\r\nwithout anxiety or haste to get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit.\r\nHe wasn't a-going to hurt himself. He didn't care if he only earned his\r\nboard. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his\r\ndog had caught a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to\r\ndress it and leave it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after\r\ndeliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in the\r\npond safely till nightfall--loving to dwell long upon these themes. He\r\nwould say, as he went by in the morning, \"How thick the pigeons are! If\r\nworking every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should\r\nwant by hunting-pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges--by gosh! I\r\ncould get all I should want for a week in one day.\"\r\n\r\nHe was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flourishes and ornaments\r\nin his art. He cut his trees level and close to the ground, that the\r\nsprouts which came up afterward might be more vigorous and a sled might\r\nslide over the stumps; and instead of leaving a whole tree to support\r\nhis corded wood, he would pare it away to a slender stake or splinter\r\nwhich you could break off with your hand at last.\r\n\r\nHe interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy\r\nwithal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his\r\neyes. His mirth was without alloy. Sometimes I saw him at his work\r\nin the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with a laugh of\r\ninexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian French, though\r\nhe spoke English as well. When I approached him he would suspend his\r\nwork, and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a pine which\r\nhe had felled, and, peeling off the inner bark, roll it up into a ball\r\nand chew it while he laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal\r\nspirits had he that he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the ground\r\nwith laughter at anything which made him think and tickled him. Looking\r\nround upon the trees he would exclaim--\"By George! I can enjoy myself\r\nwell enough here chopping; I want no better sport.\" Sometimes, when at\r\nleisure, he amused himself all day in the woods with a pocket pistol,\r\nfiring salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked. In the\r\nwinter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in a kettle;\r\nand as he sat on a log to eat his dinner the chickadees would sometimes\r\ncome round and alight on his arm and peck at the potato in his fingers;\r\nand he said that he \"liked to have the little _fellers_ about him.\"\r\n\r\nIn him the animal man chiefly was developed. In physical endurance and\r\ncontentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock. I asked him once\r\nif he was not sometimes tired at night, after working all day; and he\r\nanswered, with a sincere and serious look, \"Gorrappit, I never was tired\r\nin my life.\" But the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in\r\nhim were slumbering as in an infant. He had been instructed only in that\r\ninnocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the\r\naborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to the degree of\r\nconsciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a\r\nchild is not made a man, but kept a child. When Nature made him, she\r\ngave him a strong body and contentment for his portion, and propped him\r\non every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his\r\nthreescore years and ten a child. He was so genuine and unsophisticated\r\nthat no introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if you\r\nintroduced a woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out as\r\nyou did. He would not play any part. Men paid him wages for work, and\r\nso helped to feed and clothe him; but he never exchanged opinions with\r\nthem. He was so simply and naturally humble--if he can be called humble\r\nwho never aspires--that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor\r\ncould he conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. If you told\r\nhim that such a one was coming, he did as if he thought that anything so\r\ngrand would expect nothing of himself, but take all the responsibility\r\non itself, and let him be forgotten still. He never heard the sound of\r\npraise. He particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their\r\nperformances were miracles. When I told him that I wrote considerably,\r\nhe thought for a long time that it was merely the handwriting which I\r\nmeant, for he could write a remarkably good hand himself. I sometimes\r\nfound the name of his native parish handsomely written in the snow by\r\nthe highway, with the proper French accent, and knew that he had passed.\r\nI asked him if he ever wished to write his thoughts. He said that he had\r\nread and written letters for those who could not, but he never tried to\r\nwrite thoughts--no, he could not, he could not tell what to put first,\r\nit would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the\r\nsame time!\r\n\r\nI heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer asked him if he did\r\nnot want the world to be changed; but he answered with a chuckle of\r\nsurprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had ever\r\nbeen entertained before, \"No, I like it well enough.\" It would have\r\nsuggested many things to a philosopher to have dealings with him. To\r\na stranger he appeared to know nothing of things in general; yet I\r\nsometimes saw in him a man whom I had not seen before, and I did not\r\nknow whether he was as wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as\r\na child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of\r\nstupidity. A townsman told me that when he met him sauntering through\r\nthe village in his small close-fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he\r\nreminded him of a prince in disguise.\r\n\r\nHis only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which last he was\r\nconsiderably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopaedia to him, which\r\nhe supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it does\r\nto a considerable extent. I loved to sound him on the various reforms\r\nof the day, and he never failed to look at them in the most simple and\r\npractical light. He had never heard of such things before. Could he do\r\nwithout factories? I asked. He had worn the home-made Vermont gray, he\r\nsaid, and that was good. Could he dispense with tea and coffee? Did this\r\ncountry afford any beverage beside water? He had soaked hemlock leaves\r\nin water and drank it, and thought that was better than water in warm\r\nweather. When I asked him if he could do without money, he showed the\r\nconvenience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide with the\r\nmost philosophical accounts of the origin of this institution, and the\r\nvery derivation of the word _pecunia_. If an ox were his property, and he\r\nwished to get needles and thread at the store, he thought it would be\r\ninconvenient and impossible soon to go on mortgaging some portion of\r\nthe creature each time to that amount. He could defend many institutions\r\nbetter than any philosopher, because, in describing them as they\r\nconcerned him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and\r\nspeculation had not suggested to him any other. At another time, hearing\r\nPlato's definition of a man--a biped without feathers--and that one\r\nexhibited a cock plucked and called it Plato's man, he thought it\r\nan important difference that the _knees_ bent the wrong way. He would\r\nsometimes exclaim, \"How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all\r\nday!\" I asked him once, when I had not seen him for many months, if he\r\nhad got a new idea this summer. \"Good Lord\"--said he, \"a man that has\r\nto work as I do, if he does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do\r\nwell. May be the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, by gorry,\r\nyour mind must be there; you think of weeds.\" He would sometimes ask me\r\nfirst on such occasions, if I had made any improvement. One winter day I\r\nasked him if he was always satisfied with himself, wishing to suggest a\r\nsubstitute within him for the priest without, and some higher motive for\r\nliving. \"Satisfied!\" said he; \"some men are satisfied with one thing,\r\nand some with another. One man, perhaps, if he has got enough, will be\r\nsatisfied to sit all day with his back to the fire and his belly to the\r\ntable, by George!\" Yet I never, by any manoeuvring, could get him to\r\ntake the spiritual view of things; the highest that he appeared to\r\nconceive of was a simple expediency, such as you might expect an\r\nanimal to appreciate; and this, practically, is true of most men. If\r\nI suggested any improvement in his mode of life, he merely answered,\r\nwithout expressing any regret, that it was too late. Yet he thoroughly\r\nbelieved in honesty and the like virtues.\r\n\r\nThere was a certain positive originality, however slight, to be detected\r\nin him, and I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and\r\nexpressing his own opinion, a phenomenon so rare that I would any day\r\nwalk ten miles to observe it, and it amounted to the re-origination of\r\nmany of the institutions of society. Though he hesitated, and perhaps\r\nfailed to express himself distinctly, he always had a presentable\r\nthought behind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and immersed in his\r\nanimal life, that, though more promising than a merely learned man's,\r\nit rarely ripened to anything which can be reported. He suggested that\r\nthere might be men of genius in the lowest grades of life, however\r\npermanently humble and illiterate, who take their own view always, or do\r\nnot pretend to see at all; who are as bottomless even as Walden Pond was\r\nthought to be, though they may be dark and muddy.\r\n\r\nMany a traveller came out of his way to see me and the inside of my\r\nhouse, and, as an excuse for calling, asked for a glass of water. I told\r\nthem that I drank at the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend\r\nthem a dipper. Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from the annual\r\nvisitation which occurs, methinks, about the first of April, when\r\neverybody is on the move; and I had my share of good luck, though there\r\nwere some curious specimens among my visitors. Half-witted men from the\r\nalmshouse and elsewhere came to see me; but I endeavored to make them\r\nexercise all the wit they had, and make their confessions to me; in such\r\ncases making wit the theme of our conversation; and so was compensated.\r\nIndeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so-called _overseers_\r\nof the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the\r\ntables were turned. With respect to wit, I learned that there was not\r\nmuch difference between the half and the whole. One day, in particular,\r\nan inoffensive, simple-minded pauper, whom with others I had often seen\r\nused as fencing stuff, standing or sitting on a bushel in the fields to\r\nkeep cattle and himself from straying, visited me, and expressed a wish\r\nto live as I did. He told me, with the utmost simplicity and truth,\r\nquite superior, or rather _inferior_, to anything that is called humility,\r\nthat he was \"deficient in intellect.\" These were his words. The Lord\r\nhad made him so, yet he supposed the Lord cared as much for him as for\r\nanother. \"I have always been so,\" said he, \"from my childhood; I never\r\nhad much mind; I was not like other children; I am weak in the head. It\r\nwas the Lord's will, I suppose.\" And there he was to prove the truth\r\nof his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely met a\r\nfellowman on such promising ground--it was so simple and sincere and so\r\ntrue all that he said. And, true enough, in proportion as he appeared\r\nto humble himself was he exalted. I did not know at first but it was the\r\nresult of a wise policy. It seemed that from such a basis of truth and\r\nfrankness as the poor weak-headed pauper had laid, our intercourse might\r\ngo forward to something better than the intercourse of sages.\r\n\r\nI had some guests from those not reckoned commonly among the town's\r\npoor, but who should be; who are among the world's poor, at any rate;\r\nguests who appeal, not to your hospitality, but to your _hospitalality_;\r\nwho earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their appeal with the\r\ninformation that they are resolved, for one thing, never to help\r\nthemselves. I require of a visitor that he be not actually starving,\r\nthough he may have the very best appetite in the world, however he got\r\nit. Objects of charity are not guests. Men who did not know when their\r\nvisit had terminated, though I went about my business again, answering\r\nthem from greater and greater remoteness. Men of almost every degree of\r\nwit called on me in the migrating season. Some who had more wits than\r\nthey knew what to do with; runaway slaves with plantation manners, who\r\nlistened from time to time, like the fox in the fable, as if they heard\r\nthe hounds a-baying on their track, and looked at me beseechingly, as\r\nmuch as to say,--\r\n\r\n           \"O Christian, will you send me back?\r\n\r\nOne real runaway slave, among the rest, whom I helped to forward toward\r\nthe north star. Men of one idea, like a hen with one chicken, and that\r\na duckling; men of a thousand ideas, and unkempt heads, like those hens\r\nwhich are made to take charge of a hundred chickens, all in pursuit\r\nof one bug, a score of them lost in every morning's dew--and become\r\nfrizzled and mangy in consequence; men of ideas instead of legs, a sort\r\nof intellectual centipede that made you crawl all over. One man proposed\r\na book in which visitors should write their names, as at the White\r\nMountains; but, alas! I have too good a memory to make that necessary.\r\n\r\nI could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors. Girls\r\nand boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods. They\r\nlooked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time. Men of\r\nbusiness, even farmers, thought only of solitude and employment, and of\r\nthe great distance at which I dwelt from something or other; and though\r\nthey said that they loved a ramble in the woods occasionally, it was\r\nobvious that they did not. Restless committed men, whose time was an\r\ntaken up in getting a living or keeping it; ministers who spoke of God\r\nas if they enjoyed a monopoly of the subject, who could not bear all\r\nkinds of opinions; doctors, lawyers, uneasy housekeepers who pried\r\ninto my cupboard and bed when I was out--how came Mrs.--to know that my\r\nsheets were not as clean as hers?--young men who had ceased to be young,\r\nand had concluded that it was safest to follow the beaten track of the\r\nprofessions--all these generally said that it was not possible to do so\r\nmuch good in my position. Ay! there was the rub. The old and infirm and\r\nthe timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most of sickness, and sudden\r\naccident and death; to them life seemed full of danger--what danger is\r\nthere if you don't think of any?--and they thought that a prudent man\r\nwould carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might be\r\non hand at a moment's warning. To them the village was literally a\r\n_com-munity_, a league for mutual defence, and you would suppose that they\r\nwould not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of\r\nit is, if a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die,\r\nthough the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is\r\ndead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.\r\nFinally, there were the self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of\r\nall, who thought that I was forever singing,--\r\n\r\n       This is the house that I built;\r\n       This is the man that lives in the house that I built;\r\n\r\nbut they did not know that the third line was,\r\n\r\n              These are the folks that worry the man\r\n              That lives in the house that I built.\r\n\r\nI did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I feared\r\nthe men-harriers rather.\r\n\r\nI had more cheering visitors than the last. Children come a-berrying,\r\nrailroad men taking a Sunday morning walk in clean shirts, fishermen and\r\nhunters, poets and philosophers; in short, all honest pilgrims, who came\r\nout to the woods for freedom's sake, and really left the village behind,\r\nI was ready to greet with--\"Welcome, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!\"\r\nfor I had had communication with that race.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Bean-Field\r\n\r\n\r\nMeanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven\r\nmiles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had\r\ngrown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they\r\nwere not easily to be put off. What was the meaning of this so steady\r\nand self-respecting, this small Herculean labor, I knew not. I came to\r\nlove my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached\r\nme to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus. But why should I\r\nraise them? Only Heaven knows. This was my curious labor all summer--to\r\nmake this portion of the earth's surface, which had yielded only\r\ncinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild\r\nfruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. What shall I\r\nlearn of beans or beans of me? I cherish them, I hoe them, early and\r\nlate I have an eye to them; and this is my day's work. It is a fine\r\nbroad leaf to look on. My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water\r\nthis dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the\r\nmost part is lean and effete. My enemies are worms, cool days, and most\r\nof all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre\r\nclean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the rest, and break\r\nup their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the remaining beans will be\r\ntoo tough for them, and go forward to meet new foes.\r\n\r\nWhen I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought from Boston\r\nto this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to\r\nthe pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. And now\r\nto-night my flute has waked the echoes over that very water. The pines\r\nstill stand here older than I; or, if some have fallen, I have cooked\r\nmy supper with their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around,\r\npreparing another aspect for new infant eyes. Almost the same johnswort\r\nsprings from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even I have at\r\nlength helped to clothe that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and\r\none of the results of my presence and influence is seen in these bean\r\nleaves, corn blades, and potato vines.\r\n\r\nI planted about two acres and a half of upland; and as it was only about\r\nfifteen years since the land was cleared, and I myself had got out\r\ntwo or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any manure; but in the\r\ncourse of the summer it appeared by the arrowheads which I turned up in\r\nhoeing, that an extinct nation had anciently dwelt here and planted corn\r\nand beans ere white men came to clear the land, and so, to some extent,\r\nhad exhausted the soil for this very crop.\r\n\r\nBefore yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or the\r\nsun had got above the shrub oaks, while all the dew was on, though the\r\nfarmers warned me against it--I would advise you to do all your work\r\nif possible while the dew is on--I began to level the ranks of haughty\r\nweeds in my bean-field and throw dust upon their heads. Early in the\r\nmorning I worked barefooted, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy\r\nand crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet.\r\nThere the sun lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and\r\nforward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green rows,\r\nfifteen rods, the one end terminating in a shrub oak copse where I\r\ncould rest in the shade, the other in a blackberry field where the\r\ngreen berries deepened their tints by the time I had made another\r\nbout. Removing the weeds, putting fresh soil about the bean stems, and\r\nencouraging this weed which I had sown, making the yellow soil express\r\nits summer thought in bean leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood\r\nand piper and millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of\r\ngrass--this was my daily work. As I had little aid from horses or\r\ncattle, or hired men or boys, or improved implements of husbandry, I was\r\nmuch slower, and became much more intimate with my beans than usual.\r\nBut labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery,\r\nis perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has a constant and\r\nimperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a classic result. A\r\nvery _agricola laboriosus_ was I to travellers bound westward through\r\nLincoln and Wayland to nobody knows where; they sitting at their ease in\r\ngigs, with elbows on knees, and reins loosely hanging in festoons; I the\r\nhome-staying, laborious native of the soil. But soon my homestead was\r\nout of their sight and thought. It was the only open and cultivated\r\nfield for a great distance on either side of the road, so they made the\r\nmost of it; and sometimes the man in the field heard more of travellers'\r\ngossip and comment than was meant for his ear: \"Beans so late! peas\r\nso late!\"--for I continued to plant when others had begun to hoe--the\r\nministerial husbandman had not suspected it. \"Corn, my boy, for fodder;\r\ncorn for fodder.\" \"Does he _live_ there?\" asks the black bonnet of the\r\ngray coat; and the hard-featured farmer reins up his grateful dobbin to\r\ninquire what you are doing where he sees no manure in the furrow, and\r\nrecommends a little chip dirt, or any little waste stuff, or it may be\r\nashes or plaster. But here were two acres and a half of furrows, and\r\nonly a hoe for cart and two hands to draw it--there being an aversion\r\nto other carts and horses--and chip dirt far away. Fellow-travellers as\r\nthey rattled by compared it aloud with the fields which they had passed,\r\nso that I came to know how I stood in the agricultural world. This was\r\none field not in Mr. Coleman's report. And, by the way, who estimates\r\nthe value of the crop which nature yields in the still wilder fields\r\nunimproved by man? The crop of _English_ hay is carefully weighed, the\r\nmoisture calculated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and\r\npond-holes in the woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various\r\ncrop only unreaped by man. Mine was, as it were, the connecting link\r\nbetween wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and\r\nothers half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was,\r\nthough not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. They were\r\nbeans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I\r\ncultivated, and my hoe played the _Ranz des Vaches_ for them.\r\n\r\nNear at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the brown\r\nthrasher--or red mavis, as some love to call him--all the morning, glad\r\nof your society, that would find out another farmer's field if yours\r\nwere not here. While you are planting the seed, he cries--\"Drop it, drop\r\nit--cover it up, cover it up--pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.\" But\r\nthis was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may\r\nwonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one\r\nstring or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to\r\nleached ashes or plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I\r\nhad entire faith.\r\n\r\nAs I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed\r\nthe ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under\r\nthese heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were\r\nbrought to the light of this modern day. They lay mingled with other\r\nnatural stones, some of which bore the marks of having been burned by\r\nIndian fires, and some by the sun, and also bits of pottery and glass\r\nbrought hither by the recent cultivators of the soil. When my hoe\r\ntinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the\r\nsky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and\r\nimmeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed\r\nbeans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at\r\nall, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios.\r\nThe nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons--for I sometimes\r\nmade a day of it--like a mote in the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling\r\nfrom time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent,\r\ntorn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained;\r\nsmall imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare\r\nsand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few have found them; graceful\r\nand slender like ripples caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised\r\nby the wind to float in the heavens; such kindredship is in nature.\r\nThe hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys,\r\nthose his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental\r\nunfledged pinions of the sea. Or sometimes I watched a pair of\r\nhen-hawks circling high in the sky, alternately soaring and descending,\r\napproaching, and leaving one another, as if they were the embodiment of\r\nmy own thoughts. Or I was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons from\r\nthis wood to that, with a slight quivering winnowing sound and carrier\r\nhaste; or from under a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish\r\nportentous and outlandish spotted salamander, a trace of Egypt and\r\nthe Nile, yet our contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, these\r\nsounds and sights I heard and saw anywhere in the row, a part of the\r\ninexhaustible entertainment which the country offers.\r\n\r\nOn gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo like popguns to\r\nthese woods, and some waifs of martial music occasionally penetrate thus\r\nfar. To me, away there in my bean-field at the other end of the town,\r\nthe big guns sounded as if a puffball had burst; and when there was a\r\nmilitary turnout of which I was ignorant, I have sometimes had a vague\r\nsense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon,\r\nas if some eruption would break out there soon, either scarlatina or\r\ncanker-rash, until at length some more favorable puff of wind, making\r\nhaste over the fields and up the Wayland road, brought me information of\r\nthe \"trainers.\" It seemed by the distant hum as if somebody's bees had\r\nswarmed, and that the neighbors, according to Virgil's advice, by a\r\nfaint _tintinnabulum_ upon the most sonorous of their domestic utensils,\r\nwere endeavoring to call them down into the hive again. And when the\r\nsound died quite away, and the hum had ceased, and the most favorable\r\nbreezes told no tale, I knew that they had got the last drone of them\r\nall safely into the Middlesex hive, and that now their minds were bent\r\non the honey with which it was smeared.\r\n\r\nI felt proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and of our\r\nfatherland were in such safe keeping; and as I turned to my hoeing again\r\nI was filled with an inexpressible confidence, and pursued my labor\r\ncheerfully with a calm trust in the future.\r\n\r\nWhen there were several bands of musicians, it sounded as if all the\r\nvillage was a vast bellows and all the buildings expanded and collapsed\r\nalternately with a din. But sometimes it was a really noble and\r\ninspiring strain that reached these woods, and the trumpet that sings\r\nof fame, and I felt as if I could spit a Mexican with a good relish--for\r\nwhy should we always stand for trifles?--and looked round for a\r\nwoodchuck or a skunk to exercise my chivalry upon. These martial strains\r\nseemed as far away as Palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders\r\nin the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm\r\ntree tops which overhang the village. This was one of the _great_ days;\r\nthough the sky had from my clearing only the same everlastingly great\r\nlook that it wears daily, and I saw no difference in it.\r\n\r\nIt was a singular experience that long acquaintance which I cultivated\r\nwith beans, what with planting, and hoeing, and harvesting, and\r\nthreshing, and picking over and selling them--the last was the hardest\r\nof all--I might add eating, for I did taste. I was determined to know\r\nbeans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o'clock in the\r\nmorning till noon, and commonly spent the rest of the day about other\r\naffairs. Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with\r\nvarious kinds of weeds--it will bear some iteration in the account, for\r\nthere was no little iteration in the labor--disturbing their delicate\r\norganizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions\r\nwith his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously\r\ncultivating another. That's Roman wormwood--that's pigweed--that's\r\nsorrel--that's piper-grass--have at him, chop him up, turn his roots\r\nupward to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do\r\nhe'll turn himself t' other side up and be as green as a leek in two\r\ndays. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who\r\nhad sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come\r\nto their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies,\r\nfilling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest--waving\r\nHector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell\r\nbefore my weapon and rolled in the dust.\r\n\r\nThose summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted to the fine\r\narts in Boston or Rome, and others to contemplation in India, and others\r\nto trade in London or New York, I thus, with the other farmers of New\r\nEngland, devoted to husbandry. Not that I wanted beans to eat, for I\r\nam by nature a Pythagorean, so far as beans are concerned, whether they\r\nmean porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, perchance, as\r\nsome must work in fields if only for the sake of tropes and expression,\r\nto serve a parable-maker one day. It was on the whole a rare amusement,\r\nwhich, continued too long, might have become a dissipation. Though I\r\ngave them no manure, and did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusually\r\nwell as far as I went, and was paid for it in the end, \"there being in\r\ntruth,\" as Evelyn says, \"no compost or laetation whatsoever comparable\r\nto this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with\r\nthe spade.\" \"The earth,\" he adds elsewhere, \"especially if fresh, has a\r\ncertain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue\r\n(call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor\r\nand stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid\r\ntemperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement.\"\r\nMoreover, this being one of those \"worn-out and exhausted lay fields\r\nwhich enjoy their sabbath,\" had perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks\r\nlikely, attracted \"vital spirits\" from the air. I harvested twelve\r\nbushels of beans.\r\n\r\nBut to be more particular, for it is complained that Mr. Coleman has\r\nreported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen farmers, my\r\noutgoes were,--\r\n\r\n    For a hoe................................... $ 0.54\r\n    Plowing, harrowing, and furrowing............  7.50  Too much.\r\n    Beans for seed...............................  3.12-1\/2\r\n    Potatoes for seed............................  1.33\r\n    Peas for seed................................  0.40\r\n    Turnip seed..................................  0.06\r\n    White line for crow fence....................  0.02\r\n    Horse cultivator and boy three hours.........  1.00\r\n    Horse and cart to get crop...................  0.75\r\n                                                --------\r\n        In all.................................. $14.72-1\/2\r\n\r\nMy income was (patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet), from\r\n\r\n    Nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold.. $16.94\r\n    Five    \"    large potatoes..................... 2.50\r\n    Nine    \"    small.............................. 2.25\r\n    Grass........................................... 1.00\r\n    Stalks.......................................... 0.75\r\n                                                  --------\r\n        In all.................................... $23.44\r\n    Leaving a pecuniary profit,\r\n        as I have elsewhere said, of.............. $8.71-1\/2\r\n\r\nThis is the result of my experience in raising beans: Plant the common\r\nsmall white bush bean about the first of June, in rows three feet by\r\neighteen inches apart, being careful to select fresh round and unmixed\r\nseed. First look out for worms, and supply vacancies by planting anew.\r\nThen look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will\r\nnibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and\r\nagain, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice\r\nof it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting\r\nerect like a squirrel. But above all harvest as early as possible, if\r\nyou would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save\r\nmuch loss by this means.\r\n\r\nThis further experience also I gained: I said to myself, I will not\r\nplant beans and corn with so much industry another summer, but such\r\nseeds, if the seed is not lost, as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith,\r\ninnocence, and the like, and see if they will not grow in this soil,\r\neven with less toil and manurance, and sustain me, for surely it has\r\nnot been exhausted for these crops. Alas! I said this to myself; but now\r\nanother summer is gone, and another, and another, and I am obliged to\r\nsay to you, Reader, that the seeds which I planted, if indeed they _were_\r\nthe seeds of those virtues, were wormeaten or had lost their vitality,\r\nand so did not come up. Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers\r\nwere brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to plant corn and\r\nbeans each new year precisely as the Indians did centuries ago and\r\ntaught the first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it. I saw an\r\nold man the other day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe\r\nfor the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to lie down in!\r\nBut why should not the New Englander try new adventures, and not lay\r\nso much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his\r\norchards--raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves so much\r\nabout our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new\r\ngeneration of men? We should really be fed and cheered if when we met a\r\nman we were sure to see that some of the qualities which I have named,\r\nwhich we all prize more than those other productions, but which are\r\nfor the most part broadcast and floating in the air, had taken root\r\nand grown in him. Here comes such a subtile and ineffable quality,\r\nfor instance, as truth or justice, though the slightest amount or new\r\nvariety of it, along the road. Our ambassadors should be instructed to\r\nsend home such seeds as these, and Congress help to distribute them over\r\nall the land. We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We\r\nshould never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if\r\nthere were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not\r\nmeet thus in haste. Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to\r\nhave time; they are busy about their beans. We would not deal with a man\r\nthus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as a staff between his\r\nwork, not as a mushroom, but partially risen out of the earth, something\r\nmore than erect, like swallows alighted and walking on the ground:--\r\n\r\n        \"And as he spake, his wings would now and then\r\n         Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again--\"\r\n\r\nso that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an angel.\r\nBread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even\r\ntakes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when\r\nwe knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature,\r\nto share any unmixed and heroic joy.\r\n\r\nAncient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once\r\na sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness\r\nby us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely.\r\nWe have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our\r\ncattle-shows and so-called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses\r\na sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred\r\norigin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacrifices\r\nnot to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal Plutus\r\nrather. By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which\r\nnone of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means\r\nof acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is\r\ndegraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows\r\nNature but as a robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are\r\nparticularly pious or just (_maximeque pius quaestus_), and according\r\nto Varro the old Romans \"called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and\r\nthought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and\r\nthat they alone were left of the race of King Saturn.\"\r\n\r\nWe are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and\r\non the prairies and forests without distinction. They all reflect and\r\nabsorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the\r\nglorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his view\r\nthe earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should\r\nreceive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and\r\nmagnanimity. What though I value the seed of these beans, and harvest\r\nthat in the fall of the year? This broad field which I have looked at\r\nso long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to\r\ninfluences more genial to it, which water and make it green. These\r\nbeans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for\r\nwoodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin _spica_, obsoletely _speca_,\r\nfrom _spe_, hope) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its\r\nkernel or grain (_granum_ from _gerendo_, bearing) is not all that it\r\nbears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at\r\nthe abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? It\r\nmatters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns.\r\nThe true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest\r\nno concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and\r\nfinish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce\r\nof his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his\r\nlast fruits also.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Village\r\n\r\n\r\nAfter hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I usually\r\nbathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its coves for a stint,\r\nand washed the dust of labor from my person, or smoothed out the last\r\nwrinkle which study had made, and for the afternoon was absolutely free.\r\nEvery day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip\r\nwhich is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to\r\nmouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homoeopathic\r\ndoses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and\r\nthe peeping of frogs. As I walked in the woods to see the birds and\r\nsquirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead\r\nof the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction\r\nfrom my house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under\r\nthe grove of elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village\r\nof busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie-dogs, each\r\nsitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor's to\r\ngossip. I went there frequently to observe their habits. The village\r\nappeared to me a great news room; and on one side, to support it, as\r\nonce at Redding &amp; Company's on State Street, they kept nuts and raisins,\r\nor salt and meal and other groceries. Some have such a vast appetite\r\nfor the former commodity, that is, the news, and such sound digestive\r\norgans, that they can sit forever in public avenues without stirring,\r\nand let it simmer and whisper through them like the Etesian winds, or\r\nas if inhaling ether, it only producing numbness and insensibility to\r\npain--otherwise it would often be painful to bear--without affecting the\r\nconsciousness. I hardly ever failed, when I rambled through the village,\r\nto see a row of such worthies, either sitting on a ladder sunning\r\nthemselves, with their bodies inclined forward and their eyes glancing\r\nalong the line this way and that, from time to time, with a voluptuous\r\nexpression, or else leaning against a barn with their hands in their\r\npockets, like caryatides, as if to prop it up. They, being commonly out\r\nof doors, heard whatever was in the wind. These are the coarsest mills,\r\nin which all gossip is first rudely digested or cracked up before it is\r\nemptied into finer and more delicate hoppers within doors. I observed\r\nthat the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the\r\npost-office, and the bank; and, as a necessary part of the machinery,\r\nthey kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire-engine, at convenient places;\r\nand the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in\r\nlanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the\r\ngauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him. Of\r\ncourse, those who were stationed nearest to the head of the line, where\r\nthey could most see and be seen, and have the first blow at him, paid\r\nthe highest prices for their places; and the few straggling inhabitants\r\nin the outskirts, where long gaps in the line began to occur, and the\r\ntraveller could get over walls or turn aside into cow-paths, and so\r\nescape, paid a very slight ground or window tax. Signs were hung out\r\non all sides to allure him; some to catch him by the appetite, as the\r\ntavern and victualling cellar; some by the fancy, as the dry goods store\r\nand the jeweller's; and others by the hair or the feet or the skirts,\r\nas the barber, the shoemaker, or the tailor. Besides, there was a still\r\nmore terrible standing invitation to call at every one of these houses,\r\nand company expected about these times. For the most part I escaped\r\nwonderfully from these dangers, either by proceeding at once boldly and\r\nwithout deliberation to the goal, as is recommended to those who run the\r\ngauntlet, or by keeping my thoughts on high things, like Orpheus, who,\r\n\"loudly singing the praises of the gods to his lyre, drowned the voices\r\nof the Sirens, and kept out of danger.