Walden

Introduction

A Modern Look at a Classic Book

More than 150 years ago, Henry David Thoreau published his book Walden. Today, many people see it as a key text for ideas like:

• Returning to nature
• Protecting the environment
• Questioning big business
• Peacefully disobeying unfair laws

Thoreau himself is often viewed as a powerful protester, a unique individual, and almost a saint who lived alone. Because of this, Walden is like the Bible: highly respected, but perhaps not often read.

Walden appeared in the mid-1800s, a time when many great American books were written. These include:

• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850)
• Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851)
• Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855) We could also add Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1854), which was a hugely popular book that stirred the nation, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays, which helped prepare people for these new ideas. Among these important works, Walden has had the biggest impact on how America sees itself today.

Why Walden Still Matters

We live in a time with too much information, noisy and meaningless electronic entertainment everywhere, and stressful, demanding jobs. Because of this, many people still feel a strong desire to do what Thoreau did: build a cabin in the woods to change their lives, make them simpler, and feel cleaner. Thoreau powerfully described this as wanting “to front only the essential facts of life”—to face only what truly matters.

This desire is what the vacation industry relies on. It’s why people buy campers and escape on weekends to second homes in forests or mountains, where there’s less pollution from industry and business. Walden tells us to “Simplify, simplify.” We try to follow this advice, even though trying to live a simple, back-to-basics life in the 21st century can be quite complicated and expensive.

Thoreau’s Goals for Walden

Thoreau would likely be pleased that people today are trying to live by his ideas and follow his example. Walden was written to try to change people’s minds. This strong, persuasive purpose gives the book an energy and focus. His only other book published in his lifetime, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), was more wandering and lacked this drive.

Like A Week, Walden is a kind of memoir, filled with many different observations and thoughts. Thoreau was known for constantly rewriting and adding to his work; Walden went through at least seven different versions. Ultimately, the book is a defense of his unusual decision to live apart from society. From the very beginning, the book has a strong, humorous tone:

Thoreau himself explained why he wrote so much about his personal life: “I wouldn’t share so much about my private life if people in my town hadn’t asked so many specific questions about how I lived. Some might say their questions were nosy. But I didn’t think they were nosy at all. Given the situation, I thought their questions were very natural and made a lot of sense.”

Reasons for Living at Walden Pond

What was this “situation”? Society around him felt full of boring, repetitive work and silly distractions. Thoreau wanted “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” In simpler terms, he wanted to live with purpose, focus only on what was truly important, learn from life itself, and make sure he had truly lived before he died.

However, he didn’t mention another very practical reason: he wanted to be a writer. Like many other aspiring writers, he needed privacy, quiet, and plenty of mental space for his thoughts to develop.

Building a Life and a Legacy

In the spring of 1845, Thoreau built a small, one-room cabin. It was on land owned by his mentor and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, located more than a mile south of Concord village. He moved in on July 4th, symbolically declaring his own independence.

During the next two years in the cabin, Thoreau was very productive:

• He finished a version of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. This book was based on a canoe trip he took with his brother John in 1839. He later added more to it.
• He wrote the first version of Walden.
• He wrote a long essay about Thomas Carlyle. He read part of this essay as a lecture in Concord in 1846.

In July 1846, Thoreau refused to pay several years’ worth of a local tax called the poll tax. He did this because he believed the U.S. government supported and protected slavery. He spent one night in jail for this act, which became the foundation for his famous essay “Civil Disobedience.” Later that year, he made his first trip to Maine and wrote most of his essay “Ktaadn.”

When Thoreau moved to his cabin by Walden Pond, he was twenty-seven years old. His life up to that point included:

• Graduating from Harvard University (19th in his class).
• Trying to be a teacher.
• Helping his father with the family’s pencil-making business.
• Doing various local jobs for a dollar a day.
• Living with the Emerson family for two years as a handyman and gardener.
• Spending a short time in Long Island as a tutor and trying to start a literary career.
• Despite Emerson’s support and publishing a few poems and essays in a magazine called The Dial, he had not yet made a significant impact.

When Thoreau left the cabin in 1847, he had become the person we now know from literary history.

How Thoreau Looked and Sounded

Thoreau had a memorable appearance, and several people described him.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, another writer who lived in Concord for a time, described a young Thoreau in 1842. Hawthorne said he was “a young man with much of wild original nature still remaining in him… He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and somewhat rustic, although courteous manners… [He] seems inclined to lead a sort of Indian life among civilized men—an Indian life, I mean, as respects the absence of any systematic effort for a livelihood.” Hawthorne meant that Thoreau seemed to prefer living simply, like Native Americans were perceived to live, without a typical job or career.
• James Kendall Hosmer remembered an older Thoreau: “He stood in the doorway with hair which looked as if it had been dressed with a pine-cone, inattentive grey eyes, hazy with faraway musings, an emphatic nose and disheveled attire that bore signs of tramps in woods and swamps.” This means his hair was messy, his eyes seemed to be looking at distant thoughts, he had a prominent nose, and his clothes were untidy from his walks in nature.
• Daniel Ricketson, a follower from New Bedford, remembered (as told by Thoreau’s biographer Walter Harding) “the gentleness, humanity, and intelligence of Thoreau’s blue eyes.” Ricketson also noted that “though his arms were long, his legs short, his hands and feet large, and his shoulders markedly sloping, he was strong and vigorous in his walk.”
• His voice was impressive, even near the end of his life when tuberculosis (a lung disease) had weakened it. On his last trip, a journey to Minnesota hoping the drier air might help his health, he visited a minister in Chicago named Robert Collyer.

Collyer remembered Thoreau’s speech: “His words were as clear and true to the ear as those of a great singer… He would pause for a moment now and then, searching for the exact right word, or he would stop with a touching patience to manage the trouble in his chest. But when he finished, the sentence was perfect and complete, with nothing missing. The words were so perfectly matched to the man that now, when I read his books, I don’t hear my own voice reading; I hear the voice I heard that day.”

Thoreau’s Unique Writing Style

How did Thoreau develop his distinctive writing style? To modern readers, his style has aged better than Emerson’s. Emerson’s writing was smoother, more worldly, and more like a speech—which makes sense, as he used to be a clergyman. Emerson’s short, advice-filled sentences, aimed at an audience, can feel a bit tiring today. We can almost picture him on a stage, sharing wise sayings and encouragement.

Thoreau’s writing feels more personal and inward-looking. He wasn’t focused on an audience. Instead, he paid close attention to the rich world of sensations around him, describing what he saw and experienced with great precision. Consider this example from early in his book, A Week:

“We floated silently down the stream. Sometimes we startled a pickerel (a type of fish) from its hiding place under the lily pads, or a bream (another fish) from its nest. Now and then, a small bittern (a wading bird) would fly slowly away from a hidden spot on the shore. Or a larger bittern would rise from the tall grass as we approached, carrying its long legs away to a safer place. Turtles also quickly dropped into the water as our boat disturbed the surface among the willow trees, breaking the reflections of the trees. The riverbanks were past their most beautiful stage. Some of the brighter flowers showed by their faded colors that the season was moving towards its end, like the afternoon of the year. But this darker shade made them seem more genuine. In the continuing heat, they looked like the mossy edge of a cool well.”

Nature as Symbol and Science

This is all clear observation, moving from one detail to the next. Then comes a surprising thought: the fading color made the flowers seem more “sincere,” as if they were trying to make a point. The original long paragraph continued by listing the flowers of the Concord meadows, including their Latin names. It ended with a memory of early mornings on the water. Before sunrise, Thoreau watched water lilies suddenly open as the first sunlight touched them. He wrote, “whole fields of white blossoms seemed to flash open before me, as I floated along, like the unfolding of a banner.”

This isn’t just “nature writing,” though it has the freshness of a time when the American continent was still being explored and documented, much like explorers Alexander von Humboldt or John James Audubon did. Instead, it’s a vivid, detailed example of an idea from Emerson’s first small book, Nature. Emerson believed that “every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.” He meant that Nature, at its core, is Spirit, and that “Spirit alters, moulds, makes it.”

Emerson liked a quote from the philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg: “The visible world and the relation of its parts, is the dial plate of the invisible.” This means the physical world we see shows us the unseen spiritual world. Emerson also said, “The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics,” meaning the basic rules of science reflect the rules of right and wrong.

Thoreau deeply absorbed this way of thinking, called Idealism, from Emerson. He saw Nature as a giant collection of symbols or metaphors. He became a kind of scientist, as well as what he later called himself: “a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot.” He also became a writer of his own life story. He carefully collected unique moments and observations, writing them down with increasing detail and insight in his journals. These journals eventually contained about two million words, gathered from wherever he chose to explore.

Emerson, like other respected people in Concord, was unsure about Thoreau’s very personal and unusual focus. Emerson wrote in his own journal that “Thoreau wants a little ambition in his mixture…. Instead of being the head of American engineers, he is captain of a huckleberry party.” By “captain of a huckleberry party,” Emerson meant Thoreau was spending his time on unimportant, leisurely pursuits instead of a serious career.

Thoreau’s love for this kind of “huckleberry-gathering”—his deep study of nature—took him on long walks along Cape Cod’s rough coast and up to the rocky top of Maine’s Mount Katahdin. But he always came back to the small area of wilderness around Concord. For him, this small place (a microcosm) was enough to represent the entire universe (the cosmos).

Influences from Earlier Writers

The scholar F. O. Matthiessen, in his book American Renaissance, explained that the great American writers of Thoreau’s time were heavily influenced by English writers from the 1600s. These included John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and Thomas Browne. These earlier writers believed in correspondences—connections between small things and large things, and between a person’s inner world and the outer world of Nature.

• John Donne wrote: “The heart of man / Is an epitome of God’s great book / Of creatures, and man need no farther look.” This means a person’s heart reflects all of God’s creation, so one doesn’t need to search elsewhere for understanding.
• George Herbert wrote: “Man is one world, and hath / Another to attend him.” This suggests that each person is a complete world, with a spiritual world (heavenly care) also looking after them.

These 17th-century writers, known as “metaphysical” poets, had a powerful effect on the American writers of the 1800s. These Americans, who were like the spiritual descendants of the 17th-century Puritans, were inspired to focus on very personal and detailed observations.

The Power of Details in Walden

Walden is powerful because of its specific details. The long first chapter, “Economy,” happily explains exactly how to build a house: “a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite.” He even provides a list of all his expenses, which added up to only $28.12 ½.

Thoreau energetically promoted his plan for a simple, self-sufficient life. He listed the few foods he bought and the money he made from planting seven miles of bean rows. He tells us how to make his simple bread from rye and cornmeal (called “Indian meal”). He also explains how to make “a very good molasses either of pumpkin or beets.” In another experiment, he ate a woodchuck. He said he enjoyed it “notwithstanding its musky flavor,” but he didn’t think it would become a popular item at the local butcher shop. He also shares details about his housekeeping:

“Housework was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget [bundle], dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed it clean and white….”

Finding Beauty in the Ordinary

The author of this introduction notes that Thoreau shows his sensitive and cleverly humorous genius when he thinks about his furniture sitting outside. He finds a strange and wonderful quality in this temporary change:

“It was pleasant to see my whole household effects out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy’s pack, and my three-legged table, from which I did not remove the books and pen and ink, standing amid the pines and hickories…. It was worth the while to see the sun shine on these things, and hear the free wind blow on them; so much more interesting most familiar objects look out of doors than in the house.” In other words, he enjoyed seeing his belongings outside, like a traveler’s bundle, with his work table set among the trees. He realized that everyday things look much more interesting when seen outside in the natural light and air.

Observing the World with Open Eyes

In Thoreau’s free and open state of mind, many things were worth watching carefully:

• The way chickadees (small birds) eat.
• The trickles of melting snow in the spring along the side of the railroad tracks. He described them with a complex image: “resembling, as you look down on them, the laciniated lobed and imbricated thalluses of some lichens” (meaning they looked like the intricate, overlapping patterns of certain types of plant-like growths called lichens).
• At the same time, he felt “cheered by the music of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they are bearing off.” He heard the sound of tiny streams as music, carrying away the last of winter.
• Other times, he listened closely to “the faint wiry peep” of baby woodcocks being led by their mother through the swamp.

In Walden’s most impressive chapter, “Sounds,” he describes not only the calls and movements of countless animals but also, with surprising approval, the whistle and noise of the Fitchburg Railroad train. The train passed about a hundred yards away, along the edge of Walden Pond:

“Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments…. I am refreshed and expanded when the freight train rattles past me, and I smell the stores which go dispensing their odors all the way from Long Wharf to Lake Champlain.” This means he found business and trade (represented by the train) to be surprisingly positive: self-assured, calm, active, tireless, and quite natural in how it worked. He thought it was more natural than many unrealistic or overly emotional projects. He felt energized by the passing freight train and the smells of the goods it carried from distant places.

Thoreau’s admiration for Nature was not picky. It included the “iron steed”—the train—that noisily pushed its way into his woods. He wrote several pages praising it, ending with one of his most famous poems, which begins: “What’s the railroad to me? / I never go to see / Where it ends.”

A Critical Look at Thoreau’s Ideas

The town of Concord in the 1840s, where Thoreau felt people “lead lives of quiet desperation” and were like “slave-drivers of themselves” with “no time to be any thing but a machine,” seems like a peaceful, countryside world to us today. Back then, the steam engine was the latest technology, and most work was farm labor.

According to Thoreau, it is the farmer whose “poor immortal soul” is “well nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed.” (The “Augean stables” refers to a mythical task of cleaning immense filth, here meaning the farmer is overwhelmed by endless work and debt tied to his large property.) He described meeting a farmer in the middle of the night, driving his animals to Boston for an early morning market. Meanwhile, Thoreau, the unburdened hermit, was heading back to sleep in his comfortable cabin.

Thoreau was a Harvard graduate and the son of John Thoreau, who owned a small pencil-making business. In Concord’s society, he was considered something of a gentleman. This status gave him the freedom to pursue his hobbies that didn’t earn money. We might feel a little uncomfortable for people who truly had to work hard when we read Thoreau’s claims that “to maintain one’s self on this earth is not hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely,” and that “by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.”

Not everyone gets free land to live on for a personal experiment, or can easily rely on the support of a nearby village. Thoreau tended to downplay how much most people need to work. He also largely ignored the growing wave of difficult factory work that was starting in New England at the time. In his book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, he didn’t pay much attention to the factories that made that river one of America’s first industrial areas. Herman Melville tried to show the cruel working conditions in these factories in his short story “The Tartarus of Maids.”

Thoreau’s Core Protest and Its Limits

Thoreau’s main protest was against consumerism—the way industry encourages us to buy its products. His solution was simple: do without things. He famously wrote, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” This means true wealth is not about owning many things, but about not needing many things.

This idea of “doing without” also included sex. Thoreau believed that “The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us.” He thought that by controlling sexual urges, people could become more energized and inspired.

As Nathaniel Hawthorne realized, such a lifestyle, if taken to an extreme, could mean the end of most human interactions that create civilization. It might lead to a return to a solitary, “Indian life” (as Hawthorne understood it, meaning completely self-sufficient) or even beyond that—to a level of individual independence that no society, especially not a tribal one, could handle.

Thoreau’s retreat to the cabin, and other similar back-to-the-land movements his book inspired, were often luxuries. They were made possible by the extra wealth created by a complex economy that, at the time, included slave labor. Even a strong admirer of Thoreau like E. B. White admitted this. (White himself moved to the Maine coast, and his move was funded by advertising money from a New York magazine.) Writing about Walden on its 100th anniversary (about 50 years before this introduction was written), White said that anyone trying to find a clear economic system in the book would have a hard time. He also noted that Thoreau sometimes wrote as if all his readers were men, unmarried, and had good social connections.

But even if Walden can’t be seen as a complete solution for all of life’s problems, it can be enjoyed like a condiment—a flavorful spice that clears the head. White remembered how the book encouraged him as a young man. He saw Walden as “an invitation to life’s dance.” It assures the troubled reader that the music of life is playing for them too, if they will only listen and start moving their feet. As Thoreau himself wrote, “Love your life, poor as it is.”

Walden as a Source of Strength

Walden can be seen as a remedy for apathy (lack of interest or emotion) and anxiety (worry and unease). With its cheerful spirit and strong appeals to our senses, the book strengthens us. It was written during a difficult time for Thoreau personally. He was young but felt he should have achieved more. It was also a difficult time for the United States, which was struggling with the issue of slavery and the approaching Civil War.

Although Thoreau didn’t write much about the industrial revolution, he did sense the era’s crisis of belief. People were questioning old faiths, and even simple, less structured forms of religion like Unitarianism seemed to demand too much belief from some. The study of nature was leading to new ideas like naturalism (the view that everything can be explained by natural causes) and philosophical materialism (the idea that only physical matter is real).

Early in Walden, Thoreau mentions “Darwin, the naturalist.” He refers to Darwin’s observation of the “inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego” (people native to the southern tip of South America). These people lived simply, often naked, without suffering from the cold, while Europeans shivered in their clothes. For Thoreau, these people were like model citizens of his ideal world—a utopia of doing without.

According to Walter Harding’s biography, The Days of Henry Thoreau, Thoreau was already sick when he read Charles Darwin’s book Origin of Species in 1860. Thoreau took six pages of notes on it and “liked the book very much.”

However, the big arguments about religion that Darwin’s book caused didn’t really interest Thoreau. They also didn’t change his own way of thinking.

In Walden, Thoreau admits he once had a strange feeling, “a slight insanity in my mood,” where Nature seemed unfriendly. But this feeling quickly went away during a gentle rain. Instead, he felt “an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me.” He concluded, “There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.” This means that a person who lives surrounded by Nature and keeps their senses alert cannot be truly deeply sad.

A Practical Thinker

Thoreau was like Darwin in the way he patiently observed things. He was also like Benjamin Franklin in his clever, practical skills. Unlike most other Transcendentalists (a group of thinkers who focused on intuition and spiritual ideas), Thoreau was good at actually doing things.

• He could take care of Emerson’s garden and make home repairs.
• He used his carpentry skills to build a whimsical summerhouse that another writer, Bronson Alcott, had imagined.

In Walden, Thoreau says, “I have as many trades as fingers,” meaning he had many practical skills. Between 1849 and 1861, he completed over two hundred land surveys, mostly in and around Concord.

Henry Petroski’s history of the pencil, The Pencil, mentions Thoreau as an inventor. Soon after graduating from Harvard, Thoreau created a seven-foot-tall grinding machine. This machine could separate out only the very finest particles of graphite (the material in pencil lead). For a while, Thoreau’s pencils were the best in America because they were the least gritty.

We trust what Thoreau says in Walden and his spiritual ideas more because he gives many examples of his practical knowledge. Often, his thoughts about spiritual things start with a very practical task, like how to fix an axe:

Thoreau wrote: “One day, my axe head came off. I cut a wedge from a green hickory tree branch and hammered it in with a stone. Then I put the axe head in a puddle in the pond so the wood would swell and fit tightly. While I was there, I saw a striped snake go into the water. It lay on the bottom for more than fifteen minutes, apparently comfortable. Perhaps it was still a bit slow from its winter rest (its torpid state). It seemed to me that people stay in their current, undeveloped state for a similar reason. But if they felt a powerful spiritual awakening—like a ‘spring of springs’—rousing them, they would naturally rise to a higher, more spiritual life.”

Learning from Nature’s Processes

By surviving in the woods, Thoreau became a careful student of how physical things work. For example, he knew that water makes wood swell and that dead leaves absorb the sun’s heat. He wrote: “The elements… helped me make a path through the deepest snow in the woods. After I walked through once, the wind blew oak leaves into my tracks. The leaves soaked up the sun’s rays and melted the snow. This not only made a dry place for my feet but, at night, their dark line showed me the way.”

The pond covered with ice in winter also made him observe things very closely. Just as he had carefully studied the melting snow in spring, the winter freeze led him to inspect ice bubbles in great detail. He described them as “narrow oblong perpendicular bubbles about half an inch long, sharp cones with the apex upward.” When the weather warmed up, these bubbles expanded and joined together, looking “often like slivery coins poured from a bag, one overlapping another.” He took his close-up, almost microscopic, look at these “infinite number of minute bubbles” and made a grand conclusion: “These are the little air-guns which contribute to make the ice crack and whoop.”

He came close to understanding microorganisms when he asked, “Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid [spoiled], but frozen remains sweet forever?” However, instead of a scientific answer, he ended with a dry, witty comment: “It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections [emotions] and the intellect [the mind].”

Science and Nature’s Reality

When railroads were built, the dug-up earth revealed new layers of rock and soil (geology). Similarly, when people started cutting ice commercially from Walden Pond in the winter of 1846-47, it gave Thoreau new chances to study ice. He noted its different colors with the same precision that the famous landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church used to paint icebergs.

Early in 1846, Thoreau used the frozen surface of Walden Pond to do his most important technical work there. Using a compass, a measuring chain, and a weighted line to measure depth (a sounding line), he cut holes in the ice in straight lines across the pond. This allowed him to measure its depth all over. He then presented his readers with a map (at a scale of forty rods to an inch; a rod is 16.5 feet) and a profile drawing showing the shape of the pond’s bottom.

For a long time, people had said that Walden Pond was bottomless. Thoreau remarked, “It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.” As the surveyor, he was proud to state, “I can assure my readers that Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual, depth.” He also observed that ponds are usually shallower than we think: “Most ponds, emptied, would leave a meadow no more hollow than we frequently see.”

In the same way, he suggested, many mysteries can be solved through patient scientific investigation. New readers of Walden might be surprised by how much of the book is dedicated to this kind of hands-on, empirical exploration and proof. Thoreau, often seen as a Romantic writer who celebrated Nature, also had the practical, scientific mindset of Benjamin Franklin and the great thinkers of the Enlightenment (the philosophes).

Thoreau’s goal was to help us see Nature as it truly is: powerful, relentless, and uncaring. He wanted to change the human-centered view of the world (anthropocentricity) that had dominated for centuries. He believed we need to be called away from the comfortable, shared illusions of everyday village life.

Thoreau wrote: “We need the uplifting effect of wildness, like a strong medicine (tonic)… We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by seeing its endless energy (inexhaustible vigor) and its vast, gigantic (Titanic) features… We need to see life existing beyond our own limits, where some creatures roam freely in places we never go. We feel encouraged when we watch a vulture feeding on dead animals (carrion). Even though this might disgust and dishearten us, the vulture gets health and strength from this meal (repast).”

Embracing Nature’s Harshness

Thoreau told a story about a dead horse he found on the path to his cabin. The smell repulsed him, but it also encouraged him. It gave him “the assurance… of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature”—Nature’s powerful drive and unbreakable vitality.

The phrase “Nature red in tooth and claw,” from a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, described Nature as savage and cruel. This idea greatly upset Tennyson and other religious people of the Victorian era. Thoreau, however, fully embraced this harsh view of Nature.

He wrote: “I love to see that Nature is so full of life (rife with life) that countless numbers (myriads) can be sacrificed and allowed to prey on one another. I love that delicate creatures (tender organizations) can be so calmly crushed out of existence like pulp—like tadpoles that herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads that get run over on the road. I even love that sometimes it has seemed to rain flesh and blood! Since accidents are always possible, we must see how little importance should be given to them. A wise person gets the impression of universal innocence from all this… Trying to apply human compassion to Nature is a very weak foundation.”

Facing Reality and Mortality

In a way, Thoreau was exploring the fundamental, unavoidable truths of life and death (“the fatal bottom of our organic existence”). Yet, he didn’t just accept the universe, as another Transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller, said she did. Thoreau claimed to rejoice in it.

He faced his own death from tuberculosis (then called “consumption”) at the age of forty-four with a calmness that many people in Concord admired. When people tried to prepare him for the afterlife, he famously said, “One world at a time.”

He didn’t entirely dismiss the idea of personal immortality. Some of his phrases hint at the possibility. For example, near the passages about harsh nature, he described a “wild river valley and the woods… bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead.” He concluded, “There needs no stronger proof of the immortality. All things must live in such a light.”

Yet, the meaning of such statements isn’t entirely clear. They seem like a brief burst of hopeful feeling. This contrasts with most of the book, which presents a clear-eyed, scientific view of Nature as a system of chemicals, molecules, and mathematics. This scientific view strips away the pathetic fallacy (the mistake of giving human emotions to nature), even the subtle version found in Emerson’s philosophy of Neoplatonism.

This meant moving away from Idealism (Emerson’s idea that a spiritual reality underlies the physical world). It meant no perfect Platonic forms or ideal patterns existing separately from real, individual things. As the poet William Carlos Williams would later say in the 20th century, giving a motto to the Modernist literary movement: “No ideas but in things.”

The poetry of Modernist writers like Williams, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound showed that focusing on concrete things—even as puzzling fragments or images without clear emotional or logical explanations—gives language energy and makes communication between writer and reader more direct.

It is this focus on “thinginess”—the concrete details—in Thoreau’s writing that still excites us today. We admire the energetic way he jumps from detail to detail, image to image, while still carrying some of the spiritual concerns (“metaphysical burden”) of Transcendentalism. Without that spiritual element (which is much lighter in his books The Maine Woods and Cape Cod, published after his death), he might seem like just an observant and well-spoken travel writer.

Nevertheless, his descriptions of wild, untamed places give us a deep, thought-provoking feeling (a “metaphysical shudder”). For example, he described the chaotic, mist-covered top of Mount Katahdin as “the raw materials of a planet dropped from an unseen quarry.” His accounts of shipwrecks and wind-beaten apple trees on Cape Cod show him confronting harsh, implacable nature. In this, he seems to find an image of something stark and purifying within himself.

Championing Action Against Injustice

In Thoreau’s later years, the arguments between abolitionists (those who wanted to end slavery) and slaveholders grew louder and more intense, foreshadowing the bloody Civil War. During this time, Thoreau became known, and even somewhat notorious, for his passionate support of John Brown. Brown was an abolitionist who used violence. Thoreau had met him briefly in Concord and found him to be “a man of great common sense, deliberate and practical,” with “tact and prudence,” and the simple, disciplined habits (“Spartan habits”) of a soldier.

Even though Thoreau was a peaceful man, he praised this stern killer for a practical reason: Brown had taken direct, violent action against the government-approved (sanctioned) violence of the slave-owning state.

Thoreau wrote: “It was [John Brown’s] unique belief that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him…. I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called “peace” of our community by deeds of petty violence every day.” By “petty violence,” Thoreau likely meant the small injustices and uses of force that maintain the existing social order, implying that the violence of slavery was a much greater wrong.

Thoreau’s Enduring Relevance

Thoreau’s insights made him a favorite of the revolutionaries and activists of the 1960s. He recognized:

• The violence hidden within the established social system.
• The way private property could be a form of enslavement.
• How the media tends to substitute “the news” for people’s direct experience of reality (a trend even stronger today than it was decades ago).

Thoreau wrote, “Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous.” This means people often value fakes and illusions as if they are the most solid truths, while true reality is amazing and almost unbelievable.

The word “reality” appears often in Walden: “Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance… till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality…. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.” In simpler terms: We should push through all the confusing and false ideas around us until we reach something solid and true, which is reality. Whether we are living or dying, what we want is to experience reality fully.

Nature can seem like a vast, uncaring material force. The only thing we can set against it is our own consciousness, like a small lamp shining in a cabin. The invigorating gift (benison) of Walden is that it makes us feel that this contest between our awareness and indifferent Nature is an equal and fair one.

Thoreau in His Time

In 1850, the United States had a population of about twenty-three million. This was small enough that one could imagine addressing the whole country as if it were a single community. Although Thoreau is famous as “the man who lived alone in the woods” (just as Herman Melville was known as “the man who had lived among cannibals”), Thoreau was actually sociable in his own careful and somewhat reserved way (“gingerly fashion gregarious”).

There’s a story that in 1856, while visiting friends in Cambridge, he was awkwardly made to hold the newborn Mabel Loomis, upside down for a moment. Mabel Loomis later became famous as the first editor of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and was seen in the 20th century as an example of a Victorian woman who was sexually fulfilled and not repressed.

In 1852, Thoreau, who already knew most of New England’s writers, visited Walt Whitman in Brooklyn. Whitman lived in a messy room with his brother, who had intellectual disabilities. Thoreau and Whitman had different opinions about the common person. Whitman later said that Thoreau (as a “Yankee,” or New Englander) had “a very aggravated case of superciliousness” (meaning he thought Thoreau was very arrogant). Thoreau, on the other hand, found some of Whitman’s poems “disagreeable to say the least, simply sensual… as if the beasts spoke” (meaning he thought they were too focused on physical sensations).

Despite these differences, both men came away with good impressions of each other. “He is a great fellow,” Thoreau wrote about Whitman in a letter. About Whitman’s book of poems, Leaves of Grass, Thoreau wrote: “On the whole it sounds to me very brave & American after whatever deductions [criticisms]. I do not believe that all the sermons so called that have been preached in this land put together are equal to it for preaching.” He meant Whitman’s poetry was more powerful and effective than all the sermons preached in the country.

Over time, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden have come to be seen as the two great books of American individualism. At a time when traditional beliefs were fading, these books reassured the New World about the value, power, and beauty of the free, independent self (the “unfettered self”).

Economy

My Life at Walden Pond When I wrote these pages, or at least most of them, I was living alone in the woods. My house, which I built myself, was on the shore of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. I was a mile away from my nearest neighbor. I earned my living only by the work of my own hands. I lived there for two years and two months. Right now, I am back living in what people call civilized society for a time.

Why I’m Writing About Myself I wouldn’t share so much about my personal life if people in my town hadn’t asked so many specific questions. They were curious about how I lived. Some might think their questions were rude, but I didn’t see them that way. Considering the circumstances, their questions seemed very natural and relevant.

Some people asked:

• What did I eat?
• Did I feel lonely?
• Was I ever afraid?

Others wanted to know:

• How much of my money did I give to charity?
• Since some of them had large families, they wondered how many poor children I supported.

So, I ask my readers who aren’t particularly interested in me to please forgive me if I try to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the writer avoids using “I.” In this book, “I” will be used often. That’s the main difference when it comes to sounding self-centered. We usually forget that it’s always a specific person, a “first person,” who is speaking in any book.

I wouldn’t talk so much about myself if there were anyone else I knew as well. Unfortunately, my own limited experience is the main subject I can write about. Besides, I believe every writer should, at some point, give a simple and honest account of their own life. They shouldn’t just write about what they’ve heard about other people’s lives. It should be the kind of personal story someone might send to their family if they were living in a faraway land. If a person has lived sincerely, their life will seem like a distant and interesting land to me.

Perhaps these pages are especially for students who don’t have much money. Other readers can take whatever parts of the book apply to them. I hope no one tries to force the book to fit them if it doesn’t. Like a coat, it will be useful to the person it fits well.

The Condition of People in New England I want to say something about you who are reading this, you who live in New England. I want to talk about your situation, especially your outward circumstances in this world and in this town. What is your life like? Does it have to be as bad as it is? Can it be improved?

I have traveled a lot around Concord. Everywhere—in shops, offices, and fields—I’ve seen people punishing themselves in a thousand remarkable ways. I’ve heard about Hindu holy men (Brahmins) who perform extreme acts of self-discipline:

• Sitting surrounded by four fires and staring at the sun.
• Hanging upside down over flames.
• Looking at the sky over their shoulders until their necks are permanently twisted and they can only swallow liquids.
• Living chained to the foot of a tree for their entire lives.
• Measuring the width of vast empires with their bodies, like caterpillars.
• Standing on one leg on top of pillars for years.

Even these amazing forms of deliberate self-punishment are hardly more unbelievable than the scenes I see every day. The twelve labors of Hercules were small tasks compared to what my neighbors have taken on. Hercules had only twelve labors, and they eventually ended. But I’ve never seen these men defeat any monster or finish any of their labors. They don’t have a friend like Iolas, who helped Hercules by burning the Hydra’s necks so new heads couldn’t grow. As soon as my neighbors crush one problem, two more spring up.

The Burden of Inherited Property I see young men in my town who are unlucky enough to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools. These things are easier to get than to get rid of. It would have been better if they had been born in an open field and raised by a wolf. Then they might have seen more clearly what kind of work they were truly meant to do.

Who made them slaves to their land? Why should they be consumed by their sixty acres of property, when a person is said to need only a small plot of earth for their grave (“eat only his peck of dirt”)? Why should they start digging their own graves as soon as they are born? They have to live a full life, pushing all these burdens ahead of them, and manage as best they can.

I have met so many poor, immortal souls nearly crushed and suffocated under their loads. They creep down the road of life, pushing before them a huge barn (perhaps seventy-five feet by forty feet), with its Augean stables (a mythical place of immense, never-cleaned filth, symbolizing overwhelming work and debt). They push one hundred acres of land—fields for plowing, for hay, for pasture, and a wood-lot. People who have no such unnecessary inherited burdens still find it hard enough just to manage their own bodies and basic needs (“subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh”).

A Life Lived by Mistake Men are working under a misunderstanding. The best part of a person is quickly used up, like being plowed into the soil for fertilizer. It seems like fate, which people often call “necessity,” makes them work at laying up treasures that, as an old book says, “moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal.” This is a fool’s life. They will realize this at the end of their lives, if not sooner.

There’s an old myth that Deucalion and Pyrrha created humans by throwing stones over their heads behind them. A Latin poem says: “Hence we are a hard race, experienced in toil, And we give proof from what origin we are born.” Sir Walter Raleigh put it this way in rhyme: “From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.” This shows what happens when people blindly obey a mistaken command—like throwing stones over their shoulders without looking where they land, thus creating a hard life without meaning to.

The Cost of Toil Most men, even in this relatively free country, are so busy with artificial worries and unnecessarily hard work that they cannot enjoy life’s finer pleasures. Their fingers are too clumsy and tremble too much from too much work. Actually, the working man doesn’t have the free time to live with true wholeness and integrity each day. He cannot afford to have the best kinds of relationships with other people; his labor would lose value in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he properly recognize his own ignorance—something he needs for personal growth—when he is so often forced to use only the knowledge he already has? We should sometimes provide such people with food and clothing for free, and refresh them with kindness, before we judge them. The finest qualities of our nature, like the delicate bloom on fruit, can only be kept safe with the most gentle handling. Yet, we do not treat ourselves or each other so tenderly.

The Struggles of the Poor Some of you, as we all know, are poor. You find it hard to live. Sometimes, it feels like you are gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you reading this book cannot pay for all the meals you have already eaten, or for the coats and shoes that are quickly wearing out or are already worn out. You might have come to this page using borrowed or stolen time, taking an hour away from your creditors.

It is very clear what pitiful and sneaky lives many of you live. My own experiences have sharpened my eyesight to this. You are always on the edge, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt. Debt is a very old trap. The Latins called it æs alienum, meaning “another’s brass,” because some of their coins were made of brass. People are still living, dying, and being buried because of this “other’s brass.” You are always promising to pay tomorrow, but then dying today, unable to pay your debts.

You try to win favor and get customers in many ways—avoiding only actual crimes. You might lie, flatter, or vote in certain ways. You might shrink into a tiny shell of politeness or expand into a show of thin, empty generosity, just so you can persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, his hat, his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him. You make yourselves sick from overwork so you can save a little something for a day when you are sick—something to hide in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the wall, or, more safely, in the brick bank. It doesn’t matter where, or how much, or how little.

Different Kinds of Slavery Sometimes I wonder how we can be so shallow as to focus only on the obvious and somewhat distant form of servitude called Negro Slavery. There are so many sharp and subtle masters that enslave people in both the North and the South. It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one. But worst of all is when you are your own slave-driver.

People talk about a divine spark in humans. But look at the wagon driver on the highway, heading to market by day or night. Does any divine spark stir in him? His most important duty is to feed and water his horses! What is his own destiny to him compared to the interests of the shipping companies? Doesn’t he drive for someone important, like “Squire Make-a-stir”? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he shrinks and sneaks around. All day long, he vaguely fears things. He is not immortal or divine; he is the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a reputation built by his own actions.

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared to our own private opinion of ourselves. What a person thinks of himself is what determines, or at least indicates, his fate. Achieving freedom even in the mind and imagination (the “West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination”) is a great challenge. Who is there, like the anti-slavery activist Wilberforce, to bring about that kind of liberation? Also, think of the ladies of the land weaving decorative cushions for their toilets as if preparing for judgment day. They do this, perhaps, not to show too much concern about their real fates! It’s as if you could waste time (“kill time”) without harming eternity.

Lives of Quiet Desperation The great majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What people call “resignation” is just confirmed desperation. You go from the desperate city into the desperate countryside. There, you might try to comfort yourself by observing the supposed bravery of minks and muskrats. A common, unrecognized despair is hidden even under what people call games and amusements. There is no real play in them, because true play comes after work is done. But it is a sign of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Questioning Our Choices and Traditions When we consider what is the main purpose of human life (to use words from the catechism, a summary of religious principles) and what are the true necessities and means of living, it seems as if people have deliberately chosen the common way of life because they preferred it to any other. Yet, they honestly believe they have no other choice.

But people who are alert and healthy-minded remember that each day dawns new and full of possibility (“the sun rose clear”). It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, no matter how old, can be trusted without proof. What everyone repeats or silently accepts as true today may turn out to be false tomorrow. It might be just the “smoke of opinion,” which some people mistakenly trusted to be a rain cloud that would water their fields.

What old people say you cannot do, you should try, and you may find that you can. Old ways are for old people; new ways are for new people. Perhaps old people once didn’t know enough to gather fresh wood to keep a fire going. New people put a little dry wood under a pot and are now whisked around the globe with the speed of birds—a speed that, as the saying goes, would “kill old people.” Age is not necessarily a better teacher than youth, and perhaps not even as good, because age has lost as much as it has gained. One might almost doubt if the wisest person has learned anything of absolute value just by living a long time.

Practically speaking, old people usually don’t have very important advice to give the young. Their own experience has been so limited, and their lives have often been such miserable failures (for private reasons, as they themselves must believe). It may be that they have some faith left that contradicts their experience, and they are simply less young than they once were. I have lived for about thirty years on this planet. I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable, or even earnest, advice from my elders. They have told me nothing useful, and probably cannot tell me anything useful. Life is an experiment, and much of it is untried by me. The fact that they have tried it doesn’t help me. If I have any experience that I think is valuable, I am sure to realize that my mentors said nothing about it.

Relative Necessities One farmer tells me, “You cannot live on vegetable food alone, because it provides nothing to make bones with.” So, he religiously spends part of his day supplying his body with the “raw material of bones” (he means meat). All the while he says this, he is walking behind his oxen. These oxen, with their bones made entirely from vegetables, pull him and his heavy plow along, overcoming every obstacle. Some things are truly necessities of life in certain situations—for example, for the most helpless and sick people. But for others, these same things are merely luxuries. And for still others, they are entirely unknown.

Has Everything Been Tried? Some people feel that every aspect of human life has already been explored by those who came before them—all the highs and lows—and that everything has been taken care of. According to the writer John Evelyn, “the wise Solomon prescribed rules for the exact distances between trees.” Roman officials called praetors decided how often you could go onto your neighbor’s land to gather acorns that fell there without trespassing, and what share of those acorns belonged to your neighbor. The ancient physician Hippocrates even left directions on how we should cut our nails: level with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer.

No doubt, the very boredom and weariness (tedium and ennui) that make people feel they have used up all the variety and joys of life are as old as Adam. But human abilities have never been truly measured. We cannot judge what people can do by looking at past examples, because so little has actually been tried. Whatever your past failures have been, a wise person once said, “Do not be troubled, my child, for who can say what you have left undone?”

Expanding Our Perspective We could test our lives by a thousand simple thoughts. For example, consider that the same sun that ripens my beans also lights up whole systems of planets like ours at the same moment. If I had remembered this, it would have prevented some mistakes. This vast perspective was not the light in which I usually hoed my beans.

The stars are the points of what wonderful, huge triangles! What distant and different beings, in the various parts of the universe, are looking at the same star at the same moment as we are! Nature and human life are as varied as our individual personalities and bodies. Who can say what prospects life offers to another person? Could there be a greater miracle than for us to see through each other’s eyes for just an instant? If we could, we would live through all the ages of the world in an hour—yes, in all the worlds of all the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! I know of no way to understand another’s experience that would be as startling and informative as this.

Following an Inner Voice Most of what my neighbors call “good,” I believe in my soul to be bad. If I regret anything, it is very likely my “good behavior”—times when I acted too conventionally. What strange influence possessed me that I behaved so well? An old man, even one who has lived seventy years with some honor, might say the wisest thing he can. But I hear an irresistible inner voice that calls me away from all that. One generation abandons the projects and ideas of the previous one, like ships left stranded on a beach.

Trust, Change, and True Knowledge I think we can safely trust life a good deal more than we do. We can give up a certain amount of care for ourselves if we honestly use that energy to care for others or other things. Nature is as well suited to our weakness as it is to our strength. The constant anxiety and strain that some people feel is almost like an incurable disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of the work we do. And yet, how much is left undone by us! Or what if we had been sick and couldn’t work? We are so careful, so determined not to live by faith if we can possibly avoid it. We are on alert all day long. Then, at night, we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. We feel so strongly and sincerely compelled to live in a certain way, respecting our current life and denying the possibility of change. We say, “This is the only way.” But there are as many ways to live as there are lines that can be drawn from the center of a circle to its edge. All change is a miracle to observe, but it is a miracle that is happening every instant. Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” When one person takes an idea from their imagination and makes it a solid fact in their understanding, I foresee that eventually all people will build their lives on that new foundation.

Understanding Our Worries Let us think for a moment about what causes most of the trouble and anxiety I have mentioned. How much do we really need to be troubled, or at least careful? It would be helpful to live a simple, basic life, like that on a frontier, even if we are surrounded by modern civilization. This could teach us what the essential necessities of life are, and what methods people have used to get them. We could even look at the old account books of merchants to see what things people most commonly bought at stores, and what they stored away—that is, what were the most basic supplies. The improvements made over centuries have had little influence on the fundamental laws of human existence. Our skeletons, for example, are probably no different from those of our ancestors.

What Is Truly Necessary? By the “necessaries of life,” I mean whatever things people obtain through their own efforts that have always been, or have through long use become, so important to human life that few people—whether because of their primitive state, poverty, or philosophical beliefs—ever try to do without them.

For many creatures, there is only one true necessity in this sense: Food. For the bison on the prairie, it is a few inches of edible grass and water to drink, unless it seeks Shelter in the forest or the shadow of a mountain. No animal requires more than Food and Shelter.

For humans living in a climate like New England’s, the necessaries of life can be accurately grouped under these headings:

• Food
• Shelter
• Clothing
• Fuel

Not until we have secured these basic things are we truly prepared to deal with the real problems of life with freedom and a chance of success. Humans have invented not only houses but also clothes and cooked food. It’s possible that the warmth of fire was discovered by accident. At first, it was a luxury. But from its use, the current necessity to sit by a fire arose. We see cats and dogs also developing this “second nature” of needing warmth and comfort.

Keeping Warm: A Basic Need Proper Shelter and Clothing help us keep our own body heat. But if we have too much of these, or too much Fuel (meaning an outside heat source stronger than our own body heat), isn’t that when “cookery” really begins? Perhaps this means we are “cooking” ourselves with excessive comfort.

Charles Darwin, the naturalist, wrote about the native people of Tierra del Fuego. His group was well-clothed and sitting near a fire, but they still didn’t feel too warm. However, he was very surprised to see the local people, who wore no clothes and were sitting farther from the fire, “streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.” Similarly, we are told that Aboriginal Australians go naked without any problem, while Europeans shiver even in their clothes. Is it impossible to combine the toughness of these native peoples with the intellectual development of so-called civilized people?

According to the chemist Liebig, a man’s body is like a stove. Food is the fuel that keeps up the internal burning process (which 19th-century science thought happened in the lungs). In cold weather, we eat more; in warm weather, we eat less. Our body heat comes from a slow burning process. Disease and death happen when this burning is too fast, or when there isn’t enough fuel, or if there’s a problem with the body’s “draft” (like the airflow in a stove). Then, the fire of life goes out. Of course, our vital heat is not exactly the same as a fire, but this is a helpful comparison.

So, it seems from this list of necessities that “animal life” is nearly the same as “animal heat.”

• Food is the fuel that keeps up the fire inside us.
• External Fuel (like firewood) is used to prepare that food or to add warmth to our bodies from the outside.
• Shelter and Clothing mainly serve to hold in the heat that our bodies generate and absorb.

The Effort to Stay Warm The most important physical need for our bodies, then, is to keep warm—to keep our vital heat. Think about the great efforts we make for this! We focus not only on our Food, Clothing, and Shelter, but also on our beds. Our beds are like our night-clothes. We even rob the nests and soft feathers from birds to prepare this “shelter within a shelter”—just like a mole makes a cozy bed of grass and leaves at the end of its burrow.

A poor man often complains that this is a cold world. We blame many of our problems, both physical and social, directly on the cold. In some climates, summer allows people to live a kind of perfect, blissful (Elysian) life. Except for cooking food, fuel is not needed then. The sun is their fire, and many fruits are cooked enough by its rays. Food is generally more varied and easier to find. Clothing and shelter become mostly or partly unnecessary.

In my own experience, in this country and at this time, a few tools are almost necessities:

• A knife
• An axe
• A spade
• A wheelbarrow, and so on. For those who study, lamplight, stationery, and access to a few books are also nearly essential. All of these can be gotten at a very low cost.

Yet, some unwise people go to the other side of the world, to “barbarous” and unhealthy places. They spend ten or twenty years trading just so they can live comfortably warm and finally die back in New England. The very rich are not just kept comfortably warm; they are made unnaturally hot. As I said before, they are “cooked,” in the latest fashion, of course.

Luxuries, Comforts, and True Living Most luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only unnecessary but actually get in the way of humanity’s improvement. When it comes to luxuries and comforts, the wisest people have always lived a simpler and more basic life than even the poor. Ancient philosophers—Chinese, Indian, Persian, and Greek—were a group of people who had very few outward riches but were incredibly wealthy in inner riches. We don’t know a lot about them, which makes it remarkable that we know as much as we do. The same is true of more recent reformers and people who have greatly benefited humanity.

No one can be an unbiased or wise observer of human life unless they look at it from the perspective of what we might call voluntary poverty (choosing to live simply). A life of luxury produces only more luxury, whether in farming, business, literature, or art. Nowadays, there are professors of philosophy, but not many true philosophers. Yet, it is admirable to teach or talk about philosophy because it was once admirable to live philosophically. To be a philosopher doesn’t just mean having deep thoughts or even starting a school of thought. It means loving wisdom so much that you live according to its principles: a life of simplicity, independence, generosity (magnanimity), and trust. It means solving some of life’s problems not just in theory, but in practice.

The success of great scholars and thinkers is often like the success of a courtier—someone who flatters those in power. It’s not a kingly or truly strong kind of success. They manage to live by conforming, doing things practically as their fathers did. They are not in any way the creators of a nobler kind of human being. But why do people seem to decline over time? What makes families lose their strength? What is it about luxury that weakens (enervates) and destroys nations? Are we sure there is none of this destructive luxury in our own lives? A true philosopher is ahead of his time, even in the way he lives his outward life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, and warmed in the same way as the people around him. How can a man be a philosopher and not keep his vital heat using better methods than other men?

Beyond Basic Needs: Adventuring on Life When a man has met his basic need for warmth through the ways I’ve described, what does he want next? Surely not just more of the same kind of warmth—like more and richer food, larger and fancier houses, finer and more plentiful clothing, or more numerous, constant, and hotter fires. Once he has the things necessary for life, there’s another option besides getting non-essentials (superfluities). That option is to truly adventure on life now, as his vacation from basic hard work has begun. It’s like a seed in suitable soil. The seed has sent its first root (radicle) downwards. Now it can confidently send its shoot upwards too. Why has mankind rooted itself so firmly in the earth, if not to rise just as high into the heavens above? The nobler plants are valued for the fruit they eventually produce high in the air and light, far from the ground. They are not treated like humble root vegetables (esculents like carrots or beets). These vegetables, even if they live for two years (biennials), are usually grown only until their root is developed. Their tops are often cut off for this purpose, so most people wouldn’t even recognize them if they saw them in their flowering season.

To Whom These Words Are Addressed I don’t mean to give rules to strong and brave individuals. They will manage their own affairs whether they are in heaven or hell. They might even build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest people, without ever making themselves poor, perhaps not even knowing how they live—if such people truly exist, as some have dreamed. Nor am I talking to those who find their encouragement and inspiration in the current state of things and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers. To some extent, I count myself among this group. I am not speaking to those who are well employed, whatever their circumstances, and who know whether they are well employed or not.

Instead, I am mainly talking to the majority of people who are discontented. They idly complain about how hard their lives are or how bad the times are, when they could actually improve their situations. Some people complain the most loudly and sadly of all, because they say they are simply “doing their duty.” I also have in mind that group of people who seem wealthy but are actually the most terribly poor of all. They have gathered a lot of useless stuff (dross) but don’t know how to use it or get rid of it. In this way, they have made their own golden or silver chains (fetters).

My Own Unconventional Goals If I tried to tell you how I have wanted to spend my life in past years, it would probably surprise those readers who know a little about my actual life story. It would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only give a few hints about some of the goals and projects I have cherished.

Living in the Present In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been eager to make the most of the present moment (“improve the nick of time”) and to mark it down, so to speak. I’ve wanted to stand at the meeting point of two eternities—the past and the future—which is precisely the present moment, and to “toe that line,” fully committed. You will have to forgive some vague parts in my writing. There are more secrets in my “trade” (my way of life and thinking) than in most people’s. These secrets are not kept on purpose but are an essential part of its nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it and would never put a “No Admittance” sign on my gate.

Searching for Lost Ideals Long ago, I lost a hound, a reddish-brown horse, and a turtle-dove, and I am still searching for them. These are likely symbols for ideals or qualities I value. I have spoken to many travelers about them, describing their tracks and the calls they answered to. I have met one or two people who said they had heard the hound, the sound of the horse’s hooves, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud. They seemed as anxious to find these lost things as if they had lost them themselves.

Witnessing Nature’s Dawn My goal has been to anticipate not just the sunrise and the dawn, but, if possible, Nature herself revealing her secrets! How many mornings, in summer and winter, I have been about my own “business” before any neighbor was even stirring! No doubt, many of my townspeople have met me returning from these early morning adventures—farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never physically helped the sun to rise, but believe me, it was of the utmost importance just to be present at its rising.

Listening to the Wind I spent so many autumn and winter days outside the town. I was trying to hear what was “in the wind”—to perceive subtle truths from nature and report them quickly and directly. I practically invested all my energy (“sunk all my capital”) in this effort and almost lost my breath doing it, running to meet these experiences. If what I found had been about politics, you can be sure it would have appeared in the newspaper with the latest news. At other times, I watched from a high vantage point, like a cliff or a tree, as if it were an observatory. I was ready to “telegraph” any new arrival of insight. Or I waited on hilltops in the evening for the sky to “fall”—hoping for inspiration—so I might catch something valuable. Though I never caught much, and what I did catch, like the manna in the Bible, would disappear again in the sun.

Unpublished Efforts For a long time, I was like a reporter for a journal that not many people read. Its “editor” (perhaps representing society or publishers) has never seen fit to print most of my contributions. As is too common with writers, I only got my labor for my efforts—no payment. However, in this case, my efforts were their own reward.

My Self-Appointed Duties For many years, I appointed myself as an inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms, and I did my duty faithfully. I was a surveyor, not of official highways, but of forest paths and shortcuts across fields. I tried to keep them open, and to make sure ravines had bridges and were passable in all seasons, especially where people’s use of them showed they were valuable.

I have looked after the “wild stock” of the town—perhaps the wild plants and animals, or even free-spirited ideas—which often cause trouble for a conventional caretaker by “leaping fences.” I have also paid attention to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the local farms. I didn’t always know if “Jonas” or “Solomon” (typical farmer names) worked in a particular field on a given day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry, the nettle tree, the red pine, the black ash, the white grape, and the yellow violet, which might have dried up and died in dry seasons otherwise.

Seeking Recognition (or Not) In short, I continued this way for a long time. I can say without boasting that I minded my own “business” faithfully. Eventually, it became more and more clear that my townspeople would not, after all, offer me a position as a town officer. They wouldn’t give me an easy job with a moderate salary (a sinecure). My “accounts”—the record of my efforts and their value—which I can swear I kept faithfully, have never been officially reviewed (audited), let alone accepted or paid. However, I have not set my heart on that kind of success.

The Story of the Basket-Maker Not long ago, a Native American man who was traveling through the area went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. “Do you wish to buy any baskets?” he asked. “No, we do not want any,” was the reply. “What!” exclaimed the man as he went out the gate, “do you mean to starve us?” He had seen his industrious white neighbors doing so well. For example, the lawyer only had to “weave arguments,” and somehow wealth and social standing magically followed. So, the man had said to himself: “I will go into business. I will weave baskets; that is something I can do.” He thought that once he had made the baskets, he would have done his part. Then it would be the white man’s part to buy them. He hadn’t yet discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worthwhile for the other person to buy his baskets, or at least to make them think it was worthwhile. Or, he needed to make something else that people would want to buy.

I, too, had woven a kind of “basket” of a delicate and intricate design—my writings and my way of life. But I had not made it worth anyone’s while to “buy” them in a commercial sense. Yet, in my case, I still thought it was worth my while to weave them. Instead of studying how to make it worth people’s while to buy my baskets, I studied instead how to avoid the necessity of selling them at all. The life that men praise and consider successful is only one kind of life. Why should we overemphasize any one kind of life at the expense of others?

Turning to the Woods Finding that my fellow citizens were not likely to offer me a job in the courthouse, or a position as a clergyman (curacy), or any other conventional employment, I realized I must support myself. So, I turned my attention more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I felt better known and understood. I decided to go into my “business” at once. I didn’t wait to save up the usual amount of money needed to start an enterprise. I used the few resources I already had. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply, nor was it to live expensively. It was to conduct some private business—my experiment in living—with the fewest possible obstacles. It seemed to me that to be prevented from accomplishing this goal for want of a little common sense, a little initiative, or a little business talent would be more foolish than sad.

On True Business Habits I have always tried to develop strict business habits; they are essential for every person. If your trade is with a distant land like China (the “Celestial Empire” as it was sometimes called), then a small office (“counting house”) on the coast, perhaps in Salem harbor, will be a sufficient base. You will export local products—ice, pine timber, and a little granite—always shipped on local vessels (“native bottoms”). These could be good business ventures.

Consider what it takes:

• To oversee all the details yourself, in person.
• To be, all at once, the pilot, captain, owner, and insurer (underwriter) of your venture.
• To buy and sell and keep the accounts.
• To read every letter you receive and write or read every letter you send.
• To supervise the unloading of imported goods day and night.
• To be in many parts of the coast almost at the same time—often the richest cargo will be unloaded unexpectedly on a New Jersey shore.
• To be your own telegraph, tirelessly scanning the horizon, speaking to all passing coastal ships.
• To keep up a steady dispatch of goods to supply a distant and demanding (exorbitant) market.
• To keep yourself informed of market conditions, prospects of war and peace everywhere, and to anticipate trends in trade and civilization.
• This involves taking advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions, using new sea passages, and all improvements in navigation.
• Charts must be studied, the positions of reefs and new lighthouses and buoys must be determined.
• And always, logarithmic tables (used for navigation) must be corrected, because a calculator’s error could cause a ship to hit a rock when it should have reached a friendly pier—think of the unknown fate of the explorer La Pérouse.
• You must keep up with universal science, studying the lives of all great discoverers, navigators, adventurers, and merchants, from ancient explorers like Hanno and the Phoenicians down to the present day.
• Finally, you must take inventory (“account of stock”) from time to time to know your financial standing.

It is a labor that truly tests a person’s abilities. It involves problems of profit and loss, interest, calculating weights and measures (like tare and tret—allowances for packaging or spoilage), and all kinds of gauging, all demanding broad knowledge.

Walden as a Place for “Business” I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for “business”—my kind of personal business. This isn’t just because of the nearby railroad and the ice trade that happened there. It offers other advantages that it might not be wise to reveal publicly. It is a good “port” and a good “foundation.” Unlike St. Petersburg in Russia, which was built on the Neva marshes that had to be filled in, Walden doesn’t require such artificial preparation. However, wherever you build, you must drive your own support piles, relying on yourself. It is said that a flood-tide on the Neva River, with a westerly wind and ice in the river, could sweep St. Petersburg from the face of the earth. Walden, for my purposes, felt more stable.

On Clothing: Utility vs. Fashion Since this “business” of mine at Walden was to be started without the usual financial backing (capital), it might not be easy to guess where I would get the means that are still essential for any such undertaking. Let’s consider Clothing, to get to a practical part of the question. Perhaps we are more often guided by a love of newness and a concern for the opinions of others when we buy clothes, rather than by their true usefulness. Let any person who has important work to do remember that the main purposes of clothing are:

1. To retain vital body heat.
2. In our current state of society, to cover nakedness.

With these purposes in mind, one can judge how much necessary or important work can be done without adding to one’s wardrobe. Kings and queens who wear an outfit only once, even if it’s custom-made for them, cannot know the true comfort of wearing clothes that fit well from use. They are no better than wooden horses used to hang clean clothes on. Every day, our garments become more like ourselves. They receive the imprint of the wearer’s character, until we hesitate to lay them aside. We treat old, familiar clothes with a kind of seriousness, almost like our own bodies when they need care.

No man ever seemed less in my eyes for having a patch on his clothes. Yet, I am sure that people are generally more anxious to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a clear conscience. But even if a tear in clothing is not mended, perhaps the worst fault it shows is carelessness (improvidence), not something more serious. I sometimes test my acquaintances with questions like this: Who among them could wear a patch, or just a couple of extra seams, over the knee? Most act as if they believed their prospects in life would be ruined if they did so. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with torn pants (“broken pantaloon”). Often, if an accident happens to a gentleman’s legs, they can be mended. But if a similar accident happens to the legs of his trousers, there is no help for it in his mind. This is because he considers not what is truly respectable, but what is currently respected by society. We know but few true men; we see a great many coats and breeches.

Clothes, Status, and True Worth If you dress a scarecrow in your best clothes and stand beside it in rags, who wouldn’t greet the scarecrow first? The other day, passing a cornfield, I saw a hat and coat on a stake. I recognized the owner of the farm nearby; he looked only a little more worn by the weather than his scarecrow. I’ve heard of a dog that barked at every stranger who came to his master’s property wearing clothes. But this dog was easily calmed by a thief who was naked. This makes one wonder: how much of their social rank would men keep if they were stripped of their clothes? In such a case, could you reliably tell which person in a group of “civilized” men belonged to the most respected class?

Madam Pfeiffer, an adventurous world traveler, wrote that when she reached Asiatic Russia, close to home, she felt she had to wear something other than her traveling dress to meet officials. She said she “was now in a civilized country, where people are judged by their clothes.” Even in our democratic New England towns, simply having wealth, and showing it through fancy dress and possessions (equipage), earns a person almost universal respect. But those who give such respect, no matter how many they are, are unenlightened, like heathens. They need a missionary to teach them better. Besides, clothes brought about the need for sewing, a type of work that can seem endless. A woman’s dress, at least, is never truly finished.

Old Clothes for New Purposes A man who has finally found something meaningful to do will not need a new suit of clothes to do it in. For him, old clothes will do—even those that have been lying dusty in the attic for a long time. Old shoes will serve a hero longer than they served his assistant (valet)—if a hero even has a valet. Bare feet are older than shoes, and a hero can make do with them. Only those who go to fancy evening parties (soirées) and legislative halls feel they must have new coats, changing them as often as their opinions or roles change. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they are good enough for anything, are they not?

Who has ever seen their old clothes—an old coat, for instance—actually worn out completely, reduced to its basic fibers? Isn’t it usually considered an act of charity to give it to some poor boy, who might then give it to someone poorer still—or should we say “richer,” meaning someone who can make do with even less? I say, be careful of any project that requires new clothes rather than a new person wearing the clothes. If the person inside hasn’t changed, how can new clothes truly fit? If you have a new project or goal, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do things with, but something to do, or rather, something to be.

Perhaps we should never get a new suit of clothes, no matter how ragged or dirty the old one is, until we have lived, worked, or adventured in such a way that we feel like new people in our old clothes. To keep the old clothes then would be like keeping new wine in old bottles—the old container would spoil the new contents. Our “shedding season” (moulting season), like that of birds when they get new feathers, must be a critical turning point in our lives. The loon goes to solitary ponds to go through its moult. Similarly, a snake sheds its old skin (slough), and a caterpillar sheds its “wormy coat,” all through an internal process of growth and expansion. Clothes are just our outermost layer of skin (cuticle), our temporary physical form (mortal coil). If we change our clothes without changing ourselves, we will be “sailing under false colors” (pretending to be something we are not). We will eventually be judged and dismissed (cashiered) by our own opinion of ourselves, as well as by what others think.

Layers of Clothing, Layers of Self We put on garment after garment, as if we grew like certain plants (exogenous plants) that add layers on the outside. Our outer clothes, often thin and fashionable, are like our surface skin (epidermis) or a false skin. They are not truly part of our life and can be stripped off here and there without serious harm. Our thicker garments, worn constantly, are like our deeper skin layer (cellular integument or cortex). But our shirts are like our innermost layer, the true bark of a tree (liber), which cannot be removed without fatally harming the man (just as cutting a ring around a tree’s bark, or girdling it, kills the tree). I believe that all cultures, at certain times, wear something equivalent to this essential inner garment.

It is good for a man to be dressed so simply that he can easily find his own body in the dark, without getting lost in layers of clothing. He should live in all ways so simply and preparedly that, if an enemy were to capture the town, he could, like the ancient philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety. One thick garment is, for most purposes, as good as three thin ones. Cheap clothing can be bought at prices that truly suit customers. A thick coat could be bought for five dollars and last for many years. Thick trousers might cost two dollars, cowhide boots a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents. Or, a better garment could be made at home for almost no cost. Where is the man so poor that, if he is dressed in such a suit that he earned himself, wise men will not respect him?

Fashion’s Tyranny When I ask my seamstress (tailoress) for a garment of a particular style, she tells me gravely, “They do not make them like that now.” She doesn’t emphasize the “They” at all, as if she were quoting an authority as impersonal as the mythological Fates. I find it difficult to get what I want made, simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, or that I am so bold (rash) as to want something different. When I hear this pronouncement, which sounds like an oracle’s decree, I pause and think. I emphasize each word to myself separately to understand its meaning. I try to figure out how closely related these mysterious “They” are to me, and what authority they could possibly have in an affair that affects me so directly. Finally, I am tempted to answer her with equal mystery, and without emphasizing the “they” any more than she did: “It is true, they did not make them that way recently, but they do now.” (Meaning, perhaps I or new ideas represent the current way.)

What is the use of her measuring me if she does not measure my character, but only the breadth of my shoulders, as if my body were just a peg to hang a coat on? We do not worship the Graces (goddesses of charm and beauty) or the Parcae (goddesses of fate), but we worship Fashion. She spins, weaves, and cuts with full authority. If the “head monkey” in Paris (the trendsetter in fashion) puts on a traveler’s cap, all the “monkeys” in America do the same. Sometimes I lose hope of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world with the help of other people. They would have to be put through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they wouldn’t quickly get back to their old ways. Even then, there would be someone in the group with a stubborn, irrational idea (a “maggot in his head”), hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows when—for not even fire can kill these kinds of deep-seated notions—and all your effort would be lost. Nevertheless, we should not forget that some ancient Egyptian wheat is said to have survived for thousands of years, handed down to us by a mummy. This offers a little hope that good things can endure.

Dressing as Art? On the whole, I don’t think it can be argued that dressing, in this or any country, has risen to the level of a true art form. At present, men just manage (make shift) to wear whatever they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, they put on whatever clothes they can find on the beach. When viewed from a little distance, whether of space or time, they laugh at each other’s strange outfits (masquerade). Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new ones. We are as amused looking at the costumes of King Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth as if they were the outfits of the King and Queen of some imaginary “Cannibal Islands.” All clothing, when seen apart from a person, looks pitiful or ridiculous (grotesque). It is only the serious look in a person’s eyes and the sincere life lived within the clothes that stop our laughter and make the costume of any people respectable and meaningful (consecrate). If Harlequin (a comedic character known for his colorful, patterned costume) were suddenly seized with a painful stomach ache (colic), his fancy outfit would have to suit that suffering mood too. When a soldier is hit by a cannonball, rags are as fitting as royal purple robes. The circumstances, not the clothes, determine what is appropriate.

The Whims of Fashion The childish and unrefined (savage) taste of men and women for new patterns keeps so many of them eagerly searching—as if shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes—to discover the particular design that this generation demands today. Manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely unpredictable (whimsical). Of two patterns that differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular color, one will sell readily, while the other will sit on the shelf. However, it often happens that after a season passes, the unpopular one becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively speaking, tattooing is not the hideous custom it is often called. It is not barbaric merely because the design is printed skin-deep and cannot be changed.

The Factory System and Clothing I cannot believe that our factory system is the best way for people to get clothing. The condition of the factory workers (operatives) is becoming more like that of workers in England every day (who were known for their harsh conditions). This is not surprising because, as far as I have heard or observed, the main goal is not that people should be well and honestly clothed, but, without a doubt, that the corporations should get rich. In the long run, people usually achieve only what they aim for. Therefore, even if they should fail at first, they had better aim for something high and worthwhile.

On Shelter: A Basic Need As for Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessity of life. However, there are examples of men who have lived without it for long periods in countries colder than this one. Samuel Laing, a writer, says that “The Laplander [Sami person] in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow—in a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen clothing.” Laing had seen them sleeping this way. Yet he adds, “They are not hardier than other people.”

But, probably, humans did not live long on the earth without discovering the convenience of a house and its “domestic comforts.” This phrase might have originally meant the satisfactions provided by the house itself, more than those of the family living in it. However, these comforts must be very limited and occasional in those climates where a house is mainly associated with winter or the rainy season. In such places, for two-thirds of the year, a house (except for a parasol for shade) is unnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, a house was formerly used almost only as a covering at night. In Native American picture-writing (“Indian gazettes”), a wigwam was the symbol for a day’s march. A row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree meant that they had camped that many times.

Humans were not made so large and strong that they did not need to create a smaller, enclosed space that fitted them. At first, humans were bare and lived out of doors. Though this was pleasant enough in calm and warm weather during the day, the rainy season and winter—not to mention the scorching (torrid) sun—would perhaps have destroyed the human race (nipped his race in the bud) if people had not quickly made houses for shelter. According to the fable, Adam and Eve wore a natural shelter of leaves and branches (a bower) before they wore other clothes. Humans wanted a home: first, a place of physical warmth, then a place for the warmth of love and affection.

From Caves to Houses We can imagine a time, in the early days (infancy) of the human race, when some resourceful person (enterprising mortal) crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter. Every child, to some extent, begins the world anew and loves to stay outdoors, even when it’s wet and cold. Children instinctively play “house,” just as they play “horse.” Who doesn’t remember looking with great interest at overhanging rocks or any kind of cave when they were young? It was the natural longing of that part of our most primitive ancestors still surviving in us.

From the cave, we have advanced to roofs made of palm leaves, bark and branches, woven linen, grass and straw, boards and shingles, and stones and tiles. At last, we hardly know what it is to live in the open air. Our lives are “domestic” (centered on the home) in more ways than we think. The distance from the fireplace (hearth) to the open field has become very great, metaphorically speaking. It would perhaps be well if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the stars and sky (celestial bodies). It might be better if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell indoors so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves nurture their innocence in man-made shelters like dovecots.

Building a Home Wisely However, if someone plans to build a house, it is wise for them to use some practical, common-sense cleverness (Yankee shrewdness). Otherwise, they might find themselves in a workhouse (a place for the poor who are forced to work), a confusing maze (labyrinth without a clew, or clue), a museum, a charity home (almshouse), a prison, or a grand tomb (splendid mausoleum) instead of a true home. In other words, the house might become a burden rather than a comfort.

First, consider how little shelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Native Americans in this town living in tents of thin cotton cloth while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them. I thought they would be glad to have the snow even deeper to help keep out the wind. Formerly, when the question of how to earn my living honestly, while still having freedom for my own pursuits, troubled me even more than it does now (for unfortunately, I have become somewhat hardened or callous to such worries), I used to see a large wooden box by the railroad. It was about six feet long and three feet wide. Laborers locked up their tools in it at night. It suggested to me that any man who was really struggling could get such a box for a dollar. He could bore a few holes in it with an auger (a tool for drilling) to let in some air, and then get into it when it rained or at night. He could hook the lid down and so have freedom in his personal life and be free in his soul. This did not seem like the worst option, nor by any means a shameful one. You could sit up as late as you pleased. Whenever you got up, you could go out without any landlord chasing you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death trying to pay the rent for a larger and more luxurious “box” but would not have frozen to death in a simple box like this.

I am far from joking. Economy is a subject that can be treated lightly, but its importance cannot be dismissed that way. A comfortable house for a rough and hardy people, who lived mostly outdoors, was once made here almost entirely from materials that Nature provided readily. Mr. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Native Americans under the Massachusetts Colony, wrote in 1674: “The best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of trees. The bark is slipped from the trees when the sap is up in the spring and then pressed flat into great flakes with heavy timber while green… The poorer sort of houses are covered with mats they make from a kind of bulrush, which are also fairly tight and warm, but not as good as the bark houses… Some I have seen were sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad… I have often lodged in their wigwams and found them as warm as the best English houses.” He added that their wigwams were commonly carpeted and lined inside with well-made embroidered mats and were furnished with various utensils. The Native Americans had even figured out how to regulate the wind coming through the smoke-hole in the roof by using a mat that could be moved with a string. Such a lodge could be built in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up again in a few hours. Every family owned one, or had their own apartment within a larger one.

Owning vs. Renting Shelter In simpler societies (what Thoreau calls the “savage state”), every family owns a shelter that is as good as the best available and good enough for their basic needs. But I think I am correct when I say that, although birds have their nests, foxes have their holes, and native peoples have their wigwams, in modern “civilized” society, not more than half the families own their own shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization is supposedly most advanced, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole population. The rest pay an annual rent (like a tax) for this outermost “garment” of shelter. This shelter has become essential in both summer and winter. The yearly rent they pay could buy a whole village of Native American wigwams, but instead, it helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean to focus here on the disadvantage of renting compared to owning. But it is clear that people in simpler societies own their shelter because it costs so little, while “civilized” men usually rent because they cannot afford to own. And, in the long run, they cannot really afford to keep renting either.

But, someone might argue, by merely paying this rent, the poor “civilized” man gets a home that is a palace compared with the shelter of a native person. An annual rent of twenty-five to a hundred dollars (which were typical country rates at the time) gives him the benefit of centuries of improvements: spacious rooms, clean paint and wallpaper, a Rumford fireplace (an efficient design), plastered walls, Venetian blinds, a copper pump, a spring lock, a convenient cellar, and many other things. But how is it that the man who is said to enjoy these things is so often a poor “civilized” man, while the native person, who does not have them, is rich in his own way (content and self-sufficient)? If it is claimed that civilization is a real advance in the human condition—and I think that it is, though only wise people truly benefit from its advantages—then it must be shown that civilization has produced better dwellings without making them more costly. And the true cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life (that is, life energy, time, and labor) that is required to be exchanged for it, either immediately or in the long run.

An average house in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars. To save up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of a laborer’s life, even if he does not have a family to support. This is based on valuing every man’s labor at one dollar a day (for if some earn more, others earn less). So, a man must usually spend more than half his working life before his “wigwam” (his own home) is earned. If we suppose he pays rent instead, this is just choosing between two bad options. Would the native person have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?

The True Cost of Property It might be guessed that I believe the main advantage of holding onto “superfluous property” (more than you need) as a safety net for the future is simply to pay for funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself. Nevertheless, this points to an important difference between “civilized” man and “savage” man (one living in a simpler, natural state). No doubt, society has plans for our benefit in making the life of civilized people an “institution.” In this institution, the life of the individual is largely absorbed in order to preserve and perfect the life of the human race. But I wish to show at what a great sacrifice this societal advantage is currently obtained. I also want to suggest that we may possibly live in such a way as to get all the advantages of civilization without suffering any of the disadvantages.

Challenging Old Sayings About Poverty Why do people say, “The poor you will always have with you,” as if poverty is unavoidable? Or why use the proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” meaning children unfairly suffer for their parents’ mistakes?

The Lord God says (as written in the Bible): “As I live… you shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.” And also: “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins, it shall die.” These passages suggest that each person is responsible for their own actions and fate, rather than being trapped by inherited hardship or poverty.

The Farmer’s Burden When I look at my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, they are at least as well-off as other groups of people. Yet, I find that most of them have been working hard for twenty, thirty, or even forty years just to become the true owners of their farms. Often, they inherited these farms with debts (encumbrances) or bought them with borrowed money. We can figure that about one-third of all their work goes just to pay for their houses—and usually, they still haven’t paid them off completely. It’s true that sometimes the debts on a farm are worth more than the farm itself. The farm then becomes one huge burden. Still, a man will inherit it, saying he knows it well.

When I ask the town tax assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot quickly name even a dozen farmers in town who own their farms free and clear of debt. If you want to know the history of these homesteads, ask at the bank where they are mortgaged. The farmer who has actually paid for his farm with his own labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point him out. I doubt there are even three such men in Concord. What has been said about merchants—that a very large majority, as many as ninety-seven out of a hundred, are sure to fail—is equally true of farmers. Regarding merchants, however, one of them made a relevant point. He said that a large part of their failures are not actual financial failures. Instead, they are failures to keep their promises because it’s inconvenient. In other words, it’s their moral character that breaks down. But this makes the situation seem infinitely worse. It also suggests that probably not even the other three successful merchants manage to save their souls. They might be bankrupt in a worse sense than those who fail honestly in business. Bankruptcy and refusing to pay debts (repudiation) are the springboards from which much of our “civilization” leaps and does its acrobatics. But a person in a simpler society (a “savage,” as Thoreau calls them) stands on the unbending plank of potential starvation if they fail. Yet, the Middlesex Cattle Show (a local agricultural fair) happens here every year with great display (éclat), as if every part of the farming system were running perfectly smoothly.

The Complicated Trap of Livelihood The farmer tries to solve the problem of making a living with a formula more complicated than the problem itself. To get money for something as simple as shoestrings, he risks huge investments, like buying and selling herds of cattle. With great skill, he has set a very delicate trap (like one with a hair-trigger) to catch comfort and independence. But then, as he turned away, he got his own leg caught in it. This is why he is poor—not just in money, but in true freedom. For a similar reason, we are all poor when it comes to a thousand simple, natural comforts, even though we are surrounded by luxuries. As the poet George Chapman wrote: “The false society of men— —for earthly greatness All heavenly comforts rarefies to air.” (This means that society’s pursuit of worldly success makes spiritual comforts disappear like smoke.)

And when the farmer finally gets his house, he may not be richer but poorer for it. It may be the house that owns him. As I understand it, this was a valid objection made by Momus (the Greek god of criticism) against the house that Minerva (goddess of wisdom) built. Momus said she “had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided.” This criticism can still be made today. Our houses are such difficult-to-manage (unwieldy) property that we are often imprisoned by them rather than comfortably housed in them. And the “bad neighborhood” we often need to avoid is our own unhappy or flawed inner selves (“our own scurvy selves”). I know at least one or two families in this town who, for nearly a whole generation, have been wishing to sell their houses on the outskirts of town and move into the village. But they have not been able to do it. Only death will set them free from their property.

Civilized Houses, Unimproved People Let’s agree that most people are eventually able to either own or rent a modern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the people who are to live in them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings to occupy them. And if the goals of a “civilized” man are no more worthy than those of a person in a simpler society—if he spends most of his life just trying to get basic necessities and comforts—why should he have a better house than the person living more simply?

The Price of Luxury: Poverty for Others But how do the poor minority manage? Perhaps it will be found that, just as some people have been placed in outward circumstances far above those in simpler societies, others have been pushed down far below them. The luxury of one class is balanced by the extreme poverty (indigence) of another. On one side is the palace; on the other are the charity home (almshouse) and the “silent poor” (those who suffer poverty without their plight being noticed).

The tens of thousands of people who built the pyramids as tombs for the Pharaohs were fed on garlic. It’s likely they were not decently buried themselves. The stonemason who finishes the fancy molding (cornice) of a palace might return at night to a hut not as good as a Native American wigwam. It is a mistake to assume that in a country with the usual signs of civilization, a very large number of its inhabitants may not be living in conditions as degraded as those of people in undeveloped societies. I am referring to the degraded poor, not currently to the degraded rich (whose wealth might also degrade them in other ways). To know this, I wouldn’t need to look farther than the shantytowns that are found everywhere along our railroads—that latest “improvement” in civilization. In my daily walks, I see human beings living in conditions like pigsties (sties). They often keep their doors open all winter for light, with no visible woodpile for fuel, and often not even an imaginable one. The bodies of both old and young are permanently stooped and shrunken from the long habit of cowering against cold and misery. The development of all their limbs and abilities is stunted. It is certainly fair to look at the condition of the class of people whose labor creates the great works that distinguish this generation. Such, to a greater or lesser extent, is also the condition of factory workers of every kind in England, which is the great “workhouse” of the world. Or I could point to Ireland, which is marked on maps as one of the “white” or enlightened spots. Contrast the physical condition of the Irish people with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other native people before they were degraded by contact with “civilized” man. Yet, I have no doubt that Ireland’s rulers are as wise as the average civilized rulers. The condition of their people only proves what terrible poverty (squalidness) can exist alongside civilization. I hardly need to mention the enslaved laborers in our Southern States. They produce the main export crops (staple exports) of this country and are themselves treated as a primary product (staple production) of the South. But for now, I want to focus on those who are said to be in moderate, or average, circumstances.

The Illusion of the Ideal House Most men seem never to have really thought about what a house is. They are actually, though needlessly, poor all their lives because they think they must have a house like their neighbors’ houses. It’s as if a person were to wear any sort of coat the tailor might design for him. Or it’s like someone gradually giving up a simple palm-leaf hat or a cap made of woodchuck skin, and then complaining about hard times because he could not afford to buy a king’s crown! It is possible to invent a house even more convenient and luxurious than any we currently have. Yet, everyone would admit that people could not afford to pay for such a house. Shall we always try to get more of these things, and not sometimes learn to be content with less? Should the respectable citizen solemnly teach, by words and example, that a young man must provide a certain number of unnecessary overshoes (superfluous glow-shoes), umbrellas, and empty guest rooms for imaginary guests before he dies?

Why shouldn’t our furniture be as simple as an Arab’s or a Native American’s? When I think of the great benefactors of the human race—those whom we have honored almost as gods (apotheosized), as messengers from heaven bringing divine gifts to mankind—I do not picture them with a large group of servants (retinue) following them, or with cartloads of fashionable furniture. Or what if I were to make a strange suggestion: should our furniture be more complex than an Arab’s only if we are truly morally and intellectually superior to him? At present, our houses are cluttered and spoiled (defiled) by too much furniture. A good housekeeper would sweep most of it into the dustbin and not leave her morning’s work of cleaning and simplifying undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora (the Roman goddess of dawn) and the legendary music of the statue of Memnon (which was said to sing at sunrise), what should a person’s true morning work be in this world? I once had three pieces of limestone on my desk. I was terrified to find that they needed to be dusted daily, while the “furniture of my mind” (my thoughts and knowledge) was still all undusted and neglected. I threw the limestones out the window in disgust. How, then, could I ever have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken the ground.

Fashion, Luxury, and Simplicity It is the wealthy and wasteful (luxurious and dissipated) people who set the fashions that the masses (herd) so diligently follow. The traveler who stops at the so-called best hotels soon discovers this. The innkeepers (publicans) assume he is a Sardanapalus (an ancient Assyrian king known for extreme luxury and weakness). If the traveler gave in to their indulgent treatment, he would soon be completely weakened and softened (emasculated). I think that in railroad cars, we are inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience. The train car, without achieving real safety or convenience, threatens to become nothing better than a modern living room (drawing room). It’s filled with couches (divans), footstools (ottomans), sunshades, and a hundred other “oriental” things. We are taking these items west with us, though they were invented for the ladies of Middle Eastern harems or for what Thoreau considered the overly refined (effeminate) people of China (the “Celestial Empire”). He implies that “Jonathan” (a nickname for a typical, practical American) should be ashamed to even know the names of such decadent items. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on the earth in an ox cart with fresh air circulating freely than go to “heaven” in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe polluted air (“malaria,” meaning bad air) all the way.

Tools of Our Tools The great simplicity and “nakedness” of human life in primitive ages had at least this advantage: people were still just temporary visitors (sojourners) in nature. When a person was refreshed with food and sleep, they thought about their journey again. They lived, in a way, like someone in a tent in this world. They were always moving—either threading through valleys, crossing plains, or climbing mountaintops. But look! Men have become the tools of their tools. The man who once independently picked fruits when he was hungry has become a farmer, tied to his land and crops. The man who once stood under a tree for shelter has become a housekeeper, tied to his house. We no longer camp just for a night. We have settled down on earth and forgotten about higher, spiritual things (“heaven”). We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of farming—a way to better our worldly lives, not our souls. We have built a family mansion for this world and a family tomb for the next. The best works of art are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this materialistic condition. But the effect of our art today is merely to make this low state comfortable and to make us forget that higher state. There is actually no place in this village for a true work of fine art to stand, even if one came to us. Our lives, our houses, and our streets provide no proper base (pedestal) for it. There isn’t a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to hold the bust of a hero or a saint.

When I consider how our houses are built and paid for (or not paid for), and how their internal household management (economy) is handled, I wonder that the floor doesn’t give way under a visitor. While the visitor is admiring the trinkets (gewgaws) on the mantelpiece, the floor should drop him through into the cellar, to some solid and honest, though earthy, foundation. I cannot help but see that this so-called rich and refined life is something people grasp at desperately (“jumped at”). I don’t get much enjoyment from the fine arts that decorate it because my attention is completely focused on this “jump”—the desperate effort or the shaky foundation it’s all built upon. I remember that the greatest genuine leap by human muscles alone on record is that of certain wandering Arabs, who are said to have cleared twenty-five feet on level ground. Without artificial support, man is sure to come back down to earth if he tries to go beyond that natural limit. The first question I am tempted to ask the owner of such a grand display of questionable taste (“great impropriety”) is: Who supports you? What is the real foundation of your wealth? Are you one of the ninety-seven out of a hundred who fail in business, or one of the three who succeed? Answer me these questions, and then perhaps I may look at your trinkets (bawbles) and find them decorative. Putting the cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects, the walls must be stripped bare, and our lives must be stripped bare. Beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living must be laid as a foundation. A taste for the beautiful is best developed outdoors, where there is no house and no housekeeper to distract us with trivialities.

Early Settlers’ Simple Shelters Old Edward Johnson, in his book Wonder-Working Providence, wrote about the first settlers of this town, Concord, whom he knew. He tells us that “they burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some hillside. They pile the dug-up soil on top of timber supports. They make a smoky fire against the earth wall on the highest side of the shelter.” He says they did not “provide themselves houses until the earth, by the Lord’s blessing, brought forth bread to feed them.” The first year’s crop was so small that “they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season.”

The secretary of the Province of New Netherland (the old Dutch colony in New York), writing in Dutch in 1650 for people who wanted to settle there, gave more details. He stated that “those in New Netherland, and especially in New England, who have no money to build farmhouses at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, like a cellar, six or seven feet deep. It is as long and as broad as they think proper. They line the earth walls inside with wood all around and cover the wood with bark or something else to prevent the earth from caving in. They floor this cellar with planks and panel it overhead for a ceiling. They raise a roof of poles (spars) and cover the poles with bark or green sod. In these houses, they can live dry and warm with their entire families for two, three, and four years. Partitions are put up inside these cellars, adapted to the size of the family.” He added: “The wealthy and important men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies, built their first dwelling houses in this fashion for two reasons. Firstly, not to waste time in building, so they would not lack food the next season. Secondly, not to discourage the poor laboring people whom they brought over in large numbers from their homeland (Fatherland). In the course of three or four years, when the country became suitable for agriculture, they built themselves handsome houses, spending several thousands on them.”

Spiritual Bread vs. Luxurious Houses In the way our ancestors lived, there was at least an appearance of good sense (prudence), as if their principle was to satisfy the most pressing needs first. But are the most pressing needs—perhaps our spiritual or true needs—satisfied now? When I think of getting for myself one of our luxurious modern houses, I am discouraged. It feels as if, so to speak, the country is not yet truly ready for deep human “culture.” We are still forced to cut our “spiritual bread” far thinner than our forefathers cut their wheat bread. This doesn’t mean that all architectural decoration should be neglected, even in the simplest times. But let our houses first be lined with beauty on the inside, where they come in contact with our lives—like the shell that is the dwelling (tenement) of a shellfish, beautifully lined within. Our houses should not just be overlaid with external decoration. But, alas! I have been inside one or two of these luxurious houses, and I know what they are truly “lined” with on the inside (implying a lack of true, inner beauty or spiritual substance).

Civilization’s Advantages and a Wiser Path Though we are not so far declined (degenerate) that we couldn’t possibly live in a cave or a wigwam or wear animal skins today, it is certainly better to accept the advantages that human invention and industry offer—even if they come at a high cost. In a neighborhood like this, building materials like boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and more easily obtained than suitable caves, whole logs, enough bark, or even well-prepared (well-tempered) clay or flat stones. I speak with understanding on this subject, because I have made myself familiar with it both by studying it and by practical experience. With a little more wisdom (wit), we might use these modern materials in such a way as to become richer—in a true sense—than the richest people are now, and make our civilization a true blessing. The ideal “civilized man” is simply a more experienced and wiser “savage”—someone who combines the wisdom of experience with the essential strength and simplicity of one living close to nature. But now, let me hurry on to describe my own experiment.

My Experiment Begins: Building the Cabin Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond. I went to the spot nearest to where I intended to build my house. I began to cut down some tall, straight (arrowy) white pine trees, which were still in their youth, to use for timber. It is difficult to begin any project without borrowing something. But perhaps it is the most generous way, as it allows your fellow men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he handed it to me, said that it was the “apple of his eye” (something he valued highly). But I returned it to him sharper than when I received it.

It was a pleasant hillside where I worked. It was covered with pine woods, and through the trees, I could look out at the pond. There was also a small open field in the woods where young pines and hickories were springing up. The ice on the pond had not yet melted completely, though there were some open spaces. The ice was all dark-colored and soaked with water. There were some light snow flurries during the days that I worked there. But for the most part, when I came out onto the railroad on my way home, its yellow sandbank stretched away, gleaming in the hazy air. The rails shone in the spring sun. I heard the lark, the pewee, and other birds that had already returned to begin another year with us. They were pleasant spring days. The “winter of man’s discontent” (a general feeling of unhappiness, a reference to Shakespeare) was thawing, just like the earth itself. The life that had lain dormant (torpid) all winter began to stretch itself. One day, when my axe-head had come off its handle, I had cut a green hickory branch to make a wedge. I drove the wedge in with a stone and then placed the whole axe-head in a puddle in the pond to make the wood swell and fit tightly. While I was there, I saw a striped snake run into the water. It lay on the bottom, apparently without any discomfort, for as long as I stayed there—more than a quarter of an hour. Perhaps this was because it had not yet fully come out of its inactive winter state (torpid state).

It seemed to me that people stay in their current low and undeveloped condition for a similar reason that the snake was inactive. But if they should feel the influence of a great spiritual awakening (the “spring of springs”) stirring them, they would surely rise to a higher and more spiritual (ethereal) life. I had seen snakes before on frosty mornings. They would be in my path, parts of their bodies still numb and stiff, waiting for the sun to warm them. On April 1st, it rained and melted the ice. In the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a lone goose flying blindly over the pond. It was cackling as if it were lost, or perhaps it sounded like the spirit of the fog itself.

Working and Singing in the Woods So, I continued for some days, cutting and shaping timber. I also made studs (upright posts in walls) and rafters (beams that support a roof), all with my narrow axe. I wasn’t having many deep thoughts that I could easily share or that sounded like a scholar’s ideas. Instead, I was singing to myself:

“Men say they know many things; But look! These things have flown away— The arts and sciences, And a thousand clever devices; The wind that blows Is all that anybody truly knows.”

I shaped the main timbers to be six inches square. Most of the studs I squared on two sides only. The rafters and floor timbers I squared on only one side, leaving the bark on the other sides. This made them just as straight as, and much stronger than, timbers cut by a sawmill. Each piece of wood was carefully shaped at the ends to fit together (using mortise and tenon joints), as I had borrowed more tools by this time.

My days in the woods were not very long. Yet, I usually carried my lunch of bread and butter, wrapped in a newspaper. At noon, I would sit among the green pine branches I had cut off and read the newspaper. My bread even picked up some of the pine fragrance because my hands were covered with a thick, sticky coat of pine resin (pitch). Before I was done with my work, I felt more like a friend to the pine trees than an enemy, even though I had cut some of them down. This was because I had become better acquainted with them. Sometimes, a person wandering in the woods would be attracted by the sound of my axe. We would chat pleasantly over the wood chips I had made.

Acquiring Boards for the House By the middle of April, my house frame was complete and ready to be raised. I didn’t rush my work; instead, I made the most of the experience. I had already bought the small shack (shanty) of James Collins for its boards. Collins was an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad. His shanty was considered an uncommonly good one.

When I went to see it, he was not at home. I walked around the outside. At first, no one inside noticed me because the window was set so deep and high in the wall. The shanty was small, with a peaked cottage roof. There wasn’t much else to see from the outside, as dirt was piled up five feet high all around it, like a compost heap. The roof was the most solid part, though it was quite warped and made brittle by the sun. There was no doorsill, just a permanent passage for the hens under the bottom door board. Mrs. Collins came to the door and asked me to look at it from the inside. My approach drove the hens into the shanty. It was dark inside and had a dirt floor for the most part. The floor was damp, clammy, and felt like it could give you chills (aguish). There were only a few loose boards here and there on the floor that couldn’t really be moved. She lit a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the walls. She also showed me that the board floor extended under the bed. She warned me not to step into the cellar, which was a sort of dust hole two feet deep. In her own words, there were “good boards overhead, good boards all around, and a good window.” The window originally had two whole panes of glass, but the cat had recently escaped through it, breaking some. Inside, there was a stove, a bed, and a place to sit. There was also a baby who had been born in the shanty, a silk parasol, a mirror with a gold-painted (gilt-framed) frame, and a new-fangled coffee mill nailed to a young oak tree sapling that was part of the structure. That was all.

The deal was quickly made, as James had returned in the meantime. I was to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents that night. He was to leave by five o’clock the next morning and not sell the shanty to anyone else in the meantime. I was to take possession at six o’clock. He said it would be good for me to be there early to prevent any unclear but completely unfair claims regarding ground rent or fuel. He assured me this was the only potential problem (encumbrance). At six the next morning, I passed him and his family on the road. One large bundle held all their possessions: bed, coffee mill, mirror, hens—everything but the cat. The cat ran off into the woods and became a wild cat. I learned later that she stepped in a trap set for woodchucks and so, eventually, became a dead cat.

Dismantling the Shanty and a Thieving Neighbor I took down the shanty that same morning, carefully pulling out the nails. I moved it to the pond side in small cartloads, spreading the boards on the grass there to bleach and straighten out again in the sun. An early thrush sang a note or two for me as I drove my cart along the woodland path. A young man named Patrick slyly informed me that a neighbor, Seeley (another Irishman), was taking advantage of my trips with the cart. During the intervals when I was away, Seeley was pocketing the still usable, straight nails, staples, and spikes. Then, when I came back, he would stand around to chat, looking up innocently with “spring thoughts,” appearing unconcerned about the “devastation” of the dismantled shanty. He claimed there was a shortage (dearth) of work. Thoreau humorously suggests Seeley was there to represent all spectators (“spectatordom”) and to help make this seemingly small event feel as important as a legendary event, like the “removal of the gods of Troy” after the city’s fall.

Digging the Cellar I dug my cellar in the side of a hill that sloped to the south. A woodchuck had formerly dug its burrow there. I dug down through sumach and blackberry roots, and below the lowest level of plant life. The cellar was six feet square and seven feet deep. I dug until I reached fine sand, where potatoes would not freeze in any winter. The sides of the cellar were left sloping and were not lined with stones. But since the sun never shone on them, the sand still stays in place. It was only about two hours’ work. I took particular pleasure in this first digging, because in almost all parts of the world, people dig into the earth to find a stable (equable) temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city, you will still find a cellar where people store their root vegetables, just as they did in old times. Long after the main part of the house (superstructure) has disappeared, future generations (posterity) will notice the dent in the earth where the cellar was. The house, in this sense, is still just a kind of porch at the entrance of a burrow.

Raising the Frame and Early Days in the Cabin At last, in the beginning of May, I set up the frame of my house. Some of my acquaintances helped me, more as a good occasion for neighborliness than because I truly needed their help. No man was ever more honored by the character of the people who helped him raise his house (raisers) than I was. I trust they are destined to help raise even greater structures one day. I began to live in my house on the 4th of July. It was boarded and roofed by then. The boards were carefully cut to overlap (feather-edged and lapped), so it was completely waterproof (impervious to rain). But before putting up the boards, I laid the foundation for a chimney at one end. I carried two cartloads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms for this. I built the chimney after I finished my gardening (hoeing) in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth. In the meantime, I did my cooking outdoors on the ground, early in the morning. I still think this way of cooking is, in some respects, more convenient and agreeable than the usual method. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire and sat under them to watch my loaf. I passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were very busy with physical work, I read but little. However, the smallest scraps of paper that lay on the ground, or that I used as a potholder or tablecloth, gave me as much entertainment as a great epic poem like the Iliad. They served the same purpose.

On Building and Self-Reliance It would be worthwhile to build a house even more thoughtfully and deliberately than I did. One should consider, for instance, what basic human need a door, a window, a cellar, or an attic (garret) fulfills. Perhaps we should never build any structure until we have a better reason for it than just our immediate, temporary (temporal) necessities. There is a similar rightness in a man building his own house as there is in a bird building its own nest. Who knows? If men built their own homes with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and their families simply and honestly enough, perhaps the ability to create and appreciate beauty (the poetic faculty) would be universally developed, just as birds universally sing when they are so engaged. But alas! We are often like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests that other birds have built. These parasitic birds do not cheer any traveler with their harsh and unmusical notes. Shall we forever give up the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture really mean in the experience of most people? In all my walks, I have never come across a man engaged in an occupation as simple and natural as building his own house.

We all belong to the community. There’s an old saying that “a tailor is the ninth part of a man,” meaning that by specializing in only one trade, a person becomes less whole. This idea applies just as much to the preacher, the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor supposed to end? And what purpose does it finally serve? No doubt, another person can also think for me. But it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the point where I stop thinking for myself.

True Architecture vs. Ornament True, there are people called architects in this country. I have heard of at least one who was obsessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a real necessity, and therefore a beauty, as if this were a great revelation to him. This might be all very well from his point of view, but it’s only a little better than the common superficial interest in art (dilettantism). He was a sentimental reformer in architecture who began with the decorative top part of a building (the cornice), not with the foundation. His idea was only how to put a “core of truth” within the ornaments—like making sure every sugar-coated candy (sugar plum) actually had an almond or a caraway seed inside. (Though I believe almonds are healthiest without the sugar.) He wasn’t concerned with how the person living in the house, the inhabitant, might build truthfully, both inside and out, and let the ornaments take care of themselves. What reasonable person ever supposed that ornaments were something merely outward, just on the surface—that the tortoise got its spotted shell, or the shellfish its mother-of-pearl colors, by some artificial contract, like the way the people of Broadway got their Trinity Church built? A man should have no more to do with choosing the architectural style of his house than a tortoise has with choosing the style of its shell; it should be a natural expression of his being. Nor does a soldier need to be so idle as to try to paint the exact color of his virtue on his flag. The enemy will find out his true character in battle. He might turn pale when the real test comes. This architect I mentioned seemed to me to be leaning over the fancy cornice of a building, timidly whispering his half-truth to the common people inside (rude occupants), who actually understood the matter better than he did. What architectural beauty I see now, I know has gradually grown from within outwards. It comes from the necessities and character of the person living there, who is the only true builder. It grows out of some unconscious truthfulness and nobility, without any thought for mere appearance. Whatever additional beauty of this kind is to be produced in the future will be preceded by a similar unconscious beauty in the way people live.

The most interesting dwellings in this country, as any painter knows, are usually the most unpretentious, humble log huts and cottages of the poor. It is the life of the inhabitants—these houses are their “shells”—and not any particular feature of their surfaces merely, which makes them picturesque. A rich citizen’s suburban box-like house will be equally interesting when his life becomes as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, and when there is as little straining after effect in the style of his dwelling. A great proportion of architectural ornaments are literally hollow. A strong September wind would strip them off like borrowed feathers (borrowed plumes), without any real injury to the solid structure underneath. People who have no luxuries like olives or wines in their cellar can do without fancy architecture. What if an equal fuss were made about the ornaments of style in literature? What if the “architects” of our Bibles spent as much time on their decorative flourishes as the architects of our churches spend on their cornices? That is how fancy literature (belles-lettres) and fine arts (beaux-arts) and their professors are often created. Does it really matter so much to a man, truly (forsooth), how a few sticks are slanted over him or under him, or what colors are carelessly painted (daubed) on his “box” of a house? It would mean something if, in any serious sense, he himself slanted them and painted it. But if the spirit has departed from the person living there, then focusing on the house is like constructing one’s own coffin—it’s the architecture of the grave. And “carpenter” in that case is just another name for “coffin-maker.” One man says, in his despair or indifference to life, “Take up a handful of the earth at your feet, and paint your house that color.” Is he thinking of his grave, his last and narrow house? He might as well toss a copper coin to decide. What an abundance of leisure he must have to think of such things! Why pick up a handful of dirt? Better to paint your house the color of your own “complexion”—let it turn pale with your shame or blush with your sincerity. An enterprise to improve the style of cottage architecture! When you have my ornaments ready, I will consider wearing them.

Finishing the House Before winter, I built a chimney. I also put shingles on the sides of my house, which were already rainproof. I used imperfect and resinous (sappy) shingles made from the first slice of the log. I had to straighten their edges with a woodworking tool called a plane.

So, I ended up with a tight, shingled, and plastered house. It was ten feet wide by fifteen feet long, with eight-foot posts. It had an attic (garret) and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for the materials I used (but not counting my own labor, as I did all the work myself), was as follows. I give the details because very few people are able to tell exactly what their houses cost. Even fewer, if any, know the separate cost of the various materials that make up their homes: (The detailed cost list is expected to follow this introduction in the original text.)

These are all the materials except for the timber, stones, and sand. I claimed these by “squatter’s right”—meaning I took them freely from the land as they were not being used by anyone else. I also have a small woodshed next to the house, made chiefly from the leftover wood from building the house.

I intend to build myself a house that will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury—as soon as such a house pleases me as much, and will cost me no more (in terms of life energy and effort, not just money) than my current simple one.

The True Cost of Shelter and Education From this experience, I found that a student who wishes for shelter can get one for a lifetime at an expense no greater than the rent he now pays annually for a room. If I seem to boast more than is proper, my excuse is that I am bragging for humanity rather than for myself. My own shortcomings and inconsistencies do not change the truth of my statement. Despite much insincere talk (cant) and hypocrisy—useless chaff that I find it difficult to separate from the valuable wheat in society, but for which I am as sorry as any man—I will breathe freely and stretch myself in this matter. It is such a relief to both the moral and physical system to live simply. I am resolved that I will not, through false humility, become the “devil’s attorney” (arguing against what is good and true). I will try to speak a good word for the truth.

At Cambridge College (Harvard), the mere rent for a student’s room, which is only a little larger than my own house, is thirty dollars each year. This is true even though the college corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two rooms side by side under one roof, and the student suffers the inconvenience of many noisy neighbors and perhaps living on the fourth story. I cannot help but think that if we had more true wisdom in these matters, not only would less formal education be needed (because, indeed, more wisdom would already have been acquired through simpler living), but the financial (pecuniary) expense of getting an education would largely disappear. Those conveniences that a student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him, or somebody else, ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they would if managed properly by both the institution and the student. The things for which the most money is demanded are often not the things the student most truly wants or needs. Tuition, for instance, is an important item on the term bill. Meanwhile, the far more valuable education a student gets by associating with the most cultivated and thoughtful of his peers costs nothing.

The common way of founding a college is to raise money through subscriptions. Then, blindly following the principle of division of labor to its extreme (a principle that should always be applied with great care and foresight), a contractor is called in. The contractor often makes the project a subject of financial speculation. He then employs Irishmen or other laborers to actually lay the foundations, while the future students are supposedly “fitting themselves” for college elsewhere. Successive generations have to pay for these oversights and poor planning. I think it would be better than this if the students themselves, or those who desire to benefit from the college, were to lay the foundations. The student who secures his desired leisure and retirement by systematically avoiding any labor necessary for human life obtains only a shameful (ignoble) and unprofitable leisure. He cheats himself of the very experience that alone can make leisure fruitful. “But,” someone might say, “you do not mean that students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?” I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something that he might think is quite similar. I mean that they should not just play at life, or merely study it from a distance, while the community supports them in this expensive game. They should earnestly live life from beginning to end. How could young people better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? It seems to me this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.

If I wished a boy to learn something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not follow the common course. The common course is merely to send him to be near some professor, where anything might be taught and practiced except the art of living. This common course involves:

• Surveying the world through a telescope or a microscope, but never with his own natural eyes.
• Studying chemistry, but not learning how his own bread is made.
• Studying mechanics, but not learning how it is earned or applied in daily life.
• Discovering new satellites of the planet Neptune, but not detecting the flaws (“motes”) in his own eyes, or realizing to what harmful influence (“vagabond”) he himself has become a satellite.
• Being metaphorically devoured by the real-life problems (“monsters”) that swarm all around him, while he is busy contemplating the tiny organisms (“monsters”) in a drop of vinegar under a microscope.

Which boy would have advanced the most at the end of a month?

• The boy who had made his own jack-knife from iron ore which he had dug and smelted himself, reading only as much as was necessary for this practical task?
• Or the boy who had attended lectures on metallurgy at an institute during that time and had simply received a store-bought Rodgers penknife from his father?

Individual Responsibility Why do you quote old sayings like, “The poor you will always have with you”? Or the proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (meaning children suffer for their parents’ sins)?

The Bible offers a different view, emphasizing individual responsibility: “As I live, says the Lord God, you shall not use this proverb any more in Israel.” “Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.” These words suggest that poverty and suffering are not inescapable fates passed down through generations, but matters of individual action and consequence.

The True State of Concord Farmers When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord—who are at least as well-off as other groups—I find that most have worked hard for twenty, thirty, or forty years to truly own their farms. They usually inherited these farms with debts (encumbrances) or bought them with borrowed money. We can estimate that about one-third of all their toil goes just toward paying for their houses, and commonly they still haven’t paid them off. Sometimes, the debts are greater than the value of the farm itself, making the farm a huge burden. Yet, someone still inherits it, claiming they are familiar with it.

When I ask the town tax assessors, I am surprised they cannot quickly name even a dozen farmers in town who own their farms free and clear of debt. If you want to know the history of these family farms (homesteads), ask at the bank where they are mortgaged. The farmer who has actually paid for his farm with his own labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point him out. I doubt there are even three such men in Concord. What statistics say about merchants—that a vast majority, perhaps ninety-seven out of a hundred, eventually fail—is equally true of farmers. Regarding merchants, however, one of them insightfully remarked that many of their failures are not truly financial (pecuniary) failures. Instead, they are failures to fulfill their commitments simply because it is inconvenient. That means it is their moral character that breaks down. But this perspective makes the situation seem infinitely worse. It suggests that probably not even the successful three percent manage to save their souls; they might be bankrupt in a worse, spiritual sense than those who fail honestly in business. Bankruptcy and refusing to pay debts (repudiation) are the springboards from which much of our civilization performs its leaps and tricks. In contrast, a person in a simpler society (a “savage”) faces the hard reality of starvation if their efforts fail. Yet, the Middlesex Cattle Show (the local agricultural fair) takes place here every year with great fanfare (éclat), as if the entire agricultural system were running perfectly smoothly (suent).

The Farmer’s Complicated Trap The farmer tries to solve the problem of making a living using methods that are more complicated than the problem itself. To earn enough for basic needs like shoestrings, he gambles on large investments like herds of cattle. With impressive skill, he sets a delicate trap (like one with a hair-trigger) hoping to catch comfort and independence. But then, as he turns away, he gets his own leg caught in it. This is why he is poor—poor in true freedom and simplicity. For a similar reason, we are all poor regarding a thousand simple, natural (savage) comforts, even though we are surrounded by luxuries. As the poet George Chapman wrote: “The false society of men— for earthly greatness All heavenly comforts rarefies to air.” (Meaning: Society’s focus on worldly success causes spiritual comforts to vanish.)

When the House Owns the Man And when the farmer finally owns his house, he may not be richer but poorer because of it. It may be the house that has “got” him, trapping him with its burdens. As I understand it, this relates to a valid objection made in Greek mythology by Momus (the god of criticism) against the house that Minerva (goddess of wisdom) created. Momus complained that she “had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided.” This criticism still applies today. Our houses are such hard-to-manage (unwieldy) property that we are often imprisoned rather than comfortably housed in them. And the “bad neighborhood” we most need to avoid is often our own flawed inner state (“our own scurvy selves”). I know at least one or two families in this town who have wished to sell their houses on the edge of town and move into the village for nearly a whole generation. But they have not been able to manage it. Only death will set them free from their property.

Civilized Houses vs. Civilized People Granted, the majority of people are eventually able either to own or rent a modern house with all its improvements. But while civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the people who are to live in them. Civilization has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if the goals of a “civilized” man are no worthier than those of a person in a simpler society (“the savage”)—if he spends the greater part of his life merely obtaining basic necessities and comforts—why should he have a better dwelling than the person living more simply?

Civilization’s Underside: Poverty and Degradation But how do the poor minority fare in civilized society? Perhaps we will find that just as some people have been raised in outward circumstances above those in simpler societies, others have been degraded below them. The luxury of one class is balanced by the extreme poverty (indigence) of another. On one side is the palace; on the other are the poorhouse (almshouse) and the “silent poor” (those suffering poverty unnoticed). The tens of thousands who built the pyramids as tombs for the Pharaohs were fed on garlic, and likely were not decently buried themselves. The stonemason who finishes the decorative cornice of the palace may return at night to a hut not as good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to assume that, in a country with the usual signs of civilization, the condition of a very large part of the population may not be as degraded as that of people in simpler societies. I am talking about the degraded poor, not the degraded rich. To see this, I only need to look at the shantytowns found everywhere along our railroads—that latest achievement of civilization. In my daily walks, I see human beings living in places like pigsties (sties). They often keep their doors open all winter just to get some light, with no visible firewood, and often none imaginable. The bodies of both old and young are permanently bent and shrunken from the long habit of cowering against cold and misery. The development of all their limbs and abilities is stunted. It is certainly fair to consider the condition of this class, by whose labor the great works that distinguish this generation are accomplished. Such, too, is largely the condition of factory workers (operatives) of every type in England, which functions as the great workhouse of the world. Or I could point to Ireland, which is marked on maps as one of the “white” or supposedly enlightened spots. Contrast the physical condition of the Irish poor with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other native people before they were degraded by contact with civilized man. Yet, I have no doubt that Ireland’s rulers are as wise as the average civilized rulers. The condition of their people only demonstrates what terrible poverty (squalidness) can exist alongside civilization. I hardly need mention the enslaved laborers in our Southern States, who produce the country’s main export crops (staple exports) and are themselves treated as a primary product (staple production) of the South. But let me return my focus to those who are said to be in average, or moderate, circumstances.

The Tyranny of Neighborly Expectations Most men seem never to have considered what a house truly is. They remain actually, though needlessly, poor all their lives because they think they must have a house just like their neighbors’ houses. It’s as if a person felt obliged to wear any sort of coat the tailor might design for him. Or as if someone, after giving up a simple hat made of palm leaves or woodchuck skin, complained about hard times because he couldn’t afford to buy a king’s crown! It is possible to invent a house even more convenient and luxurious than any we have now, yet one that everyone would admit people could not afford. Should we always focus on getting more of these things, and not sometimes be content with less? Should the respectable citizen seriously teach, by word and example, that a young man must acquire a certain number of unnecessary overshoes (superfluous glow-shoes), umbrellas, and empty guest rooms for nonexistent guests before he dies?

Why shouldn’t our furniture be as simple as an Arab’s or a Native American’s? When I think of the great benefactors of the human race—those we have practically worshiped (apotheosized) as messengers from heaven bringing divine gifts—I don’t picture them with a large following (retinue) or cartloads of fashionable furniture. Or, what if I were to make the peculiar suggestion that our furniture should be more complex than an Arab’s only if we are truly morally and intellectually superior to him? At present, our houses are cluttered and dirtied (defiled) with furniture. A good housekeeper would sweep most of it into the dustbin and finish her real morning’s work. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora (the dawn) and the music of Memnon (the statue said to sing at sunrise), what should be a person’s true morning work in this world? I once had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was horrified to find they needed daily dusting while the “furniture of my mind” remained undusted and neglected. I threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I manage a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where humans have broken the ground.

Fashion Set by the Idle Rich It is the wealthy and wasteful (luxurious and dissipated) people who set the fashions that the masses (herd) so diligently follow. The traveler who stays at the so-called best hotels soon discovers this. The innkeepers (publicans) assume he must be a Sardanapalus (a notoriously decadent ancient king) and treat him with excessive luxury. If the traveler were to give in completely to their pampering (“tender mercies”), he would soon be completely weakened (emasculated). I think that in railroad cars, we tend to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience. The modern train car threatens to become nothing better than a fancy living room (drawing room), without actually achieving safety or convenience. It’s filled with couches (divans), footstools (ottomans), sunshades, and a hundred other “oriental” things. We are taking these items west with us, items originally designed for cultures of extreme luxury (like “ladies of the harem” or the people of China, the “Celestial Empire”) that, in Thoreau’s view, a practical American (“Jonathan”) should be ashamed to even know the names of. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on the earth in an ox cart with fresh air freely circulating than go to “heaven” in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe polluted air (malaria) all the way.

Settling Down and Forgetting Heaven The great simplicity and basic nature (“nakedness”) of human life in primitive ages had at least this advantage: people remained temporary visitors (sojourners) in nature. When refreshed by food and sleep, a person thought about their journey again. They lived as if in a tent in this world, always exploring—threading valleys, crossing plains, or climbing mountains. But look! Men have become the tools of their tools. The man who once independently picked fruits when hungry has become a farmer, tied down. The man who once stood under a tree for shelter has become a housekeeper, confined. We no longer camp just for a night; we have settled down permanently on earth and forgotten higher concerns (“heaven”). We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of farming—a way to enhance worldly life. We have built a family mansion for this world and a family tomb for the next. The best works of art express humanity’s struggle to free itself from this condition. But the effect of our art today is merely to make this low state comfortable and cause that higher state to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art to be properly displayed, even if one existed. Our lives, our houses, and our streets provide no suitable base (pedestal) for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to hold the bust of a hero or a saint.

When I consider how our houses are built and paid for (or not paid for), and how their internal management is sustained, I wonder that the floor does not collapse under a visitor while he is admiring the cheap ornaments (gewgaws) on the mantelpiece. He should fall through into the cellar, onto some solid and honest, though earthy, foundation. I cannot help but see that this so-called rich and refined life is something people grasp at desperately (“jumped at”). I cannot enjoy the fine arts that adorn it because my attention is completely focused on the precarious “jump” itself. I remember that the greatest recorded genuine leap by human muscles alone was by certain wandering Arabs, said to have cleared twenty-five feet on level ground. Without artificial support (factitious support), a person is sure to come back down to earth beyond that natural limit. The first question I am tempted to ask the owner of such grand superficiality (“great impropriety”) is: What truly supports you? (“Who bolsters you?”) Are you one of the ninety-seven percent who fail, or one of the three percent who succeed? Answer me these questions, and then perhaps I may look at your trinkets (bawbles) and find them ornamental. Putting the cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can decorate our houses with beautiful objects, the walls must be stripped bare, and our lives must be stripped bare. Beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living must be laid as the foundation. A taste for the beautiful is best developed outdoors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.

Lessons from the First Settlers Edward Johnson (“Old Johnson”), in his book Wonder-Working Providence, wrote about the first settlers of Concord, whom he knew personally. He tells us that “they burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some hillside, piling the soil on top of timber supports. They make a smoky fire against the earth wall on the highest side.” He says they did not “provide themselves houses until the earth, by the Lord’s blessing, brought forth bread to feed them.” And the first year’s crop was so meager that “they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season.”

The secretary of the Province of New Netherland (the former Dutch colony including New York), writing in Dutch in 1650 to inform potential settlers, gave more details. He stated that “those in New Netherland, and especially in New England, who initially lack the means to build farmhouses as they wish, dig a square pit in the ground, like a cellar, six or seven feet deep, as long and wide as they think proper. They line the earth inside with wood walls and cover the wood with bark or something else to prevent cave-ins. They floor this cellar with planks and panel (wainscot) it overhead for a ceiling. They raise a roof of poles (spars) and cover the poles with bark or green sods. In these houses, they can live dry and warm with their entire families for two, three, and four years, with partitions added inside according to family size.” He added: “The wealthy and leading men in New England, at the beginning of the colonies, built their first houses in this fashion for two reasons: first, not to waste time building when they needed to grow food for the next season; second, not to discourage the poor laborers they brought over in large numbers from their homeland (Fatherland). After three or four years, when the country was suitable for farming, they built themselves handsome houses, spending several thousand dollars on them.”

Modern Needs vs. Ancestors’ Prudence In the approach our ancestors took, there was at least an appearance of good sense (prudence), as if their principle was to satisfy the most pressing needs first. But are the truly pressing needs satisfied now? When I think about getting one of our luxurious modern dwellings for myself, I hesitate. It feels as though, so to speak, the country is not yet ready for true human “culture.” We are still forced to cut our “spiritual bread” far thinner than our forefathers cut their wheat bread. This doesn’t mean all architectural decoration should be neglected, even in the simplest times. But let our houses first be lined with beauty on the inside, where they touch our lives—like the beautiful inner lining of a seashell’s dwelling (tenement). They should not just be overlaid with external decoration. But alas! I have been inside one or two of these modern houses, and I know what they are truly lined with (suggesting a lack of inner substance or beauty).

Using Civilization Wisely Although we are not so weakened (degenerate) that we couldn’t possibly live in a cave or a wigwam or wear animal skins today, it is certainly better to accept the advantages that human invention and industry offer—even though these advantages are often bought at a very high cost (in terms of life energy and freedom). In a neighborhood like this, modern building materials like boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and easier to get than suitable caves, whole logs, enough bark, or even properly prepared (well-tempered) clay or flat stones. I speak with understanding on this subject, for I have familiarized myself with it both through study and practical experience. With a little more wisdom (wit), we could use these materials to become richer (in the truest sense) than the richest people are now, and make our civilization a true blessing. The ideal civilized person is simply a more experienced and wiser version of the “savage”—someone who combines wisdom with essential strength and simplicity. But now, let me get to my own experiment.

Starting the Walden Experiment Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, near the spot where I planned to build my house. I began to cut down some tall, straight (arrowy) young white pine trees for timber. It’s difficult to start anything without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous approach, as it allows other people to have a share in your project. The owner of the axe, as he handed it over, said it was the “apple of his eye” (very precious to him); but I returned it sharper than I received it.

It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I could see the pond. There was also a small open field in the woods where young pines and hickories were growing. The ice on the pond was not yet melted, although there were some open spaces, and the ice looked dark and soaked with water. There were some light snow flurries on the days I worked there. But usually, when I walked out to the railroad on my way home, the yellow sand beside the tracks stretched away, gleaming in the hazy air. The rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark, the pewee, and other birds that had already returned to start another year with us. They were pleasant spring days. The “winter of man’s discontent” (general unhappiness) was thawing along with the earth. Life that had lain dormant (torpid) began to stretch itself. One day, when my axe-head had come loose, I cut a wedge from a green hickory branch, hammered it in with a stone, and put the axe-head in a puddle to soak so the wood would swell tight. While there, I saw a striped snake glide into the water. It lay on the bottom, seemingly comfortable, for over fifteen minutes while I stayed there. Perhaps it was still partly in its inactive winter state (torpid state).

On Bread-Making: Simplifying the Staff of Life I decided to study the ancient and essential art of bread-making. I consulted the available authorities on the subject. I went back to the earliest days and the first invention of unleavened bread (bread made without yeast or other rising agents). This was when humans moved from a wild diet of nuts and meats to the milder and more refined diet including bread. I gradually studied the history, including the accidental souring of dough that supposedly taught people about the leavening process (using yeast or sourdough). I followed the various fermentation methods developed after that, until I came to what we call “good, sweet, wholesome bread,” the staff of life.

Leaven (usually yeast) is considered by some to be the soul of bread. They see it as the spirit (spiritus) that fills bread’s internal structure. This leaven, like the sacred Vestal fire in ancient Rome, is carefully preserved. I suppose some precious bottle of this starter, perhaps first brought over on the Mayflower, established bread-making in America. Its influence is still rising, swelling, and spreading in waves of grain (cerealian billows) across the land. I used to regularly and faithfully get this yeast “seed” from the village. But one morning, I forgot the rules and accidentally killed my yeast by overheating (scalding) it. Through this accident, I discovered (by taking things apart—analysis, rather than putting them together—synthesis) that even yeast was not essential. I have gladly stopped using it ever since. This is despite the fact that most housewives earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread could not be made without yeast. Elderly people predicted my health would quickly decline. Yet, I find yeast is not an essential ingredient. After going without it for a year, I am still alive and well. I am glad to escape the trivial nuisance of carrying a bottle of yeast starter in my pocket, which would sometimes pop open and spill its contents, much to my annoyance. It is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Humans are animals who, more than any other, can adapt themselves to all climates and circumstances.

Neither did I put any baking soda (sal soda) or other acid or alkali into my bread. It seems I made my bread according to the recipe given by the Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato about two centuries before Christ: “Panem depsticium sic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquæ paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu.” Which I take to mean: “Make kneaded bread this way. Wash your hands and kneading trough well. Put the meal into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have kneaded it well, shape it, and bake it under a cover” (that is, in a covered baking pot or baking-kettle). There is not a word about leaven in Cato’s recipe. But I did not always use bread, this staff of life. At one time, because my purse was empty, I went without any bread for more than a month.

Food Independence Every New Englander could easily raise all his own grains (breadstuffs) in this land of rye and Indian corn (corn). They wouldn’t need to depend on distant and unpredictable (fluctuating) markets for them. Yet, we are so far from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet cornmeal is rarely sold in the shops. Hominy (hulled corn) and corn in even coarser forms are hardly used by anyone. For the most part, the farmer feeds the grain he produces to his cattle and hogs. Then he buys flour at the store, which is at least no more wholesome than his own grain, and costs more. I saw that I could easily raise my own bushel or two of rye and Indian corn. Rye will grow on the poorest land, and corn does not require the best soil. I could grind them in a hand-mill and therefore do without buying rice and pork. If I absolutely needed some concentrated sweetener, I found by experiment that I could make a very good molasses from pumpkins or beets. I knew that I only needed to plant a few maple trees to get maple syrup even more easily. While the maples were growing, I could use various substitutes besides those I have named. As the early settlers sang: “we can make liquor to sweeten our lips Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.”

Salt and Self-Sufficiency Finally, regarding salt—that most basic (grossest) of groceries—getting this might be a good reason for a visit to the seashore. Or, if I did without salt altogether, I would probably just drink less water. I have not learned that the Native Americans ever troubled themselves much to go after salt.

Thus, I realized I could avoid all trade and barter as far as my food was concerned. Since I already had shelter, the only things left to obtain were clothing and fuel. The trousers I wear now were woven by a farmer’s family—thank Heaven there is still so much practical virtue left in people! (For I think the decline from the self-sufficient farmer to the factory worker or operative is as great and significant as the earlier decline from natural man to farmer.) And in a new country like America, fuel (wood) is so abundant it’s almost a burden (encumbrance). As for a place to live (habitat), if I were not allowed to continue squatting (living on unused land), I could purchase one acre for the same price the land I farmed was sold for—namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it was, I considered that I actually increased the value of the land by living on it.

Faith in Simple Living There is a certain type of skeptic (unbeliever) who sometimes asks me questions like, “Do you think you can live on vegetable food alone?” To get to the root of the matter at once—for the root is faith—I usually answer them that I can live on board nails. If they cannot understand that figure of speech (meaning I have faith in my ability to adapt and endure), they cannot understand much of what I have to say. For my part, I am glad to hear about experiments of this kind being tried. For example, I heard of a young man who tried for two weeks (fortnight) to live on nothing but hard, raw corn on the cob, using only his teeth to grind it (like a mortar and pestle). The squirrels try the same thing and succeed. The human race has an interest in these experiments, even though a few old-fashioned people (“old women”) who are unable to try such things themselves, or who have a financial stake in the current system (like owning shares or “thirds” in mills), may be alarmed.

On Furniture: Possessions as Burdens My furniture, part of which I made myself (the rest cost me nothing that I haven’t already accounted for), consisted of:

• A bed
• A table
• A desk
• Three chairs
• A looking-glass (mirror) three inches across
• A pair of tongs and andirons (for the fireplace)
• A kettle, a skillet, and a frying pan
• A dipper (for water)
• A wash-bowl
• Two knives and forks
• Three plates
• One cup
• One spoon
• A jug for oil
• A jug for molasses
• A japanned (lacquered) lamp

No one is so poor that they need to sit on a pumpkin. That is just laziness or lack of resourcefulness (shiftlessness). There are plenty of simple chairs, the kind I like best, available in village attics just for the taking. Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and stand without needing help from a furniture warehouse. What man, except perhaps a philosopher, would not be ashamed to see all his furniture packed in a cart and moved through the countryside, exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men—a pitiful collection (beggarly account) of empty boxes? That is Spaulding’s furniture (referring perhaps to a local mover or typical furniture). I could never tell just by looking at such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a poor one; the owner always seemed burdened and poverty-stricken. Indeed, the more you have of such things, the poorer you truly are. Each load of furniture looks as if it contains the contents of a dozen poor shanties; and if one shanty is poor, this collection is a dozen times poorer. Seriously, why do we ever move except, perhaps subconsciously, to get rid of our furniture, our old baggage (exuviæ, like shed skins)? We eventually go from this world to another, newly furnished one, and leave this world’s stuff to be burned. It is as if all these possessions (“traps”) were buckled to a man’s belt. He could not move freely over the rough terrain of life without dragging them—dragging his trap. The fox that left its tail behind in the trap was lucky. The muskrat will gnaw its own leg off to be free. No wonder humans have lost their freedom and flexibility (elasticity). How often a person is completely stuck (at a dead set)!

Someone might ask, “Sir, if I may be so bold, what do you mean by a dead set?” If you have insight (if you are a seer), whenever you meet a man, you will see all that he owns—and much that he pretends not to own—trailing behind him. You’ll see even his kitchen furniture and all the junk (trumpery) which he saves and will not burn. He will appear to be harnessed to it all, making whatever slow progress he can. I think the man is at a dead set who has managed to squeeze himself through a tight spot (a knot-hole or gateway) where his huge load (sledge load) of furniture cannot follow him.

I cannot help but feel compassion when I hear some neat, trim (trig), compact-looking man, who seems free and ready for anything, speak anxiously about his “furniture,” perhaps wondering whether it is insured or not. “But what shall I do with my furniture?” he worries. Ah, my seemingly free butterfly is actually entangled in a spider’s web then. Even those who appear for a long while not to have any furniture, if you inquire more closely, you will find they have some stored away in somebody’s barn. I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is traveling with a great deal of baggage—junk (trumpery) that has accumulated from long housekeeping, which he doesn’t have the courage to burn. He carries a great trunk, a little trunk, a hatbox (bandbox), and a bundle. He should throw away the first three at least! It would be beyond the power of a healthy man nowadays to easily follow the biblical command to “take up his bed and walk.” I would certainly advise a sick man today to lay down his bed and run away from his burdens! When I have met an immigrant staggering under a bundle that contained everything he owned—looking like an enormous growth (wen) coming out of the nape of his neck—I have pitied him. I pitied him not because that was all he had, but because he had all that to carry. If I have to drag my own trap (my necessary possessions), I will make sure it is a light one and does not pinch me in a vital part. But perhaps it would be wisest never to put one’s paw into the trap of possessions at all.

Simple Housekeeping I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains. I have no onlookers (gazers) to shut out except the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in. The moon will not sour my milk or spoil my meat (debunking old superstitions). Nor will the sun injure my simple furniture or fade my non-existent carpet. If the sun is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it better economy to retreat behind some natural curtain—like the shade of trees—than to add a single item to my housekeeping tasks. A lady once offered me a doormat. But since I had no room to spare inside the house, nor time to spare either inside or outside to shake it, I declined it. I preferred to wipe my feet on the grass (sod) before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of trouble—or accumulating unnecessary things.