\" Sometimes I bolted suddenly,\r\nand nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not stand much about\r\ngracefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a fence. I was even\r\naccustomed to make an irruption into some houses, where I was well\r\nentertained, and after learning the kernels and very last sieveful of\r\nnews--what had subsided, the prospects of war and peace, and whether the\r\nworld was likely to hold together much longer--I was let out through the\r\nrear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again.\r\n\r\nIt was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to launch myself into\r\nthe night, especially if it was dark and tempestuous, and set sail from\r\nsome bright village parlor or lecture room, with a bag of rye or Indian\r\nmeal upon my shoulder, for my snug harbor in the woods, having made all\r\ntight without and withdrawn under hatches with a merry crew of thoughts,\r\nleaving only my outer man at the helm, or even tying up the helm when it\r\nwas plain sailing. I had many a genial thought by the cabin fire \"as I\r\nsailed.\" I was never cast away nor distressed in any weather, though\r\nI encountered some severe storms. It is darker in the woods, even in\r\ncommon nights, than most suppose. I frequently had to look up at the\r\nopening between the trees above the path in order to learn my route,\r\nand, where there was no cart-path, to feel with my feet the faint track\r\nwhich I had worn, or steer by the known relation of particular trees\r\nwhich I felt with my hands, passing between two pines for instance, not\r\nmore than eighteen inches apart, in the midst of the woods, invariably,\r\nin the darkest night. Sometimes, after coming home thus late in a dark\r\nand muggy night, when my feet felt the path which my eyes could not see,\r\ndreaming and absent-minded all the way, until I was aroused by having to\r\nraise my hand to lift the latch, I have not been able to recall a single\r\nstep of my walk, and I have thought that perhaps my body would find its\r\nway home if its master should forsake it, as the hand finds its way to\r\nthe mouth without assistance. Several times, when a visitor chanced to\r\nstay into evening, and it proved a dark night, I was obliged to conduct\r\nhim to the cart-path in the rear of the house, and then point out to him\r\nthe direction he was to pursue, and in keeping which he was to be guided\r\nrather by his feet than his eyes. One very dark night I directed thus\r\non their way two young men who had been fishing in the pond. They lived\r\nabout a mile off through the woods, and were quite used to the route.\r\nA day or two after one of them told me that they wandered about the\r\ngreater part of the night, close by their own premises, and did not get\r\nhome till toward morning, by which time, as there had been several\r\nheavy showers in the meanwhile, and the leaves were very wet, they were\r\ndrenched to their skins. I have heard of many going astray even in the\r\nvillage streets, when the darkness was so thick that you could cut it\r\nwith a knife, as the saying is. Some who live in the outskirts, having\r\ncome to town a-shopping in their wagons, have been obliged to put up for\r\nthe night; and gentlemen and ladies making a call have gone half a mile\r\nout of their way, feeling the sidewalk only with their feet, and not\r\nknowing when they turned. It is a surprising and memorable, as well\r\nas valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. Often in a\r\nsnow-storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and\r\nyet find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village. Though he\r\nknows that he has travelled it a thousand times, he cannot recognize\r\na feature in it, but it is as strange to him as if it were a road in\r\nSiberia. By night, of course, the perplexity is infinitely greater.\r\nIn our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously,\r\nsteering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if\r\nwe go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing\r\nof some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned\r\nround--for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut\r\nin this world to be lost--do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness\r\nof nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often\r\nas he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are\r\nlost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to\r\nfind ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our\r\nrelations.\r\n\r\nOne afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the\r\nvillage to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into\r\njail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or\r\nrecognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women,\r\nand children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house. I had gone\r\ndown to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men\r\nwill pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can,\r\nconstrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is\r\ntrue, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might\r\nhave run \"amok\" against society; but I preferred that society should run\r\n\"amok\" against me, it being the desperate party. However, I was released\r\nthe next day, obtained my mended shoe, and returned to the woods in\r\nseason to get my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill. I was never\r\nmolested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no\r\nlock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail\r\nto put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day,\r\nthough I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall\r\nI spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more\r\nrespected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers. The\r\ntired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, the literary amuse\r\nhimself with the few books on my table, or the curious, by opening my\r\ncloset door, see what was left of my dinner, and what prospect I had of\r\na supper. Yet, though many people of every class came this way to the\r\npond, I suffered no serious inconvenience from these sources, and I\r\nnever missed anything but one small book, a volume of Homer, which\r\nperhaps was improperly gilded, and this I trust a soldier of our camp\r\nhas found by this time. I am convinced, that if all men were to live as\r\nsimply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take\r\nplace only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient\r\nwhile others have not enough. The Pope's Homers would soon get properly\r\ndistributed.\r\n\r\n                      \"Nec bella fuerunt,\r\n         Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes.\"\r\n\r\n                         \"Nor wars did men molest,\r\n         When only beechen bowls were in request.\"\r\n\r\n\"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ\r\npunishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues\r\nof a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are\r\nlike the grass--the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Ponds\r\n\r\n\r\nSometimes, having had a surfeit of human society and gossip, and worn\r\nout all my village friends, I rambled still farther westward than I\r\nhabitually dwell, into yet more unfrequented parts of the town, \"to\r\nfresh woods and pastures new,\" or, while the sun was setting, made my\r\nsupper of huckleberries and blueberries on Fair Haven Hill, and laid up\r\na store for several days. The fruits do not yield their true flavor to\r\nthe purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There\r\nis but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way. If you would know\r\nthe flavor of huckleberries, ask the cowboy or the partridge. It is a\r\nvulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never\r\nplucked them. A huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been\r\nknown there since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial and\r\nessential part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off\r\nin the market cart, and they become mere provender. As long as Eternal\r\nJustice reigns, not one innocent huckleberry can be transported thither\r\nfrom the country's hills.\r\n\r\nOccasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, I joined some\r\nimpatient companion who had been fishing on the pond since morning,\r\nas silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and, after\r\npractising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, by the\r\ntime I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient sect of C\u00e6nobites.\r\nThere was one older man, an excellent fisher and skilled in all kinds of\r\nwoodcraft, who was pleased to look upon my house as a building erected\r\nfor the convenience of fishermen; and I was equally pleased when he sat\r\nin my doorway to arrange his lines. Once in a while we sat together on\r\nthe pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not many\r\nwords passed between us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but\r\nhe occasionally hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with my\r\nphilosophy. Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken harmony,\r\nfar more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on by speech.\r\nWhen, as was commonly the case, I had none to commune with, I used\r\nto raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my boat,\r\nfilling the surrounding woods with circling and dilating sound, stirring\r\nthem up as the keeper of a menagerie his wild beasts, until I elicited a\r\ngrowl from every wooded vale and hillside.\r\n\r\nIn warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat playing the flute, and\r\nsaw the perch, which I seem to have charmed, hovering around me, and\r\nthe moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed with the\r\nwrecks of the forest. Formerly I had come to this pond adventurously,\r\nfrom time to time, in dark summer nights, with a companion, and, making\r\na fire close to the water's edge, which we thought attracted the fishes,\r\nwe caught pouts with a bunch of worms strung on a thread, and when we\r\nhad done, far in the night, threw the burning brands high into the air\r\nlike skyrockets, which, coming down into the pond, were quenched with\r\na loud hissing, and we were suddenly groping in total darkness. Through\r\nthis, whistling a tune, we took our way to the haunts of men again. But\r\nnow I had made my home by the shore.\r\n\r\nSometimes, after staying in a village parlor till the family had all\r\nretired, I have returned to the woods, and, partly with a view to the\r\nnext day's dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a boat by\r\nmoonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from time to time,\r\nthe creaking note of some unknown bird close at hand. These experiences\r\nwere very memorable and valuable to me--anchored in forty feet of\r\nwater, and twenty or thirty rods from the shore, surrounded sometimes\r\nby thousands of small perch and shiners, dimpling the surface with their\r\ntails in the moonlight, and communicating by a long flaxen line with\r\nmysterious nocturnal fishes which had their dwelling forty feet below,\r\nor sometimes dragging sixty feet of line about the pond as I drifted in\r\nthe gentle night breeze, now and then feeling a slight vibration along\r\nit, indicative of some life prowling about its extremity, of dull\r\nuncertain blundering purpose there, and slow to make up its mind.\r\nAt length you slowly raise, pulling hand over hand, some horned pout\r\nsqueaking and squirming to the upper air. It was very queer, especially\r\nin dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal\r\nthemes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to\r\ninterrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if I\r\nmight next cast my line upward into the air, as well as downward into\r\nthis element, which was scarcely more dense. Thus I caught two fishes as\r\nit were with one hook.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very beautiful,\r\ndoes not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not\r\nlong frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable\r\nfor its depth and purity as to merit a particular description. It is\r\na clear and deep green well, half a mile long and a mile and three\r\nquarters in circumference, and contains about sixty-one and a half\r\nacres; a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without\r\nany visible inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation. The\r\nsurrounding hills rise abruptly from the water to the height of forty to\r\neighty feet, though on the southeast and east they attain to about one\r\nhundred and one hundred and fifty feet respectively, within a quarter\r\nand a third of a mile. They are exclusively woodland. All our Concord\r\nwaters have two colors at least; one when viewed at a distance, and\r\nanother, more proper, close at hand. The first depends more on the\r\nlight, and follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they appear\r\nblue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great\r\ndistance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are sometimes of a\r\ndark slate-color. The sea, however, is said to be blue one day and green\r\nanother without any perceptible change in the atmosphere. I have seen\r\nour river, when, the landscape being covered with snow, both water and\r\nice were almost as green as grass. Some consider blue \"to be the color\r\nof pure water, whether liquid or solid.\" But, looking directly down into\r\nour waters from a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors.\r\nWalden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same\r\npoint of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of\r\nthe color of both. Viewed from a hilltop it reflects the color of the\r\nsky; but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where\r\nyou can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a\r\nuniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed\r\neven from a hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore. Some have\r\nreferred this to the reflection of the verdure; but it is equally green\r\nthere against the railroad sandbank, and in the spring, before the\r\nleaves are expanded, and it may be simply the result of the prevailing\r\nblue mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color of its iris.\r\nThis is that portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being warmed\r\nby the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also transmitted\r\nthrough the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the still\r\nfrozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when much agitated, in clear\r\nweather, so that the surface of the waves may reflect the sky at the\r\nright angle, or because there is more light mixed with it, it appears\r\nat a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; and at such\r\na time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so as to\r\nsee the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and indescribable light\r\nblue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more\r\ncerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the original dark green\r\non the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in\r\ncomparison. It is a vitreous greenish blue, as I remember it, like those\r\npatches of the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in the west before\r\nsundown. Yet a single glass of its water held up to the light is as\r\ncolorless as an equal quantity of air. It is well known that a large\r\nplate of glass will have a green tint, owing, as the makers say, to its\r\n\"body,\" but a small piece of the same will be colorless. How large a\r\nbody of Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint I have\r\nnever proved. The water of our river is black or a very dark brown to\r\none looking directly down on it, and, like that of most ponds, imparts\r\nto the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge; but this water is\r\nof such crystalline purity that the body of the bather appears of an\r\nalabaster whiteness, still more unnatural, which, as the limbs are\r\nmagnified and distorted withal, produces a monstrous effect, making fit\r\nstudies for a Michael Angelo.\r\n\r\nThe water is so transparent that the bottom can easily be discerned at\r\nthe depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. Paddling over it, you may see,\r\nmany feet beneath the surface, the schools of perch and shiners,\r\nperhaps only an inch long, yet the former easily distinguished by their\r\ntransverse bars, and you think that they must be ascetic fish that find\r\na subsistence there. Once, in the winter, many years ago, when I had\r\nbeen cutting holes through the ice in order to catch pickerel, as I\r\nstepped ashore I tossed my axe back on to the ice, but, as if some evil\r\ngenius had directed it, it slid four or five rods directly into one of\r\nthe holes, where the water was twenty-five feet deep. Out of curiosity,\r\nI lay down on the ice and looked through the hole, until I saw the axe\r\na little on one side, standing on its head, with its helve erect and\r\ngently swaying to and fro with the pulse of the pond; and there it\r\nmight have stood erect and swaying till in the course of time the handle\r\nrotted off, if I had not disturbed it. Making another hole directly over\r\nit with an ice chisel which I had, and cutting down the longest\r\nbirch which I could find in the neighborhood with my knife, I made a\r\nslip-noose, which I attached to its end, and, letting it down carefully,\r\npassed it over the knob of the handle, and drew it by a line along the\r\nbirch, and so pulled the axe out again.\r\n\r\nThe shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded white stones like\r\npaving-stones, excepting one or two short sand beaches, and is so steep\r\nthat in many places a single leap will carry you into water over your\r\nhead; and were it not for its remarkable transparency, that would be the\r\nlast to be seen of its bottom till it rose on the opposite side. Some\r\nthink it is bottomless. It is nowhere muddy, and a casual observer would\r\nsay that there were no weeds at all in it; and of noticeable plants,\r\nexcept in the little meadows recently overflowed, which do not properly\r\nbelong to it, a closer scrutiny does not detect a flag nor a bulrush,\r\nnor even a lily, yellow or white, but only a few small heart-leaves and\r\npotamogetons, and perhaps a water-target or two; all which however a\r\nbather might not perceive; and these plants are clean and bright like\r\nthe element they grow in. The stones extend a rod or two into the water,\r\nand then the bottom is pure sand, except in the deepest parts, where\r\nthere is usually a little sediment, probably from the decay of the\r\nleaves which have been wafted on to it so many successive falls, and a\r\nbright green weed is brought up on anchors even in midwinter.\r\n\r\nWe have one other pond just like this, White Pond, in Nine Acre Corner,\r\nabout two and a half miles westerly; but, though I am acquainted with\r\nmost of the ponds within a dozen miles of this centre I do not know a\r\nthird of this pure and well-like character. Successive nations perchance\r\nhave drank at, admired, and fathomed it, and passed away, and still its\r\nwater is green and pellucid as ever. Not an intermitting spring! Perhaps\r\non that spring morning when Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden Walden\r\nPond was already in existence, and even then breaking up in a gentle\r\nspring rain accompanied with mist and a southerly wind, and covered with\r\nmyriads of ducks and geese, which had not heard of the fall, when still\r\nsuch pure lakes sufficed them. Even then it had commenced to rise and\r\nfall, and had clarified its waters and colored them of the hue they now\r\nwear, and obtained a patent of Heaven to be the only Walden Pond in\r\nthe world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows in how many\r\nunremembered nations' literatures this has been the Castalian Fountain?\r\nor what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is a gem of the\r\nfirst water which Concord wears in her coronet.\r\n\r\nYet perchance the first who came to this well have left some trace of\r\ntheir footsteps. I have been surprised to detect encircling the pond,\r\neven where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow\r\nshelf-like path in the steep hillside, alternately rising and falling,\r\napproaching and receding from the water's edge, as old probably as the\r\nrace of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from\r\ntime to time unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the land.\r\nThis is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond\r\nin winter, just after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear\r\nundulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious\r\na quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly\r\ndistinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in\r\nclear white type alto-relievo. The ornamented grounds of villas which\r\nwill one day be built here may still preserve some trace of this.\r\n\r\nThe pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and within what\r\nperiod, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. It is\r\ncommonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer, though not\r\ncorresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can remember when it\r\nwas a foot or two lower, and also when it was at least five feet higher,\r\nthan when I lived by it. There is a narrow sand-bar running into it,\r\nwith very deep water on one side, on which I helped boil a kettle of\r\nchowder, some six rods from the main shore, about the year 1824, which\r\nit has not been possible to do for twenty-five years; and, on the other\r\nhand, my friends used to listen with incredulity when I told them, that\r\na few years later I was accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded\r\ncove in the woods, fifteen rods from the only shore they knew, which\r\nplace was long since converted into a meadow. But the pond has risen\r\nsteadily for two years, and now, in the summer of '52, is just five feet\r\nhigher than when I lived there, or as high as it was thirty years ago,\r\nand fishing goes on again in the meadow. This makes a difference of\r\nlevel, at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by\r\nthe surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this overflow must\r\nbe referred to causes which affect the deep springs. This same\r\nsummer the pond has begun to fall again. It is remarkable that this\r\nfluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many\r\nyears for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a part of two\r\nfalls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will\r\nagain be as low as I have ever known it. Flint's Pond, a mile eastward,\r\nallowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlets,\r\nand the smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and\r\nrecently attained their greatest height at the same time with the\r\nlatter. The same is true, as far as my observation goes, of White Pond.\r\n\r\nThis rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use at least;\r\nthe water standing at this great height for a year or more, though it\r\nmakes it difficult to walk round it, kills the shrubs and trees which\r\nhave sprung up about its edge since the last rise--pitch pines, birches,\r\nalders, aspens, and others--and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed\r\nshore; for, unlike many ponds and all waters which are subject to a\r\ndaily tide, its shore is cleanest when the water is lowest. On the side\r\nof the pond next my house a row of pitch pines, fifteen feet high, has\r\nbeen killed and tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to\r\ntheir encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have\r\nelapsed since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond\r\nasserts its title to a shore, and thus the _shore_ is _shorn_, and the\r\ntrees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of the\r\nlake, on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps from time to time.\r\nWhen the water is at its height, the alders, willows, and maples send\r\nforth a mass of fibrous red roots several feet long from all sides of\r\ntheir stems in the water, and to the height of three or four feet from\r\nthe ground, in the effort to maintain themselves; and I have known the\r\nhigh blueberry bushes about the shore, which commonly produce no fruit,\r\nbear an abundant crop under these circumstances.\r\n\r\nSome have been puzzled to tell how the shore became so regularly paved.\r\nMy townsmen have all heard the tradition--the oldest people tell me that\r\nthey heard it in their youth--that anciently the Indians were holding\r\na pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high into the heavens as the\r\npond now sinks deep into the earth, and they used much profanity, as\r\nthe story goes, though this vice is one of which the Indians were never\r\nguilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly\r\nsank, and only one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and from her the\r\npond was named. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook these\r\nstones rolled down its side and became the present shore. It is very\r\ncertain, at any rate, that once there was no pond here, and now there\r\nis one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the\r\naccount of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers\r\nso well when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor\r\nrising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he\r\nconcluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still think that\r\nthey are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the waves on these\r\nhills; but I observe that the surrounding hills are remarkably full of\r\nthe same kind of stones, so that they have been obliged to pile them\r\nup in walls on both sides of the railroad cut nearest the pond; and,\r\nmoreover, there are most stones where the shore is most abrupt; so that,\r\nunfortunately, it is no longer a mystery to me. I detect the paver. If\r\nthe name was not derived from that of some English locality--Saffron\r\nWalden, for instance--one might suppose that it was called originally\r\n_Walled-in_ Pond.\r\n\r\nThe pond was my well ready dug. For four months in the year its water is\r\nas cold as it is pure at all times; and I think that it is then as good\r\nas any, if not the best, in the town. In the winter, all water which is\r\nexposed to the air is colder than springs and wells which are protected\r\nfrom it. The temperature of the pond water which had stood in the room\r\nwhere I sat from five o'clock in the afternoon till noon the next day,\r\nthe sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer having been up to 65\u00ba or 70\u00ba\r\nsome of the time, owing partly to the sun on the roof, was 42\u00ba, or one\r\ndegree colder than the water of one of the coldest wells in the village\r\njust drawn. The temperature of the Boiling Spring the same day was 45\u00ba,\r\nor the warmest of any water tried, though it is the coldest that I know\r\nof in summer, when, beside, shallow and stagnant surface water is not\r\nmingled with it. Moreover, in summer, Walden never becomes so warm as\r\nmost water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth. In the\r\nwarmest weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar, where it\r\nbecame cool in the night, and remained so during the day; though I also\r\nresorted to a spring in the neighborhood. It was as good when a week old\r\nas the day it was dipped, and had no taste of the pump. Whoever camps\r\nfor a week in summer by the shore of a pond, needs only bury a pail of\r\nwater a few feet deep in the shade of his camp to be independent of the\r\nluxury of ice.\r\n\r\nThere have been caught in Walden pickerel, one weighing seven pounds--to\r\nsay nothing of another which carried off a reel with great velocity,\r\nwhich the fisherman safely set down at eight pounds because he did\r\nnot see him--perch and pouts, some of each weighing over two pounds,\r\nshiners, chivins or roach (_Leuciscus pulchellus_), a very few breams, and\r\na couple of eels, one weighing four pounds--I am thus particular because\r\nthe weight of a fish is commonly its only title to fame, and these are\r\nthe only eels I have heard of here;--also, I have a faint recollection\r\nof a little fish some five inches long, with silvery sides and a\r\ngreenish back, somewhat dace-like in its character, which I mention here\r\nchiefly to link my facts to fable. Nevertheless, this pond is not very\r\nfertile in fish. Its pickerel, though not abundant, are its chief boast.\r\nI have seen at one time lying on the ice pickerel of at least three\r\ndifferent kinds: a long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those\r\ncaught in the river; a bright golden kind, with greenish reflections\r\nand remarkably deep, which is the most common here; and another,\r\ngolden-colored, and shaped like the last, but peppered on the sides with\r\nsmall dark brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint blood-red\r\nones, very much like a trout. The specific name _reticulatus_ would not\r\napply to this; it should be _guttatus_ rather. These are all very firm\r\nfish, and weigh more than their size promises. The shiners, pouts, and\r\nperch also, and indeed all the fishes which inhabit this pond, are much\r\ncleaner, handsomer, and firmer-fleshed than those in the river and most\r\nother ponds, as the water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished\r\nfrom them. Probably many ichthyologists would make new varieties of some\r\nof them. There are also a clean race of frogs and tortoises, and a\r\nfew mussels in it; muskrats and minks leave their traces about it, and\r\noccasionally a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I pushed\r\noff my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle which had\r\nsecreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent\r\nit in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (_Hirundo bicolor_)\r\nskim over it, and the peetweets (_Totanus macularius_) \"teeter\" along its\r\nstony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting\r\non a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by\r\nthe wind of a gull, like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual\r\nloon. These are all the animals of consequence which frequent it now.\r\n\r\nYou may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy eastern shore,\r\nwhere the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also in some other parts\r\nof the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot\r\nin height, consisting of small stones less than a hen's egg in size,\r\nwhere all around is bare sand. At first you wonder if the Indians\r\ncould have formed them on the ice for any purpose, and so, when the ice\r\nmelted, they sank to the bottom; but they are too regular and some of\r\nthem plainly too fresh for that. They are similar to those found in\r\nrivers; but as there are no suckers nor lampreys here, I know not by\r\nwhat fish they could be made. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin.\r\nThese lend a pleasing mystery to the bottom.\r\n\r\nThe shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind's\r\neye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the\r\nbeautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes overlap\r\neach other and suggest unexplored coves between. The forest has never\r\nso good a setting, nor is so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the\r\nmiddle of a small lake amid hills which rise from the water's edge; for\r\nthe water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in\r\nsuch a case, but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable\r\nboundary to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there,\r\nas where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it.\r\nThe trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each sends\r\nforth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There Nature has woven\r\na natural selvage, and the eye rises by just gradations from the low\r\nshrubs of the shore to the highest trees. There are few traces of man's\r\nhand to be seen. The water laves the shore as it did a thousand years\r\nago.\r\n\r\nA lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is\r\nearth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of\r\nhis own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender\r\neyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are\r\nits overhanging brows.\r\n\r\nStanding on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond, in\r\na calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite\r\nshore-line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, \"the\r\nglassy surface of a lake.\" When you invert your head, it looks like\r\na thread of finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and gleaming\r\nagainst the distant pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere\r\nfrom another. You would think that you could walk dry under it to the\r\nopposite hills, and that the swallows which skim over might perch on it.\r\nIndeed, they sometimes dive below this line, as it were by mistake, and\r\nare undeceived. As you look over the pond westward you are obliged to\r\nemploy both your hands to defend your eyes against the reflected as well\r\nas the true sun, for they are equally bright; and if, between the two,\r\nyou survey its surface critically, it is literally as smooth as glass,\r\nexcept where the skater insects, at equal intervals scattered over its\r\nwhole extent, by their motions in the sun produce the finest imaginable\r\nsparkle on it, or, perchance, a duck plumes itself, or, as I have said,\r\na swallow skims so low as to touch it. It may be that in the distance a\r\nfish describes an arc of three or four feet in the air, and there is one\r\nbright flash where it emerges, and another where it strikes the water;\r\nsometimes the whole silvery arc is revealed; or here and there, perhaps,\r\nis a thistle-down floating on its surface, which the fishes dart at and\r\nso dimple it again. It is like molten glass cooled but not congealed,\r\nand the few motes in it are pure and beautiful like the imperfections in\r\nglass. You may often detect a yet smoother and darker water, separated\r\nfrom the rest as if by an invisible cobweb, boom of the water nymphs,\r\nresting on it. From a hilltop you can see a fish leap in almost any\r\npart; for not a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth\r\nsurface but it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake.\r\nIt is wonderful with what elaborateness this simple fact is\r\nadvertised--this piscine murder will out--and from my distant perch I\r\ndistinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods\r\nin diameter. You can even detect a water-bug (_Gyrinus_) ceaselessly\r\nprogressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off; for they\r\nfurrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded by two\r\ndiverging lines, but the skaters glide over it without rippling it\r\nperceptibly. When the surface is considerably agitated there are no\r\nskaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparently, in calm days, they leave\r\ntheir havens and adventurously glide forth from the shore by short\r\nimpulses till they completely cover it. It is a soothing employment,\r\non one of those fine days in the fall when all the warmth of the sun\r\nis fully appreciated, to sit on a stump on such a height as this,\r\noverlooking the pond, and study the dimpling circles which are\r\nincessantly inscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the\r\nreflected skies and trees. Over this great expanse there is no\r\ndisturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged,\r\nas, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling circles seek the shore\r\nand all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on the\r\npond but it is thus reported in circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as\r\nit were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of\r\nits life, the heaving of its breast. The thrills of joy and thrills\r\nof pain are undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the lake!\r\nAgain the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, every leaf and twig\r\nand stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered with\r\ndew in a spring morning. Every motion of an oar or an insect produces a\r\nflash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo!\r\n\r\nIn such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect forest\r\nmirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or\r\nrarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a\r\nlake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water. It needs\r\nno fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which\r\nno stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding\r\nNature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever\r\nfresh;--a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and\r\ndusted by the sun's hazy brush--this the light dust-cloth--which retains\r\nno breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds\r\nhigh above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.\r\n\r\nA field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is\r\ncontinually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate\r\nin its nature between land and sky. On land only the grass and trees\r\nwave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the\r\nbreeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of light. It is\r\nremarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps,\r\nlook down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still\r\nsubtler spirit sweeps over it.\r\n\r\nThe skaters and water-bugs finally disappear in the latter part of\r\nOctober, when the severe frosts have come; and then and in November,\r\nusually, in a calm day, there is absolutely nothing to ripple the\r\nsurface. One November afternoon, in the calm at the end of a rain-storm\r\nof several days' duration, when the sky was still completely overcast\r\nand the air was full of mist, I observed that the pond was remarkably\r\nsmooth, so that it was difficult to distinguish its surface; though it\r\nno longer reflected the bright tints of October, but the sombre November\r\ncolors of the surrounding hills. Though I passed over it as gently as\r\npossible, the slight undulations produced by my boat extended almost\r\nas far as I could see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflections.\r\nBut, as I was looking over the surface, I saw here and there at a\r\ndistance a faint glimmer, as if some skater insects which had escaped\r\nthe frosts might be collected there, or, perchance, the surface, being\r\nso smooth, betrayed where a spring welled up from the bottom. Paddling\r\ngently to one of these places, I was surprised to find myself surrounded\r\nby myriads of small perch, about five inches long, of a rich bronze\r\ncolor in the green water, sporting there, and constantly rising to\r\nthe surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving bubbles on it. In such\r\ntransparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting the clouds,\r\nI seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon, and their\r\nswimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as if they were\r\na compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level on the right or\r\nleft, their fins, like sails, set all around them. There were many such\r\nschools in the pond, apparently improving the short season before winter\r\nwould draw an icy shutter over their broad skylight, sometimes giving\r\nto the surface an appearance as if a slight breeze struck it, or a few\r\nrain-drops fell there. When I approached carelessly and alarmed them,\r\nthey made a sudden splash and rippling with their tails, as if one had\r\nstruck the water with a brushy bough, and instantly took refuge in the\r\ndepths. At length the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves began\r\nto run, and the perch leaped much higher than before, half out of water,\r\na hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface.\r\nEven as late as the fifth of December, one year, I saw some dimples on\r\nthe surface, and thinking it was going to rain hard immediately, the\r\nair being full of mist, I made haste to take my place at the oars and row\r\nhomeward; already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though I felt\r\nnone on my cheek, and I anticipated a thorough soaking. But suddenly the\r\ndimples ceased, for they were produced by the perch, which the noise\r\nof my oars had seared into the depths, and I saw their schools dimly\r\ndisappearing; so I spent a dry afternoon after all.\r\n\r\nAn old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years ago, when\r\nit was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that in those days he\r\nsometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other water-fowl, and that\r\nthere were many eagles about it. He came here a-fishing, and used an\r\nold log canoe which he found on the shore. It was made of two white pine\r\nlogs dug out and pinned together, and was cut off square at the ends.\r\nIt was very clumsy, but lasted a great many years before it became\r\nwater-logged and perhaps sank to the bottom. He did not know whose it\r\nwas; it belonged to the pond. He used to make a cable for his anchor of\r\nstrips of hickory bark tied together. An old man, a potter, who lived\r\nby the pond before the Revolution, told him once that there was an iron\r\nchest at the bottom, and that he had seen it. Sometimes it would come\r\nfloating up to the shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back\r\ninto deep water and disappear. I was pleased to hear of the old log\r\ncanoe, which took the place of an Indian one of the same material but\r\nmore graceful construction, which perchance had first been a tree on the\r\nbank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to float there for a\r\ngeneration, the most proper vessel for the lake. I remember that when I\r\nfirst looked into these depths there were many large trunks to be seen\r\nindistinctly lying on the bottom, which had either been blown over\r\nformerly, or left on the ice at the last cutting, when wood was cheaper;\r\nbut now they have mostly disappeared.\r\n\r\nWhen I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by\r\nthick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its coves grape-vines\r\nhad run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a\r\nboat could pass. The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the\r\nwoods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from the west\r\nend, it had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some land of sylvan\r\nspectacle. I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over\r\nits surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle,\r\nand lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming\r\nawake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to\r\nsee what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the\r\nmost attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen\r\naway, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I\r\nwas rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent\r\nthem lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in\r\nthe workshop or the teacher's desk. But since I left those shores the\r\nwoodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a\r\nyear there will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood,\r\nwith occasional vistas through which you see the water. My Muse may be\r\nexcused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to\r\nsing when their groves are cut down?\r\n\r\nNow the trunks of trees on the bottom, and the old log canoe, and the\r\ndark surrounding woods, are gone, and the villagers, who scarcely know\r\nwhere it lies, instead of going to the pond to bathe or drink, are\r\nthinking to bring its water, which should be as sacred as the Ganges\r\nat least, to the village in a pipe, to wash their dishes with!--to\r\nearn their Walden by the turning of a cock or drawing of a plug! That\r\ndevilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the\r\ntown, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that\r\nhas browsed off all the woods on Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a\r\nthousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the\r\ncountry's champion, the Moore of Moore Hill, to meet him at the Deep Cut\r\nand thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?\r\n\r\nNevertheless, of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden wears\r\nbest, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been likened to it,\r\nbut few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have laid bare first\r\nthis shore and then that, and the Irish have built their sties by it,\r\nand the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have\r\nskimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which my\r\nyouthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me. It has not acquired one\r\npermanent wrinkle after all its ripples. It is perennially young, and\r\nI may stand and see a swallow dip apparently to pick an insect from its\r\nsurface as of yore. It struck me again tonight, as if I had not seen it\r\nalmost daily for more than twenty years--Why, here is Walden, the same\r\nwoodland lake that I discovered so many years ago; where a forest was\r\ncut down last winter another is springing up by its shore as lustily as\r\never; the same thought is welling up to its surface that was then; it\r\nis the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its Maker, ay, and it\r\nmay be to me. It is the work of a brave man surely, in whom there was no\r\nguile! He rounded this water with his hand, deepened and clarified it in\r\nhis thought, and in his will bequeathed it to Concord. I see by its face\r\nthat it is visited by the same reflection; and I can almost say, Walden,\r\nis it you?\r\n\r\n              It is no dream of mine,\r\n              To ornament a line;\r\n              I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven\r\n              Than I live to Walden even.\r\n              I am its stony shore,\r\n              And the breeze that passes o'er;\r\n              In the hollow of my hand\r\n              Are its water and its sand,\r\n              And its deepest resort\r\n              Lies high in my thought.\r\n\r\nThe cars never pause to look at it; yet I fancy that the engineers and\r\nfiremen and brakemen, and those passengers who have a season ticket and\r\nsee it often, are better men for the sight. The engineer does not forget\r\nat night, or his nature does not, that he has beheld this vision of\r\nserenity and purity once at least during the day. Though seen but once,\r\nit helps to wash out State Street and the engine's soot. One proposes\r\nthat it be called \"God's Drop.\"\r\n\r\nI have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is on\r\nthe one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond, which is\r\nmore elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and\r\non the other directly and manifestly to Concord River, which is lower,\r\nby a similar chain of ponds through which in some other geological\r\nperiod it may have flowed, and by a little digging, which God forbid,\r\nit can be made to flow thither again. If by living thus reserved and\r\naustere, like a hermit in the woods, so long, it has acquired such\r\nwonderful purity, who would not regret that the comparatively impure\r\nwaters of Flint's Pond should be mingled with it, or itself should ever\r\ngo to waste its sweetness in the ocean wave?\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nFlint's, or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest lake and inland sea,\r\nlies about a mile east of Walden. It is much larger, being said to\r\ncontain one hundred and ninety-seven acres, and is more fertile in fish;\r\nbut it is comparatively shallow, and not remarkably pure. A walk through\r\nthe woods thither was often my recreation. It was worth the while, if\r\nonly to feel the wind blow on your cheek freely, and see the waves run,\r\nand remember the life of mariners. I went a-chestnutting there in the\r\nfall, on windy days, when the nuts were dropping into the water and were\r\nwashed to my feet; and one day, as I crept along its sedgy shore, the\r\nfresh spray blowing in my face, I came upon the mouldering wreck of a\r\nboat, the sides gone, and hardly more than the impression of its flat\r\nbottom left amid the rushes; yet its model was sharply defined, as if it\r\nwere a large decayed pad, with its veins. It was as impressive a wreck\r\nas one could imagine on the seashore, and had as good a moral. It is by\r\nthis time mere vegetable mould and undistinguishable pond shore, through\r\nwhich rushes and flags have pushed up. I used to admire the ripple marks\r\non the sandy bottom, at the north end of this pond, made firm and hard\r\nto the feet of the wader by the pressure of the water, and the rushes\r\nwhich grew in Indian file, in waving lines, corresponding to these\r\nmarks, rank behind rank, as if the waves had planted them. There also\r\nI have found, in considerable quantities, curious balls, composed\r\napparently of fine grass or roots, of pipewort perhaps, from half an\r\ninch to four inches in diameter, and perfectly spherical. These wash\r\nback and forth in shallow water on a sandy bottom, and are sometimes\r\ncast on the shore. They are either solid grass, or have a little sand in\r\nthe middle. At first you would say that they were formed by the action\r\nof the waves, like a pebble; yet the smallest are made of equally coarse\r\nmaterials, half an inch long, and they are produced only at one season\r\nof the year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much construct\r\nas wear down a material which has already acquired consistency. They\r\npreserve their form when dry for an indefinite period.\r\n\r\n_Flint's Pond!_ Such is the poverty of our nomenclature. What right had\r\nthe unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm abutted on this sky water,\r\nwhose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his name to it? Some\r\nskin-flint, who loved better the reflecting surface of a dollar, or a\r\nbright cent, in which he could see his own brazen face; who regarded\r\neven the wild ducks which settled in it as trespassers; his fingers\r\ngrown into crooked and bony talons from the long habit of grasping\r\nharpy-like;--so it is not named for me. I go not there to see him nor to\r\nhear of him; who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved\r\nit, who never protected it, who never spoke a good word for it, nor\r\nthanked God that He had made it. Rather let it be named from the fishes\r\nthat swim in it, the wild fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild\r\nflowers which grow by its shores, or some wild man or child the thread\r\nof whose history is interwoven with its own; not from him who could show\r\nno title to it but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legislature\r\ngave him--him who thought only of its money value; whose presence\r\nperchance cursed all the shores; who exhausted the land around it, and\r\nwould fain have exhausted the waters within it; who regretted only that\r\nit was not English hay or cranberry meadow--there was nothing to redeem\r\nit, forsooth, in his eyes--and would have drained and sold it for the\r\nmud at its bottom. It did not turn his mill, and it was no _privilege_ to\r\nhim to behold it. I respect not his labors, his farm where everything\r\nhas its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God,\r\nto market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market _for_ his\r\ngod as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no\r\ncrops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars; who\r\nloves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him\r\ntill they are turned to dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true\r\nwealth. Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as\r\nthey are poor--poor farmers. A model farm! where the house stands like a\r\nfungus in a muckheap, chambers for men, horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed\r\nand uncleansed, all contiguous to one another! Stocked with men! A great\r\ngrease-spot, redolent of manures and buttermilk! Under a high state of\r\ncultivation, being manured with the hearts and brains of men! As if you\r\nwere to raise your potatoes in the churchyard! Such is a model farm.\r\n\r\nNo, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after\r\nmen, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. Let our lakes\r\nreceive as true names at least as the Icarian Sea, where \"still the\r\nshore\" a \"brave attempt resounds.\"\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nGoose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to Flint's; Fair Haven, an\r\nexpansion of Concord River, said to contain some seventy acres, is a\r\nmile southwest; and White Pond, of about forty acres, is a mile and a\r\nhalf beyond Fair Haven. This is my lake country. These, with Concord\r\nRiver, are my water privileges; and night and day, year in year out,\r\nthey grind such grist as I carry to them.\r\n\r\nSince the wood-cutters, and the railroad, and I myself have profaned\r\nWalden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most beautiful, of all\r\nour lakes, the gem of the woods, is White Pond;--a poor name from its\r\ncommonness, whether derived from the remarkable purity of its waters or\r\nthe color of its sands. In these as in other respects, however, it is\r\na lesser twin of Walden. They are so much alike that you would say they\r\nmust be connected under ground. It has the same stony shore, and its\r\nwaters are of the same hue. As at Walden, in sultry dog-day weather,\r\nlooking down through the woods on some of its bays which are not so deep\r\nbut that the reflection from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of\r\na misty bluish-green or glaucous color. Many years since I used to go\r\nthere to collect the sand by cartloads, to make sandpaper with, and I\r\nhave continued to visit it ever since. One who frequents it proposes to\r\ncall it Virid Lake. Perhaps it might be called Yellow Pine Lake, from\r\nthe following circumstance. About fifteen years ago you could see the\r\ntop of a pitch pine, of the kind called yellow pine hereabouts, though\r\nit is not a distinct species, projecting above the surface in deep\r\nwater, many rods from the shore. It was even supposed by some that the\r\npond had sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest that formerly\r\nstood there. I find that even so long ago as 1792, in a \"Topographical\r\nDescription of the Town of Concord,\" by one of its citizens, in the\r\nCollections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the author, after\r\nspeaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds, \"In the middle of the latter\r\nmay be seen, when the water is very low, a tree which appears as if it\r\ngrew in the place where it now stands, although the roots are fifty feet\r\nbelow the surface of the water; the top of this tree is broken off, and\r\nat that place measures fourteen inches in diameter.\" In the spring of\r\n'49 I talked with the man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who\r\ntold me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years\r\nbefore. As near as he could remember, it stood twelve or fifteen rods\r\nfrom the shore, where the water was thirty or forty feet deep. It was\r\nin the winter, and he had been getting out ice in the forenoon, and had\r\nresolved that in the afternoon, with the aid of his neighbors, he would\r\ntake out the old yellow pine. He sawed a channel in the ice toward the\r\nshore, and hauled it over and along and out on to the ice with oxen;\r\nbut, before he had gone far in his work, he was surprised to find that\r\nit was wrong end upward, with the stumps of the branches pointing down,\r\nand the small end firmly fastened in the sandy bottom. It was about\r\na foot in diameter at the big end, and he had expected to get a good\r\nsaw-log, but it was so rotten as to be fit only for fuel, if for that.\r\nHe had some of it in his shed then. There were marks of an axe and of\r\nwoodpeckers on the butt. He thought that it might have been a dead tree\r\non the shore, but was finally blown over into the pond, and after the\r\ntop had become water-logged, while the butt-end was still dry and light,\r\nhad drifted out and sunk wrong end up. His father, eighty years old,\r\ncould not remember when it was not there. Several pretty large logs may\r\nstill be seen lying on the bottom, where, owing to the undulation of the\r\nsurface, they look like huge water snakes in motion.\r\n\r\nThis pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, for there is little in it\r\nto tempt a fisherman. Instead of the white lily, which requires mud, or\r\nthe common sweet flag, the blue flag (_Iris versicolor_) grows thinly in\r\nthe pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shore, where\r\nit is visited by hummingbirds in June; and the color both of its bluish\r\nblades and its flowers and especially their reflections, is in singular\r\nharmony with the glaucous water.\r\n\r\nWhite Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth,\r\nLakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough\r\nto be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like\r\nprecious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and\r\nample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them,\r\nand run after the diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a\r\nmarket value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our\r\nlives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We\r\nnever learned meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before the\r\nfarmer's door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come.\r\nNature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their\r\nplumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what\r\nyouth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She\r\nflourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of\r\nheaven! ye disgrace earth.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBaker Farm\r\n\r\n\r\nSometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like\r\nfleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with light,\r\nso soft and green and shady that the Druids would have forsaken their\r\noaks to worship in them; or to the cedar wood beyond Flint's Pond, where\r\nthe trees, covered with hoary blue berries, spiring higher and higher,\r\nare fit to stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the\r\nground with wreaths full of fruit; or to swamps where the usnea lichen\r\nhangs in festoons from the white spruce trees, and toadstools, round\r\ntables of the swamp gods, cover the ground, and more beautiful fungi\r\nadorn the stumps, like butterflies or shells, vegetable winkles; where\r\nthe swamp-pink and dogwood grow, the red alderberry glows like eyes of\r\nimps, the waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds,\r\nand the wild holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their\r\nbeauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild forbidden\r\nfruits, too fair for mortal taste. Instead of calling on some scholar,\r\nI paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in this\r\nneighborhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the\r\ndepths of a wood or swamp, or on a hilltop; such as the black birch, of\r\nwhich we have some handsome specimens two feet in diameter; its cousin,\r\nthe yellow birch, with its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first;\r\nthe beech, which has so neat a bole and beautifully lichen-painted,\r\nperfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, I\r\nknow but one small grove of sizable trees left in the township, supposed\r\nby some to have been planted by the pigeons that were once baited with\r\nbeechnuts near by; it is worth the while to see the silver grain\r\nsparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam; the _Celtis\r\noccidentalis_, or false elm, of which we have but one well-grown; some\r\ntaller mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect hemlock than\r\nusual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods; and many\r\nothers I could mention. These were the shrines I visited both summer and\r\nwinter.\r\n\r\nOnce it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbow's arch,\r\nwhich filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the grass and\r\nleaves around, and dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal.\r\nIt was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a short while, I lived\r\nlike a dolphin. If it had lasted longer it might have tinged my\r\nemployments and life. As I walked on the railroad causeway, I used\r\nto wonder at the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain fancy\r\nmyself one of the elect. One who visited me declared that the shadows\r\nof some Irishmen before him had no halo about them, that it was only\r\nnatives that were so distinguished. Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his\r\nmemoirs, that, after a certain terrible dream or vision which he had\r\nduring his confinement in the castle of St. Angelo a resplendent light\r\nappeared over the shadow of his head at morning and evening, whether\r\nhe was in Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous when the\r\ngrass was moist with dew. This was probably the same phenomenon to which\r\nI have referred, which is especially observed in the morning, but also\r\nat other times, and even by moonlight. Though a constant one, it is\r\nnot commonly noticed, and, in the case of an excitable imagination like\r\nCellini's, it would be basis enough for superstition. Beside, he tells\r\nus that he showed it to very few. But are they not indeed distinguished\r\nwho are conscious that they are regarded at all?\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nI set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair Haven, through the\r\nwoods, to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. My way led through\r\nPleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the Baker Farm, that retreat of which a\r\npoet has since sung, beginning,--\r\n\r\n               \"Thy entry is a pleasant field,\r\n                Which some mossy fruit trees yield\r\n                Partly to a ruddy brook,\r\n                By gliding musquash undertook,\r\n                And mercurial trout,\r\n                Darting about.\"\r\n\r\nI thought of living there before I went to Walden. I \"hooked\" the\r\napples, leaped the brook, and scared the musquash and the trout. It\r\nwas one of those afternoons which seem indefinitely long before one,\r\nin which many events may happen, a large portion of our natural life,\r\nthough it was already half spent when I started. By the way there came\r\nup a shower, which compelled me to stand half an hour under a pine,\r\npiling boughs over my head, and wearing my handkerchief for a shed; and\r\nwhen at length I had made one cast over the pickerelweed, standing up\r\nto my middle in water, I found myself suddenly in the shadow of a cloud,\r\nand the thunder began to rumble with such emphasis that I could do no\r\nmore than listen to it. The gods must be proud, thought I, with such\r\nforked flashes to rout a poor unarmed fisherman. So I made haste for\r\nshelter to the nearest hut, which stood half a mile from any road, but\r\nso much the nearer to the pond, and had long been uninhabited:--\r\n\r\n                 \"And here a poet builded,\r\n                     In the completed years,\r\n                  For behold a trivial cabin\r\n                     That to destruction steers.\"\r\n\r\nSo the Muse fables. But therein, as I found, dwelt now John Field, an\r\nIrishman, and his wife, and several children, from the broad-faced boy\r\nwho assisted his father at his work, and now came running by his\r\nside from the bog to escape the rain, to the wrinkled, sibyl-like,\r\ncone-headed infant that sat upon its father's knee as in the palaces\r\nof nobles, and looked out from its home in the midst of wet and hunger\r\ninquisitively upon the stranger, with the privilege of infancy, not\r\nknowing but it was the last of a noble line, and the hope and cynosure\r\nof the world, instead of John Field's poor starveling brat. There we sat\r\ntogether under that part of the roof which leaked the least, while it\r\nshowered and thundered without. I had sat there many times of old\r\nbefore the ship was built that floated his family to America. An honest,\r\nhard-working, but shiftless man plainly was John Field; and his wife,\r\nshe too was brave to cook so many successive dinners in the recesses of\r\nthat lofty stove; with round greasy face and bare breast, still thinking\r\nto improve her condition one day; with the never absent mop in one hand,\r\nand yet no effects of it visible anywhere. The chickens, which had also\r\ntaken shelter here from the rain, stalked about the room like members\r\nof the family, too humanized, methought, to roast well. They stood and\r\nlooked in my eye or pecked at my shoe significantly. Meanwhile my\r\nhost told me his story, how hard he worked \"bogging\" for a neighboring\r\nfarmer, turning up a meadow with a spade or bog hoe at the rate of ten\r\ndollars an acre and the use of the land with manure for one year, and\r\nhis little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his father's side the\r\nwhile, not knowing how poor a bargain the latter had made. I tried to\r\nhelp him with my experience, telling him that he was one of my nearest\r\nneighbors, and that I too, who came a-fishing here, and looked like a\r\nloafer, was getting my living like himself; that I lived in a tight,\r\nlight, and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of\r\nsuch a ruin as his commonly amounts to; and how, if he chose, he might\r\nin a month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use\r\ntea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not\r\nhave to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did not have\r\nto eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food; but as he began\r\nwith tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work\r\nhard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had to eat hard\r\nagain to repair the waste of his system--and so it was as broad as\r\nit was long, indeed it was broader than it was long, for he was\r\ndiscontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated\r\nit as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and\r\ncoffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country\r\nwhere you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you\r\nto do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel\r\nyou to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses\r\nwhich directly or indirectly result from the use of such things. For I\r\npurposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be\r\none. I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a\r\nwild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning to redeem\r\nthemselves. A man will not need to study history to find out what is\r\nbest for his own culture. But alas! the culture of an Irishman is an\r\nenterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. I told him,\r\nthat as he worked so hard at bogging, he required thick boots and stout\r\nclothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out, but I wore light\r\nshoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much, though he might\r\nthink that I was dressed like a gentleman (which, however, was not the\r\ncase), and in an hour or two, without labor, but as a recreation, I\r\ncould, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should want for two days, or\r\nearn enough money to support me a week. If he and his family would\r\nlive simply, they might all go a-huckleberrying in the summer for their\r\namusement. John heaved a sigh at this, and his wife stared with arms\r\na-kimbo, and both appeared to be wondering if they had capital enough to\r\nbegin such a course with, or arithmetic enough to carry it through. It\r\nwas sailing by dead reckoning to them, and they saw not clearly how to\r\nmake their port so; therefore I suppose they still take life bravely,\r\nafter their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having\r\nskill to split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge, and\r\nrout it in detail;--thinking to deal with it roughly, as one\r\nshould handle a thistle. But they fight at an overwhelming\r\ndisadvantage--living, John Field, alas! without arithmetic, and failing\r\nso.\r\n\r\n\"Do you ever fish?\" I asked. \"Oh yes, I catch a mess now and then when\r\nI am lying by; good perch I catch.\"--\"What's your bait?\" \"I catch shiners\r\nwith fishworms, and bait the perch with them.\" \"You'd better go now,\r\nJohn,\" said his wife, with glistening and hopeful face; but John\r\ndemurred.\r\n\r\nThe shower was now over, and a rainbow above the eastern woods promised\r\na fair evening; so I took my departure. When I had got without I asked\r\nfor a drink, hoping to get a sight of the well bottom, to complete my\r\nsurvey of the premises; but there, alas! are shallows and quicksands,\r\nand rope broken withal, and bucket irrecoverable. Meanwhile the right\r\nculinary vessel was selected, water was seemingly distilled, and after\r\nconsultation and long delay passed out to the thirsty one--not yet\r\nsuffered to cool, not yet to settle. Such gruel sustains life here, I\r\nthought; so, shutting my eyes, and excluding the motes by a skilfully\r\ndirected undercurrent, I drank to genuine hospitality the heartiest\r\ndraught I could. I am not squeamish in such cases when manners are\r\nconcerned.\r\n\r\nAs I was leaving the Irishman's roof after the rain, bending my steps\r\nagain to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel, wading in retired\r\nmeadows, in sloughs and bog-holes, in forlorn and savage places,\r\nappeared for an instant trivial to me who had been sent to school and\r\ncollege; but as I ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the\r\nrainbow over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear\r\nthrough the cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good Genius\r\nseemed to say--Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day--farther and\r\nwider--and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving.\r\nRemember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care\r\nbefore the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other\r\nlakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no\r\nlarger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.\r\nGrow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which\r\nwill never become English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it\r\nthreaten ruin to farmers' crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take\r\nshelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not\r\nto get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it\r\nnot. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying\r\nand selling, and spending their lives like serfs.\r\n\r\nO Baker Farm!\r\n\r\n               \"Landscape where the richest element\r\n                Is a little sunshine innocent.\"...\r\n\r\n               \"No one runs to revel\r\n                On thy rail-fenced lea.\"...\r\n\r\n               \"Debate with no man hast thou,\r\n                   With questions art never perplexed,\r\n                As tame at the first sight as now,\r\n                   In thy plain russet gabardine dressed.\"...\r\n\r\n               \"Come ye who love,\r\n                   And ye who hate,\r\n                Children of the Holy Dove,\r\n                   And Guy Faux of the state,\r\n                And hang conspiracies\r\n                From the tough rafters of the trees!\"\r\n\r\nMen come tamely home at night only from the next field or street, where\r\ntheir household echoes haunt, and their life pines because it breathes\r\nits own breath over again; their shadows, morning and evening, reach\r\nfarther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from\r\nadventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience\r\nand character.\r\n\r\nBefore I had reached the pond some fresh impulse had brought out John\r\nField, with altered mind, letting go \"bogging\" ere this sunset. But he,\r\npoor man, disturbed only a couple of fins while I was catching a fair\r\nstring, and he said it was his luck; but when we changed seats in the\r\nboat luck changed seats too. Poor John Field!--I trust he does not read\r\nthis, unless he will improve by it--thinking to live by some derivative\r\nold-country mode in this primitive new country--to catch perch with\r\nshiners. It is good bait sometimes, I allow. With his horizon all\r\nhis own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish\r\npoverty or poor life, his Adam's grandmother and boggy ways, not to\r\nrise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed\r\nbog-trotting feet get _talaria_ to their heels.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nHigher Laws\r\n\r\n\r\nAs I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing\r\nmy pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck\r\nstealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight,\r\nand was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was\r\nhungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. Once or\r\ntwice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the\r\nwoods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking\r\nsome kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been\r\ntoo savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar.\r\nI found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or,\r\nas it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a\r\nprimitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the\r\nwild not less than the good. The wildness and adventure that are in\r\nfishing still recommended it to me. I like sometimes to take rank hold\r\non life and spend my day more as the animals do. Perhaps I have owed\r\nto this employment and to hunting, when quite young, my closest\r\nacquaintance with Nature. They early introduce us to and detain us\r\nin scenery with which otherwise, at that age, we should have little\r\nacquaintance. Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending\r\ntheir lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of\r\nNature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her,\r\nin the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who\r\napproach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to\r\nthem. The traveller on the prairie is naturally a hunter, on the head\r\nwaters of the Missouri and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of\r\nSt. Mary a fisherman. He who is only a traveller learns things at\r\nsecond-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most\r\ninterested when science reports what those men already know practically\r\nor instinctively, for that alone is a true _humanity_, or account of human\r\nexperience.\r\n\r\nThey mistake who assert that the Yankee has few amusements, because he\r\nhas not so many public holidays, and men and boys do not play so many\r\ngames as they do in England, for here the more primitive but solitary\r\namusements of hunting, fishing, and the like have not yet given place\r\nto the former. Almost every New England boy among my contemporaries\r\nshouldered a fowling-piece between the ages of ten and fourteen; and his\r\nhunting and fishing grounds were not limited, like the preserves of an\r\nEnglish nobleman, but were more boundless even than those of a savage.\r\nNo wonder, then, that he did not oftener stay to play on the common. But\r\nalready a change is taking place, owing, not to an increased humanity,\r\nbut to an increased scarcity of game, for perhaps the hunter is the\r\ngreatest friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society.\r\n\r\nMoreover, when at the pond, I wished sometimes to add fish to my fare\r\nfor variety. I have actually fished from the same kind of necessity that\r\nthe first fishers did. Whatever humanity I might conjure up against it\r\nwas all factitious, and concerned my philosophy more than my feelings.\r\nI speak of fishing only now, for I had long felt differently about\r\nfowling, and sold my gun before I went to the woods. Not that I am less\r\nhumane than others, but I did not perceive that my feelings were much\r\naffected. I did not pity the fishes nor the worms. This was habit. As\r\nfor fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was\r\nthat I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But\r\nI confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of\r\nstudying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention\r\nto the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been\r\nwilling to omit the gun. Yet notwithstanding the objection on the score\r\nof humanity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are\r\never substituted for these; and when some of my friends have asked me\r\nanxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have\r\nanswered, yes--remembering that it was one of the best parts of my\r\neducation--_make_ them hunters, though sportsmen only at first, if\r\npossible, mighty hunters at last, so that they shall not find game large\r\nenough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness--hunters as well as\r\nfishers of men. Thus far I am of the opinion of Chaucer's nun, who\r\n\r\n                 \"yave not of the text a pulled hen\r\n            That saith that hunters ben not holy men.\"\r\n\r\nThere is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when\r\nthe hunters are the \"best men,\" as the Algonquins called them. We cannot\r\nbut pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while\r\nhis education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect\r\nto those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would\r\nsoon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood,\r\nwill wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same\r\ntenure that he does. The hare in its extremity cries like a child.\r\nI warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual\r\nphil-_anthropic_ distinctions.\r\n\r\nSuch is oftenest the young man's introduction to the forest, and the\r\nmost original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and\r\nfisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he\r\ndistinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be,\r\nand leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and\r\nalways young in this respect. In some countries a hunting parson is no\r\nuncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far\r\nfrom being the Good Shepherd. I have been surprised to consider that the\r\nonly obvious employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the like\r\nbusiness, which ever to my knowledge detained at Walden Pond for a whole\r\nhalf-day any of my fellow-citizens, whether fathers or children of the\r\ntown, with just one exception, was fishing. Commonly they did not think\r\nthat they were lucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a\r\nlong string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond\r\nall the while. They might go there a thousand times before the sediment\r\nof fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure; but\r\nno doubt such a clarifying process would be going on all the while.\r\nThe Governor and his Council faintly remember the pond, for they went\r\na-fishing there when they were boys; but now they are too old and\r\ndignified to go a-fishing, and so they know it no more forever. Yet even\r\nthey expect to go to heaven at last. If the legislature regards it, it\r\nis chiefly to regulate the number of hooks to be used there; but they\r\nknow nothing about the hook of hooks with which to angle for the pond\r\nitself, impaling the legislature for a bait. Thus, even in civilized\r\ncommunities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of\r\ndevelopment.\r\n\r\nI have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without\r\nfalling a little in self-respect. I have tried it again and again. I\r\nhave skill at it, and, like many of my fellows, a certain instinct for\r\nit, which revives from time to time, but always when I have done I feel\r\nthat it would have been better if I had not fished. I think that I do\r\nnot mistake. It is a faint intimation, yet so are the first streaks of\r\nmorning. There is unquestionably this instinct in me which belongs to\r\nthe lower orders of creation; yet with every year I am less a fisherman,\r\nthough without more humanity or even wisdom; at present I am no\r\nfisherman at all. But I see that if I were to live in a wilderness\r\nI should again be tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest.\r\nBeside, there is something essentially unclean about this diet and all\r\nflesh, and I began to see where housework commences, and whence the\r\nendeavor, which costs so much, to wear a tidy and respectable appearance\r\neach day, to keep the house sweet and free from all ill odors and\r\nsights. Having been my own butcher and scullion and cook, as well as\r\nthe gentleman for whom the dishes were served up, I can speak from an\r\nunusually complete experience. The practical objection to animal food in\r\nmy case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and\r\ncleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me\r\nessentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it\r\ncame to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with\r\nless trouble and filth. Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely\r\nfor many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, etc.; not so much\r\nbecause of any ill effects which I had traced to them, as because they\r\nwere not agreeable to my imagination. The repugnance to animal food\r\nis not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more\r\nbeautiful to live low and fare hard in many respects; and though I never\r\ndid so, I went far enough to please my imagination. I believe that every\r\nman who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties\r\nin the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from\r\nanimal food, and from much food of any kind. It is a significant fact,\r\nstated by entomologists--I find it in Kirby and Spence--that \"some\r\ninsects in their perfect state, though furnished with organs of feeding,\r\nmake no use of them\"; and they lay it down as \"a general rule, that\r\nalmost all insects in this state eat much less than in that of larv\u00e6.\r\nThe voracious caterpillar when transformed into a butterfly... and the\r\ngluttonous maggot when become a fly\" content themselves with a drop or\r\ntwo of honey or some other sweet liquid. The abdomen under the wings\r\nof the butterfly still represents the larva. This is the tidbit which\r\ntempts his insectivorous fate. The gross feeder is a man in the larva\r\nstate; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without\r\nfancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.