Auctions and Accumulation Not long ago, I attended the auction of a church official’s (deacon’s) belongings (effects). His life had not been ineffectual, judging by the amount of stuff he left behind (a pun on “effects”). As Shakespeare wrote, “The evil that men do lives after them” (here applied to accumulated junk). As usual, a large part of the items was useless stuff (trumpery) that had begun to accumulate in his father’s day. Among the items was even a dried tapeworm! And now, after lying for half a century in his attic and other dusty corners, these things were not burned. Instead of a bonfire for a purifying destruction, there was an auction—a way of increasing and distributing the clutter. The neighbors eagerly gathered to look at the items, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their own attics and dusty corners. There the items will lie until their new owners’ estates are settled, when they will start the cycle again. When a man dies, he truly does “kick the dust” (both literally and figuratively, leaving behind dusty possessions).

Learning from Native Customs: The Busk Perhaps we could profitably imitate the customs of some native peoples (“savage nations”). They at least go through the appearance (semblance) of shedding their old skin (casting their slough) annually. They have the idea of renewal, whether they fully achieve the reality or not. Wouldn’t it be well if we were to celebrate a ritual like the “busk,” or “feast of first fruits,” which the naturalist William Bartram described as a custom of the Muscogee (Mucclasse) Indians? Bartram wrote: “When a town celebrates the busk, they first provide themselves with new clothes, new pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture. Then they collect all their worn-out clothes and other worthless (despicable) things. They sweep and cleanse their houses, town squares, and the whole town of all filth. They gather all this, along with all remaining grain and other old provisions, into one common heap and consume it with fire. After taking medicine and fasting for three days, all the fire in the town is extinguished. During this fast, they abstain from satisfying every appetite and passion whatsoever. A general pardon (amnesty) is proclaimed; all wrongdoers (malefactors) may return to their town.—”

“On the fourth morning, the high priest makes new fire in the public square by rubbing dry wood together. From this sacred fire, every home in the town is supplied with the new and pure flame.” They then feast on the new corn and fruits and dance and sing for three days. “And the four following days they receive visits and rejoice with their friends from neighboring towns who have similarly purified and prepared themselves.” The ancient Mexicans also practiced a similar purification ceremony at the end of every fifty-two years. They believed this marked a time when the world might come to an end.

I have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament—that is, as the dictionary defines it, an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”—than this Busk ceremony. I have no doubt that these native peoples were originally inspired directly from Heaven to perform this ritual, even though they have no biblical record of the revelation.

On Earning a Living Simply For more than five years, I supported myself entirely by the labor of my hands. I found that by working about six weeks in a year, I could cover all my living expenses. This left the entire winter, as well as most of the summer, free and clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school-teaching. I found that my expenses were proportional, or rather out of proportion, to my income. I was obliged to dress, act, and even think and believe according to expectations, and I wasted my time in the bargain. Since I did not teach for the good of others, but simply to make a living, it was a failure for me. I have tried getting into trade (business). But I found that it would take ten years just to get started, and by then I would probably be morally compromised (“on my way to the devil”). I was actually afraid that I might eventually succeed at doing what people call “a good business.”

When I was younger and looking for ways to make a living, I had some sad experiences trying to conform to the wishes of friends. These experiences pushed me to think creatively. I often and seriously considered picking huckleberries. Surely I could do that, I thought foolishly. Its small profits might be enough—since my greatest skill has been to want very little. It required so little money to start (capital) and seemed like it would cause little distraction from my usual moods. While my acquaintances unhesitatingly went into trade or the professions, I thought about this occupation as being most similar to theirs. I pictured myself wandering the hills all summer, picking the berries I came across, and then carelessly selling them. It seemed like tending the flocks of Admetus (a reference to the Greek myth where the god Apollo was forced to serve King Admetus as a shepherd—doing humble work). I also dreamed that I might gather wild herbs, or carry loads of evergreens by hay-cart to villagers or city dwellers who loved to be reminded of the woods. But I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles. Even if you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.

Choosing Freedom Over Luxury Since I preferred some things over others, and especially valued my freedom, and since I could live simply (fare hard) and still succeed well on my own terms, I did not wish to spend my time earning rich carpets, fine furniture, delicate food, or a house in the fashionable Grecian or Gothic style just yet. If there are people for whom acquiring these things is no interruption to their lives, and who know how to use them once acquired, I leave the pursuit to them. Some people are “industrious” and seem to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse trouble. To such people, I currently have nothing to say. To those who would not know what to do with more leisure time than they now enjoy, I might advise them to work twice as hard as they do—work until they have essentially paid for their own freedom and gotten their “free papers” (like a slave earning freedom). For myself, I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any. This was especially true because it required only thirty or forty days of work in a year to support oneself. The laborer’s day ends when the sun goes down. He is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his job. But his employer, who speculates and plans from month to month, has no rest (respite) from one end of the year to the other.

Living as a Pastime In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that supporting oneself on this earth is not a hardship but an enjoyable activity (pastime), if we will live simply and wisely. The necessary activities (pursuits) of simpler nations are still the leisure activities (sports) of more “artificial” (complex) ones. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the “sweat of his brow” (intense labor), unless he sweats easier than I do.

Finding Your Own Way One young man I know, who inherited some land, told me that he thought he would live as I did, if only he “had the means” (the money). I would not want anyone to adopt my specific way of living on any account. Besides the fact that before he has fairly learned it, I might have discovered another way for myself, I desire that there may be as many different kinds of persons in the world as possible. But I would have each person be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s, or his mother’s, or his neighbor’s way instead. A young person may build, or plant, or sail—only let him not be prevented from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. We find wisdom by focusing on a single point of inner guidance, just as a sailor or a fugitive slave keeps the North Star (polestar) constantly in his eye. That single point is sufficient guidance for our whole life. We may not arrive at our destination (port) within a predictable timeframe, but we should always try to preserve the true course.

On Cooperation Undoubtedly, in some cases, what is true for one person is even truer for a thousand. For example, a large house is not necessarily more expensive than a small one in proportion to its size, since one roof can cover, one cellar can underlie, and one wall can separate several apartments. But for my part, I preferred living alone. Moreover, it will usually be cheaper to build the whole house yourself than to convince someone else of the advantage of sharing a common wall. And even if you do share, the common partition wall, to be much cheaper, must be a thin one. Then, the other person may prove to be a bad neighbor and may also not keep his side of the wall in good repair. The only cooperation that is commonly possible is exceedingly limited (partial) and superficial. What little true cooperation exists is often unnoticed, like a harmony that people cannot hear. If a man has faith, he will cooperate with equal faith everywhere he goes. If he does not have faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, no matter what group he joins. To cooperate, in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together.

On Bread-Making: Simplifying the Staff of Life I decided to study the ancient and essential art of bread-making. I consulted available books and sources, going back to the earliest times and the first invention of unleavened bread (bread made without yeast). This was when humans shifted from a wild diet of nuts and meats to the milder and more refined diet that included bread. I gradually studied the history, including the accidental souring of dough that is believed to have taught people about the leavening process (using yeast or sourdough to make bread rise). I followed the various fermentation methods developed after that, until I reached what we call “good, sweet, wholesome bread,” the staff of life.

Leaven (like yeast or sourdough starter) is seen by some as the soul of bread, the spirit (spiritus) that fills its airy structure. This leaven is carefully preserved, almost religiously, like the sacred Vestal fire tended by priestesses in ancient Rome. I jokingly suppose that some precious bottle of yeast starter, perhaps brought over on the Mayflower, established leavened bread in America. Its influence is still rising, swelling, and spreading in waves of grain (cerealian billows) across the land. I used to regularly get this yeast “seed” from the village. But one morning, I forgot the rules and accidentally killed my yeast by overheating (scalding) it. Through this accident, I discovered that even yeast was not essential. My discoveries were often made by taking things apart and seeing what wasn’t needed (analysis), rather than by building things up (synthesis). Since then, I have gladly stopped using yeast. This is despite many housewives earnestly assuring me that safe and wholesome bread could not be made without yeast. Elderly people predicted my health would quickly fail. Yet, I find yeast is not an essential ingredient. After going without it for a year, I am still alive and well. I am also glad to escape the trivial bother of carrying a bottle of yeast starter in my pocket, which would sometimes pop open and spill its contents, much to my annoyance. It is simpler and more respectable to just leave it out. Humans are animals who, more than any other, can adapt to all climates and circumstances.

Neither did I put any baking soda (sal soda) or other acid or alkali chemicals into my bread. It seems my method was similar to the recipe given by the Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato about two centuries before Christ. He wrote: “Panem depsticium sic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquæ paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu.” Which I understand to mean: “Make kneaded bread this way. Wash your hands and kneading trough well. Put the meal into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have kneaded it well, shape it, and bake it under a cover” (that is, in a covered baking-kettle or Dutch oven). Cato’s recipe says nothing about leaven. But I did not always eat bread, this staff of life. At one time, because I had no money, I went without any bread for more than a month.

Food Independence Every New Englander could easily raise all their own grains (breadstuffs) in this region, which is well-suited for growing rye and Indian corn (corn). They wouldn’t need to depend on distant and unpredictable (fluctuating) markets for these staples. Yet, we are so far from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet locally ground meal is rarely sold in the shops. Coarser forms of corn, like hominy, are hardly used by anyone. For the most part, farmers feed the grain they produce to their cattle and hogs. Then they buy flour at the store, which is no more wholesome than their own grain, and costs more. I saw that I could easily raise the bushel or two of rye and Indian corn I needed. Rye will grow on the poorest land, and corn doesn’t require the best soil. I could grind them in a hand-mill and therefore do without buying rice and pork. If I absolutely needed some concentrated sweetener, I found by experiment that I could make a very good molasses from pumpkins or beets. I knew that I only needed to plant a few maple trees to get maple syrup even more easily in the future. While waiting for the maples to grow, I could use various substitutes besides those I have mentioned. As the early Forefathers sang: “we can make liquor to sweeten our lips Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.”

Salt and Self-Sufficiency Finally, regarding salt—that most basic (grossest) of groceries—getting this might be a suitable occasion for a visit to the seashore. Or, if I simply did without salt altogether, I would probably just need to drink less water. From what I’ve learned, the Native Americans never seemed to trouble themselves much to go after salt.

In these ways, I realized I could avoid all trade and barter as far as my food was concerned. Since I already had shelter, the only things left to get were clothing and fuel. The trousers I wear now were woven by hand in a farmer’s family—thank Heaven there is still so much practical skill and virtue left in people! (For I think the decline from the independent farmer to the factory worker or operative is as great and significant a fall as the earlier transition from a more natural human state to becoming a farmer.) And in a new country like America, fuel (wood) is so plentiful it’s almost a burden (encumbrance). As for a place to live (habitat), if I weren’t allowed to continue living as a squatter (using unoccupied land freely), I could buy one acre for the same cheap price the land I farmed was sold for—namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it was, I considered that my presence actually increased the value of the land I was squatting on.

Faith in Simple Living There is a certain type of skeptic (unbeliever) who sometimes asks me questions like, “Do you really think you can live on vegetable food alone?” To get to the heart of the matter—because the real issue is usually a lack of faith—I typically answer them by saying something exaggerated like, “I can live on board nails.” If they cannot understand the meaning behind that figure of speech (that I have faith in my ability to adapt and endure), they cannot understand much of what I have to say. For my part, I am glad to hear about experiments in simple living being tried. For instance, I heard of a young man who tried for two weeks (fortnight) to live on nothing but hard, raw corn kernels eaten directly off the cob, using only his teeth to grind them (like a mortar and pestle). The squirrels do this successfully all the time. The human race benefits from learning about these experiments, even though a few conservative people—like some elderly women who feel unable to try such things themselves, or those who have a vested financial interest in the current system (like owning shares or “thirds” in mills)—may be alarmed by them.

On Furniture: Possessions as Burdens My furniture was minimal. I made some of it myself, and the rest cost me nothing (or was already accounted for in my expenses). It consisted of:

• A bed
• A table
• A desk
• Three chairs
• A small mirror (three inches across)
• Fireplace tools (tongs and andirons)
• Cooking pots (kettle, skillet, frying pan)
• Utensils (dipper, wash-bowl, two knives, two forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon)
• Jugs (one for oil, one for molasses)
• A japanned (black lacquered) lamp

No one is so poor that they need to sit on a pumpkin. That is simply laziness or lack of resourcefulness (shiftlessness). There are plenty of simple chairs, the kind I like best, available in village attics just for the taking. Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and stand without needing help from a furniture store. What man, except perhaps a philosopher, would not be ashamed to see all his furniture packed in a cart and moved through the countryside, exposed to sunlight and the eyes of everyone—a pitiful collection (beggarly account) of mostly empty boxes? That’s the typical load of furniture being moved. I could never tell just by looking at such a load whether it belonged to a supposedly rich man or a poor one; the owner always seemed burdened and poverty-stricken by it. Indeed, the more you have of such things, the poorer you truly are. Each moving load looks as if it contains the contents of a dozen poor shanties; and if one shanty represents poverty, this collection is a dozen times poorer. Seriously, why do we ever move except, perhaps subconsciously, to get rid of our furniture, our old baggage (exuviæ, like shed skins)? Eventually, we go from this world to another, newly furnished one, leaving all this stuff behind to be burned or discarded. It is as if all these possessions (“traps”) were buckled to a man’s belt. He could not move freely through the rough landscape of life without dragging them—dragging his trap. The fox that gnawed off its own leg to escape a trap, leaving its tail behind, was lucky in a way. The muskrat will chew off its own leg to be free. No wonder humans have lost their flexibility and freedom (elasticity). How often a person gets completely stuck (at a dead set)!

Someone might ask, “Sir, if I may be bold, what do you mean by a dead set?” If you have insight (if you are a seer), whenever you meet a man, you will see everything he owns—and much that he pretends not to own—trailing behind him. You’ll see even his kitchen furniture and all the useless junk (trumpery) which he saves and refuses to burn. He will appear to be harnessed to it all, making whatever slow progress he can. I think the man is at a dead set when he has managed to squeeze himself through a narrow place (like a knot-hole or a small gateway) where his huge load (sledge load) of furniture cannot follow him.

I cannot help but feel pity when I hear some neat, well-dressed (trig), compact-looking man, who seems free and ready for anything, speak anxiously about his “furniture,” perhaps worrying whether it is insured or not. “But what shall I do with my furniture?” he frets. Ah, my seemingly carefree butterfly is actually entangled in a spider’s web then. Even those who appear for a long time not to own any furniture, if you inquire more closely, you will usually find they have some stored away in somebody’s barn. I look upon England today as an old gentleman traveling with too much baggage—useless junk (trumpery) accumulated from long years of housekeeping, which he doesn’t have the courage to burn. He carries a great trunk, a little trunk, a hatbox (bandbox), and a bundle. He should throw away the first three items at least! It would be beyond the strength of a healthy man nowadays to easily follow the biblical command to “take up his bed and walk” (meaning to travel lightly and freely). I would certainly advise a sick person today to lay down his burdens (bed) and run! When I have met an immigrant staggering under a huge bundle containing everything he owned—looking like an enormous growth (wen) on the back of his neck—I have pitied him. I pitied him not because that was all he possessed, but because he had all that heavy burden to carry. If I absolutely have to drag my own trap (my necessary possessions), I will make sure it is a light one and does not pinch me in a vital part. But perhaps it would be wisest never to put one’s foot (paw) into the trap of possessions at all.

Simple Housekeeping Details I would note, by the way, that curtains cost me nothing, because I have no onlookers (gazers) to shut out except the sun and the moon, and I am willing for them to look in. The moon will not sour my milk or spoil my meat (contrary to old superstitions). Nor will the sun injure my simple furniture or fade my non-existent carpet. If the sun sometimes feels like too warm a friend, I find it better economy to retreat behind some natural curtain—like the shade of trees—than to add a single item to my list of housekeeping chores. A lady once offered me a doormat. But since I had no room to spare inside the house, nor time to spare either inside or outside to shake it, I declined the offer. I preferred to wipe my feet on the grass (sod) in front of my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of trouble—or accumulating unnecessary things.

Auctions, Clutter, and Renewal Not long ago, I attended the auction of a church official’s (deacon’s) belongings (effects). His life had certainly not been ineffectual, judging by the amount of stuff he left behind (a pun on the word “effects”). As Shakespeare wrote, “The evil that men do lives after them” (here, the “evil” is the accumulated junk). As usual, a large part of the items was useless stuff (trumpery) that had begun to accumulate in his father’s time. Among the strange items was even a dried tapeworm! And now, after lying for half a century in the deacon’s attic and other dusty corners, these things were not burned. Instead of a bonfire for a purifying destruction, there was an auction—a way of increasing and distributing the clutter rather than eliminating it. The neighbors eagerly gathered to look at the items, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their own attics and dusty storage places. There the items will lie until their new owners’ estates are settled, when they will likely be auctioned off again, starting the cycle anew. When a man dies, he truly does “kick the dust” (both literally leaving dust behind and also leaving dusty, useless possessions).

Learning from Native Customs: The Busk Perhaps we could benefit from imitating the customs of some native peoples (“savage nations”). They at least perform rituals that resemble a yearly renewal, like an animal shedding its old skin (casting their slough). They have the idea of renewal, whether they achieve the full reality or not. Wouldn’t it be good if we were to celebrate a ritual similar to the “busk,” or “feast of first fruits,” which the naturalist William Bartram described as a custom of the Muscogee (Mucclasse) Indians? Bartram wrote: “When a town celebrates the busk,” first they provide themselves with new clothes, new pots, pans, and other household items and furniture. Then, “they collect all their worn-out clothes and other worthless (despicable) things, sweep and cleanse their houses, town squares, and the whole town of all their filth. They gather all this, along with all remaining grain and other old provisions, into one common heap and consume it with fire. After taking medicine and fasting for three days, all the fire in the town is extinguished. During this fast, they abstain from satisfying every appetite and passion whatsoever. A general pardon (amnesty) is proclaimed; all wrongdoers (malefactors) may return to their town.—”

“On the fourth morning, the high priest makes new fire in the public square by rubbing dry wood together. From this sacred fire, every home in the town is supplied with the new and pure flame.” They then feast on the new corn and fruits and dance and sing for three days. “And the four following days they receive visits and rejoice with their friends from neighboring towns who have similarly purified and prepared themselves.” The ancient Mexicans also practiced a similar purification ceremony at the end of every fifty-two years, believing this marked a time when the world might potentially end.

I have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament—that is, as the dictionary defines it, an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”—than this Busk ceremony. I have no doubt that these native peoples were originally inspired directly from Heaven to perform this ritual, even though they have no biblical record of the revelation.

On Earning a Living Simply For more than five years, I supported myself entirely by the labor of my own hands. I discovered that by working only about six weeks in a year, I could cover all my living expenses. This left the entire winter, as well as most of the summer, free and clear for my studies. I have thoroughly tried school-teaching. I found that my expenses were proportional, or rather out of proportion, to my income. I was forced to dress, act, and even think and believe according to certain expectations, and I wasted my valuable time in the process. Since my motive for teaching was simply to earn a living, not primarily to benefit others, I considered it a failure for me. I have tried getting into trade (business). But I found it would take about ten years just to get established, and by that time, I would probably be morally compromised (“on my way to the devil”). I was actually afraid that I might eventually succeed at doing what people call “a good business.”

When I was younger and looking for ways to earn a living, I had some unhappy experiences trying to conform to the wishes of friends. These experiences pushed me to think creatively. I often and seriously considered picking huckleberries for income. Surely I could do that, I thought foolishly. Its small profits might be enough—since my greatest skill has been learning to want very little. It required so little money to start (capital) and seemed like it would cause little distraction from my usual way of thinking and feeling. While my acquaintances confidently pursued careers in trade or the professions, I saw huckleberry picking as somewhat similar: wandering the hills all summer, picking the berries I found, and then casually selling them. It felt like tending the flocks of Admetus (doing humble but independent work, like the god Apollo in the myth). I also dreamed that I might gather wild herbs, or carry loads of evergreen branches by hay-cart to villagers or city dwellers who enjoyed being reminded of the woods. But I have since learned that trade corrupts everything it touches. Even if you were trading in messages from heaven, the entire curse of trade would still attach to the business.

Choosing Freedom Over Luxury Since I preferred some things over others, especially valued my freedom, and knew I could live simply (fare hard) and still succeed on my own terms, I did not want to spend my time earning money for rich carpets, fine furniture, fancy cooking (delicate cookery), or a house in the fashionable Grecian or Gothic style just yet. If there are people who can acquire these things without it disrupting their true lives, and who know how to use them properly once acquired, I leave the pursuit of luxury to them. Some people are called “industrious” and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse trouble. To such people, I currently have nothing to say. To those who wouldn’t know what to do with more leisure time if they had it, I might advise them to work twice as hard as they already do—work until they have earned their own true freedom and gotten their “free papers” (metaphorically speaking, like an enslaved person gaining freedom). For myself, I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any. This was especially true because it required only thirty or forty days of work in a year to support oneself. The laborer’s workday ends when the sun goes down. He is then free to pursue his own chosen interests, independent of his job. But his employer, who speculates and worries from month to month, has no such break (respite) from one end of the year to the other.

Living as a Pastime In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that supporting oneself on this earth is not a hardship but an enjoyable activity (pastime), if we will live simply and wisely. The necessary survival activities (pursuits) of simpler nations are often the leisure activities (sports) of more “artificial” (complex and civilized) ones. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the “sweat of his brow” (through exhausting labor), unless he happens to sweat more easily than I do.

Finding Your Own Way One young man I know, who inherited some land, told me that he thought he would live simply like me, if only he “had the means” (the money). He completely misunderstood my point, which is about not needing extensive means. I would not want anyone to adopt my specific way of living under any circumstances. Besides the fact that before someone has fully learned my current way, I might have discovered another path for myself, my main desire is that there should be as many different kinds of individuals in the world as possible. But I would strongly encourage each person to be very careful to find out and pursue his or her own way, and not their father’s, or their mother’s, or their neighbor’s way instead. A young person may choose to build, or plant, or sail—let them only not be hindered from doing that which they tell me they truly want to do. We find wisdom by keeping focused on a single point of inner guidance, just as a sailor or a fugitive slave keeps the North Star (polestar) always in sight. That single point is sufficient guidance for our entire life. We may not arrive at our destination (port) within a predictable timeframe, but we should always strive to stay on the true course.

On Cooperation Undoubtedly, in some situations, what is true or economical for one person might be even more so for a thousand. For example, a large building housing many families is not necessarily more expensive than a small house in proportion to its size, since one roof can cover, one cellar can underlie, and one wall can separate several apartments. But, for my part, I preferred living alone. Moreover, it will usually be cheaper to build the entire structure yourself than to convince someone else of the advantages of sharing a common wall. And even if you succeed in sharing, the common partition wall, to be much cheaper, must be a thin one. Then, the person on the other side may turn out to be a bad neighbor, and may also not keep their side of the wall in good repair. The only kind of cooperation that is commonly possible is exceedingly limited (partial) and superficial. What little true cooperation exists is often unnoticed, like a harmony that people cannot hear. If a person has faith, they will cooperate with equal faith everywhere. If they do not have faith, they will continue to live like the rest of the world, no matter what group they join. To cooperate, in the highest sense as well as the most basic sense, means to get our living together, working in harmony toward a common good.

Traveling Alone vs. Together I heard it proposed recently that two young men should travel the world together. One would have no money, earning his way as he went by working as a sailor (“before the mast”) or a farmhand (“behind the plough”). The other would carry money (“a bill of exchange,” like a check or letter of credit) in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not remain companions or cooperate for long, since one of them (the one with money) would not need to “operate” or engage directly with the world in the same way. They would surely part ways at the first interesting challenge or crisis in their adventures. Above all, as I have implied before, the person who goes alone can start today. But the person who travels with another must wait until that other person is ready, and it may be a long time before they finally get started.

On Philanthropy and Doing Good “But all this focus on yourself is very selfish,” I have heard some of my townspeople say. I admit that I have, up to now, spent very little time on organized charitable activities (philanthropic enterprises). I have made some sacrifices because I felt a sense of duty, and among those sacrifices was giving up the pleasure of engaging in such activities. There are people who have tried very hard to persuade me to take on the support of some poor family in the town. If I had nothing else to do—for, as the saying goes, the devil finds work for idle hands—I might try my hand at that kind of pastime. However, on the occasions when I thought about indulging myself in this way—imagining I could put Heaven in my debt by supporting certain poor people just as comfortably as I support myself—and even went so far as to make them the offer, they have, every single one, unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor (perhaps valuing their independence more than my type of support). While my townsmen and women dedicate themselves in so many ways to the good of their fellow human beings, I trust that at least one person (myself) may be spared for other, less obviously “humane” pursuits. You must have a special talent or knack (genius) for charity, just as for anything else. As for the activity of “Doing-good,” that is one of the “professions” that is already full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, I am satisfied that it does not suit my personality or nature (constitution). I probably would not consciously and deliberately abandon my own specific path and purpose (particular calling) just to do the “good” that society demands of me, even if it were supposedly to save the universe from destruction. I believe that a similar, but infinitely greater, steadfastness to one’s true calling elsewhere in the universe is what actually preserves it. But I would not stand in the way of any person and their own genius or calling. To the person who undertakes this work of charity, which I decline, with their whole heart, soul, and life, I would say: Persevere, even if the world calls what you are doing evil, as it very likely will.

Being Good vs. Doing Good I am far from thinking that my case is unique; no doubt many of my readers would offer a similar defense for their own choices. When it comes to doing something—though I won’t guarantee my neighbors would call it “good”—I do not hesitate to say that I would be an excellent person (capital fellow) to hire. But exactly what that “something” is, would be for my employer to figure out. What good I do, in the common sense of the word, must happen incidentally, separate from my main path in life, and for the most part, be wholly unintended. People often say, practically speaking: Begin where you are and as you are, without focusing first on becoming a better person, and just go about doing good deeds with kindness planned beforehand (aforethought). If I were to preach at all along these lines, I would say instead: Set about being good first. It would be as if the sun should stop shining when it had only reached the brightness of the moon or a faint star. Imagine the sun then going about like a mischievous spirit (Robin Goodfellow or Puck), peeping in at every cottage window, supposedly inspiring lunatics, spoiling meat, and making darkness visible. This would be instead of steadily increasing its warm, life-giving energy (genial heat and beneficence) until it becomes so bright that no mortal can look it directly in the face. All the while, the sun simply goes about the world in its own orbit, doing good naturally—or rather, as a truer philosophy has discovered, the world goes about the sun, receiving good from it. Consider the myth of Phaeton. Wishing to prove his divine birth by doing a great deed (beneficence), he drove the sun’s chariot for just one day. He drove off the usual track, burned down several blocks of houses in the lower streets of heaven, scorched the surface of the earth, dried up every spring, and created the great Sahara desert. Finally, Jupiter struck him down to earth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, grieving his death, did not shine for a year. (The lesson: Trying to do good grandly without first being ready or good can lead to disaster.)

The Problem with Forced Goodness There is no odor as bad as the smell of goodness that has gone bad (goodness tainted). It is like human, or even divine, decaying flesh (carrion). If I knew for certain that a man was coming to my house with the conscious intention of “doing me good,” I would run for my life. I’d run as if from the simoom, that dry and suffocating wind of the African deserts that fills your mouth, nose, ears, and eyes with dust until you choke. I would run for fear that I should get some of his “good” done to me—some of its poison (virus) mixed into my blood. No—in such a case, I would rather suffer harm (evil) in the natural way. A man is not automatically a good man to me just because he will feed me if I am starving, or warm me if I am freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not truly love for one’s fellow human beings in the broadest sense. John Howard (the prison reformer) was undoubtedly an exceedingly kind and worthy man in his way, and he has received his recognition. But, comparatively speaking, what good are a hundred Howards to us if their philanthropy does not help us when we are in our best state, when we are most capable of growth and most worthy of being helped? I have never heard of a philanthropic meeting where it was sincerely proposed to do any good to me, or to others like me.

Beyond Suffering, Beyond Consolation The Jesuit missionaries were quite confused (balked) by those Native Americans who, while being burned at the stake, remained stoic and even suggested new methods of torture to their tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, they sometimes seemed also superior to any spiritual comfort (consolation) the missionaries could offer. The Golden Rule—to do to others as you would have them do to you—had less persuasive power on those who, for their part, did not much care how others treated them physically. These individuals loved their enemies in a new way and came very close to freely forgiving them for everything they did.

True Charity and Its Obstacles Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, even if that aid is simply your example, which might leave them feeling far behind because it inspires them toward a higher goal. If you give money, invest yourself along with it; don’t merely abandon the money to them. We sometimes make strange mistakes in charity. Often, the poor person is not so much cold and hungry as he is dirty, ragged, and unrefined (gross). This condition is partly a matter of his taste or habits, not merely his misfortune. If you give him money, he might just buy more rags with it. I used to pity the clumsy Irish laborers who cut ice on Walden Pond. They wore such poor and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my own tidier and somewhat more fashionable garments. Then, one bitterly cold day, one of the laborers who had slipped into the water came to my house to warm himself. I saw him strip off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings before he got down to his skin! Although his clothes were dirty and ragged, he had so many inner layers (intra ones) that he could afford to refuse the extra garments I offered him. Perhaps getting soaked (ducking) was the very thing he needed to appreciate the warmth. At that moment, I began to pity myself. I saw that it would be a greater act of charity to give me a flannel shirt than to give him a whole clothing store (slop-shop).

There are a thousand people hacking at the branches of evil (treating symptoms) for every one person who is striking at the root (addressing the cause). It may be that the person who spends the largest amount of time and money on the needy is, by his own mode of life (perhaps through exploitative business practices or upholding an unjust system), doing the most to produce the very misery he tries in vain to relieve. It is like the pious slave-breeder who devotes the profits from every tenth enslaved person he sells to buy a Sunday off for the rest. Some people show their kindness to the poor by employing them as servants in their kitchens. Wouldn’t they be kinder if they did the kitchen work themselves? You boast of spending a tenth part of your income on charity (tithing). Maybe you should spend the other nine-tenths that way too, and be done with it. When property is concentrated, society only recovers a small part through charity. Is this imbalance due to the generosity of the wealthy owner, or to the negligence (remissness) of the officers of justice?

Overrated Philanthropy Philanthropy is almost the only virtue that is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. In fact, it is greatly overrated. It is our own selfishness that overrates it (perhaps because it makes us feel good about ourselves without requiring fundamental change). A sturdy poor man, one sunny day here in Concord, praised a fellow townsman to me because, as he said, the man was “kind to the poor”—meaning, kind to him. The kind “uncles and aunts” of the human race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a respected lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence, list England’s great figures in science, literature, and politics—Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others. Then, he spoke next of England’s “Christian heroes,” whom, as if his profession required it, he elevated to a place far above all the rest, calling them the greatest of the great. These heroes were William Penn, John Howard, and Elizabeth Fry (all known for philanthropy and social reform). Everyone must feel the falsehood and insincerity (cant) of this ranking. These individuals were not England’s greatest men and women overall; they were only, perhaps, her best philanthropists.

True Goodness: The Flower and Fruit I would not take away any praise that is due to philanthropy. I merely demand justice for all people who, by their lives and works, are a blessing to mankind. I do not chiefly value a man’s basic honesty (uprightness) and kindness (benevolence), which are, so to speak, merely his stem and leaves. Those plants whose withered green parts we use to make herb tea for the sick serve only a humble purpose and are most often used by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man. I want some fragrance of his true being to be wafted over to me, and some ripeness of character to flavor our interactions. His goodness must not be a partial and temporary act, but a constant, overflowing abundance (superfluity), which costs him nothing in effort and of which he is unconscious. This is the kind of charity that truly covers a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the memory of his own past sorrows (cast-off griefs) as if creating an atmosphere, and calls this sympathy. We should share our courage, not our despair; our health and ease, not our disease. We must take care that negativity does not spread by contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing? Under what latitudes live the “heathen” to whom we would send light? Who is that excessive and brutal man whom we feel we must redeem? (These questions imply that the problems might be closer to home or within ourselves.) If anything troubles a man, so that he does not perform his life functions properly—if he even has a stomach ache (pain in his bowels, which Thoreau jokingly calls the “seat of sympathy”)—he immediately sets about reforming the world. Being a small world (microcosm) himself, he discovers—and it is a true discovery for him, and he feels he is the one to make it—that the whole world has been figuratively “eating green apples” (doing something wrong that causes universal indigestion). To his eyes, the globe itself seems like a great green apple, and he feels an awful danger that the children of men will nibble it before it is ripe. Straightway, his drastic philanthropy seeks out remote peoples like the Inuit (Esquimaux) and the Patagonians, and embraces the populous villages of India and China. And thus, by a few years of philanthropic activity—during which time powerful forces are undoubtedly using him for their own ends—he cures himself of his indigestion (dyspepsia). The globe acquires a faint blush on one or both cheeks, as if it were beginning to ripen. Life loses its harshness (crudity) and becomes sweet and wholesome to live again—for him. I never dreamed of any fault (enormity) greater than those I myself have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.

The Reformer’s True Motive I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not primarily his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but—even if he is the holiest person—it is his own private ailment (personal problem or suffering). Let this be corrected, let spring come to his soul, let morning rise over his own troubles, and he will abandon his generous companions and causes without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is simply that I never chewed it. Lecturing against a vice is a penalty that reformed tobacco-chewers often have to pay. (Though, I admit, there are things enough I have “chewed” metaphorically, which I could lecture against.) If you should ever be drawn (betrayed) into any of these philanthropies, do not make a show of it (“do not let your left hand know what your right hand does,” a biblical reference). It is not worth making known. Instead, focus on essentials: rescue the drowning person right in front of you, and tie your own shoelaces (take care of immediate, practical needs). Take your time, and set about some work that you do freely (free labor).

True Religion vs. Corrupted Manners Our manners have been corrupted by associating too much with overly pious people (“saints”). Our hymn books often resonate with a kind of melodic complaining about God and merely enduring Him forever, rather than joyful praise. One might say that even the prophets and redeemers of the past seem to have focused more on consoling human fears than confirming human hopes. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life itself, any memorable, wholehearted praise of God. All health and success anywhere does me good, however distant it may seem; all disease and failure everywhere helps to make me sad and does me harm, no matter how much sympathy connects me to it. If, then, we truly wish to restore mankind by genuinely natural means (whether called “Indian, botanic, magnetic,” or simply natural), let us first become as simple and as healthy as Nature ourselves. Let us dispel the clouds of worry hanging over our own minds (brows) and absorb a little real life into our very pores. Do not settle for being an overseer of the poor; instead, endeavor to become one of the true worthies of the world—someone admirable in their own right.

Wisdom from the East: The Cypress and the Date Tree I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, by the Persian poet Sheik Saadi of Shiraz, this story: “They asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created tall and shady (umbrageous), they call none azad, or free, except the cypress, which bears no fruit. What mystery is there in this? He replied: Each tree has its appropriate fruit or product, and its appointed season. During that season, it is fresh and blooming, and when the season is absent, it is dry and withered. The cypress is not exposed to either of these states; it is always flourishing. And religious independents (azads) are of this nature—always constant and self-contained. Fix not your heart on that which is temporary (transitory); for the Dijlah, or Tigris, river will continue to flow through Bagdad long after the dynasty (race) of caliphs is extinct. If your hand has plenty, be liberal and generous like the date tree (which bears abundant fruit); but if your hand affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, independent and self-sufficient like the cypress.”

---

(The following is a poem by Thomas Carew, included by Thoreau)

COMPLEMENTAL VERSES

THE PRETENSIONS OF POVERTY

“You presume too much, poor needy wretch, To claim a high place in the heavens (firmament), Just because your humble cottage, or your tub (like Diogenes’), Nurtures some lazy or overly intellectual (pedantic) virtue In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs, Living on roots and herbs (pot-herbs). There your right hand, Tearing essential human passions from the mind (Passions upon which true virtues grow and flourish), Degrades nature, dulls the senses (benumbeth sense), And, like the Gorgon’s head, turns active men to stone.

We do not need the dull company Of your forced (necessitated) temperance, Or that unnatural lack of feeling (stupidity) That knows neither joy nor sorrow; nor your forced, Falsely praised (exalted) passive endurance (fortitude) Placed above active virtue. This low, wretched group (abject brood), That settles for mediocrity, Fits your subservient (servile) minds. But we promote Such virtues only as allow for greatness (admit excess): Brave, generous (bounteous) acts, royal magnificence, All-seeing wisdom (prudence), generosity (magnanimity) That knows no limit, and that heroic virtue For which ancient times left no specific name, But only role models (patterns), such as Hercules, Achilles, Theseus. Go back to your hated cell! And when you see the newly enlightened world (sphere), Study only to know what those great heroes (worthies) were.”

— T. CAREW

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

Choosing a Place

At a certain time in life, we often start looking at every spot as a possible place to build a house. I have looked over the countryside in every direction within a dozen miles of where I live in this way. In my imagination, I have “bought” all the farms one after another. They were all for sale, and I knew their prices. I mentally walked over each farmer’s property, tasted his wild apples, discussed farming (husbandry) with him, agreed to his price (any price!), and mortgaged the farm back to him in my mind. I even imagined putting a higher price on it! I took everything but the official ownership paper (deed). I took his word for his deed, because I dearly love to talk. I “cultivated” the farm in my mind, and perhaps cultivated the farmer a little too, I hope. When I had enjoyed the imaginary ownership long enough, I withdrew, leaving him to actually run the farm. Because of this habit, my friends started calling me a kind of real-estate broker.

Wherever I sat, I felt I could live there, and the landscape seemed to radiate out from me as the center. What is a house but a place to sit (sedes, in Latin)? It’s even better if it’s a “country seat.” I discovered many possible sites for houses that were not likely to be developed soon. Some people might have thought these places were too far from the village, but from my perspective, the village was too far from them. “Well, I could live there,” I would say to myself. And in my imagination, I did live there—for an hour, experiencing a whole summer and winter. I saw how I could let the years pass, endure the winter (buffet the winter through), and see the spring arrive. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may eventually build their houses, can be sure that I have already anticipated them living there. In just an afternoon of imagining, I could lay out the land into an orchard, a woodlot, and a pasture. I could decide which fine oak or pine trees should be left standing near the door, and from where each dead or damaged (blasted) tree could be seen to best effect. And then I would let the imaginary farm lie unused (fallow), perhaps. A person is rich in proportion to the number of things which they can afford to leave alone.

Imaginary Ownership

My imagination carried me so far that I even had the first option (refusal) to buy several farms. Having the option was all I really wanted. I never got myself into trouble (“burned my fingers”) by actually owning property. The closest I came to actual possession was when I agreed to buy the Hollowell Place. I had even begun to sort my seeds for planting and gathered materials to make a wheelbarrow for working the land. But before the owner gave me the deed, his wife changed her mind and decided she wanted to keep the farm. (It seems every man has such a wife!) The owner offered me ten dollars to cancel the agreement. Now, to tell the truth, I only had ten cents in the world at that moment. It confused my arithmetic to figure out who I was: Was I the man who had only ten cents? Or the man who owned a farm? Or the man who had ten dollars? Or all of them together? However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too. I felt I had “carried” the experience of owning it far enough in my mind. Or rather, to be generous, I “sold” him the farm back for exactly what I had agreed to pay. Since he was not a rich man, I made him a present of the ten dollars. I still had my ten cents, my seeds, and the materials for a wheelbarrow left. I realized then that I had been a rich man (in experience) without causing any damage to my actual poverty. But I kept the landscape in my memory. Ever since, I have annually carried off the “yield” it offers—its beauty and inspiration—without needing a wheelbarrow. With respect to landscapes, as the poet William Cowper wrote: “I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute.” (Meaning, I own what I can see and appreciate).

The Poet vs. The Farmer

I have often seen a poet leave a farm having enjoyed its most valuable part—its beauty and meaning. Meanwhile, the grumpy (crusty) farmer thought the poet only got a few wild apples. Why, the owner often doesn’t realize for many years when a poet has “put his farm in rhyme.” The poem acts as the best kind of invisible fence. The poet has effectively captured the farm’s essence (impounded it), taken the best part (milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream), and left the farmer only the less valuable part (skimmed milk).

Why I Liked the Hollowell Place

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, for me, were these:

• Its complete seclusion: It was about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a wide field.
• Its river boundary: The owner said the river fog protected the farm from frosts in the spring, although that detail didn’t matter to me.
• Its ruined state: The gray color and run-down condition of the house and barn, and the broken-down (dilapidated) fences, seemed to create a peaceful distance between me and the last person who lived there.
• Its wildness: The hollow, lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits, showed what kind of wild neighbors I would have.
• A childhood memory: Most important was my memory of seeing it from my earliest boat trips up the river. Back then, the house was hidden behind a dense grove of red maples, and I could hear the house dog barking through the trees.

I was in a hurry to buy it before the owner finished making any more of his “improvements.” I didn’t want him to get out more rocks, cut down the old hollow apple trees, or dig up (grubbing up) the young birch trees that had sprung up in the pasture. To enjoy these advantages (the wildness, seclusion, and ruin), I was ready to take on the burden of the farm. I was willing to carry it, like Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders (I never heard what payment Atlas received for that!). I was ready to do all the necessary work just so I could pay for it and be left alone (unmolested) in my possession of it. I knew all along that the farm would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted—solitude and inspiration—if I could only afford to let it alone and not “improve” it. But, as I said, the sale fell through.

Live Free and Uncommitted

All I could say then, about farming on a large scale (I have always kept a garden), was that I had my “seeds” (my potential and ideas) ready. Many people think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time does distinguish between good and bad potential. When I finally decide to “plant” my seeds (take action on my ideas), I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say this to my fellow humans, once and for all: As long as possible, live free and uncommitted. It makes little difference whether you are committed to owning a farm or committed to the county jail—both limit your freedom.

Old Cato, the Roman writer whose book De Re Rustica (On Agriculture) is my farming guide (my “Cultivator,” referring to a type of farming magazine), gives this advice. (The only translation I’ve seen makes nonsense of it.) Cato says: “When you think of getting a farm, consider it carefully in your mind. Do not buy greedily. Do not hesitate (spare your pains) to look at it thoroughly, and do not think it is enough to walk around it just once. The oftener you go there, the more it will please you, if it is a good farm.” I think I shall follow Cato’s advice metaphorically. I shall not “buy” nature greedily, but I will explore it (“go round and round it”) as long as I live. I hope to be buried in it first, so that it may please me even more at the very end.

My Experiment at Walden

The experience I am about to describe was my next experiment of this kind. I plan to describe it in more detail now. For convenience, I will put the experiences of the two years I lived at Walden Pond into one continuous story. As I have said before, I do not intend to write a poem full of sadness (an ode to dejection). Instead, I plan to boast as loudly and proudly as a rooster (chanticleer) crowing on his roost in the morning, if only to wake my neighbors up (to new ideas and ways of living).

The Unfinished Cabin

When I first moved into the woods—that is, when I began to spend my nights as well as my days there—my house was not finished for winter. By chance, I moved in on Independence Day, the Fourth of July, 1845. At that time, the cabin was merely a defense against the rain. It had no plastering on the walls and no chimney. The walls were made of rough, weather-stained boards with wide gaps (chinks) between them, which made it cool inside at night. The upright, white, hand-shaped (hewn) wall studs and the freshly smoothed (planed) door and window frames gave the house a clean and airy look. This was especially true in the morning, when the timbers were soaked with dew. I imagined that by noon, some sweet-smelling resin (gum) would ooze from them. To my imagination, the house kept this dawn-like (auroral) character throughout the day. It reminded me of a certain simple house high on a mountain that I had visited the year before. That cabin was airy and unplastered, fit to host a traveling god, a place where a goddess might feel comfortable letting her garments trail. The winds that passed over my dwelling felt like winds sweeping over mountain ridges. They seemed to carry broken fragments, or only the heavenly parts, of earthly music. The morning wind blows forever; the poem of creation is never interrupted. But few people have ears that can hear it. Mount Olympus (the home of the Greek gods) is simply the outside of the earth, everywhere around us.

Becoming Neighbors with the Birds

The only “house” I had owned before this, besides a boat, was a tent. I used it occasionally when taking trips in the summer, and it is still rolled up in my attic. The boat, however, after being passed from one person to another, has disappeared down the stream of time. With this more solid shelter around me, I felt I had made some progress toward settling down in the world. This simple frame structure, so barely covered (slightly clad), felt like a kind of crystal forming (crystallization) around me, and it affected me, the builder. It was suggestive, like a picture made only of outlines, hinting at possibilities. I didn’t need to go outdoors to get fresh air, because the atmosphere inside the cabin had lost none of its freshness due to the gaps in the walls. It felt less like being indoors and more like sitting just “behind a door,” protected yet still connected to the outside, even in the rainiest weather. The ancient Hindu text, the Harivansa, says, “A home without birds is like meat without seasoning.” My home was not like that, for I suddenly found myself a neighbor to the birds. This was not because I had imprisoned one, but because I had “caged” myself near them. I was not only closer to the birds that commonly visit gardens and orchards, but also to those wilder and more thrilling songbirds of the forest that never, or rarely, sing for a villager. These included the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field sparrow, the whippoorwill, and many others.

The Pond and Its Views

I was living by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of the village of Concord and slightly higher in elevation. It was located in the middle of extensive woods between Concord and the town of Lincoln. My cabin was about two miles south of Concord Battle Ground, the only famous field in our area. But my location was so low down in the woods that the opposite shore of the pond, half a mile away and also covered with trees, was my most distant horizon. For the first week, whenever I looked out at the pond, it impressed me like a small mountain lake (tarn) located high up on a mountainside. Its bottom seemed far above the surface of other lakes. As the sun rose each morning, I saw the pond throwing off its “nightly clothing” of mist. Here and there, gradually, its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface would be revealed. Meanwhile, the mists withdrew stealthily in every direction into the woods, like ghosts leaving a secret nighttime meeting (nocturnal conventicle). The very dew seemed to hang on the trees later into the day than usual, just as it does on the sides of mountains.

This small lake was most valuable as a neighbor during the calm breaks in gentle August rainstorms. At those times, both the air and the water were perfectly still, but the sky was overcast. Mid-afternoon had all the peacefulness (serenity) of evening. The wood thrush sang all around, and its song could be heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time. Because the clear air above it was shallow and darkened by clouds, the water below, full of light and reflections, became even more important—like a lower heaven itself. From a nearby hilltop, where the woods had been recently cut down, there was a pleasing view (vista) southward across the pond. The view went through a wide gap (indentation) in the hills that form the shore there. The way the opposite sides of the hills sloped toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but there was no stream. Looking that way, between and over the near green hills, I could see some distant and higher hills on the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe, I could catch a glimpse of some peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges to the northwest—those perfectly blue “coins” from heaven’s own mint. I could also see a small portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this high point, I could not see over or beyond the woods that surrounded me. It is good to have some water in your neighborhood. It gives buoyancy to the earth and makes it seem to float. One value of even the smallest well is that when you look into it, you see that the earth is not a solid continent but an island (insular), surrounded by water. This insight is as important as the fact that a well keeps butter cool. When I looked across the pond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows (which, during floods, looked elevated, perhaps due to a mirage in their shimmering valley, like a coin in a basin), all the land beyond the pond appeared like a thin crust. It seemed insulated and floated by this small sheet of water between me and it. I was reminded that the place I lived on was just dry land.

Imagination’s Pasture

Although the view from my cabin door was even more limited (contracted), I did not feel crowded or confined in the least. There was enough pasture for my imagination to roam. The low plateau covered with scrub oak (shrub-oak plateau) on the opposite shore seemed to stretch away toward the prairies of the American West and the steppes of Central Asia (Tartary). It seemed to offer ample room for all the wandering families of humankind. As Damodara (a name for the Hindu god Krishna) said when his herds needed new and larger pastures, “There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.” (My horizon was vast in my mind.)

A Remote Corner of the Universe

Living at Walden changed my sense of both place and time. I felt closer to those parts of the universe and those eras in history that had most interested me. Where I lived felt as far away as many regions viewed nightly by astronomers. We often imagine rare and delightful places in some remote and more heavenly corner of the solar system, perhaps behind the constellation of Cassiopeia’s Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually was located in such a withdrawn, yet forever new and pure (unprofaned), part of the universe. If it were worthwhile to settle in those distant parts of the sky near the star clusters Pleiades or the Hyades, or the stars Aldebaran or Altair, then I felt I was really there. Or at least, I was at an equal remoteness from the life I had left behind. That old life seemed tiny and far away, twinkling like a faint star to my nearest neighbor, visible only on moonless nights. Such was the part of creation where I had settled (“squatted”). As an old poem says: “There was a shepherd that did live, And held his thoughts as high As were the mounts whereon his flocks Did hourly feed him by.” (My thoughts, too, aimed high, like my spiritually remote location.)

What should we think of a shepherd’s life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts ever reached? (Meaning: Our inner life should aspire as high as our physical or potential reach.)

Morning Worship

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life as simple, and I might say as innocent, as Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of the dawn (Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn) as the ancient Greeks were. I got up early and bathed in the pond. That was a religious exercise for me, and one of the best things I did. They say that characters were engraved on the bathing tub of the ancient Chinese king Tching-thang with this meaning: “Renew yourself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.” I can understand that. Morning brings back the feeling of heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable flight through my room at the earliest dawn—when I was sitting with the door and windows open—as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. The mosquito’s hum seemed like Homer’s solemn song (requiem); it was an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own story of anger (wrath) and wanderings. There was something universal (cosmical) about it; it was like a standing advertisement (until forbidden) of the everlasting energy (vigor) and fertility of the world.

The morning, which is the most memorable part of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is the least sleepiness (somnolence) in us. For an hour, at least, some part of us awakens that slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day—if it can even be called a day—to which we are not awakened by our own inner spirit (Genius). We shouldn’t be awakened by the mechanical nudgings of some servant, but by our own newly gained inner force and aspirations. We should be awakened by the gentle waves (undulations) of celestial music and a fragrance filling the air—awakened to a higher life than the one we fell asleep from. In this way, the darkness of sleep can bear fruit and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, dawn-like (auroral) hour than he has yet misused (profaned) has despaired of life and is following a downward and darkening path. After a partial rest from his sensory life during sleep, the soul of man (or its faculties) is reinvigorated each day. His Genius (inner spirit) tries again to see what noble life it can create. All memorable events, I would say, happen (transpire) in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas (ancient Hindu scriptures) say, “All intelligences awake with the morning.” Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable actions of men, originate in such an hour. All poets and heroes, like the statue of Memnon (said to sing at sunrise), are children of the Dawn (Aurora) and emit their music at sunrise. To the person whose flexible (elastic) and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It doesn’t matter what the clocks say or what people are doing. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn inside me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give such a poor account of their day if they have not been spiritually sleeping? They are not usually such poor record-keepers. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have accomplished something meaningful. Millions of people are awake enough for physical labor. But only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual effort. Only one in a hundred million is awake enough for a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was completely awake. How could I have looked him in the face if I had?

Staying Awake

We must learn to reawaken ourselves and keep ourselves awake. This should not be done by artificial means (mechanical aids), but by an infinite hope and expectation of the dawn, a hope that does not leave us even in our deepest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of humans to elevate their lives through conscious effort. It is something valuable to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and in that way make a few objects beautiful. But it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look at life. This is something we can do morally, by improving our perception and character. To affect the quality of the day itself—that is the highest of arts. Every person has the task (is tasked) to make his life, even in its details, worthy of being contemplated during his most elevated and critical moments of insight. If we refused, or rather fully processed and moved beyond, the trivial (paltry) information we constantly receive, the sources of true wisdom (oracles) would clearly inform us how this higher life might be achieved.

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

Imagining Places to Live

At a certain point in our lives, many of us start looking around, considering every spot as a possible place to build a house. In this way, I have surveyed the countryside in every direction for a dozen miles around where I live. In my imagination, I have bought all the farms, one after another. They were all for sale, and I knew their prices. I mentally walked over each farmer’s property, tasted his wild apples, and talked with him about farming (husbandry). I “bought” his farm at his price—any price—mortgaging it back to him in my mind. I even imagined putting a higher price on it! I took everything except the official ownership paper (deed). I took his word for his deed, because I dearly love to talk. I “cultivated” the farm in my mind, and perhaps cultivated the farmer’s thoughts a little too, I hope. When I had enjoyed this imaginary ownership long enough, I mentally withdrew, leaving him to actually run the farm. Because of this habit, my friends started calling me a kind of real-estate broker.

Wherever I sat down, I felt I could live there, and the landscape seemed to center itself around me. What is a house but simply a place to sit (sedes, a Latin word for seat)? A country seat is even better. I discovered many potential sites for houses that were not likely to be developed soon. Some people might have thought these places were too far from the village, but from my perspective, the village was too far from them. “Well, I could live there,” I would say to myself. And in my imagination, I did live there—for an hour, experiencing a whole summer and a winter. I saw how I could let the years pass, survive the winter (buffet the winter through), and see the spring arrive. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may eventually build their houses, can be sure that I have already imagined living there before them. In just one afternoon of imagining, I could mentally plan out the land into an orchard, a woodlot, and a pasture. I could decide which fine oak or pine trees should be left standing near the door, and from where each dead or damaged (blasted) tree could be viewed best. And then, I would leave the imaginary farm alone, perhaps letting it rest (fallow). A person is rich in proportion to the number of things which they can afford to leave alone.

Almost Owning a Farm

My imagination carried me so far that I even had the first option (refusal) to buy several farms. Having the option was all I really wanted; I never got into trouble (“burned my fingers”) by actually possessing property. The closest I came to actual possession was when I agreed to buy the Hollowell Place. I had even begun to sort seeds for planting and gathered materials to make a wheelbarrow for working the land. But before the owner gave me the deed, his wife changed her mind and decided she wanted to keep the farm. (It seems every man has a wife like that!) The owner offered me ten dollars to cancel our agreement. Now, to tell the truth, I only had ten cents in the world at that moment. My arithmetic skills weren’t good enough to figure out who I really was: Was I the man who had only ten cents? Or the man who owned a farm? Or the man who had ten dollars? Or all of them combined? However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too. I felt I had “carried” the experience of owning it far enough in my mind. Or rather, to put it generously, I “sold” him the farm back for exactly what I had agreed to pay. Since he was not a rich man, I made him a present of the ten dollars. I still had my ten cents left, along with my seeds and the materials for making a wheelbarrow. I realized then that I had been a rich man (through my imaginative experience) without causing any harm to my actual state of poverty. But I kept the landscape in my memory. Ever since, I have annually “carried off” the yield it offers—its beauty and inspiration—without needing a wheelbarrow. With respect to landscapes, as the poet William Cowper wrote: “I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute.” (Meaning: I possess through appreciation what I can see.)

The Poet’s Harvest

I have often seen a poet leave a farm having enjoyed its most valuable part—its beauty, atmosphere, and meaning. Meanwhile, the grumpy (crusty) farmer thought the poet had only taken a few wild apples. Why, the owner often doesn’t realize for many years when a poet has captured his farm in a poem. The poem acts as the best kind of invisible fence around the farm’s essence. The poet has effectively seized it (impounded it), taken the best part (milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream), and left the farmer only the less valuable remainder (skimmed milk).

The Real Appeal of the Hollowell Place

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, for me, were these:

• Its complete seclusion: It was about two miles from the village and half a mile from the nearest neighbor, separated from the road by a wide field.
• Its location by the river: The owner claimed the river fog protected the farm from spring frosts, though that didn’t matter to me.
• Its ruined appearance: The gray color and run-down state of the house and barn, along with the broken-down (dilapidated) fences, created a sense of peaceful distance from the previous owner.
• Its wildness: The old, hollow, lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits, showed the kind of wild neighbors (like rabbits) I would have.
• A childhood memory: Most importantly, I remembered seeing the place during my earliest boat trips up the river. Back then, the house was hidden behind thick red maple trees, and I could hear the house dog barking through the woods.

I was eager to buy it before the owner made any more of his “improvements.” I didn’t want him to remove rocks, cut down the old hollow apple trees, or dig up (grubbing up) the young birch trees growing in the pasture. To enjoy these specific advantages—the wildness, seclusion, and history—I was willing to take on the burden of the farm. I felt ready to carry it, like the mythical Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders (though I never heard what payment Atlas received for that!). I was prepared to do all the necessary work just so I could pay for it and be left alone (unmolested) in my possession of it. I knew all along that the farm would yield the most abundant “crop” of the kind I wanted—solitude, inspiration, connection with nature—if I could only afford to leave it undisturbed. But, as I mentioned, the sale fell through.

Living Free and Uncommitted

So, all I could say about farming on a large scale (I have always kept a small garden) was that my “seeds”—my potential and ideas—were ready. Many people think that seeds improve with age. I do believe that time helps distinguish between good and bad potential. When I finally decide to “plant” my ideas (take action), I will be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say this to everyone, once and for all: As long as possible, live free and uncommitted. It makes little difference whether you are committed to owning a farm or committed to the county jail—both restrict your freedom in significant ways.

Old Cato, the Roman writer whose book De Re Rustica (On Agriculture) serves as my farming guide (my “Cultivator”), offers this advice. (The only translation I’ve seen makes nonsense of it.) Cato says: “When you think of getting a farm, consider it carefully. Do not buy greedily. Make sure you examine it thoroughly (spare your pains to look at it), and don’t think walking around it just once is enough. The more often you go there, the more it will please you, if it is a good farm.” I think I shall apply Cato’s advice metaphorically to my life. I will not “buy” nature greedily, but I will appreciate it (“go round and round it”) as long as I live. I hope to be buried in it eventually, so that it may please me even more at the very end.

The Purpose of My Experiment

The experience I lived at Walden Pond was my next experiment of this kind, and I plan to describe it in more detail now. For convenience, I will compress the experiences of the two years I lived there into the narrative of one year. As I have stated before, my intention is not to write a sad poem (an ode to dejection). Instead, I plan to boast as loudly and proudly as a rooster (chanticleer) crowing on his roost at dawn, if only to wake my neighbors up—wake them to the possibility of living differently.

Moving In: The Unfinished Cabin

When I first took up residence in the woods—meaning, when I began to spend my nights as well as my days there—my house was not finished for winter. By coincidence, I moved in on Independence Day, the Fourth of July, 1845. At that point, the cabin offered only basic protection from the rain. It had no plastering on the walls and no chimney. The walls were made of rough, weather-stained boards with wide gaps (chinks) between them, which made the inside cool at night. The upright, white, hand-shaped (hewn) wall studs and the freshly smoothed (planed) door and window frames gave the house a clean and airy appearance. This was especially true in the morning when the timbers were damp with dew. I liked to imagine that by noon, some sweet-smelling pine resin (gum) would ooze from them. To my imagination, the house retained this dawn-like (auroral) quality throughout the day. It reminded me of a simple cabin high on a mountain that I had visited the year before. That cabin was airy and unplastered, a place fit to entertain a traveling god, where a goddess might feel comfortable letting her robes trail. The winds that passed over my dwelling felt like winds sweeping over high mountain ridges. They seemed to carry broken fragments, or only the heavenly parts, of earthly music. The morning wind blows forever; the poem of creation is never interrupted. But few people have ears that can truly hear it. Mount Olympus (the mythical home of the Greek gods) isn’t just one place; it is the potential beauty and divinity present everywhere on the earth’s surface.

A Simple Shelter and Feathered Neighbors

The only “house” I had owned before this, apart from a boat, was a tent. I used it occasionally for summer trips, and it is still rolled up in my attic. The boat, however, passed from owner to owner and eventually disappeared down the stream of time. With this more solid shelter around me at Walden, I felt I had made some progress toward settling down in the world. This simple wooden frame, so barely covered (slightly clad), felt like a kind of crystal forming (crystallization) around me, and the structure itself seemed to influence me, the builder. It was suggestive, like an outline drawing hinting at future possibilities. I didn’t need to go outside to get fresh air because the air inside the cabin remained fresh through the gaps in the walls. It felt less like being fully indoors and more like sitting just “behind a door”—protected from the elements but still closely connected to the outside world, even during rainy weather. The ancient Hindu text, the Harivansa, says, “A home without birds is like meat without seasoning.” My home was certainly not like that, for I suddenly found myself living as a neighbor to the birds. This wasn’t because I had captured and imprisoned one, but because I had “caged” myself near them by building my cabin in their territory. I was not only closer to the common birds often seen in gardens and orchards, but also to those wilder and more thrilling songbirds of the deep forest that villagers rarely, if ever, hear. These included the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field sparrow, the whippoorwill, and many others.

Walden Pond and Its Surroundings

I lived by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of Concord village and at a slightly higher elevation. My cabin stood in the middle of large woods situated between Concord and the town of Lincoln. It was also about two miles south of Concord Battle Ground, the only historically famous field in our area. However, my location was so low down in the woods that my most distant view was the opposite shore of the pond, half a mile away, which, like my side, was covered with trees. During the first week, whenever I looked out at the pond, it struck me as being like a small mountain lake (tarn) high up on a mountainside. Its bottom seemed far above the surface of other lakes nearby. Each morning, as the sun rose, I saw the pond shedding its “nightly clothing” of mist. Gradually, here and there, its soft ripples or its smooth, reflecting surface would appear. Meanwhile, the mists withdrew silently into the woods in every direction, like ghosts leaving a secret nighttime meeting (nocturnal conventicle). The dew itself seemed to hang on the trees later into the day than usual, just as it does on mountainsides.

This small lake was most valuable as a neighbor during the calm periods between gentle rainstorms in August. At those times, both the air and the water were perfectly still, though the sky remained overcast. Mid-afternoon felt as peaceful (serene) as evening. The wood thrush sang nearby, its song carrying clearly from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a moment. Because the layer of clear air above the water was shallow and darkened by clouds, the water below, full of light and reflections, became even more significant—like a lower heaven itself. From a nearby hilltop, where the trees had been recently cut down, there was a pleasing view (vista) looking southward across the pond. The view passed through a wide gap (indentation) in the hills forming the shoreline there. The way the opposite slopes descended toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, although no stream actually existed there. Looking that way, between and over the nearby green hills, I could see some distant and higher hills on the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe, I could catch a glimpse of some peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges to the northwest—those perfectly blue “coins” seemingly from heaven’s own mint. I could also see a small part of Concord village. But in other directions, even from this high viewpoint, I could not see over or beyond the woods that surrounded me. It is good to have some water in your neighborhood, as it gives a sense of buoyancy to the earth and makes it seem to float. One value of even the smallest well is that when you look down into it, you realize that the earth is not one solid continent but is, in a sense, an island (insular) surrounded by water. This insight is as important as the practical function of a well keeping butter cool. When I looked across Walden Pond from that hilltop toward the Sudbury meadows (which, during flood times, appeared raised, perhaps due to a mirage in their shimmering valley, like a coin sitting in a basin), all the land beyond the pond seemed like a thin crust. It appeared insulated and floated by even this small sheet of water between us. I was reminded that the place where I lived was merely dry land surrounded by fluidity.