\r\n\r\nIt is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not\r\noffend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the\r\nbody; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may\r\nbe done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of\r\nour appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra\r\ncondiment into your dish, and it will poison you. It is not worth the\r\nwhile to live by rich cookery. Most men would feel shame if caught\r\npreparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of\r\nanimal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others.\r\nYet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and\r\nladies, are not true men and women. This certainly suggests what change\r\nis to be made. It may be vain to ask why the imagination will not be\r\nreconciled to flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a\r\nreproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live,\r\nin a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable\r\nway--as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs,\r\nmay learn--and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall\r\nteach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet.\r\nWhatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of\r\nthe destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off\r\neating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each\r\nother when they came in contact with the more civilized.\r\n\r\nIf one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius,\r\nwhich are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even\r\ninsanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more resolute\r\nand faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured objection which one\r\nhealthy man feels will at length prevail over the arguments and customs\r\nof mankind. No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though\r\nthe result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the\r\nconsequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity\r\nto higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet\r\nthem with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented\r\nherbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your\r\nsuccess. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause\r\nmomentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are\r\nfarthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist.\r\nWe soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts\r\nmost astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.\r\nThe true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and\r\nindescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little\r\nstar-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.\r\n\r\nYet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat\r\na fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. I am glad to have\r\ndrunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky\r\nto an opium-eater's heaven. I would fain keep sober always; and there\r\nare infinite degrees of drunkenness. I believe that water is the only\r\ndrink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of\r\ndashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an\r\nevening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by\r\nthem! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes\r\ndestroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of all\r\nebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?\r\nI have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long\r\ncontinued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also. But\r\nto tell the truth, I find myself at present somewhat less particular in\r\nthese respects. I carry less religion to the table, ask no blessing; not\r\nbecause I am wiser than I was, but, I am obliged to confess, because,\r\nhowever much it is to be regretted, with years I have grown more coarse\r\nand indifferent. Perhaps these questions are entertained only in youth,\r\nas most believe of poetry. My practice is \"nowhere,\" my opinion is here.\r\nNevertheless I am far from regarding myself as one of those privileged\r\nones to whom the Ved refers when it says, that \"he who has true faith in\r\nthe Omnipresent Supreme Being may eat all that exists,\" that is, is not\r\nbound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it; and even in their\r\ncase it is to be observed, as a Hindoo commentator has remarked, that\r\nthe Vedant limits this privilege to \"the time of distress.\"\r\n\r\nWho has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from his\r\nfood in which appetite had no share? I have been thrilled to think that\r\nI owed a mental perception to the commonly gross sense of taste, that\r\nI have been inspired through the palate, that some berries which I had\r\neaten on a hillside had fed my genius. \"The soul not being mistress\r\nof herself,\" says Thseng-tseu, \"one looks, and one does not see; one\r\nlistens, and one does not hear; one eats, and one does not know the\r\nsavor of food.\" He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can\r\nnever be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. A puritan\r\nmay go to his brown-bread crust with as gross an appetite as ever an\r\nalderman to his turtle. Not that food which entereth into the mouth\r\ndefileth a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten. It is neither\r\nthe quality nor the quantity, but the devotion to sensual savors; when\r\nthat which is eaten is not a viand to sustain our animal, or inspire our\r\nspiritual life, but food for the worms that possess us. If the hunter\r\nhas a taste for mud-turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tidbits,\r\nthe fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf's foot, or for\r\nsardines from over the sea, and they are even. He goes to the mill-pond,\r\nshe to her preserve-pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live\r\nthis slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.\r\n\r\nOur whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce\r\nbetween virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never\r\nfails. In the music of the harp which trembles round the world it is the\r\ninsisting on this which thrills us. The harp is the travelling patterer\r\nfor the Universe's Insurance Company, recommending its laws, and our\r\nlittle goodness is all the assessment that we pay. Though the youth at\r\nlast grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent,\r\nbut are forever on the side of the most sensitive. Listen to every\r\nzephyr for some reproof, for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate\r\nwho does not hear it. We cannot touch a string or move a stop but the\r\ncharming moral transfixes us. Many an irksome noise, go a long way off,\r\nis heard as music, a proud, sweet satire on the meanness of our lives.\r\n\r\nWe are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our\r\nhigher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be\r\nwholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy\r\nour bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its\r\nnature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we\r\nmay be well, yet not pure. The other day I picked up the lower jaw of\r\na hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, which suggested that\r\nthere was an animal health and vigor distinct from the spiritual. This\r\ncreature succeeded by other means than temperance and purity. \"That\r\nin which men differ from brute beasts,\" says Mencius, \"is a thing very\r\ninconsiderable; the common herd lose it very soon; superior men preserve\r\nit carefully.\" Who knows what sort of life would result if we had\r\nattained to purity? If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity I\r\nwould go to seek him forthwith. \"A command over our passions, and over\r\nthe external senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by the Ved\r\nto be indispensable in the mind's approximation to God.\" Yet the spirit\r\ncan for the time pervade and control every member and function of the\r\nbody, and transmute what in form is the grossest sensuality into\r\npurity and devotion. The generative energy, which, when we are loose,\r\ndissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates\r\nand inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called\r\nGenius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which\r\nsucceed it. Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is\r\nopen. By turns our purity inspires and our impurity casts us down. He is\r\nblessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day,\r\nand the divine being established. Perhaps there is none but has cause\r\nfor shame on account of the inferior and brutish nature to which he\r\nis allied. I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and\r\nsatyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and\r\nthat, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.--\r\n\r\n            \"How happy's he who hath due place assigned\r\n             To his beasts and disafforested his mind!\r\n                          . . . . . . .\r\n             Can use this horse, goat, wolf, and ev'ry beast,\r\n             And is not ass himself to all the rest!\r\n             Else man not only is the herd of swine,\r\n             But he's those devils too which did incline\r\n             Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse.\"\r\n\r\nAll sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; all purity is one. It\r\nis the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually.\r\nThey are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one\r\nof these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can\r\nneither stand nor sit with purity. When the reptile is attacked at\r\none mouth of his burrow, he shows himself at another. If you would be\r\nchaste, you must be temperate. What is chastity? How shall a man know if\r\nhe is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but\r\nwe know not what it is. We speak conformably to the rumor which we have\r\nheard. From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and\r\nsensuality. In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. An\r\nunclean person is universally a slothful one, one who sits by a stove,\r\nwhom the sun shines on prostrate, who reposes without being fatigued. If\r\nyou would avoid uncleanness, and all the sins, work earnestly, though it\r\nbe at cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be\r\novercome. What avails it that you are Christian, if you are not purer\r\nthan the heathen, if you deny yourself no more, if you are not more\r\nreligious? I know of many systems of religion esteemed heathenish whose\r\nprecepts fill the reader with shame, and provoke him to new endeavors,\r\nthough it be to the performance of rites merely.\r\n\r\nI hesitate to say these things, but it is not because of the subject--I\r\ncare not how obscene my _words_ are--but because I cannot speak of them\r\nwithout betraying my impurity. We discourse freely without shame of one\r\nform of sensuality, and are silent about another. We are so degraded\r\nthat we cannot speak simply of the necessary functions of human nature.\r\nIn earlier ages, in some countries, every function was reverently\r\nspoken of and regulated by law. Nothing was too trivial for the Hindoo\r\nlawgiver, however offensive it may be to modern taste. He teaches how to\r\neat, drink, cohabit, void excrement and urine, and the like, elevating\r\nwhat is mean, and does not falsely excuse himself by calling these\r\nthings trifles.\r\n\r\nEvery man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he\r\nworships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering\r\nmarble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material\r\nis our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to\r\nrefine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.\r\n\r\nJohn Farmer sat at his door one September evening, after a hard day's\r\nwork, his mind still running on his labor more or less. Having bathed,\r\nhe sat down to re-create his intellectual man. It was a rather cool\r\nevening, and some of his neighbors were apprehending a frost. He had\r\nnot attended to the train of his thoughts long when he heard some one\r\nplaying on a flute, and that sound harmonized with his mood. Still he\r\nthought of his work; but the burden of his thought was, that though this\r\nkept running in his head, and he found himself planning and contriving\r\nit against his will, yet it concerned him very little. It was no more\r\nthan the scurf of his skin, which was constantly shuffled off. But the\r\nnotes of the flute came home to his ears out of a different sphere\r\nfrom that he worked in, and suggested work for certain faculties which\r\nslumbered in him. They gently did away with the street, and the village,\r\nand the state in which he lived. A voice said to him--Why do you stay\r\nhere and live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is\r\npossible for you? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than\r\nthese.--But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate\r\nthither? All that he could think of was to practise some new austerity,\r\nto let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treat himself\r\nwith ever increasing respect.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBrute Neighbors\r\n\r\n\r\nSometimes I had a companion in my fishing, who came through the village\r\nto my house from the other side of the town, and the catching of the\r\ndinner was as much a social exercise as the eating of it.\r\n\r\n_Hermit._ I wonder what the world is doing now. I have not heard so much\r\nas a locust over the sweet-fern these three hours. The pigeons are all\r\nasleep upon their roosts--no flutter from them. Was that a farmer's noon\r\nhorn which sounded from beyond the woods just now? The hands are coming\r\nin to boiled salt beef and cider and Indian bread. Why will men worry\r\nthemselves so? He that does not eat need not work. I wonder how much\r\nthey have reaped. Who would live there where a body can never think\r\nfor the barking of Bose? And oh, the housekeeping! to keep bright the\r\ndevil's door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! Better not\r\nkeep a house. Say, some hollow tree; and then for morning calls and\r\ndinner-parties! Only a woodpecker tapping. Oh, they swarm; the sun is\r\ntoo warm there; they are born too far into life for me. I have water\r\nfrom the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf.--Hark! I hear a\r\nrustling of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound yielding to\r\nthe instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is said to be in these\r\nwoods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs\r\nand sweetbriers tremble.--Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like the\r\nworld to-day?\r\n\r\n_Poet._ See those clouds; how they hang! That's the greatest thing I have\r\nseen to-day. There's nothing like it in old paintings, nothing like it\r\nin foreign lands--unless when we were off the coast of Spain. That's a\r\ntrue Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I have my living to get, and have\r\nnot eaten to-day, that I might go a-fishing. That's the true industry\r\nfor poets. It is the only trade I have learned. Come, let's along.\r\n\r\n_Hermit._ I cannot resist. My brown bread will soon be gone. I will go\r\nwith you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I\r\nthink that I am near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while.\r\nBut that we may not be delayed, you shall be digging the bait meanwhile.\r\nAngleworms are rarely to be met with in these parts, where the soil was\r\nnever fattened with manure; the race is nearly extinct. The sport of\r\ndigging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when\r\none's appetite is not too keen; and this you may have all to yourself\r\ntoday. I would advise you to set in the spade down yonder among the\r\nground-nuts, where you see the johnswort waving. I think that I may\r\nwarrant you one worm to every three sods you turn up, if you look well\r\nin among the roots of the grass, as if you were weeding. Or, if you\r\nchoose to go farther, it will not be unwise, for I have found the\r\nincrease of fair bait to be very nearly as the squares of the distances.\r\n\r\n_Hermit alone._ Let me see; where was I? Methinks I was nearly in this\r\nframe of mind; the world lay about at this angle. Shall I go to heaven\r\nor a-fishing? If I should soon bring this meditation to an end, would\r\nanother so sweet occasion be likely to offer? I was as near being\r\nresolved into the essence of things as ever I was in my life. I fear\r\nmy thoughts will not come back to me. If it would do any good, I would\r\nwhistle for them. When they make us an offer, is it wise to say, We will\r\nthink of it? My thoughts have left no track, and I cannot find the path\r\nagain. What was it that I was thinking of? It was a very hazy day. I\r\nwill just try these three sentences of Confut-see; they may fetch that\r\nstate about again. I know not whether it was the dumps or a budding\r\necstasy. Mem. There never is but one opportunity of a kind.\r\n\r\n_Poet._ How now, Hermit, is it too soon? I have got just thirteen whole\r\nones, beside several which are imperfect or undersized; but they will\r\ndo for the smaller fry; they do not cover up the hook so much. Those\r\nvillage worms are quite too large; a shiner may make a meal off one\r\nwithout finding the skewer.\r\n\r\n_Hermit._ Well, then, let's be off. Shall we to the Concord? There's good\r\nsport there if the water be not too high.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nWhy do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has\r\nman just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but\r\na mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay &amp; Co. have\r\nput animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a\r\nsense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.\r\n\r\nThe mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said\r\nto have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind not\r\nfound in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and\r\nit interested him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest\r\nunderneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept\r\nout the shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the\r\ncrumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before; and it soon\r\nbecame quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes.\r\nIt could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a\r\nsquirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, as I leaned\r\nwith my elbow on the bench one day, it ran up my clothes, and along my\r\nsleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept\r\nthe latter close, and dodged and played at bopeep with it; and when at\r\nlast I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and finger, it came\r\nand nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and afterward cleaned its face and\r\npaws, like a fly, and walked away.\r\n\r\nA ph\u0153be soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine\r\nwhich grew against the house. In June the partridge (_Tetrao umbellus_),\r\nwhich is so shy a bird, led her brood past my windows, from the woods in\r\nthe rear to the front of my house, clucking and calling to them like a\r\nhen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. The\r\nyoung suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother,\r\nas if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the\r\ndried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the\r\nmidst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off,\r\nand her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract\r\nhis attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will\r\nsometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you\r\ncannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young\r\nsquat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind\r\nonly their mother's directions given from a distance, nor will your\r\napproach make them run again and betray themselves. You may even tread\r\non them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering\r\nthem. I have held them in my open hand at such a time, and still their\r\nonly care, obedient to their mother and their instinct, was to squat\r\nthere without fear or trembling. So perfect is this instinct, that once,\r\nwhen I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on\r\nits side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten\r\nminutes afterward. They are not callow like the young of most birds,\r\nbut more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. The\r\nremarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene\r\neyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They\r\nsuggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by\r\nexperience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval\r\nwith the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem. The\r\ntraveller does not often look into such a limpid well. The ignorant or\r\nreckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a time, and leaves\r\nthese innocents to fall a prey to some prowling beast or bird, or\r\ngradually mingle with the decaying leaves which they so much resemble.\r\nIt is said that when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse on\r\nsome alarm, and so are lost, for they never hear the mother's call which\r\ngathers them again. These were my hens and chickens.\r\n\r\nIt is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free though secret in\r\nthe woods, and still sustain themselves in the neighborhood of towns,\r\nsuspected by hunters only. How retired the otter manages to live here!\r\nHe grows to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without\r\nany human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in\r\nthe woods behind where my house is built, and probably still heard their\r\nwhinnering at night. Commonly I rested an hour or two in the shade at\r\nnoon, after planting, and ate my lunch, and read a little by a spring\r\nwhich was the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing from under\r\nBrister's Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this was\r\nthrough a succession of descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch\r\npines, into a larger wood about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and\r\nshaded spot, under a spreading white pine, there was yet a clean, firm\r\nsward to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray\r\nwater, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I\r\nwent for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was\r\nwarmest. Thither, too, the woodcock led her brood, to probe the mud for\r\nworms, flying but a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in\r\na troop beneath; but at last, spying me, she would leave her young and\r\ncircle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five\r\nfeet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my attention, and get\r\noff her young, who would already have taken up their march, with faint,\r\nwiry peep, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard\r\nthe peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird. There too\r\nthe turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough\r\nof the soft white pines over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing down\r\nthe nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive. You only\r\nneed sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all\r\nits inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.\r\n\r\nI was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I\r\nwent out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two\r\nlarge ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch\r\nlong, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got\r\nhold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the\r\nchips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the\r\nchips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a _duellum_, but\r\na _bellum_, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against\r\nthe black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of\r\nthese Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the\r\nground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and\r\nblack. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only\r\nbattle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war;\r\nthe red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the\r\nother. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any\r\nnoise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely.\r\nI watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in\r\na little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight\r\ntill the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had\r\nfastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all\r\nthe tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one\r\nof his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by\r\nthe board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side,\r\nand, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of\r\nhis members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither\r\nmanifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their\r\nbattle-cry was \"Conquer or die.\" In the meanwhile there came along\r\na single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of\r\nexcitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part\r\nin the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs;\r\nwhose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or\r\nperchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and\r\nhad now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal\r\ncombat from afar--for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the\r\nred--he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half\r\nan inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang\r\nupon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of\r\nhis right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and\r\nso there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had\r\nbeen invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should\r\nnot have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective\r\nmusical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national\r\nairs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was\r\nmyself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think\r\nof it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight\r\nrecorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America,\r\nthat will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers\r\nengaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers\r\nand for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two\r\nkilled on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here\r\nevery ant was a Buttrick--\"Fire! for God's sake fire!\"--and thousands\r\nshared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there.\r\nI have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as\r\nour ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the\r\nresults of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom\r\nit concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.\r\n\r\nI took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were\r\nstruggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on\r\nmy window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the\r\nfirst-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing\r\nat the near fore leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler,\r\nhis own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there\r\nto the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too\r\nthick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes\r\nshone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half\r\nan hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black\r\nsoldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the\r\nstill living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly\r\ntrophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever,\r\nand he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and\r\nwith only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds,\r\nto divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he\r\naccomplished. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill\r\nin that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and\r\nspent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do\r\nnot know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much\r\nthereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of\r\nthe war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings\r\nexcited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and\r\ncarnage, of a human battle before my door.\r\n\r\nKirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been\r\ncelebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber\r\nis the only modern author who appears to have witnessed them. \"\u00c6neas\r\nSylvius,\" say they, \"after giving a very circumstantial account of one\r\ncontested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk\r\nof a pear tree,\" adds that \"this action was fought in the pontificate\r\nof Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an\r\neminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the\r\ngreatest fidelity.\" A similar engagement between great and small ants is\r\nrecorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are\r\nsaid to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of\r\ntheir giant enemies a prey to the birds. This event happened previous\r\nto the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden. The\r\nbattle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five\r\nyears before the passage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill.\r\n\r\nMany a village Bose, fit only to course a mud-turtle in a victualling\r\ncellar, sported his heavy quarters in the woods, without the knowledge\r\nof his master, and ineffectually smelled at old fox burrows and\r\nwoodchucks' holes; led perchance by some slight cur which nimbly\r\nthreaded the wood, and might still inspire a natural terror in its\r\ndenizens;--now far behind his guide, barking like a canine bull toward\r\nsome small squirrel which had treed itself for scrutiny, then, cantering\r\noff, bending the bushes with his weight, imagining that he is on the\r\ntrack of some stray member of the jerbilla family. Once I was surprised\r\nto see a cat walking along the stony shore of the pond, for they rarely\r\nwander so far from home. The surprise was mutual. Nevertheless the most\r\ndomestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at\r\nhome in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself\r\nmore native there than the regular inhabitants. Once, when berrying,\r\nI met with a cat with young kittens in the woods, quite wild, and they\r\nall, like their mother, had their backs up and were fiercely spitting at\r\nme. A few years before I lived in the woods there was what was called a\r\n\"winged cat\" in one of the farm-houses in Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr.\r\nGilian Baker's. When I called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone\r\na-hunting in the woods, as was her wont (I am not sure whether it was\r\na male or female, and so use the more common pronoun), but her mistress\r\ntold me that she came into the neighborhood a little more than a year\r\nbefore, in April, and was finally taken into their house; that she was\r\nof a dark brownish-gray color, with a white spot on her throat, and\r\nwhite feet, and had a large bushy tail like a fox; that in the winter\r\nthe fur grew thick and flatted out along her sides, forming stripes ten\r\nor twelve inches long by two and a half wide, and under her chin like\r\na muff, the upper side loose, the under matted like felt, and in the\r\nspring these appendages dropped off. They gave me a pair of her \"wings,\"\r\nwhich I keep still. There is no appearance of a membrane about them.\r\nSome thought it was part flying squirrel or some other wild animal,\r\nwhich is not impossible, for, according to naturalists, prolific hybrids\r\nhave been produced by the union of the marten and domestic cat. This\r\nwould have been the right kind of cat for me to keep, if I had kept any;\r\nfor why should not a poet's cat be winged as well as his horse?\r\n\r\nIn the fall the loon (_Colymbus glacialis_) came, as usual, to moult and\r\nbathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his wild laughter before I\r\nhad risen. At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen are on the\r\nalert, in gigs and on foot, two by two and three by three, with patent\r\nrifles and conical balls and spy-glasses. They come rustling through\r\nthe woods like autumn leaves, at least ten men to one loon. Some station\r\nthemselves on this side of the pond, some on that, for the poor bird\r\ncannot be omnipresent; if he dive here he must come up there. But\r\nnow the kind October wind rises, rustling the leaves and rippling the\r\nsurface of the water, so that no loon can be heard or seen, though his\r\nfoes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, and make the woods resound with\r\ntheir discharges. The waves generously rise and dash angrily, taking\r\nsides with all water-fowl, and our sportsmen must beat a retreat to town\r\nand shop and unfinished jobs. But they were too often successful. When\r\nI went to get a pail of water early in the morning I frequently saw this\r\nstately bird sailing out of my cove within a few rods. If I endeavored\r\nto overtake him in a boat, in order to see how he would manoeuvre, he\r\nwould dive and be completely lost, so that I did not discover him again,\r\nsometimes, till the latter part of the day. But I was more than a match\r\nfor him on the surface. He commonly went off in a rain.\r\n\r\nAs I was paddling along the north shore one very calm October afternoon,\r\nfor such days especially they settle on to the lakes, like the milkweed\r\ndown, having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one,\r\nsailing out from the shore toward the middle a few rods in front of me,\r\nset up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and\r\nhe dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again,\r\nbut I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods\r\napart when he came to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen\r\nthe interval; and again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason\r\nthan before. He manoeuvred so cunningly that I could not get within half\r\na dozen rods of him. Each time, when he came to the surface, turning his\r\nhead this way and that, he cooly surveyed the water and the land, and\r\napparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the\r\nwidest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from the boat. It\r\nwas surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into\r\nexecution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could\r\nnot be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain,\r\nI was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game,\r\nplayed on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly\r\nyour adversary's checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem\r\nis to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he\r\nwould come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having\r\napparently passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he and so\r\nunweariable, that when he had swum farthest he would immediately plunge\r\nagain, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep\r\npond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a\r\nfish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in\r\nits deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New York\r\nlakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout--though\r\nWalden is deeper than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see\r\nthis ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their\r\nschools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on\r\nthe surface, and swam much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple\r\nwhere he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre,\r\nand instantly dived again. I found that it was as well for me to rest\r\non my oars and wait his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he\r\nwould rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the\r\nsurface one way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh\r\nbehind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably\r\nbetray himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his\r\nwhite breast enough betray him? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I\r\ncould commonly hear the splash of the water when he came up, and so also\r\ndetected him. But after an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as\r\nwillingly, and swam yet farther than at first. It was surprising to see\r\nhow serenely he sailed off with unruffled breast when he came to the\r\nsurface, doing all the work with his webbed feet beneath. His usual note\r\nwas this demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that of a water-fowl; but\r\noccasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long\r\nway off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that\r\nof a wolf than any bird; as when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground\r\nand deliberately howls. This was his looning--perhaps the wildest sound\r\nthat is ever heard here, making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded\r\nthat he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own\r\nresources. Though the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so\r\nsmooth that I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear\r\nhim. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of\r\nthe water were all against him. At length having come up fifty rods off,\r\nhe uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of\r\nloons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and\r\nrippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was\r\nimpressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was\r\nangry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous\r\nsurface.\r\n\r\nFor hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and\r\nhold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they\r\nwill have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous. When compelled to\r\nrise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a\r\nconsiderable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds\r\nand the river, like black motes in the sky; and, when I thought they had\r\ngone off thither long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight\r\nof a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which was left free; but\r\nwhat beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not\r\nknow, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nHouse-Warming\r\n\r\n\r\nIn October I went a-graping to the river meadows, and loaded myself with\r\nclusters more precious for their beauty and fragrance than for food.\r\nThere, too, I admired, though I did not gather, the cranberries, small\r\nwaxen gems, pendants of the meadow grass, pearly and red, which the\r\nfarmer plucks with an ugly rake, leaving the smooth meadow in a snarl,\r\nheedlessly measuring them by the bushel and the dollar only, and sells\r\nthe spoils of the meads to Boston and New York; destined to be _jammed_,\r\nto satisfy the tastes of lovers of Nature there. So butchers rake the\r\ntongues of bison out of the prairie grass, regardless of the torn and\r\ndrooping plant. The barberry's brilliant fruit was likewise food for my\r\neyes merely; but I collected a small store of wild apples for coddling,\r\nwhich the proprietor and travellers had overlooked. When chestnuts were\r\nripe I laid up half a bushel for winter. It was very exciting at that\r\nseason to roam the then boundless chestnut woods of Lincoln--they now\r\nsleep their long sleep under the railroad--with a bag on my shoulder,\r\nand a stick to open burs with in my hand, for I did not always wait for\r\nthe frost, amid the rustling of leaves and the loud reproofs of the red\r\nsquirrels and the jays, whose half-consumed nuts I sometimes stole,\r\nfor the burs which they had selected were sure to contain sound ones.\r\nOccasionally I climbed and shook the trees. They grew also behind my\r\nhouse, and one large tree, which almost overshadowed it, was, when\r\nin flower, a bouquet which scented the whole neighborhood, but the\r\nsquirrels and the jays got most of its fruit; the last coming in flocks\r\nearly in the morning and picking the nuts out of the burs before they\r\nfell, I relinquished these trees to them and visited the more distant\r\nwoods composed wholly of chestnut. These nuts, as far as they went, were\r\na good substitute for bread. Many other substitutes might, perhaps, be\r\nfound. Digging one day for fishworms, I discovered the ground-nut\r\n(_Apios tuberosa_) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of\r\nfabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten\r\nin childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it. I had often since\r\nseen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other\r\nplants without knowing it to be the same. Cultivation has well-nigh\r\nexterminated it. It has a sweetish taste, much like that of a\r\nfrost-bitten potato, and I found it better boiled than roasted. This\r\ntuber seemed like a faint promise of Nature to rear her own children\r\nand feed them simply here at some future period. In these days of fatted\r\ncattle and waving grain-fields this humble root, which was once the\r\n_totem_ of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, or known only by its\r\nflowering vine; but let wild Nature reign here once more, and the tender\r\nand luxurious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of\r\nfoes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even the\r\nlast seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian's God in the\r\nsouthwest, whence he is said to have brought it; but the now almost\r\nexterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of\r\nfrosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient\r\nimportance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe. Some Indian\r\nCeres or Minerva must have been the inventor and bestower of it; and\r\nwhen the reign of poetry commences here, its leaves and string of nuts\r\nmay be represented on our works of art.