An Expansive Imagination

Although the view from my cabin door was even more limited (contracted), I did not feel crowded or confined in the least. There was enough pasture for my imagination to roam freely. The low plateau covered with scrub oak (shrub-oak plateau) on the opposite shore seemed, in my mind’s eye, to stretch all the way to the prairies of the American West and the vast plains (steppes) of Central Asia (Tartary). It seemed to offer plenty of room for all the wandering families of humankind. As Damodara (a name for the Hindu god Krishna) said when his herds needed new and larger pastures, “There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.” My horizon, though physically limited, was vast in my imagination.

A Different Sense of Place and Time

Living at Walden changed my sense of both place and time. I felt closer to those parts of the universe and those eras in history that had most fascinated me. Where I lived felt as remote and significant as many regions observed nightly by astronomers. We often imagine rare and delightful places located in some distant and more heavenly corner of the solar system, perhaps behind the constellation Cassiopeia’s Chair, far from earthly noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house was actually situated in just such a withdrawn, yet eternally new and pure (unprofaned), part of the universe. If it were considered worthwhile to settle near distant stars like the Pleiades or the Hyades clusters, or the stars Aldebaran or Altair, then I felt I was truly there. Or, at least, I was at an equal remoteness from the conventional life I had left behind. That old life seemed diminished and far away, twinkling like a faint star visible only to my nearest neighbor on moonless nights. Such was the part of creation where I had chosen to live (“squatted”). As an old poem expresses it: “There was a shepherd that did live, And held his thoughts as high As were the mounts whereon his flocks Did hourly feed him by.” (My thoughts, like the shepherd’s, aimed to reach the heights suggested by my spiritually remote location.)

What should we think of a shepherd’s life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts ever reached? (Our inner aspirations should match or exceed our physical surroundings or potential.)

The Sacredness of Morning

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life as simple, and I might say as innocent, as Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of the dawn (Aurora) as the ancient Greeks were. I got up early each day and bathed in the pond. For me, that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things I did. They say that characters were engraved on the bathing tub of the ancient Chinese king Tching-thang with this meaning: “Renew yourself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.” I can understand that profound advice. Morning brings back the heroic feeling of ancient times. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable flight through my room at the earliest dawn—when I sat with my door and windows open—as I could be by any trumpet that ever announced fame or glory. The mosquito’s hum seemed like Homer’s solemn song (requiem); it was an entire Iliad and Odyssey contained in the air, singing its own story of fierce life (wrath) and wanderings. There was something universal (cosmical) about it; it served as a constant advertisement (until forbidden) of the everlasting energy (vigor) and fertility of the world.

The morning, which is the most memorable part of the day, is the hour of awakening. Then, there is the least sleepiness (somnolence) in us. For an hour at least, some part of us awakens that sleeps all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day—if it can even be called a day—to which we are not awakened by our own inner spirit (Genius). We shouldn’t be awakened by the mechanical nudgings of some servant, but by our own newly acquired inner force and aspirations. We should be accompanied by the gentle waves (undulations) of celestial music and a fragrance filling the air—awakened to a higher life than the one we fell asleep from. In this way, the darkness of sleep can bear fruit and prove itself to be as good and necessary as the light. That person who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, dawn-like (auroral) hour than they have yet misused (profaned) has despaired of life and is pursuing a downward and darkening path. After a partial rest from sensory life during sleep, the soul of man (or its faculties) is revitalized each day. Our Genius (inner guiding spirit) tries again to see what noble life it can create. All memorable events, I believe, happen (transpire) in the morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas (ancient Hindu scriptures) say, “All intelligences awake with the morning.” Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable actions of humans, originate in such an hour. All poets and heroes, like the legendary statue of Memnon (said to sing at sunrise), are children of the Dawn (Aurora) and emit their own music at sunrise. To the person whose flexible (elastic) and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It doesn’t matter what the clocks say or what other people are doing. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn inside me. Moral reform is simply the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that people give such a poor account of their day, if they have not been spiritually sleeping? They are not usually such poor calculators or record-keepers. If they had not been overcome with inner drowsiness, they would have accomplished something meaningful. Millions of people are awake enough for physical labor. But only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual effort. Only one in a hundred million is awake enough for a poetic or divine life. To be truly awake is to be truly alive. I have never yet met a man who was completely awake. How could I have possibly looked him in the face?

Staying Awake

We must learn to reawaken ourselves and keep ourselves awake. This cannot be done by artificial means (mechanical aids), but only by an infinite hope and expectation of the dawn—a hope that does not leave us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no fact more encouraging than the unquestionable ability of humans to elevate their own lives through conscious effort. It is valuable to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and thus make a few objects beautiful. But it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we perceive life. This is something we can do, morally, by shaping our character and outlook. To affect the quality of the day itself—that is the highest of arts. Every person has the task (is tasked) to make their life, even in its smallest details, worthy of being contemplated during their own most elevated and critical moments of insight. If we refused, or rather fully processed and moved beyond, the trivial (paltry) information we constantly receive, the sources of true wisdom (oracles) would clearly show us how this higher life might be achieved.

Reading

Becoming Students of Life

If people chose their life activities more carefully (deliberation), perhaps everyone would naturally become students and observers. After all, human nature and destiny are interesting subjects to everyone alike. When we focus on accumulating property for ourselves or our children (posterity), founding a family or a state, or even gaining fame, we are dealing with temporary, mortal things. But when we engage with truth, we become immortal. We need not fear change or accidents in the realm of truth. The oldest Egyptian or Indian (Hindoo) philosopher lifted just a corner of the veil covering the statue of divinity (ultimate truth). That veil remains lifted still. When I contemplate truth, I gaze upon a glory as fresh as the one he saw thousands of years ago. This is because the bold seeker in him back then was, in a sense, the same spirit that is now in me reviewing the vision. No dust has settled on that truth; no time has passed since that divinity was revealed. The time which we truly improve, or which holds potential for improvement, exists outside our usual measures of past, present, or future—it is eternal.

Reading at Walden

My cabin in the woods was a better place not only for thinking, but also for serious reading, than a university. Although I was far from any ordinary lending library, I felt I had come closer than ever to the influence of those great books that circulate around the world. Their sentences were first written perhaps on bark thousands of years ago and are now merely copied from time to time onto linen paper. The Persian poet Mîr Camar Uddîn Mast wrote: “Being seated to travel through the region of the spiritual world; I have gained this advantage from books. To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of esoteric doctrines (deep, inner teachings).” I kept Homer’s Iliad on my table throughout the summer, although I only looked at its pages occasionally. At first, the constant physical labor—finishing my house and hoeing my beans at the same time—made more study impossible. Yet, the prospect of being able to do such reading in the future sustained me. In the intervals of my work, I read one or two shallow travel books. Eventually, that kind of reading made me ashamed of myself. I asked myself, where was I truly living then, if my mind was occupied with such superficial things?

Reading the Classics

A student can read ancient Greek authors like Homer or Aeschylus in the original language without danger of wasting time (dissipation) or becoming soft (luxuriousness). Reading them requires effort. It implies that the student must, to some extent, try to be like (emulate) the heroes in those books and dedicate precious morning hours to studying their pages. These heroic books, even if printed in modern English, will always be in a language that seems dead to spiritually declined (degenerate) times. We must work hard to find the meaning of each word and line. We need to guess at a larger sense than common usage allows, drawing upon whatever wisdom, courage (valor), and generosity we possess within ourselves. The modern printing press, cheap and producing many books, with all its translations, has done little to bring us truly nearer to the heroic writers of ancient times. They seem as solitary, and the texts in which they are printed seem as rare and special, as ever. It is worth spending the days of youth and costly hours if you learn only a few words of an ancient language. These words are lifted above the everyday triviality of the street and can serve as constant suggestions and challenges (provocations) to deeper thought. It is not useless when a farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words he has heard. People sometimes talk as if the study of the classics will eventually be replaced by more modern and practical studies. But the adventurous student will always study classics, no matter what language they are written in or how ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of mankind? They are the only ancient sources of wisdom (oracles) that have not decayed. They contain answers relevant to the most modern questions—answers more profound than the ancient Greek oracles of Delphi and Dodona ever gave. We might as well stop studying Nature just because she is old!

To read well—that is, to read true books in a true spirit—is a noble exercise. It will challenge the reader more than any physical exercise valued by today’s customs. It requires training like that of athletes, and a steady focus of almost the whole life toward this goal. Books must be read as deliberately and carefully (reservedly) as they were written. It is not even enough to be able to speak the language of the nation in which they were written. There is a significant difference between the spoken language and the written language, the language heard and the language read.

• The spoken language is usually temporary—a sound, a tongue, merely a dialect. It can seem almost animal-like (brutish), and we learn it unconsciously from our mothers, like animals do. This is our mother tongue.
• The written language is the maturity and experience based on the spoken language. This is our father tongue—a reserved, carefully chosen expression, too significant to be fully grasped just by hearing. We must be, in a sense, born again into understanding to truly speak and comprehend it.

The crowds of people in the Middle Ages who merely spoke everyday Greek and Latin were not automatically able, just by birth, to read the works of genius written in those languages. Those great works were not written in the common Greek or Latin they knew, but in the select, refined language of literature. They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome. To them, the very materials on which the classics were written were like wastepaper. Instead, they valued cheap contemporary literature. But when the different nations of Europe had developed their own distinct, though perhaps rough, written languages—sufficient for their emerging literatures—only then did true learning revive. Scholars were then able to recognize, even from a distance in time, the treasures of antiquity. What the common Roman and Greek crowds could not understand, after many centuries passed, a few scholars read. And still today, only a few scholars are truly reading them.

The Written Word vs. Spoken Eloquence

However much we may admire a speaker’s occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are usually as far beyond the fleeting spoken language as the starry sky (firmament) is beyond the clouds. The stars are there, and those who are capable can read their meaning. Astronomers forever study and comment on them. Great written words are not temporary vapors (exhalations) like our daily conversations (colloquies) and misty breath. What is called eloquence in public speaking (the forum) often turns out to be mere skillful technique (rhetoric) when examined carefully in private study. The orator responds to the inspiration of a passing moment (transient occasion) and speaks to the crowd (mob) before him—to those who can physically hear him. But the writer, whose calmer and more steady (equable) life provides his occasion, and who would be distracted by the events and crowds that inspire the orator, speaks across time to the intellect and heart of mankind—to all people in any age who are capable of understanding him.

Books: The Wealth of the World

No wonder Alexander the Great carried Homer’s Iliad with him on his military expeditions in a precious box. A written word is the most valuable kind of relic. It is something more intimate with us, yet more universal, than any other work of art. It is the work of art closest to life itself. It can be translated into every language. It can not only be read but actually spoken (“breathed”) by all human lips. It is not represented only on canvas or in marble, but can be carved out of the very breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient person’s thought becomes a modern person’s speech. Two thousand years have given the great works of Greek literature, like Greek marble statues, only a richer, more mature golden and autumnal beauty. This is because these works carry their own calm and heavenly atmosphere with them into all lands, protecting them against the decay (corrosion) of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the rightful inheritance of all generations and nations. Books—the oldest and the best—stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every home, however humble (cottage). They do not plead their own case, but as they enlighten and support the reader, his common sense will accept them. Their authors form a natural and irresistible nobility (aristocracy) in every society. More than kings or emperors, they exert a lasting influence on mankind.

Consider the successful trader who may start out illiterate and perhaps scornful of learning. After earning his desired leisure and independence through hard work (enterprise and industry), he is admitted into the circles of wealth and fashion. Inevitably, he eventually turns his attention to those still higher, but harder to access, circles of intellect and genius. Then, he only feels the imperfection of his own culture and the emptiness (vanity) and inadequacy (insufficiency) of all his riches. He further proves his good sense by the efforts (pains) he takes to secure for his children the intellectual culture whose lack he so keenly feels. It is in this way—by recognizing the value of culture and passing it on—that he truly becomes the founder of a family (establishing a meaningful legacy).

The Importance of Reading Originals

Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the languages in which they were written must have a very incomplete knowledge of the history of the human race. It is remarkable that no true copy (transcript) of their essential quality has ever been fully made into any modern language—unless perhaps our entire civilization itself can be seen as such a partial transcript. In a deeper sense, Homer has never yet been truly printed in English, nor Aeschylus, nor even Virgil. These are works as refined, as solidly crafted, and almost as beautiful as the morning itself. Later writers, whatever we may say of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equaled the elaborate beauty, finish, and the lifelong, heroic literary dedication of the ancients. Only those who never truly knew the classics talk of forgetting them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we possess the learning and genius to fully understand and appreciate them first. That age will be rich indeed when those treasures we call Classics, and the still older and even less known sacred writings (Scriptures) of all nations, have accumulated even further. Imagine future great libraries (“Vaticans”) filled with the Vedas (Hindu scriptures), Zendavestas (Zoroastrian scriptures), Bibles, along with the works of Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. Imagine all the centuries to come successively depositing their greatest achievements (“trophies”) in the forum of the world. With such a pile of accumulated wisdom, we might hope to finally reach heaven (scale heaven).

How to Read

The works of the great poets have never yet been truly read by mankind as a whole, because only great poets can fully read and understand them. They have mostly been read as the common people read the stars—at best, like astrologers seeking fortunes or omens, not like astronomers seeking scientific understanding. Most people have learned to read merely to serve some small convenience (paltry convenience). Similarly, they have learned basic arithmetic (to cipher) only to keep accounts and avoid being cheated in trade. But of reading as a noble intellectual exercise, they know little or nothing. Yet only this demanding effort is reading in a high sense. True reading is not something that lulls us like a luxury, allowing our higher abilities (faculties) to sleep. Instead, it is reading that requires us to stand on tiptoe, metaphorically, and devote our most alert and wakeful hours to it.

Beyond Easy Reading

I think that once we have learned our letters, we should read the best that exists in literature. We should not be forever repeating our basic lessons (“a b abs”) and words of one syllable, stuck in the beginner classes (“fourth or fifth classes”), sitting on the lowest bench (form) all our lives. Most people are satisfied if they read, or hear read, perhaps one good book—often the Bible—and feel its wisdom (have been convicted by it). For the rest of their lives, they simply stagnate (vegetate). They waste their mental abilities (dissipate their faculties) on what is called “easy reading.” There is a set of books in our Circulating Library actually titled Little Reading. When I first saw it, I thought it referred to a town of that name I hadn’t visited! There are people who, like greedy birds (cormorants) or ostriches (once believed to digest anything), can devour all sorts of this trivial reading matter, even after a full meal. They let nothing go to waste, consuming everything. If some people are like machines providing this mental fodder (provender), these readers are the machines designed to consume it. They eagerly read the nine-thousandth tale about fictional lovers like Zebulon and Sephronia, who supposedly loved as none had ever loved before, and whose true love, of course, did not run smooth—but somehow stumbled along anyway. They read about how some poor unfortunate character got stuck up on a church steeple (when he shouldn’t have even gone up to the bell tower, or belfry). Then, having needlessly put him up there, the happy novelist rings the alarm bell for the whole world to come and hear, “Oh dear! How did he ever get down again!” For my part, I think they should transform (metamorphose) all such striving heroes of popular fiction (universal noveldom) into human-shaped weathercocks. Just as ancient heroes were placed among the constellations, let these fictional heroes swing around on steeples until they get rusty, and never come down at all to bother honest men with their silly antics (pranks). The next time a novelist rings the bell for such false excitement, I will not budge, even if the church itself burns down. Consider the mock advertisement: “The Skip of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the Middle Ages, by the celebrated author of ‘Tittle-Tol-Tan,’ to appear in monthly parts; a great rush; don’t all come at once!” People read all this with wide-open (“saucer”) eyes and simple (primitive) curiosity. They digest it with tireless stomachs (unwearied gizzard) whose folds (corrugations) never seem to need sharpening by critical thought. They read it just like some little four-year-old child on a school bench (bencher) reads his two-cent, gold-covered edition of Cinderella—without any improvement, as far as I can see, in pronunciation, accent, or emphasis, and with no more skill in finding or applying the moral lesson. The result of all this easy reading is dullness of sight, a slowing down (stagnation) of the vital mental circulations, and a general collapse (deliquium) and shedding (sloughing off) of all intellectual abilities. This sort of cheap, sweet, insubstantial stuff (ginger-bread) is baked daily, more diligently (sedulously) than pure wheat or rye-and-corn bread (good literature), in almost every oven, and it finds a surer market.

The State of Reading in Concord

The best books are not read even by those who are considered good readers. What does our culture in Concord really amount to? In this town, with very few exceptions, there is no taste for the best books, or even for very good books in English literature—books whose words everyone here can read and spell. Even the college-educated and supposedly “liberally educated” men, here and elsewhere, have little or no real acquaintance with the English classics. As for the recorded wisdom of mankind—the ancient classics and the world’s Bibles, which are accessible to anyone who wants to know about them—there is almost no effort made anywhere to become familiar with them. I know a woodchopper here, middle-aged, who reads a French newspaper. He says it’s not for the news (he is above that), but to “keep himself in practice” with the language, as he is originally from Canada. When I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, besides reading French, it is to keep up and improve his English. This is about as much as college-educated people generally do or aspire to do, and they typically read an English newspaper for that limited purpose. How many people can someone converse with after reading one of the best English books? Or suppose someone comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original language—works whose praises are known even to the supposedly illiterate. He will find nobody at all to speak to about it; he must keep silent. Indeed, there is hardly even a professor in our colleges who, even if he has mastered the difficulties of the ancient language, has proportionally mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet. Few professors have the deep sympathy needed to share insights with an alert and heroic reader. And as for the sacred Scriptures, the Bibles of mankind from various cultures—who in this town can even tell me their titles? Most people do not know that any nation besides the Hebrews has had sacred scriptures. A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar. But here are golden words, uttered by the wisest men of antiquity, whose worth the wise of every following age have confirmed. And yet, we learn to read only basic materials (“Easy Reading,” primers, class-books). When we leave school, we read the “Little Reading” and storybooks meant for children and beginners. Our reading, our conversation, and our thinking remain on a very low level, worthy only of dwarfs (pygmies) and puppets (manikins).

Aspiring to Wisdom

I aspire to become acquainted with wiser men than this Concord soil has produced, men whose names are hardly known here. Or should I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? That would be like having Plato as my townsman and never seeing him—my next-door neighbor, yet never hearing him speak or paying attention to the wisdom of his words. But what is the actual situation? His Dialogues, which contain his immortal thoughts, lie on the next shelf, and yet I rarely read them. We are poorly cultured (underbred), live shallow lives (low-lived), and are essentially illiterate in the deepest sense. In this respect, I admit I do not make a very broad distinction between the illiteracy of my townsman who cannot read at all, and the illiteracy of him who has learned to read only what is suitable for children and weak minds (feeble intellects). We should strive to be as good as the great figures (worthies) of antiquity, but partly by first understanding how good they really were. We are currently a race of small-minded men (tit-men), and our intellectual flights rarely soar higher than the columns of the daily newspaper.

The Power of Books

It is not true that all books are as dull as their readers often are. There are probably words written that are addressed precisely to our own condition. If we could really hear and understand these words, they would be more healing and life-giving (salutary) than the morning or the spring. They might possibly put a new perspective (aspect) on everything for us. How many people have marked a new era in their lives starting from the reading of a particular book! Perhaps the book exists for us that will explain the miracles of our own lives and reveal new ones. The things we currently find impossible to express (unutterable) we may find spoken somewhere in a book. These same questions that disturb, puzzle, and confuse us have occurred in turn to all the wise men throughout history; not one question has been missed. Each wise person has answered them, according to his ability, through his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom, we shall learn open-mindedness (liberality). Consider the solitary hired farmhand on the outskirts of Concord. He may have had a profound religious conversion (“second birth”) and unique spiritual experience. He might feel driven by his faith into silent seriousness and social withdrawal (exclusiveness), thinking his experience is unique. But Zoroaster, the ancient Persian prophet, traveled the same spiritual road thousands of years ago and had the same kind of experience. Because Zoroaster was wise, he knew his experience pointed to universal truths. He treated his neighbors accordingly and is even said to have invented and established religious worship among men. Let that solitary farmhand humbly connect (commune) with Zoroaster then. Through the broadening (liberalizing) influence of all the great figures (worthies) of history, let him connect with Jesus Christ himself, and let narrow-minded allegiance to “our church” be abandoned (go by the board).

We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century and are making the most rapid progress (strides) of any nation. But consider how little this village of Concord does for its own culture. I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor do I wish to be flattered by them, for that will not help either of us advance.

Reading

Becoming Lifelong Learners

If people chose their life activities with a little more care and thought (deliberation), perhaps everyone would naturally become students and observers. After all, human nature and destiny are surely interesting topics to everyone alike. When we focus on accumulating property for ourselves or our children (posterity), founding a family or a state, or even gaining fame, we are dealing with temporary, mortal things that pass away. But when we engage with truth, we become immortal. In dealing with truth, we need not fear change or accidents. The oldest Egyptian or Indian (Hindoo) philosopher lifted just a corner of the veil hiding the statue of divinity (ultimate truth). That veil remains lifted still, through their words. When I read them, I gaze upon a glory as fresh as the one they saw thousands of years ago. This is because the bold seeker in them back then was, in a spiritual sense, the same seeker that is now in me, reviewing the vision. No dust has settled on that revealed truth; no time has truly passed since that divinity was glimpsed. The time that we really improve, or the time that holds potential for improvement, exists outside our usual ideas of past, present, or future—it is eternal.

Reading at Walden

My cabin in the woods was a better place not only for thinking but also for serious reading, than a university could be. Although I was far from any ordinary lending library, I felt I had come closer than ever to the influence of those great books that circulate around the world—the classics of human thought. Their sentences might have first been written on bark thousands of years ago, and are now merely copied from time to time onto modern paper. The Persian poet Mîr Camar Uddîn Mast wrote: “Being seated to travel through the region of the spiritual world; I have gained this advantage from books. To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of esoteric doctrines (deep, inner teachings).” I kept Homer’s Iliad on my table throughout the summer, although I only looked at its pages occasionally at first. The constant physical labor—finishing my house and hoeing my beans at the same time—made more study impossible initially. Yet, the prospect of being able to do such reading in the future kept me going. During breaks from my work, I read one or two shallow travel books. Eventually, that kind of reading made me ashamed of myself. It made me ask, where was I truly living then, if my mind was occupied with such superficial accounts?

The Value of Reading Classics

A student can read ancient Greek authors like Homer or Aeschylus in the original language without danger of wasting time (dissipation) or becoming soft and lazy (luxuriousness). Reading them properly requires effort. It implies that the student must try, in some way, to be like (emulate) the heroes in those books and must dedicate focused time, like the best morning hours, to studying their pages. These heroic books, the classics, even if translated into modern English, will always be written in a language that seems dead to spiritually shallow or weak (degenerate) times. We must work hard (laboriously) to find the meaning of each word and line. We need to guess at a larger sense than common usage allows, drawing upon whatever wisdom, courage (valor), and generosity we possess within ourselves. The modern printing press, though cheap and producing many books, along with all its translations, has done little to bring us truly closer to the heroic writers of ancient times. They seem as solitary and unique, and the original texts seem as rare and special, as ever. It is worth spending the days of your youth and valuable hours (costly hours) if you learn only a few words of an ancient language. These words are lifted above the trivial chatter of the street and can serve as constant suggestions and challenges (provocations) to deeper thought. It is not useless when a farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words he might have heard somewhere. People sometimes talk as if the study of the classics will eventually be replaced by more modern and practical studies. But the adventurous student will always study classics, no matter what language they are written in or how ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of mankind? They are the only ancient sources of wisdom (oracles) that have not decayed or become outdated. They contain answers relevant to the most modern questions—answers more profound than the ancient Greek oracles of Delphi and Dodona ever gave. We might as well stop studying Nature just because she is old!

To read well—that is, to read true books in a true spirit—is a noble exercise. It will challenge (task) the reader more than any physical exercise that is currently popular. It requires training similar to what athletes undergo, and a steady dedication (intention) of almost one’s whole life to this goal. Books must be read as deliberately and carefully (reservedly) as they were written. It is not even enough simply to be able to speak the language of the nation in which they were written. There is a significant difference between the spoken language and the written language—the language heard and the language read.

• The spoken language is usually temporary—a sound, a local way of talking (tongue), merely a dialect. It can seem almost basic or animal-like (brutish), and we learn it unconsciously from our mothers, like animals do. This is our mother tongue.
• The written language represents the maturity and experience built upon the spoken language. This is our father tongue—a reserved, carefully chosen form of expression. It is often too significant and deep to be fully grasped just by hearing. We must be, in a sense, reborn into a higher level of understanding to truly speak and comprehend it.

The crowds of people in the Middle Ages who merely spoke everyday Greek and Latin were not automatically qualified, just by the accident of their birth, to read the great works of genius written in those languages. Those classic works were not written in the common Greek or Latin that people knew, but in the select, refined language of high literature. The common people had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome. To them, the actual manuscripts on which the classics were written were like wastepaper. Instead, they valued cheap contemporary literature. But later, when the different nations of Europe had developed their own distinct, though perhaps still developing (rude), written languages—sufficient for their own emerging literatures—only then did true learning revive. Scholars were then able, even looking back across centuries, to recognize the treasures of antiquity. What the common Roman and Greek crowds could not understand or appreciate, after many ages passed, a few scholars read. And still today, only a few scholars are truly reading and understanding these works in their deepest sense.

The Enduring Power of the Written Word

However much we may admire a speaker’s occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are usually as far beyond the fleeting spoken language as the starry sky (firmament) is beyond the clouds. The stars (great writings) are always there, and those who are capable can read their meaning, just as astronomers forever study and comment on the actual stars. Great written works are not temporary vapors (exhalations) like our daily conversations (colloquies) and misty breath. What passes for eloquence in public speaking (the forum) often turns out to be mere skillful technique (rhetoric) when examined carefully in private study. The public speaker (orator) yields to the inspiration of a passing moment (transient occasion) and speaks to the crowd (mob) in front of him—to those who can physically hear him at that specific time. But the writer, whose calmer and more steady (equable) life provides his inspiration, and who would likely be distracted by the immediate events and crowds that inspire the orator, speaks across time. The writer addresses the intellect and heart of all humankind—all people in any age who are capable of understanding him.

Books as Humanity’s Treasure

No wonder Alexander the Great carried Homer’s Iliad with him on his military campaigns in a precious box. A written word is the most valuable kind of relic. It is something more intimate with us, yet more universal, than any other work of art. It is the work of art that is closest to life itself. It can be translated into every language. It can not only be read but actually spoken (“breathed”) by all human lips. It is not represented only on canvas or in marble, but can be carved out of the very breath of life itself. The symbol representing an ancient person’s thought becomes a modern person’s speech. Two thousand years have only given the great works of Greek literature, like Greek marble statues, a richer, more mature beauty (a maturer golden and autumnal tint). This is because these works carry their own calm and heavenly atmosphere with them into all lands, protecting them against the decay (corrosion) of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the rightful inheritance of all generations and nations. Books—the oldest and the best—belong naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every home, however humble (cottage). They do not argue for themselves, but as they enlighten and support the reader, his common sense will accept their value. Their authors form a natural and irresistible nobility (aristocracy) in every society. More than kings or emperors, these authors exert a lasting influence on mankind.

Consider the successful trader who may start out illiterate and perhaps scornful of culture. After earning his desired leisure and independence through hard work (enterprise and industry), he is admitted into the circles of wealth and fashion. Inevitably, he eventually turns his attention toward those still higher, but harder to access, circles of intellect and genius. Then, he becomes aware only of the imperfection of his own culture and the emptiness (vanity) and inadequacy (insufficiency) of all his riches. He further proves his good sense by the efforts (pains) he takes to secure for his children the intellectual culture whose lack he so keenly feels. It is in this way—by recognizing the value of culture and ensuring its continuation—that he truly becomes the founder of a family (establishing a meaningful legacy beyond mere wealth).

Reading Originals vs. Translations

Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the languages in which they were written must have a very incomplete knowledge of the history of the human race. It is remarkable that no true copy (transcript) capturing their full essence has ever been made into any modern language—unless perhaps our entire civilization itself can be seen as such an imperfect transcript. In a deeper sense, Homer has never yet been truly printed in English, nor Aeschylus, nor even Virgil. These ancient works are as refined, as solidly crafted, and almost as beautiful as the morning itself. Later writers, whatever we may say of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equaled the elaborate beauty, finish, and the lifelong, heroic literary dedication shown by the ancients. Only those who never truly knew the classics talk of forgetting them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we possess the learning and the genius to fully understand and appreciate them first—and perhaps even surpass them. That age will be rich indeed when those treasures we call Classics, along with the still older and even less known sacred writings (Scriptures) of all nations (like the Hindu Vedas, the Zoroastrian Zendavestas, various Bibles), have accumulated even further. Imagine future great libraries (symbolized by the Vatican) filled with these, plus the works of later masters like Homer (rediscovered), Dante, and Shakespeare. Imagine all the centuries to come successively depositing their greatest achievements (“trophies”) in the forum of the world. With such a foundation of accumulated wisdom, humanity might hope to finally reach its highest potential (scale heaven).

How to Truly Read

The works of the great poets have never yet been truly read by mankind as a whole, because only great poets can fully read and understand them deeply. Ordinary people have mostly read great works only as the masses read the stars—at best, like astrologers looking for superficial predictions, not like astronomers seeking deep, scientific understanding. Most people have learned to read merely to serve some small, practical purpose (paltry convenience). Similarly, they have learned basic arithmetic (to cipher) only to keep accounts and avoid being cheated in trade. But of reading as a noble intellectual exercise that demands effort, they know little or nothing. Yet only this demanding effort is reading in a high sense. True reading is not something that lulls us like a luxury, allowing our higher mental abilities (nobler faculties) to sleep. Instead, it is the kind of reading that requires us to stand on tiptoe, metaphorically speaking, and devote our most alert and wakeful hours to it.

Beyond Easy Reading

I think that once we have learned our basic letters, we should read the very best that exists in literature. We should not be forever repeating our first lessons (“a b abs”) and words of one syllable, stuck in the beginner levels (“fourth or fifth classes”), sitting on the lowest bench (form) in the classroom of life. Most people are satisfied if they read, or hear read, the wisdom of one good book (perhaps the Bible) and feel changed by it (have been convicted by it). But for the rest of their lives, they simply stagnate (vegetate). They waste their mental abilities (dissipate their faculties) on what is called “easy reading.” There is actually a set of books in our local Circulating Library titled Little Reading. When I first saw the title, I mistakenly thought it referred to a town of that name I hadn’t visited! There are people who, like greedy birds (cormorants) or ostriches, seem able to digest all sorts of this trivial reading matter, even right after a full meal. They let nothing go to waste, consuming everything put before them. If some people are like machines producing this mental fodder (provender), these readers are the machines designed to consume it. They eagerly read the nine-thousandth sentimental tale about fictional lovers like Zebulon and Sephronia. They read about how these characters loved as no one had ever loved before, and how the course of their true love, naturally, did not run smooth—but somehow stumbled along anyway. They read about how some poor unfortunate character got stuck up on a church steeple (when he shouldn’t have even gone up to the bell tower, or belfry in the first place). Then, having needlessly put him up there, the happy novelist rings the alarm bell for the whole world to come together and hear, “Oh dear! How did he ever manage to get down again!” For my part, I think novelists should transform (metamorphose) all such striving heroes of popular fiction (universal noveldom) into human-shaped weathercocks. Just as ancient heroes were placed among the constellations, let these fictional heroes swing around uselessly on steeples until they get rusty. They shouldn’t come down at all to bother honest men with their silly antics (pranks). The next time such a novelist rings the bell for false excitement, I will not stir, even if the church itself burns down. Consider the mock advertisement: “The Skip of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the Middle Ages, by the celebrated author of ‘Tittle-Tol-Tan,’ to appear in monthly parts; a great rush; don’t all come at once!” People read all this trash with wide-open (“saucer”) eyes and simple (primitive) curiosity. They digest it with tireless stomachs (unwearied gizzard) whose critical folds (corrugations) never seem to need sharpening. They read it just like some little four-year-old child on a school bench (bencher) reads his cheap, gold-covered edition of Cinderella—without any improvement, as far as I can see, in pronunciation, accent, or emphasis, and with no more skill in extracting or applying the moral lesson than the child has. The result of all this easy reading is mental dullness, a slowing down (stagnation) of the vital energies (circulations), and a general collapse (deliquium) and shedding (sloughing off) of all intellectual abilities. This sort of cheap, insubstantial mental food (ginger-bread) is baked daily, more diligently (sedulously) than pure, wholesome bread (good literature) in almost every household’s “oven,” and it finds a much surer market.

The State of Reading in Concord (and Beyond)

The best books are not read even by those who are considered good readers. What does our local culture in Concord really amount to? In this town, with very few exceptions, there is no taste for the best books, or even for very good books in English literature—books whose words everyone here can read and spell. Even the college-educated and supposedly “liberally educated” people, here and elsewhere, have little or no real acquaintance with the English classics. And as for the recorded wisdom of mankind—the ancient classics and the world’s sacred writings (Bibles), which are accessible to anyone who wants to know about them—there is almost no effort made anywhere to become familiar with them. I know a woodchopper here, of middle age, who reads a French newspaper. He says it’s not for the news (he considers himself above that), but simply to “keep himself in practice” with the language, as he is originally from Canada. When I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, besides reading French, it is to keep up and improve his English. This level of effort is about as much as college-educated people generally achieve or aspire to, and they typically read an English newspaper for that same limited purpose. After reading one of the best English books, how many people can someone find to truly discuss it with? Or suppose someone comes fresh from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original language—works whose praises are known even to the supposedly illiterate. He will find nobody at all to speak to about it; he must remain silent. Indeed, there is hardly even a professor in our colleges who, even if he has mastered the linguistic difficulties of the ancient language, has proportionally mastered the intellectual challenges (difficulties of the wit) and poetry of a Greek poet. Few professors possess the deep sympathy needed to share insights with an alert and heroic reader. And as for the sacred Scriptures, the Bibles of mankind from various cultures—who in this town can even tell me their titles? Most people do not know that any nation besides the Hebrews has had sacred scriptures. A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar. But here are golden words, uttered by the wisest men of antiquity, whose worth the wise of every following age have confirmed for us. And yet, we learn to read only basic materials (“Easy Reading,” the primers and class-books). When we leave school, we typically read “Little Reading” and storybooks meant for children and beginners. Our reading, our conversation, and our thinking all remain on a very low level, worthy only of dwarfs (pygmies) and puppets (manikins).

Aspiring to Wisdom

I aspire to become acquainted with wiser men than this Concord soil has produced, men whose names are hardly known here. Or should I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? That would be like having Plato live in my town without ever seeing him—my next-door neighbor, yet I never heard him speak or paid attention to the wisdom of his words. But what is the actual situation? His Dialogues, which contain his immortal thoughts, lie here on the next shelf, and yet I rarely read them. We are poorly cultured (underbred), live shallow lives (low-lived), and are essentially illiterate in this deeper sense. Regarding this, I admit I do not make a very broad distinction between the illiteracy of my townsman who cannot read at all, and the illiteracy of the person who has learned to read only what is suitable for children and weak minds (feeble intellects). We should strive to be as good as the great figures (worthies) of antiquity, but we can only do that partly by first understanding how good they really were. We are currently a race of small-minded men (tit-men), and our intellectual flights rarely soar higher than the columns of the daily newspaper.

Books That Awaken

It is not true that all books are as dull as their readers often are. There are probably words written that speak exactly to our own condition. If we could really hear and understand these words, they would be more healing and life-giving (salutary) to us than the morning or the spring. They might possibly put a new perspective (aspect) on everything for us. How many people have marked a new era in their lives starting from the reading of a particular book! Perhaps the book exists for each of us that will explain the miracles of our own lives and reveal new ones. The things we currently find impossible to express (unutterable) we may find spoken somewhere in a book. These same deep questions that disturb, puzzle, and confuse us have occurred in turn to all the wise men throughout history; not one profound question has been missed. Each wise person has answered them, according to his ability, through his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom, we shall learn open-mindedness (liberality). Consider the solitary hired farmhand on the outskirts of Concord. He may have had a profound religious conversion (“second birth”) and unique spiritual experience. He might feel driven by his faith into silent seriousness and social withdrawal (exclusiveness), believing his experience is unique and isolates him. But Zoroaster, the ancient Persian prophet, traveled the same spiritual road thousands of years ago and had the same kind of experience. Because Zoroaster was wise, he knew his experience pointed to universal truths. He treated his neighbors accordingly and is even said to have invented and established religious worship among men. Let that solitary farmhand humbly connect (commune) with the spirit of Zoroaster then. Through the broadening (liberalizing) influence of all the great figures (worthies) of history, let him connect with Jesus Christ himself, and let narrow-minded allegiance to “our church” be abandoned (go by the board).

True Culture for Our Time

We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century and are making the most rapid progress (strides) of any nation. But consider how little this village of Concord does for its own intellectual and spiritual culture. I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor do I wish to be flattered by them, for that will not help either of us advance.

Sounds

The Language Beyond Books

But while we focus only on books, even the best classics, and read only specific written languages—which are themselves just local dialects and limited (provincial) ways of speaking—we are in danger. We risk forgetting the language that all things and events speak directly, without metaphors. This direct language of reality is the only one that is truly rich (copious) and universal (standard). Much information is published, but little is truly imprinted (printed) with deep meaning or truth. The rays of light streaming through a partly open shutter will no longer be remembered once the shutter is completely removed, revealing the full view. (Similarly, direct experience of reality surpasses limited, indirect knowledge from books.) No method or discipline can replace the need to be constantly alert and aware. What good is a course of history, philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well chosen? What good is the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of always looking closely at what is actually there to be seen? Will you be merely a reader or a student, or will you be a seer—one who perceives reality directly? Read your fate in the world around you, see what is truly before you, and walk confidently into the future.

Listening to the Day

I did not read books during my first summer at Walden Pond; I hoed beans. Actually, I often did better than either of those things. There were times when I felt I could not afford to sacrifice the beauty and richness (bloom) of the present moment for any kind of work, whether mental or physical. I love having a wide, open space (broad margin) in my life. Sometimes, on a summer morning, after taking my usual bath in the pond, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise until noon. I would be lost in thought (rapt in a revery), surrounded by the pines, hickories, and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness. Birds sang around me or flitted noiselessly through the open cabin. Eventually, the sun falling on my west window, or the noise of a traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, reminded me that time had passed. During those times of quiet contemplation, I grew inwardly, like corn grows mysteriously in the night. These periods were far better for me than any work I could have done with my hands. They were not time subtracted from my life, but extra time, a bonus beyond my usual allowance. I realized what Eastern (Oriental) philosophies mean by contemplation and the “forsaking of works” (detachment from constant action). For the most part, I paid no attention to how the hours went. The day moved forward as if to provide light for some work of mine. It would be morning, and then suddenly, it seemed, it was evening, and nothing conventionally memorable had been accomplished. Instead of singing out loud like the birds, I silently smiled at my constant good fortune. Just as the sparrow sitting on the hickory tree before my door had its trill, so I had my own quiet chuckle or suppressed song (warble) that perhaps the sparrow might hear coming from my “nest.” My days were not named days of the week, carrying the mark of some ancient pagan god (like Thursday for Thor or Wednesday for Woden). Nor were they chopped up (minced) into hours and worried (fretted) by the ticking of a clock. I lived with a sense of time like the Puri Indians of Brazil. It is said that they have only one word for yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They indicate the difference in meaning by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day. This way of living was surely seen as sheer idleness by my fellow townspeople. But if the birds and flowers had judged me by their standards, I would not have been found lacking. It is true that a person must find their opportunities and motivations (occasions) within themselves. The natural day is very calm and will hardly scold (reprove) a person for inactivity (indolence).

Life as Entertainment

My way of life had at least this advantage over people who felt obliged to look outside themselves for amusement—to society gatherings or the theater. My life itself became my amusement, and it never stopped being new (novel) and interesting. It was like a drama with many scenes and no end. If we were always truly engaged in getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best way we had learned, we would never be troubled with boredom (ennui). Follow your own inner spirit (genius) closely enough, and it will surely show you a fresh perspective every hour. Even housework was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I got up early. I set all my furniture—bed and bedstead making just one bundle (budget)—outdoors on the grass. I splashed water on the floor, sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then scrubbed it clean and white with a broom. By the time the villagers had finished their breakfast, the morning sun had dried my house enough for me to move back in. My meditations were almost uninterrupted. It was pleasant to see all my household belongings out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy’s pack. My three-legged table, with my books, pen, and ink still on it, stood among the pines and hickories. The furniture itself seemed glad to get outside, and almost unwilling to be brought back in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning over them and sit there myself. It was worthwhile to see the sun shine on these things and hear the free wind blow on them. Most familiar objects look so much more interesting outdoors than they do inside the house. A bird sits on the nearest branch; life-everlasting (a type of plant) grows under the table; blackberry vines run around the table legs; pine cones, chestnut burs (prickly shells), and strawberry leaves are scattered about. It looked as if this might be how these natural forms originally came to be carved onto our furniture—tables, chairs, and bedsteads—because the furniture once stood right among them in the outdoors.

The Plants Around the Cabin

My house stood on the side of a hill, right on the edge of the larger woods. It was surrounded by a young forest of pitch pines and hickories. It was about half a dozen rods (around 100 feet) from the pond, and a narrow footpath led down the hill to the water. In my front yard grew wild plants like strawberry, blackberry, life-everlasting, johnswort, goldenrod, shrub-oaks, sand-cherry, blueberry, and ground-nut. Near the end of May, the sand-cherry (Cerasus pumila) decorated the sides of the path. Its delicate flowers were arranged in cylindrical clusters (umbels) around its short stems. Later, in the fall, these stems, weighed down with good-sized, handsome cherries, drooped over in wreaths, like rays spreading out on every side. I tasted the cherries out of compliment to Nature, although they were hardly tasty (palatable). The sumac (Rhus glabra) grew abundantly around the house. It pushed up through the small embankment I had made and grew five or six feet in the first season. Its broad, feather-like (pinnate), tropical-looking leaves were pleasant, though unfamiliar, to look at. Late in the spring, large buds suddenly pushed out from dry sticks that had seemed dead. These buds developed as if by magic into graceful, green, and tender branches, an inch thick. Sometimes, as I sat at my window, these branches grew so quickly and carelessly (heedlessly), taxing their weak joints, that I heard a fresh, tender bough suddenly fall like a fan to the ground, broken off by its own weight, even when there wasn’t a breath of air stirring. In August, the large clusters of sumac berries, which had attracted many wild bees when they were in flower, gradually turned a bright velvety crimson color. By their weight, they again bent down and sometimes broke the tender limbs.

The Symphony of Sounds

As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling above my clearing in the woods. The rapid sound (tantivy) of wild pigeons flying by in pairs or threes across my view (athwart my view), or perching restlessly on the white pine branches behind my house, gives a voice to the air. A fishhawk dives, making ripples (dimples) on the glassy surface of the pond, and brings up a fish. A mink steals out of the marsh in front of my door and seizes a frog by the shore. The tall grass (sedge) is bending under the weight of the reed-birds flitting back and forth. And for the last half hour, I have heard the rattle of railroad cars. The sound fades away and then comes back, like the beating wings of a partridge. The train is carrying travelers from Boston out to the country. For I did not live so completely out of the world as that boy I heard about. He was sent to work for a farmer in the east part of town but soon ran away and came home again, looking worn out (down at the heel) and homesick. He said he had never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place; all the people were gone off somewhere. Why, he complained, you couldn’t even hear the train whistle! I doubt if there is such a quiet place left in Massachusetts now. As a local verse puts it: “In truth, our village has become a target (butt) For one of those swift railroad lines (shafts), and over Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is—Concord.” (The irony is that the railroad’s sound is now part of Concord’s “peaceful plain.”)

My Relation to the Railroad

The Fitchburg Railroad line touches the edge of Walden Pond about a hundred rods (roughly 1650 feet, or one-third of a mile) south of where I live. I usually walk to the village along the raised path (causeway) built for the railroad tracks. In a way, this path is my link relating me to society. The men on the freight trains, who travel the whole length of the line, pass me so often that they bow to me as if I were an old acquaintance. Apparently, they mistake me for a railroad employee. And in a sense, so I am. I too would gladly (fain) be a kind of track-repairer somewhere along the great orbit of the earth—doing essential work to keep things running smoothly.

The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods in summer and winter. It sounds like the scream of a hawk sailing over a farmer’s yard. It informs me that many restless city merchants are arriving in town, or that adventurous country traders are coming from the other direction. As trains approach from one horizon, they “shout” their whistle warning to clear the track for those approaching from the other horizon. This warning can sometimes be heard across two towns. The train screams: “Here come your groceries, country people! Here are your supplies (rations), countrymen!” And no farmer is so independent on his farm that he can refuse them (say them nay). Then comes the country’s reply, screamed by the train whistle heading back toward the city: “And here’s your pay for those goods!” This pay consists of timber, moving like long battering rams at twenty miles an hour toward the city’s walls. It includes chairs enough to seat all the weary and burdened people living within the city. With such huge and clumsy (lumbering) politeness, the country hands a chair to the city. All the Native American huckleberry hills are stripped bare; all the cranberry meadows are raked clean, with the harvest sent into the city. Up comes the raw cotton; down goes the woven cloth. Up comes the raw silk; down goes the woolen fabric. Up come the books, but down goes the original wit and intelligence that writes them.

The Iron Horse: Power and Potential

When I encounter the engine with its train of cars moving with planetary-like motion—or perhaps more like a comet, because the observer doesn’t know if, at that speed and direction, it will ever return to this system, since its path doesn’t look like a returning curve—I see its steam cloud like a banner streaming behind in golden and silver wreaths. It looks like many a soft cloud I have seen high in the heavens, unfolding its masses in the light. It seems as if this traveling demigod, this “cloud-compeller,” might soon take the sunset sky as the official uniform (livery) for its train. When I hear the “iron horse” make the hills echo with its snort like thunder, shaking the earth with its feet, and breathing fire and smoke from its nostrils—(I don’t know what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into the new mythology to represent it)—it seems as if the earth finally has a race of beings worthy to inhabit it, capable of such power. If only things were truly as they seem! If only men used the elements as their servants for noble purposes! If the cloud of steam hanging over the engine were the perspiration from heroic deeds, or if it were as beneficial (beneficent) to people as the clouds that float over a farmer’s fields, then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany humans on their tasks and be their escorts.

I watch the passage of the morning train cars with the same feeling that I watch the rising of the sun; the train is hardly less regular. Its train of steam clouds stretches far behind and rises higher and higher. It seems to be going to heaven while the cars are going to Boston. This steam cloud conceals the sun for a minute and casts my distant field into shade. It is a heavenly (celestial) train, compared to which the small (petty) train of cars hugging the earth is merely the sharp point (barb) of the spear. The caretaker (stabler) of the iron horse was up early this winter morning. He worked by starlight among the mountains to feed (fodder) and harness his steed. Fire, too, was awakened early to put the vital heat into the engine and get it started. If only the entire enterprise were as innocent as its early start! If the snow lies deep, they strap “snow-shoes” onto the engine (perhaps referring to a plow attachment), and with a giant plow, they carve a furrow from the mountains to the seacoast. The train cars follow like a seed-planting machine (drill-barrow), sprinkling restless men and floating merchandise across the country like seeds. All day the “fire-steed” flies over the country, stopping only so its master (the engineer?) can rest. I am awakened by its heavy tread (tramp) and defiant snort at midnight. In some remote valley (glen) in the woods, it confronts the elements while encased in ice and snow. It will reach its resting place (stall) only with the appearance of the morning star, ready to start once more on its travels without rest or sleep. Or perhaps, in the evening, I hear it in its “stable” (the roundhouse?) blowing off the excess (superfluous) energy of the day through its steam valves. It does this to calm its “nerves” and cool its “liver and brain” for a few hours of “iron slumber.” If only the entire railroad enterprise were as truly heroic and commanding as it is long-lasting (protracted) and tireless (unwearied)!

The Railroad’s Regulation of Life

Far through unvisited (unfrequented) woods on the edges (confines) of towns, where once only the hunter ventured by day, these bright passenger cars (saloons) dart through the darkest night, often without the local inhabitants even knowing. One moment, the train stops at a brightly lit station in a town or city, where a social crowd is gathered. The next moment, it rushes through the Dismal Swamp (a large swamp in Virginia/North Carolina), scaring the owl and the fox. The departures and arrivals of the trains are now the main events (epochs) in the village day. They run with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that farmers set their clocks by them. In this way, one well-managed institution regulates a whole country. Haven’t people improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was invented? Don’t they talk and think faster in the train station (depot) than they did in the old stagecoach office? There is something electrifying in the atmosphere of the train station. I have been astonished at the miracles it has performed. Some of my neighbors, whom I would have predicted would never get to Boston by such a prompt means of travel, were actually on hand when the departure bell rang! To do things “railroad fashion” (meaning efficiently and on time) is now the common phrase (by-word). And it is worthwhile to be warned so often and so sincerely by such a powerful force to get off its track. There is no stopping to read the riot act (a formal warning before using force against a crowd), no firing warning shots over the heads of the mob, in this case. The train simply comes through. We have constructed a mechanical fate, a force like Atropos (the Greek Fate who cut the thread of life), that never turns aside. (Let Atropos be the name of your engine!) People are notified (advertised) that at a certain hour and minute, these “bolts” (trains) will be shot toward particular points of the compass. Yet, supposedly, it interferes with no man’s business, and children go to school on the other track (this might be ironic, suggesting we ignore the danger or impact). We live steadier, more regulated lives because of it. We are all trained by this system to be like the son of William Tell (who had to stand perfectly still while his father shot an apple off his head). The air is full of invisible dangers (“bolts”). Every path but your own carefully chosen one is the path of this relentless fate. Keep on your own track, then.

The Unexpected Virtues of Commerce

What recommends commerce to me is its spirit of enterprise and bravery. It doesn’t just clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter (rely passively on fate or gods). I see these businessmen every day go about their work with varying degrees of courage and contentment. They often accomplish more than they even suspect, and perhaps they are better employed than they could have consciously planned. I am less impressed by the heroism of those who stood in the front line of battle for half an hour at Buena Vista (a battle in the Mexican-American War) than by the steady and cheerful courage (valor) of the men who live in the snowplow as their winter quarters. These men have more than just the “three-o’clock-in-the-morning courage” (brief, desperate bravery), which Napoleon thought was the rarest kind. Their courage doesn’t rest so easily; they go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or when the “muscles” (sinews) of their iron steed (the engine) are frozen. On this morning of the Great Snowstorm, perhaps, which is still raging and chilling people’s blood, I hear the muffled tone of their engine bell coming from the fog bank of their own chilled breath. The bell announces that the train is coming, without long delay, despite the “veto” of a fierce New England northeast snowstorm. And I see the plowmen covered with snow and frost (rime). Their heads peer above the curved blade of the plow (mould-board), which is turning up things much deeper and harder than daisies and field-mouse nests—things like great rocks, appearing like boulders from the Sierra Nevada mountains, occupying a fundamental place in the universe.

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and calm (serene), alert, adventurous, and tireless. Its methods are also very natural (natural in its methods withal), far more so than many unrealistic (fantastic) enterprises and overly emotional (sentimental) experiments. This natural quality is the reason for its remarkable success. I feel refreshed and expanded when the freight train rattles past me. I smell the goods (stores) spreading their odors all the way from Long Wharf in Boston to Lake Champlain. These smells remind me of foreign places, of coral reefs, Indian oceans, tropical climates, and the vast extent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the world when I see things like:

• Palm leaves that will cover many blond (flaxen) New England heads in summer hats next year.
• Manila hemp and coconut husks.
• Old junk, burlap sacks (gunny bags), scrap iron, and rusty nails. This carload of torn sails is more readable and interesting to me now than if they were made into paper and printed with books. Who can write the history of the storms these sails have weathered as graphically as these tears (rents) have already done? They are like printers’ proof-sheets that need no correction. Here goes lumber from the Maine woods, wood that didn’t get washed out to sea in the last flood (freshet). Its price has risen four dollars per thousand board feet because of the timber that was lost or split up in the flood. Here are pine, spruce, cedar—labeled first, second, third, and fourth quality—wood that so recently was all of one quality, waving over the bear, moose, and caribou. Next rolls a prime shipment of Thomaston lime, which will travel far into the hills before it gets mixed with water (slacked) for mortar or plaster. Here are bales of rags, of all colors and qualities—the lowest state to which cotton and linen descend, the final result of clothing. They are remnants of patterns which are now no longer fashionable (cried up), unless perhaps in Milwaukee. They were once splendid articles—English, French, or American prints, ginghams, muslins, etc.—gathered from all sources, both high fashion and poverty. Now they are all going to become paper of just one color or only a few shades. On this paper, indeed (forsooth), will be written “tales of real life,” high and low, supposedly “founded on fact”! This closed freight car smells strongly of salt fish—that distinct New England and commercial scent. It reminds me of the Grand Banks fishing grounds. Who has not seen a salt fish? It is thoroughly cured and preserved for this world, so that nothing can spoil it. Its endurance puts the legendary perseverance of the saints to shame!

Sounds

The Language Beyond Books

But while we focus only on books, even the best classics, and read only particular written languages—which are themselves just limited dialects and regional (provincial) ways of speaking—we are in danger. We risk forgetting the language that all things and events speak directly, without needing metaphors. This direct language of reality is the only one that is truly rich (copious) and universal (standard). Much information gets published, but little is truly imprinted (printed) with deep meaning or lasting truth. The rays of light streaming through a partly open shutter will no longer be remembered once the shutter is completely removed to reveal the full view. (Similarly, direct experience often makes limited, second-hand knowledge seem insignificant.) No method or discipline can replace the need to be constantly alert and aware of the world around us. What good is a course of history, philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected? What good is the best social life, or the most admirable daily routine, compared with the discipline of always looking closely at what is actually there to be seen? Will you be merely a reader or a student, or will you be a seer—one who perceives reality directly? Learn to read your own fate in the present moment, see what is truly before you, and walk confidently into the future.

Listening to the Day Instead of Reading

I did not read books during my first summer at Walden Pond; instead, I hoed beans. Actually, I often did something even better than either of those activities. There were times when I felt I could not afford to sacrifice the beauty and richness (bloom) of the present moment for any kind of work, whether mental work or physical work with my hands. I love having plenty of open space (a broad margin) in my life. Sometimes, on a summer morning, after taking my usual bath in the pond, I would simply sit in my sunny doorway from sunrise until noon. I would be completely absorbed in daydreams (rapt in a revery), surrounded by the pines, hickories, and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness. Birds sang around me or flitted noiselessly through my open cabin. Eventually, the sun moving across the sky and falling on my west window, or the noise of a traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, would remind me that time had passed. During those periods of quiet contemplation, I felt myself growing inwardly, like corn grows mysteriously during the night. These times were far better for my development than any work I could have done with my hands. They were not time subtracted from my life, but rather bonus time, above and beyond my usual allowance. I came to understand what Eastern (Oriental) philosophies mean by contemplation and the “forsaking of works” (letting go of constant striving and action). For the most part, I paid no attention to how the hours passed. The day moved forward as if to provide light for some work I might do; it would be morning, and then suddenly, it seemed, it was evening, and nothing conventionally memorable had been accomplished. Instead of singing out loud like the birds, I silently smiled at my constant good fortune in simply being present. Just as the sparrow sitting on the hickory tree before my door had its musical trill, so I had my own quiet chuckle or suppressed song (warble) that perhaps the sparrow might hear coming from my human “nest.” My days were not named days of the week, carrying the mark of some ancient pagan god (like Thursday for Thor or Wednesday for Woden). Nor were they chopped up (minced) into hours and worried (fretted) by the constant ticking of a clock. I lived with a sense of time more like that of the Puri Indians of Brazil. It is said that they have only one word encompassing yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They indicate the specific meaning by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day. My way of living undoubtedly seemed like sheer idleness to my fellow townspeople. But if the birds and flowers had judged me by their standards—the standards of Nature—I would not have been found lacking or unproductive. It is true that a person must find their opportunities and motivations (occasions) within themselves. The natural day is very calm and will hardly scold (reprove) a person for simply being quiet or inactive (indolence).

Life as Entertainment

My way of life had at least this advantage over people who felt they needed to look outside themselves for amusement—to social gatherings or the theater. My life itself became my entertainment, and it never stopped being new (novel) and interesting. It felt like a drama with many scenes and no end. If we were always truly engaged in making our living authentically, and regulating our lives according to the last and best way we had learned, we would never be troubled with boredom (ennui). Follow your own inner spirit or guiding principle (genius) closely enough, and it will surely show you a fresh perspective every hour. Even housework was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I would get up early. I moved all my furniture—my bed and bedstead making just one bundle (budget)—outdoors onto the grass. Then I splashed water on the floor, sprinkled white sand from the pond over it, and scrubbed it clean and white with a broom. By the time the villagers had finished eating their breakfast, the morning sun had usually dried my house sufficiently for me to move back in. My meditations were almost uninterrupted by this chore. It was pleasant to see all my household belongings sitting out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy’s pack. My three-legged table, with my books, pen, and ink still resting on it, stood among the pine and hickory trees. The furniture itself seemed glad to be outside, almost as if unwilling to be brought back in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning over them and simply sit there myself. It was worthwhile to see the sun shine on these everyday things and hear the free wind blow on them. Most familiar objects look so much more interesting outdoors than they do inside the house. While the furniture sat outside, a bird might perch on the nearest branch, life-everlasting (a type of wildflower) might grow under the table, and blackberry vines might run around its legs. Pine cones, prickly chestnut burs, and strawberry leaves would be scattered about. Looking at this scene, it seemed possible that this was how natural forms—leaves, vines, shells—first came to be carved onto our furniture, tables, chairs, and bedsteads: because the furniture itself once stood right among these things in nature.

The Plants Around the Cabin

My house stood on the side of a hill, right at the edge of the larger woods. It was nestled in a young forest of pitch pines and hickories. It was about half a dozen rods (around 100 feet) from the pond, with a narrow footpath leading down the hill to the water. In what I considered my front yard grew various wild plants: strawberry, blackberry, life-everlasting, johnswort, goldenrod, shrub-oaks, sand-cherry, blueberry, and ground-nut. Near the end of May, the sand-cherry (Cerasus pumila) decorated the sides of the path with its delicate flowers. The flowers were arranged in round clusters (umbels) that circled its short stems like cylinders. Later, in the fall, these same stems, weighed down with good-sized, handsome cherries, drooped over in wreaths, like rays spreading out on every side. I tasted the cherries out of compliment to Nature, although they were hardly very tasty (palatable). The sumac (Rhus glabra) grew abundantly around the house. It even pushed up through the small embankment I had made around my cellar excavation. It grew five or six feet tall in the very first season. Its broad, feather-like (pinnate) leaves looked tropical and were pleasant, though unfamiliar, to look at. Late in the spring, large buds would suddenly push out from dry-looking sticks that had seemed dead all winter. These buds developed as if by magic into graceful, green, and tender branches, an inch thick. Sometimes, as I sat at my window, these branches grew so quickly and carelessly (heedlessly), putting too much strain on their weak joints, that I would hear a fresh, tender bough suddenly fall like a fan to the ground. It would break off under its own weight, even when there wasn’t a breath of air stirring. In August, the large clusters of sumac berries turned a bright velvety crimson color. (When they were in flower earlier, they had attracted many wild bees.) These heavy berry clusters again bent down and sometimes broke the tender limbs.

The Symphony of Sounds

As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling above my clearing in the woods. I hear the rapid sound (tantivy) of wild pigeons as they fly by in pairs or threes across my view (athwart my view), or perch restlessly on the white pine branches behind my house. Their calls give a voice to the air. A fishhawk dives, making gentle ripples (dimples) on the glassy surface of the pond, and comes up with a fish. A mink steals out of the marsh in front of my door and seizes a frog by the shore. The tall wetland grass (sedge) bends under the weight of the reed-birds as they flit back and forth. And for the last half hour, I have heard the rattle of railroad cars in the distance. The sound fades away and then returns, rhythmic like the beating wings of a partridge. The train carries travelers from Boston out into the country. You see, I did not live so completely isolated from the world as that boy I heard about. He was sent to work for a farmer in the eastern part of town but soon ran away and came home again. He looked worn out (down at the heel) and homesick. He complained he had never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place; everyone seemed to be gone. Why, he lamented, you couldn’t even hear the train whistle! I doubt such a completely quiet place exists in Massachusetts anymore. As a local verse observes: “In truth, our village has become a target (butt) For one of those swift railroad lines (shafts), and over Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is—Concord.” (The verse notes, perhaps with some irony, that the railroad’s sound is now part of Concord’s landscape.)

My Relationship with the Railroad

The Fitchburg Railroad line runs along the edge of Walden Pond about a hundred rods (roughly one-third of a mile) south of where I live. I usually walk to the village along the raised path (causeway) built for the tracks. In a way, this railroad line is my link connecting me to society. The men working on the freight trains, who travel the entire length of the line, pass by me so often that they recognize me. They bow as if I were an old acquaintance. Apparently, they think I am a railroad employee. And in a sense, so I am. I too would gladly (fain) be a kind of track-repairer somewhere along the great orbit of the earth—doing some essential work to keep the world running smoothly.

The whistle of the locomotive engine penetrates my woods in both summer and winter. It often sounds like the scream of a hawk sailing over a farmer’s yard. It announces to me that many restless city merchants are arriving in town, or that adventurous country traders are coming in from the other direction. As trains approach from opposite horizons, they “shout” their whistle warnings to clear the track for each other. These warnings can sometimes be heard across two towns. The train seems to call out: “Here come your groceries, country people! Here are your supplies (rations), countrymen!” And no farmer is so independent on his farm that he can refuse (say nay to) the goods the train brings. Then comes the country’s reply, screamed by the whistle of the train heading back toward the city: “And here’s your payment for those goods!” This payment consists of timber from the country, moving like long battering rams at twenty miles an hour toward the city’s walls. It includes chairs enough to seat all the weary and burdened people living within the city. With such huge and clumsy (lumbering) politeness, the country offers a chair to the city. All the Native American huckleberry hills are stripped bare; all the cranberry meadows are raked clean, their harvests sent into the city. Up goes the raw cotton to the factories; down comes the woven cloth. Up goes the raw silk; down comes the finished woolen fabric. Up come the books, perhaps, but down goes the original wit and intelligence that writes them.