\r\n\r\nAlready, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maples\r\nturned scarlet across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three\r\naspens diverged, at the point of a promontory, next the water. Ah, many\r\na tale their color told! And gradually from week to week the character\r\nof each tree came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth\r\nmirror of the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery substituted\r\nsome new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious\r\ncoloring, for the old upon the walls.\r\n\r\nThe wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October, as to winter\r\nquarters, and settled on my windows within and on the walls overhead,\r\nsometimes deterring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they were\r\nnumbed with cold, I swept some of them out, but I did not trouble myself\r\nmuch to get rid of them; I even felt complimented by their regarding my\r\nhouse as a desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, though\r\nthey bedded with me; and they gradually disappeared, into what crevices\r\nI do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold.\r\n\r\nLike the wasps, before I finally went into winter quarters in November,\r\nI used to resort to the northeast side of Walden, which the sun,\r\nreflected from the pitch pine woods and the stony shore, made the\r\nfireside of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be\r\nwarmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus\r\nwarmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a\r\ndeparted hunter, had left.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nWhen I came to build my chimney I studied masonry. My bricks, being\r\nsecond-hand ones, required to be cleaned with a trowel, so that I\r\nlearned more than usual of the qualities of bricks and trowels. The\r\nmortar on them was fifty years old, and was said to be still growing\r\nharder; but this is one of those sayings which men love to repeat\r\nwhether they are true or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and\r\nadhere more firmly with age, and it would take many blows with a trowel\r\nto clean an old wiseacre of them. Many of the villages of Mesopotamia\r\nare built of second-hand bricks of a very good quality, obtained from\r\nthe ruins of Babylon, and the cement on them is older and probably\r\nharder still. However that may be, I was struck by the peculiar\r\ntoughness of the steel which bore so many violent blows without being\r\nworn out. As my bricks had been in a chimney before, though I did not\r\nread the name of Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out as many fireplace\r\nbricks as I could find, to save work and waste, and I filled the spaces\r\nbetween the bricks about the fireplace with stones from the pond shore,\r\nand also made my mortar with the white sand from the same place. I\r\nlingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house.\r\nIndeed, I worked so deliberately, that though I commenced at the ground\r\nin the morning, a course of bricks raised a few inches above the floor\r\nserved for my pillow at night; yet I did not get a stiff neck for it\r\nthat I remember; my stiff neck is of older date. I took a poet to board\r\nfor a fortnight about those times, which caused me to be put to it for\r\nroom. He brought his own knife, though I had two, and we used to scour\r\nthem by thrusting them into the earth. He shared with me the labors\r\nof cooking. I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by\r\ndegrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated\r\nto endure a long time. The chimney is to some extent an independent\r\nstructure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the\r\nheavens; even after the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and\r\nits importance and independence are apparent. This was toward the end of\r\nsummer. It was now November.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe north wind had already begun to cool the pond, though it took many\r\nweeks of steady blowing to accomplish it, it is so deep. When I began to\r\nhave a fire at evening, before I plastered my house, the chimney carried\r\nsmoke particularly well, because of the numerous chinks between the\r\nboards. Yet I passed some cheerful evenings in that cool and airy\r\napartment, surrounded by the rough brown boards full of knots, and\r\nrafters with the bark on high overhead. My house never pleased my eye so\r\nmuch after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess that it\r\nwas more comfortable. Should not every apartment in which man dwells be\r\nlofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows\r\nmay play at evening about the rafters? These forms are more agreeable\r\nto the fancy and imagination than fresco paintings or other the most\r\nexpensive furniture. I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say,\r\nwhen I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter. I had got a couple\r\nof old fire-dogs to keep the wood from the hearth, and it did me good\r\nto see the soot form on the back of the chimney which I had built, and\r\nI poked the fire with more right and more satisfaction than usual. My\r\ndwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it\r\nseemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors.\r\nAll the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was\r\nkitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and whatever satisfaction\r\nparent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I\r\nenjoyed it all. Cato says, the master of a family (_patremfamilias_) must\r\nhave in his rustic villa \"cellam oleariam, vinariam, dolia multa, uti\r\nlubeat caritatem expectare, et rei, et virtuti, et gloriae erit,\" that\r\nis, \"an oil and wine cellar, many casks, so that it may be pleasant to\r\nexpect hard times; it will be for his advantage, and virtue, and glory.\"\r\nI had in my cellar a firkin of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with\r\nthe weevil in them, and on my shelf a little rice, a jug of molasses,\r\nand of rye and Indian meal a peck each.\r\n\r\nI sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a\r\ngolden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work,\r\nwhich shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial,\r\nprimitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and\r\npurlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head--useful to\r\nkeep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to\r\nreceive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate\r\nSaturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house,\r\nwherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where\r\nsome may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some\r\non settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft\r\non rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got\r\ninto when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over;\r\nwhere the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep,\r\nwithout further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach\r\nin a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and\r\nnothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the\r\nhouse at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should\r\nuse; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret;\r\nwhere you can see so necessary a thing, as a barrel or a ladder, so\r\nconvenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your\r\nrespects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes\r\nyour bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief\r\nornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the\r\nmistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the\r\ntrap-door, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn\r\nwhether the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without stamping. A\r\nhouse whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest, and you\r\ncannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some\r\nof its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the\r\nfreedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven\r\neighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself\r\nat home there--in solitary confinement. Nowadays the host does not\r\nadmit you to _his_ hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself\r\nsomewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of _keeping_ you at the\r\ngreatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he\r\nhad a design to poison you. I am aware that I have been on many a man's\r\npremises, and might have been legally ordered off, but I am not aware\r\nthat I have been in many men's houses. I might visit in my old clothes a\r\nking and queen who lived simply in such a house as I have described, if\r\nI were going their way; but backing out of a modern palace will be all\r\nthat I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in one.\r\n\r\nIt would seem as if the very language of our parlors would lose all\r\nits nerve and degenerate into _palaver_ wholly, our lives pass at\r\nsuch remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are\r\nnecessarily so far fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it were;\r\nin other words, the parlor is so far from the kitchen and workshop. The\r\ndinner even is only the parable of a dinner, commonly. As if only the\r\nsavage dwelt near enough to Nature and Truth to borrow a trope from\r\nthem. How can the scholar, who dwells away in the North West Territory\r\nor the Isle of Man, tell what is parliamentary in the kitchen?\r\n\r\nHowever, only one or two of my guests were ever bold enough to stay and\r\neat a hasty-pudding with me; but when they saw that crisis approaching\r\nthey beat a hasty retreat rather, as if it would shake the house to its\r\nfoundations. Nevertheless, it stood through a great many hasty-puddings.\r\n\r\nI did not plaster till it was freezing weather. I brought over some\r\nwhiter and cleaner sand for this purpose from the opposite shore of the\r\npond in a boat, a sort of conveyance which would have tempted me to go\r\nmuch farther if necessary. My house had in the meanwhile been shingled\r\ndown to the ground on every side. In lathing I was pleased to be able\r\nto send home each nail with a single blow of the hammer, and it was my\r\nambition to transfer the plaster from the board to the wall neatly and\r\nrapidly. I remembered the story of a conceited fellow, who, in fine\r\nclothes, was wont to lounge about the village once, giving advice to\r\nworkmen. Venturing one day to substitute deeds for words, he turned\r\nup his cuffs, seized a plasterer's board, and having loaded his trowel\r\nwithout mishap, with a complacent look toward the lathing overhead,\r\nmade a bold gesture thitherward; and straightway, to his complete\r\ndiscomfiture, received the whole contents in his ruffled bosom. I\r\nadmired anew the economy and convenience of plastering, which so\r\neffectually shuts out the cold and takes a handsome finish, and I\r\nlearned the various casualties to which the plasterer is liable. I was\r\nsurprised to see how thirsty the bricks were which drank up all the\r\nmoisture in my plaster before I had smoothed it, and how many pailfuls\r\nof water it takes to christen a new hearth. I had the previous winter\r\nmade a small quantity of lime by burning the shells of the _Unio\r\nfluviatilis_, which our river affords, for the sake of the experiment;\r\nso that I knew where my materials came from. I might have got good\r\nlimestone within a mile or two and burned it myself, if I had cared to\r\ndo so.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nThe pond had in the meanwhile skimmed over in the shadiest and\r\nshallowest coves, some days or even weeks before the general freezing.\r\nThe first ice is especially interesting and perfect, being hard, dark,\r\nand transparent, and affords the best opportunity that ever offers for\r\nexamining the bottom where it is shallow; for you can lie at your length\r\non ice only an inch thick, like a skater insect on the surface of the\r\nwater, and study the bottom at your leisure, only two or three inches\r\ndistant, like a picture behind a glass, and the water is necessarily\r\nalways smooth then. There are many furrows in the sand where some\r\ncreature has travelled about and doubled on its tracks; and, for wrecks,\r\nit is strewn with the cases of caddis-worms made of minute grains of\r\nwhite quartz. Perhaps these have creased it, for you find some of their\r\ncases in the furrows, though they are deep and broad for them to make.\r\nBut the ice itself is the object of most interest, though you must\r\nimprove the earliest opportunity to study it. If you examine it closely\r\nthe morning after it freezes, you find that the greater part of the\r\nbubbles, which at first appeared to be within it, are against its under\r\nsurface, and that more are continually rising from the bottom; while the\r\nice is as yet comparatively solid and dark, that is, you see the water\r\nthrough it. These bubbles are from an eightieth to an eighth of an inch\r\nin diameter, very clear and beautiful, and you see your face reflected\r\nin them through the ice. There may be thirty or forty of them to\r\na square inch. There are also already within the ice narrow oblong\r\nperpendicular bubbles about half an inch long, sharp cones with the apex\r\nupward; or oftener, if the ice is quite fresh, minute spherical bubbles\r\none directly above another, like a string of beads. But these within the\r\nice are not so numerous nor obvious as those beneath. I sometimes used\r\nto cast on stones to try the strength of the ice, and those which\r\nbroke through carried in air with them, which formed very large and\r\nconspicuous white bubbles beneath. One day when I came to the same place\r\nforty-eight hours afterward, I found that those large bubbles were\r\nstill perfect, though an inch more of ice had formed, as I could see\r\ndistinctly by the seam in the edge of a cake. But as the last two\r\ndays had been very warm, like an Indian summer, the ice was not now\r\ntransparent, showing the dark green color of the water, and the bottom,\r\nbut opaque and whitish or gray, and though twice as thick was hardly\r\nstronger than before, for the air bubbles had greatly expanded under\r\nthis heat and run together, and lost their regularity; they were no\r\nlonger one directly over another, but often like silvery coins poured\r\nfrom a bag, one overlapping another, or in thin flakes, as if occupying\r\nslight cleavages. The beauty of the ice was gone, and it was too late to\r\nstudy the bottom. Being curious to know what position my great bubbles\r\noccupied with regard to the new ice, I broke out a cake containing a\r\nmiddling sized one, and turned it bottom upward. The new ice had formed\r\naround and under the bubble, so that it was included between the two\r\nices. It was wholly in the lower ice, but close against the upper, and\r\nwas flattish, or perhaps slightly lenticular, with a rounded edge, a\r\nquarter of an inch deep by four inches in diameter; and I was surprised\r\nto find that directly under the bubble the ice was melted with great\r\nregularity in the form of a saucer reversed, to the height of five\r\neighths of an inch in the middle, leaving a thin partition there between\r\nthe water and the bubble, hardly an eighth of an inch thick; and in many\r\nplaces the small bubbles in this partition had burst out downward, and\r\nprobably there was no ice at all under the largest bubbles, which were a\r\nfoot in diameter. I inferred that the infinite number of minute bubbles\r\nwhich I had first seen against the under surface of the ice were now\r\nfrozen in likewise, and that each, in its degree, had operated like\r\na burning-glass on the ice beneath to melt and rot it. These are the\r\nlittle air-guns which contribute to make the ice crack and whoop.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAt length the winter set in good earnest, just as I had finished\r\nplastering, and the wind began to howl around the house as if it had\r\nnot had permission to do so till then. Night after night the geese came\r\nlumbering in the dark with a clangor and a whistling of wings, even\r\nafter the ground was covered with snow, some to alight in Walden, and\r\nsome flying low over the woods toward Fair Haven, bound for Mexico.\r\nSeveral times, when returning from the village at ten or eleven o'clock\r\nat night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or else ducks, on the\r\ndry leaves in the woods by a pond-hole behind my dwelling, where they\r\nhad come up to feed, and the faint honk or quack of their leader as they\r\nhurried off. In 1845 Walden froze entirely over for the first time on\r\nthe night of the 22d of December, Flint's and other shallower ponds and\r\nthe river having been frozen ten days or more; in '46, the 16th; in '49,\r\nabout the 31st; and in '50, about the 27th of December; in '52, the 5th\r\nof January; in '53, the 31st of December. The snow had already covered\r\nthe ground since the 25th of November, and surrounded me suddenly\r\nwith the scenery of winter. I withdrew yet farther into my shell, and\r\nendeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my\r\nbreast. My employment out of doors now was to collect the dead wood in\r\nthe forest, bringing it in my hands or on my shoulders, or sometimes\r\ntrailing a dead pine tree under each arm to my shed. An old forest fence\r\nwhich had seen its best days was a great haul for me. I sacrificed it\r\nto Vulcan, for it was past serving the god Terminus. How much more\r\ninteresting an event is that man's supper who has just been forth in the\r\nsnow to hunt, nay, you might say, steal, the fuel to cook it with! His\r\nbread and meat are sweet. There are enough fagots and waste wood of all\r\nkinds in the forests of most of our towns to support many fires, but\r\nwhich at present warm none, and, some think, hinder the growth of the\r\nyoung wood. There was also the driftwood of the pond. In the course of\r\nthe summer I had discovered a raft of pitch pine logs with the bark on,\r\npinned together by the Irish when the railroad was built. This I hauled\r\nup partly on the shore. After soaking two years and then lying high six\r\nmonths it was perfectly sound, though waterlogged past drying. I amused\r\nmyself one winter day with sliding this piecemeal across the pond,\r\nnearly half a mile, skating behind with one end of a log fifteen feet\r\nlong on my shoulder, and the other on the ice; or I tied several logs\r\ntogether with a birch withe, and then, with a longer birch or alder\r\nwhich had a hook at the end, dragged them across. Though completely\r\nwaterlogged and almost as heavy as lead, they not only burned long, but\r\nmade a very hot fire; nay, I thought that they burned better for the\r\nsoaking, as if the pitch, being confined by the water, burned longer, as\r\nin a lamp.\r\n\r\nGilpin, in his account of the forest borderers of England, says that\r\n\"the encroachments of trespassers, and the houses and fences thus raised\r\non the borders of the forest,\" were \"considered as great nuisances\r\nby the old forest law, and were severely punished under the name of\r\n_purprestures_, as tending _ad terrorem ferarum--ad nocumentum forestae_,\r\netc.,\" to the frightening of the game and the detriment of the forest.\r\nBut I was interested in the preservation of the venison and the vert\r\nmore than the hunters or woodchoppers, and as much as though I had been\r\nthe Lord Warden himself; and if any part was burned, though I burned it\r\nmyself by accident, I grieved with a grief that lasted longer and was\r\nmore inconsolable than that of the proprietors; nay, I grieved when it\r\nwas cut down by the proprietors themselves. I would that our farmers\r\nwhen they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans\r\ndid when they came to thin, or let in the light to, a consecrated grove\r\n(_lucum conlucare_), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some\r\ngod. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed, Whatever god or\r\ngoddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my\r\nfamily, and children, etc.\r\n\r\nIt is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age\r\nand in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that\r\nof gold. After all our discoveries and inventions no man will go by a\r\npile of wood. It is as precious to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman\r\nancestors. If they made their bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it.\r\nMichaux, more than thirty years ago, says that the price of wood for\r\nfuel in New York and Philadelphia \"nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds,\r\nthat of the best wood in Paris, though this immense capital annually\r\nrequires more than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded to\r\nthe distance of three hundred miles by cultivated plains.\" In this town\r\nthe price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how\r\nmuch higher it is to be this year than it was the last. Mechanics and\r\ntradesmen who come in person to the forest on no other errand, are sure\r\nto attend the wood auction, and even pay a high price for the privilege\r\nof gleaning after the woodchopper. It is now many years that men have\r\nresorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New\r\nEnglander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer\r\nand Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world\r\nthe prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require\r\nstill a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food.\r\nNeither could I do without them.\r\n\r\nEvery man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection. I love to\r\nhave mine before my window, and the more chips the better to remind me\r\nof my pleasing work. I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which\r\nby spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about\r\nthe stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied\r\nwhen I was plowing, they warmed me twice--once while I was splitting\r\nthem, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could\r\ngive out more heat. As for the axe, I was advised to get the village\r\nblacksmith to \"jump\" it; but I jumped him, and, putting a hickory helve\r\nfrom the woods into it, made it do. If it was dull, it was at least hung\r\ntrue.\r\n\r\nA few pieces of fat pine were a great treasure. It is interesting to\r\nremember how much of this food for fire is still concealed in the bowels\r\nof the earth. In previous years I had often gone prospecting over some\r\nbare hillside, where a pitch pine wood had formerly stood, and got out\r\nthe fat pine roots. They are almost indestructible. Stumps thirty or\r\nforty years old, at least, will still be sound at the core, though the\r\nsapwood has all become vegetable mould, as appears by the scales of\r\nthe thick bark forming a ring level with the earth four or five inches\r\ndistant from the heart. With axe and shovel you explore this mine, and\r\nfollow the marrowy store, yellow as beef tallow, or as if you had struck\r\non a vein of gold, deep into the earth. But commonly I kindled my fire\r\nwith the dry leaves of the forest, which I had stored up in my shed\r\nbefore the snow came. Green hickory finely split makes the woodchopper's\r\nkindlings, when he has a camp in the woods. Once in a while I got a\r\nlittle of this. When the villagers were lighting their fires beyond the\r\nhorizon, I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden\r\nvale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake.--\r\n\r\n           Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,\r\n           Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,\r\n           Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,\r\n           Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;\r\n           Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form\r\n           Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;\r\n           By night star-veiling, and by day\r\n           Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;\r\n           Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,\r\n           And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.\r\n\r\nHard green wood just cut, though I used but little of that, answered my\r\npurpose better than any other. I sometimes left a good fire when I went\r\nto take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four\r\nhours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not\r\nempty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper\r\nbehind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper\r\nproved trustworthy. One day, however, as I was splitting wood, I thought\r\nthat I would just look in at the window and see if the house was not on\r\nfire; it was the only time I remember to have been particularly anxious\r\non this score; so I looked and saw that a spark had caught my bed, and\r\nI went in and extinguished it when it had burned a place as big as my\r\nhand. But my house occupied so sunny and sheltered a position, and\r\nits roof was so low, that I could afford to let the fire go out in the\r\nmiddle of almost any winter day.\r\n\r\nThe moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, and making\r\na snug bed even there of some hair left after plastering and of brown\r\npaper; for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as\r\nman, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to\r\nsecure them. Some of my friends spoke as if I was coming to the woods on\r\npurpose to freeze myself. The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms\r\nwith his body, in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire,\r\nboxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of\r\nrobbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested\r\nof more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of\r\nwinter, and by means of windows even admit the light, and with a lamp\r\nlengthen out the day. Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and\r\nsaves a little time for the fine arts. Though, when I had been exposed\r\nto the rudest blasts a long time, my whole body began to grow torpid,\r\nwhen I reached the genial atmosphere of my house I soon recovered my\r\nfaculties and prolonged my life. But the most luxuriously housed has\r\nlittle to boast of in this respect, nor need we trouble ourselves to\r\nspeculate how the human race may be at last destroyed. It would be\r\neasy to cut their threads any time with a little sharper blast from the\r\nnorth. We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a little\r\ncolder Friday, or greater snow would put a period to man's existence on\r\nthe globe.\r\n\r\nThe next winter I used a small cooking-stove for economy, since I\r\ndid not own the forest; but it did not keep fire so well as the open\r\nfireplace. Cooking was then, for the most part, no longer a poetic, but\r\nmerely a chemic process. It will soon be forgotten, in these days of\r\nstoves, that we used to roast potatoes in the ashes, after the Indian\r\nfashion. The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it\r\nconcealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can\r\nalways see a face in the fire. The laborer, looking into it at evening,\r\npurifies his thoughts of the dross and earthiness which they have\r\naccumulated during the day. But I could no longer sit and look into\r\nthe fire, and the pertinent words of a poet recurred to me with new\r\nforce.--\r\n\r\n     \"Never, bright flame, may be denied to me\r\n      Thy dear, life imaging, close sympathy.\r\n      What but my hopes shot upward e'er so bright?\r\n      What but my fortunes sunk so low in night?\r\n      Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall,\r\n      Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all?\r\n      Was thy existence then too fanciful\r\n      For our life's common light, who are so dull?\r\n      Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold\r\n      With our congenial souls? secrets too bold?\r\n\r\n      Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit\r\n      Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit,\r\n      Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire\r\n      Warms feet and hands--nor does to more aspire;\r\n      By whose compact utilitarian heap\r\n      The present may sit down and go to sleep,\r\n      Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked,\r\n      And with us by the unequal light of the old wood fire talked.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFormer Inhabitants and Winter Visitors\r\n\r\n\r\nI weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheerful winter\r\nevenings by my fireside, while the snow whirled wildly without, and even\r\nthe hooting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks I met no one in my\r\nwalks but those who came occasionally to cut wood and sled it to the\r\nvillage. The elements, however, abetted me in making a path through the\r\ndeepest snow in the woods, for when I had once gone through the wind\r\nblew the oak leaves into my tracks, where they lodged, and by absorbing\r\nthe rays of the sun melted the snow, and so not only made a my bed\r\nfor my feet, but in the night their dark line was my guide. For human\r\nsociety I was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these woods.\r\nWithin the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house\r\nstands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods\r\nwhich border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little\r\ngardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the\r\nforest than now. In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines\r\nwould scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children who\r\nwere compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on foot did it with\r\nfear, and often ran a good part of the distance. Though mainly but a\r\nhumble route to neighboring villages, or for the woodman's team, it once\r\namused the traveller more than now by its variety, and lingered longer\r\nin his memory. Where now firm open fields stretch from the village to\r\nthe woods, it then ran through a maple swamp on a foundation of logs,\r\nthe remnants of which, doubtless, still underlie the present dusty\r\nhighway, from the Stratton, now the Alms-House Farm, to Brister's Hill.\r\n\r\nEast of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of\r\nDuncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, who built his\r\nslave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;--Cato,\r\nnot Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro.\r\nThere are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which\r\nhe let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and\r\nwhiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally\r\nnarrow house at present. Cato's half-obliterated cellar-hole still\r\nremains, though known to few, being concealed from the traveller by a\r\nfringe of pines. It is now filled with the smooth sumach (_Rhus glabra_),\r\nand one of the earliest species of goldenrod (_Solidago stricta_) grows\r\nthere luxuriantly.\r\n\r\nHere, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to town, Zilpha,\r\na colored woman, had her little house, where she spun linen for the\r\ntownsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill singing, for\r\nshe had a loud and notable voice. At length, in the war of 1812, her\r\ndwelling was set on fire by English soldiers, prisoners on parole, when\r\nshe was away, and her cat and dog and hens were all burned up together.\r\nShe led a hard life, and somewhat inhumane. One old frequenter of these\r\nwoods remembers, that as he passed her house one noon he heard her\r\nmuttering to herself over her gurgling pot--\"Ye are all bones, bones!\" I\r\nhave seen bricks amid the oak copse there.\r\n\r\nDown the road, on the right hand, on Brister's Hill, lived Brister\r\nFreeman, \"a handy Negro,\" slave of Squire Cummings once--there where\r\ngrow still the apple trees which Brister planted and tended; large old\r\ntrees now, but their fruit still wild and ciderish to my taste. Not long\r\nsince I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on\r\none side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell\r\nin the retreat from Concord--where he is styled \"Sippio Brister\"--Scipio\r\nAfricanus he had some title to be called--\"a man of color,\" as if he\r\nwere discolored. It also told me, with staring emphasis, when he died;\r\nwhich was but an indirect way of informing me that he ever lived.\r\nWith him dwelt Fenda, his hospitable wife, who told fortunes, yet\r\npleasantly--large, round, and black, blacker than any of the children of\r\nnight, such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since.\r\n\r\nFarther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in the woods, are\r\nmarks of some homestead of the Stratton family; whose orchard once\r\ncovered all the slope of Brister's Hill, but was long since killed out\r\nby pitch pines, excepting a few stumps, whose old roots furnish still\r\nthe wild stocks of many a thrifty village tree.\r\n\r\nNearer yet to town, you come to Breed's location, on the other side of\r\nthe way, just on the edge of the wood; ground famous for the pranks of\r\na demon not distinctly named in old mythology, who has acted a prominent\r\nand astounding part in our New England life, and deserves, as much as\r\nany mythological character, to have his biography written one day; who\r\nfirst comes in the guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs and\r\nmurders the whole family--New-England Rum. But history must not yet\r\ntell the tragedies enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to\r\nassuage and lend an azure tint to them. Here the most indistinct and\r\ndubious tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the same,\r\nwhich tempered the traveller's beverage and refreshed his steed. Here\r\nthen men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and went\r\ntheir ways again.\r\n\r\nBreed's hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long\r\nbeen unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by\r\nmischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on\r\nthe edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant's\r\n\"Gondibert,\" that winter that I labored with a lethargy--which, by the\r\nway, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having\r\nan uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout\r\npotatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the\r\nSabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers'\r\ncollection of English poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my\r\nNervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in\r\nhot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of\r\nmen and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook.\r\nWe thought it was far south over the woods--we who had run to fires\r\nbefore--barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. \"It's Baker's\r\nbarn,\" cried one. \"It is the Codman place,\" affirmed another. And then\r\nfresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all\r\nshouted \"Concord to the rescue!\" Wagons shot past with furious speed\r\nand crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the\r\nInsurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon\r\nthe engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure; and rearmost of all,\r\nas it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the\r\nalarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence\r\nof our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling and\r\nactually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized,\r\nalas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but cooled our\r\nardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded\r\nto let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood round\r\nour engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through\r\nspeaking-trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations\r\nwhich the world has witnessed, including Bascom's shop, and, between\r\nourselves, we thought that, were we there in season with our \"tub,\" and\r\na full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universal\r\none into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any\r\nmischief--returned to sleep and \"Gondibert.\" But as for \"Gondibert,\"\r\nI would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul's\r\npowder--\"but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to\r\npowder.\"\r\n\r\nIt chanced that I walked that way across the fields the following night,\r\nabout the same hour, and hearing a low moaning at this spot, I drew near\r\nin the dark, and discovered the only survivor of the family that I know,\r\nthe heir of both its virtues and its vices, who alone was interested in\r\nthis burning, lying on his stomach and looking over the cellar wall at\r\nthe still smouldering cinders beneath, muttering to himself, as is his\r\nwont. He had been working far off in the river meadows all day, and had\r\nimproved the first moments that he could call his own to visit the home\r\nof his fathers and his youth. He gazed into the cellar from all sides\r\nand points of view by turns, always lying down to it, as if there was\r\nsome treasure, which he remembered, concealed between the stones, where\r\nthere was absolutely nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes. The house\r\nbeing gone, he looked at what there was left. He was soothed by the\r\nsympathy which my mere presence implied, and showed me, as well as the\r\ndarkness permitted, where the well was covered up; which, thank Heaven,\r\ncould never be burned; and he groped long about the wall to find the\r\nwell-sweep which his father had cut and mounted, feeling for the iron\r\nhook or staple by which a burden had been fastened to the heavy end--all\r\nthat he could now cling to--to convince me that it was no common\r\n\"rider.\" I felt it, and still remark it almost daily in my walks, for by\r\nit hangs the history of a family.\r\n\r\nOnce more, on the left, where are seen the well and lilac bushes by the\r\nwall, in the now open field, lived Nutting and Le Grosse. But to return\r\ntoward Lincoln.\r\n\r\nFarther in the woods than any of these, where the road approaches\r\nnearest to the pond, Wyman the potter squatted, and furnished his\r\ntownsmen with earthenware, and left descendants to succeed him. Neither\r\nwere they rich in worldly goods, holding the land by sufferance while\r\nthey lived; and there often the sheriff came in vain to collect the\r\ntaxes, and \"attached a chip,\" for form's sake, as I have read in his\r\naccounts, there being nothing else that he could lay his hands on. One\r\nday in midsummer, when I was hoeing, a man who was carrying a load\r\nof pottery to market stopped his horse against my field and inquired\r\nconcerning Wyman the younger. He had long ago bought a potter's wheel\r\nof him, and wished to know what had become of him. I had read of the\r\npotter's clay and wheel in Scripture, but it had never occurred to me\r\nthat the pots we use were not such as had come down unbroken from those\r\ndays, or grown on trees like gourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear\r\nthat so fictile an art was ever practiced in my neighborhood.\r\n\r\nThe last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irishman, Hugh\r\nQuoil (if I have spelt his name with coil enough), who occupied Wyman's\r\ntenement--Col. Quoil, he was called. Rumor said that he had been a\r\nsoldier at Waterloo. If he had lived I should have made him fight his\r\nbattles over again. His trade here was that of a ditcher. Napoleon went\r\nto St. Helena; Quoil came to Walden Woods. All I know of him is tragic.\r\nHe was a man of manners, like one who had seen the world, and was\r\ncapable of more civil speech than you could well attend to. He wore a\r\ngreatcoat in midsummer, being affected with the trembling delirium, and\r\nhis face was the color of carmine. He died in the road at the foot of\r\nBrister's Hill shortly after I came to the woods, so that I have not\r\nremembered him as a neighbor. Before his house was pulled down, when his\r\ncomrades avoided it as \"an unlucky castle,\" I visited it. There lay his\r\nold clothes curled up by use, as if they were himself, upon his raised\r\nplank bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken\r\nat the fountain. The last could never have been the symbol of his death,\r\nfor he confessed to me that, though he had heard of Brister's Spring,\r\nhe had never seen it; and soiled cards, kings of diamonds, spades,\r\nand hearts, were scattered over the floor. One black chicken which the\r\nadministrator could not catch, black as night and as silent, not even\r\ncroaking, awaiting Reynard, still went to roost in the next apartment.\r\nIn the rear there was the dim outline of a garden, which had been\r\nplanted but had never received its first hoeing, owing to those terrible\r\nshaking fits, though it was now harvest time. It was overrun with Roman\r\nwormwood and beggar-ticks, which last stuck to my clothes for all fruit.\r\nThe skin of a woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the\r\nhouse, a trophy of his last Waterloo; but no warm cap or mittens would\r\nhe want more.\r\n\r\nNow only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings, with\r\nburied cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble-berries,\r\nhazel-bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny sward there; some\r\npitch pine or gnarled oak occupies what was the chimney nook, and a\r\nsweet-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where the door-stone was.\r\nSometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed; now dry\r\nand tearless grass; or it was covered deep--not to be discovered till\r\nsome late day--with a flat stone under the sod, when the last of the\r\nrace departed. What a sorrowful act must that be--the covering up of\r\nwells! coincident with the opening of wells of tears. These cellar\r\ndents, like deserted fox burrows, old holes, are all that is left where\r\nonce were the stir and bustle of human life, and \"fate, free will,\r\nforeknowledge absolute,\" in some form and dialect or other were by turns\r\ndiscussed. But all I can learn of their conclusions amounts to just\r\nthis, that \"Cato and Brister pulled wool\"; which is about as edifying as\r\nthe history of more famous schools of philosophy.