The Iron Horse: Power and Potential

When I see the engine with its train of cars moving with powerful, planetary-like motion—or maybe more like a comet, because an observer doesn’t know if, traveling at that speed and in that direction, it will ever return to this system, since its path doesn’t look like a closed orbit—I observe its cloud of steam trailing behind like a banner. It streams in golden and silver wreaths, looking like many a soft cloud I have seen high in the heavens, unfolding its masses in the light. It appears as if this traveling demigod, this “cloud-compeller,” might soon adopt the colors of the sunset sky as the official uniform (livery) for its train. When I hear the “iron horse” (the locomotive) make the hills echo with its snort like thunder, shaking the earth with its wheels (feet), and breathing fire and smoke from its nostrils—(I don’t know what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon future myth-makers will create to represent it)—it seems for a moment as if the earth finally has a race of beings worthy to inhabit it, beings capable of such immense power. If only things were truly as they appear! If only humans used the elements as their servants for genuinely noble purposes! If the cloud of steam hanging over the engine were the result (perspiration) of heroic deeds, or if it were as beneficial (beneficent) to people as the clouds that float over a farmer’s fields bringing rain, then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany humans on their journeys and errands and serve as their escorts.

I watch the passing of the morning train with the same feeling that I watch the rising of the sun; the train is hardly less regular. Its train of steam clouds stretches far behind and rises higher and higher. It seems to ascend toward heaven while the cars themselves are merely going to Boston. This steam cloud briefly blocks the sun and casts my distant field into shadow. It appears as a heavenly (celestial) train, compared to which the small (petty) train of physical cars hugging the earth is merely the sharp point (barb) of the spear. The caretaker (stabler) of the iron horse was up early this winter morning, working by starlight among the mountains, to feed (fodder) and harness his powerful steed. Fire, too, was awakened early to put the vital heat into the engine and get it moving. If only the entire railroad enterprise were as innocent as its early start seems! If the snow lies deep, they strap “snow-shoes” onto the engine (likely meaning a snowplow), and with this giant plow, they carve a furrow through the snow from the mountains to the seacoast. The train cars follow like a seed-planting machine (drill-barrow), scattering restless men and floating merchandise across the country like seeds. All day the “fire-steed” (the engine) flies across the country, stopping only so its master (the engineer?) can rest. I am sometimes awakened by its heavy tread (tramp) and defiant snort at midnight. In some remote valley (glen) deep in the woods, it battles the elements while encased in ice and snow. It will reach its resting place (stall) only when the morning star appears, ready to start once more on its travels without rest or sleep. Or perhaps, in the evening, I hear it in its “stable” (the roundhouse?) blowing off the excess (superfluous) energy of the day through its steam valves. It does this, perhaps, to calm its “nerves” and cool its “liver and brain” for a few hours of “iron slumber.” If only the entire railroad enterprise were as truly heroic and commanding as it is long-lasting (protracted) and tireless (unwearied)!

The Railroad’s Regulation of Life

Far through unvisited (unfrequented) woods on the edges (confines) of towns, where once only the hunter ventured by day, these brightly lit passenger cars (saloons) dart through the darkest night, often without the local inhabitants even knowing they passed. One moment, the train stops at a brilliantly lit station in a town or city, where a social crowd gathers. The next moment, it rushes through the wilderness of the Dismal Swamp, scaring the owl and the fox. The departures and arrivals of the trains now mark the key moments (epochs) in the village day. They run with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that farmers set their clocks by them. In this way, one well-managed institution regulates a whole country. Haven’t people improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was invented? Don’t they talk and think faster in the train station (depot) than they did in the old stagecoach office? There is something electrifying in the atmosphere of the train station. I have been astonished at the miracles it has performed. I’ve seen some of my neighbors—people I would have predicted would never manage to get to Boston by such a prompt means of travel—actually be on hand when the departure bell rang! To do things “railroad fashion” (meaning efficiently and precisely on time) is now the common phrase (by-word). And it is worthwhile to be warned so often and so sincerely by such a powerful force to get off its track. There is no stopping to read the riot act (a formal warning before using force against a crowd), no firing warning shots over the heads of the mob, when the train comes. It simply powers through. We humans have constructed a mechanical fate, a force like Atropos (the Greek Fate who relentlessly cut the thread of life), that never turns aside. (Let Atropos be the name of your engine.) People are notified (advertised) that at a certain hour and minute, these powerful projectiles (“bolts” – the trains) will be shot toward particular points of the compass. Yet, supposedly, it interferes with no man’s business, and children go to school safely on the other track (perhaps an ironic comment on how we normalize its power and danger). We live steadier, more regulated lives because of it. We are all trained by this system to be like the son of William Tell (who had to stand perfectly still and trusting while his father shot an apple off his head). The air around us is full of invisible dangers (“bolts”). Every path but your own carefully chosen one is the path of this mechanical fate. Keep on your own track, then.

The Unexpected Virtues of Commerce and Labor

What recommends commerce to me is its spirit of enterprise and bravery. It doesn’t just sit passively, clasp its hands, and pray to Jupiter for help. I see these businessmen every day go about their work with varying degrees of courage and contentment. They often accomplish more than they even realize, and perhaps they are better employed than they could have consciously planned for themselves. I am less impressed by the heroism of soldiers who stood in the front line of battle for half an hour at Buena Vista than I am by the steady and cheerful courage (valor) of the men who live inside the snowplow cab as their winter quarters. These men possess more than just the fleeting “three-o’clock-in-the-morning courage” that Napoleon Bonaparte thought was the rarest kind. Their courage persists tirelessly; they go to sleep only when the storm finally sleeps or when the “muscles” (sinews) of their iron steed (the engine) are frozen solid. On this particular morning during the Great Snowstorm, perhaps, which is still raging and chilling people’s blood, I hear the muffled tone of their engine bell coming from the fog bank created by their own chilled breath. The bell announces that the train is coming, without long delay, despite the effective “veto” of a fierce New England northeast snowstorm. And through the storm, I see the plowmen covered with snow and frost (rime). Their heads peer out above the curved blade of the plow (mould-board), which is turning up things much deeper and harder than daisies and field-mouse nests—things like great rocks, appearing like boulders from the Sierra Nevada mountains, representing the fundamental, unyielding nature of the earth.

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and calm (serene), alert, adventurous, and tireless. Its methods are also very natural (natural in its methods withal)—far more so than many unrealistic (fantastic) enterprises and overly emotional (sentimental) experiments. This natural, persistent quality is the reason for its remarkable success. I feel refreshed and expanded when the freight train rattles past me. I smell the goods (stores) it carries, dispensing their odors all the way from Long Wharf in Boston to Lake Champlain. These smells remind me of foreign places—of coral reefs, the Indian Ocean, tropical climates, and the vastness of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the world at the sight of cargo like:

• Palm leaves that will cover many blond (flaxen) New England heads in summer hats next year.
• Manila hemp and coconut husks.
• Old junk metal, burlap sacks (gunny bags), scrap iron, and rusty nails. This carload of torn sails tells a more readable and interesting story right now than if those same sails were turned into paper and printed with books. Who can write the history of the storms these sails have weathered as graphically as these tears (rents) already have? They are like printers’ proof-sheets that need no correction. Here goes lumber from the Maine woods—wood that didn’t get washed out to sea in the last flood (freshet). Its price has risen four dollars per thousand board feet because of the timber that was lost or split up in the flood. Here are pine, spruce, cedar—labeled first, second, third, and fourth quality—wood that so recently was all of one uniform quality, waving wildly over the bear, moose, and caribou. Next rolls a prime shipment of Thomaston lime, which will travel far inland among the hills before it gets mixed with water (slacked) for use in construction. Here are bales of rags, of all colors (hues) and qualities—representing the lowest state to which cotton and linen clothing descends, the final result of fashion. They are remnants of patterns that are now no longer popular (cried up), unless perhaps in Milwaukee. They were once splendid articles—English, French, or American printed fabrics, ginghams, muslins, etc.—gathered from all sources, both high fashion and dire poverty. Now they are all heading to a paper mill to become uniform paper of just one color or only a few shades. On this paper, indeed (forsooth), will be written “tales of real life,” about high society and low life, supposedly “founded on fact”! This closed freight car smells strongly of salt fish—that distinct New England and commercial scent, reminding me of the Grand Banks fishing grounds and the fishing industry. Who has not seen a salt fish? It is thoroughly cured and preserved for this world, so perfectly preserved that nothing can spoil it. Its endurance almost puts the legendary perseverance of the saints to shame!

Evening Sounds: Bullfrogs

Late in the evening, I heard the distant rumbling of wagons crossing bridges—a sound that carries farther than almost any other at night. I heard the baying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of some lonely (disconsolate) cow in a distant barnyard. Meanwhile, all the shore of the pond rang with the loud croaking (trump) of bullfrogs. They sounded like the sturdy spirits of ancient heavy drinkers (wine-bibbers) and rowdy partiers (wassailers), still unrepentant. They seemed to be trying to sing a rowdy song (catch) in their dark, underworld lake (Stygian lake)—if the Walden water spirits (nymphs) will pardon the comparison, for although there are almost no weeds in Walden, there certainly are frogs there. These frogs seemed determined to keep up the hilarious rules of their old feasting tables, even though their voices have grown hoarse and solemnly serious, now mocking actual mirth. The “wine” (the pond water) has lost its flavor for them and become only liquor to bloat (distend) their stomachs (paunches). Sweet intoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, only mere saturation, feeling waterlogged, and bloating (distention). The largest, most important-looking frog (aldermanic), with his chin resting on a heart-shaped leaf (heart-leaf) which serves as a napkin for his drooling mouth (chaps), sits under this northern shore and takes a deep drink (quaffs a deep draught) of the water he once scorned. He then passes the “cup” around with a loud croak: tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! Immediately, from some distant cove across the water, the same password comes back repeated, where the next frog in seniority and size (girth) has gulped down his share. When this ritual (observance) has made the full circuit of the shores, then the master of ceremonies croaks with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! And each frog in turn repeats the same sound, down to the least bloated, leakiest, and flabbiest-bellied one, so there can be no mistake. Then the “bowl” goes round again and again, until the morning sun disperses the mist. By then, only the oldest frog (patriarch) is not hiding under the pond but is still vainly bellowing troonk from time to time, pausing for a reply that no longer comes.

The Missing Sounds of Domesticity

I am not sure that I ever heard the sound of a rooster crowing (cock-crowing) from my clearing in the woods. I thought that it might be worthwhile to keep a young rooster (cockerel) just for his music, like keeping a songbird. The call of this bird—once a wild Indian pheasant—is certainly the most remarkable of any bird’s. If chickens could be naturalized (live wild) without being fully domesticated, their crowing would soon become the most famous sound in our woods, surpassing the honking (clangor) of the goose and the hooting of the owl. And then imagine the cackling of the hens filling the pauses when their lords’ trumpet calls (clarions) rested! No wonder humans added this bird to their tame farm stock—to say nothing of the eggs and drumsticks. Imagine walking on a winter morning in a wood where these birds lived wild—their native woods—and hearing the wild roosters crowing from the trees. Imagine their calls ringing clear and shrill for miles over the echoing (resounding) earth, drowning out the weaker notes of other birds! Think of it! It would put entire nations on the alert. Who would not rise early, and rise earlier and earlier every successive day of his life, until he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise (a reference to the proverb)? This foreign bird’s call is celebrated by the poets of all countries alongside the songs of their native birds. Brave Chanticleer (a traditional name for a rooster) agrees with all climates. He is more native (indigenous) now than even the actual natives. His health is always good, his lungs are sound, his spirits never weaken (flag). Even the sailor far out on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is sometimes awakened by his distant voice. But its shrill sound never roused me from my sleep at Walden.

I kept no dog, cat, cow, pig, or hens. So, you might have said there was a lack (deficiency) of domestic sounds around my cabin. There was no sound of a butter churn, nor a spinning wheel, nor even the singing of a kettle boiling, nor the hissing of a tea urn, nor children crying, to comfort someone used to household noises. An old-fashioned person would likely have lost his senses or died of boredom (ennui) from the quiet before long. There weren’t even rats in the walls, because they had been starved out, or rather, were never attracted (baited) in the first place. My companions were wild sounds only:

• Squirrels on the roof and under the floor.
• A whippoorwill on the roof peak (ridge pole).
• A blue jay screaming beneath the window.
• A hare or woodchuck living under the house.
• A screech owl or a great horned owl (cat owl) behind the house.
• A flock of wild geese or a laughing loon on the pond.
• A fox barking in the night. Not even a lark or an oriole—those gentler birds common near farms (mild plantation birds)—ever visited my clearing. No roosters to crow nor hens to cackle in a yard. There was no yard! Only unfenced Nature reaching right up to my door sills. A young forest grew up under my windows. Wild sumachs and blackberry vines broke through into my cellar. Sturdy pitch pines rubbed and creaked against the house shingles because they lacked room, their roots reaching right under the house. Instead of a roof hatch (scuttle) or window shutter (blind) being blown off in a storm, I might have a pine tree snapped off or torn up by the roots behind my house, providing fuel. Instead of having no path shoveled to the front-yard gate in the Great Snowstorm, I had no gate, no front yard, and no path cleared to the civilized world at all!

Solitude

Feeling Nature’s Delight

This is a wonderful (delicious) evening. My whole body feels like one large sense, soaking up (imbibing) delight through every pore. I go and come within Nature with a strange kind of freedom, feeling like a part of Nature herself. I am walking along the stony shore of the pond in just my shirt sleeves. Although it is cool, cloudy, and windy, and I don’t see anything particularly special to attract my attention, all the elements feel unusually friendly and agreeable (congenial) to me. The bullfrogs make loud calls (trump) to announce the arrival of night. The call of the whippoorwill is carried over the water on the rippling wind. Feeling empathy (Sympathy) with the fluttering leaves of the alder and poplar trees almost takes my breath away. Yet, like the surface of the lake, my inner calm (serenity) is gently disturbed (rippled) but not fundamentally upset (ruffled). These small waves created by the evening wind are as far from being a real storm as the lake’s smooth, reflecting surface is. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the woods, the waves still splash against the shore, and some creatures make soft sounds that seem to lull others to sleep. The quiet (repose) is never complete. The wildest animals do not rest now; instead, they seek their prey. The fox, the skunk, and the rabbit now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature’s night watchmen—living links that connect the days of active life.

Nature’s Calling Cards

When I return to my house, I sometimes find that visitors have been there while I was out. They leave their “calling cards”—perhaps a bunch of flowers, a wreath of evergreen branches, or a name written in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a wood chip. People who rarely come to the woods often pick up some small piece of the forest—a twig, a leaf—to play with as they walk. They then leave these items behind, either on purpose or by accident. One visitor peeled the bark off a willow twig (wand), wove it into a ring, and dropped it on my table. I could always tell if visitors had called in my absence. I might see bent twigs or grass, or the prints of their shoes. Often, I could even guess their sex, age, or social status (quality) by some small trace they left behind, like a dropped flower, or a bunch of grass plucked and thrown away. I could sometimes tell even from far away—even from the railroad track half a mile distant—or by the lingering smell of a cigar or pipe. In fact, I was frequently notified of a traveler passing along the highway sixty rods (about 1000 feet) away just by the scent of his pipe smoke drifting through the woods.

The Vastness of Solitude

There is usually enough space around us. Our horizon is never right at our elbows. The thick woods don’t start exactly at our door, nor does the pond. There is always some area near us that is a clearing—familiar, worn by our use, claimed (appropriated) and perhaps fenced in some way, reclaimed from wild Nature. Why, then, do I have this vast area (range and circuit)—several square miles of seldom-visited (unfrequented) forest—all to myself for my privacy, seemingly abandoned to me by other people? My nearest neighbor is a mile away. No other house is visible from my location, except perhaps from the hilltops within half a mile of my cabin. I have my horizon, bounded by woods, all to myself. I have a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on one side, and of the fence along the woodland road on the other. But for the most part, where I live feels as solitary as being out on the prairies. It feels as remote as Asia or Africa, not just New England. It is as if I have my own sun, moon, and stars, and a little world entirely to myself. At night, no traveler ever passed my house or knocked at my door, any more than if I were the first or the last man on earth. The only exception was in the spring, when occasionally, at long intervals, some people came from the village to fish for pouts (a type of catfish). But it seemed plain to me that they were fishing much more in the Walden Pond of their own inner natures, using darkness itself as bait for their thoughts. They soon left (retreated), usually with light baskets (few fish), and, quoting the poet Thomas Gray, left “the world to darkness and to me.” The deep core (black kernel) of the night was never disturbed (profaned) by any human neighbors. I believe that people, generally, are still a little afraid of the dark, even though the supposed witches have all been hanged, and Christianity and candles have been introduced to bring light.

Companionship in Nature

Yet, I sometimes experienced that the sweetest and most tender, the most innocent and encouraging companionship (society) can be found in any natural object. This is true even for the person who dislikes humanity (the misanthrope) or the very sad (melancholy) person. There can be no truly deep sadness (black melancholy) for someone who lives in the midst of Nature and still has their senses alert. There was never a storm that did not sound like beautiful Æolian music (music produced naturally by the wind) to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly force a simple and brave person into common (vulgar) sadness. As long as I enjoy the friendship of the seasons, I trust that nothing can make life seem like a burden to me. The gentle rain that waters my beans today and keeps me inside the house is not dreary or sad; it is good for me too. Though it prevents me from hoeing my beans, the rain itself is far more valuable to the earth than my hoeing. Even if it rained so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low-lying areas, it would still be good for the grass on the higher ground (uplands). And since it would be good for the grass, it would, in the larger scheme of things, be good for me. Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they are. This favor seems beyond anything I consciously deserve (deserts). It feels as if I have a special guarantee and protection (warrant and surety) from them that my fellow humans do not have, as if I were especially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but perhaps the gods (or Nature) flatter me.

I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, except for one time. That was a few weeks after I first came to the woods. For about an hour, I doubted whether the nearby presence of other humans was essential for a calm (serene) and healthy life. To be alone felt unpleasant. But at the same time, I was aware of a slight temporary imbalance or “insanity” in my mood, and I seemed to foresee my own recovery from it. In the midst of a gentle rain, while these thoughts were strong, I suddenly became aware of such sweet and kind (beneficent) companionship (society) in Nature itself. I felt it in the very pattering of the raindrops, and in every sound and sight around my house. An infinite and unexplainable (unaccountable) friendliness surrounded me all at once, like an atmosphere holding me up. This feeling made the supposed advantages of human neighbors seem insignificant, and I have never really thought about needing them since. Every little pine needle seemed to expand and swell with sympathy and befriended me. I was made so distinctly aware of the presence of something deeply related (kindred) to me, even in scenes we usually call wild and dreary. I also realized that my truest and most humane kinship was not with another person or a villager, but with this presence in Nature. After that, I thought no place could ever feel strange to me again. (He then quotes a melancholy fragment from the Poems of Ossian, perhaps to contrast with his newfound contentment): “Mourning untimely consumes the sad; Few are their days in the land of the living, Beautiful daughter of Toscar.”

The Comfort of Storms and Solitude

Some of my pleasantest hours were spent during the long rainstorms in the spring or fall. These storms confined me to the house for the whole day, and I was soothed by their ceaseless roar and drumming (pelting) on the roof. An early twilight would begin a long evening, giving many thoughts time to take root and unfold themselves. During those driving northeast rainstorms that tested the village houses so much—when maids stood ready with mops and pails in the front hallways (entries) to keep the flood (deluge) out—I sat behind my door in my little house, which was practically all entryway itself, and thoroughly enjoyed its protection. In one heavy thundershower, lightning struck a large pitch pine tree across the pond. It made a very noticeable and perfectly regular spiral groove from the top of the tree to the bottom. The groove was an inch or more deep and four or five inches wide, like a groove you might carve into a walking stick. I passed by that tree again the other day. I was struck with awe looking up and seeing that mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and unstoppable (resistless) bolt of lightning came down out of the harmless-looking sky eight years ago. People frequently say to me, “I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to people, especially on rainy and snowy days and nights.” I am tempted to reply to them: This whole earth we live on is just a tiny point in space. How far apart, do you think, live the two most distant inhabitants of that star over there—a star whose width our instruments cannot even measure? Why, then, should I feel lonely? Isn’t our planet itself located within the vast Milky Way galaxy? The question you ask seems to me not to be the most important one. What kind of space is it that truly separates a person from others and makes him feel solitary? I have found that no amount of walking (exertion of the legs) can bring two minds much closer to one another.

What do we truly want most to live near? Surely not near many people crowded together, nor near the train depot, the post office, the barroom, the church (meeting-house), the schoolhouse, the grocery store, nor specific busy places like Beacon Hill in Boston or the Five Points district in New York City, where people most gather (congregate). Instead, we want to live near the eternal (perennial) source of our own life, the source from which we have found, in all our experience, that true life comes (to issue). We should seek this source as naturally as the willow tree grows near water and sends out its roots in that direction. What constitutes this source will vary for different people, but this is the place where a wise man will dig his cellar—the foundation of his life. One evening on the Walden road, I overtook one of my townsmen who has accumulated what people call “a handsome property”—though I never got a clear view of it myself. He was driving a pair of cattle to market. He asked me how I could possibly bring my mind to give up so many of the comforts of life. I answered that I was very sure I liked my simple life passably well; I was not joking. And so I went home to my bed, and left him to pick his way through the darkness and the mud toward Brighton (a livestock market near Boston)—or “Bright-town”—which place he would probably reach sometime the next morning.

Finding Life Within

Any prospect of spiritual awakening or truly coming to life makes all external times and places seem unimportant to a person who feels spiritually “dead.” The place where that awakening may happen is always the same—within oneself—and feels indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most part, we allow only external and temporary (outlying and transient) circumstances to determine our focus and activities (“make our occasions”). These external things are, in fact, the cause of our distraction from what truly matters. Nearest to all things is the power that shapes their being. Right next to us, the grandest laws of the universe are constantly being carried out. Truly next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, and with whom we love so well to talk, but the ultimate Workman whose work we ourselves are.

(He then quotes Confucian texts reflecting on these unseen powers): “How vast and profound is the influence of the subtle powers of Heaven and of Earth!” “We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them, and we do not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they cannot be separated from them.” “They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer sacrifices and offerings (oblations) to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtle intelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, on our right; they surround (environ) us on all sides.”

We humans are the subjects of an experiment—life—which is quite interesting to me. Can we not do without the company of our gossiping acquaintances for a little while under these circumstances? Can we not have our own thoughts to cheer us? Confucius says truly, “Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have neighbors.” (Meaning that true inner virtue naturally connects us to something larger, finding companionship).

The Observing Self

Through thinking, we can be “beside ourselves” in a healthy, sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind, we can stand apart (aloof) from our actions and their consequences. All things, good and bad, can then pass by us like a rushing stream (torrent). We realize we are not wholly submerged (involved) in Nature. I can choose to be either the passive driftwood carried by the stream, or like Indra (the Hindu king of the gods) in the sky, looking down on it. I might be strongly affected by a theatrical performance. On the other hand, I might not be affected by an actual event that seems to concern me much more directly. I only know myself as a human being (entity); the location (scene), so to speak, where thoughts and feelings occur. I am aware of a certain doubleness in myself. This allows me to stand as distant from my own experiences as I can from another person’s. However intense my experience, I am always conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me. This part seems separate, like a spectator that shares none of the experience but simply takes note of it. This observing self is no more “me” than it is “you”—it is a universal awareness. When the play of life—perhaps even a tragedy—is over, this spectator part simply goes its way. The experience was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, as far as the spectator was concerned. This sense of doubleness, however, may sometimes make us poor neighbors and friends, as it creates a distance.

The Companionship of Solitude

I find it healthy (wholesome) to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best people, soon becomes tiring and distracting (wearisome and dissipating). I love to be alone. I never found a companion that was as good company (companionable) as solitude. We are, for the most part, more lonely when we go out among people than when we stay in our own rooms (chambers). A person who is thinking or working is always essentially alone, no matter where they are physically. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space between a person and others. The truly diligent student in one of the crowded dormitory “hives” of Cambridge College (Harvard) is as solitary in his mind as a dervish (a Sufi mystic) meditating in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome because he is busy (employed). But when he comes home at night, he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his own thoughts. He feels he must be where he can “see the folks,” socialize (recreate), and, as he thinks, reward (remunerate) himself for his day’s solitude. Because of this need for company, he wonders how the student can sit alone in his room all night and most of the day without getting bored (ennui) or depressed (“the blues”). But the farmer doesn’t realize that the student, although indoors, is still hard at work in his own “field” (of study) and “chopping” in his own “woods” (of thought), just as the farmer works in his fields. The student, in turn, seeks the same kind of recreation and society that the farmer does, although the student’s form of it may be more concentrated (like reading a great book or having a deep conversation).

The Cheapness of Society

Society is usually too superficial (too cheap). We meet very frequently, not having had enough time apart to gain any new value or perspective to offer each other. We meet at meals three times a day and just give each other another taste of the same old, stale selves (“that old musty cheese that we are”). We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, just to make this frequent contact tolerable and prevent us from coming to open conflict. We meet constantly: at the post office, at social gatherings (the sociable), and around the fireside every night. We live packed closely together (live thick) and are constantly in each other’s way, stumbling over one another. I think that because of this constant, superficial contact, we lose some respect for one another. Certainly, meeting less frequently would be sufficient for all important and heartfelt communication. Consider the girls working in a factory—they are never alone, hardly even in their dreams. It would be better if there were only one inhabitant per square mile, as where I live. The true value of a person is not in their physical body (skin), requiring us always to be touching them or near them.

True Companionship

I have heard of a man who got lost in the woods and was dying of starvation and exhaustion at the foot of a tree. His loneliness was relieved by the bizarre (grotesque) visions his weakened body and disordered (diseased) imagination created, which he believed to be real company. Similarly, because of our own bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a similar, but more normal and natural, kind of companionship. We can come to know that we are never truly alone when we connect with Nature and our own inner resources.

My Company at Walden

I have a great deal of company in my house, especially in the morning when nobody physically calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons so that you might get an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than:

• The loon in the pond that laughs so loud.
• Walden Pond itself. What company does that lonely lake keep? And yet, it doesn’t suffer from sadness (“the blue devils”); instead, it reflects the blue sky (“blue angels”) in the azure color of its waters.
• The sun is alone, except in hazy weather when there sometimes appear to be two suns (one being an optical illusion, a mock sun).
• God is alone. But the devil, he is far from being alone; he has a great deal of company; he is legion (a multitude).
• A single mullein or dandelion plant in a pasture.
• A single bean leaf, or sorrel (a small plant).
• An insect like a horsefly or a humble-bee.
• Mill Brook (a local stream).
• A weathercock on a roof.
• The North Star.
• The south wind.
• An April shower.
• A January thaw.
• The first spider in a new house.

(He feels connected to all these natural elements and finds companionship in them.)

My Invisible Neighbors

I have occasional visits on long winter evenings, when the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the woods. One visitor is an “old settler” and original owner of the place, who is rumored to have dug Walden Pond, lined it with stones, and fringed it with pine woods. He tells me stories of old times and of the new eternity. Between us, we manage to pass a cheerful evening with good conversation (social mirth) and pleasant views of things, even without needing apples or cider. He is a most wise and humorous friend whom I love very much. He keeps himself more secret than Goffe or Whalley ever did (two English judges who signed the death warrant of King Charles I and later hid in New England). Although this old settler is thought to be long dead, no one can show where he is buried. (This figure likely represents the Spirit of the Place, History, or Nature itself). An elderly woman (dame) also lives in my neighborhood, though she is invisible to most people. I love to stroll sometimes in her fragrant herb garden, gathering medicinal herbs (simples) and listening to her ancient stories (fables). She has a mind of unequalled creativity (fertility), and her memory runs back further than mythology. She can tell me the original source of every fable and the real events (fact) on which each one is based, because the incidents happened when she was young. She is a healthy (ruddy) and vigorous (lusty) old dame who delights in all kinds of weather and all seasons, and she seems likely to outlive all her children yet. (This figure likely represents Mother Nature or ancient, timeless wisdom).

Nature’s Sympathy

The indescribable innocence and goodness (beneficence) of Nature—of the sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter—provide such constant health and cheer! And Nature has such sympathy for our human race that all of Nature would be affected if any person should ever grieve for a truly just cause. The sun’s brightness would fade, the winds would sigh like humans, the clouds would rain tears, and the woods would shed their leaves and put on mourning clothes in the middle of summer. Shall I not communicate (have intelligence) with the earth? Am I not partly made of leaves and decaying plants (vegetable mould) myself?

Nature’s Medicine and Morning Air

What is the medicine (pill) that will keep us well, calm (serene), and contented? It is not the remedies of our great-grandfathers, but the universal, plant-based (vegetable, botanic) medicines of our great-grandmother Nature. With these, Nature has kept herself young always. She has outlived so many famously long-lived people (old Parrs) in her time and has fed her own health with their decaying richness (fatness). For my own cure-all (panacea), instead of one of those quack medicine vials—containing some mixture dipped from Acheron (a river in the mythical underworld) and the Dead Sea, sold from those long, shallow, black wagons that look like schooner ships carrying bottles—let me just have a deep breath (draught) of pure, undiluted morning air. Morning air! If people will not drink this at the very source (fountain-head) of the day, why, then, perhaps we should bottle some up and sell it in the shops. It could be for the benefit of those who seem to have lost their connection (“subscription ticket”) to morning time in this world.

But remember, this “bottled morning air” will not stay fresh until noon, even in the coolest cellar. Its energy will pop the corks (drive out the stopples) long before then and follow the dawn (Aurora) westward across the land. (Morning’s freshness is vital but fleeting and cannot be artificially preserved.)

I am no worshipper of Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health. She was the daughter of that old herb-doctor Æsculapius (god of medicine). On monuments, she is often shown holding a serpent in one hand and a cup in the other, with the serpent sometimes drinking from the cup (symbols associated with medicine and healing). Instead, I prefer Hebe, the Greek goddess of youth. She was the cupbearer to Jupiter (king of the gods) and was said to be the daughter of Juno (queen of the gods) and wild lettuce (suggesting a natural, wild vitality). Hebe had the power to restore gods and men to the full vigor of youth. She represents perfect, robust health and vitality. She was probably the only thoroughly healthy, strong (robust), and perfectly conditioned young lady who ever walked the globe. Wherever she went, it became spring, symbolizing renewal and youthful energy. (Thoreau implies he values this vibrant, youthful energy and natural vitality more than just the preservation of health or the curing of disease represented by Hygeia).

Visitors

My Need for Society

I think that I love society as much as most people do. When I meet an interesting, vibrant person (full-blooded man), I am ready enough to engage deeply with them for a time, almost like a bloodsucker fastening onto its host. I am naturally no hermit. If my business or purpose required it, I could probably outlast even the most dedicated regular (sturdiest frequenter) at the barroom in a contest of socializing.

Visitors at My Small House

I had three chairs in my house:

• One chair was for solitude.
• Two chairs were for friendship.
• Three chairs were for society.

When larger, unexpected groups of visitors came, there was only the third chair available for all the extra people. But usually, they made the best use of the space (economized the room) by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house can hold. I have had twenty-five or thirty people (souls, with their bodies) under my roof at one time. Yet, despite the physical closeness, we often parted without feeling that we had truly connected or come very near to one another on a deeper level.

Many of our houses, both public buildings and private homes, seem extravagantly large for the people living in them. They have countless rooms (innumerable apartments), huge halls, and cellars for storing wine and other luxuries (munitions of peace - an ironic phrase). These buildings are often so vast and magnificent that the inhabitants seem like tiny pests (vermin) infesting them. I am surprised when a doorman (herald) blows his horn to announce an arrival before some grand hotel (like the Tremont House, Astor House, or Middlesex House – famous large hotels of the time). Then, out creeps onto the porch (piazza) a single, ridiculously small figure, like a mouse, representing all the inhabitants. Soon, this figure disappears back into some hole in the pavement.

The Need for Space in Conversation

One inconvenience I sometimes felt in such a small house was the difficulty of getting far enough away from my guest when we began to discuss big ideas using big words. Your thoughts need room to get ready (into sailing trim) and travel a short distance before they reach their destination (the listener’s understanding). The “bullet” of your thought needs time to stabilize its flight path (overcome its sideways wobble and ricochet motion) and find its final, steady course before it reaches the listener’s ear. Otherwise, it might just glance off or go right through their head without being understood properly. Also, our sentences seemed to need physical space to unfold properly and form their structure, like columns of soldiers arranging themselves. Individuals, like nations, need suitable, broad, and natural boundaries between them, perhaps even a significant neutral space. I have found it a unique luxury to talk across Walden Pond to a companion on the opposite shore. That distance felt right for deep conversation. In my house, we were so close physically that we couldn’t really begin to hear each other properly—we couldn’t speak softly enough without our words interfering with each other, like when you throw two stones into calm water so close together that their ripples break each other’s patterns. If we are merely talkative (loquacious) and loud, then we can stand very close together, cheek by jowl, even feeling each other’s breath. But if we speak carefully (reservedly) and thoughtfully, we need to be farther apart so that the physical presence—the “animal heat and moisture”—can dissipate and not distract us. If we want to enjoy the most intimate connection with that part in each of us which is beyond words—the inner self—we must not only be silent but usually be so far apart physically that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice anyway. Seen this way, speech is mainly for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing (spiritually or intellectually). There are many fine, subtle things we cannot say if we have to shout. Often, as a conversation in my cabin began to take on a higher and grander tone, my guest and I would gradually shove our chairs farther apart until they touched the walls in opposite corners. Even then, commonly, there wasn’t enough room for our thoughts.

My Best Room: The Pine Woods

My “best” room, however—my parlor or withdrawing room, always ready for company, a room whose carpet the sun rarely fell upon—was the pine wood behind my house. In the summer, when important (distinguished) guests came, I took them there. A priceless servant (domestic)—Nature herself—swept the floor, dusted the “furniture” (the logs and rocks), and kept everything in perfect order.

Simple Hospitality

If just one guest came, he sometimes shared my simple (frugal) meal. It was no interruption to our conversation for me to be stirring a pot of cornmeal mush (hasty-pudding) or watching a loaf of bread baking in the ashes of the fire. But if twenty people came and sat in my house, nothing was said about dinner, even if there was only enough bread for two. It was as if eating were a forgotten habit. We naturally practiced abstinence (going without food). This was never felt to be rude or lacking in hospitality, but rather the most proper and considerate way to act. When company focused on conversation and ideas, the waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair with food, seemed miraculously slowed down (retarded). Our vital energy (vigor) held its ground. In this way, focused on higher things, I could entertain a thousand visitors as easily as twenty. If anyone ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they can be sure that I sympathized with them, at least. It is so easy, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in place of old ones. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you serve. For my own part, I was never so effectively discouraged (deterred) from visiting a man’s house again—not even by a fierce guard dog like Cerberus (the mythical dog guarding Hades)—as by the excessive fuss (parade) someone made about serving me dinner. I took such elaborate efforts to be a very polite and indirect hint never to trouble him again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes of overdone hospitality. I would be proud to have the motto for my cabin be these lines from the poet Edmund Spenser, which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf left as a card: “Arrivéd there, the little house they fill, Ne looke [do not look] for entertainment where none was; Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment has.” (Meaning: They filled the small house, didn’t expect fancy entertainment; simple rest was their feast, and noble minds find contentment in simplicity.)

An Example from History: Winslow and Massasoit

When Edward Winslow, who later became governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a companion on a formal visit to Massasoit (the Wampanoag leader) on foot through the woods, they arrived tired and hungry at Massasoit’s lodge. They were well received by the chief, but nothing was said about eating that first day. When night came, to quote their own account: “He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at one end and we at the other… Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.” (The lodging was crowded and uncomfortable by their standards.) At one o’clock the next day, Massasoit “brought two fishes that he had shot,” about three times as big as a bream. “These being boiled, there were at least forty people who expected a share in them. Most ate of them. This meal was the only one we had in two nights and a day; and if one of us hadn’t bought a partridge, we would have made our return journey fasting.” Fearing they would become light-headed from lack of food and also lack of sleep—due to the Native Americans’ “barbarous singing” (they used chanting to help themselves fall asleep)—and wanting to get home while they still had strength, Winslow and his companion departed. As for lodging, it is true they were poorly entertained by English standards, although what they found inconvenient (the crowded bed) was undoubtedly intended as an honor by Massasoit. But as far as food was concerned, I do not see how the Native Americans could have done better. They had nothing to eat themselves, and they were wiser than to think that apologies could substitute for food for their guests. So, they simply tightened their belts and said nothing about the lack of food. Another time when Winslow visited them, it was a season of plenty, and there was no shortage of food.

Solitude Filters Society

As for human company (“men”), one can find people almost anywhere if needed. I actually had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period of my life; I mean, I had some significant visitors. I met several people there under more favorable circumstances—more naturally and simply—than I could anywhere else. But fewer people came to see me for unimportant (trivial) business. In this respect, my company was filtered (winnowed) by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far into the great ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, only the finest particles (finest sediment)—perhaps the most worthwhile visitors or thoughts—were deposited around me. Besides, I sensed hints (evidences wafted) of unexplored inner continents, vast potentials waiting on the other side of that solitude.

A Visitor: The Canadian Woodchopper

Who should come to my cabin (lodge) this morning but a true “Homeric” or “Paphlagonian” man—someone simple, natural, almost from an ancient time. He had such a suitable and poetic name that I am sorry I cannot print it here. He was a Canadian, a woodchopper and maker of fence posts, who could cut the holes for fifty posts in a day. He had made his last supper on a woodchuck his dog caught. He, too, had heard of the poet Homer. He said that, “if it were not for books,” he would “not know what to do rainy days,” although perhaps he hadn’t read a whole book through for many rainy seasons. Some priest back in his native parish far away, who could pronounce the Greek language itself, had taught him to read verses from the Testament in Greek. And now, I must translate for him, while he holds the book, the passage from the Iliad where Achilles scolds Patroclus for looking sad: “Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?” (Achilles continues, suggesting reasons Patroclus might be sad): “Or have you alone heard some bad news from Phthia [their homeland]? They say that Menoetius (your father) still lives, son of Actor, And Peleus (my father) still lives, son of Aeacus, among the Myrmidons, If either of them had died, we should greatly grieve.” The woodchopper listened and simply said, “That’s good.” He had a great bundle of white-oak bark under his arm, which he had gathered that Sunday morning for a sick person (oak bark was used medicinally). “I suppose there’s no harm in going after such a thing today,” he remarked. To him, Homer was just a name, a great writer, although he didn’t know what Homer’s writing was actually about. It would be hard to find a more simple and natural man. Vice and disease, which cast such a dark moral shadow over the civilized world, seemed to hardly exist for him. He was about twenty-eight years old. He had left Canada and his father’s house a dozen years before to work in the United States and earn money to eventually buy a farm, perhaps back in his native country. He looked sturdy, as if “cast in the coarsest mould.” He had a strong but somewhat slow-moving (sluggish) body, yet he carried it gracefully. He had a thick, sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull, sleepy blue eyes that occasionally lit up with expression. He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored overcoat (greatcoat), and cowhide boots. He ate a great deal of meat. He usually carried his dinner—cold meats, often including cold woodchuck, and coffee in a stone bottle dangling by a string from his belt—in a tin pail to his work site, a couple of miles past my house (for he chopped wood all summer). Sometimes he offered me a drink of his coffee. He came by early in the morning, crossing my bean-field, but without the anxiety or haste to get to work that typical Yankees showed. He wasn’t going to hurt himself by rushing. He didn’t care if he only earned enough to cover his room and board. Frequently, if his dog caught a woodchuck on the way to work, he would leave his dinner pail in the bushes and walk back a mile and a half to skin and prepare (dress) the woodchuck. He would leave it in the cool cellar of the house where he boarded. Before doing this, he might first think (deliberate) for half an hour whether he could safely sink the woodchuck in the pond to keep it cool until nightfall—he loved to dwell long on these simple, practical thoughts. As he went by in the morning, he might say, “How thick the pigeons are today! If working every day weren’t my trade, I could get all the meat I’d ever want just by hunting—pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges. By gosh! I could get all I’d need for a week in just one day.”

He was a skillful chopper and even added some decorative touches (flourishes and ornaments) to his work. He cut his trees level and close to the ground so that the new sprouts coming up afterward would be more vigorous, and so a sled could slide easily over the stumps in winter. Instead of leaving a whole nearby tree standing to support his stacked firewood (corded wood), he would carefully pare it down to a slender stake or splinter that you could eventually break off easily by hand.

The Woodchopper’s Character

He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary, and yet so happy (happy withal). He was like a wellspring of good humor and contentment that overflowed in his eyes. His cheerfulness (mirth) was pure (without alloy, meaning unmixed with anything negative). Sometimes I saw him at his work in the woods, felling trees. He would greet me with a laugh of pure, inexpressible satisfaction, and a greeting in Canadian French, although he spoke English just as well. When I approached him, he would stop his work. With half-suppressed amusement, he would lie down along the trunk of a pine tree he had just cut. He would peel off the soft inner bark, roll it up into a ball, and chew it while he laughed and talked. He had such an abundance (exuberance) of animal spirits and vitality that he sometimes literally tumbled down and rolled on the ground with laughter at anything that made him think and amused (tickled) him. Looking around at the trees, he would exclaim, “By George! I can enjoy myself well enough here just chopping wood; I don’t want any better sport!” Sometimes, when he had free time, he amused himself all day alone in the woods with a pocket pistol, firing salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked along. In the winter, he had a fire near his work site where, at noon, he warmed his coffee in a kettle. As he sat on a log to eat his dinner, the chickadees would sometimes come around, alight on his arm, and peck at the potato he held in his fingers. He said that he “liked to have the little fellers about him.”

In him, the physical, instinctual man (the “animal man”) was most developed. In terms of physical endurance and contentment, he was like a cousin to the pine tree and the rock. I asked him once if he wasn’t sometimes tired at night after working hard all day. He answered, with a sincere and serious look, “Gorrappit [likely an exclamation like ‘Gosh darn it’], I never was tired in my life.” But the intellectual and what is called the spiritual man in him were undeveloped, slumbering as if in an infant. His only instruction had been in that innocent but ineffective way in which Catholic priests sometimes taught the native peoples (aborigines). In this method, the student is never really educated to the level of conscious thought and critical understanding, but only trained to the level of trust and reverence. A child taught this way is not helped to become a thinking man but is kept a child. When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and contentment as his main gifts (portion). She supported him on every side with reverence for nature and reliance on basic things, so that he might live out his seventy years (threescore years and ten) essentially as a child of nature. He was so genuine and natural (unsophisticated) that no formal introduction could really serve to introduce him, any more than you could formally introduce a woodchuck to your neighbor. You simply had to get to know him through experience, just as I did. He would not pretend or play any social part. Men paid him wages for his work, and so helped provide him with food and clothing. But he never exchanged opinions or abstract ideas with them. He was so simply and naturally humble—if someone who never aims higher can even be called humble—that humility was not a distinct quality in him, nor could he even conceive of it. Wiser, more educated men seemed like demigods to him. If you told him that such a person was coming to visit, he acted as if he thought that anything so grand would expect nothing from him. The great visitor would take all the responsibility on himself, and the woodchopper could remain unnoticed. He never heard the sound of praise directed at himself. He particularly respected (reverenced) the writer and the preacher. To him, their performances seemed like miracles. When I told him that I wrote a considerable amount, he thought for a long time that I just meant my handwriting, because he himself could write a remarkably good hand. I sometimes found the name of his native parish beautifully written in the snow beside the highway, with the proper French accent marks, and I knew that he had passed by. I asked him if he ever wished to write down his thoughts. He said that he had read letters and written letters for people who could not read or write themselves, but he had never tried to write his own thoughts. No, he said, he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t know what to put first; the effort would kill him. And besides, there was spelling to pay attention to at the same time!

I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer once asked him if he didn’t want the world to be changed. But the woodchopper answered with a chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that such a question had ever even been considered before, “No, I like it well enough.” It would have suggested many things to a philosopher to have dealings with him. To a stranger, he appeared to know nothing about things in general. Yet, I sometimes saw in him a depth, a kind of man I had not seen before. I couldn’t be sure if he was as wise as Shakespeare in some intuitive way, or as simply ignorant as a child. I didn’t know whether to suspect him of having a fine poetic awareness or just plain stupidity. A townsman told me that when he met the woodchopper strolling (sauntering) through the village in his small, close-fitting cap and whistling to himself, he reminded him of a prince in disguise.

His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic book. He was quite skilled (expert) in arithmetic. The almanac served as a kind of encyclopedia (cyclopædia) for him; he supposed it contained a summary (abstract) of all human knowledge, as indeed almanacs do to a considerable extent. I loved to ask his opinion (sound him) on the various social reforms being discussed at the time. He never failed to look at them in the most simple and practical light. He had usually never even heard of such things before. Could he do without factories? I asked. He said he had worn homemade Vermont gray cloth, and that was good enough. Could he manage without tea and coffee? Did this country provide any drink besides water? He replied that he had soaked Eastern Hemlock needles (from the tree, Tsuga canadensis) in water and drunk it, and he thought that was better than plain water in warm weather. When I asked him if he could do without money, he explained the convenience of money in such a practical way that it suggested and matched the most philosophical accounts of how money originated, including the very derivation of the word pecunia (Latin for money, related to pecus, meaning cattle, an early form of wealth). He reasoned that if an ox were his only property, and he wished to buy needles and thread at the store, it would be inconvenient and soon impossible to keep mortgaging a small portion of the ox each time to pay for such small items. He could defend many existing social institutions better than any philosopher because, in describing how they affected him personally, he gave the true, practical reason for their existence (prevalence). Abstract speculation about alternatives had simply never occurred to him. At another time, I told him Plato’s definition of a man—“a biped [two-legged creature] without feathers”—and the story about Diogenes exhibiting a plucked chicken and calling it “Plato’s man.” The woodchopper thought for a moment and pointed out what he considered an important difference: the chicken’s knees bent the wrong way compared to a human’s. (Again, a very practical observation). He would sometimes exclaim, “How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all day!” I asked him once, after not seeing him for many months, if he had gotten any new ideas that summer. “Good Lord,” he said, “a man that has to work as I do, if he just doesn’t forget the ideas he has already had, he will do well. Maybe the man you are hoeing with wants to race; then, by gorry [a mild oath], your mind must be right there on the work; you just think of weeds.” He would sometimes ask me first, on such occasions, if I had made any improvements or had any new ideas.

Visitors

My Relationship with Society

I think I love society as much as most people do. When I encounter a vibrant, interesting person (full-blooded man), I am quite ready to engage with them intensely for a time, almost like a bloodsucker fastening onto its host. I am not naturally a hermit. If my purpose (business) required it, I could probably outlast even the most dedicated regular (sturdiest frequenter) at the local barroom in a contest of socializing.

My Three Chairs

I had three chairs in my house:

• One chair was for solitude (when I was alone).
• Two chairs were for friendship (when a companion visited).
• Three chairs were for society (when a small group came).

When larger, unexpected groups of visitors arrived, there was technically only the third chair available for all the extra people. But usually, they made the best use of the limited space (economized the room) by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house can actually hold. I have had twenty-five or thirty people (souls, with their bodies) under my roof at one time. Yet, despite being physically close, we often parted without being aware that we had truly connected or come very near to one another on a deeper level.

Many of our houses, both public buildings and private homes, seem ridiculously large for the people living in them. They have countless rooms (innumerable apartments), huge halls, and cellars for storing wine and other luxuries (which Thoreau ironically calls munitions of peace). These buildings are often so vast and magnificent that the inhabitants seem tiny and insignificant, like pests (vermin) infesting them. I am surprised when a doorman (herald) blows his horn to announce an arrival before some grand hotel (like the Tremont House, Astor House, or Middlesex House – famous large hotels of the time). Then, out creeps onto the porch (piazza) a single, ridiculously small figure, like a mouse, representing the sole inhabitant of the grand structure. This “mouse” soon disappears back into some hole in the pavement.

The Need for Space in Conversation

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in such a small house was the difficulty of getting far enough away from my guest when we began to discuss big ideas using big words. You need space for your thoughts to get organized and ready (into sailing trim) and travel a short distance before they properly reach their destination (the listener’s mind). The “bullet” of your thought needs time and space to stabilize its path (overcome its sideways wobble and ricochet motion) before it reaches the listener’s ear accurately. Otherwise, it might just glance off or metaphorically “plough out again through the side of his head” without being truly understood. Also, our sentences seemed to need room to unfold properly, like columns of soldiers forming ranks in the space between us.

Individuals, like nations, need suitable, broad, and natural boundaries between them. They even need a considerable neutral space. I have found it a unique luxury to talk across Walden Pond to a companion on the opposite shore. That distance felt right for meaningful conversation. Inside my house, we were so physically close that we couldn’t really begin to hear each other deeply—we couldn’t speak softly enough without interfering with each other’s thoughts, like when you throw two stones into calm water so near together that their expanding ripples break each other’s patterns.

If we are merely talkative (loquacious) and loud, then we can afford to stand very close together, practically cheek by jowl, even feeling each other’s breath. But if we speak carefully (reservedly) and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart. This allows the physical presence—the “animal heat and moisture”—to dissipate and not distract from the ideas being shared. If we want to enjoy the most intimate connection with that deep part in each of us which exists without, or above, being spoken to—our inner self—we must not only be silent but often be so far apart physically that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice anyway. Judged by this standard, speech is mainly for the convenience of those who are “hard of hearing” (spiritually or intellectually). There are many fine, subtle things we cannot say if we have to shout. Often, as a conversation in my small cabin began to take on a higher and grander tone, my guest and I would gradually push our chairs farther apart until they touched the walls in opposite corners. Even then, commonly, there still wasn’t enough space for our thoughts.

My Best Room: The Pine Woods

My “best” room, however—my parlor or withdrawing room, always ready for company, a room whose natural “carpet” the sun rarely fell upon—was the pine wood behind my house. In the summer, when important (distinguished) guests came, I took them there. A priceless servant (domestic)—Nature herself—kept it perfect: she swept the floor, dusted the “furniture” (the logs, rocks, and pine needles), and kept everything in beautiful order.

Simple Hospitality

If just one guest came, he sometimes shared my simple (frugal) meal. It was no interruption to our conversation for me to be stirring a pot of cornmeal mush (hasty-pudding) or watching a loaf of bread baking slowly in the ashes of the fire while we talked. But if twenty people came and sat in my house, nothing was said about dinner, even if there was technically enough bread for two people. It was as if eating were a forgotten habit; we naturally practiced abstinence (going without food), focusing instead on conversation and fellowship. This was never felt by my guests or myself to be an offense against hospitality, but rather the most proper and considerate way to interact. In such gatherings, the usual concerns about physical life—its waste, decay, and constant need for repair through food—seemed miraculously paused (retarded). Our mental and spiritual energy (vital vigor) remained strong. In this way, focused on conversation and ideas, I could entertain a thousand visitors as easily as twenty. If anyone ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they can depend upon it that I sympathized with them, at least. It is so easy, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs (like valuing conversation over elaborate meals) in place of old ones. You need not base your reputation on the dinners you serve. For my own part, I was never so effectively discouraged (deterred) from visiting someone’s house again—not even by a fierce guard dog like Cerberus (the mythical three-headed dog guarding the underworld)—as by the excessive fuss (parade) someone made about serving me dinner. I took such elaborate efforts to be a very polite and indirect hint never to trouble him with my presence again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes of overdone hospitality. I would be proud to have the motto for my cabin be these lines from the poet Edmund Spenser, which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf left as a visiting card: “Arrivéd there, the little house they fill, Ne looke [Do not look] for entertainment where none was; Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment has.” (Meaning: They filled the small house but didn’t expect fancy entertainment; simple rest was their feast, as they wished. A noble mind finds contentment in simplicity.)

An Example from History: Winslow and Massasoit

Consider the historical account of Edward Winslow, who later became governor of the Plymouth Colony. He went with a companion on a formal visit to Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag people. They traveled on foot through the woods and arrived tired and hungry at Massasoit’s lodge. They were received well by the chief, but nothing was said about eating that first day. When night came, to quote their own words: “He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at one end and we at the other… Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.” (The shared sleeping arrangement, likely intended as an honor by Massasoit, was very uncomfortable for the Englishmen.) At one o’clock the next afternoon, Massasoit “brought two fishes that he had shot,” about three times as big as a bream (a type of fish). “These being boiled, there were at least forty people who expected a share in them. Most ate of them. This meal was the only one we had in two nights and a day; and if one of us hadn’t bought a partridge [during the journey], we would have made our return journey fasting.” Fearing they would become weak (light-headed) from lack of food and sleep (they were disturbed by the Native Americans’ “barbarous singing,” which was actually their custom of chanting themselves to sleep), and wanting to get home while they still had strength, Winslow and his companion left. Regarding the lodging, it is true they were poorly entertained by English standards, although the crowded sleeping arrangement was undoubtedly intended as an honor. But as far as the food was concerned, I do not see how Massasoit and his people could have done better. They had nothing to eat themselves. They were wiser than to think that making apologies could substitute for food for their guests. So, they simply tightened their belts to endure the hunger and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow visited them, it was a season of plenty, and there was no shortage of food during that visit. (This highlights that the earlier scarcity was real, not a lack of hospitality).

Solitude Filters Society

As for finding human company (“men”), one can find people almost anywhere if one seeks them out. I actually had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period of my life; I mean, I had some truly significant visitors. I met several people there under more favorable circumstances—more naturally and directly—than I could anywhere else. But fewer people came to see me for trivial or unimportant business. In this respect, my company was effectively filtered (winnowed) by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far into the great ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of everyday society empty, that mostly, as far as my own needs were concerned, only the finest particles (finest sediment)—the most worthwhile visitors or ideas—were deposited around me. Besides, from that solitude, hints (evidences) seemed to drift (wafted) to me of unexplored inner continents, vast potentials waiting on the other side of my conscious mind.

A Visitor: The Canadian Woodchopper

Who should come to my cabin (lodge) this morning but a true “Homeric” or “Paphlagonian” kind of man—someone simple, natural, direct, almost like a figure from an ancient epic. He had such a suitable and poetic name that I am sorry I cannot print it here. He was a Canadian, a woodchopper who also made fence posts. He was strong enough to cut the holes for fifty posts in a day. He had eaten a woodchuck that his dog caught for his last supper. He, too, had heard of the poet Homer. He said that, “if it were not for books,” he would “not know what to do rainy days,” although perhaps he hadn’t read a whole book through for many rainy seasons. Some priest back in his native parish far away, a priest who could pronounce the original Greek language, had taught him to read verses from the Greek Testament. And now, here in my cabin, I must translate for him, while he holds the book, the passage from Homer’s Iliad where Achilles asks his dear friend Patroclus why he looks so sad: “Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?” (Achilles continues, guessing at reasons for Patroclus’s sadness): “Or have you alone heard some bad news from Phthia [our homeland]? They say that Menoetius (your father) still lives, son of Actor, And Peleus (my father) still lives, son of Aeacus, among the Myrmidons, If either of them had died, we should greatly grieve.”

The woodchopper listened and simply said, “That’s good.” He had a large bundle of white-oak bark under his arm, which he had gathered that Sunday morning for a sick person (oak bark was used in traditional medicine). “I suppose there’s no harm in going after such a thing today,” he commented. To him, Homer was just a name, a great writer, although he didn’t know what Homer’s writing was actually about. It would be hard to find a more simple and natural man. Vice and disease, which cast such a dark moral shadow over the civilized world, seemed to hardly exist for him. He was about twenty-eight years old. He had left Canada and his father’s house a dozen years before to work in the United States. His goal was to earn money to eventually buy a farm, perhaps back in his native country. He looked sturdy, as if made from a coarse mold. He had a strong but somewhat slow-moving (sluggish) body, yet he carried himself gracefully. He had a thick, sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull, sleepy blue eyes that occasionally lit up with expression. He wore simple work clothes: a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored overcoat (greatcoat), and cowhide boots. He ate a lot of meat. He usually carried his dinner—cold meats, often including cold woodchuck, and coffee in a stone bottle dangling by a string from his belt—in a tin pail to his work site, which was a couple of miles past my house (he chopped wood all summer). Sometimes he offered me a drink of his coffee. He came by early in the morning, crossing my bean-field, but without the anxiety or haste to get to work that typical Yankees often showed. He wasn’t going to hurt himself by rushing. He didn’t seem to care if he only earned enough to cover his basic room and board. Frequently, if his dog caught a woodchuck on the way to work, he would leave his dinner pail in the bushes and walk back a mile and a half to skin and prepare (dress) the animal. He would leave it in the cool cellar of the house where he boarded. Before doing this, he might first think (deliberate) for half an hour whether he could safely sink the woodchuck in the pond to keep it cool until nightfall—he loved to dwell long on these simple, practical matters. As he went by in the morning, he might say, “Look how thick the pigeons are today! If working every day weren’t my trade, I could get all the meat I’d ever want just by hunting—pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges. By gosh! I could get all I’d need for a whole week in just one day of hunting.”

He was a skillful chopper and even added some decorative touches (flourishes and ornaments) to his craft. He cut trees level and close to the ground so that the new sprouts coming up afterward would grow more vigorously, and so a sled could slide easily over the stumps in winter. When stacking firewood (corded wood), instead of leaving a whole nearby tree standing to prop up the stack, he would carefully trim (pare) it down to a slender stake or splinter that you could eventually break off easily by hand.

The Woodchopper’s Character

He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary, and yet so genuinely happy (happy withal). He seemed like a deep wellspring of good humor and contentment that overflowed from his eyes. His cheerfulness (mirth) was pure and genuine (without alloy). Sometimes I saw him at his work in the woods, felling trees. He would greet me with a laugh of pure, inexpressible satisfaction, and a greeting in Canadian French, although he spoke English just as well. When I approached him, he would stop his work. With half-suppressed amusement, he would lie down along the trunk of a pine tree he had just cut. He would peel off the soft inner bark, roll it up into a ball, and chew it while he laughed and talked. He possessed such an abundance (exuberance) of natural energy and vitality (animal spirits) that he sometimes literally tumbled down and rolled on the ground with laughter at anything that made him think and amused (tickled) him. Looking around at the trees, he would exclaim, “By George! I can enjoy myself well enough here just chopping wood; I don’t want any better sport!” Sometimes, when he had free time, he amused himself all day alone in the woods with a pocket pistol, firing salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked along. In the winter, he built a fire near his work site where, at noon, he warmed his coffee in a kettle. As he sat on a log to eat his dinner, the chickadees would sometimes come around, land on his arm, and peck at the potato he held in his fingers. He said simply that he “liked to have the little fellers about him.”

In this man, the physical, instinctual part of human nature (the “animal man”) was primarily developed. In terms of physical endurance and contentment, he seemed akin to the pine tree and the rock. I asked him once if he wasn’t sometimes tired at night after working hard all day. He answered, with a sincere and serious look, “Gorrappit [likely ‘Gosh darn it’], I never was tired in my life.” But the intellectual and what is called the spiritual man in him were undeveloped, slumbering as if in an infant. His only formal instruction had been in that innocent but ultimately ineffective way in which Catholic priests sometimes taught the native peoples (aborigines). In this method, the student is never really educated to the level of conscious thought and critical understanding, but is only trained to the level of trust and reverence. A child taught this way is not helped to become a thinking adult but is kept essentially a child. When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and contentment as his main inheritance (portion). She seemed to support him on every side with a natural reverence for life and reliance on basic things, ensuring that he might live out his seventy years (threescore years and ten) essentially as a child of nature. He was so genuine and natural (unsophisticated) that no formal introduction could really serve to introduce him, any more than you could formally introduce a woodchuck to your neighbor. You simply had to get to know him through direct experience, just as I did. He would not pretend or play any social role. Men paid him wages for his work, and so helped provide him with food and clothing. But he never exchanged opinions or abstract ideas with them. He was so simply and naturally humble—if someone who never aims higher can even be called humble—that humility was not a distinct quality in him, nor could he even conceive of it as an abstract virtue. Wiser, more educated men seemed like demigods to him. If you told him that such a person was coming to visit, he acted as if he believed that anything so grand would expect nothing from a simple man like himself. He assumed the great visitor would take all the responsibility for the interaction, allowing him to remain unnoticed. He never seemed to hear or register any praise directed at himself. He particularly respected (reverenced) writers and preachers. To him, their performances—writing books, giving sermons—seemed like miracles. When I told him that I myself wrote a considerable amount, he thought for a long time that I merely meant my handwriting, because he himself could write a remarkably good hand. I sometimes found the name of his native parish back in Canada handsomely written in the snow beside the highway, complete with the proper French accent marks, and I knew that he had passed that way. I asked him if he ever wished to write down his own thoughts. He said that he had read letters and written letters for other people who could not read or write themselves, but he had never tried to write his own thoughts. No, he insisted, he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t know what ideas to put first; the effort would probably kill him. And besides, there was spelling to worry about at the same time!

I heard a story that a distinguished wise man and social reformer once asked the woodchopper if he didn’t want the world to be changed or improved. But the woodchopper answered with a chuckle of genuine surprise in his Canadian accent, apparently not knowing that such a question had ever even been seriously considered before, “No, I like it well enough just the way it is.” It would have provided much food for thought for a philosopher to have dealings with him. To a stranger, he might appear to know nothing about things in general. Yet, I sometimes saw in him a depth, a kind of man I had not seen before. I couldn’t be sure if he possessed a deep, intuitive wisdom like Shakespeare or if he was as simply ignorant as a child. I didn’t know whether to suspect him of having a fine poetic awareness or just plain stupidity. A townsman once told me that when he met the woodchopper strolling (sauntering) through the village in his small, close-fitting cap and whistling contentedly to himself, he reminded him of a prince in disguise.

His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic book. He was quite skilled (expert) in arithmetic. The almanac served as a kind of encyclopedia (cyclopædia) for him; he supposed it contained a summary (abstract) of all important human knowledge, as indeed almanacs of that time did to a considerable extent. I loved to ask his opinion (sound him) on the various social reforms being discussed in those days. He never failed to look at them in the most simple and practical way possible. He usually had never even heard of such reform movements before. Could he do without factories? I asked. He replied that he had worn sturdy, homemade Vermont gray cloth, and that was good enough for him. Could he manage (dispense) without tea and coffee? Did this country offer any drink besides water? He answered that he had soaked Eastern Hemlock needles (from the Tsuga canadensis tree) in water and drunk the tea, and he thought that was better than plain water in warm weather. When I asked him if he could do without money, he explained the convenience of money in such a basic, practical way that his explanation seemed to suggest and agree with the most philosophical theories about the origin of this institution, including the very derivation of the word pecunia (Latin for money, related to pecus, meaning cattle, an early form of wealth). He reasoned, for example, that if an ox were his only property, and he wished to buy needles and thread at the store, it would be inconvenient and soon impossible to keep mortgaging a small portion of the creature each time to pay for such small items. He could defend many existing social institutions better than any philosopher because, in describing them simply as they concerned him personally, he gave the true, practical reason for their existence (prevalence). Abstract speculation about other possibilities had simply never occurred to him. At another time, I told him Plato’s definition of a man—“a biped [two-legged creature] without feathers”—and the related story about Diogenes exhibiting a plucked chicken and calling it “Plato’s man.” The woodchopper thought for a moment and pointed out what he considered an important difference: the chicken’s knees bent the wrong way compared to a human’s. (Again, a very practical, observational point rather than an abstract one). He would sometimes exclaim, “How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all day!” I asked him once, after not seeing him for many months, if he had gotten any new ideas that summer. “Good Lord,” he said, “a man that has to work as hard as I do, if he just doesn’t forget the ideas he has already had, he will do well. Maybe the man you are hoeing corn with is inclined to race; then, by gorry [a mild oath], your mind must be right there on the hoeing; you just think about the weeds.” He would sometimes ask me first, on such occasions, if I had made any improvements or had any new ideas.

Types of Visitors

Many travelers came out of their way to see me and the inside of my house. Often, as an excuse for calling, they asked for a glass of water. I told them that I drank directly from the pond and pointed them toward it, offering to lend them a dipper. Even though I lived far from the village, I was not exempt from that annual restlessness (visitation) that seems to occur around the first of April, when everybody feels the urge to be on the move. I had my share of visitors during that time, some bringing good luck or pleasant company, though there were also some strange individuals (curious specimens) among them. Men with intellectual disabilities (“Half-witted men”) from the town poorhouse (almshouse) and elsewhere came to see me. I tried to encourage them to use all the intelligence (wit) they possessed and to share their thoughts and feelings (“make their confessions”) with me. In such cases, I made intelligence itself the theme of our conversation, and I felt rewarded (compensated) by the interaction. Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser in practical ways than the so-called overseers of the poor and town officials (selectmen). I thought perhaps it was time their roles were reversed (the tables were turned). Regarding intelligence (wit), I learned that there often wasn’t much difference between those considered “half” witted and those considered “whole.”

One day, in particular, a harmless, simple-minded poor man (pauper) visited me. I had often seen him and others like him used essentially as part of a fence (fencing stuff)—standing or sitting on an overturned bushel basket in the fields for hours just to keep cattle from straying, and perhaps to keep himself from wandering off too. He expressed a wish to live simply, as I did. He told me, with the utmost simplicity and truth—a frankness quite superior, or perhaps in worldly terms inferior, to anything usually called humility—that he was “deficient in intellect.” Those were his exact words. He believed the Lord had made him that way, yet he supposed the Lord cared as much for him as for anyone else. “I have always been so,” he said, “from my childhood; I never had much mind; I was not like other children; I am weak in the head. It was the Lord’s will, I suppose.” And his simple, sincere presence seemed to prove the truth of his words. He was a philosophical (metaphysical) puzzle to me. I have rarely met another person on such promising ground for genuine interaction—everything he said was so simple, sincere, and true. And, true enough, the more he seemed to humble himself with his honest self-assessment, the more dignified and noble (exalted) he appeared. At first, I didn’t know if his manner was the result of some clever strategy (wise policy). It seemed that from such a foundation of truth and frankness as this poor, “weak-headed” man had laid, our conversation (intercourse) might progress to something better and more real than the typical discussions of wise men (sages).

I also had some guests who were not commonly counted among the town’s poor, but perhaps should have been. They were certainly among the world’s poor in spirit. These were guests who appealed not to your hospitality (your welcome), but to your need to provide care (hospitalality - a pun suggesting they needed a hospital or help). They earnestly wished to be helped, but they began their appeal by stating that they were resolved, for one thing, never to help themselves. My requirement for a visitor is that he not be literally starving, although he may have the very best appetite in the world, however he acquired it. People who are merely objects of charity are not true guests. I had visits from men who didn’t know when their visit had ended. I would go back to my own business, answering their questions from greater and greater distances, hoping they would take the hint. Men of almost every level of intelligence called on me during the traveling (migrating) season. Some had more intelligence (wits) than they knew what to do with. There were fugitive slaves, still showing fearful manners from the plantation. They listened nervously from time to time, like the fox in the fable, as if they heard the hounds baying on their trail. They looked at me pleadingly (beseechingly), as much as to say: “O Christian, will you send me back?” Among these was one real runaway slave, whom I helped to send forward toward the North Star (the symbol guiding fugitives to freedom in the North). There were men obsessed with one single idea, like a hen focused on only one chick, and that chick happens to be a duckling (something different and perhaps requiring different care). There were also men with a thousand scattered ideas and messy (unkempt) heads, like hens trying to take charge of a hundred chickens at once, pursuing one insect, losing a score of chicks in every morning’s dew, and becoming ragged (frizzled and mangy) as a result. There were men who were all ideas instead of practical action (“men of ideas instead of legs”), a sort of intellectual centipede whose abstract talk made you feel mentally crawled all over. One man proposed that I should keep a guest book in which visitors could write their names, like the registers kept at tourist spots in the White Mountains. But, alas! I have too good a memory to make that necessary.

Observations on Visitors

I couldn’t help but notice some of the characteristics (peculiarities) of my visitors.

• Young People: Girls, boys, and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods. They looked at the pond and the flowers and made good use of (improved) their time.
• Practical Men: Men of business, and even farmers, seemed to think only about the solitude, the lack of employment opportunities, and the great distance I lived from something or other. Although they often said they loved an occasional walk (ramble) in the woods, it was obvious they did not truly enjoy it.
• Busy Men: There were restless, committed men whose time was completely taken up with getting a living or keeping the money they had.
• Ministers: Some ministers spoke of God as if they had exclusive ownership (monopoly) of the subject and could not tolerate different opinions.
• Professionals & Nosy People: Doctors, lawyers, and uneasy housekeepers sometimes pried into my cupboard and bed when I was out. (How did Mrs. So-and-so come to know that my sheets were not as clean as hers?)
• Conventional Young Men: There were young men who had already ceased to be truly young in spirit. They had decided it was safest to follow the well-worn (beaten) track of established professions. All these types generally implied or stated outright that it was not possible to do as much “good” in my position as they could in theirs. Ah! That was the key point of disagreement (the rub).
• The Fearful: The old and physically weak (infirm) and the timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most about sickness, sudden accidents, and death. To them, life seemed full of danger. (My question is: what danger is there if you don’t constantly think about danger?) They believed a prudent person would carefully select the safest possible location, where Dr. B. (the local doctor) might be available at a moment’s warning. To them, the village was literally a community in the sense of being a league for mutual defense. You would suppose they wouldn’t even go huckleberrying without carrying a medicine chest. The simple fact is, if a man is alive, there is always a danger that he may die. However, this danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is already “dead-and-alive” (living without vitality) to begin with. A man takes as many risks by sitting still as he does by acting (“sits as many risks as he runs”).
• Reformers: Finally, there were the self-proclaimed reformers, the greatest bores of all. They seemed to think that I was forever boastfully singing (like the nursery rhyme “This Is the House That Jack Built”): “This is the house that I built; This is the man that lives in the house that I built;” But they didn’t know the unspoken third line was: “These are the folks that worry the man That lives in the house that I built.”

I did not fear the hawks that prey on hens (hen-harriers), because I kept no chickens. I feared the people who harass men (men-harriers) instead.

Welcome Visitors

I had more cheering visitors than those last mentioned. Children came picking berries (a-berrying). Railroad men took a Sunday morning walk dressed in clean shirts. Fishermen and hunters came by. Poets and philosophers visited. In short, I was ready to greet all honest pilgrims—those who came out to the woods for freedom’s sake and had truly left the village mentality behind—with the warm welcome: “Welcome, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!” For I felt I had a connection (communication) with the spirit of that race (perhaps referring to shared ideals of liberty or ancestry).

The Bean-Field

My Seven Miles of Beans

Meanwhile, my beans needed attention. The total length of the rows I had planted, added together, was seven miles! They were impatient to be weeded (hoed), because the earliest plants had grown quite a bit before the last seeds were even in the ground. Indeed, they demanded my attention and couldn’t easily be ignored (put off). What was the real meaning of this steady, self-respecting, yet small but demanding (Herculean) labor? I didn’t know. But I came to love my rows and my beans, even though I had planted far more than I needed. Working with them attached me to the earth. Through this connection, I felt I gained strength, like the mythical giant Antaeus who drew strength from touching his mother, the Earth. But why exactly should I raise beans? Only Heaven knows. This was my strange (curious) labor all that summer. My task was to make this piece of land—which before had only produced weeds and wild plants like cinquefoil, blackberries, and johnswort, along with some pleasant wildflowers—produce beans (this pulse) instead. What could I learn from beans, or what could beans learn from me? I cherished them. I hoed them. Early in the morning and late in the day, I kept an eye on them. This was my day’s work. Their leaves were broad and fine to look at. My helpers (auxiliaries) were the dews and rains that watered the dry soil, and whatever fertility was already in the soil itself—which, for the most part, was poor and worn out (lean and effete). My enemies were worms, cool days, and especially woodchucks. The woodchucks nibbled a quarter of an acre clean for me. But then again, what right did I have to drive out (oust) the johnswort and the other native plants, and break up their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the remaining bean plants would grow too tough for the woodchucks and would then have to face new enemies (like frost or blight).

Childhood Memories and Present Realities

When I was four years old, as I remember clearly, I was brought from Boston to Concord, my native town. We traveled through these very woods and this same field, to Walden Pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. And now, tonight, the sound of my flute has awakened echoes over that same water. The pine trees still stand here, older than I am. Or, if some have fallen, I have cooked my supper using their stumps for firewood. A new growth of trees is rising all around, preparing a different view for new generations (new infant eyes). Almost the same kind of johnswort plant springs from the same long-lasting (perennial) root in this pasture year after year. And now, finally, I myself have helped to clothe that amazing (fabulous) landscape of my childhood dreams. One of the results of my presence and influence here is seen in these bean leaves, corn blades, and potato vines growing in my field.

Signs of the Past

I planted about two and a half acres on the higher ground (upland). It had only been about fifteen years since the trees were cleared from this land. I myself had removed two or three cords (large stacked measures) of tree stumps while plowing. Because of this recent clearing and my own efforts, I didn’t add any manure to the soil. But as the summer went on, I found Native American arrowheads that my hoe turned up. This showed me that an extinct nation of people had lived here long ago. They had planted corn and beans before white men came to clear the land. So, to some extent, they had already used up (exhausted) the soil for the very crop I was now growing.

The Work of Hoeing

I would start my work very early in the morning, before any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, and before the sun had risen above the low shrub oaks. I began while all the dew was still on the ground, even though the farmers warned me against it. (My advice to you is to do all your work, if possible, while the dew is still on—it makes the ground softer and the morning cooler.) I began to cut down the ranks of proud (“haughty”) weeds in my bean-field, throwing dust upon their heads as I chopped them down. Early in the morning, I worked barefooted. I enjoyed dabbling like an artist working with clay (plastic artist) in the dewy, crumbling sand. But later in the day, the sun blistered my feet. There, the sun lit my work as I hoed beans. I paced slowly back and forth over that yellow, gravelly upland soil, between the long green rows. Each row was fifteen rods long (about 247 feet). One end finished in a thicket (copse) of shrub oak where I could rest in the shade. The other end reached a blackberry field, where the green berries gradually deepened their color while I made another trip (bout) down and back along the rows. Removing the weeds, putting fresh soil around the bean stems, and encouraging this “weed” (the bean plant) which I had chosen to sow—this was my daily work. I was making the yellow soil express its summer thoughts in bean leaves and blossoms, rather than in weeds like wormwood, piper-grass, or millet grass. I was making the earth say “beans” instead of “grass.” Since I had little help from horses or cattle, or hired men or boys, or modern farming tools (improved implements of husbandry), I worked much slower than usual. As a result, I became much more intimately acquainted with my beans. But manual labor, even when it borders on tediousness (drudgery), is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It always teaches a lasting moral lesson. For the scholar, it yields results as valuable as studying the classics. To travelers heading west through the nearby towns of Lincoln and Wayland, going nobody knows where, I must have looked like a very hardworking farmer (agricola laboriosus). They sat comfortably in their carriages (gigs), with their elbows on their knees and the reins hanging loosely in loops (festoons). I was the local (native) farmer, staying home and laboring in the soil. But soon my homestead was out of their sight and their thoughts. Mine was the only open and cultivated field for a great distance on either side of the road, so they took notice of it. Sometimes, I, the man in the field, heard more of the travelers’ gossip and comments than was meant for my ears: “Beans planted so late! Peas so late!” (For I continued planting some things when others had already started hoeing). The passing preacher-farmer (ministerial husbandman) hadn’t expected that. “Look at his corn, my boy, must be for animal feed (fodder); corn for fodder.” “Does he live there?” asks a woman in a black bonnet to the man in the gray coat driving the carriage. And sometimes a stern-looking (hard-featured) farmer would rein in his old horse (grateful dobbin) to ask what I was doing. He’d notice no manure in the rows (furrow) and recommend adding a little shredded wood (chip dirt), or any little waste material, or perhaps ashes or plaster (gypsum) to improve the soil. But here were two and a half acres of rows, and I had only a hoe for my “cart” and two hands to pull it—since I had an aversion to using other carts and horses. The recommended “chip dirt” was far away. Fellow travelers rattling by would compare my field aloud with others they had passed, so I came to know my standing in the agricultural world. This was one field definitely not included in Mr. Colman’s official agricultural report for the state. And, by the way, who calculates the value of the crop that Nature yields in the still wilder fields not “improved” by humans? The crop of English hay is carefully weighed, its moisture content calculated, the amounts of minerals (silicates and potash) analyzed. But in all the little valleys (dells) and swampy pond holes in the woods and pastures, a rich and varied wild crop grows that is simply never harvested by man. My field was, in a way, the connecting link between wild fields and cultivated ones. Just as some nations are considered civilized, others half-civilized, and others “savage” or “barbarous,” so my field was a half-cultivated field (though not in a bad sense). The beans I cultivated were cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state, and my hoe played a kind of pastoral song (the Ranz des Vaches, a traditional Swiss melody played by herdsmen) for them.

Nature’s Accompaniment

Nearby, on the very top branch (spray) of a birch tree, the brown thrasher—or red mavis, as some people like to call him—sings all morning. He seems glad for your company; he would find some other farmer’s field if yours were not here. While you are planting seeds, his calls sound like instructions: “Drop it, drop it,—cover it up, cover it up,—pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.” But since I was planting beans, not corn, my seeds were safe from enemies like him. You might wonder what his rambling song (rigmarole), his enthusiastic but untutored (amateur) musical performances—like Paganini (a famous, highly skilled violinist) playing wildly on one string or twenty—have to do with planting beans. And yet, you might still prefer his music to adding leached ashes or plaster to your soil. The bird’s song was a cheap sort of fertilizer (top dressing) in which I had complete faith.

As I drew fresh soil around the bean rows with my hoe, I disturbed the “ashes” of unrecorded nations who lived here under these heavens in ancient (primeval) years. Their small tools (implements) of war and hunting were brought back into the light of this modern day. They lay mixed with other natural stones. Some stones bore marks from Native American campfires, and some from the sun. There were also bits of pottery and glass brought here by more recent farmers (cultivators) of the soil. When my hoe tinkled against these stones, that music echoed through the woods and up to the sky. It was an accompaniment to my labor that yielded an instant and immeasurable crop—a harvest of connection to the past and the earth. At those moments, it was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; I felt part of something larger. I remembered my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend concerts (oratorios), feeling pity for their limited experience mixed with pride in my own, if I remembered them at all. The night-hawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons (for I sometimes worked all day). It looked like a tiny speck (mote) in my eye, or in heaven’s eye. From time to time, it would dive downwards (swoop) with a sound as if the sky were being ripped (rent), torn at last into rags and tatters. And yet, somehow, the sky remained whole above (a seamless cope). These birds are like small spirits (imps) that fill the air. They lay their eggs directly on the ground, on bare sand or rocks on hilltops, where few people have ever found them. They are graceful and slender, like ripples lifted from the pond, or like leaves raised by the wind to float in the sky. Such kinship exists throughout Nature. The hawk is the airy brother of the wave it sails over and surveys. Its perfect air-filled wings correspond to the elementary, featherless wings (unfledged pinions) of the sea waves. Or sometimes I watched a pair of hen-hawks circling high in the sky. They soared and descended, moved towards and away from each other, as if they were the physical embodiment (imbodiment) of my own circling thoughts. Or I was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons flying from one patch of woods to another. They flew with a slight, quivering, fanning (winnowing) sound and purposeful speed (carrier haste). Or sometimes, from under a rotten stump, my hoe turned up a sluggish, strange-looking (portentous and outlandish) spotted salamander. It seemed like a relic (trace) from ancient Egypt and the Nile, yet here it was, my contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, these sounds and sights were present everywhere along the row. They were part of the inexhaustible entertainment that the country offers.

Sounds from the Village

On holidays (gala days), the town fires its ceremonial cannons (great guns). The sound echoes like mere popguns in these woods. Sometimes faint fragments (waifs) of military music drift this far. To me, way out there in my bean-field at the other end of town, the big guns sounded like a puffball mushroom bursting. When there was a military drill (turnout) that I didn’t know about, I sometimes had a vague sense all day of some sort of irritation (itching) or unease (disease) on the horizon. It felt as if some eruption, like scarlatina or canker rash (childhood diseases), might break out there soon. Eventually, a favorable puff of wind, hurrying over the fields and up the Wayland road, would bring me information about the militia training (“trainers”). The distant hum sounded as if someone’s bees had swarmed. It seemed the neighbors, following the ancient advice of the poet Virgil, were banging on their most resonant (sonorous) pots and pans (a faint tintinnabulum) trying to call the bees back into the hive. And when the sound died away completely, and the hum had ceased, and even the most favorable breezes carried no trace of it, I knew they had safely gathered the last metaphorical “drone” (soldier) into the Middlesex County “hive.” I knew that now their minds were focused on the reward (“honey”) it represented (perhaps duty done, or the social aspect).

I felt ironically proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and of our country were supposedly in such safe keeping. As I turned back to my hoeing, I was filled with an inexpressible (and perhaps sarcastic) confidence, and continued my labor cheerfully with a calm trust in the future.

Sometimes, when several bands were playing in the village, it sounded from my distance as if the whole town were a vast bellows, and all the buildings alternately expanded and collapsed with the noise (din). But occasionally, a truly noble and inspiring melody (strain) would reach these woods, like the sound of the trumpet that sings of fame. At such moments, I felt stirred up, almost as if I could fight a Mexican soldier with enthusiasm (spit a Mexican with a good relish)—for why should we always focus on trivial matters? Then I looked around for a woodchuck or a skunk to practice my bravery (chivalry) upon. These military sounds (martial strains) seemed as distant and ancient as Palestine. They reminded me of a procession of Crusaders marching on the horizon, accompanied only by a faint horn call (tantivy) and a slight trembling motion of the elm tree tops visible over the village. This was clearly one of the town’s great days. However, from my clearing, the sky had only the same eternally vast look that it wears every day, and I saw no difference in it.

Knowing Beans

It was a unique (singular) experience, that long relationship (acquaintance) I developed with beans. It involved planting, hoeing, harvesting, threshing (separating beans from pods), picking them over (sorting), and finally selling them—the selling part was the hardest of all. I might add eating them too, for I did taste some. I was determined to truly know beans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o’clock in the morning until noon. I usually spent the rest of the day on other activities. Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds—this point deserves repetition (iteration), because the labor itself involved much repetition. I was constantly disturbing their delicate structures ruthlessly and making biased (invidious) distinctions with my hoe, destroying whole rows (levelling ranks) of one species while carefully nurturing (sedulously cultivating) another (my beans). That’s Roman wormwood—that’s pigweed—that’s sorrel—that’s piper-grass—attack it! Chop it up! Turn its roots upward to the sun! Don’t let even a single fiber remain in the shade, because if you do, it will turn itself back over and be as green as a leek in two days! It was a long war, not with cranes (as in the myth of the pygmies), but with weeds—those tough Trojans who had sun, rain, and dew on their side. Daily, the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe. I thinned the ranks of their enemies, filling the trenches between rows with weedy corpses. Many a strong (lusty), prominent (“crest-waving”) weed, like the Trojan hero Hector, that towered a whole foot above its crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust.

Those summer days, which some of my contemporaries spent pursuing the fine arts in Boston or Rome, and others spent in contemplation in India, and still others devoted to trade in London or New York, I spent, along with the other farmers of New England, engaged in farming (husbandry). It wasn’t that I particularly wanted beans to eat. I am by nature a Pythagorean as far as beans are concerned (meaning I avoid them, referring to the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras whose followers reportedly avoided beans for mystical or practical reasons—whether Thoreau means beans as food or beans used in voting). I actually exchanged my bean harvest for rice. But perhaps, I farmed beans because some people must work in fields, if only to provide material—metaphors and expressions (tropes and expression)—for someone writing parables one day. Overall, farming was a rare amusement for me. If continued too long, however, it might have become a wasteful distraction (dissipation). Although I gave the beans no manure and did not hoe them all completely even once, I hoed the parts I did work on unusually well. I was paid for this effort in the end. As the writer John Evelyn says, “there being in truth, no compost or fertilization (lætation) whatsoever comparable to this continual motion, redigging (repastination), and turning of the soil (mould) with the spade.” Evelyn adds elsewhere, “The earth, especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life. This magnetism is the logic behind all the labor and activity (stir) we undertake concerning it, to sustain us. All fertilizing with manure (dungings) and other messy amendments (sordid temperings) are merely substitutes (vicars succedaneous) for this natural improvement gained by working the soil.” Moreover, since my field was one of those “worn-out and exhausted old fields enjoying their rest (sabbath),” it had perhaps, as Sir Kenelm Digby thought likely, attracted “vital spirits” from the air. I harvested twelve bushels of beans.

Bean-Field Finances

But let me be more specific with numbers, because people complain that Mr. Colman (who wrote agricultural reports) mainly reported on the expensive experiments of wealthy “gentlemen farmers.” My expenses (outgoes) were: $14.72½ My income was: $8.71½ (Profit) (As the head of a household ought to be a seller, not primarily a buyer - patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet.)

(Note: The income figure in the original text here seems to represent profit, matching calculations possible from earlier in the Economy chapter. The simple subtraction would be Income $23.44 - Expenses $14.72½ = Profit $8.71½).

Bean Growing Advice

This is the result of my experience in raising beans.

1. Plant the common small white bush bean around the first of June.
2. Make rows three feet apart, with plants spaced eighteen inches apart in the row.
3. Be careful to select fresh, round, pure (unmixed) seed.
4. First, look out for worms, and replant seeds where they fail to sprout (supply vacancies).
5. Then, look out for woodchucks, especially if your field is in an exposed place. They will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost completely as they pass through. Later, when the young bean tendrils appear, the woodchucks notice and will shear them off, along with buds and young pods, often while sitting upright like a squirrel.
6. But above all, harvest as early as possible if you want to escape frosts and have a good, sellable crop. You can save much loss by doing this.

Planting Different Seeds

I also gained this further insight from my farming experience. I said to myself: I will not plant beans and corn with so much effort another summer. Instead, I will plant metaphorical seeds—if the seeds are still viable (if the seed is not lost)—such as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, and similar virtues. I will see if these seeds will not grow in this soil, perhaps even with less work (toil) and fertilizer (manurance), and if they will sustain me. Surely the soil of human life has not been exhausted for growing these “crops.” Alas! I said this to myself. But now another summer has passed, and another, and another. And I am forced to tell you, Reader, that the seeds I planted—if indeed they were the seeds of those virtues—were either eaten by worms (wormeaten) or had lost their life force (vitality), and so they did not come up. Commonly, people will only be brave if their fathers were brave, or timid if their fathers were timid. This generation is very sure to plant corn and beans each new year exactly as the Native Americans did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as if it were an unchangeable fate. I saw an old man the other day, much to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe for planting for at least the seventieth time in his life—and these were not holes for himself to lie down in! But why shouldn’t the New Englander try new adventures? Why not put less stress on his grain, his potato and grass crops, and his orchards? Why not raise other kinds of “crops”? Why do we concern ourselves so much about selecting the best beans for seed, but are not concerned at all about cultivating a new generation of men with better qualities? We would truly be nourished (fed) and cheered if, when we met a person, we were sure to see that some of the qualities I have named—qualities which we all prize more than agricultural products, but which mostly just float around (broadcast) in the air—had actually taken root and grown strong in that person. Imagine encountering a quality as subtle and wonderful (ineffable) as truth or justice—even the slightest amount or a new variety of it—coming towards you along the road! Our ambassadors should be instructed to send home seeds like these, and Congress should help distribute them throughout the land. We should never stand on formality (ceremony) when dealing with sincerity. We should never cheat, insult, and drive each other away (banish one another) through our meanness, if only the core (kernel) of real worth and friendliness were present within us. We should not meet each other in such haste and superficiality. Most men I do not truly meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are too busy tending their “beans” (their mundane affairs and worries).

We wouldn’t always put up with someone who constantly leaned on their tools while working. They’d look like they were only half-alive, like a bird that has landed but not quite standing.

It might even make us think we were talking to an angel. Food isn’t just about nutrition; it can make us feel good. It can loosen us up and make us feel energetic, even when we didn’t realize we were feeling bad. It helps us appreciate the good things in people and in nature, and to experience pure happiness.

Old poems and stories suggest that farming used to be seen as something sacred. But now, we farm quickly and carelessly, focusing only on having big farms and lots of crops. We don’t have festivals or ceremonies to show that farming is special. Instead, farmers are tempted by money and prizes. They worship wealth instead of nature. Because we’re greedy and see the land as just something to own or make money from, we ruin the landscape, make farming less important, and farmers live boring lives. They only see nature as something to take from.

Cato said that farming was especially righteous. According to Varro, the ancient Romans called the earth “Mother” and “Ceres.” They believed that farmers lived good and useful lives and were the only ones left of the race of King Saturn.

We often forget that the sun shines on our farms, the open fields, and the forests equally. They all reflect the sun’s light. Our farms are only a small part of what the sun sees every day. From the sun’s point of view, the whole earth is like a garden. So, we should enjoy the sun’s light and warmth with trust and generosity.

Why do I care so much about these beans and harvesting them in the fall? This large field doesn’t see me as its main caretaker. It looks past me to the things that truly help it grow, like water and sunshine. These beans have effects that I don’t see. Don’t they feed the woodchucks too?

The wheat plant shouldn’t be a farmer’s only hope. The grain isn’t the only thing it produces. So, how can our harvest fail? Shouldn’t I also be happy about the weeds that feed the birds? It doesn’t really matter how much the farmer puts in their barn. A true farmer isn’t worried, just like squirrels don’t worry about whether there will be chestnuts this year. They finish their work each day and don’t expect anything from their fields, giving up both the first and last of their harvest in their minds.

The Village

After working in my bean-field, or sometimes after reading and writing in the morning, I would usually bathe in the pond. I’d swim across a part of it to clean off the dust from my work. This also helped smooth away any stress from studying. Then, my afternoons were completely free.

Strolling to Hear the News

Every day or two, I would walk to the village. I went to hear the local gossip that was always spreading around. People shared news by talking to each other or through newspapers. Hearing a little bit of this news was actually refreshing, much like listening to leaves rustle or frogs peep.

I walked in the woods to see birds and squirrels. Similarly, I walked in the village to observe the people. Instead of the sound of wind blowing through pine trees, I heard the rattle of carts. Near my house in one direction, muskrats lived in the river meadows. In the other direction, under a grove of elm and buttonwood trees, was the village full of busy people. They were as interesting to me as prairie dogs. Each person seemed to be at the entrance of their home or rushing to a neighbor’s to share news. I visited often to watch their routines.

The Village as a News Hub

To me, the village seemed like a big newsroom. To keep it going, they sold things like nuts, raisins, salt, flour, and other groceries. This reminded me of a store I knew on State Street. Some people had such a huge appetite for news. They could sit in public places forever, letting the news flow through them. It was like they were breathing in something that made them numb to pain. If it didn’t make them numb, hearing all that news would often be hurtful. But this numbness didn’t seem to affect their awareness.

Whenever I walked through the village, I always saw a line of these people. They would be:

• Sitting on a ladder in the sun, leaning forward.
• Their eyes would scan up and down the street with a look of enjoyment.
• Or, they might be leaning against a barn with their hands in their pockets, like statues holding it up.

Since they were usually outside, they heard every bit of news that was “in the wind.” These men were like the first, rough mills where all gossip was initially processed before being passed on to more refined places indoors.

The Heart of the Village

I noticed that the most important places in the village were:

• The grocery store
• The bar
• The post office
• The bank

As essential parts of how the village worked, they also kept a bell, a large gun, and a fire engine in easy-to-reach spots. The houses were built close together, in lanes and facing each other. This setup meant that every traveler had to pass by everyone, like running a gauntlet. Every man, woman, and child could get a good look at them and comment.

Of course, the people who lived closest to the main part of the street, where they could see and be seen the most, paid the highest prices for their spots. They also got the first chance to interact with or comment on travelers. The few people living on the outskirts, where there were gaps in the lines of houses, paid much less. Travelers could sometimes escape the scrutiny there by climbing over walls or turning down cow paths.

Signs were hung everywhere to attract travelers.

• Some signs tried to tempt their appetite, like those for taverns or food cellars.
• Others appealed to their desire for nice things, like dry goods stores or jewelers.
• Still others offered services related to appearance, like barbers, shoemakers, or tailors.

Besides these, there was a constant, unspoken invitation to visit any of these houses. People generally expected company around those times.

My Ways of Navigating the Village

For the most part, I managed to avoid these social pressures. I did this in a couple of ways:

1. I would walk boldly and directly to where I was going, without hesitating. This is often recommended for those “running the gauntlet.”
2. Or, I would keep my mind focused on higher thoughts. This was like Orpheus, who sang loudly to his lyre to praise the gods. His singing drowned out the voices of the Sirens and kept him safe.

Sometimes, I would just leave suddenly. Nobody would know where I went because I wasn’t concerned about being graceful. I never hesitated to slip through a gap in a fence.

I was even used to popping into some houses where I was welcome. After I learned all the latest news – what had settled down, the chances of war or peace, and if the world was likely to last much longer – I would be let out through a back way. Then, I would escape to the woods again.

Returning to the Woods at Night

When I stayed late in town, it was very pleasant to head out into the night. This was especially true if it was dark and stormy. I would set off from a bright village parlor or lecture room with a bag of rye or cornmeal on my shoulder. I was heading for my cozy shelter – my “snug harbor” – in the woods. I made sure everything was secure, like a sailor going below deck with a happy crew of thoughts. I left only my physical body at the “helm” (in charge of steering). Sometimes, when the way was clear, I felt I could even tie up the helm and let myself drift. I had many pleasant thoughts by my cabin fire while “sailing” home like this.

I was never shipwrecked or truly troubled by any weather, even though I went through some severe storms. It is darker in the woods, even on ordinary nights, than most people think. I often had to look up at the sky between the trees to find my path. If there was no cart path, I had to feel for the faint trail I had made with my feet. Or, I would steer by feeling certain trees with my hands. For example, I would regularly pass between two specific pine trees that were no more than eighteen inches apart, right in the middle of the woods, even on the darkest nights.

Sometimes, after coming home late on a dark and humid night, my feet would feel the path that my eyes couldn’t see. I would be dreaming and not paying attention the whole way. Then, I’d be suddenly alert when I had to raise my hand to lift the latch on my door. On those occasions, I couldn’t recall a single step of my walk. I thought that perhaps my body could find its way home even if my mind abandoned it, just like a hand finds its way to the mouth without conscious help.

Several times, a visitor stayed until evening, and it turned out to be a very dark night. I had to lead them to the cart path behind my house. Then, I would point them in the direction they needed to go. They had to rely more on their feet than their eyes to stay on course.

One very dark night, I guided two young men who had been fishing in the pond. They lived about a mile away through the woods and knew the route well. A day or two later, one of them told me they had wandered around for most of the night, very close to their own homes. They didn’t get home until almost morning. By then, there had been several heavy rain showers, and the leaves were very wet, so they were soaked to the skin.

I have heard of many people getting lost even on village streets when the darkness was so thick you could “cut it with a knife,” as the saying goes. Some people who live on the outskirts and came to town in their wagons for shopping had to stay overnight. Gentlemen and ladies making social calls went half a mile out of their way, feeling for the sidewalk with their feet and not knowing when they had made a wrong turn.

The Value of Being Lost

It is a surprising, memorable, and valuable experience to be lost in the woods at any time. Often, during a snowstorm, even in the daytime, a person might come across a familiar road. Yet, they might find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village. Even if they know they have traveled it a thousand times, they can’t recognize any features. The road seems as strange as if it were in Siberia. At night, of course, the confusion is much greater.

In our most ordinary walks, we are always, though unconsciously, steering like pilots. We use certain well-known landmarks. If we go beyond our usual routes, we still keep in mind the direction of some nearby point. It’s not until we are completely lost or turned around that we truly appreciate how vast and strange Nature is. A person only needs to be spun around once with their eyes closed to become lost in this world.

Every time a man wakes up, whether from sleep or from deep thought, he has to relearn the directions of the compass. In other words, not until we are lost – not until we have lost the world – do we begin to find ourselves. Only then do we realize where we are and the endless connections we have to everything around us.

My Arrest

One afternoon, near the end of my first summer, I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler. While I was there, I was arrested and put in jail. This happened because, as I have written elsewhere, I did not pay a certain tax. I also did not recognize the authority of a government that bought and sold men, women, and children like cattle at the door of its capitol. I had gone to the woods for different reasons than dealing with such matters.

But wherever a person goes, others will pursue them with their flawed institutions. If they can, they will try to force that person to join their desperate, conformist groups. It’s true, I could have resisted with force, with some chance of success. I might have gone on a rampage against society. But I preferred that society go on a rampage against me, since it was the one acting desperately.

However, I was released the next day. I got my mended shoe and returned to the woods in time to have my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill.

Security in Simplicity

I was never bothered by anyone except those who represented the government. I had no lock or bolt on my door, only for the desk where I kept my papers. I didn’t even have a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door, day or night, even if I was going to be away for several days. This was true even when I spent two weeks in the woods of Maine the next fall.

And yet, my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a line of soldiers. A tired walker could rest and warm himself by my fire. A person interested in literature could amuse themselves with the few books on my table. A curious person could open my closet door and see what was left of my dinner, and what I might have for supper.

Many people of all classes came this way to the pond. Yet, I suffered no serious problems from these visitors. I never missed anything except one small book, a volume of Homer. Perhaps its cover was too fancy. I trust that a soldier from our “camp” (perhaps a metaphorical one, or a literal one nearby) has found it by now.

I am convinced that if all people were to live as simply as I did then, thievery and robbery would be unknown. These crimes only happen in communities where some people have much more than they need, while others do not have enough. If things were fair, valuable items like “The Pope’s Homers” (rare, expensive books) would soon be properly distributed.

As an old saying goes: “Nor wars did men molest, When only beechen bowls were in request.” This means: Wars didn’t happen when people only wanted simple things like wooden bowls.

Another wise saying for those in power: “You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.” In simpler terms: Leaders, why use punishment? If you love goodness, the people will be good. A good leader’s influence is like the wind, and ordinary people are like grass that bends when the wind blows over it.

The Ponds

Sometimes, when I had too much of human society and gossip, and when I had tired out all my friends in the village, I would walk even farther west than I usually lived. I went to quieter parts of the town, to “fresh woods and pastures new.” Other times, as the sun was setting, I would eat huckleberries and blueberries for supper on Fair Haven Hill. I would also gather enough to last for several days.

The True Taste of Fruit

Fruits don’t give their best flavor to someone who buys them. They also don’t give their true flavor to someone who grows them to sell in the market. There’s only one way to get that true flavor, but few people choose that way. If you want to know what huckleberries really taste like, ask a boy who herds cows or a partridge. It’s a common mistake to think you’ve tasted huckleberries if you’ve never picked them yourself. A huckleberry never makes it to Boston with its true essence. They haven’t been known there since they stopped growing on the city’s three hills. The wonderful, essential part of the fruit is lost when its bloom (the dusty coating) is rubbed off in the market cart. Then, they become just ordinary food. As long as there is Eternal Justice, not one innocent huckleberry can be transported from the country hills to the city and keep its true soul.

Companionship and Solitude on the Water

Occasionally, after I finished my work hoeing for the day, I would join an impatient friend. This friend might have been fishing on the pond since morning, as silent and still as a duck or a floating leaf. After trying out various ways of thinking about things (practicing philosophy), he usually concluded by the time I arrived that he belonged to an ancient group of monks who lived in communities, known as Cœnobites.

There was one older man, an excellent fisherman and skilled in all types of outdoor crafts. He liked to think of my house as a building made for the convenience of fishermen. I was equally happy when he sat in my doorway to arrange his fishing lines. Once in a while, we sat together on the pond in a boat, he at one end and I at the other. We didn’t say much, because he had become deaf in his later years. But he occasionally hummed a psalm (a religious song), which fit well with my own thoughts. Our time together was always perfectly harmonious, much nicer to remember than if we had filled it with a lot of talk.

When I had no one to talk with, which was often the case, I used to create echoes. I would strike the side of my boat with a paddle. This filled the surrounding woods with sound that circled and grew. It was like a zookeeper stirring up his wild animals, until I got a “growl” back from every wooded valley and hillside.

Evenings on the Pond

On warm evenings, I often sat in my boat playing the flute. I would see the perch (a type of fish) hovering around me, as if I had charmed them. I also saw the moon moving across the pond’s ribbed bottom, which was scattered with the remains of the forest, like fallen branches.

In the past, I had come to this pond for adventure from time to time, on dark summer nights with a friend. We would build a fire close to the water’s edge, thinking it attracted fish. We caught pouts (another type of fish) with a bunch of worms strung on a thread. When we were done, late in the night, we threw the burning pieces of wood high into the air like skyrockets. When they came down into the pond, they were put out with a loud hissing sound. Suddenly, we would be feeling our way around in total darkness. Whistling a tune, we made our way through the darkness back to where people lived. But now, I had made my home by the shore.

Sometimes, after staying in a village parlor until the family had all gone to bed, I returned to the woods. Partly to get dinner for the next day, I would spend the midnight hours fishing from a boat by moonlight. Owls and foxes would provide a natural serenade. From time to time, I would hear the creaking call of some unknown bird close by.

These experiences were very memorable and valuable to me. I would be anchored in forty feet of water, about twenty or thirty rods (330 to 495 feet) from the shore. Sometimes, thousands of small perch and shiners (small, silvery fish) surrounded me. They would make dimples on the water’s surface with their tails in the moonlight. I felt connected by a long flaxen fishing line to mysterious night-dwelling fish that lived forty feet below. Other times, I would drift in the gentle night breeze, dragging sixty feet of line around the pond. Now and then, I would feel a slight vibration along the line. This signaled some life prowling at its end, with a dull, uncertain, and clumsy purpose, slow to make up its mind.

At length, pulling hand over hand, you slowly raise some horned pout (a type of catfish), squeaking and squirming as it comes into the air. It was very strange, especially on dark nights when your thoughts had wandered to vast, cosmic themes in other worlds, to feel this faint jerk. It would interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if I might next cast my line upward into the air, just as easily as downward into this water, which was hardly denser than air. In this way, I caught two kinds of “fish” with one hook: the actual fish, and a connection to deeper thoughts or nature itself.

Walden Pond: A Closer Look

The scenery of Walden Pond is on a humble scale. Though very beautiful, it doesn’t have grand, majestic views. It might not mean much to someone who hasn’t visited it often or lived by its shore. Yet, this pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity that it deserves a special description.

Physical Features It is a clear and deep green well of water. It is about half a mile long and one and three-quarters miles in circumference. It covers about sixty-one and a half acres. It’s a natural spring that never dries up, located in the middle of pine and oak woods. It has no visible streams flowing into it or out of it, except for rainwater from the clouds and water lost through evaporation.

The surrounding hills rise steeply from the water to a height of forty to eighty feet. On the southeast and east sides, they reach about one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet high, respectively, within a quarter to a third of a mile from the pond. These hills are entirely covered with woodland.

The Colors of the Water All the waters in our area of Concord have at least two colors. One color is seen when viewed from a distance. The other, more accurate color is seen when close at hand. The first color depends more on the light and reflects the sky. In clear summer weather, these waters appear blue from a little distance, especially if the surface is stirred up. From a great distance, all waters look alike. In stormy weather, they sometimes have a dark slate color. The sea, however, is said to be blue one day and green another without any noticeable change in the atmosphere. I have seen our river, when the landscape was covered with snow, where both the water and ice were almost as green as grass. Some people consider blue “to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or solid.”

But, looking directly down into our waters from a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors. Walden Pond is blue at one time and green at another, even when viewed from the exact same spot. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it shares the color of both.

• Viewed from a hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky.
• Near at hand, it has a yellowish tint next to the shore where you can see the sand.
• This then changes to a light green.
• This light green gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the main body of the pond. In some lights, even when viewed from a hilltop, the water is a vivid green next the shore. Some have said this is due to the reflection of green plants. However, it is equally green there against the sandy railroad bank, and in the spring before the leaves have opened. So, it may simply be the result of the prevailing blue color of the water mixed with the yellow of the sand. This is the color of its “iris” (like the colored part of an eye).

This near-shore area is also where, in the spring, the ice melts first. The sun’s heat reflects from the bottom and is also transmitted through the earth, warming the ice. This forms a narrow canal of open water around the still-frozen middle of the pond.

Like the rest of our waters, when Walden is much agitated in clear weather, the surface of the waves may reflect the sky at just the right angle. Or, perhaps because there is more light mixed with it, it appears a darker blue than the sky itself when seen from a little distance. At such a time, being on its surface and looking with a divided vision (seeing both the water and the reflection), I have noticed a matchless and indescribable light blue. It’s like the color of watered or changeable silks and sword blades – more sky-blue than the sky itself. This light blue alternates with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves. The dark green then appears muddy in comparison. It is a glassy, greenish-blue, as I remember it, like those patches of the winter sky seen through openings in the clouds in the west before sundown.

Yet, a single glass of its water held up to the light is as colorless as an equal amount of air. It is well known that a large plate of glass will have a green tint. Glass makers say this is due to its “body” or thickness. But a small piece of the same glass will be colorless. I have never tested how large a body of Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint.

The water of our river looks black or a very dark brown to someone looking directly down on it. Like the water of most ponds, it gives the body of a person bathing in it a yellowish tinge. But Walden’s water is of such crystalline purity that the bather’s body appears an alabaster whiteness. This whiteness is even more unnatural. Since the limbs are also magnified and distorted by the clear water, it produces a monstrous effect, making them fit subjects for an artist like Michelangelo to study.

Clarity and an Underwater Adventure

The water is so transparent that the bottom can easily be seen at a depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. Paddling over it, you may see schools of perch and shiners many feet beneath the surface. These fish may be only an inch long, yet the perch are easily distinguished by their dark vertical bars. You might think that they must be very disciplined (ascetic) fish to find enough to eat there.

Once, in the winter, many years ago, I had been cutting holes through the ice to catch pickerel (a type of predatory fish). As I stepped ashore, I tossed my axe back onto the ice. But, as if some evil spirit had directed it, the axe slid four or five rods (about 66 to 82 feet) directly into one of the holes. The water there was twenty-five feet deep.

Out of curiosity, I lay down on the ice and looked through the hole. I saw the axe a little to one side, standing on its head (the sharp end). Its handle was erect and gently swaying back and forth with the pulse of the pond. And there it might have stood, erect and swaying, until in the course of time the handle rotted off, if I had not disturbed it. I made another hole directly over it with an ice chisel I had. Then, I cut down the longest birch tree I could find in the neighborhood with my knife. I made a slip-noose, attached it to the end of the pole, and, letting it down carefully, passed the noose over the knob of the handle. I then drew it tight by a line along the birch pole, and so pulled the axe out again.

The Pond’s Shoreline

The shore is made of a belt of smooth, rounded, white stones, like paving stones. There are exceptions of one or two short sand beaches. The shore is so steep that in many places a single leap will carry you into water over your head. If it were not for its remarkable transparency, that would be the last you’d see of its bottom until it rose on the opposite side. Some people think it is bottomless.

It is nowhere muddy. A casual observer would say that there were no weeds at all in it. Of noticeable plants, except in the little meadows recently overflowed (which do not properly belong to the pond), a closer look does not reveal a flag iris or a bulrush, or even a lily, yellow or white. You only find a few small heart-leaves (Nuphar variegata), potamogetons (pondweeds), and perhaps a water-shield (Brasenia schreberi) or two. A bather might not even notice these plants. These plants are clean and bright, like the element they grow in. The stones extend a rod or two (about 16 to 33 feet) into the water. Then the bottom is pure sand, except in the deepest parts. In the deepest parts, there is usually a little sediment, probably from the decay of leaves that have been blown onto it over many autumns. A bright green weed is brought up on anchors even in midwinter from these depths.

A Unique Gem

We have one other pond just like this: White Pond in Nine Acre Corner, about two and a half miles to the west. But, though I am familiar with most of the ponds within a dozen miles of this spot, I do not know a third one of this pure and well-like character.

Many different groups of people throughout history have perhaps drunk from it, admired it, and tried to measure its depth. They have passed away, and still, its water is as green and clear as ever. It is not a spring that dries up sometimes! Perhaps on that spring morning when Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden, Walden Pond was already in existence. Even then, it might have been breaking up from winter ice in a gentle spring rain, accompanied by mist and a southerly wind. It might have been covered with huge numbers of ducks and geese which had not heard of humanity’s fall from grace, when such pure lakes were all they needed.

Even then, it had started to rise and fall. It had clarified its waters and colored them the shade they now wear. It had obtained a special permission, a “patent of heaven,” to be the only Walden Pond in the world and a distiller of heavenly dews. Who knows in how many unremembered nations’ literatures this pond has been their Castalian Fountain (a mythical spring of poetic inspiration)? Or what nymphs (nature spirits) presided over it in a mythical Golden Age? It is a gem of the finest quality, which the town of Concord wears in its symbolic crown.

Ancient Footprints

Yet, perhaps the first people who came to this “well” have left some trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised to find a narrow, shelf-like path encircling the pond. This path is on the steep hillside, even where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore. It alternately rises and falls, approaching and moving away from the water’s edge. It is probably as old as the human race in this area, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters. Present occupants of the land still unknowingly tread on it from time to time.

This path is particularly clear to someone standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow has fallen. It appears as a clear, undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs. It is very obvious from a quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in clear white raised type. The ornamented grounds of fancy houses (villas) which will one day be built here may still preserve some trace of this ancient path.

The Pond’s Rises and Falls

The pond rises and falls. But whether this happens regularly or not, and over what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. It is commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer. However, this change does not directly correspond to the general wetness or dryness of the seasons.

I can remember when it was a foot or two lower than when I lived by it. I also remember when it was at least five feet higher. There is a narrow sandbar running into it, with very deep water on one side. I helped boil a kettle of chowder on this sandbar, some six rods (about 99 feet) from the main shore, around the year 1824. This has not been possible to do for twenty-five years because the water has been higher. On the other hand, my friends used to listen with disbelief when I told them that, a few years later, I was accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the woods. This spot was fifteen rods (about 247 feet) from the only shore they knew. That place was long since converted into a meadow.

But the pond has risen steadily for two years. Now, in the summer of 1852, it is just five feet higher than when I lived there, or as high as it was thirty years ago. Fishing is happening again in that meadow area. This makes a difference in level, at the most, of six or seven feet. Yet the amount of water shed by the surrounding hills is insignificant. This overflow must be due to causes that affect the deep springs feeding the pond.

This same summer, the pond has begun to fall again. It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether it’s a regular cycle or not, appears to require many years for its completion. I have observed one rise and a part of two falls. I expect that a dozen or fifteen years from now, the water will again be as low as I have ever known it. Flint’s Pond, a mile eastward, also sympathizes with Walden, allowing for any disturbance caused by its own inlets and outlets. Smaller intermediate ponds also follow this pattern. They all recently reached their greatest height at the same time as Walden. The same is true, as far as my observation goes, of White Pond.

The Purpose of the Fluctuations

This rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use at least: The water standing at this great height for a year or more, though it makes it difficult to walk around it, kills the shrubs and trees that have sprung up about its edge since the last rise. These include pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, and others. When the water falls again, it leaves an unobstructed shore. Unlike many ponds and all waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore is cleanest when the water is lowest.

On the side of the pond next to my house, a row of pitch pines fifteen feet high has been killed and tipped over as if by a lever. This has put a stop to their encroachment on the shore. Their size indicates how many years have passed since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation, the pond asserts its title to a shore. Thus, the shore is “shorn” or cleared, and the trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of the lake on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps (cleans its edges) from time to time.

When the water is at its height, the alders, willows, and maples send forth a mass of fibrous red roots. These roots are several feet long and grow from all sides of their stems in the water. They reach up to three or four feet from the ground, in an effort by the plants to maintain themselves. I have also known the high-blueberry bushes about the shore, which commonly produce no fruit, to bear an abundant crop under these circumstances.

A Legend of the Pond’s Origin

Some people have been puzzled about how the shore became so regularly paved with stones. My townsmen have all heard the tradition. The oldest people tell me that they heard it in their youth. The story goes that anciently the Native Americans were holding a pow-wow (a ceremonial gathering) upon a hill here. This hill rose as high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth. They used much profanity, as the story goes (though the author notes this vice is one of which the Native Americans were never guilty). While they were thus engaged, the hill shook and suddenly sank. Only one old woman (squaw), named Walden, escaped. The pond was named after her. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook, these stones rolled down its side and became the present shore.

It is very certain, anyway, that once there was no pond here, and now there is one. This Native American story does not contradict the account of that old settler I mentioned. He remembers so well when he first came here with his divining rod (a forked stick used to find water). He saw a thin mist rising from the grass, and the hazel rod pointed steadily downward. He then decided to dig a well there.

As for the stones on the shore, many people still think that the action of waves on these hills can’t fully explain them. However, I notice that the surrounding hills are remarkably full of the same kind of stones. In fact, workers had to pile them up in walls on both sides of the railroad track cut nearest the pond. Also, there are more stones where the shore is steepest. So, unfortunately for those who like a mystery, it is no longer a mystery to me how the stones got there. I can see the “paver” – the natural process that laid them down. If the name “Walden” was not taken from an English place – Saffron Walden, for instance – one might guess that it was originally called “Walled-in Pond.”

The Pond as My Well

The pond was like a well that was already dug for me. For four months of the year, its water is as cold as it is pure all the time. I think that during these months, it is as good as any water in the town, if not the best. In the winter, all water exposed to the air is colder than water from springs and wells, which are protected from the cold air.

I tested the temperature of the pond water on March 6, 1846. It had stood in the room where I sat from five o’clock in the afternoon until noon the next day. The thermometer in the room had been up to 65° or 70°F some of that time, partly due to the sun on the roof. The pond water’s temperature was 42°F. This was one degree colder than the water just drawn from one of the coldest wells in the village. The temperature of the Boiling Spring on the same day was 45°F. This was the warmest of any water I tried that day, though the Boiling Spring is the coldest water I know of in the summer (when, besides, shallow and stagnant surface water is not mixed with it).

Moreover, in summer, Walden Pond never becomes as warm as most water that is exposed to the sun, because of its depth. In the warmest weather, I usually placed a pailful of pond water in my cellar. It would become cool there in the night and stay cool during the day. I also used a spring in the neighborhood. The pond water was as good when a week old as it was on the day I collected it. It had no taste of a pump. Whoever camps for a week in summer by the shore of a pond only needs to bury a pail of water a few feet deep in the shade of their camp. Then, they can be independent of the luxury of ice.

The Fish of Walden Pond

People have caught several types of fish in Walden:

• Pickerel: One weighed seven pounds. This is not to mention another one that pulled a fishing reel with great speed. The fisherman safely estimated its weight at eight pounds because he did not see it.
• Perch and pouts (a type of catfish): Some of each weighed over two pounds.
• Shiners (small, silvery fish).
• Chivins or roach (Leuciscus pulchellus).
• A very few breams (Pomotis obesus).
• A couple of eels: One weighed four pounds. I am being this specific because the weight of a fish is commonly its only claim to fame, and these are the only eels I have heard of here.
• Also, I have a faint memory of a little fish about five inches long, with silvery sides and a greenish back. It was somewhat like a dace in its appearance. I mention it here chiefly to link my facts to fables or less certain observations.

Nevertheless, this pond is not very fertile in fish. Its pickerel, though not abundant, are its chief boast. I have seen, at one time, at least three different kinds of pickerel lying on the ice:

1. A long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those caught in the river.
2. A bright golden kind, with greenish reflections and remarkably deep-bodied, which is the most common here.
3. Another, golden-colored and shaped like the last, but peppered on the sides with small dark brown or black spots. These spots were mixed with a few faint blood-red ones, very much like a trout. The scientific name reticulatus (meaning net-like) would not apply to this one; guttatus (meaning spotted) would be more fitting.

These are all very firm fish and weigh more than their size might suggest. The shiners, pouts, and perch also, and indeed all the fishes that live in this pond, are much cleaner, better-looking, and have firmer flesh than those in the river and most other ponds. This is because the water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished from fish from other waters. Probably, many fish experts (ichthyologists) would classify some of them as new varieties.

There are also a clean race of frogs and tortoises in the pond, and a few mussels. Muskrats and minks leave their traces around it, and occasionally a traveling mud turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud turtle that had hidden under the boat during the night.

Other Wildlife Around the Pond

Ducks and geese visit the pond in the spring and fall. White-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor) skim over its surface. Kingfishers dart away from its coves. And peetweets (Spotted Sandpipers, Totanus macularius) “teter” (bob up and down) along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk (osprey) sitting on a white pine tree over the water. But I doubt if the pond is ever profaned by the wing of a gull, unlike nearby Fair Haven pond. At most, Walden tolerates one loon visiting it each year. These are all the animals of consequence that frequent it now.

Mysterious Stone Heaps

From a boat, in calm weather, you can see something interesting near the sandy eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep. You can also see this in some other parts of the pond. There are circular heaps, about half a dozen feet in diameter and a foot high. They consist of small stones, each less than a hen’s egg in size. All around these heaps is bare sand.

At first, you wonder if the Native Americans could have formed them on the ice for some purpose. Then, when the ice melted, the heaps would have sunk to the bottom. But they are too regular, and some of them plainly look too recently formed for that explanation. They are similar to those heaps found in rivers. But since there are no suckers or lampreys (types of fish known to build such nests) here, I do not know what fish could have made them. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin (fallfish). These stone heaps lend a pleasing mystery to the bottom of the pond.

The Beauty of the Shoreline

The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind’s eye the western shore, indented with deep bays; the bolder northern shore; and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes (points of land) overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves between them.

The forest never has so good a setting, nor is so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a small lake amid hills which rise from the water’s edge. For the water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in such a case, but, with its winding shore, also forms the most natural and agreeable boundary to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there, as there is where an axe has cleared a part of the forest, or where a cultivated field borders it. The trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each sends forth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There, Nature has woven a natural selvage (a finished edge, like on fabric), and the eye rises by just gradations from the low shrubs of the shore to the highest trees. There are few traces of man’s hand to be seen. The water laps the shore as it did a thousand years ago.

The Lake: Earth’s Eye

A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The river-loving (fluviatile) trees next to the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.

The Glassy Surface

Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond, on a calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite shore line indistinct, I have seen where the expression, “the glassy surface of a lake,” came from. When you invert your head, it looks like a thread of the finest gossamer (a very fine, filmy substance, like spider silk) stretched across the valley. It gleams against the distant pine woods, separating one layer of the atmosphere from another. You would think that you could walk dry under it to the opposite hills, and that the swallows which skim over might perch on it. Indeed, they sometimes dive below the line, as if by mistake, and are then undeceived.

As you look over the pond westward, you are obliged to use both your hands to defend your eyes against the reflected sun as well as the true sun, for they are equally bright. If, between the two, you survey its surface critically, it is literally as smooth as glass. The exceptions are:

• Where the skater insects, scattered at equal intervals over its whole extent, by their motions in the sun produce the finest imaginable sparkle on it.
• Or, perchance, a duck plumes itself (cleans its feathers).
• Or, as I have said, a swallow skims so low as to touch it.

It may be that in the distance a fish describes an arc of three or four feet in the air. There is one bright flash where it emerges, and another where it strikes the water; sometimes the whole silvery arc is revealed. Or here and there, perhaps, is a piece of thistle-down floating on its surface, which the fishes dart at and so dimple the water again. It is like molten glass cooled but not congealed (solidified), and the few motes (specks of dust) in it are pure and beautiful like the imperfections in glass. You may often detect a yet smoother and darker patch of water, separated from the rest as if by an invisible cobweb, perhaps a calm area created by water nymphs, resting on it.

From a hilltop, you can see a fish leap in almost any part of the pond. For not a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth surface without it clearly disturbing the equilibrium of the whole lake. It is wonderful with what elaborateness this simple fact is advertised—this fishy “murder” will reveal itself. From my distant perch, I can distinguish the circling undulations (ripples) when they are half a dozen rods (about 99 feet) in diameter.

You can even detect a water-bug (Gyrinus) ceaselessly progressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off. They furrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded by two diverging lines. But the skater insects glide over it without rippling it noticeably. When the surface is considerably agitated, there are no skaters nor water-bugs on it. But apparently, in calm days, they leave their havens and adventurously glide forth from the shore by short impulses until they completely cover it.

It is a soothing activity, on one of those fine days in the fall when all the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, to sit on a stump on such a height as this, overlooking the pond. You can study the dimpling circles which are incessantly inscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the reflected skies and trees. Over this great expanse, there is no disturbance that is not thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged. It’s like when a vase of water is jarred: the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in circling dimples—in lines of beauty—as if it were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are indistinguishable. How peaceful are the phenomena of the lake! Again the works of man (or perhaps reflections of nature that seem crafted) shine as in the spring. Yes, every leaf and twig and stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered with dew in a spring morning. Every motion of an oar or an insect produces a flash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo!

A Perfect Mirror

In such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect forest mirror. It is set round with stones as precious to my eye as if they were fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. It is sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver (reflective backing) will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs. No storms, no dust, can dim its surface, which is ever fresh. It’s a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun’s hazy brush—this light is like a dust-cloth. The mirror retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own (evaporation) to float as clouds high above its surface, and these clouds are then reflected in its bosom still.

Water and Air

A field of water reveals the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky. On land, only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps, eventually look down thus on the surface of air itself, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.

Late Autumn on the Pond

The skater insects and water-bugs finally disappear in the latter part of October, when the severe frosts have come. Then, and in November, usually on a calm day, there is absolutely nothing to ripple the surface. One November afternoon, in the calm at the end of a rainstorm that had lasted several days, the sky was still completely overcast and the air was full of mist. I observed that the pond was remarkably smooth, so that it was difficult to distinguish its surface. Though it no longer reflected the bright tints of October, it reflected the somber November colors of the surrounding hills. Though I passed over it as gently as possible, the slight undulations produced by my boat extended almost as far as I could see and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflections.

But, as I was looking over the surface, I saw here and there at a distance a faint glimmer. It looked as if some skater insects which had escaped the frosts might be collected there. Or, perhaps, the surface, being so smooth, revealed where a spring welled up from the bottom. Paddling gently to one of these places, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by myriads (vast numbers) of small perch. They were about five inches long, of a rich bronze color in the green water. They were sporting there and constantly rising to the surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving bubbles on it.

In such transparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting the clouds, I seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon. Their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as if they were a compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level on the right or left, their fins, like sails, set all around them. There were many such schools in the pond. They were apparently making the most of the short season before winter would draw an icy shutter over their broad skylight (the surface of the pond). Sometimes their movement gave the surface an appearance as if a slight breeze struck it, or a few raindrops fell there. When I approached carelessly and alarmed them, they made a sudden splash and rippling with their tails, as if one had struck the water with a brushy bough, and instantly took refuge in the depths.

At length the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves began to run. The perch leaped much higher than before, half out of water—a hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface. Even as late as the fifth of December, one year, I saw some dimples on the surface. Thinking it was going to rain hard immediately because the air was full of mist, I made haste to take my place at the oars and row homeward. Already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though I felt none on my cheek, and I anticipated a thorough soaking. But suddenly the dimples ceased, for they were produced by the perch, which the noise of my oars had scared into the depths. I saw their schools dimly disappearing. So, I spent a dry afternoon after all.

Memories of an Earlier Time

An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years ago, when it was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that in those days he sometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other waterfowl, and that there were many eagles about it. He came here for fishing and used an old log canoe which he found on the shore. It was made of two white-pine logs dug out and pinned together, and was cut off square at the ends. It was very clumsy but lasted a great many years before it became water-logged and perhaps sank to the bottom. He did not know whose it was; it belonged to the pond. He used to make a cable for his anchor from strips of hickory bark tied together.

An old man, a potter, who lived by the pond before the Revolution, told him once that there was an iron chest at the bottom, and that he had seen it. Sometimes it would come floating up to the shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back into deep water and disappear. I was pleased to hear of the old log canoe. It took the place of a Native American one of the same material but more graceful construction. That canoe perhaps had first been a tree on the bank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to float there for a generation—the most proper vessel for the lake. I remember that when I first looked into these depths, there were many large tree trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom. They had either been blown over formerly, or left on the ice at the last cutting of ice (when wood was cheaper); but now they have mostly disappeared.

First Impressions and Idyllic Days

When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods. In some of its coves, grapevines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowers (sheltered spots) under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, it had the appearance of an amphitheater for some kind of woodland spectacle.

I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the gentle breeze (zephyr) willed. I would paddle my boat to the middle and lie on my back across the seats, on a summer forenoon, daydreaming. I would be aroused only by the boat touching the sand, and I would arise to see what shore my fates had impelled me to. These were days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend the most valued part of the day like this. For I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and I spent them lavishly. Nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher’s desk.

But since I left those shores, the woodchoppers have damaged them even more. Now, for many years, there will be no more strolling through the aisles of the wood, with occasional open views through which you could see the water. My inspiration (Muse) may be excused if she is silent from now on. How can you expect birds to sing when their groves (groups of trees) are cut down?

Now the tree trunks on the bottom of the pond, the old log canoe, and the dark surrounding woods are gone. The villagers, who barely know where Walden Pond lies, instead of going there to swim or drink, are thinking of bringing its water to the village in a pipe! This water should be considered as sacred as the Ganges River at least, and they want to use it to wash their dishes! They want to get their Walden (its benefits) by simply turning a faucet or pulling a plug!