\r\n\r\nStill grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel\r\nand the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring,\r\nto be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by\r\nchildren's hands, in front-yard plots--now standing by wallsides in\r\nretired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests;--the last of\r\nthat stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children\r\nthink that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the\r\nground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself\r\nso, and outlive them, and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and\r\ngrown man's garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone\r\nwanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died--blossoming as\r\nfair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still\r\ntender, civil, cheerful lilac colors.\r\n\r\nBut this small village, germ of something more, why did it fail while\r\nConcord keeps its ground? Were there no natural advantages--no water\r\nprivileges, forsooth? Ay, the deep Walden Pond and cool Brister's\r\nSpring--privilege to drink long and healthy draughts at these, all\r\nunimproved by these men but to dilute their glass. They were universally\r\na thirsty race. Might not the basket, stable-broom, mat-making,\r\ncorn-parching, linen-spinning, and pottery business have thrived here,\r\nmaking the wilderness to blossom like the rose, and a numerous posterity\r\nhave inherited the land of their fathers? The sterile soil would at\r\nleast have been proof against a low-land degeneracy. Alas! how little\r\ndoes the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the\r\nlandscape! Again, perhaps, Nature will try, with me for a first settler,\r\nand my house raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet.\r\n\r\nI am not aware that any man has ever built on the spot which I occupy.\r\nDeliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient city, whose\r\nmaterials are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is blanched and\r\naccursed there, and before that becomes necessary the earth itself will\r\nbe destroyed. With such reminiscences I repeopled the woods and lulled\r\nmyself asleep.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAt this season I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay deepest no\r\nwanderer ventured near my house for a week or fortnight at a time, but\r\nthere I lived as snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle and poultry which\r\nare said to have survived for a long time buried in drifts, even without\r\nfood; or like that early settler's family in the town of Sutton, in this\r\nState, whose cottage was completely covered by the great snow of 1717\r\nwhen he was absent, and an Indian found it only by the hole which the\r\nchimney's breath made in the drift, and so relieved the family. But\r\nno friendly Indian concerned himself about me; nor needed he, for the\r\nmaster of the house was at home. The Great Snow! How cheerful it is to\r\nhear of! When the farmers could not get to the woods and swamps with\r\ntheir teams, and were obliged to cut down the shade trees before their\r\nhouses, and, when the crust was harder, cut off the trees in the swamps,\r\nten feet from the ground, as it appeared the next spring.\r\n\r\nIn the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to\r\nmy house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a\r\nmeandering dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots. For a week\r\nof even weather I took exactly the same number of steps, and of the same\r\nlength, coming and going, stepping deliberately and with the precision\r\nof a pair of dividers in my own deep tracks--to such routine the winter\r\nreduces us--yet often they were filled with heaven's own blue. But no\r\nweather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for\r\nI frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to\r\nkeep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old\r\nacquaintance among the pines; when the ice and snow causing their limbs\r\nto droop, and so sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir\r\ntrees; wading to the tops of the highest hills when the show was nearly\r\ntwo feet deep on a level, and shaking down another snow-storm on my head\r\nat every step; or sometimes creeping and floundering thither on my hands\r\nand knees, when the hunters had gone into winter quarters. One afternoon\r\nI amused myself by watching a barred owl (_Strix nebulosa_) sitting on one\r\nof the lower dead limbs of a white pine, close to the trunk, in broad\r\ndaylight, I standing within a rod of him. He could hear me when I moved\r\nand cronched the snow with my feet, but could not plainly see me. When\r\nI made most noise he would stretch out his neck, and erect his neck\r\nfeathers, and open his eyes wide; but their lids soon fell again, and he\r\nbegan to nod. I too felt a slumberous influence after watching him half\r\nan hour, as he sat thus with his eyes half open, like a cat, winged\r\nbrother of the cat. There was only a narrow slit left between their\r\nlids, by which he preserved a peninsular relation to me; thus, with\r\nhalf-shut eyes, looking out from the land of dreams, and endeavoring\r\nto realize me, vague object or mote that interrupted his visions. At\r\nlength, on some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy\r\nand sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impatient at having his\r\ndreams disturbed; and when he launched himself off and flapped through\r\nthe pines, spreading his wings to unexpected breadth, I could not hear\r\nthe slightest sound from them. Thus, guided amid the pine boughs rather\r\nby a delicate sense of their neighborhood than by sight, feeling his\r\ntwilight way, as it were, with his sensitive pinions, he found a new\r\nperch, where he might in peace await the dawning of his day.\r\n\r\nAs I walked over the long causeway made for the railroad through the\r\nmeadows, I encountered many a blustering and nipping wind, for nowhere\r\nhas it freer play; and when the frost had smitten me on one cheek,\r\nheathen as I was, I turned to it the other also. Nor was it much better\r\nby the carriage road from Brister's Hill. For I came to town still, like\r\na friendly Indian, when the contents of the broad open fields were all\r\npiled up between the walls of the Walden road, and half an hour sufficed\r\nto obliterate the tracks of the last traveller. And when I returned new\r\ndrifts would have formed, through which I floundered, where the busy\r\nnorthwest wind had been depositing the powdery snow round a sharp angle\r\nin the road, and not a rabbit's track, nor even the fine print, the\r\nsmall type, of a meadow mouse was to be seen. Yet I rarely failed to\r\nfind, even in midwinter, some warm and springly swamp where the grass\r\nand the skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial verdure, and some\r\nhardier bird occasionally awaited the return of spring.\r\n\r\nSometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from my walk at\r\nevening I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper leading from my door,\r\nand found his pile of whittlings on the hearth, and my house filled with\r\nthe odor of his pipe. Or on a Sunday afternoon, if I chanced to be\r\nat home, I heard the cronching of the snow made by the step of a\r\nlong-headed farmer, who from far through the woods sought my house, to\r\nhave a social \"crack\"; one of the few of his vocation who are \"men on\r\ntheir farms\"; who donned a frock instead of a professor's gown, and is\r\nas ready to extract the moral out of church or state as to haul a load\r\nof manure from his barn-yard. We talked of rude and simple times, when\r\nmen sat about large fires in cold, bracing weather, with clear heads;\r\nand when other dessert failed, we tried our teeth on many a nut which\r\nwise squirrels have long since abandoned, for those which have the\r\nthickest shells are commonly empty.\r\n\r\nThe one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and\r\nmost dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a\r\nreporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a\r\npoet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings\r\nand goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors\r\nsleep. We made that small house ring with boisterous mirth and resound\r\nwith the murmur of much sober talk, making amends then to Walden vale\r\nfor the long silences. Broadway was still and deserted in comparison. At\r\nsuitable intervals there were regular salutes of laughter, which might\r\nhave been referred indifferently to the last-uttered or the forth-coming\r\njest. We made many a \"bran new\" theory of life over a thin dish\r\nof gruel, which combined the advantages of conviviality with the\r\nclear-headedness which philosophy requires.\r\n\r\nI should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was\r\nanother welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village,\r\nthrough snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the\r\ntrees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One of the last of\r\nthe philosophers--Connecticut gave him to the world--he peddled first\r\nher wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles\r\nstill, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain\r\nonly, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the\r\nmost faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better\r\nstate of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the\r\nlast man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in\r\nthe present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day\r\ncomes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of\r\nfamilies and rulers will come to him for advice.\r\n\r\n               \"How blind that cannot see serenity!\"\r\n\r\nA true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An Old\r\nMortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience and faith\r\nmaking plain the image engraven in men's bodies, the God of whom they\r\nare but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect\r\nhe embraces children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the\r\nthought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I\r\nthink that he should keep a caravansary on the world's highway, where\r\nphilosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be\r\nprinted, \"Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that\r\nhave leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.\" He is\r\nperhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance\r\nto know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and\r\ntalked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to\r\nno institution in it, freeborn, _ingenuus_. Whichever way we turned,\r\nit seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he\r\nenhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest\r\nroof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see\r\nhow he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.\r\n\r\nHaving each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled\r\nthem, trying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the\r\npumpkin pine. We waded so gently and reverently, or we pulled together\r\nso smoothly, that the fishes of thought were not scared from the stream,\r\nnor feared any angler on the bank, but came and went grandly, like the\r\nclouds which float through the western sky, and the mother-o'-pearl\r\nflocks which sometimes form and dissolve there. There we worked,\r\nrevising mythology, rounding a fable here and there, and building\r\ncastles in the air for which earth offered no worthy foundation. Great\r\nLooker! Great Expecter! to converse with whom was a New England Night's\r\nEntertainment. Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and\r\nthe old settler I have spoken of--we three--it expanded and racked my\r\nlittle house; I should not dare to say how many pounds' weight there\r\nwas above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its\r\nseams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop\r\nthe consequent leak;--but I had enough of that kind of oakum already\r\npicked.\r\n\r\nThere was one other with whom I had \"solid seasons,\" long to be\r\nremembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me from\r\ntime to time; but I had no more for society there.\r\n\r\nThere too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the Visitor who never\r\ncomes. The Vishnu Purana says, \"The house-holder is to remain at\r\neventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer\r\nif he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest.\" I often performed this\r\nduty of hospitality, waited long enough to milk a whole herd of cows,\r\nbut did not see the man approaching from the town.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWinter Animals\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded not only new and\r\nshorter routes to many points, but new views from their surfaces of the\r\nfamiliar landscape around them. When I crossed Flint's Pond, after it\r\nwas covered with snow, though I had often paddled about and skated over\r\nit, it was so unexpectedly wide and so strange that I could think of\r\nnothing but Baffin's Bay. The Lincoln hills rose up around me at the\r\nextremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not remember to have stood\r\nbefore; and the fishermen, at an indeterminable distance over the ice,\r\nmoving slowly about with their wolfish dogs, passed for sealers, or\r\nEsquimaux, or in misty weather loomed like fabulous creatures, and I did\r\nnot know whether they were giants or pygmies. I took this course when\r\nI went to lecture in Lincoln in the evening, travelling in no road and\r\npassing no house between my own hut and the lecture room. In Goose Pond,\r\nwhich lay in my way, a colony of muskrats dwelt, and raised their cabins\r\nhigh above the ice, though none could be seen abroad when I crossed it.\r\nWalden, being like the rest usually bare of snow, or with only shallow\r\nand interrupted drifts on it, was my yard where I could walk freely when\r\nthe snow was nearly two feet deep on a level elsewhere and the villagers\r\nwere confined to their streets. There, far from the village street, and\r\nexcept at very long intervals, from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid\r\nand skated, as in a vast moose-yard well trodden, overhung by oak woods\r\nand solemn pines bent down with snow or bristling with icicles.\r\n\r\nFor sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the\r\nforlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far; such\r\na sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable\r\nplectrum, the very _lingua vernacula_ of Walden Wood, and quite familiar\r\nto me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it. I\r\nseldom opened my door in a winter evening without hearing it; _Hoo hoo\r\nhoo, hoorer, hoo,_ sounded sonorously, and the first three syllables\r\naccented somewhat like _how der do_; or sometimes _hoo, hoo_ only. One\r\nnight in the beginning of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine\r\no'clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, and, stepping to\r\nthe door, heard the sound of their wings like a tempest in the woods\r\nas they flew low over my house. They passed over the pond toward Fair\r\nHaven, seemingly deterred from settling by my light, their commodore\r\nhonking all the while with a regular beat. Suddenly an unmistakable\r\ncat-owl from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice\r\nI ever heard from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular\r\nintervals to the goose, as if determined to expose and disgrace this\r\nintruder from Hudson's Bay by exhibiting a greater compass and volume of\r\nvoice in a native, and _boo-hoo_ him out of Concord horizon. What do you\r\nmean by alarming the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me? Do\r\nyou think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I have not\r\ngot lungs and a larynx as well as yourself? _Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo!_\r\nIt was one of the most thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, if you\r\nhad a discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a concord\r\nsuch as these plains never saw nor heard.\r\n\r\nI also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in\r\nthat part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain\r\nturn over, were troubled with flatulency and had dreams; or I was waked\r\nby the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a\r\nteam against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth\r\na quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.\r\n\r\nSometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow-crust, in\r\nmoonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking\r\nraggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some\r\nanxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs\r\noutright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our\r\naccount, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as\r\nwell as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still\r\nstanding on their defence, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one\r\ncame near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at\r\nme, and then retreated.\r\n\r\nUsually the red squirrel (_Sciurus Hudsonius_) waked me in the dawn,\r\ncoursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if\r\nsent out of the woods for this purpose. In the course of the winter I\r\nthrew out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had not got ripe,\r\non to the snow-crust by my door, and was amused by watching the motions\r\nof the various animals which were baited by it. In the twilight and the\r\nnight the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. All day long\r\nthe red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by\r\ntheir manoeuvres. One would approach at first warily through the shrub\r\noaks, running over the snow-crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown\r\nby the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste\r\nof energy, making inconceivable haste with his \"trotters,\" as if it were\r\nfor a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more\r\nthan half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous\r\nexpression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe\r\nwere eyed on him--for all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most\r\nsolitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a\r\ndancing girl--wasting more time in delay and circumspection than would\r\nhave sufficed to walk the whole distance--I never saw one walk--and then\r\nsuddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top\r\nof a young pitch pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary\r\nspectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same\r\ntime--for no reason that I could ever detect, or he himself was aware\r\nof, I suspect. At length he would reach the corn, and selecting a\r\nsuitable ear, frisk about in the same uncertain trigonometrical way to\r\nthe topmost stick of my wood-pile, before my window, where he looked me\r\nin the face, and there sit for hours, supplying himself with a new\r\near from time to time, nibbling at first voraciously and throwing the\r\nhalf-naked cobs about; till at length he grew more dainty still and\r\nplayed with his food, tasting only the inside of the kernel, and the\r\near, which was held balanced over the stick by one paw, slipped from\r\nhis careless grasp and fell to the ground, when he would look over at it\r\nwith a ludicrous expression of uncertainty, as if suspecting that it had\r\nlife, with a mind not made up whether to get it again, or a new one,\r\nor be off; now thinking of corn, then listening to hear what was in\r\nthe wind. So the little impudent fellow would waste many an ear in\r\na forenoon; till at last, seizing some longer and plumper one,\r\nconsiderably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he would\r\nset out with it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, by the same\r\nzig-zag course and frequent pauses, scratching along with it as if it\r\nwere too heavy for him and falling all the while, making its fall a\r\ndiagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being determined to\r\nput it through at any rate;--a singularly frivolous and whimsical\r\nfellow;--and so he would get off with it to where he lived, perhaps\r\ncarry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty rods distant, and\r\nI would afterwards find the cobs strewn about the woods in various\r\ndirections.\r\n\r\nAt length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams were heard long\r\nbefore, as they were warily making their approach an eighth of a mile\r\noff, and in a stealthy and sneaking manner they flit from tree to tree,\r\nnearer and nearer, and pick up the kernels which the squirrels have\r\ndropped. Then, sitting on a pitch pine bough, they attempt to swallow in\r\ntheir haste a kernel which is too big for their throats and chokes\r\nthem; and after great labor they disgorge it, and spend an hour in\r\nthe endeavor to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. They\r\nwere manifestly thieves, and I had not much respect for them; but the\r\nsquirrels, though at first shy, went to work as if they were taking what\r\nwas their own.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile also came the chickadees in flocks, which, picking up the\r\ncrumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew to the nearest twig and, placing\r\nthem under their claws, hammered away at them with their little bills,\r\nas if it were an insect in the bark, till they were sufficiently reduced\r\nfor their slender throats. A little flock of these titmice came daily to\r\npick a dinner out of my woodpile, or the crumbs at my door, with faint\r\nflitting lisping notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass, or\r\nelse with sprightly _day day day_, or more rarely, in spring-like days,\r\na wiry summery _phe-be_ from the woodside. They were so familiar that at\r\nlength one alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying in, and\r\npecked at the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight upon my\r\nshoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt\r\nthat I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have\r\nbeen by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels also grew at last\r\nto be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped upon my shoe, when that\r\nwas the nearest way.\r\n\r\nWhen the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near the end of\r\nwinter, when the snow was melted on my south hillside and about my\r\nwood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to\r\nfeed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts\r\naway on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs\r\non high, which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust, for\r\nthis brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered\r\nup by drifts, and, it is said, \"sometimes plunges from on wing into the\r\nsoft snow, where it remains concealed for a day or two.\" I used to start\r\nthem in the open land also, where they had come out of the woods at\r\nsunset to \"bud\" the wild apple trees. They will come regularly every\r\nevening to particular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies in wait\r\nfor them, and the distant orchards next the woods suffer thus not\r\na little. I am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is\r\nNature's own bird which lives on buds and diet drink.\r\n\r\nIn dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes\r\nheard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with hounding cry and\r\nyelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase, and the note of the\r\nhunting-horn at intervals, proving that man was in the rear. The woods\r\nring again, and yet no fox bursts forth on to the open level of the\r\npond, nor following pack pursuing their Act\u00e6on. And perhaps at evening\r\nI see the hunters returning with a single brush trailing from their\r\nsleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the fox\r\nwould remain in the bosom of the frozen earth he would be safe, or if he\r\nwould run in a straight line away no foxhound could overtake him; but,\r\nhaving left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest and listen till\r\nthey come up, and when he runs he circles round to his old haunts, where\r\nthe hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many\r\nrods, and then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that\r\nwater will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw a fox\r\npursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was covered with\r\nshallow puddles, run part way across, and then return to the same shore.\r\nEre long the hounds arrived, but here they lost the scent. Sometimes\r\na pack hunting by themselves would pass my door, and circle round my\r\nhouse, and yelp and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a\r\nspecies of madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit.\r\nThus they circle until they fall upon the recent trail of a fox, for a\r\nwise hound will forsake everything else for this. One day a man came\r\nto my hut from Lexington to inquire after his hound that made a large\r\ntrack, and had been hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he\r\nwas not the wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to\r\nanswer his questions he interrupted me by asking, \"What do you do here?\"\r\nHe had lost a dog, but found a man.\r\n\r\nOne old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to come to bathe in Walden\r\nonce every year when the water was warmest, and at such times looked in\r\nupon me, told me that many years ago he took his gun one afternoon and\r\nwent out for a cruise in Walden Wood; and as he walked the Wayland road\r\nhe heard the cry of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the\r\nwall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall out of\r\nthe road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some way behind came\r\nan old hound and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own\r\naccount, and disappeared again in the woods. Late in the afternoon, as\r\nhe was resting in the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice\r\nof the hounds far over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; and\r\non they came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sounding\r\nnearer and nearer, now from Well Meadow, now from the Baker Farm. For\r\na long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to\r\na hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the solemn\r\naisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed by a\r\nsympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the round,\r\nleaving his pursuers far behind; and, leaping upon a rock amid the\r\nwoods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the hunter. For\r\na moment compassion restrained the latter's arm; but that was a\r\nshort-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow thought his piece\r\nwas levelled, and _whang!_--the fox, rolling over the rock, lay dead on\r\nthe ground. The hunter still kept his place and listened to the hounds.\r\nStill on they came, and now the near woods resounded through all their\r\naisles with their demoniac cry. At length the old hound burst into view\r\nwith muzzle to the ground, and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran\r\ndirectly to the rock; but, spying the dead fox, she suddenly ceased her\r\nhounding as if struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and round\r\nhim in silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother,\r\nwere sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the hunter came forward\r\nand stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They waited in\r\nsilence while he skinned the fox, then followed the brush a while, and\r\nat length turned off into the woods again. That evening a Weston squire\r\ncame to the Concord hunter's cottage to inquire for his hounds, and told\r\nhow for a week they had been hunting on their own account from Weston\r\nwoods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and offered him the\r\nskin; but the other declined it and departed. He did not find his hounds\r\nthat night, but the next day learned that they had crossed the river and\r\nput up at a farmhouse for the night, whence, having been well fed, they\r\ntook their departure early in the morning.\r\n\r\nThe hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nutting, who used\r\nto hunt bears on Fair Haven Ledges, and exchange their skins for rum\r\nin Concord village; who told him, even, that he had seen a moose\r\nthere. Nutting had a famous foxhound named Burgoyne--he pronounced it\r\nBugine--which my informant used to borrow. In the \"Wast Book\" of an\r\nold trader of this town, who was also a captain, town-clerk, and\r\nrepresentative, I find the following entry. Jan. 18th, 1742-3, \"John\r\nMelven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox 0--2--3\"; they are not now found here; and in\r\nhis ledger, Feb, 7th, 1743, Hezekiah Stratton has credit \"by 1\/2 a Catt\r\nskin 0--1--4-1\/2\"; of course, a wild-cat, for Stratton was a sergeant in\r\nthe old French war, and would not have got credit for hunting less noble\r\ngame. Credit is given for deerskins also, and they were daily sold. One\r\nman still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this\r\nvicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which\r\nhis uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry\r\ncrew here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod who would catch up a leaf\r\nby the roadside and play a strain on it wilder and more melodious, if my\r\nmemory serves me, than any hunting-horn.\r\n\r\nAt midnight, when there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my\r\npath prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way, as if\r\nafraid, and stand silent amid the bushes till I had passed.\r\n\r\nSquirrels and wild mice disputed for my store of nuts. There were scores\r\nof pitch pines around my house, from one to four inches in diameter,\r\nwhich had been gnawed by mice the previous winter--a Norwegian winter\r\nfor them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they were obliged to mix\r\na large proportion of pine bark with their other diet. These trees were\r\nalive and apparently flourishing at midsummer, and many of them had\r\ngrown a foot, though completely girdled; but after another winter such\r\nwere without exception dead. It is remarkable that a single mouse should\r\nthus be allowed a whole pine tree for its dinner, gnawing round instead\r\nof up and down it; but perhaps it is necessary in order to thin these\r\ntrees, which are wont to grow up densely.\r\n\r\nThe hares (_Lepus Americanus_) were very familiar. One had her form under\r\nmy house all winter, separated from me only by the flooring, and\r\nshe startled me each morning by her hasty departure when I began to\r\nstir--thump, thump, thump, striking her head against the floor timbers\r\nin her hurry. They used to come round my door at dusk to nibble the\r\npotato parings which I had thrown out, and were so nearly the color of\r\nthe ground that they could hardly be distinguished when still. Sometimes\r\nin the twilight I alternately lost and recovered sight of one sitting\r\nmotionless under my window. When I opened my door in the evening, off\r\nthey would go with a squeak and a bounce. Near at hand they only excited\r\nmy pity. One evening one sat by my door two paces from me, at first\r\ntrembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor wee thing, lean and\r\nbony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws. It\r\nlooked as if Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, but\r\nstood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy,\r\nalmost dropsical. I took a step, and lo, away it scud with an elastic\r\nspring over the snow-crust, straightening its body and its limbs into\r\ngraceful length, and soon put the forest between me and itself--the wild\r\nfree venison, asserting its vigor and the dignity of Nature. Not without\r\nreason was its slenderness. Such then was its nature. (_Lepus_, _levipes_,\r\nlight-foot, some think.)\r\n\r\nWhat is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the\r\nmost simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable\r\nfamilies known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and\r\nsubstance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground--and to\r\none another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you\r\nhad seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only\r\na natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves. The partridge\r\nand the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil,\r\nwhatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and\r\nbushes which spring up afford them concealment, and they become more\r\nnumerous than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not\r\nsupport a hare. Our woods teem with them both, and around every swamp\r\nmay be seen the partridge or rabbit walk, beset with twiggy fences and\r\nhorse-hair snares, which some cow-boy tends.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Pond in Winter\r\n\r\n\r\nAfter a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some\r\nquestion had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to\r\nanswer in my sleep, as what--how--when--where? But there was dawning\r\nNature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with\r\nserene and satisfied face, and no question on _her_ lips. I awoke to an\r\nanswered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the\r\nearth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which\r\nmy house is placed, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question\r\nand answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her\r\nresolution. \"O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit\r\nto the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe. The\r\nnight veils without doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day\r\ncomes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even\r\ninto the plains of the ether.\"\r\n\r\nThen to my morning work. First I take an axe and pail and go in search\r\nof water, if that be not a dream. After a cold and snowy night it needed\r\na divining-rod to find it. Every winter the liquid and trembling surface\r\nof the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every\r\nlight and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a\r\nhalf, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow\r\ncovers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any\r\nlevel field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its\r\neyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more. Standing on the\r\nsnow-covered plain, as if in a pasture amid the hills, I cut my way\r\nfirst through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window\r\nunder my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet\r\nparlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window\r\nof ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer;\r\nthere a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight\r\nsky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of the inhabitants.\r\nHeaven is under our feet is well as over our heads.\r\n\r\nEarly in the morning, while all things are crisp with frost, men come\r\nwith fishing-reels and slender lunch, and let down their fine lines\r\nthrough the snowy field to take pickerel and perch; wild men, who\r\ninstinctively follow other fashions and trust other authorities than\r\ntheir townsmen, and by their goings and comings stitch towns together in\r\nparts where else they would be ripped. They sit and eat their luncheon\r\nin stout fear-naughts on the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise in\r\nnatural lore as the citizen is in artificial. They never consulted with\r\nbooks, and know and can tell much less than they have done. The things\r\nwhich they practice are said not yet to be known. Here is one fishing\r\nfor pickerel with grown perch for bait. You look into his pail with\r\nwonder as into a summer pond, as if he kept summer locked up at home, or\r\nknew where she had retreated. How, pray, did he get these in midwinter?\r\nOh, he got worms out of rotten logs since the ground froze, and so he\r\ncaught them. His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies\r\nof the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist.\r\nThe latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of\r\ninsects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss\r\nand bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a\r\nman has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.\r\nThe perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and\r\nthe fisher-man swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale\r\nof being are filled.\r\n\r\nWhen I strolled around the pond in misty weather I was sometimes amused\r\nby the primitive mode which some ruder fisherman had adopted. He would\r\nperhaps have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the ice,\r\nwhich were four or five rods apart and an equal distance from the shore,\r\nand having fastened the end of the line to a stick to prevent its being\r\npulled through, have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a\r\nfoot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, which, being\r\npulled down, would show when he had a bite. These alders loomed through\r\nthe mist at regular intervals as you walked half way round the pond.\r\n\r\nAh, the pickerel of Walden! when I see them lying on the ice, or in the\r\nwell which the fisherman cuts in the ice, making a little hole to admit\r\nthe water, I am always surprised by their rare beauty, as if they were\r\nfabulous fishes, they are so foreign to the streets, even to the woods,\r\nforeign as Arabia to our Concord life. They possess a quite dazzling\r\nand transcendent beauty which separates them by a wide interval from the\r\ncadaverous cod and haddock whose fame is trumpeted in our streets. They\r\nare not green like the pines, nor gray like the stones, nor blue like\r\nthe sky; but they have, to my eyes, if possible, yet rarer colors, like\r\nflowers and precious stones, as if they were the pearls, the animalized\r\nnuclei or crystals of the Walden water. They, of course, are Walden\r\nall over and all through; are themselves small Waldens in the animal\r\nkingdom, Waldenses. It is surprising that they are caught here--that\r\nin this deep and capacious spring, far beneath the rattling teams and\r\nchaises and tinkling sleighs that travel the Walden road, this great\r\ngold and emerald fish swims. I never chanced to see its kind in any\r\nmarket; it would be the cynosure of all eyes there. Easily, with a\r\nfew convulsive quirks, they give up their watery ghosts, like a mortal\r\ntranslated before his time to the thin air of heaven.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nAs I was desirous to recover the long lost bottom of Walden Pond, I\r\nsurveyed it carefully, before the ice broke up, early in '46, with\r\ncompass and chain and sounding line. There have been many stories told\r\nabout the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, which certainly had\r\nno foundation for themselves. It is remarkable how long men will believe\r\nin the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound\r\nit. I have visited two such Bottomless Ponds in one walk in this\r\nneighborhood. Many have believed that Walden reached quite through to\r\nthe other side of the globe. Some who have lain flat on the ice for\r\na long time, looking down through the illusive medium, perchance with\r\nwatery eyes into the bargain, and driven to hasty conclusions by the\r\nfear of catching cold in their breasts, have seen vast holes \"into which\r\na load of hay might be driven,\" if there were anybody to drive it, the\r\nundoubted source of the Styx and entrance to the Infernal Regions from\r\nthese parts. Others have gone down from the village with a \"fifty-six\"\r\nand a wagon load of inch rope, but yet have failed to find any bottom;\r\nfor while the \"fifty-six\" was resting by the way, they were paying out\r\nthe rope in the vain attempt to fathom their truly immeasurable capacity\r\nfor marvellousness. But I can assure my readers that Walden has a\r\nreasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual,\r\ndepth. I fathomed it easily with a cod-line and a stone weighing about\r\na pound and a half, and could tell accurately when the stone left the\r\nbottom, by having to pull so much harder before the water got underneath\r\nto help me. The greatest depth was exactly one hundred and two feet; to\r\nwhich may be added the five feet which it has risen since, making one\r\nhundred and seven. This is a remarkable depth for so small an area; yet\r\nnot an inch of it can be spared by the imagination. What if all ponds\r\nwere shallow? Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that\r\nthis pond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the\r\ninfinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.\r\n\r\nA factory-owner, hearing what depth I had found, thought that it could\r\nnot be true, for, judging from his acquaintance with dams, sand would\r\nnot lie at so steep an angle. But the deepest ponds are not so deep in\r\nproportion to their area as most suppose, and, if drained, would not\r\nleave very remarkable valleys. They are not like cups between the hills;\r\nfor this one, which is so unusually deep for its area, appears in a\r\nvertical section through its centre not deeper than a shallow plate.\r\nMost ponds, emptied, would leave a meadow no more hollow than we\r\nfrequently see. William Gilpin, who is so admirable in all that relates\r\nto landscapes, and usually so correct, standing at the head of Loch\r\nFyne, in Scotland, which he describes as \"a bay of salt water, sixty\r\nor seventy fathoms deep, four miles in breadth,\" and about fifty miles\r\nlong, surrounded by mountains, observes, \"If we could have seen it\r\nimmediately after the diluvian crash, or whatever convulsion of nature\r\noccasioned it, before the waters gushed in, what a horrid chasm must it\r\nhave appeared!