That devilish Iron Horse (the train), whose ear-splitting neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with its foot (its impact). It is the train that has “browsed off” (destroyed) all the woods on Walden’s shore. It is like the Trojan horse, with a thousand men in its belly, introduced by greedy Greeks! Where is the country’s champion, like the legendary Moore of Moore Hall, to meet this train at the Deep Cut (a railroad excavation) and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of this bloated pest?

Walden’s Enduring Purity

Nevertheless, of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden wears best and best preserves its purity. Many men have been compared to it, but few deserve that honor. Even though:

• The woodchoppers have laid bare first this shore and then that,
• And the Irish laborers have built their shacks (sties) by it,
• And the railroad has infringed on its border,
• And the ice-men have skimmed its surface once, the pond itself is unchanged. It is the same water that my youthful eyes first saw; all the change is in me. It has not acquired one permanent wrinkle after all its ripples. It is perennially (forever) young. I may stand and see a swallow dip, apparently to pick an insect from its surface, just as it did in earlier times.

It struck me again tonight, as if I had not seen it almost daily for more than twenty years: Why, here is Walden, the same woodland lake that I discovered so many years ago! Where a forest was cut down last winter, another is springing up by its shore as vigorously as ever. The same essential thought or quality is welling up to its surface that was there then. It is the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its Maker, yes, and it may be to me. It is surely the work of a brave man, in whom there was no deceit! He rounded this water with his hand, deepened and clarified it in his thought, and in his will, he bequeathed it (left it as a gift) to Concord. I see by its face that it is visited by the same timeless reflection; and I can almost say, “Walden, is it you?”

A Connection to Walden

My connection to Walden is not just a fanciful idea to make my writing pretty. I feel that I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven than I do by living near Walden. I am like its stony shore and the breeze that passes over it. In the hollow of my hand, I hold its water and its sand. And its deepest, most essential quality lies high in my thoughts.

The trains never pause for people to look at it. Yet I imagine that the engineers, firemen, brakemen, and those passengers who have a season ticket and see it often, are better people for the sight. The engineer does not forget at night, or his inner nature does not, that he has seen this vision of serenity and purity at least once during the day. Though seen only once, it helps to wash out the memory of busy city streets and the engine’s soot. One person proposes that the pond be called “God’s Drop.”

The Pond’s Hidden Connections

I have said that Walden has no visible inlet or outlet. However, it is distantly and indirectly related to Flint’s Pond on one hand. Flint’s Pond is at a higher elevation and is connected to Walden by a chain of small ponds coming from that direction. On the other hand, Walden is directly and clearly related to the Concord River, which is lower. This connection is also through a similar chain of ponds. In some other geological period, Walden may have flowed into the river through this chain. With a little digging (which God forbid ever happens!), it could be made to flow that way again.

If by living this reserved and austere (simple, unadorned) life, like a hermit in the woods for so long, the pond has acquired such wonderful purity, who would not regret it if:

• The comparatively impure waters of Flint’s Pond were to be mingled with it?
• Or if Walden itself should ever go to waste its sweetness in the ocean wave?

Flint’s Pond: A Contrast

Flint’s, or Sandy Pond, in the town of Lincoln, is our greatest local lake and inland sea. It lies about a mile east of Walden. It is much larger, said to contain one hundred and ninety-seven acres, and is more fertile in fish. However, it is comparatively shallow and not remarkably pure. A walk through the woods to Flint’s Pond was often a form of recreation for me. It was worthwhile, if only to feel the wind blow on your cheek freely, see the waves run, and remember the life of mariners.

I went chestnutting there in the fall, on windy days, when the nuts were dropping into the water and were washed to my feet. One day, as I crept along its sedgy (reedy) shore, the fresh spray blowing in my face, I came upon the moldering wreck of a boat. The sides were gone, and hardly more than the impression of its flat bottom was left amid the rushes. Yet its model (shape) was sharply defined, as if it were a large decayed leaf pad, with its veins. It was as impressive a wreck as one could imagine on the seashore and had as good a moral (lesson to teach). By this time, it is mere vegetable mold and indistinguishable from the pond shore, through which rushes and flag irises have pushed up.

I used to admire the ripple marks on the sandy bottom at the north end of this pond. These marks were made firm and hard to the feet of someone wading by the pressure of the water. I also admired the rushes which grew in Indian file (single file), in waving lines, corresponding to these marks, rank behind rank, as if the waves had planted them. There also I have found, in considerable quantities, curious balls. They are composed apparently of fine grass or roots, of pipewort perhaps, from half an inch to four inches in diameter, and perfectly spherical. These wash back and forth in shallow water on a sandy bottom and are sometimes cast on the shore. They are either solid grass or have a little sand in the middle. At first, you would say that they were formed by the action of the waves, like a pebble. Yet the smallest are made of equally coarse materials, half an inch long, and they are produced only at one season of the year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much construct as wear down a material which has already acquired consistency. They preserve their form when dry for an indefinite period.

On Naming and True Worth

Flint’s Pond! Such is the poverty of our naming system. What right had the unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm bordered this “sky water” (the pond), and whose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his name to it? He was some skin-flint (a stingy person) who loved better the reflecting surface of a dollar, or a bright cent, in which he could see his own brazen (shameless) face. He regarded even the wild ducks which settled in it as trespassers. His fingers had grown into crooked and horny talons (claws) from the long habit of grasping like a harpy (a greedy, predatory creature). So, the pond is not named for my sake. I do not go there to see him or to hear of him. He never truly saw the pond, never bathed in it, never loved it, never protected it, never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked God that He had made it.

Rather, let the pond be named for the fishes that swim in it, the wild fowl or four-legged animals which frequent it, the wildflowers which grow by its shores, or some wild man or child the thread of whose history is interwoven with its own. It should not be named for him who could show no title to it but the deed (legal document) which a like-minded neighbor or legislature gave him—him who thought only of its money value. His presence perhaps cursed all the shore. He exhausted the land around it and would fain (gladly) have exhausted the waters within it. He regretted only that it was not English hay or a cranberry meadow—there was nothing to redeem it, forsooth (indeed), in his eyes—and would have drained and sold it for the mud at its bottom. It did not turn his mill (provide him power), and it was no privilege to him to behold it.

I do not respect his labors, his farm where everything has its price. He would carry the landscape, he would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him. He goes to market for his god (money) as it is. On his farm, nothing grows free; his fields bear no crops (for true sustenance), his meadows no flowers, his trees no fruits—but dollars. He loves not the beauty of his fruits; his fruits are not ripe for him until they are turned to dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth. Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor—poor farmers who live simply. A model farm! Where the house stands like a fungus in a muck-heap, with chambers for men, horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed and uncleansed, all next to one another! Stocked with men! A great grease-spot, reeking of manures and buttermilk! Under a high state of cultivation, being manured with the hearts and brains of men (exploiting human spirit and intellect)! As if you were to raise your potatoes in a churchyard! Such is a model farm.

No, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. Let our lakes receive names as true and meaningful at least as the Icarian Sea (a place in Greek mythology, named after Icarus, known for a brave but tragic attempt).

My Lake Country

Goose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to Flint’s. Fair Haven, an expansion of Concord River, said to contain some seventy acres, is a mile southwest. And White Pond, of about forty acres, is a mile and a half beyond Fair Haven. This is my lake country. These, with Concord River, are my water privileges (sources of natural benefit and inspiration). Night and day, year in and year out, they grind such grist (material for thought or experience) as I carry to them.

White Pond: Walden’s Twin

Since the woodcutters, the railroad, and I myself have profaned (desecrated) Walden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most beautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the woods, is White Pond. This is a poor name from its commonness, whether derived from the remarkable purity of its waters or the color of its sands. In these as in other respects, however, it is a lesser twin of Walden. They are so much alike that you would say they must be connected underground. It has the same stony shore, and its waters are of the same hue.

As at Walden, in sultry dog-day (hot midsummer) weather, looking down through the woods on some of its bays which are not so deep but that the reflection from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of a misty bluish-green or glaucous (dull green or blue) color. Many years ago, I used to go there to collect sand by cart-loads to make sandpaper with, and I have continued to visit it ever since. One who frequents it proposes to call it Virid Lake (Green Lake).

Perhaps it might be called Yellow-Pine Lake, from the following circumstance. About fifteen years ago you could see the top of a pitch pine tree (the kind called yellow pine thereabouts, though it is not a distinct species) projecting above the surface in deep water, many rods (a rod is 16.5 feet) from the shore. It was even supposed by some that the pond had sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest trees that formerly stood there. I find that even as long ago as 1792, in a “Topographical Description of the Town of Concord,” by one of its citizens, in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the author, after speaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds: “In the middle of the latter [White Pond] may be seen, when the water is very low, a tree which appears as if it grew in the place where it now stands, although the roots are fifty feet below the surface of the water; the top of this tree is broken off, and at that place measures fourteen inches in diameter.”

In the spring of 1849, I talked with the man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury. He told me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years before. As near as he could remember, it stood twelve or fifteen rods from the shore, where the water was thirty or forty feet deep. It was in the winter, and he had been getting out ice in the forenoon. He had resolved that in the afternoon, with the aid of his neighbors, he would take out the old yellow pine. He sawed a channel in the ice toward the shore and hauled it over and along and out onto the ice with oxen. But, before he had gone far in his work, he was surprised to find that it was wrong end upward, with the stumps of the branches pointing down, and the small end firmly fastened in the sandy bottom. It was about a foot in diameter at the big end, and he had expected to get a good saw-log from it, but it was so rotten as to be fit only for fuel, if for that. He had some of it in his shed then. There were marks of an axe and of woodpeckers on the butt end. He thought that it might have been a dead tree on the shore, but was finally blown over into the pond. After the top had become waterlogged, while the butt-end was still dry and light, it had drifted out and sunk wrong end up. His father, eighty years old, could not remember when it was not there. Several pretty large logs may still be seen lying on the bottom, where, owing to the undulation of the surface, they look like huge water snakes in motion.

This pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, for there is little in it to tempt a fisherman. Instead of the white lily, which requires mud, or the common sweet flag, the blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows thinly in the pure water. It rises from the stony bottom all around the shore, where it is visited by hummingbirds in June. The color both of its bluish blades and its flowers, and especially their reflections, are in singular harmony with the glaucous water.

Lakes of Light

White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed (frozen solid) and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors. But being liquid, and ample (plentiful), and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them and run after the diamond of Koh-i-Noor (a famous large diamond). They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck (dirt or filth).

How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We never learned meanness from them. How much fairer (more beautiful and pure) than the pool before the farmer’s door, in which his ducks swim! Clean wild ducks come to these ponds. Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires (joins in secret agreement) with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! You disgrace earth.

Baker Farm

Sometimes I wandered to pine groves. They stood like temples or like fleets of ships at sea, fully rigged, with wavy branches, and rippling with light. These groves were so soft, green, and shady that ancient Druids would have left their sacred oaks to worship in them.

Other times, I went to the cedar wood beyond Flint’s Pond. There, the trees, covered with pale, bluish berries, grew taller and taller, fit to stand before Valhalla (the mythical hall of heroes). The creeping juniper covered the ground with wreaths full of fruit.

Or I visited swamps where:

• The usnea lichen hung in decorative loops from the black spruce trees.
• Toadstools, looking like round tables for swamp gods, covered the ground.
• More beautiful fungi decorated the tree stumps, resembling butterflies, shells, or “vegetable winkles” (sea snails).
• The swamp-pink and dogwood grew.
• The red alder-berry glowed like the eyes of imps.
• The waxwork vine (American bittersweet) twisted around and crushed even the hardest woods in its folds.
• The wild holly berries were so beautiful they made the observer forget his home.
• He was dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild, forbidden fruits, too beautiful for ordinary people to taste.

Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many visits to particular trees. These were kinds that are rare in this neighborhood. They stood far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hilltop. Some of these trees included:

• The black birch, of which we have some handsome examples, two feet in diameter.
• Its cousin, the yellow birch, with its loose golden bark, perfumed like the black birch.
• The beech, which has such a neat trunk and is beautifully painted with lichens, perfect in all its details. Except for scattered examples, I know of only one small grove of sizeable beech trees left in the township. Some believe these were planted by pigeons that were once baited with beech nuts nearby. It is worthwhile to see the silver grain sparkle when you split this wood.
• The basswood (or linden).
• The hornbeam.
• The Celtis occidentalis, or false elm (hackberry), of which we have only one well-grown specimen.
• Some taller pine tree, a “shingle tree” (good for making shingles), or a more perfect hemlock than usual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods.
• And many others I could mention.

These were the shrines I visited in both summer and winter.

Nature’s Light and Shadow

Once, I happened to stand in the very base of a rainbow’s arch. It filled the lower layer of the atmosphere, coloring the grass and leaves around me. It was dazzling, as if I looked through colored crystal. It was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a short while, I lived like a dolphin. If it had lasted longer, it might have colored my activities and my whole life.

As I walked on the raised railroad bed (causeway), I used to wonder at the halo of light around my shadow. I would like to fancy myself one of the “elect” (chosen ones). One person who visited me declared that the shadows of some Irishmen he saw before him had no halo around them. He said that it was only “natives” (perhaps meaning those born in the area or with a deep connection to it) who were so distinguished.

Benvenuto Cellini (a famous Italian artist) tells us in his memoirs that, after a certain terrible dream or vision he had while imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, a shining light appeared over the shadow of his head in the morning and evening. This happened whether he was in Italy or France, and it was particularly noticeable when the grass was moist with dew. This was probably the same phenomenon I have referred to. It is especially observed in the morning, but also at other times, and even by moonlight. Though it is a constant phenomenon, it is not commonly noticed. In the case of an excitable imagination like Cellini’s, it would be enough basis for superstition. Besides, he tells us that he showed it to very few people. But are not those people indeed distinguished who are conscious that they are regarded or noticed at all?

A Fishing Trip Interrupted

I set out one afternoon to go fishing at Fair Haven, through the woods, to add to my scanty meals of vegetables. My way led through Pleasant Meadow, an area connected to Baker Farm. This was the retreat that a poet later wrote about, beginning with lines describing a pleasant field, some mossy fruit trees, a reddish brook where muskrats swam, and quick trout darting about.

I thought of living there before I went to Walden. On my way that afternoon, I “hooked” (casually picked) some apples, leaped over the brook, and scared the muskrats and the trout. It was one of those afternoons which seem indefinitely long before you, in which many events may happen—a large portion of our natural life. Though, it was already half spent when I started.

Along the way, a shower came up. This compelled me to stand for half an hour under a pine tree, piling its branches over my head and wearing my handkerchief as a sort of shed. When at length I had made one cast of my fishing line over the pickerel-weed, standing up to my middle in water, I found myself suddenly in the shadow of a cloud. The thunder began to rumble with such emphasis that I could do no more than listen to it. The gods must be proud, I thought, to use such forked flashes of lightning to chase away a poor, unarmed fisherman.

So I made haste for shelter to the nearest hut. It stood half a mile from any road, but so much the nearer to the pond, and had long been uninhabited. A poet imagined: “And here a poet builded, In the completed years, For behold a trivial cabin That to destruction steers.” (Meaning a poet built a simple cabin here long ago, a cabin now falling apart.)

Shelter with the Field Family

But as I found, the hut now housed John Field, an Irishman, his wife, and several children. These ranged from the broad-faced boy who assisted his father at his work (and now came running by his side from the bog to escape the rain) to the wrinkled, sibyl-like (wise-looking like an ancient prophetess), cone-headed infant. This baby sat upon its father’s knee as if in the palaces of nobles and looked out from its home in the midst of wetness and hunger inquisitively upon the stranger. With the privilege of infancy, it didn’t know it was John Field’s poor, starving child, but perhaps felt like the last of a noble line and the hope and center of attention for the world.

There we sat together under that part of the roof which leaked the least, while it showered and thundered outside. I had sat there many times in the past, before the ship was built that floated this family to America. John Field was plainly an honest, hard-working man, but also “shiftless” (lacking in practical management or ambition to improve his situation). His wife, too, was brave to cook so many successive dinners in the recesses of that lofty stove. She had a round, greasy face and bare breast, still thinking she might improve her condition one day. She always had a mop in one hand, and yet there were no visible effects of its use anywhere.

The chickens, which had also taken shelter there from the rain, stalked about the room like members of the family. They seemed too humanized, I thought, to roast well. They stood and looked me in the eye or pecked at my shoe significantly.

Meanwhile, my host told me his story. He described how hard he worked “bogging” (clearing and digging peat from a bog) for a neighboring farmer. He was turning up a meadow with a spade or bog hoe at the rate of ten dollars an acre, plus the use of the land with manure for one year. His little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his father’s side the whole time, not knowing how poor a bargain his father had made.

Advice for a Simpler Life

I tried to help him with my experience. I told him that he was one of my nearest neighbors, and that I too—who came fishing here and looked like a loafer—was getting my living like himself. I explained that I lived in a tight, light, and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his commonly amounted to. I told him how, if he chose, he might in a month or two build himself a palace of his own.

I explained that I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so I did not have to work to get them. Again, as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard, and my food cost me very little. But as he began with tea, coffee, butter, milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for them. And when he had worked hard, he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system. So it was “as broad as it was long” (meaning the effort and reward canceled each other out). Indeed, I thought it was broader than it was long, for he was discontented and wasted his life in the bargain. And yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, coffee, and meat every day.

But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue a way of life that enables you to do without these things. It’s a place where the state does not try to compel you to sustain slavery, war, and other unnecessary expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things. For I purposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be one.

I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men beginning to redeem themselves (live more truly and simply). A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture (way of life). But alas! The culture of an Irishman (like John Field) is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of “moral bog hoe” (meaning it requires a deep, difficult effort to change ingrained habits).

I told him that as he worked so hard at bogging, he required thick boots and stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out. But I wore light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much—though he might think that I was dressed like a gentleman (which, however, was not the case). And in an hour or two, without labor, but as a recreation, I could, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should want for two days, or earn enough money to support me for a week. If he and his family would live simply, they might all go huckleberrying in the summer for their amusement.

John heaved a sigh at this, and his wife stared with her arms akimbo (on her hips). Both appeared to be wondering if they had enough capital (money or resources) to begin such a course with, or enough arithmetic (skill in calculation) to carry it through. It was like sailing by “dead reckoning” to them (navigating by estimation without clear guidance), and they did not see clearly how to make their port (reach their goal). Therefore, I suppose they still take life bravely, after their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail (fighting with all their might). They lacked the skill to split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge (a subtle, effective strategy) and overcome it in detail. They thought they had to deal with it roughly, as one should handle a thistle. But they fought at an overwhelming disadvantage—John Field, alas, living without arithmetic, and failing because of it.

An Offer of Bait and a Drink

“Do you ever fish?” I asked. “Oh yes, I catch a mess (a good amount) now and then when I am lying by (not working); good perch I catch.” “What’s your bait?” “I catch shiners with fish-worms, and bait the perch with them.” “You’d better go now, John,” said his wife with a glistening and hopeful face; but John demurred (hesitated).

The shower was now over, and a rainbow above the eastern woods promised a fair evening; so I took my departure. When I had got outside, I asked for a drink, hoping to get a sight of their well bottom, to complete my survey of the premises. But there, alas! There were shallows and quicksands in the well, and the rope was broken, and the bucket was irrecoverable. Meanwhile, the right culinary vessel (cup) was selected inside, water was seemingly distilled (carefully prepared), and after consultation and long delay, it was passed out to the thirsty one (me)—not yet allowed to cool, not yet to settle. “Such gruel (thin, watery nourishment) sustains life here,” I thought. So, shutting my eyes, and excluding the motes (specks) by a skillfully directed under-current (drinking from below the surface specks), I drank to genuine hospitality the heartiest draught (gulp) I could. I am not squeamish in such cases when manners are concerned.

A Renewed Sense of Purpose

As I was leaving the Irishman’s roof after the rain, bending my steps again to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel—wading in retired meadows, in sloughs (swampy areas) and bog-holes, in forlorn and savage places—appeared for an instant trivial to me, who had been sent to school and college. But as I ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the rainbow over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear through the cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good Genius (guiding spirit) seemed to say: “Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day—farther and wider—and rest by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges (grass-like plants) and brakes (ferns or thickets), which will never become English hay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it threatens ruin to farmers’ crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not getting a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise (initiative) and faith, men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs (unfree laborers).”

O Baker Farm!

O Baker Farm! It is a landscape where the richest element is a little innocent sunshine. No one runs to celebrate wildly on your rail-fenced fields. You have no debates with any man and are never perplexed by questions. You are as tame at first sight as you are now, dressed in your plain, simple, natural clothing. A call goes out: Come, you who love, and you who hate, children of peace (the Holy Dove) and rebels against the state (Guy Fawkes). Come hang your worries and schemes (conspiracies) from the tough branches of the trees! (Find solace and release here).

Men come tamely home at night only from the next field or street, where their household routines (echoes) haunt them. Their life pines (weakens) because it breathes its own breath over and over again; their shadows morning and evening reach farther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character.

Before I had reached the pond, some fresh impulse had brought out John Field, with an altered mind, letting go of “bogging” before this sunset. But he, poor man, disturbed only a couple of fish fins while I was catching a fair string of fish. He said it was his luck. But when we changed seats in the boat, luck changed seats too. Poor John Field!—I trust he does not read this, unless he will improve by it—thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this primitive new country—to catch perch with shiners. It is good bait sometimes, I allow. With his horizon all his own (his potential for a new life), yet he remains a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his “Adam’s grandmother” (deeply ingrained habits or burdens) and boggy ways. He is not to rise in this world, neither he nor his posterity (descendants), until their wading, webbed, bog-trotting feet get talaria (winged sandals of the Roman god Mercury) to their heels—meaning, until a fundamental, almost magical transformation occurs.

Higher Laws

As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my fishing pole, it was now quite dark. I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path. I felt a strange thrill of savage delight and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw. It wasn’t that I was hungry for food then, except for that wildness which the woodchuck represented.

Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods like a half-starved hound. I felt a strange sense of abandon, seeking some kind of wild game (venison) that I might devour. No morsel of food could have been too savage for me at those times. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar to me.

Two Sides of Human Nature

I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as most men do. I also find another instinct toward a primitive, rank, and savage one. I have reverence for (deeply respect) them both. I love the wild not less than the good.

The wildness and adventure that are in fishing still recommended it to me. I like sometimes to take a raw, strong hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do. Perhaps I owed my closest acquaintance with Nature to this activity and to hunting when I was quite young. These pursuits early introduce us to and keep us in scenery with which, otherwise, at that age, we would have little acquaintance.

Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, are in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves. They are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their work, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with specific expectations. Nature is not afraid to show herself to them. The traveler on the prairie is naturally a hunter. On the headwaters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, a traveler becomes a trapper. At the Falls of St. Mary, a traveler becomes a fisherman. He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by halves, and is a poor source of authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is true humanity, or a true account of human experience.

New England Pastimes

People are mistaken when they say that the Yankee (a term for New Englanders) has few amusements because he does not have so many public holidays, and men and boys do not play as many games as they do in England. Here in New England, the more primitive but solitary amusements of hunting, fishing, and the like have not yet given way to the more social games common in England. Almost every New England boy among my contemporaries (those of my time) shouldered a fowling piece (a type of shotgun for hunting birds) between the ages of ten and fourteen. His hunting and fishing grounds were not limited like the private game preserves of an English nobleman but were more boundless even than those of a native hunter living in the wilderness. No wonder, then, that he did not often stay to play on the village common (public green).

But a change is already taking place. This is due not to an increased sense of humanity, but to an increased scarcity of game. For perhaps the hunter is the greatest friend of the animals hunted, not even excepting the Humane Society (an organization dedicated to animal welfare).

Changing Views on Hunting and Fishing

Moreover, when at the pond, I sometimes wished to add fish to my meals for variety. I have actually fished from the same kind of necessity that the first fishers did. Whatever arguments about humanity I might conjure up against it felt artificial (factitious) and concerned my philosophy more than my actual feelings. I speak of fishing only now, for I had long felt differently about hunting birds (fowling) and sold my gun before I went to the woods. Not that I am less humane than others, but I did not perceive that my feelings were much affected by fishing. I did not pity the fishes nor the worms. This was a habit.

As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun, my excuse was that I was studying ornithology (the study of birds) and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun.

Yet, notwithstanding the objection to hunting on the score of humanity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are ever substituted for these. When some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have answered, yes. I remember that it was one of the best parts of my own education. I tell them to make their sons hunters—though perhaps only sportsmen at first—and if possible, mighty hunters at last. They should become hunters so skilled that they shall not find game large enough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness. They should be hunters of big ideas as well as “fishers of men” (those who influence and guide people). Thus far, I am of the opinion of Chaucer’s nun (from The Canterbury Tales), who “did not give a plucked hen for that text that says hunters are not holy men” (meaning she disregarded criticisms of hunting).

Hunting as a Stage in Life

There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the human race, when hunters are the “best men,” as the Algonquins (a Native American people) called them. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane for not having done so, while his education in nature has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who were set on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly (cruelly and without reason) murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure (right to exist) that he does. The hare, in its extremity, cries like a child. I warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual philanthropic (charitable) distinctions.

Hunting and fishing are often the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes there at first as a hunter and fisher. Eventually, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects of interest—as a poet or naturalist, it may be—and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect (they don’t progress beyond this stage). In some countries, a hunting parson (clergyman) is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd’s dog but is far from being the Good Shepherd (a true spiritual leader).

I have been surprised to consider that the only obvious employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the like business, which ever to my knowledge kept any of my fellow-citizens at Walden Pond for a whole half-day—whether fathers or children of the town, with just one exception—was fishing. Commonly, they did not think that they were lucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a long string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond all the while. They might go there a thousand times before the “sediment” of merely fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure (before they would appreciate the pond for more than just fish). But no doubt such a clarifying process would be going on all the while.

The governor and his council faintly remember the pond, for they went fishing there when they were boys. But now they are too old and dignified to go fishing, and so they know it no more forever. Yet even they expect to go to heaven at last. If the legislature regards the pond, it is chiefly to regulate the number of hooks to be used there. But they know nothing about the “hook of hooks” (the deeper understanding) with which to angle for the pond itself, metaphorically using the legislature as bait. Thus, even in civilized communities, the “embryo man” (the developing individual) passes through the hunter stage of development.

Losing Respect for Fishing

I have found repeatedly, in recent years, that I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect. I have tried it again and again. I have skill at it and, like many of my fellows, a certain instinct for it, which revives from time to time. But always when I have done, I feel that it would have been better if I had not fished. I think that I do not mistake this feeling. It is a faint intimation (hint), yet so are the first streaks of morning. There is unquestionably this instinct in me which belongs to the lower orders of creation. Yet with every year, I am less a fisherman, though without becoming more humane or even wiser. At present, I am no fisherman at all. But I see that if I were to live in a wilderness, I should again be tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest.

The Uncleanness of Animal Food

Besides, there is something essentially unclean about this diet of fish and all flesh. I began to see where housework truly commences, and where the great effort comes from—which costs so much—to wear a tidy and respectable appearance each day, and to keep the house sweet and free from all ill odors and sights. Having been my own butcher and scullion (kitchen helper who does messy work) and cook, as well as the gentleman for whom the dishes were served up, I can speak from an unusually complete experience.

The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness. And, besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it was worth. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth. Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, and so on. This was not so much because of any ill effects which I had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable to my imagination. The repugnance (strong dislike) to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live simply (“live low”) and eat sparingly (“fare hard”) in many respects. And though I never fully did so, I went far enough to please my imagination.

I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind. It is a significant fact, stated by entomologists (scientists who study insects)—I find it in a book by Kirby and Spence—that “some insects in their perfect state [adult stage], though furnished with organs of feeding, make no use of them.” And they lay it down as “a general rule, that almost all insects in this state eat much less than in that of larvae [immature stage]. The voracious caterpillar when transformed into a butterfly,” and “the gluttonous maggot when become a fly,” content themselves with a drop or two of honey or some other sweet liquid. The abdomen under the wings of the butterfly still represents the larva. This is the tidbit which tempts its insectivorous fate (predators that eat insects). The gross feeder (one who eats crudely or excessively) is a man in the larva state. And there are whole nations in that condition—nations without fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens (bellies) betray them.

Diet, Imagination, and Civilization

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination. But this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. Fruits eaten temperately (in moderation) need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment (seasoning) into your dish, and it will poison you. It is not worthwhile to live by rich cookery.

Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others. Yet until this is otherwise, we are not civilized, and, if we consider ourselves gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women. This certainly suggests what change is to be made. It may be vain to ask why the imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach (a cause for shame) that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals. But this is a miserable way—as anyone who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn. And he will be regarded as a benefactor (one who does good) for his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

Following Your Genius

If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius (inner spirit or guiding intellect), which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him. And yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured objection which one healthy man feels will at length prevail over the arguments and customs of mankind. No man ever followed his genius until it misled him (meaning true genius does not mislead). Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles.

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Sobriety in All Things

Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. I am glad to have drunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater’s heaven. I would fain (gladly) keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness. I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor. And think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of all ebriosity (drunkenness), who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?

I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also. But to tell the truth, I find myself at present somewhat less particular in these respects. I carry less religion to the table, ask no blessing; not because I am wiser than I was, but, I am obliged to confess, because, however much it is to be regretted, with years I have grown more coarse and indifferent. Perhaps these questions are entertained only in youth, as most believe of poetry. My practice is “nowhere” (not ideal or consistent), my opinion is here. Nevertheless, I am far from regarding myself as one of those privileged ones to whom the Ved (Hindu scripture) refers when it says, that “he who has true faith in the Omnipresent Supreme Being may eat all that exists”—that is, is not bound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it. And even in their case, it is to be observed, as a Hindu commentator has remarked, that the Vedant (a school of Hindu philosophy) limits this privilege to “the time of distress.”

The True Savor of Life

Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from his food in which appetite (physical hunger) had no share? I have been thrilled to think that I owed a mental perception to the commonly gross sense of taste, that I have been inspired through the palate, that some berries which I had eaten on a hillside had fed my genius. “The soul not being mistress of herself,” says Thseng-tseu (Zengzi, a Chinese philosopher), “one looks, and one does not see; one listens, and one does not hear; one eats, and one does not know the savor of food.” He who distinguishes the true savor (essential flavor and meaning) of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. A puritan may go to his brown-bread crust with as gross an appetite as ever an alderman (a city official, often associated with rich food) to his turtle soup. Not that food which enters into the mouth defiles a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten. It is neither the quality nor the quantity, but the devotion to sensual savors when that which is eaten is not a viand (food item) to sustain our animal life, or inspire our spiritual life, but food for the worms (base desires or mortality) that possess us.

If the hunter has a taste for mud turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf’s foot, or for sardines from over the sea, and they are essentially even in their indulgence. He goes to the mill-pond for his rough food; she to her preserve-pot for her refined delicacies. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.

The Moral Universe

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails. In the music of the harp which trembles round the world, it is the insisting on this moral truth which thrills us. The harp is like the traveling patterer (salesman) for the Universe’s Insurance Company, recommending its laws, and our little goodness is all the assessment (payment) that we pay. Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent but are forever on the side of the most sensitive. Listen to every zephyr (gentle breeze) for some reproof (gentle correction), for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate who does not hear it. We cannot touch a string or move a stop (on a musical instrument) but the charming moral transfixes (captivates) us. Many an irksome (annoying) noise, if you go a long way off, is heard as music—a proud, sweet satire on the meanness of our lives.

The Animal Within

We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers (sleeps). It is reptile-like and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled, like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but we can never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure. The other day I picked up the lower jaw of a hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks. This suggested that there was an animal health and vigor distinct from the spiritual. This creature succeeded by other means than temperance and purity. “That in which men differ from brute beasts,” says Mencius (a Chinese philosopher), “is a thing very inconsiderable (small); the common herd lose it very soon; superior men preserve it carefully.” Who knows what sort of life would result if we had attained to purity? If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity, I would go to seek him forthwith (immediately).

“A command over our passions, and over the external senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by the Ved (ancient Hindu scripture) to be indispensable (absolutely necessary) in the mind’s approximation to God.”

Yet, the human spirit can, for a time, pervade and control every part and function of the body. It can transform what in its form is the grossest sensuality (base physical desire) into purity and devotion. The generative energy (the energy used for procreation and creation), which makes us unclean and dissipates when we are morally loose, actually invigorates and inspires us when we are self-controlled (continent).

Chastity (purity in thought and act) is the flowering of mankind. What are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and similar virtues are just various fruits that come after this flowering. A person flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open. By turns, our purity inspires us, and our impurity casts us down. Blessed is the person who is assured that the animal nature in him is dying out day by day, and the divine nature is being established. Perhaps there is no one who does not have cause for shame on account of the inferior and brutish nature to which he is connected. I fear that we are only gods or demigods in the way that fauns and satyrs were (mythological creatures that were part human, part beast). We are divine beings allied to beasts, creatures of appetite. To some extent, our very life in this state is our disgrace.

A poet wrote: “How happy is he who has assigned the proper place To his ‘beasts’ (his passions and lower instincts) and has ‘disaforested’ his mind (cleared it of wild, uncontrolled thoughts)!

He can use his ‘horse, goat, wolf, and every beast’ (manage all his animalistic tendencies), And is not himself an ‘ass’ (a fool) to all the rest (not controlled by his baser self)! Else, man is not only like the herd of swine (pigs running wildly), But he is also like those devils that drove them to a headlong rage and made them worse.”

The Nature of Sensuality and Purity

All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eats, or drinks, or engages in sexual activity, or sleeps in a sensual way. These are all just one appetite. We only need to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist (a person devoted to sensual pleasures) he is. The impure person can neither stand nor sit comfortably with purity. When a reptile is attacked at one entrance of his burrow, he shows himself at another. If you would be chaste (pure), you must be temperate (self-controlled and moderate).

What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we do not truly know what it is. We speak according to the rumor we have heard. From exertion (effort and work) come wisdom and purity; from sloth (laziness) come ignorance and sensuality. In a student, sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. An unclean person is universally a slothful one—someone who sits by a stove, whom the sun shines on while they are lying down, who rests without being tired. If you would avoid uncleanness and all sins, work earnestly, even if it is at cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to overcome, but she must be overcome. What good is it that you are a Christian if you are not purer than the heathen (a term historically used for non-Christians), if you deny yourself no more, if you are not more religious? I know of many religious systems considered “heathenish” whose teachings fill the reader with shame and provoke him to new efforts, even if it is just to perform their rites.

I hesitate to say these things, but it is not because of the subject—I do not care how “obscene” my words might seem. It is because I cannot speak of them without betraying my own impurity. We talk freely and without shame about one form of sensuality, yet we are silent about another. We are so degraded that we cannot speak simply and naturally about the necessary functions of human nature. In earlier ages, in some countries, every bodily function was spoken of with reverence and was regulated by law. Nothing was too trivial for the Hindu lawgiver, however offensive it may be to modern taste. He teaches how to eat, drink, engage in sexual relations, urinate, and defecate, and similar things, elevating what is considered lowly. He does not falsely excuse himself by calling these things unimportant trifles.

The Body as a Temple

Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body. He builds it to the god he worships, in a style that is purely his own. He cannot get off by hammering marble instead (meaning he cannot substitute external work for internal work on himself). We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features; any meanness or sensuality begins to make them coarse or animal-like (imbrute them).

John Farmer’s Evening

John Farmer sat at his door one September evening, after a hard day’s work. His mind was still running on his labor, more or less. Having bathed, he sat down to refresh his intellectual self. It was a rather cool evening, and some of his neighbors were worried about a frost.

He had not been attending to his train of thoughts for long when he heard someone playing a flute. That sound harmonized with his mood. He still thought of his work; but the main point of his thought was that even though his work kept running in his head, and he found himself planning and contriving it against his will, it actually concerned him very little. It was no more than the scurf (dry flakes) on his skin, which was constantly being shed.

But the notes of the flute came to his ears from a different sphere than the one he worked in. They suggested work for certain faculties (abilities or powers) which were slumbering in him. The music gently did away with the street, the village, and the state in which he lived. A voice said to him: “Why do you stay here and live this mean, toiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these.” But how could he come out of this condition and actually migrate (move) to that better existence? All that he could think of was to practice some new austerity (self-discipline or simple living), to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and to treat himself with ever-increasing respect.

Brute Neighbors

Sometimes I had a fishing companion. He would come through the village from the other side of town to my house. For us, catching dinner was as much a social activity as eating it.

Hermit: I wonder what the world is doing now. For the past three hours, I haven’t heard so much as a locust over the sweet-fern plants. The pigeons are all asleep on their roosts—no fluttering from them. Was that a farmer’s noon horn I just heard from beyond the woods? The farmhands are coming in for their meal of boiled salt beef, cider, and cornbread. Why do men worry themselves so much? He that does not eat does not need to work. I wonder how much they have harvested. Who would want to live there, where a person can never think because of the barking of some dog named Bose?

And oh, the housekeeping! To keep the devil’s doorknobs bright and to scrub his tubs on this bright day! It’s better not to keep a house at all. Say, live in a hollow tree instead; and then what about morning calls and dinner parties! You’d only have a woodpecker tapping. Oh, people swarm; the sun is too warm in those crowded places; they are born too far into a complicated life for me. I have water from the spring and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf.

Hark! I hear a rustling of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound giving in to the instinct of the chase? Or is it the lost pig that is said to be in these woods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It’s coming closer quickly; my sumach and sweet-briar bushes are trembling. Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like the world today?

Poet: See those clouds; how they hang! That’s the greatest thing I have seen today. There’s nothing like it in old paintings, nothing like it in foreign lands—unless it was when we were off the coast of Spain. That’s a true Mediterranean sky. I thought, since I have my living to get and have not eaten today, that I might go fishing. That’s the true work for poets. It is the only trade I have learned. Come, let’s go.

Hermit: I cannot resist. My brown bread will soon be gone. I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just finishing a serious meditation. I think that I am near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while. But so that we may not be delayed, you shall dig the bait in the meantime. Angleworms are rarely found in these parts, where the soil was never enriched with manure; the species is nearly extinct here. The sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when one’s appetite is not too keen; and this you may have all to yourself today. I would advise you to start digging with the spade down there among the groundnuts, where you see the St. John’s wort waving. I think I can guarantee you one worm for every three clumps of sod you turn up, if you look well in among the roots of the grass, as if you were weeding. Or, if you choose to go farther, it will not be unwise, for I have found that the amount of good bait increases almost as the square of the distance you travel.

(Hermit alone): Let me see; where was I? I think I was nearly in this frame of mind; the world lay before me at this particular angle. Shall I go to heaven or go fishing? If I should soon bring this meditation to an end, would another such sweet opportunity be likely to offer itself? I was as near being resolved into the essence of things as I ever was in my life. I fear my thoughts will not come back to me. If it would do any good, I would whistle for them. When great thoughts make us an offer, is it wise to say, “We will think of it?” My thoughts have left no track, and I cannot find the path again. What was it that I was thinking of? It was a very hazy day. I will just try these three sentences from Confucius; they may bring that state of mind back again. I do not know whether I was feeling down (in the dumps) or if it was a budding ecstasy. Note to self: There is never more than one opportunity of a particular kind.

Poet: How now, Hermit, is it too soon to interrupt? I have got just thirteen whole worms, besides several which are imperfect or undersized. But they will do for the smaller fish; they do not cover up the hook so much. Those village worms are quite too large; a shiner (small bait fish) might make a meal off one without even finding the hook (skewer).

Hermit: Well, then, let’s be off. Shall we go to the Concord River? There’s good sport there if the water is not too high.

Our Animal Neighbors

Why do precisely these objects that we see make up a world? Why does humanity have just these species of animals for its neighbors, as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this particular crevice in existence? I suspect that storytellers like Pilpay & Co. (authors of ancient Indian fables, like the Panchatantra, where animals speak and act with wisdom) have put animals to their best use. For, in a sense, all animals are beasts of burden, made to carry some portion of our thoughts and reflections.

The mice that haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said to have been introduced into the country. They were a wild native kind (Mus leucopus) not found in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested him greatly. When I was building my house, one of these mice had its nest underneath. Before I had laid the second floor and swept out the wood shavings, it would come out regularly at lunchtime and pick up the crumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before. It soon became quite familiar and would run over my shoes and up my clothes. It could easily climb the sides of the room by short, quick movements, like a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions.

One day, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench, it ran up my clothes, along my sleeve, and round and round the paper that held my dinner. I kept the dinner close, and we dodged and played peek-a-boo (bopeep). When at last I held a piece of cheese still between my thumb and finger, it came and nibbled it, sitting in my hand. Afterward, it cleaned its face and paws, like a fly, and walked away.

Bird Visitors

A phoebe soon built its nest in my shed. A robin built its nest for protection in a pine tree that grew against the house. In June, the partridge (Tetrao umbellus), which is a very shy bird, led her brood (young chicks) past my windows. They came from the woods in the rear to the front of my house. She was clucking and calling to them like a hen. In all her behavior, she proved herself to be the hen of the woods.

The young partridges suddenly disperse when you approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away. They so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood. He might hear the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing. Or he might see her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting the young ones were nearby. The parent bird will sometimes roll and spin around in front of you in such a disheveled state (dishabille) that, for a few moments, you cannot tell what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf. They mind only their mother’s directions given from a distance. Your approach will not make them run again and betray themselves. You may even tread on them or have your eyes on them for a minute without discovering them. I have held them in my open hand at such a time. Still, their only care, obedient to their mother and their instinct, was to squat there without fear or trembling.

So perfect is this instinct, that once, when I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten minutes afterward. They are not callow (helpless and unfledged) like the young of most birds. They are more perfectly developed and precocious (advanced for their age) even than chickens. The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was but is as old as (coeval with) the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem. The traveler does not often look into such a clear (limpid) well of an eye. The ignorant or reckless sportsman often shoots the parent bird at such a time. He leaves these innocents to fall prey to some prowling beast or bird, or to gradually mingle with the decaying leaves which they so much resemble. It is said that when partridge eggs are hatched by a hen, the young will directly disperse on some alarm and so are lost, for they never hear the mother’s call which gathers them again. These partridges were my hens and chickens.

Hidden Lives in the Woods

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free, though secretly, in the woods. They still sustain themselves in the neighborhood of towns, suspected by hunters only. The otter manages to live here in such a retired way! He grows to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without any human being ever getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in the woods behind where my house is built, and I probably still heard their whinnying calls at night.

Commonly, I rested an hour or two in the shade at noon after planting. I ate my lunch and read a little by a spring. This spring was the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing from under Brister’s Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this spot was through a succession of descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch pines, leading into a larger wood around the swamp. There, in a very secluded and shaded spot, under a spreading white pine tree, there was still a clean, firm patch of grass (sward) to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray water, where I could dip up a pailful without stirring up mud (roiling it). I went there for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was warmest.

There too, the woodcock led her brood to probe the mud for worms. She would fly but a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in a troop beneath. But at last, spotting me, she would leave her young and circle round and round me, nearer and nearer, until she was within four or five feet. She would pretend to have broken wings and legs to attract my attention and get her young ones away. Her young would already have started their march, with faint, wiry peeps, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird.

There too, the turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough of the soft white pines over my head. Or the red squirrel, running down the nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive. You only need to sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods for all its inhabitants to show themselves to you by turns.

A Battle of Ants

I was a witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my woodpile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants. One was red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black. They were fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold, they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the wood chips incessantly.

Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants. It was not a duellum (a duel between two), but a bellum (a war)—a war between two races of ants. The red ants were always pitted against the black ants, and frequently there were two red ones to one black one. The legions of these Myrmidons (a reference to fierce Greek warriors) covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard. The ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black.

It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever trod while the battle was raging. It was an internecine war (mutually destructive). The red republicans were on one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side, they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear. Human soldiers never fought so resolutely.

I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips. Now at noonday, they were prepared to fight until the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vise to his adversary’s front. Through all the tumblings on that field, he never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his enemy’s feelers near the root, having already caused the other feeler to be lost. Meanwhile, the stronger black one dashed him from side to side. As I saw on looking nearer, the black one had already divested the red one of several of his limbs. They fought with more stubbornness (pertinacity) than bulldogs. Neither showed the least inclination to retreat. It was evident that their battle cry was “Conquer or die!”

In the meantime, there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley. He was evidently full of excitement. He either had dispatched his foe or had not yet taken part in the battle (probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs). His mother had perhaps charged him to return with his shield or upon it (a Spartan saying meaning to return victorious or dead). Or perchance he was some Achilles (a great Greek hero) who had nurtured his wrath apart and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus (Achilles’ close friend).

He saw this unequal combat from afar—for the black ants were nearly twice the size of the red ones. He drew near with rapid pace until he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants. Then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior. He commenced his operations near the root of the black warrior’s right foreleg, leaving the foe to choose which of its own limbs to defend. And so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some prominent chip, playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants.

I was myself excited somewhat, even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly, there is not a fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this one. This is true whether for the numbers engaged in it or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers of combatants and for carnage, it was an Austerlitz or Dresden (famous, bloody European battles). Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots’ side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why, here every ant was a Buttrick (Major John Buttrick, who gave the order to fire at Concord Bridge)—“Fire! For God’s sake, fire!”—and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer (Americans killed at Concord). There was not one hireling (mercenary soldier) there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors did, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea. And the results of this ant battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.

I took up the chip on which the three ants I have particularly described were struggling. I carried it into my house and placed it under a tumbler (a glass) on my windowsill, in order to see the outcome. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously (diligently) gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away. This exposed what vital organs he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for the red ant to pierce. And the dark, jewel-like eyes (carbuncles) of the sufferer shone with a ferocity such as only war could excite.

They struggled for half an hour longer under the tumbler. When I looked again, the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies. The still-living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddlebow. They were still apparently as firmly fastened as ever. He was endeavoring with feeble struggles—being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds—to divest himself of them (get rid of them). This he at length accomplished after half an hour more. I raised the glass, and he went off over the windowsill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat and spent the remainder of his days in some “Hotel des Invalides” (a hospital for disabled soldiers, like the one in Paris), I do not know. But I thought that his industry (ability to work) would not be worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war. But I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity, and carnage of a human battle before my door.

Kirby and Spence (early entomologists) tell us that the battles of ants have long been celebrated and the date of them recorded. Though they say that Huber is the only modern author who appears to have witnessed them. They mention that Aeneas Sylvius (later Pope Pius II), after giving a very detailed account of one battle contested with great obstinacy by a large and small species on the trunk of a pear tree, adds that: “‘This action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth (1431-1447), in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity.’ A similar engagement between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus (a Swedish writer), in which the small ones, being victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies a prey to the birds. This event happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden (in the 1520s).” The battle which I witnessed took place during the Presidency of Polk (1845-1849), five years before the passage of Webster’s Fugitive Slave Bill (1850).

Other Four-Legged Visitors

Many a village dog, “Bose,” fit only to chase a mud turtle in a food cellar (victualling cellar), sported his heavy quarters in the woods without the knowledge of his master. He ineffectually smelled at old fox burrows and woodchucks’ holes. He was led, perhaps, by some slight cur (small, insignificant dog) which nimbly threaded the wood and might still inspire a natural terror in its denizens (inhabitants). Now far behind his guide, the big dog would be barking like a canine bull toward some small squirrel which had treed itself for scrutiny. Then, cantering off, bending the bushes with his weight, he would imagine that he is on the track of some stray member of the gerbil family (though gerbils are not native to New England; Thoreau likely means some small rodent).

Once I was surprised to see a cat walking along the stony shore of the pond, for they rarely wander so far from home. The surprise was mutual. Nevertheless, the most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods. By her sly and stealthy behavior, she proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.

Once, when I was picking berries, I met a cat with young kittens in the woods. They were quite wild. Like their mother, they all arched their backs and were fiercely spitting at me.

The “Winged Cat” of Lincoln

A few years before I lived in the woods, there was what people called a “winged cat” in one of the farmhouses in Lincoln nearest the pond. This was at Mr. Gilian Baker’s farm. When I called to see her in June 1842, she was gone hunting in the woods, as she often did. (I am not sure if the cat was male or female, so I will use the more common pronoun “she.”) Her owner told me that the cat had come into the neighborhood a little more than a year before, in April, and was finally taken into their house. She described the cat:

• It was a dark brownish-gray color, with a white spot on her throat and white feet.
• It had a large, bushy tail like a fox.
• In the winter, the fur grew thick and flatted out along her sides. This formed strips ten or twelve inches long and two and a half inches wide.
• Under her chin, the fur was like a muff (a warm, fluffy hand-warmer). The upper side of this chin-fur was loose, while the underside was matted like felt.
• In the spring, these furry appendages (the “wings” and “muff”) dropped off.

They gave me a pair of her “wings,” which I still keep. There is no appearance of a membrane (a thin skin like a bat’s wing) about them. Some people thought the cat was part flying squirrel or some other wild animal. This is not impossible because, according to naturalists, fertile hybrids (offspring of two different species) have been produced by the union of the marten (a weasel-like animal) and the domestic cat. This would have been the right kind of cat for me to keep, if I had kept any. For why should not a poet’s cat be winged, just like a poet’s mythical winged horse (Pegasus)?

The Loon on the Pond

In the fall, the loon (Colymbus glacialis) came, as usual, to molt (shed old feathers) and bathe in the pond. He would make the woods ring with his wild laughter before I had even risen from bed.

At the rumor of his arrival, all the sportsmen from Mill-dam (a nearby area) were on the alert. They came in gigs (light, two-wheeled carriages) and on foot, in groups of two and three. They carried patent rifles, conical balls (a type of bullet), and spyglasses. They came rustling through the woods like autumn leaves—at least ten men for every one loon. Some would station themselves on one side of the pond, some on the other, because the poor bird could not be everywhere at once. If he dove here, he had to come up somewhere else.

But now, the kind October wind would rise, rustling the leaves and rippling the surface of the water. This made it so that no loon could be heard or seen, even though his enemies swept the pond with their spyglasses and made the woods resound with their gunshots. The waves generously rose and dashed angrily, as if taking sides with all waterfowl. Our sportsmen then had to beat a retreat to town, their shops, and their unfinished jobs.

But they were too often successful in hunting the loon. When I went to get a pail of water early in the morning, I frequently saw this stately bird sailing out of my cove, just a few rods (a rod is 16.5 feet) away. If I tried to overtake him in a boat to see how he would maneuver, he would dive and be completely lost. Sometimes, I would not see him again until the latter part of the day. But I was more than a match for him on the surface of the water. He commonly went off (flew away) during a rain shower.

A Chase with the Loon

One very calm October afternoon—for on such days loons especially settle onto the lakes, light as milkweed down—I was paddling along the north shore. I had looked in vain over the pond for a loon. Suddenly, one sailed out from the shore toward the middle, a few rods in front of me. He let out his wild laugh and thus betrayed his presence.

I pursued him with my paddle, and he dived. But when he came up, I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take. We were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen the interval by paddling the wrong way. And again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason than before.

He maneuvered so cunningly that I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Each time he came to the surface, turning his head this way and that, he coolly surveyed the water and the land. He apparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the widest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from my boat. It was surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into action. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond and could not be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain, I was trying to guess his thought in mine. It was a pretty game, played on the smooth surface of the pond—a man against a loon. Suddenly, your adversary’s checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem is to place yours nearest to where his will appear again.

Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having apparently passed directly under the boat. He was so long-winded (able to stay underwater for a long time) and so unweariable, that when he had swum farthest, he would immediately plunge again. And then no amount of cleverness could predict where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish. He had the time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New York lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout—though Walden is deeper than that. How surprised the fishes must be to see this ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding its way among their schools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely underwater as on the surface, and he swam much faster there.

Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoiter (scout the area), and instantly dived again. I found that it was just as well for me to rest on my oars and wait for his reappearance as to try to calculate where he would rise. For again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface in one direction, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me.

But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably betray himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his white breast reveal him enough? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I could commonly hear the plash of the water when he came up, and so I also detected him. But after an hour, he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly, and swam yet farther than at first. It was surprising to see how serenely he sailed off with an unruffled breast when he came to the surface, doing all the work with his webbed feet beneath.

His usual note was this demonic laughter, yet somewhat like that of a waterfowl. But occasionally, when he had thwarted (balked) me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn, unearthly howl. It was probably more like that of a wolf than any bird, as when a beast puts its muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls. This was his “looning”—perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident in his own resources.

Though the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface even when I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of the water were all against him. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him. Immediately, a wind came from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain. I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry with me. And so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface.

Ducks on Walden

For hours, on fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer (change direction) and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman. These are tricks they will have less need to practice in the bayous of Louisiana. When compelled to rise, they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height. From there, they could easily see other ponds and the river, like black motes (specks) in the sky. And, when I thought they had gone off to those other waters long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile onto a distant part of Walden which was left free. But what, besides safety, they got by sailing in the middle of Walden, I do not know—unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

House-Warming

In October, I went to the river meadows to gather grapes. I loaded myself with clusters that were more precious for their beauty and fragrance than for eating. There, I also admired the cranberries, though I did not gather them. They were like small, waxy gems, pendants hanging from the meadow grass, pearly and red. The farmer, however, plucks them with an ugly rake, leaving the smooth meadow tangled. He heedlessly measures them by the bushel and the dollar only and sells these spoils of the meadows to Boston and New York. There, they are destined to be made into jam to satisfy the tastes of nature lovers in the city. It’s similar to how butchers rake the tongues of bison out of the prairie grass, regardless of the torn and drooping plants.

The barberry’s brilliant red fruit was likewise just food for my eyes. But I did collect a small store of wild apples for cooking, which the owner of the land and other travelers had overlooked. When chestnuts were ripe, I gathered half a bushel for the winter.

Gathering Chestnuts

It was very exciting during that season to roam the then boundless chestnut woods of Lincoln. (Those woods now “sleep their long sleep” under the railroad tracks.) I would go with a bag on my shoulder and a stick in my hand to open the thorny burrs, for I did not always wait for the frost to do it for me. I walked amid the rustling of leaves and the loud scolding (reproofs) of the red squirrels and the jays. I sometimes stole the half-eaten nuts they had worked on because the burrs they had selected were sure to contain sound ones. Occasionally, I climbed the trees and shook them.

Chestnut trees also grew behind my house. One large tree almost overshadowed my cabin. When it was in flower, it was like a bouquet that scented the whole neighborhood. But the squirrels and the jays got most of its fruit. The jays would come in flocks early in the morning and pick the nuts out of the burrs before they fell. I gave up these nearby trees to them and visited the more distant woods composed entirely of chestnut trees. These nuts, as far as they went, were a good substitute for bread. Many other substitutes for common foods might perhaps be found.

Discovering the Ground-Nut

One day, while digging for fish-worms, I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on its string. This was the potato of the Native Americans, a sort of fabulous fruit. I had begun to doubt if I had ever really dug and eaten it in my childhood, as I had told people, or if I had only dreamed it. I had often since seen its crinkled, red, velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it was the same plant. Cultivation has almost exterminated it. It has a sweetish taste, much like that of a frostbitten potato, and I found it better boiled than roasted.

This tuber seemed like a faint promise from Nature to raise her own children and feed them simply here at some future time. In these days of fatted cattle and waving grain fields, this humble root, which was once the totem (a sacred emblem) of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten. It is known only by its flowering vine, if at all. But let wild Nature reign here once more, and the tender and luxurious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of enemies. Without the care of man, the crow may carry back even the last seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian’s God in the southwest, where it is said to have come from. But the now almost exterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of frosts and wildness. It will prove itself indigenous (native to this land) and resume its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe. Some Native American Ceres (Roman goddess of agriculture) or Minerva (Roman goddess of wisdom and crafts) must have been its inventor and giver. And when the reign of poetry truly begins here, its leaves and string of nuts may be represented in our works of art.

Autumn’s Changing Colors

Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maple trees turned scarlet across the pond. They were located beneath a spot where the white stems of three aspen trees diverged, at the point of a promontory (a piece of land jutting into the water), next to the water. Ah, many a tale their color told! And gradually, from week to week, the character of each tree came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth mirror of the lake. Each morning, the manager of this gallery (Nature) substituted some new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious coloring, for the old ones on the walls.

Winter Guests: The Wasps

In October, wasps came by the thousands to my cabin (lodge), as if seeking winter quarters. They settled on my windows inside and on the walls overhead. Sometimes, they deterred (discouraged) visitors from entering. Each morning, when the wasps were numbed with cold, I swept some of them out. But I did not trouble myself much to get rid of them; I even felt complimented by their regarding my house as a desirable shelter. They never bothered me seriously, though they shared my sleeping space. They gradually disappeared into what crevices I do not know, avoiding winter and its unspeakable cold.

Like the wasps, before I finally went into my own winter quarters in November, I used to go to the northeast side of Walden Pond. The sun, reflected from the pitch-pine woods and the stony shore, made this spot the “fire-side” of the pond. It is so much more pleasant and wholesome to be warmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by the still-glowing embers which the summer, like a departed hunter, had left behind.

Building My Chimney

When I came to build my chimney, I studied masonry (bricklaying). My bricks were second-hand ones and needed to be cleaned with a trowel. So, I learned more than usual about the qualities of bricks and trowels. The mortar on them was fifty years old and was said to be still growing harder. But this is one of those sayings which men love to repeat, whether they are true or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and stick more firmly with age. It would take many blows with a trowel to clean an old “wiseacre” (a person who pretends to be wise) of these ingrained notions. Many of the villages of Mesopotamia are built of second-hand bricks of very good quality, obtained from the ruins of Babylon. The cement on them is older and probably harder still.

However that may be, I was struck by the peculiar toughness of the steel of my trowel, which bore so many violent blows without being worn out. As my bricks had been in a chimney before (though I did not read the name of Nebuchadnezzar on them, as some ancient bricks from Babylon might have), I picked out as many fireplace bricks as I could find, to save work and waste. I filled the spaces between the bricks around the fireplace with stones from the pond shore. I also made my mortar with the white sand from the same place.

I lingered most over the fireplace, as it is the most vital part of the house. Indeed, I worked so deliberately that though I started at the ground in the morning, a course of bricks raised a few inches above the floor served as my pillow at night. Yet I do not remember getting a stiff neck from it; my stiff neck is of an older date.

Around those times, I took a poet to board with me for a fortnight (two weeks), which made me short on room. He brought his own knife, though I had two. We used to clean them by thrusting them into the earth. He shared with me the labors of cooking. I was pleased to see my work on the chimney rising so square and solid by degrees. I reflected that if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated to endure for a long time. The chimney is, to some extent, an independent structure. It stands on the ground and rises through the house to the heavens. Even after the house is burned down, the chimney still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are clear. This was toward the end of summer. It was now November.

First Fires and Plastering

The north wind had already begun to cool the pond, though it took many weeks of steady blowing to accomplish it because the pond is so deep. When I began to have a fire in the evening, before I plastered my house, the chimney carried smoke particularly well. This was because of the numerous chinks (small gaps) between the boards of the walls. Yet I passed some cheerful evenings in that cool and airy apartment, surrounded by the rough brown boards full of knots, and rafters with the bark still on high overhead. My house never pleased my eye so much after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess that it was more comfortable.

Should not every room in which a person dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters? These moving forms are more agreeable to the fancy and imagination than fresco paintings or other expensive furniture.

I can say that I first truly began to inhabit my house when I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter. I had acquired a couple of old andirons (fire-dogs) to keep the wood from the hearth. It did me good to see the soot form on the back of the chimney which I had built. I poked the fire with more right and more satisfaction than usual. My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it. But it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors. All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room. It was my kitchen, bedroom (chamber), living room (parlor), and general keeping-room all in one. Whatever satisfaction a parent or child, a master or servant, derives from living in a house, I enjoyed it all.

Cato (an ancient Roman statesman and writer) says that the master of a family must have in his rustic villa “an oil and wine cellar, many casks, so that it may be pleasant to expect hard times; it will be for his advantage, and virtue, and glory.” I had in my cellar a firkin (a small cask) of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with weevils (small beetles) in them, and on my shelf a little rice, a jug of molasses, and a peck (about two gallons) each of rye and corn (Indian) meal.

Dreaming of an Ideal House

I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age. It would be made of enduring materials and without fussy “gingerbread” work (excessive ornamentation). It would still consist of only one room: a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall. It would have no ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins (horizontal roof supports) supporting a sort of lower heaven over one’s head—useful to keep off rain and snow. In this dream house:

• The main support posts (king and queen posts) would stand out to receive your homage after you have shown reverence to the “prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty” (perhaps a symbolic old hearthstone or foundation) upon stepping over the threshold.
• It would be a cavernous house, where you must reach up with a torch on a pole to see the roof.
• Some might live in the fireplace area, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles (wooden benches with high backs). Some might live at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on the rafters with the spiders, if they choose.
• It would be a house you have truly entered once you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over.
• The weary traveler could wash, eat, converse, and sleep there without further journey. It would be such a shelter as you would be glad to reach on a stormy night, containing all the essentials of a house and nothing for complicated housekeeping.
• You could see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything a person might need would hang upon its peg.
• It would be at once a kitchen, pantry, parlor, bedroom, storehouse, and attic.
• You could see necessary things like a barrel or a ladder, and convenient things like a cupboard. You could hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner and the oven that bakes your bread. The necessary furniture and utensils would be the chief ornaments.
• The washing would not be “put out” (sent away or hidden), nor the fire, nor the mistress of the house. Perhaps you might sometimes be requested to move from off the trapdoor when the cook needed to go down into the cellar, and so you would learn whether the ground beneath you is solid or hollow without needing to stamp on it.
• It would be a house whose inside is as open and obvious as a bird’s nest. You could not go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some of its inhabitants.
• To be a guest there would mean to be presented with the freedom of the entire house, not to be carefully excluded from seven-eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there—in solitary confinement.

Nowadays, the host does not admit you to his own hearth (fireside). Instead, he has hired a mason to build one for you somewhere in his alleyway, and hospitality has become the art of keeping you at the greatest possible distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a plan to poison you. I am aware that I have been on many a man’s premises and might have been legally ordered off. But I am not aware that I have truly been in many men’s houses (in the sense of being welcomed into their lives). I might visit in my old clothes a king and queen who lived simply in such a house as I have described, if I were going their way. But backing out of a modern palace politely will be all that I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in one.

Language and Life

It would seem as if the very language of our parlors (formal living rooms) would lose all its strength (nerve) and degenerate into mere empty talk (palaver) entirely. Our lives pass at such a remoteness from their true symbols. Our metaphors and figures of speech (tropes) are necessarily so far-fetched, delivered as if through slides and dumbwaiters (mechanical lifts for food). In other words, the parlor is so far from the kitchen and workshop (the places of real life and work). The dinner itself is commonly only the parable (a symbolic representation) of a dinner, not the real thing. It’s as if only the “savage” (one living close to nature) dwelt near enough to Nature and Truth to borrow a figure of speech from them. How can the scholar, who lives far away in the North West Territory or the Isle of Man, tell what is truly fitting or “parliamentary” in the kitchen (the heart of domestic life)?