\r\n\r\n            \"So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low\r\n             Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,\r\n             Capacious bed of waters.\"\r\n\r\nBut if, using the shortest diameter of Loch Fyne, we apply these\r\nproportions to Walden, which, as we have seen, appears already in a\r\nvertical section only like a shallow plate, it will appear four times\r\nas shallow. So much for the increased horrors of the chasm of Loch\r\nFyne when emptied. No doubt many a smiling valley with its stretching\r\ncornfields occupies exactly such a \"horrid chasm,\" from which the waters\r\nhave receded, though it requires the insight and the far sight of the\r\ngeologist to convince the unsuspecting inhabitants of this fact. Often\r\nan inquisitive eye may detect the shores of a primitive lake in the\r\nlow horizon hills, and no subsequent elevation of the plain have been\r\nnecessary to conceal their history. But it is easiest, as they who work\r\non the highways know, to find the hollows by the puddles after a shower.\r\nThe amount of it is, the imagination give it the least license, dives\r\ndeeper and soars higher than Nature goes. So, probably, the depth of the\r\nocean will be found to be very inconsiderable compared with its breadth.\r\n\r\nAs I sounded through the ice I could determine the shape of the bottom\r\nwith greater accuracy than is possible in surveying harbors which do\r\nnot freeze over, and I was surprised at its general regularity. In the\r\ndeepest part there are several acres more level than almost any field\r\nwhich is exposed to the sun, wind, and plow. In one instance, on a line\r\narbitrarily chosen, the depth did not vary more than one foot in thirty\r\nrods; and generally, near the middle, I could calculate the variation\r\nfor each one hundred feet in any direction beforehand within three or\r\nfour inches. Some are accustomed to speak of deep and dangerous holes\r\neven in quiet sandy ponds like this, but the effect of water under these\r\ncircumstances is to level all inequalities. The regularity of the bottom\r\nand its conformity to the shores and the range of the neighboring\r\nhills were so perfect that a distant promontory betrayed itself in the\r\nsoundings quite across the pond, and its direction could be determined\r\nby observing the opposite shore. Cape becomes bar, and plain shoal, and\r\nvalley and gorge deep water and channel.\r\n\r\nWhen I had mapped the pond by the scale of ten rods to an inch, and\r\nput down the soundings, more than a hundred in all, I observed this\r\nremarkable coincidence. Having noticed that the number indicating the\r\ngreatest depth was apparently in the centre of the map, I laid a rule\r\non the map lengthwise, and then breadthwise, and found, to my surprise,\r\nthat the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest\r\nbreadth _exactly_ at the point of greatest depth, notwithstanding that the\r\nmiddle is so nearly level, the outline of the pond far from regular, and\r\nthe extreme length and breadth were got by measuring into the coves; and\r\nI said to myself, Who knows but this hint would conduct to the deepest\r\npart of the ocean as well as of a pond or puddle? Is not this the rule\r\nalso for the height of mountains, regarded as the opposite of valleys?\r\nWe know that a hill is not highest at its narrowest part.\r\n\r\nOf five coves, three, or all which had been sounded, were observed to\r\nhave a bar quite across their mouths and deeper water within, so that\r\nthe bay tended to be an expansion of water within the land not only\r\nhorizontally but vertically, and to form a basin or independent pond,\r\nthe direction of the two capes showing the course of the bar. Every\r\nharbor on the sea-coast, also, has its bar at its entrance. In\r\nproportion as the mouth of the cove was wider compared with its length,\r\nthe water over the bar was deeper compared with that in the basin.\r\nGiven, then, the length and breadth of the cove, and the character of\r\nthe surrounding shore, and you have almost elements enough to make out a\r\nformula for all cases.\r\n\r\nIn order to see how nearly I could guess, with this experience, at the\r\ndeepest point in a pond, by observing the outlines of a surface and\r\nthe character of its shores alone, I made a plan of White Pond, which\r\ncontains about forty-one acres, and, like this, has no island in it, nor\r\nany visible inlet or outlet; and as the line of greatest breadth fell\r\nvery near the line of least breadth, where two opposite capes approached\r\neach other and two opposite bays receded, I ventured to mark a point a\r\nshort distance from the latter line, but still on the line of greatest\r\nlength, as the deepest. The deepest part was found to be within one\r\nhundred feet of this, still farther in the direction to which I had\r\ninclined, and was only one foot deeper, namely, sixty feet. Of course, a\r\nstream running through, or an island in the pond, would make the problem\r\nmuch more complicated.\r\n\r\nIf we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or\r\nthe description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular\r\nresults at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is\r\nvitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature,\r\nbut by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our\r\nnotions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances\r\nwhich we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number\r\nof seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not\r\ndetected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points\r\nof view, as, to the traveller, a mountain outline varies with every\r\nstep, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but\r\none form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its\r\nentireness.\r\n\r\nWhat I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics. It is the\r\nlaw of average. Such a rule of the two diameters not only guides us\r\ntoward the sun in the system and the heart in man, but draws lines\r\nthrough the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man's particular\r\ndaily behaviors and waves of life into his coves and inlets, and where\r\nthey intersect will be the height or depth of his character. Perhaps\r\nwe need only to know how his shores trend and his adjacent country\r\nor circumstances, to infer his depth and concealed bottom. If he is\r\nsurrounded by mountainous circumstances, an Achillean shore, whose peaks\r\novershadow and are reflected in his bosom, they suggest a corresponding\r\ndepth in him. But a low and smooth shore proves him shallow on that\r\nside. In our bodies, a bold projecting brow falls off to and indicates a\r\ncorresponding depth of thought. Also there is a bar across the entrance\r\nof our every cove, or particular inclination; each is our harbor for\r\na season, in which we are detained and partially land-locked. These\r\ninclinations are not whimsical usually, but their form, size, and\r\ndirection are determined by the promontories of the shore, the ancient\r\naxes of elevation. When this bar is gradually increased by storms,\r\ntides, or currents, or there is a subsidence of the waters, so that it\r\nreaches to the surface, that which was at first but an inclination in\r\nthe shore in which a thought was harbored becomes an individual\r\nlake, cut off from the ocean, wherein the thought secures its own\r\nconditions--changes, perhaps, from salt to fresh, becomes a sweet sea,\r\ndead sea, or a marsh. At the advent of each individual into this life,\r\nmay we not suppose that such a bar has risen to the surface somewhere?\r\nIt is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most\r\npart, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with\r\nthe bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry,\r\nand go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this\r\nworld, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.\r\n\r\nAs for the inlet or outlet of Walden, I have not discovered any but rain\r\nand snow and evaporation, though perhaps, with a thermometer and a line,\r\nsuch places may be found, for where the water flows into the pond it\r\nwill probably be coldest in summer and warmest in winter. When the\r\nice-men were at work here in '46-7, the cakes sent to the shore were one\r\nday rejected by those who were stacking them up there, not being\r\nthick enough to lie side by side with the rest; and the cutters thus\r\ndiscovered that the ice over a small space was two or three inches\r\nthinner than elsewhere, which made them think that there was an inlet\r\nthere. They also showed me in another place what they thought was a\r\n\"leach-hole,\" through which the pond leaked out under a hill into a\r\nneighboring meadow, pushing me out on a cake of ice to see it. It was a\r\nsmall cavity under ten feet of water; but I think that I can warrant the\r\npond not to need soldering till they find a worse leak than that.\r\nOne has suggested, that if such a \"leach-hole\" should be found, its\r\nconnection with the meadow, if any existed, might be proved by conveying\r\nsome colored powder or sawdust to the mouth of the hole, and then\r\nputting a strainer over the spring in the meadow, which would catch some\r\nof the particles carried through by the current.\r\n\r\nWhile I was surveying, the ice, which was sixteen inches thick,\r\nundulated under a slight wind like water. It is well known that a\r\nlevel cannot be used on ice. At one rod from the shore its greatest\r\nfluctuation, when observed by means of a level on land directed toward\r\na graduated staff on the ice, was three quarters of an inch, though the\r\nice appeared firmly attached to the shore. It was probably greater in\r\nthe middle. Who knows but if our instruments were delicate enough we\r\nmight detect an undulation in the crust of the earth? When two legs of\r\nmy level were on the shore and the third on the ice, and the sights\r\nwere directed over the latter, a rise or fall of the ice of an almost\r\ninfinitesimal amount made a difference of several feet on a tree across\r\nthe pond. When I began to cut holes for sounding there were three or\r\nfour inches of water on the ice under a deep snow which had sunk it\r\nthus far; but the water began immediately to run into these holes, and\r\ncontinued to run for two days in deep streams, which wore away the ice\r\non every side, and contributed essentially, if not mainly, to dry the\r\nsurface of the pond; for, as the water ran in, it raised and floated the\r\nice. This was somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of a ship to\r\nlet the water out. When such holes freeze, and a rain succeeds,\r\nand finally a new freezing forms a fresh smooth ice over all, it is\r\nbeautifully mottled internally by dark figures, shaped somewhat like a\r\nspider's web, what you may call ice rosettes, produced by the channels\r\nworn by the water flowing from all sides to a centre. Sometimes, also,\r\nwhen the ice was covered with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of\r\nmyself, one standing on the head of the other, one on the ice, the other\r\non the trees or hillside.\r\n\r\n       *       *       *       *       *\r\n\r\nWhile yet it is cold January, and snow and ice are thick and solid, the\r\nprudent landlord comes from the village to get ice to cool his summer\r\ndrink; impressively, even pathetically, wise, to foresee the heat and\r\nthirst of July now in January--wearing a thick coat and mittens! when so\r\nmany things are not provided for. It may be that he lays up no treasures\r\nin this world which will cool his summer drink in the next. He cuts and\r\nsaws the solid pond, unroofs the house of fishes, and carts off their\r\nvery element and air, held fast by chains and stakes like corded wood,\r\nthrough the favoring winter air, to wintry cellars, to underlie the\r\nsummer there. It looks like solidified azure, as, far off, it is drawn\r\nthrough the streets. These ice-cutters are a merry race, full of jest\r\nand sport, and when I went among them they were wont to invite me to saw\r\npit-fashion with them, I standing underneath.\r\n\r\nIn the winter of '46-7 there came a hundred men of Hyperborean\r\nextraction swoop down on to our pond one morning, with many carloads\r\nof ungainly-looking farming tools--sleds, plows, drill-barrows,\r\nturf-knives, spades, saws, rakes, and each man was armed with a\r\ndouble-pointed pike-staff, such as is not described in the New-England\r\nFarmer or the Cultivator. I did not know whether they had come to sow a\r\ncrop of winter rye, or some other kind of grain recently introduced from\r\nIceland. As I saw no manure, I judged that they meant to skim the land,\r\nas I had done, thinking the soil was deep and had lain fallow long\r\nenough. They said that a gentleman farmer, who was behind the scenes,\r\nwanted to double his money, which, as I understood, amounted to half\r\na million already; but in order to cover each one of his dollars with\r\nanother, he took off the only coat, ay, the skin itself, of Walden\r\nPond in the midst of a hard winter. They went to work at once, plowing,\r\nbarrowing, rolling, furrowing, in admirable order, as if they were bent\r\non making this a model farm; but when I was looking sharp to see what\r\nkind of seed they dropped into the furrow, a gang of fellows by my side\r\nsuddenly began to hook up the virgin mould itself, with a peculiar jerk,\r\nclean down to the sand, or rather the water--for it was a very springy\r\nsoil--indeed all the _terra firma_ there was--and haul it away on sleds,\r\nand then I guessed that they must be cutting peat in a bog. So they came\r\nand went every day, with a peculiar shriek from the locomotive, from and\r\nto some point of the polar regions, as it seemed to me, like a flock\r\nof arctic snow-birds. But sometimes Squaw Walden had her revenge, and\r\na hired man, walking behind his team, slipped through a crack in the\r\nground down toward Tartarus, and he who was so brave before suddenly\r\nbecame but the ninth part of a man, almost gave up his animal heat, and\r\nwas glad to take refuge in my house, and acknowledged that there was\r\nsome virtue in a stove; or sometimes the frozen soil took a piece of\r\nsteel out of a plowshare, or a plow got set in the furrow and had to be\r\ncut out.\r\n\r\nTo speak literally, a hundred Irishmen, with Yankee overseers, came from\r\nCambridge every day to get out the ice. They divided it into cakes by\r\nmethods too well known to require description, and these, being sledded\r\nto the shore, were rapidly hauled off on to an ice platform, and raised\r\nby grappling irons and block and tackle, worked by horses, on to a\r\nstack, as surely as so many barrels of flour, and there placed evenly\r\nside by side, and row upon row, as if they formed the solid base of an\r\nobelisk designed to pierce the clouds. They told me that in a good day\r\nthey could get out a thousand tons, which was the yield of about one\r\nacre. Deep ruts and \"cradle-holes\" were worn in the ice, as on _terra\r\nfirma_, by the passage of the sleds over the same track, and the horses\r\ninvariably ate their oats out of cakes of ice hollowed out like buckets.\r\nThey stacked up the cakes thus in the open air in a pile thirty-five\r\nfeet high on one side and six or seven rods square, putting hay between\r\nthe outside layers to exclude the air; for when the wind, though never\r\nso cold, finds a passage through, it will wear large cavities, leaving\r\nslight supports or studs only here and there, and finally topple it\r\ndown. At first it looked like a vast blue fort or Valhalla; but when\r\nthey began to tuck the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this\r\nbecame covered with rime and icicles, it looked like a venerable\r\nmoss-grown and hoary ruin, built of azure-tinted marble, the abode of\r\nWinter, that old man we see in the almanac--his shanty, as if he had\r\na design to estivate with us. They calculated that not twenty-five per\r\ncent of this would reach its destination, and that two or three per cent\r\nwould be wasted in the cars. However, a still greater part of this heap\r\nhad a different destiny from what was intended; for, either because the\r\nice was found not to keep so well as was expected, containing more air\r\nthan usual, or for some other reason, it never got to market. This heap,\r\nmade in the winter of '46-7 and estimated to contain ten thousand tons,\r\nwas finally covered with hay and boards; and though it was unroofed the\r\nfollowing July, and a part of it carried off, the rest remaining exposed\r\nto the sun, it stood over that summer and the next winter, and was not\r\nquite melted till September, 1848. Thus the pond recovered the greater\r\npart.\r\n\r\nLike the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but\r\nat a distance is beautifully blue, and you can easily tell it from the\r\nwhite ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a\r\nquarter of a mile off. Sometimes one of those great cakes slips from the\r\nice-man's sled into the village street, and lies there for a week like a\r\ngreat emerald, an object of interest to all passers. I have noticed that\r\na portion of Walden which in the state of water was green will often,\r\nwhen frozen, appear from the same point of view blue. So the hollows\r\nabout this pond will, sometimes, in the winter, be filled with a\r\ngreenish water somewhat like its own, but the next day will have frozen\r\nblue. Perhaps the blue color of water and ice is due to the light and\r\nair they contain, and the most transparent is the bluest. Ice is an\r\ninteresting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some\r\nin the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as\r\never. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen\r\nremains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference\r\nbetween the affections and the intellect.\r\n\r\nThus for sixteen days I saw from my window a hundred men at work like\r\nbusy husbandmen, with teams and horses and apparently all the implements\r\nof farming, such a picture as we see on the first page of the almanac;\r\nand as often as I looked out I was reminded of the fable of the lark and\r\nthe reapers, or the parable of the sower, and the like; and now they are\r\nall gone, and in thirty days more, probably, I shall look from the same\r\nwindow on the pure sea-green Walden water there, reflecting the clouds\r\nand the trees, and sending up its evaporations in solitude, and no\r\ntraces will appear that a man has ever stood there. Perhaps I shall hear\r\na solitary loon laugh as he dives and plumes himself, or shall see a\r\nlonely fisher in his boat, like a floating leaf, beholding his form\r\nreflected in the waves, where lately a hundred men securely labored.\r\n\r\nThus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New\r\nOrleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. In the\r\nmorning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy\r\nof the Bhagvat-Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods\r\nhave elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its\r\nliterature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is\r\nnot to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its\r\nsublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well\r\nfor water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of\r\nBrahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges\r\nreading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and\r\nwater jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and\r\nour buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden\r\nwater is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. With favoring\r\nwinds it is wafted past the site of the fabulous islands of Atlantis and\r\nthe Hesperides, makes the periplus of Hanno, and, floating by Ternate\r\nand Tidore and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, melts in the tropic gales\r\nof the Indian seas, and is landed in ports of which Alexander only heard\r\nthe names.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSpring\r\n\r\n\r\nThe opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters commonly causes a pond\r\nto break up earlier; for the water, agitated by the wind, even in cold\r\nweather, wears away the surrounding ice. But such was not the effect on\r\nWalden that year, for she had soon got a thick new garment to take the\r\nplace of the old. This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in\r\nthis neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having\r\nno stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice. I never knew\r\nit to open in the course of a winter, not excepting that of '52-3, which\r\ngave the ponds so severe a trial. It commonly opens about the first\r\nof April, a week or ten days later than Flint's Pond and Fair Haven,\r\nbeginning to melt on the north side and in the shallower parts where\r\nit began to freeze. It indicates better than any water hereabouts the\r\nabsolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient\r\nchanges of temperature. A severe cold of a few days' duration in\r\nMarch may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the\r\ntemperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly. A thermometer\r\nthrust into the middle of Walden on the 6th of March, 1847, stood at\r\n32\u00ba, or freezing point; near the shore at 33\u00ba; in the middle of Flint's\r\nPond, the same day, at 32\u00ba; at a dozen rods from the shore, in shallow\r\nwater, under ice a foot thick, at 36\u00ba. This difference of three and a\r\nhalf degrees between the temperature of the deep water and the shallow\r\nin the latter pond, and the fact that a great proportion of it is\r\ncomparatively shallow, show why it should break up so much sooner than\r\nWalden. The ice in the shallowest part was at this time several inches\r\nthinner than in the middle. In midwinter the middle had been the warmest\r\nand the ice thinnest there. So, also, every one who has waded about the\r\nshores of the pond in summer must have perceived how much warmer the\r\nwater is close to the shore, where only three or four inches deep, than\r\na little distance out, and on the surface where it is deep, than near\r\nthe bottom. In spring the sun not only exerts an influence through the\r\nincreased temperature of the air and earth, but its heat passes through\r\nice a foot or more thick, and is reflected from the bottom in shallow\r\nwater, and so also warms the water and melts the under side of the ice,\r\nat the same time that it is melting it more directly above, making\r\nit uneven, and causing the air bubbles which it contains to extend\r\nthemselves upward and downward until it is completely honeycombed, and\r\nat last disappears suddenly in a single spring rain. Ice has its grain\r\nas well as wood, and when a cake begins to rot or \"comb,\" that is,\r\nassume the appearance of honeycomb, whatever may be its position, the\r\nair cells are at right angles with what was the water surface. Where\r\nthere is a rock or a log rising near to the surface the ice over it is\r\nmuch thinner, and is frequently quite dissolved by this reflected heat;\r\nand I have been told that in the experiment at Cambridge to freeze water\r\nin a shallow wooden pond, though the cold air circulated underneath, and\r\nso had access to both sides, the reflection of the sun from the bottom\r\nmore than counterbalanced this advantage. When a warm rain in the middle\r\nof the winter melts off the snow-ice from Walden, and leaves a hard dark\r\nor transparent ice on the middle, there will be a strip of rotten though\r\nthicker white ice, a rod or more wide, about the shores, created by this\r\nreflected heat. Also, as I have said, the bubbles themselves within the\r\nice operate as burning-glasses to melt the ice beneath.\r\n\r\nThe phenomena of the year take place every day in a pond on a small\r\nscale. Every morning, generally speaking, the shallow water is being\r\nwarmed more rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so warm\r\nafter all, and every evening it is being cooled more rapidly until the\r\nmorning. The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the\r\nmorning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.\r\nThe cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature.\r\nOne pleasant morning after a cold night, February 24th, 1850, having\r\ngone to Flint's Pond to spend the day, I noticed with surprise, that\r\nwhen I struck the ice with the head of my axe, it resounded like a gong\r\nfor many rods around, or as if I had struck on a tight drum-head.\r\nThe pond began to boom about an hour after sunrise, when it felt the\r\ninfluence of the sun's rays slanted upon it from over the hills;\r\nit stretched itself and yawned like a waking man with a gradually\r\nincreasing tumult, which was kept up three or four hours. It took a\r\nshort siesta at noon, and boomed once more toward night, as the sun\r\nwas withdrawing his influence. In the right stage of the weather a pond\r\nfires its evening gun with great regularity. But in the middle of the\r\nday, being full of cracks, and the air also being less elastic, it had\r\ncompletely lost its resonance, and probably fishes and muskrats could\r\nnot then have been stunned by a blow on it. The fishermen say that the\r\n\"thundering of the pond\" scares the fishes and prevents their biting.\r\nThe pond does not thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when\r\nto expect its thundering; but though I may perceive no difference in\r\nthe weather, it does. Who would have suspected so large and cold and\r\nthick-skinned a thing to be so sensitive? Yet it has its law to which\r\nit thunders obedience when it should as surely as the buds expand in the\r\nspring. The earth is all alive and covered with papillae. The largest\r\npond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in\r\nits tube.\r\n\r\nOne attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have\r\nleisure and opportunity to see the Spring come in. The ice in the pond\r\nat length begins to be honeycombed, and I can set my heel in it as I\r\nwalk. Fogs and rains and warmer suns are gradually melting the snow; the\r\ndays have grown sensibly longer; and I see how I shall get through the\r\nwinter without adding to my wood-pile, for large fires are no longer\r\nnecessary. I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the\r\nchance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for\r\nhis stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture\r\nout of his winter quarters. On the 13th of March, after I had heard the\r\nbluebird, song sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot\r\nthick. As the weather grew warmer it was not sensibly worn away by the\r\nwater, nor broken up and floated off as in rivers, but, though it was\r\ncompletely melted for half a rod in width about the shore, the middle\r\nwas merely honeycombed and saturated with water, so that you could put\r\nyour foot through it when six inches thick; but by the next day evening,\r\nperhaps, after a warm rain followed by fog, it would have wholly\r\ndisappeared, all gone off with the fog, spirited away. One year I went\r\nacross the middle only five days before it disappeared entirely. In 1845\r\nWalden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in '46, the 25th\r\nof March; in '47, the 8th of April; in '51, the 28th of March; in '52,\r\nthe 18th of April; in '53, the 23d of March; in '54, about the 7th of\r\nApril.\r\n\r\nEvery incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds\r\nand the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who\r\nlive in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they\r\nwho dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling\r\nwhoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to\r\nend, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator\r\ncomes out of the mud with quakings of the earth. One old man, who has\r\nbeen a close observer of Nature, and seems as thoroughly wise in regard\r\nto all her operations as if she had been put upon the stocks when he was\r\na boy, and he had helped to lay her keel--who has come to his growth,\r\nand can hardly acquire more of natural lore if he should live to the age\r\nof Methuselah--told me--and I was surprised to hear him express wonder\r\nat any of Nature's operations, for I thought that there were no secrets\r\nbetween them--that one spring day he took his gun and boat, and thought\r\nthat he would have a little sport with the ducks. There was ice still on\r\nthe meadows, but it was all gone out of the river, and he dropped down\r\nwithout obstruction from Sudbury, where he lived, to Fair Haven Pond,\r\nwhich he found, unexpectedly, covered for the most part with a firm\r\nfield of ice. It was a warm day, and he was surprised to see so great\r\na body of ice remaining. Not seeing any ducks, he hid his boat on the\r\nnorth or back side of an island in the pond, and then concealed himself\r\nin the bushes on the south side, to await them. The ice was melted for\r\nthree or four rods from the shore, and there was a smooth and warm sheet\r\nof water, with a muddy bottom, such as the ducks love, within, and he\r\nthought it likely that some would be along pretty soon. After he had\r\nlain still there about an hour he heard a low and seemingly very distant\r\nsound, but singularly grand and impressive, unlike anything he had ever\r\nheard, gradually swelling and increasing as if it would have a universal\r\nand memorable ending, a sullen rush and roar, which seemed to him all\r\nat once like the sound of a vast body of fowl coming in to settle there,\r\nand, seizing his gun, he started up in haste and excited; but he found,\r\nto his surprise, that the whole body of the ice had started while he lay\r\nthere, and drifted in to the shore, and the sound he had heard was made\r\nby its edge grating on the shore--at first gently nibbled and crumbled\r\noff, but at length heaving up and scattering its wrecks along the island\r\nto a considerable height before it came to a standstill.\r\n\r\nAt length the sun's rays have attained the right angle, and warm winds\r\nblow up mist and rain and melt the snowbanks, and the sun, dispersing\r\nthe mist, smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white smoking\r\nwith incense, through which the traveller picks his way from islet to\r\nislet, cheered by the music of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets\r\nwhose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they are bearing\r\noff.\r\n\r\nFew phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the forms which\r\nthawing sand and clay assume in flowing down the sides of a deep cut\r\non the railroad through which I passed on my way to the village, a\r\nphenomenon not very common on so large a scale, though the number of\r\nfreshly exposed banks of the right material must have been greatly\r\nmultiplied since railroads were invented. The material was sand of every\r\ndegree of fineness and of various rich colors, commonly mixed with\r\na little clay. When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a\r\nthawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes like\r\nlava, sometimes bursting out through the snow and overflowing it where\r\nno sand was to be seen before. Innumerable little streams overlap and\r\ninterlace one with another, exhibiting a sort of hybrid product, which\r\nobeys half way the law of currents, and half way that of vegetation. As\r\nit flows it takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines, making heaps of\r\npulpy sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, as you look\r\ndown on them, the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some\r\nlichens; or you are reminded of coral, of leopard's paws or birds' feet,\r\nof brains or lungs or bowels, and excrements of all kinds. It is a truly\r\n_grotesque_ vegetation, whose forms and color we see imitated in bronze,\r\na sort of architectural foliage more ancient and typical than acanthus,\r\nchiccory, ivy, vine, or any vegetable leaves; destined perhaps, under\r\nsome circumstances, to become a puzzle to future geologists. The whole\r\ncut impressed me as if it were a cave with its stalactites laid open\r\nto the light. The various shades of the sand are singularly rich and\r\nagreeable, embracing the different iron colors, brown, gray, yellowish,\r\nand reddish. When the flowing mass reaches the drain at the foot of the\r\nbank it spreads out flatter into _strands_, the separate streams losing\r\ntheir semi-cylindrical form and gradually becoming more flat and broad,\r\nrunning together as they are more moist, till they form an almost flat\r\n_sand_, still variously and beautifully shaded, but in which you can trace\r\nthe original forms of vegetation; till at length, in the water itself,\r\nthey are converted into _banks_, like those formed off the mouths of\r\nrivers, and the forms of vegetation are lost in the ripple marks on the\r\nbottom.\r\n\r\nThe whole bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high, is sometimes\r\noverlaid with a mass of this kind of foliage, or sandy rupture, for a\r\nquarter of a mile on one or both sides, the produce of one spring day.\r\nWhat makes this sand foliage remarkable is its springing into existence\r\nthus suddenly. When I see on the one side the inert bank--for the sun\r\nacts on one side first--and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the\r\ncreation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood\r\nin the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me--had come to\r\nwhere he was still at work, sporting on this bank, and with excess of\r\nenergy strewing his fresh designs about. I feel as if I were nearer to\r\nthe vitals of the globe, for this sandy overflow is something such a\r\nfoliaceous mass as the vitals of the animal body. You find thus in the\r\nvery sands an anticipation of the vegetable leaf. No wonder that the\r\nearth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea\r\ninwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by\r\nit. The overhanging leaf sees here its prototype. _Internally_, whether\r\nin the globe or animal body, it is a moist thick _lobe_, a word especially\r\napplicable to the liver and lungs and the leaves of fat\r\n(\u03b3\u03b5\u1f31\u03b2\u03c9, _labor_, _lapsus_, to flow or slip downward, a lapsing; \u03bb\u03bf\u03b2\u1f41\u03c2,\r\n_globus_, lobe, globe; also lap, flap, and many other words); _externally_\r\na dry thin _leaf_, even as the _f_ and _v_ are a pressed and dried _b_.\r\nThe radicals of _lobe_ are _lb_, the soft mass of the _b_ (single lobed,\r\nor B, double lobed), with the liquid _l_ behind it pressing it forward.\r\nIn globe, _glb_, the guttural _g_ adds to the meaning the capacity of\r\nthe throat. The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner\r\nleaves. Thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub in the earth to the\r\nairy and fluttering butterfly. The very globe continually transcends and\r\ntranslates itself, and becomes winged in its orbit. Even ice begins with\r\ndelicate crystal leaves, as if it had flowed into moulds which the fronds\r\nof waterplants have impressed on the watery mirror. The whole tree itself\r\nis but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening\r\nearth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils.\r\n\r\nWhen the sun withdraws the sand ceases to flow, but in the morning the\r\nstreams will start once more and branch and branch again into a myriad\r\nof others. You here see perchance how blood-vessels are formed. If\r\nyou look closely you observe that first there pushes forward from the\r\nthawing mass a stream of softened sand with a drop-like point, like the\r\nball of the finger, feeling its way slowly and blindly downward, until\r\nat last with more heat and moisture, as the sun gets higher, the most\r\nfluid portion, in its effort to obey the law to which the most inert\r\nalso yields, separates from the latter and forms for itself a meandering\r\nchannel or artery within that, in which is seen a little silvery stream\r\nglancing like lightning from one stage of pulpy leaves or branches to\r\nanother, and ever and anon swallowed up in the sand. It is wonderful how\r\nrapidly yet perfectly the sand organizes itself as it flows, using the\r\nbest material its mass affords to form the sharp edges of its channel.\r\nSuch are the sources of rivers. In the silicious matter which the water\r\ndeposits is perhaps the bony system, and in the still finer soil and\r\norganic matter the fleshy fibre or cellular tissue. What is man but\r\na mass of thawing clay? The ball of the human finger is but a drop\r\ncongealed. The fingers and toes flow to their extent from the thawing\r\nmass of the body. Who knows what the human body would expand and flow\r\nout to under a more genial heaven? Is not the hand a spreading _palm_\r\nleaf with its lobes and veins? The ear may be regarded, fancifully, as a\r\nlichen, _Umbilicaria_, on the side of the head, with its lobe or drop.\r\nThe lip--_labium_, from _labor_ (?)--laps or lapses from the sides of the\r\ncavernous mouth. The nose is a manifest congealed drop or stalactite.\r\nThe chin is a still larger drop, the confluent dripping of the face. The\r\ncheeks are a slide from the brows into the valley of the face, opposed\r\nand diffused by the cheek bones. Each rounded lobe of the vegetable\r\nleaf, too, is a thick and now loitering drop, larger or smaller; the\r\nlobes are the fingers of the leaf; and as many lobes as it has, in\r\nso many directions it tends to flow, and more heat or other genial\r\ninfluences would have caused it to flow yet farther.\r\n\r\nThus it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all\r\nthe operations of Nature. The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf.\r\nWhat Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may\r\nturn over a new leaf at last? This phenomenon is more exhilarating to\r\nme than the luxuriance and fertility of vineyards. True, it is somewhat\r\nexcrementitious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps\r\nof liver, lights, and bowels, as if the globe were turned wrong side\r\noutward; but this suggests at least that Nature has some bowels, and\r\nthere again is mother of humanity. This is the frost coming out of the\r\nground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as\r\nmythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of\r\nwinter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in\r\nher swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side.\r\nFresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.\r\nThese foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace,\r\nshowing that Nature is \"in full blast\" within. The earth is not a mere\r\nfragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a\r\nbook, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living\r\npoetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit--not a\r\nfossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life\r\nall animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave\r\nour exuviae from their graves. You may melt your metals and cast them\r\ninto the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like\r\nthe forms which this molten earth flows out into. And not only it,\r\nbut the institutions upon it are plastic like clay in the hands of the\r\npotter.\r\n\r\nEre long, not only on these banks, but on every hill and plain and in\r\nevery hollow, the frost comes out of the ground like a dormant quadruped\r\nfrom its burrow, and seeks the sea with music, or migrates to other\r\nclimes in clouds. Thaw with his gentle persuasion is more powerful than\r\nThor with his hammer. The one melts, the other but breaks in pieces.\r\n\r\nWhen the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had\r\ndried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender\r\nsigns of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately\r\nbeauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the\r\nwinter--life-everlasting, goldenrods, pinweeds, and graceful wild\r\ngrasses, more obvious and interesting frequently than in summer even,\r\nas if their beauty was not ripe till then; even cotton-grass, cat-tails,\r\nmulleins, johnswort, hard-hack, meadow-sweet, and other strong-stemmed\r\nplants, those unexhausted granaries which entertain the earliest\r\nbirds--decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears. I am\r\nparticularly attracted by the arching and sheaf-like top of the\r\nwool-grass; it brings back the summer to our winter memories, and is\r\namong the forms which art loves to copy, and which, in the vegetable\r\nkingdom, have the same relation to types already in the mind of man that\r\nastronomy has. It is an antique style, older than Greek or Egyptian.\r\nMany of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible\r\ntenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king\r\ndescribed as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a\r\nlover he adorns the tresses of Summer.\r\n\r\nAt the approach of spring the red squirrels got under my house, two at\r\na time, directly under my feet as I sat reading or writing, and kept up\r\nthe queerest chuckling and chirruping and vocal pirouetting and gurgling\r\nsounds that ever were heard; and when I stamped they only chirruped the\r\nlouder, as if past all fear and respect in their mad pranks, defying\r\nhumanity to stop them. No, you don't--chickaree--chickaree. They were\r\nwholly deaf to my arguments, or failed to perceive their force, and fell\r\ninto a strain of invective that was irresistible.\r\n\r\nThe first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than\r\never! The faint silvery warblings heard over the partially bare and\r\nmoist fields from the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing, as\r\nif the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell! What at such a time\r\nare histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations?\r\nThe brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. The marsh hawk, sailing\r\nlow over the meadow, is already seeking the first slimy life that\r\nawakes. The sinking sound of melting snow is heard in all dells, and the\r\nice dissolves apace in the ponds. The grass flames up on the hillsides\r\nlike a spring fire--\"et primitus oritur herba imbribus primoribus\r\nevocata\"--as if the earth sent forth an inward heat to greet the\r\nreturning sun; not yellow but green is the color of its flame;--the\r\nsymbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green ribbon,\r\nstreams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but\r\nanon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year's hay with the\r\nfresh life below. It grows as steadily as the rill oozes out of the\r\nground. It is almost identical with that, for in the growing days of\r\nJune, when the rills are dry, the grass-blades are their channels, and\r\nfrom year to year the herds drink at this perennial green stream, and\r\nthe mower draws from it betimes their winter supply. So our human life\r\nbut dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to\r\neternity.\r\n\r\nWalden is melting apace. There is a canal two rods wide along the\r\nnortherly and westerly sides, and wider still at the east end. A great\r\nfield of ice has cracked off from the main body. I hear a song sparrow\r\nsinging from the bushes on the shore,--_olit_, _olit_, _olit,_--_chip_,\r\n_chip_, _chip_, _che char_,--_che wiss_, _wiss_, _wiss_. He too is\r\nhelping to crack it. How handsome the great sweeping curves in the edge\r\nof the ice, answering somewhat to those of the shore, but more regular!\r\nIt is unusually hard, owing to the recent severe but transient cold, and\r\nall watered or waved like a palace floor. But the wind slides eastward\r\nover its opaque surface in vain, till it reaches the living surface\r\nbeyond. It is glorious to behold this ribbon of water sparkling in the\r\nsun, the bare face of the pond full of glee and youth, as if it spoke\r\nthe joy of the fishes within it, and of the sands on its shore--a\r\nsilvery sheen as from the scales of a leuciscus, as it were all one\r\nactive fish. Such is the contrast between winter and spring. Walden was\r\ndead and is alive again. But this spring it broke up more steadily, as I\r\nhave said.\r\n\r\nThe change from storm and winter to serene and mild weather, from dark\r\nand sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis\r\nwhich all things proclaim. It is seemingly instantaneous at last.\r\nSuddenly an influx of light filled my house, though the evening was at\r\nhand, and the clouds of winter still overhung it, and the eaves were\r\ndripping with sleety rain. I looked out the window, and lo! where\r\nyesterday was cold gray ice there lay the transparent pond already calm\r\nand full of hope as in a summer evening, reflecting a summer evening\r\nsky in its bosom, though none was visible overhead, as if it had\r\nintelligence with some remote horizon. I heard a robin in the distance,\r\nthe first I had heard for many a thousand years, methought, whose note\r\nI shall not forget for many a thousand more--the same sweet and powerful\r\nsong as of yore. O the evening robin, at the end of a New England summer\r\nday! If I could ever find the twig he sits upon! I mean _he_; I mean the\r\n_twig_. This at least is not the _Turdus migratorius_. The pitch pines and\r\nshrub oaks about my house, which had so long drooped, suddenly resumed\r\ntheir several characters, looked brighter, greener, and more erect and\r\nalive, as if effectually cleansed and restored by the rain. I knew that\r\nit would not rain any more. You may tell by looking at any twig of the\r\nforest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.\r\nAs it grew darker, I was startled by the honking of geese flying low\r\nover the woods, like weary travellers getting in late from Southern\r\nlakes, and indulging at last in unrestrained complaint and mutual\r\nconsolation. Standing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings;\r\nwhen, driving toward my house, they suddenly spied my light, and with\r\nhushed clamor wheeled and settled in the pond. So I came in, and shut\r\nthe door, and passed my first spring night in the woods.\r\n\r\nIn the morning I watched the geese from the door through the mist,\r\nsailing in the middle of the pond, fifty rods off, so large and\r\ntumultuous that Walden appeared like an artificial pond for their\r\namusement. But when I stood on the shore they at once rose up with a\r\ngreat flapping of wings at the signal of their commander, and when they\r\nhad got into rank circled about over my head, twenty-nine of them, and\r\nthen steered straight to Canada, with a regular _honk_ from the leader at\r\nintervals, trusting to break their fast in muddier pools. A \"plump\" of\r\nducks rose at the same time and took the route to the north in the wake\r\nof their noisier cousins.\r\n\r\nFor a week I heard the circling, groping clangor of some solitary goose\r\nin the foggy mornings, seeking its companion, and still peopling the\r\nwoods with the sound of a larger life than they could sustain. In April\r\nthe pigeons were seen again flying express in small flocks, and in due\r\ntime I heard the martins twittering over my clearing, though it had not\r\nseemed that the township contained so many that it could afford me any,\r\nand I fancied that they were peculiarly of the ancient race that dwelt\r\nin hollow trees ere white men came. In almost all climes the tortoise\r\nand the frog are among the precursors and heralds of this season, and\r\nbirds fly with song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom,\r\nand winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the poles and\r\npreserve the equilibrium of nature.\r\n\r\nAs every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring\r\nis like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the\r\nGolden Age.--\r\n\r\n  \"Eurus ad Auroram Nabathaeaque regna recessit,\r\n   Persidaque, et radiis juga subdita matutinis.\"\r\n\r\n  \"The East-Wind withdrew to Aurora and the Nabath\u00e6n kingdom,\r\n   And the Persian, and the ridges placed under the morning rays.\r\n                        . . . . . . .\r\n   Man was born.  Whether that Artificer of things,\r\n   The origin of a better world, made him from the divine seed;\r\n   Or the earth, being recent and lately sundered from the high\r\n   Ether, retained some seeds of cognate heaven.\"\r\n\r\nA single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our\r\nprospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be\r\nblessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every\r\naccident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence\r\nof the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in\r\natoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our\r\nduty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant\r\nspring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to\r\nvice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.\r\nThrough our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our\r\nneighbors. You may have known your neighbor yesterday for a thief,\r\na drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or despised him, and\r\ndespaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first\r\nspring morning, recreating the world, and you meet him at some serene\r\nwork, and see how it is exhausted and debauched veins expand with still\r\njoy and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence\r\nof infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. There is not only an\r\natmosphere of good will about him, but even a savor of holiness groping\r\nfor expression, blindly and ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born\r\ninstinct, and for a short hour the south hill-side echoes to no vulgar\r\njest. You see some innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his\r\ngnarled rind and try another year's life, tender and fresh as the\r\nyoungest plant. Even he has entered into the joy of his Lord. Why the\r\njailer does not leave open his prison doors--why the judge does not\r\ndismis his case--why the preacher does not dismiss his congregation! It\r\nis because they do not obey the hint which God gives them, nor accept\r\nthe pardon which he freely offers to all.\r\n\r\n\"A return to goodness produced each day in the tranquil and beneficent\r\nbreath of the morning, causes that in respect to the love of virtue and\r\nthe hatred of vice, one approaches a little the primitive nature of man,\r\nas the sprouts of the forest which has been felled. In like manner\r\nthe evil which one does in the interval of a day prevents the germs of\r\nvirtues which began to spring up again from developing themselves and\r\ndestroys them.\r\n\r\n\"After the germs of virtue have thus been prevented many times from\r\ndeveloping themselves, then the beneficent breath of evening does not\r\nsuffice to preserve them. As soon as the breath of evening does not\r\nsuffice longer to preserve them, then the nature of man does not differ\r\nmuch from that of the brute. Men seeing the nature of this man like that\r\nof the brute, think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of\r\nreason. Are those the true and natural sentiments of man?\"\r\n\r\n   \"The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger\r\n    Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude.\r\n    Punishment and fear were not; nor were threatening words read\r\n    On suspended brass; nor did the suppliant crowd fear\r\n    The words of their judge; but were safe without an avenger.\r\n    Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended\r\n    To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world,\r\n    And mortals knew no shores but their own.\r\n                          . . . . . . .\r\n    There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm\r\n    Blasts soothed the flowers born without seed.\"\r\n\r\nOn the 29th of April, as I was fishing from the bank of the river near\r\nthe Nine-Acre-Corner bridge, standing on the quaking grass and willow\r\nroots, where the muskrats lurk, I heard a singular rattling sound,\r\nsomewhat like that of the sticks which boys play with their fingers,\r\nwhen, looking up, I observed a very slight and graceful hawk, like a\r\nnighthawk, alternately soaring like a ripple and tumbling a rod or two\r\nover and over, showing the under side of its wings, which gleamed like\r\na satin ribbon in the sun, or like the pearly inside of a shell.\r\nThis sight reminded me of falconry and what nobleness and poetry are\r\nassociated with that sport. The Merlin it seemed to me it might be\r\ncalled: but I care not for its name. It was the most ethereal flight I\r\nhad ever witnessed. It did not simply flutter like a butterfly, nor soar\r\nlike the larger hawks, but it sported with proud reliance in the fields\r\nof air; mounting again and again with its strange chuckle, it repeated\r\nits free and beautiful fall, turning over and over like a kite, and then\r\nrecovering from its lofty tumbling, as if it had never set its foot on\r\n_terra firma_. It appeared to have no companion in the universe--sporting\r\nthere alone--and to need none but the morning and the ether with which\r\nit played. It was not lonely, but made all the earth lonely beneath it.\r\nWhere was the parent which hatched it, its kindred, and its father in\r\nthe heavens? The tenant of the air, it seemed related to the earth but\r\nby an egg hatched some time in the crevice of a crag;--or was its native\r\nnest made in the angle of a cloud, woven of the rainbow's trimmings and\r\nthe sunset sky, and lined with some soft midsummer haze caught up from\r\nearth? Its eyry now some cliffy cloud.\r\n\r\nBeside this I got a rare mess of golden and silver and bright cupreous\r\nfishes, which looked like a string of jewels. Ah! I have penetrated to\r\nthose meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from\r\nhummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river\r\nvalley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would\r\nhave waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as\r\nsome suppose. There needs no stronger proof of immortality. All things\r\nmust live in such a light. O Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where\r\nwas thy victory, then?\r\n\r\nOur village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored\r\nforests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness--to\r\nwade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and\r\nhear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only\r\nsome wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls\r\nwith its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are\r\nearnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things\r\nbe mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild,\r\nunsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have\r\nenough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible\r\nvigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the\r\nwilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud,\r\nand the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need\r\nto witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely\r\nwhere we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture\r\nfeeding on the carrion which disgusts and disheartens us, and deriving\r\nhealth and strength from the repast. There was a dead horse in the\r\nhollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go\r\nout of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the\r\nassurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of\r\nNature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is\r\nso rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and\r\nsuffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so\r\nserenely squashed out of existence like pulp--tadpoles which herons\r\ngobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that\r\nsometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident,\r\nwe must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made\r\non a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous\r\nafter all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable\r\nground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be\r\nstereotyped.\r\n\r\nEarly in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, just putting\r\nout amidst the pine woods around the pond, imparted a brightness like\r\nsunshine to the landscape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were\r\nbreaking through mists and shining faintly on the hillsides here and\r\nthere. On the third or fourth of May I saw a loon in the pond, and\r\nduring the first week of the month I heard the whip-poor-will, the brown\r\nthrasher, the veery, the wood pewee, the chewink, and other birds. I had\r\nheard the wood thrush long before. The ph\u0153be had already come once more\r\nand looked in at my door and window, to see if my house was cavern-like\r\nenough for her, sustaining herself on humming wings with clinched\r\ntalons, as if she held by the air, while she surveyed the premises.\r\nThe sulphur-like pollen of the pitch pine soon covered the pond and the\r\nstones and rotten wood along the shore, so that you could have collected\r\na barrelful. This is the \"sulphur showers\" we hear of. Even in Calidas'\r\ndrama of Sacontala, we read of \"rills dyed yellow with the golden dust\r\nof the lotus.\" And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one\r\nrambles into higher and higher grass.\r\n\r\nThus was my first year's life in the woods completed; and the second\r\nyear was similar to it. I finally left Walden September 6th, 1847.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nConclusion\r\n\r\n\r\nTo the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery.\r\nThank Heaven, here is not all the world. The buckeye does not grow in\r\nNew England, and the mockingbird is rarely heard here. The wild goose\r\nis more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes\r\na luncheon in the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern\r\nbayou. Even the bison, to some extent, keeps pace with the seasons\r\ncropping the pastures of the Colorado only till a greener and sweeter\r\ngrass awaits him by the Yellowstone. Yet we think that if rail fences\r\nare pulled down, and stone walls piled up on our farms, bounds are\r\nhenceforth set to our lives and our fates decided. If you are chosen\r\ntown clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer: but\r\nyou may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is\r\nwider than our views of it.\r\n\r\nYet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, like curious\r\npassengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum.\r\nThe other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our\r\nvoyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for\r\ndiseases of the skin merely. One hastens to southern Africa to chase the\r\ngiraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after. How long,\r\npray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also\r\nmay afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot\r\none's self.--\r\n\r\n          \"Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find\r\n           A thousand regions in your mind\r\n           Yet undiscovered.  Travel them, and be\r\n           Expert in home-cosmography.\"\r\n\r\nWhat does Africa--what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior\r\nwhite on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast,\r\nwhen discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the\r\nMississippi, or a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would\r\nfind? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the\r\nonly man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him?\r\nDoes Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park,\r\nthe Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans;\r\nexplore your own higher latitudes--with shiploads of preserved meats to\r\nsupport you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for\r\na sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be\r\na Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new\r\nchannels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm\r\nbeside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state,\r\na hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no\r\nself-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil\r\nwhich makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may\r\nstill animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads. What\r\nwas the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its\r\nparade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact that there\r\nare continents and seas in the moral world to which every man is an\r\nisthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to\r\nsail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a\r\ngovernment ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it\r\nis to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's\r\nbeing alone.\r\n\r\n          \"Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos.\r\n           Plus habet hic vitae, plus habet ille viae.\"\r\n\r\n   Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians.\r\n   I have more of God, they more of the road.\r\n\r\nIt is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in\r\nZanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, and you may perhaps\r\nfind some \"Symmes' Hole\" by which to get at the inside at last. England\r\nand France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front\r\non this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of\r\nland, though it is without doubt the direct way to India. If you would\r\nlearn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations,\r\nif you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all\r\nclimes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even\r\nobey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are\r\ndemanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to\r\nthe wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest\r\nwestern way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor\r\nconduct toward a worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct, a tangent\r\nto this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down,\r\nand at last earth down too.\r\n\r\nIt is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery \"to ascertain what\r\ndegree of resolution was necessary in order to place one's self in\r\nformal opposition to the most sacred laws of society.\" He declared that\r\n\"a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage\r\nas a footpad\"--\"that honor and religion have never stood in the way of a\r\nwell-considered and a firm resolve.\" This was manly, as the world goes;\r\nand yet it was idle, if not desperate. A saner man would have found\r\nhimself often enough \"in formal opposition\" to what are deemed \"the most\r\nsacred laws of society,\" through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and\r\nso have tested his resolution without going out of his way. It is not\r\nfor a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain\r\nhimself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the\r\nlaws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just\r\ngovernment, if he should chance to meet with such.\r\n\r\nI left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed\r\nto me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any\r\nmore time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we\r\nfall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I\r\nhad not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to\r\nthe pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it\r\nis still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen\r\ninto it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft\r\nand impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind\r\ntravels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world,\r\nhow deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a\r\ncabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the\r\nworld, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do\r\nnot wish to go below now.\r\n\r\nI learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances\r\nconfidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the\r\nlife which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in\r\ncommon hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible\r\nboundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish\r\nthemselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and\r\ninterpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with\r\nthe license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies\r\nhis life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and\r\nsolitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness\r\nweakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be\r\nlost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.\r\n\r\nIt is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall\r\nspeak so that they can understand you. Neither men nor toadstools grow\r\nso. As if that were important, and there were not enough to understand\r\nyou without them. As if Nature could support but one order of\r\nunderstandings, could not sustain birds as well as quadrupeds, flying as\r\nwell as creeping things, and _hush_ and _whoa_, which Bright can\r\nunderstand, were the best English. As if there were safety in stupidity\r\nalone. I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be _extra-vagant_\r\nenough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily\r\nexperience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been\r\nconvinced. _Extra vagance!_ it depends on how you are yarded. The\r\nmigrating buffalo, which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not\r\nextravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail, leaps the cowyard\r\nfence, and runs after her calf, in milking time. I desire to speak\r\nsomewhere _without_ bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in\r\ntheir waking moments; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough\r\neven to lay the foundation of a true expression. Who that has heard a\r\nstrain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more\r\nforever? In view of the future or possible, we should live quite laxly\r\nand undefined in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our\r\nshadows reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The volatile\r\ntruth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the\r\nresidual statement. Their truth is instantly _translated_; its literal\r\nmonument alone remains. The words which express our faith and piety are\r\nnot definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to\r\nsuperior natures.\r\n\r\nWhy level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as\r\ncommon sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they\r\nexpress by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are\r\nonce-and-a-half-witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only\r\na third part of their wit. Some would find fault with the morning red,\r\nif they ever got up early enough. \"They pretend,\" as I hear, \"that the\r\nverses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion, spirit, intellect,\r\nand the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas\"; but in this part of the world\r\nit is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writings admit\r\nof more than one interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the\r\npotato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails\r\nso much more widely and fatally?\r\n\r\nI do not suppose that I have attained to obscurity, but I should be\r\nproud if no more fatal fault were found with my pages on this score than\r\nwas found with the Walden ice. Southern customers objected to its blue\r\ncolor, which is the evidence of its purity, as if it were muddy, and\r\npreferred the Cambridge ice, which is white, but tastes of weeds. The\r\npurity men love is like the mists which envelop the earth, and not like\r\nthe azure ether beyond.\r\n\r\nSome are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally,\r\nare intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the\r\nElizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better\r\nthan a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to\r\nthe race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every\r\none mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.\r\n\r\nWhy should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such\r\ndesperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions,\r\nperhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the\r\nmusic which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important\r\nthat he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn\r\nhis spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made\r\nfor is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will\r\nnot be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven\r\nof blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to\r\ngaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were\r\nnot?\r\n\r\nThere was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive\r\nafter perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having\r\nconsidered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into\r\na perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be\r\nperfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life.\r\nHe proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it\r\nshould not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and\r\nrejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they\r\ngrew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His\r\nsingleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed\r\nhim, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no\r\ncompromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a\r\ndistance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock\r\nin all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he\r\nsat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the\r\nproper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the\r\npoint of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in\r\nthe sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and\r\npolished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had\r\nput on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma\r\nhad awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these\r\nthings? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly\r\nexpanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of\r\nall the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff,\r\na world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities\r\nand dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken\r\ntheir places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his\r\nfeet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been\r\nan illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a\r\nsingle scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the\r\ntinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure;\r\nhow could the result be other than wonderful?\r\n\r\nNo face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as\r\nthe truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where\r\nwe are, but in a false position. Through an infinity of our natures, we\r\nsuppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at\r\nthe same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. In sane moments we\r\nregard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not\r\nwhat you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the\r\ntinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say.\r\n\"Tell the tailors,\" said he, \"to remember to make a knot in their thread\r\nbefore they take the first stitch.\" His companion's prayer is forgotten.\r\n\r\nHowever mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call\r\nit hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you\r\nare richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love\r\nyour life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling,\r\nglorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from\r\nthe windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode;\r\nthe snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see\r\nbut a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering\r\nthoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the\r\nmost independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough\r\nto receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being\r\nsupported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not\r\nabove supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more\r\ndisreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not\r\ntrouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.\r\nTurn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell\r\nyour clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want\r\nsociety. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a\r\nspider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts\r\nabout me. The philosopher said: \"From an army of three divisions one\r\ncan take away its general, and put it in disorder; from the man the\r\nmost abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought.\" Do not seek so\r\nanxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to\r\nbe played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the\r\nheavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us,\r\n\"and lo! creation widens to our view.\" We are often reminded that if\r\nthere were bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still\r\nbe the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you\r\nare restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and\r\nnewspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant\r\nand vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with the material which\r\nyields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone\r\nwhere it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No man\r\nloses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous\r\nwealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one\r\nnecessary of the soul.\r\n\r\nI live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured\r\na little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there\r\nreaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise\r\nof my contemporaries. My neighbors tell me of their adventures\r\nwith famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the\r\ndinner-table; but I am no more interested in such things than in the\r\ncontents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about\r\ncostume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it\r\nas you will. They tell me of California and Texas, of England and the\r\nIndies, of the Hon. Mr.----of Georgia or of Massachusetts, all transient\r\nand fleeting phenomena, till I am ready to leap from their court-yard\r\nlike the Mameluke bey. I delight to come to my bearings--not walk in\r\nprocession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk\r\neven with the Builder of the universe, if I may--not to live in this\r\nrestless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or\r\nsit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? They are\r\nall on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from\r\nsomebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his\r\norator. I love to weigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which most\r\nstrongly and rightfully attracts me--not hang by the beam of the scale\r\nand try to weigh less--not suppose a case, but take the case that is; to\r\ntravel the only path I can, and that on which no power can resist me. It\r\naffords me no satisfaction to commence to spring an arch before I have\r\ngot a solid foundation. Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a\r\nsolid bottom everywhere. We read that the traveller asked the boy if\r\nthe swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had.\r\nBut presently the traveller's horse sank in up to the girths, and\r\nhe observed to the boy, \"I thought you said that this bog had a hard\r\nbottom.\" \"So it has,\" answered the latter, \"but you have not got half\r\nway to it yet.\" So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but\r\nhe is an old boy that knows it. Only what is thought, said, or done at\r\na certain rare coincidence is good. I would not be one of those who will\r\nfoolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would\r\nkeep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the\r\nfurring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so\r\nfaithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with\r\nsatisfaction--a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the\r\nMuse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as\r\nanother rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.\r\n\r\nRather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table\r\nwhere were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance,\r\nbut sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the\r\ninhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought\r\nthat there was no need of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the\r\nage of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older,\r\na newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had\r\nnot got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and\r\n\"entertainment\" pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he\r\nmade me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for\r\nhospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow\r\ntree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I\r\ncalled on him.\r\n\r\nHow long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty\r\nvirtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were to begin\r\nthe day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in\r\nthe afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity\r\nwith goodness aforethought! Consider the China pride and stagnant\r\nself-complacency of mankind. This generation inclines a little to\r\ncongratulate itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in\r\nBoston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent,\r\nit speaks of its progress in art and science and literature with\r\nsatisfaction. There are the Records of the Philosophical Societies, and\r\nthe public Eulogies of Great Men! It is the good Adam contemplating his\r\nown virtue. \"Yes, we have done great deeds, and sung divine songs, which\r\nshall never die\"--that is, as long as we can remember them. The learned\r\nsocieties and great men of Assyria--where are they? What youthful\r\nphilosophers and experimentalists we are! There is not one of my readers\r\nwho has yet lived a whole human life. These may be but the spring months\r\nin the life of the race. If we have had the seven-years' itch, we have\r\nnot seen the seventeen-year locust yet in Concord. We are acquainted\r\nwith a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved\r\nsix feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. We know not\r\nwhere we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we\r\nesteem ourselves wise, and have an established order on the surface.\r\nTruly, we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits! As I stand over\r\nthe insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and\r\nendeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will\r\ncherish those humble thoughts, and bide its head from me who might,\r\nperhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering\r\ninformation, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence\r\nthat stands over me the human insect.\r\n\r\nThere is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we\r\ntolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what kind of sermons\r\nare still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are such\r\nwords as joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a psalm, sung\r\nwith a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary and mean. We think\r\nthat we can change our clothes only. It is said that the British\r\nEmpire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a\r\nfirst-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind\r\nevery man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should\r\never harbor it in his mind. Who knows what sort of seventeen-year locust\r\nwill next come out of the ground? The government of the world I live in\r\nwas not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over\r\nthe wine.\r\n\r\nThe life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year\r\nhigher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even\r\nthis may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It\r\nwas not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks\r\nwhich the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its\r\nfreshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New\r\nEngland, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of\r\nan old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's\r\nkitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in\r\nMassachusetts--from an egg deposited in the living tree many years\r\nearlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it;\r\nwhich was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by\r\nthe heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and\r\nimmortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful\r\nand winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many\r\nconcentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society,\r\ndeposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which\r\nhas been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned\r\ntomb--heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family\r\nof man, as they sat round the festive board--may unexpectedly come forth\r\nfrom amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy\r\nits perfect summer life at last!\r\n\r\nI do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is\r\nthe character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to\r\ndawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day\r\ndawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a\r\nmorning star.<\/pre>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\n<p><b>Henry David Thoreau<\/b> (July 12, 1817\u00a0\u2013 May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist,\u00a0Thoreau is best known for his book <i>Walden<\/i>, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay &#8220;Civil Disobedience&#8221; (originally published as &#8220;Resistance to Civil Government&#8221;), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.<\/p>\n<p>Thoreau&#8217;s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and Yankee attention to practical detail.\u00a0He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life&#8217;s true essential needs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-410\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Biography of Henry David Thoreau. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Wikipedia. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Henry_David_Thoreau\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Henry_David_Thoreau<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">Public domain content<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Walden. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Henry David Thoreau. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/205\">http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/205<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/pdm\">Public Domain: No Known Copyright<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":19,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"pd\",\"description\":\"Walden\",\"author\":\"Henry David Thoreau\",\"organization\":\"\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/205\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"pd\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Biography of Henry David Thoreau\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"Wikipedia\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Henry_David_Thoreau\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-410","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":298,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/410\/revisions\/567"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/298"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/410\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-introliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}