However, only one or two of my guests were ever bold enough to stay and eat a hasty-pudding (a simple, quickly made porridge) with me. But when they saw that crisis approaching (perhaps the simple, rustic meal itself), they usually beat a hasty retreat, as if it would shake the house to its foundations. Nevertheless, my house stood firm through a great many hasty-puddings.

Finishing the House

I did not plaster until it was freezing weather. I brought over some whiter and cleaner sand for this purpose from the opposite shore of the pond in a boat. This boat was a sort of conveyance that would have tempted me to go much farther if necessary. My house had in the meanwhile been shingled down to the ground on every side.

In lathing (attaching thin wooden strips to form a base for plaster), I was pleased to be able to send home each nail with a single blow of the hammer. It was my ambition to transfer the plaster from the board (hawk) to the wall neatly and rapidly. I remembered the story of a conceited fellow who, in fine clothes, used to lounge about the village once, giving advice to workmen. Venturing one day to substitute deeds for words, he turned up his cuffs, seized a plasterer’s board, and having loaded his trowel without mishap, with a complacent look toward the lathing overhead, made a bold gesture in that direction. And straightway, to his complete discomfiture (embarrassment), he received the whole contents of the trowel in his ruffled shirt bosom.

I admired anew the economy and convenience of plastering, which so effectually shuts out the cold and provides a handsome finish. I also learned the various accidents (casualties) to which a plasterer is liable. I was surprised to see how thirsty the bricks were; they drank up all the moisture in my plaster before I had smoothed it. I was also surprised at how many pailfuls of water it takes to “christen” a new hearth (to use it for the first time, implying a lot of water for mixing mortar or cleaning).

The previous winter, I had made a small quantity of lime by burning the shells of the Unio fluviatilis (a type of freshwater mussel) which our river provides, for the sake of experiment. So, I knew where my materials came from. I might have gotten good limestone within a mile or two and burned it myself to make lime, if I had cared to do so.

The First Ice

The pond had, in the meantime, skimmed over with a thin layer of ice in the shadiest and shallowest coves. This happened some days or even weeks before the general freezing of the entire pond. The first ice is especially interesting and perfect. It is hard, dark, and transparent. It affords the best opportunity that ever offers for examining the bottom where it is shallow. You can lie at your full length on ice only an inch thick, like a skater insect on the surface of the water, and study the bottom at your leisure. The bottom is only two or three inches distant, like a picture behind glass, and the water is necessarily always smooth then.

There are many furrows in the sand where some creature has traveled about and doubled back on its tracks. And, for wrecks, the bottom is strewn with the cases of caddis worms, made of minute grains of white quartz. Perhaps these worms have creased the sand, for you find some of their cases in the furrows, though the furrows are deep and broad for them to have made.

But the ice itself is the object of most interest, though you must seize the earliest opportunity to study it. If you examine it closely the morning after it freezes, you find that the greater part of the bubbles, which at first appeared to be within it, are actually against its under surface. More bubbles are continually rising from the bottom. The ice itself is as yet comparatively solid and dark; that is, you can see the water through it. These bubbles are from an eightieth to an eighth of an inch in diameter, very clear and beautiful. You can see your face reflected in them through the ice. There may be thirty or forty of them to a square inch.

There are also already within the ice narrow, oblong, perpendicular bubbles about half an inch long. These are sharp cones with the apex (point) upward. Or, more often, if the ice is quite fresh, there are minute spherical bubbles, one directly above another, like a string of beads. But these bubbles within the ice are not so numerous nor as obvious as those beneath it.

I sometimes used to throw stones onto the ice to test its strength. Those stones which broke through carried air in with them, which formed very large and conspicuous white bubbles beneath the ice. One day when I came to the same place forty-eight hours afterward, I found that those large bubbles were still perfect, though an inch more of ice had formed, as I could see distinctly by the seam in the edge of a cake of ice.

But as the last two days had been very warm, like an Indian summer, the ice was not now transparent. It did not show the dark green color of the water and the bottom. Instead, it was opaque and whitish or gray. And though it was twice as thick, it was hardly stronger than before. This was because the air bubbles had greatly expanded under this heat and run together, and had lost their regularity. They were no longer one directly over another, but often looked like silvery coins poured from a bag, one overlapping another, or like thin flakes, as if occupying slight cleavages (cracks) in the ice. The beauty of the ice was gone, and it was too late to study the bottom.

I was curious to know what position my large bubbles occupied with regard to the new ice. So, I broke out a cake of ice containing a medium-sized bubble and turned it bottom upward. The new ice had formed around and under the bubble, so that the bubble was included between the two layers of ice. It was wholly in the lower, older ice, but close against the upper, new ice. The bubble itself was flattish, or perhaps slightly lens-shaped (lenticular), with a rounded edge. It was a quarter of an inch deep and four inches in diameter.

I was surprised to find that directly under the bubble, the older ice was melted with great regularity. It had melted into the shape of a saucer turned upside down. This melted area was five-eighths of an inch high in the middle. This left only a thin partition of ice there between the water below and the bubble above, hardly an eighth of an inch thick. In many places, the small bubbles within this thin partition had burst out downward. Probably, there was no ice at all under the largest bubbles, which were a foot in diameter. I inferred that the infinite number of tiny bubbles which I had first seen against the under surface of the ice were now frozen in as well. Each one, in its own way, had operated like a tiny burning glass on the ice beneath it, helping to melt and rot it. These are the little air guns that contribute to making the ice crack and make booming sounds (“whoop”).

Winter Arrives

At length, the winter set in for good, just as I had finished plastering my house. The wind began to howl around the house as if it had not had permission to do so until then. Night after night, the geese came lumbering in through the dark with a loud honking (clangor) and a whistling of wings. This happened even after the ground was covered with snow. Some geese would land in Walden Pond, and some flew low over the woods toward Fair Haven, on their way to Mexico.

Several times, when returning from the village at ten or eleven o’clock at night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or else ducks, on the dry leaves in the woods. This was by a pond-hole (a small pool) behind my dwelling, where they had come up to feed. I also heard the faint honk or quack of their leader as they hurried off.

In 1845, Walden Pond froze entirely over for the first time on the night of December 22nd. Flint’s Pond and other shallower ponds, as well as the river, had been frozen for ten days or more by then. In 1846, it froze on the 16th of December; in 1849, about the 31st; and in 1850, about the 27th of December. In 1852, it was January 5th; and in 1853, December 31st. The snow had already covered the ground since November 25th that year and had suddenly surrounded me with the scenery of winter. I withdrew yet farther into my shell and tried hard to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my breast (my spirit).

Gathering Fuel for Winter

My employment out of doors now was to collect dead wood in the forest. I brought it in my hands or on my shoulders, or sometimes I trailed a dead pine tree under each arm to my shed. An old forest fence which had seen its best days was a great haul for me. I sacrificed it to Vulcan (the Roman god of fire), for it was past serving the god Terminus (the Roman god of boundaries, whom fences would serve).

How much more interesting an event is the supper of a man who has just been out in the snow to hunt—nay, you might say, steal—the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat taste sweet. There are enough bundles of sticks (fagots) and waste wood of all kinds in the forests of most of our towns to support many fires. But at present, this wood warms no one, and some people think it hinders the growth of the young wood.

There was also the driftwood of the pond. In the course of the summer, I had discovered a raft of pitch-pine logs with the bark still on. These logs had been pinned together by the Irish laborers when the railroad was built. I hauled this raft partly onto the shore. After soaking for two years and then lying high and dry for six months, the logs were perfectly sound, though so waterlogged they couldn’t be fully dried.

I amused myself one winter day by sliding these logs piecemeal across the frozen pond, a distance of nearly half a mile. I would skate behind with one end of a log fifteen feet long on my shoulder, and the other end on the ice. Or, I tied several logs together with a flexible birch branch (a birch withe). Then, with a longer birch or alder pole which had a hook at the end, I dragged them across the ice. Though completely waterlogged and almost as heavy as lead, they not only burned for a long time but also made a very hot fire. Indeed, I thought that they burned better for the soaking, as if the pitch (resin in the pine), being confined by the water, burned longer, like oil in a lamp.

Respect for the Forest

Gilpin, in his account of the forest borderers (people living on the edges of forests) of England, says that “the encroachments of trespassers, and the houses and fences thus raised on the borders of the forest,” were “considered as great nuisances by the old forest law.” These actions were severely punished under the name of “purprestures,” as tending to frighten the game animals (ad terrorem ferarum) and to harm the forest (ad nocumentum forestæ), among other things.

But I was interested in the preservation of the game (venison) and the greenery (the vert) more than the hunters or woodchoppers were. I cared as much as if I had been the Lord Warden (an official in charge of a forest) himself. And if any part of the forest was burned, even if I burned it myself by accident, I grieved with a grief that lasted longer and was more inconsolable than that of the landowners. Indeed, I grieved when it was cut down by the landowners themselves.

I wish that our farmers, when they cut down a forest, felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin out a consecrated grove, or let light into it (an act called lucum conlucare). That is, I wish they would believe that the forest is sacred to some god. The Romans made an expiatory offering (an offering to atone for any offense) and prayed, “Whatever god or goddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be propitious (favorable) to me, my family, and children, etc.”

The Enduring Value of Wood

It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood, even in this age and in this new country. It’s a value more permanent and universal than that of gold. After all our discoveries and inventions, no man will walk by a pile of wood without noticing it. It is as precious to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman ancestors. If they made their bows from it, we make our gun-stocks from it.

Michaux (a French botanist), more than thirty years ago, said that the price of wood for fuel in New York and Philadelphia “nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds, that of the best wood in Paris, though this immense capital annually requires more than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded to the distance of three hundred miles by cultivated plains.” In this town, the price of wood rises almost steadily. The only question is, how much higher will it be this year than it was last year? Mechanics and tradesmen who come in person to the forest for no other reason are sure to attend the wood auction. They even pay a high price for the privilege of gleaning (collecting leftovers) after the woodchopper.

It has been many years now that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials for their arts and crafts. The New Englander and the New Hollander (Dutch), the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill (characters from literature, representing the poor and common folk)—in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally still require a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.

My Wood-Pile and Axe

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection. I loved to have mine before my window, and the more chips the better, to remind me of my pleasing work. I had an old axe which nobody claimed. With this axe, by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had gotten out of my bean-field. As my driver (the man who helped me plow) prophesied when I was ploughing, they warmed me twice: once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire. So, no fuel could give out more heat.

As for the axe, I was advised to get the village blacksmith to “jump” it (a process of reforging and sharpening the axe head). But I “jumped him” (outsmarted him or perhaps did the work myself better). I put a hickory handle from the woods into it and made it do. If it was dull, it was at least hung true (well-balanced).

A few pieces of fat pine (resinous pine wood, good for starting fires) were a great treasure. It is interesting to remember how much of this “food for fire” is still concealed in the bowels of the earth. In previous years, I had often gone “prospecting” (searching) over some bare hillside where a pitch-pine wood had formerly stood. There, I got out the fat pine roots. They are almost indestructible. Stumps thirty or forty years old, at least, will still be sound at the core, though the sapwood (outer wood) has all become vegetable mold. This is apparent by the scales of the thick bark forming a ring level with the earth, four or five inches distant from the heartwood. With an axe and shovel, you explore this “mine” and follow the marrowy store of resinous wood, yellow as beef tallow, or as if you had struck on a vein of gold, deep into the earth.

But commonly, I kindled my fire with the dry leaves of the forest, which I had stored up in my shed before the snow came. Green hickory finely split makes the woodchopper’s kindlings when he has a camp in the woods. Once in a while, I got a little of this. When the villagers were lighting their fires beyond the horizon, I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake.

My smoke, like a light-winged, Icarus-like bird, Melts its wings in its upward flight. It is a lark without a song, a messenger of dawn, Circling above the small villages as if they were its nest. Or else, it is like a departing dream, a shadowy form Of a midnight vision, gathering up its flowing edges. By night, it veils the stars, and by day, It darkens the light and blots out the sun. Go, my incense, upward from this hearth, And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame that I burn.

The Comfort of Fire

Hard green wood just cut, though I used but little of that, answered my purpose better than any other type of fuel. I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk on a winter afternoon. When I returned, three or four hours afterward, it would still be alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my “housekeeper” (the fire) proved trustworthy.

One day, however, as I was splitting wood, I thought that I would just look in at the window and see if the house was not on fire. It was the only time I remember being particularly anxious on this score. So, I looked and saw that a spark had caught my bed. I went in and extinguished it when it had burned a place as big as my hand. But my house occupied so sunny and sheltered a position, and its roof was so low, that I could afford to let the fire go out in the middle of almost any winter day.

The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato. They made a snug bed even there of some hair left after plastering and of brown paper. For even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to secure them.

Some of my friends spoke as if I was coming to the woods on purpose to freeze myself. The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body in a sheltered place. But man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment and warms that. Instead of robbing himself of body heat, he makes that warmed space his bed. In it, he can move about without cumbersome clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by means of windows even admit the light. With a lamp, he can lengthen out the day. Thus, man goes a step or two beyond instinct and saves a little time for the fine arts.

Though, when I had been exposed to the rudest (harshest) blasts of wind for a long time, my whole body began to grow torpid (sluggish and numb). When I reached the genial (pleasantly warm) atmosphere of my house, I soon recovered my faculties (abilities) and prolonged my life. But even the most luxuriously housed person has little to boast of in this respect. Nor need we trouble ourselves to speculate how the human race may be at last destroyed. It would be easy to cut their threads of life any time with a little sharper blast from the north. We go on dating events from “Cold Fridays” and “Great Snows”; but a little colder Friday, or a greater snow, would put an end to man’s existence on the globe.

The Stove vs. the Open Fireplace

The next winter, I used a small cooking stove for economy, since I did not own the forest. But it did not keep fire as well as the open fireplace. Cooking was then, for the most part, no longer a poetic act, but merely a chemical process. It will soon be forgotten, in these days of stoves, that we used to roast potatoes in the ashes, after the Indian fashion. The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire. The laborer, looking into it at evening, purifies his thoughts of the dross (impurities) and earthiness which they have accumulated during the day. But I could no longer sit and look into the fire, and the pertinent words of a poet (Mrs. Hooper) recurred to me with new force:

“Never, bright flame, may your dear, life-reflecting, close sympathy be denied to me. What but my hopes ever shot upward so bright? What but my fortunes ever sunk so low in the night?

Why are you banished from our hearth and hall, You who are welcomed and beloved by all? Was your existence then too fanciful For our life’s common light, we who are so dull? Did your bright gleam hold mysterious conversation With our congenial souls? Were its secrets too bold?

Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit, Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire Warms feet and hands—nor does it aspire to more; By whose compact, utilitarian heap (the stove) The present may sit down and go to sleep, Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked, And with us by the unequal light of the old wood fire talked.”

Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors

I weathered some merry snowstorms. I also spent some cheerful winter evenings by my fireside while the snow whirled wildly outside. Even the hooting of the owl was hushed during these storms. For many weeks, I met no one on my walks except for those who came occasionally to cut wood and take it by sled to the village.

The elements, however, helped me in making a path through the deepest snow in the woods. After I had once gone through, the wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks. There they lodged, and by absorbing the rays of the sun, they melted the snow. This not only made a dry bed for my feet but, in the night, their dark line served as my guide.

Remembering Those Before

For human society, I had to imagine the former occupants of these woods. Within the memory of many of my townsmen, the road near which my house stands once echoed with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants. The woods bordering it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings. However, the area was then much more enclosed by the forest than it is now.

In some places, within my own remembrance, the pine trees would scrape both sides of a horse-drawn carriage (chaise) at once. Women and children who had to go this way to Lincoln, alone and on foot, did so with fear. They often ran a good part of the distance. Though it was mainly just a humble route to neighboring villages or for the woodman’s team, it once amused the traveler more than it does now because of its variety. It also lingered longer in his memory. Where firm, open fields now stretch from the village to the woods, the road then ran through a maple swamp on a foundation of logs. The remnants of these logs, doubtless, still underlie the present dusty highway, from the Stratton Farm (now the Alms House Farm) to Brister’s Hill.

Cato Ingraham

East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham. He was a slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, a gentleman of Concord village. Duncan Ingraham built his slave a house and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods. This Cato was Cato of Concord (Concordiensis), not the famous Roman Cato of Utica (Uticensis). Some say he was a Guinea Negro.

A few people remember his little patch of land among the walnut trees. He let the trees grow, intending to use them when he should be old and need them. But a younger and whiter speculator (someone buying land hoping its value would increase) got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house (a grave) at present. Cato’s half-filled-in cellar hole still remains, though few people know of it. It is concealed from the traveler by a fringe of pine trees. It is now filled with smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), and one of the earliest species of goldenrod (Solidago stricta) grows there abundantly.

Zilpha

Here, by the very corner of my field, even nearer to town, Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house. She spun linen for the townsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill singing, for she had a loud and notable voice. At length, during the War of 1812, her dwelling was set on fire by English soldiers who were prisoners on parole (released on promise of good behavior). This happened when she was away, and her cat, dog, and hens were all burned up together. She led a hard life, and somewhat inhumane. One old man who frequented these woods remembers that as he passed her house one noon, he heard her muttering to herself over her gurgling pot, “You are all bones, bones!” I have seen bricks amidst the oak thicket there.

Brister Freeman and Fenda

Down the road, on the right hand, on Brister’s Hill, lived Brister Freeman. He was called “a handy Negro” and was once a slave of Squire Cummings. The apple trees which Brister planted and tended still grow there. They are large old trees now, but their fruit is still wild and tastes like cider to me.

Not long ago, I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying ground. It was a little to one side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell in the retreat from Concord. There, he is styled “Sippio Brister”—perhaps he had some claim to be called Scipio Africanus (a famous Roman general). The epitaph also called him “a man of color,” as if he were discolored. It also told me, with staring emphasis, when he died, which was but an indirect way of informing me that he had ever lived.

With him dwelt Fenda, his hospitable wife. She told fortunes, yet did so pleasantly. She was large, round, and black—blacker than any of the children of night. Such a dusky orb (a dark, round figure) had never risen on Concord before or since.

The Stratton Homestead

Farther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in the woods, are marks of some homestead of the Stratton family. Their orchard once covered all the slope of Brister’s Hill but was long since killed out by pitch pines. Only a few stumps remain, whose old roots still furnish the wild rootstocks for many a thriving village apple tree.

Breed’s Location and the Demon of Rum

Nearer yet to town, you come to Breed’s location, on the other side of the way, just on the edge of the wood. This ground was famous for the pranks of a demon not distinctly named in old mythology. This demon has acted a prominent and astounding part in our New England life and deserves, as much as any mythological character, to have his biography written one day. He first comes in the guise of a friend or a hired man, and then he robs and murders the whole family. This demon is New England Rum. But history must not yet tell the tragedies enacted here; let time intervene to some measure to soothe the memory and lend a softer, distant (azure) tint to them. Here, the most indistinct and dubious tradition says that a tavern once stood. The well is the same one that tempered (cooled or diluted) the traveler’s beverage and refreshed his horse. Here then, men greeted one another, heard and told the news, and went their ways again.

The Burning of Breed’s Hut

Breed’s hut was still standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then. I had just lost myself in reading Davenant’s Gondibert (a long epic poem). That was the winter I labored with a kind of lethargy (sluggishness). By the way, I never knew whether to regard this lethargy as a family complaint (having an uncle who falls asleep while shaving himself and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar on Sundays to keep awake and observe the Sabbath) or as the consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers’ collection of English poetry without skipping any of it. It fairly overcame my nerves (Nervii, an ancient Gallic tribe known for toughness, used metaphorically).

I had just sunk my head on this book when the bells rang for a fire. In hot haste, the fire engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys. I was among the foremost, for I had leaped over the brook to join them. We who had run to fires before—whether a barn, shop, dwelling-house, or all together—thought it was far south over the woods. “It’s Baker’s barn,” cried one. “It is the Codman Place,” affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted, “Concord to the rescue!” Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads. They bore, perhaps, among others, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was duty-bound to go however far the fire might be. Ever and anon, the engine bell tinkled behind, slower and more surely. And rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came those who had set the fire and then gave the alarm.

Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall. We realized, alas, that we were there. The very nearness of the fire cooled our enthusiasm. At first, we thought to throw the water of a nearby frog-pond onto it. But we concluded to let it burn, as it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood around our engine, jostled one another, expressed our opinions through speaking trumpets (megaphones), or in a lower tone referred to the great conflagrations (large, destructive fires) which the world has witnessed, including Bascom’s shop. And, between ourselves, we thought that, if we had been there in time with our “tub” (hand-pumped fire engine) and a full frog-pond nearby, we could have turned that threatened last and universal fire into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any mischief—returned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert, I would make an exception for that passage in its preface about wit being the soul’s powder— “but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder.”

The Lone Survivor

It so happened that I walked that way across the fields the following night, about the same hour. Hearing a low moaning at this spot, I drew near in the dark. I discovered the only survivor of the family that I know, the heir of both its virtues and its vices. He alone was interested in this burning. He was lying on his stomach and looking over the cellar wall at the still-smoldering cinders beneath, muttering to himself, as was his habit. He had been working far off in the river meadows all day and had used the first moments he could call his own to visit the home of his fathers and his youth. He gazed into the cellar from all sides and points of view by turns, always lying down to look into it. It was as if there was some treasure, which he remembered, concealed between the stones, where there was absolutely nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes. The house being gone, he looked at what was left.

He was soothed by the sympathy which my mere presence implied. He showed me, as well as the darkness permitted, where the well was covered up—which, thank Heaven, could never be burned. He groped long about the wall to find the well-sweep (a long pole used to raise a bucket from a well) which his father had cut and mounted. He was feeling for the iron hook or staple by which a weight had been fastened to the heavy end—all that he could now cling to—to convince me that it was no common “rider” (a simple, unshaped log used as a counterweight). I felt it, and I still notice it almost daily in my walks, for by it hangs the history of a family.

Other Former Dwellings

Once more, on the left, where the well and lilac bushes are seen by the wall, in the now open field, lived Nutting and Le Grosse. But to return toward Lincoln.

Farther in the woods than any of these, where the road approaches nearest to the pond, Wyman the potter squatted (settled without formal right). He furnished his townsmen with earthenware and left descendants to succeed him. They were not rich in worldly goods, holding the land by sufferance (permission, not ownership) while they lived. There, often the sheriff came in vain to collect the taxes and, for form’s sake, “attached a chip” (symbolically seized a wood chip as there was nothing else of value), as I have read in his accounts.

One day in midsummer, when I was hoeing, a man who was carrying a load of pottery to market stopped his horse by my field. He inquired about Wyman the younger. He had long ago bought a potter’s wheel from him and wished to know what had become of him. I had read of the potter’s clay and wheel in Scripture. But it had never occurred to me that the pots we use were not such as had come down unbroken from those ancient days, or that they hadn’t grown on trees like gourds somewhere. I was pleased to hear that so fictile an art (the art of pottery) was ever practiced in my neighborhood.

Hugh Quoil

The last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irishman, Hugh Quoil (if I have spelled his name with enough “coil” or complexity). He occupied Wyman’s former dwelling—he was called Colonel Quoil. Rumor said that he had been a soldier at the Battle of Waterloo. If he had lived, I should have made him fight his battles over again in telling. His trade here was that of a ditcher. Napoleon went to St. Helena (exile); Quoil came to Walden Woods.

All I know of him is tragic. He was a man of manners, like one who had seen the world. He was capable of more civil speech than you could well pay attention to. He wore a greatcoat in midsummer, being affected with the trembling delirium (a state of confusion and shaking). His face was the color of carmine (deep red). He died in the road at the foot of Brister’s Hill shortly after I came to the woods, so that I have not remembered him as a neighbor.

Before his house was pulled down, when his former comrades avoided it as “an unlucky castle,” I visited it. There lay his old clothes, curled up by use, as if they were himself, upon his raised plank bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken at the fountain (a biblical allusion to death). The latter could never have been the symbol of his death, for he confessed to me that, though he had heard of Brister’s Spring, he had never seen it. Soiled playing cards—kings of diamonds, spades, and hearts—were scattered over the floor. One black chicken, which the administrator of his estate could not catch, black as night and as silent, not even croaking, awaiting Reynard (the fox), still went to roost in the next apartment (room). In the rear, there was the dim outline of a garden. It had been planted but had never received its first hoeing, owing to those terrible shaking fits, though it was now harvest time. It was overrun with Roman wormwood and beggar-ticks, the latter of which stuck to my clothes for all fruit. The skin of a woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the house, a trophy of his last Waterloo (a final, perhaps personal, defeat); but he would want no warm cap or mittens anymore.

Traces of the Past

Now only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings. There are buried cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble-berries, hazel-bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny grass there. Some pitch pine or gnarled oak occupies what was the chimney nook. A sweet-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where the door-stone was. Sometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed; now there is only dry and tearless grass. Or the well was covered deep—not to be discovered till some late day—with a flat stone under the sod, when the last of the family departed. What a sorrowful act that must be—the covering up of wells! It coincides with the opening of wells of tears. These cellar dents, like deserted fox burrows, old holes, are all that is left where once were the stir and bustle of human life. Here, “fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,” in some form and dialect or other, were by turns discussed. But all I can learn of their conclusions amounts to just this: that “Cato and Brister pulled wool” (meaning they engaged in some trivial or obscure activity, or perhaps a lost local saying). This is about as edifying (instructive) as the history of more famous schools of philosophy.

The Enduring Lilac

Still, the vivacious lilac grows a generation after the door and lintel (the beam above a door) and the sill are gone. It unfolds its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveler. It was planted and tended once by children’s hands, in front-yard plots. Now it stands by wall-sides in retired pastures and is giving way to new-rising forests. It is the last of that family line (stirp), the sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think that the puny slip (young plant) with its two eyes (buds) only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself so well. They did not think it would outlive them and the house itself that shaded it, and the grown man’s garden and orchard. They did not imagine it would tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died—blossoming as fair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, civil, cheerful, lilac colors.

Why Did This Village Fail?

But this small village, the germ (beginning) of something more, why did it fail while Concord keeps its ground? Were there no natural advantages—no water privileges, forsooth? Yes, there were the deep Walden Pond and cool Brister’s Spring. These offered the privilege to drink long and healthy draughts. But these resources were all unimproved by these men, except to dilute their alcoholic drinks. They were universally a thirsty race.

Might not the basket-making, stable-broom making, mat-making, corn-parching, linen-spinning, and pottery businesses have thrived here? Could they not have made the wilderness blossom like a rose, and a numerous posterity (descendants) have inherited the land of their fathers? The sterile (infertile) soil would at least have been proof against a low-land degeneracy (a decline associated with easier living in more fertile lowlands). Alas! How little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! Again, perhaps Nature will try once more, with me for a first settler, and my house, raised last spring, to be the oldest in the hamlet (small village).

I am not aware that any man has ever built on the exact spot which I occupy. Deliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient city, whose materials are ruins, whose gardens are cemeteries. The soil is blanched (whitened, depleted) and accursed there. Before that becomes necessary (to build on such sites), the earth itself will be destroyed. With such reminiscences (memories), I repeopled the woods and lulled myself asleep.

Winter Isolation

At this season, I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay deepest, no wanderer ventured near my house for a week or a fortnight (two weeks) at a time. But there I lived as snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle and poultry which are said to have survived for a long time buried in snowdrifts, even without food. I was like that early settler’s family in the town of Sutton, in this state. Their cottage was completely covered by the great snow of 1717 when the father was absent. An Indian found it only by the hole which the chimney’s breath (smoke) made in the drift and so relieved the family. But no friendly Indian concerned himself about me; nor did he need to, for the master of the house was at home.

The Great Snow! How cheerful it is to hear of! It was when the farmers could not get to the woods and swamps with their teams (of oxen or horses). They were obliged to cut down the shade trees in front of their houses for fuel. And when the crust of the snow was harder, they cut off the trees in the swamps ten feet from the ground, as was apparent the next spring.

In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to my house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a meandering (winding) dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots. For a week of even weather, I took exactly the same number of steps, and of the same length, coming and going. I stepped deliberately and with the precision of a pair of dividers in my own deep tracks. To such routine, the winter reduces us. Yet often, my tracks were filled with heaven’s own blue (the reflection of the sky or the blue color of snow shadows).

But no weather fatally interfered with my walks, or rather, my going outdoors. I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pine trees. The ice and snow, by causing their limbs to droop and so sharpening their tops, had changed the appearance of the pines into fir trees. I waded to the tops of the highest hills when the snow was nearly two feet deep on level ground, shaking down another snowstorm on my head with every step. Sometimes I crept and floundered there on my hands and knees when the hunters had gone into their winter quarters.

An Encounter with a Barred Owl

One afternoon, I amused myself by watching a barred owl (Strix nebulosa). It was sitting on one of the lower dead limbs of a white pine tree, close to the trunk, in broad daylight. I stood within a rod (about 16.5 feet) of him. He could hear me when I moved and made the snow crunch with my feet, but he could not plainly see me. When I made the most noise, he would stretch out his neck, erect his neck feathers, and open his eyes wide. But their lids soon fell again, and he began to nod. I too felt a sleepy (slumberous) influence after watching him for half an hour, as he sat there with his eyes half open, like a cat—a winged brother of the cat.

There was only a narrow slit left between their lids, by which he preserved a kind of “peninsular” (almost surrounded, yet still connected) relation to me. Thus, with half-shut eyes, he was looking out from the land of dreams, trying to make me out—some vague object or speck that interrupted his visions. At length, on some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy. He would sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impatient at having his dreams disturbed. And when he launched himself off and flapped through the pines, spreading his wings to an unexpected breadth, I could not hear the slightest sound from them. Thus, guided among the pine boughs more by a delicate sense of their nearness than by sight, feeling his twilight way, as it were, with his sensitive wing feathers (pinions), he found a new perch. There, he might in peace await the dawning of his day (the nighttime, when he is active).

Braving the Winter Elements

As I walked over the long causeway (raised road) made for the railroad through the meadows, I encountered many a blustering and nipping wind, for nowhere else does the wind have freer play. And when the frost had smitten (struck) me on one cheek, heathen (unbeliever) as I was, I turned to it the other also (a reference to a biblical teaching, used ironically here). Nor was it much better by the carriage road from Brister’s Hill.

For I still came to town, like a friendly Native American, when the contents of the broad open fields (snow) were all piled up between the walls of the Walden road. Half an hour was enough to obliterate (wipe out) the tracks of the last traveler. And when I returned, new drifts would have formed, through which I floundered. The busy northwest wind had been depositing the powdery snow around a sharp angle in the road. Not a rabbit’s track, nor even the fine print, the small type, of a deer mouse was to be seen. Yet I rarely failed to find, even in mid-winter, some warm and springy swamp where the grass and the skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial (year-round) greenness, and some hardier bird occasionally awaited the return of spring.

Winter Visitors

Sometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from my walk in the evening, I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper leading from my door. I would find his pile of wood shavings (whittlings) on my hearth, and my house filled with the odor of his pipe.

Or on a Sunday afternoon, if I chanced to be at home, I heard the crunching of the snow made by the step of a long-headed (thoughtful or shrewd) farmer. He came from far through the woods, seeking my house to have a social “crack” (a chat). He was one of the few of his vocation (occupation) who are “men on their farms” (truly connected to their land and work). He wore a simple work coat (frock) instead of a professor’s gown and was as ready to extract the moral lesson out of church or state affairs as to haul a load of manure from his barnyard. We talked of rude and simple times, when men sat about large fires in cold, bracing weather, with clear heads. And when other dessert failed, we tried our teeth on many a nut which wise squirrels had long since abandoned, for those nuts which have the thickest shells are commonly empty.

The Poet

The one who came from farthest to my cabin (lodge), through the deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted (discouraged). But nothing can deter a poet, for he is motivated (actuated) by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. We made that small house ring with boisterous mirth (loud, joyful laughter) and resound with the murmur of much sober talk, making amends then to Walden vale for its long silences. Broadway in New York City was still and deserted in comparison. At suitable intervals, there were regular outbursts (salutes) of laughter, which might have been related either to the last joke uttered or the one about to be told. We made many a “brand new” theory of life over a thin dish of gruel (simple porridge), which combined the advantages of conviviality (friendliness) with the clear-headedness that philosophy requires.

The Philosopher

I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond, there was another welcome visitor. He at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, until he saw my lamp through the trees. He shared with me some long winter evenings. He was one of the last of the great philosophers—Connecticut gave him to the world. He first peddled (sold) Connecticut’s wares (goods), and afterwards, as he declares, he peddled his brains (his ideas). These he peddles still, prompting God and sometimes shaming mankind, bearing for fruit only his brain, like a nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no risky ventures tied to the present moment. But though he is comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect. Masters of families and rulers will then come to him for advice.

Someone wrote of such a person: “How blind is one that cannot see serenity!”

He was a true friend of humanity, almost the only friend of human progress. He was like “Old Mortality” (a character who re-engraved tombstones), or rather, an “Immortality.” With untiring patience and faith, he made plain the image of God engraved in men’s bodies—the God of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect, he embraces children, beggars, the insane, and scholars. He entertains the thoughts of all, commonly adding to them some breadth and elegance. I think that he should keep a caravansary (a large inn for travelers) on the world’s highway. There, philosophers of all nations might stay. On his sign should be printed: “Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter, you that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.”

He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest eccentricities (crotchets) of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. In earlier times (yore), we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world behind us. For he was pledged to no institution in it, being freeborn and ingenuus (noble and candid by nature). Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. He was a blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.

Having each some “shingles of thought” (ideas) well dried, we sat and whittled them, trying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine wood. We waded so gently and reverently in conversation, or we pulled our thoughts together so smoothly, that the “fishes of thought” (deep ideas) were not scared from the stream of our talk. They did not fear any angler (questioner) on the bank but came and went grandly, like the clouds which float through the western sky, and the mother-of-pearl flocks (iridescent clouds) which sometimes form and dissolve there. There we worked, revising mythology, rounding out a fable here and there, and building castles in the air for which earth offered no worthy foundation. Great Looker! Great Expecter! To converse with him was a New England Night’s Entertainment (a collection of tales). Ah! Such discourse we had—hermit and philosopher, and the old settler I have spoken of—we three. It expanded and strained (racked) my little house. I should not dare to say how many pounds’ weight of intellectual pressure there was above the normal atmospheric pressure on every circular inch. It opened the seams of my house so much that they had to be caulked (sealed) with much dullness (mundane effort) thereafter to stop the consequent leak—but I had enough of that kind of “oakum” (caulking material, perhaps meaning simple thoughts or reflections) already picked.

There was one other person with whom I had “solid seasons” (meaningful times), long to be remembered, at his house in the village. He also looked in upon me from time to time; but I had no more regular society there at the pond.

Awaiting “The Visitor”

There too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the Visitor who never comes. The Vishnu Purana (an ancient Hindu text) says, “The householder is to remain at eventide (evening) in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer if he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest.” I often performed this duty of hospitality. I waited long enough to milk a whole herd of cows, but I did not see the man (the expected ideal guest or spiritual enlightenment) approaching from the town.

Winter Animals

When the ponds were firmly frozen, they provided not only new and shorter routes to many places but also new views of the familiar landscape around them from their surfaces. When I crossed Flint’s Pond after it was covered with snow—though I had often paddled about and skated over it—it felt so unexpectedly wide and strange that I could think of nothing but Baffin’s Bay (a large, icy sea in the Arctic). The Lincoln hills rose up around me at the far edge of a snowy plain, a place where I did not remember having stood before. The fishermen, at an indeterminable distance over the ice, moving slowly about with their wolfish-looking dogs, appeared like sealers or Eskimos (Inuit). In misty weather, they loomed like fabulous creatures, and I did not know whether they were giants or pygmies.

I took this frozen route when I went to give a lecture in Lincoln in the evening. I traveled with no road to follow and passed no house between my own hut and the lecture room. Goose Pond, which lay on my way, had a colony of muskrats. They had built their cabins high above the ice, though none of them could be seen outside when I crossed it.

Walden Pond, being like the rest usually bare of snow, or with only shallow and interrupted drifts on it, was my yard. I could walk there freely when the snow was nearly two feet deep on level ground elsewhere and the villagers were confined to their streets. There, far from the village street, and except at very long intervals, far from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid and skated. It was like being in a vast, well-trodden moose yard, overhung by oak woods and solemn pine trees bent down with snow or bristling with icicles.

Sounds of the Winter Nights

For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl, indefinitely far away. It was such a sound as the frozen earth would make if struck with a suitable plectrum (a pick for a stringed instrument)—the very native language (lingua vernacula) of Walden Wood. This sound became quite familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it. I seldom opened my door on a winter evening without hearing it: “Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo,” it sounded sonorously. The first three syllables were accented somewhat like “how der do”; or sometimes it was only “hoo hoo.”

One night at the beginning of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine o’clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose. Stepping to the door, I heard the sound of their wings like a tempest (a violent storm) in the woods as they flew low over my house. They passed over the pond toward Fair Haven, seemingly deterred from landing by my light. Their commodore (leader) was honking all the while with a regular beat.

Suddenly, an unmistakable cat-owl (Great Horned Owl) from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice I ever heard from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular intervals to the goose. It was as if the owl was determined to expose and disgrace this intruder from Hudson’s Bay by exhibiting a greater range and volume of voice in a native bird, and to “boo-hoo” him out of the Concord horizon. The owl seemed to say: “What do you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night, which is consecrated to me? Do you think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I haven’t got lungs and a larynx (voice box) as well as yourself? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo!” It was one of the most thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, if you had a discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a kind of harmony (concord) such as these plains had never seen nor heard before.

I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond—my great bedfellow in that part of Concord. It sounded as if the ice were restless in its bed and wanted to turn over, or were troubled with gas (flatulency) and bad dreams. Or sometimes, I was awakened by the cracking of the ground from the frost, as if someone had driven a team of horses against my door. In the morning, I would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.

Foxes in the Moonlight

Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow crust on moonlight nights, searching for a partridge or other game. They barked raggedly and demoniacally, like forest dogs, as if struggling with some anxiety or seeking expression. They seemed to be struggling for light and to be outright dogs, running freely in the streets. For if we take the long ages into our account, might there not be a kind of civilization going on among animals (brutes) as well as men? They seemed to me to be like rudimentary, burrowing men, still standing on their defense, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near my window, attracted by my light, barked a fox-like (vulpine) curse at me, and then retreated.

The Lively Red Squirrel

Usually, the red squirrel (Sciurus hudsonius) woke me at dawn. He would course (run quickly) over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if sent out of the woods for this very purpose. In the course of the winter, I threw out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had not gotten ripe, onto the snow crust by my door. I was amused by watching the motions of the various animals that were baited by it.

In the twilight and the night, the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. All day long, the red squirrels came and went and provided me with much entertainment by their maneuvers. One would approach at first warily through the shrub oaks. He would run over the snow crust by fits and starts, like a leaf blown by the wind. Now he would go a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and a waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his “trotters” (feet), as if it were for a bet. Then he would go as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod (about 8 feet) at a time.

Then he would suddenly pause with a ludicrous (absurdly funny) expression and a gratuitous (uncalled-for) somersault, as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him. For all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl. He would waste more time in delay and looking around (circumspection) than would have been enough to walk the whole distance—I never saw one walk. And then suddenly, before you could say “Jack Robinson,” he would be in the top of a young pitch pine. There, he would be “winding up his clock” (making chattering sounds) and chiding all imaginary spectators, talking to himself (soliloquizing) and to all the universe at the same time—for no reason that I could ever detect, or that he himself was aware of, I suspect.

At length, he would reach the corn. Selecting a suitable ear, he would frisk about in the same uncertain, zig-zag (trigonometrical) way to the topmost stick of my woodpile, right before my window. There, he would look me in the face and sit for hours, supplying himself with a new ear from time to time. He would nibble at first voraciously and throw the half-naked cobs about. Eventually, he grew more dainty and played with his food, tasting only the inside of the kernel. The ear, which was held balanced over the stick by one paw, would slip from his careless grasp and fall to the ground. He would then look over at it with a ludicrous expression of uncertainty, as if suspecting that it had life, with a mind not made up whether to get it again, or get a new one, or just be off. Now he would be thinking of corn, then listening to hear what was in the wind (what news or danger was present).

So the little impudent fellow would waste many an ear of corn in a forenoon. Finally, seizing some longer and plumper one, considerably bigger than himself, and skillfully balancing it, he would set out with it to the woods. He moved like a tiger with a buffalo, by the same zigzag course and frequent pauses. He would scratch along with it as if it were too heavy for him and he were falling all the while, making its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and a horizontal line. He was determined to get it through at any rate. He was a singularly frivolous and whimsical fellow. And so he would get off with it to where he lived, perhaps carry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty rods distant. I would afterwards find the cobs strewn about the woods in various directions.

Jays and Chickadees

At length, the jays arrive. Their discordant screams were heard long before, as they warily made their approach from an eighth of a mile off. In a stealthy and sneaking manner, they flit from tree to tree, nearer and nearer. They pick up the kernels which the squirrels have dropped. Then, sitting on a pitch-pine bough, they attempt in their haste to swallow a kernel which is too big for their throats and chokes them. After great labor, they disgorge it (bring it back up). They then spend an hour trying to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. They were clearly thieves, and I had not much respect for them. But the squirrels, though at first shy, went to work as if they were taking what was their own.

Meanwhile, also came the chickadees in flocks. They picked up the crumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew to the nearest twig, and placed the crumbs under their claws. They hammered away at them with their little bills, as if it were an insect in the bark, until the crumbs were sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock of these titmice (chickadees) came daily to pick a dinner out of my woodpile, or the crumbs at my door. They made faint, flitting, lisping notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass. Or else they made sprightly “day day day” calls, or more rarely, on spring-like days, a wiry, summery “phe-be” call from the woodside. They were so familiar that at length one alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying in and pecked at the sticks without fear.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden. I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet (military shoulder decoration) I could have worn. The squirrels also grew at last to be quite familiar and occasionally stepped upon my shoe when that was the nearest way.

Partridges in Winter

When the ground was not yet quite covered with snow, and again near the end of winter when the snow was melted on my south hillside and about my woodpile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods, the partridge bursts away on whirring wings. This jars the snow from the dry leaves and twigs up high, and the snow comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust. This brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered up by snowdrifts. It is said that it “sometimes plunges from on wing into the soft snow, where it remains concealed for a day or two.” I used to start them in the open land also, where they had come out of the woods at sunset to “bud” the wild apple trees (eat their buds). They will come regularly every evening to particular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies in wait for them. The distant orchards next to the woods suffer thus not a little. I am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is Nature’s own bird, which lives on buds and “diet-drink” (natural moisture).

The Hunt

In dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with hounding cry and yelp. They were unable to resist the instinct of the chase. The note of the hunting horn sounded at intervals, proving that man was in the rear, following them. The woods would ring again, and yet no fox would burst forth onto the open level of the pond, nor would a following pack be seen pursuing their Actaeon (a mythical hunter who was turned into a stag and killed by his own hounds).

And perhaps at evening, I would see the hunters returning with a single fox tail (brush) trailing from their sleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom of the frozen earth (its den), he would be safe. Or if he would run in a straight line away, no foxhound could overtake him. But, having left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest and listen until they come up. And when he runs, he circles around to his old haunts, where the hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall for many rods and then leap off far to one side. He appears to know that water will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw a fox pursued by hounds burst out onto Walden when the ice was covered with shallow puddles. The fox ran partway across and then returned to the same shore. Before long, the hounds arrived, but here they lost the scent.

Sometimes a pack of hounds hunting by themselves would pass my door and circle around my house. They would yelp and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a species of madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit. Thus they circle until they fall upon the recent trail of a fox, for a wise hound will forsake everything else for this. One day a man came to my hut from Lexington to inquire after his hound that made a large track and had been hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he was not the wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to answer his questions, he interrupted me by asking, “What do you do here?” He had lost a dog but found a man.

An Old Hunter’s Story

One old hunter who has a dry tongue (is a man of few words, or perhaps a storyteller prone to exaggeration), who used to come to bathe in Walden once every year when the water was warmest, and at such times looked in upon me, told me a story. Many years ago, he took his gun one afternoon and went out for a “cruise” (a casual hunt) in Walden Wood. As he walked the Wayland road, he heard the cry of hounds approaching. Before long, a fox leaped over the wall into the road, and as quick as thought, leaped over the other wall out of the road. His swift bullet had not touched him. Some way behind came an old hound and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own account, and they disappeared again in the woods.

Late in the afternoon, as he was resting in the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of the hounds far over toward Fair Haven, still pursuing the fox. And on they came, their hounding cry making all the woods ring, sounding nearer and nearer—now from Well Meadow, now from the Baker Farm. For a long time, he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to a hunter’s ear.

Suddenly, the fox appeared, threading the solemn aisles of the forest with an easy, coursing pace. The sound of his movement was concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the leaves. He was swift and still, keeping low to the ground, leaving his pursuers far behind. Leaping upon a rock amid the woods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the hunter. For a moment, compassion restrained the hunter’s arm. But that was a short-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow thought, his gun was leveled, and—whang!—the fox, rolling over the rock, lay dead on the ground.

The hunter still kept his place and listened to the hounds. Still on they came, and now the near woods resounded through all their aisles with their demonic cry. At length, the old hound burst into view with her muzzle to the ground, snapping the air as if possessed, and ran directly to the rock. But spying the dead fox, she suddenly ceased her hounding, as if struck dumb with amazement. She walked round and round him in silence. One by one her pups arrived and, like their mother, were sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the hunter came forward and stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They waited in silence while he skinned the fox, then followed the brush (tail) for a while, and at length turned off into the woods again.

That evening, a Weston Squire (a prominent landowner) came to the Concord hunter’s cottage to inquire for his hounds. He told how for a week they had been hunting on their own account from Weston woods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and offered him the skin, but the other declined it and departed. He did not find his hounds that night, but the next day he learned that they had crossed the river and put up at a farmhouse for the night. Having been well fed there, they took their departure early in the morning.

Echoes of Past Hunts

The hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nutting, who used to hunt bears on Fair Haven Ledges and exchange their skins for rum in Concord village. Nutting even told him that he had seen a moose there. Nutting had a famous foxhound named Burgoyne—he pronounced it “Bugine”—which my informant used to borrow.

In the “Waste Book” (an account book) of an old trader of this town, who was also a captain, town clerk, and representative, I find the following entry: January 18th, 1742-3, “John Melven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox 0—2—3 (meaning John Melven was credited 2 shillings and 3 pence for one grey fox skin).” Grey foxes are not now found here. And in his ledger, February 7th, 1743, Hezekiah Stratton has credit “by ½ a Catt skin 0–1–4½ (one shilling, four and a half pence for half a wildcat skin).” Of course, it was a wildcat, for Stratton was a sergeant in the old French war and would not have gotten credit for hunting less noble game. Credit is given for deer skins also, and they were daily sold. One man still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry crew here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod (a biblical mighty hunter) who would catch up a leaf by the roadside and play a tune on it wilder and more melodious, if my memory serves me, than any hunting horn.

Night Encounters and Familiar Creatures

At midnight, when there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my path, prowling about the woods. They would skulk out of my way, as if afraid, and stand silent amid the bushes until I had passed.

Squirrels and wild mice disputed for my store of nuts. There were scores of pitch pines around my house, from one to four inches in diameter, which had been gnawed by mice the previous winter. It was a “Norwegian winter” for them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they were obliged to mix a large proportion of pine bark with their other diet. These trees were alive and apparently flourishing at midsummer, and many of them had grown a foot, though completely girdled (the bark gnawed all the way around). But after another winter, such trees were without exception dead. It is remarkable that a single mouse should thus be allowed a whole pine tree for its dinner, gnawing around it instead of up and down it. But perhaps it is necessary in order to thin these trees, which are wont to grow up densely.

The hares (Lepus americanus, the Snowshoe Hare) were very familiar. One had her form (a shallow nest or resting place) under my house all winter, separated from me only by the flooring. She startled me each morning by her hasty departure when I began to stir—thump, thump, thump, striking her head against the floor timbers in her hurry.

The hares (often called rabbits) used to come around my door at dusk. They came to nibble the potato parings which I had thrown out. They were so nearly the color of the ground that they could hardly be distinguished when they were still. Sometimes in the twilight, I would alternately lose sight of one and then see it again, as it sat motionless under my window. When I opened my door in the evening, off they would go with a squeak and a bounce.

Near at hand, they only made me feel pity for them. One evening, one sat by my door, just two paces from me. At first, it was trembling with fear, yet it was unwilling to move. It was a poor, tiny thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and a sharp nose. It had a scant tail and slender paws. It looked as if Nature no longer produced noble, strong breeds of animals but was down to her very last, weakest examples. Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy, almost swollen (dropsical).

I took a step, and suddenly, away it sped! It moved with an elastic spring over the snow crust, straightening its body and its limbs into a graceful length. It soon put the forest between me and itself—this wild, free game animal (venison), asserting its vigor and the dignity of Nature. Its slenderness was not without reason; it was suited for such quick escapes. Such then was its nature. (Some think the name Lepus, the scientific name for hares, comes from levipes, meaning light-foot.)

The Importance of Rabbits and Partridges

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and native (indigenous) animal products. They are ancient and venerable families, known in old times just as they are in modern times. They are of the very color (hue) and substance of Nature, most closely related to leaves and to the ground—and to one another. One is winged (the partridge), and the other is legged (the rabbit).

It is hardly as if you have seen a truly “wild” creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away. You have only seen a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves. The partridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions (big changes) occur. If the forest is cut down, the sprouts and bushes which spring up provide them with concealment, and they become more numerous than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not support a hare. Our woods are teeming (full) with both of them. Around every swamp, one may see the tracks (walk) of the partridge or rabbit, surrounded by twiggy fences and horsehair snares which some local boy (cow-boy) tends.

The Pond in Winter

After a still winter night, I awoke with the impression that someone had asked me a question. I felt I had been trying in vain to answer it in my sleep—questions like what, how, when, or where? But then there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live. She seemed to be looking in at my broad windows with a serene and satisfied face, with no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question—to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth, dotted with young pine trees, and the very slope of the hill on which my house was placed, seemed to say, “Forward!”

Nature puts no questions to us, and she answers none that we mortals ask. She has long ago made her decisions. A wise person once said something like: “O Prince, our eyes look with admiration at the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe, and our souls receive this impression. The night, without doubt, veils a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether (the upper regions of air or space).”

Winter Mornings: Seeking Water

Then, it was time for my morning work. First, I take an axe and a pail and go in search of water, if that experience itself is not just a dream. After a cold and snowy night, it almost needed a divining rod (a forked stick used to find water) to find the pond.

Every winter, the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath of wind and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid. It freezes to a depth of a foot or a foot and a half. This ice is so thick that it will support the heaviest teams of horses and wagons. Perhaps the snow covers it to an equal depth, and then it cannot be distinguished from any level field. Like the marmots (woodchucks) in the surrounding hills, the pond closes its eyelids and becomes dormant (inactive) for three months or more.

Standing on the snow-covered plain, as if in a pasture among the hills, I first cut my way through a foot of snow. Then, I cut through a foot of ice. This opens a window under my feet. Kneeling there to drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of the fishes. This underwater world is filled with a softened light, as if seen through a window of ground glass. Its bright, sanded floor looks the same as in summer. A timeless, waveless serenity reigns there, like the calm in an amber-colored twilight sky. This corresponds to the cool and even temperament of the pond’s inhabitants. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

The Winter Fishermen

Early in the morning, while all things are crisp with frost, men come with their fishing reels and small lunches. They let down their fine lines through holes in the snowy field to catch pickerel and perch. These are wild men who instinctively follow different fashions and trust other authorities than their townsmen do. By their comings and goings, they stitch towns together in parts where otherwise those communities would be separated.

They sit and eat their lunch, dressed in stout, warm coats (“fear-naughts”), on the dry oak leaves on the shore. They are as wise in natural knowledge as a city dweller (citizen) is in artificial knowledge. They have never consulted with books and know and can tell much less than they have actually done or experienced. The things which they practice are said not yet to be known by scholars.

Here is one fishing for pickerel using a grown perch for bait. You look into his pail with wonder, as if looking into a summer pond. It’s as if he kept summer locked up at home or knew where she had retreated for the winter. How, pray, did he get these live perch in midwinter? Oh, he got worms out of rotten logs since the ground froze, and so he caught them. His life itself passes deeper in Nature than the studies of the naturalist can penetrate; he himself is a subject for the naturalist to study. The naturalist raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects. This fisherman lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by “barking trees” (perhaps peeling bark for various uses, or girdling trees). Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see Nature carried out in him. The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel. And so all the empty spaces (chinks) in the scale of being are filled.

When I strolled around the pond in misty weather, I was sometimes amused by the primitive fishing method some rougher fisherman had adopted. He would perhaps have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the ice. These holes were four or five rods (about 66-82 feet) apart and an equal distance from the shore. He would have fastened the end of his fishing line to a stick to prevent it from being pulled through the hole. Then, he would have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a foot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it. When a fish bit, the leaf would be pulled down, showing him he had a bite. These alders loomed through the mist at regular intervals as you walked halfway around the pond.

The Beauty of Walden Pickerel

Ah, the pickerel of Walden! When I see them lying on the ice, or in the well (a large hole) which the fisherman cuts in the ice to get water, I am always surprised by their rare beauty. They look like fabulous fishes, so foreign are they to the city streets, and even to the woods. They are as foreign as Arabia would be to our Concord life. They possess a quite dazzling and transcendent (beyond ordinary) beauty. This beauty separates them by a wide interval from the pale, lifeless-looking (cadaverous) cod and haddock whose fame is trumpeted in our streets.

They are not green like the pine trees, nor gray like the stones, nor blue like the sky. But they have, to my eyes, if possible, even rarer colors, like flowers and precious stones. It is as if they were the pearls, the animalized nuclei (cores) or crystals of the Walden water. They, of course, are Walden all over and all through; they are themselves small Waldens in the animal kingdom—“Waldenses” (perhaps a play on the Waldensians, a Christian group known for their simplicity and purity, suggesting these fish are pure embodiments of the pond).

It is surprising that they are caught here—that in this deep and capacious (roomy) spring, far beneath the rattling wagons, carriages, and tinkling sleighs that travel the Walden road, this great gold and emerald fish swims. I never chanced to see its kind in any market; it would be the center of attention (cynosure) of all eyes there. Easily, with a few convulsive twitches, they give up their watery ghosts, like a mortal person taken to the thin air of heaven before his time.

Measuring the Pond’s Depth

As I was eager to rediscover the long-lost bottom of Walden Pond, I surveyed it carefully before the ice broke up, early in 1846. I used a compass, a chain (for measuring distance), and a sounding line (a weighted line to measure depth).

There have been many stories told about the bottom—or rather, the supposed lack of a bottom—of this pond. These stories certainly had no foundation in fact. It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to measure its depth. I have visited two such “Bottomless Ponds” in one walk in this neighborhood. Many have believed that Walden reached quite through to the other side of the globe.

Some who have lain flat on the ice for a long time, looking down through the deceptive (illusive) medium of water and ice—perhaps with watery eyes from the cold, to add to the illusion—and driven to hasty conclusions by the fear of catching cold, have claimed to see vast holes. They said these holes were so large that “a load of hay might be driven into them,” if there were anybody to drive it. They imagined these holes to be the undoubted source of the River Styx (the mythical river of the underworld) and the entrance to the Infernal Regions from these parts.

Others have gone down from the village with a “fifty-six” (a 56-pound weight) and a wagonload of inch-thick rope, but yet have failed to find any bottom. For while the heavy weight was resting by the way (perhaps on a ledge), they were paying out the rope in the vain attempt to fathom their own truly immeasurable capacity for believing in the marvelous.

But I can assure my readers that Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual, depth. I measured it easily with a cod-fishing line and a stone weighing about a pound and a half. I could tell accurately when the stone left the bottom because I had to pull so much harder before the water got underneath the stone to help lift it. The greatest depth was exactly one hundred and two feet. To this may be added the five feet the water level has risen since I measured it, making it one hundred and seven feet. This is a remarkable depth for so small an area; yet not an inch of it can be spared by the imagination. What if all ponds were shallow? Would it not affect the minds of men? I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure to be a symbol. While men believe in the infinite, some ponds will naturally be thought to be bottomless.

The Pond’s Shape and Nature’s Laws

A factory owner, hearing what depth I had found, thought that it could not be true. Judging from his experience with dams, he believed sand would not lie at such a steep angle. But the deepest ponds are not so deep in proportion to their area as most people suppose. If drained, they would not leave very remarkable valleys. They are not like cups set between the hills. For this one, Walden, which is so unusually deep for its area, appears in a vertical cross-section through its center to be no deeper than a shallow plate. Most ponds, if emptied, would leave a meadow no more hollow than we frequently see in the landscape.

William Gilpin, who is so admirable in all that relates to landscapes and usually so correct, stood at the head of Loch Fyne in Scotland. He described it as “a bay of salt water, sixty or seventy fathoms deep (360-420 feet), four miles in breadth,” and about fifty miles long, surrounded by mountains. He observed, “If we could have seen it immediately after the diluvian crash (Noah’s flood), or whatever convulsion of Nature occasioned it, before the waters gushed in, what a horrid chasm it must have appeared!” He imagined it as a vast, deep hollow.

But if, using the shortest diameter of Loch Fyne, we apply these proportions to Walden Pond—which, as we have seen, already appears in a vertical section only like a shallow plate—Walden will appear four times shallower by comparison. So much for the increased horrors of the chasm of Loch Fyne when imagined as empty. No doubt many a smiling valley with its stretching cornfields occupies exactly such a “horrid chasm” from which the waters have receded. However, it requires the insight and the far sight of a geologist to convince the unsuspecting inhabitants of this fact. Often, an inquisitive eye may detect the shores of an ancient (primitive) lake in the low horizon hills, and no subsequent elevation of the plain has been necessary to conceal their history. But it is easiest, as those who work on the highways know, to find the hollows by the puddles left after a shower. The point is, the imagination, if given the least freedom (license), dives deeper and soars higher than Nature actually goes. So, probably, the depth of the ocean will eventually be found to be very inconsiderable compared with its breadth.

As I sounded (measured the depth) through the ice, I could determine the shape of the bottom with greater accuracy than is possible in surveying harbors which do not freeze over. I was surprised at its general regularity. In the deepest part, there are several acres more level than almost any field which is exposed to the sun, wind, and plow. In one instance, on a line arbitrarily chosen, the depth did not vary more than one foot in thirty rods (nearly 500 feet). And generally, near the middle, I could calculate the variation for each one hundred feet in any direction beforehand to within three or four inches. Some people are accustomed to speak of deep and dangerous holes even in quiet, sandy ponds like this. But the effect of water under these circumstances is to level all inequalities.

The regularity of the bottom and its conformity to the shores and the range of the neighboring hills were so perfect that a distant promontory (point of land) revealed its underwater extension in the soundings quite across the pond. Its direction could be determined by observing the opposite shore. A cape on land becomes an underwater bar; a plain on land becomes a shoal underwater; and a valley or gorge on land becomes deep water or a channel in the pond.

A Geographical Coincidence

When I had mapped the pond at a scale of ten rods to an inch and put down all the soundings (more than a hundred in all), I observed a remarkable coincidence. Having noticed that the number indicating the greatest depth was apparently in the center of the map, I laid a ruler on the map lengthwise, and then breadthwise. I found, to my surprise, that the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the point of greatest depth. This was true even though the middle of the pond is so nearly level, the outline of the pond is far from regular, and the extreme length and breadth were found by measuring into the coves. I said to myself, “Who knows but this hint would lead to discovering the deepest part of the ocean, as well as of a pond or puddle?” Is not this the rule also for the height of mountains, when regarded as the opposite of valleys? We know that a hill is not highest at its narrowest part.

Of five coves in Walden, three (or all that had been sounded) were observed to have a bar (a submerged ridge) quite across their mouths, with deeper water inside the cove. So, the bay tended to be an expansion of water within the land not only horizontally but also vertically. It tended to form a basin or an independent pond. The direction of the two capes forming the cove indicated the course of the bar. Every harbor on the seacoast also has its bar at its entrance. In proportion as the mouth of the cove was wider compared with its length, the water over the bar was deeper compared with the water in the basin. Given, then, the length and breadth of a cove, and the character of the surrounding shore, you have almost enough elements to create a formula for all such cases.

Predicting Depth and Understanding Nature’s Laws

In order to see how nearly I could guess the deepest point in a pond with this experience—by observing only the outlines of its surface and the character of its shores—I made a plan of White Pond. White Pond contains about forty-one acres and, like Walden, has no island in it, nor any visible inlet or outlet. As the line of greatest breadth fell very near the line of least breadth (where two opposite capes approached each other and two opposite bays receded), I ventured to mark a point a short distance from the line of least breadth, but still on the line of greatest length, as the deepest spot. The actual deepest part was found to be within one hundred feet of this point, still farther in the direction to which I had inclined. It was only one foot deeper than I had estimated, namely, sixty feet deep. Of course, a stream running through a pond, or an island in it, would make the problem of predicting depth much more complicated.

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. As it is, we know only a few laws, and our results are flawed (vitiated)—not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we can detect. But the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really cooperating (concurring), laws, which we have not yet detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws we observe are like our points of view. Just as, to a traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though it has absolutely but one form. Even when a mountain is cleft or bored through, it is not comprehended in its entirety.

Ethics and the Landscape of Character

What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics (moral principles). It is the law of averages. Such a rule of the two diameters (length and breadth intersecting at the deepest point) not only guides us toward the sun in the solar system and the heart in man. It also draws lines through the length and breadth of the sum total (aggregate) of a man’s particular daily behaviors and waves of life, into his coves and inlets. Where these lines intersect will be the height or depth of his character.

Perhaps we only need to know how his “shores” (outward life and tendencies) trend and what his adjacent “country” or circumstances are, to infer his depth and concealed bottom (his inner nature). If he is surrounded by mountainous circumstances—an “Achillean shore” (like that of Achilles, implying strong, heroic challenges) whose peaks overshadow and are reflected in his bosom (his inner self)—they suggest a corresponding depth in him. But a low and smooth shore proves him shallow on that side. In our bodies, a bold, projecting brow often falls off to and indicates a corresponding depth of thought.

Also, there is a bar across the entrance of our every cove, or particular inclination (tendency or desire). Each inclination is our harbor for a season, in which we are detained and partially landlocked. These inclinations are not usually whimsical (random). Their form, size, and direction are determined by the promontories of our “shore” (our fundamental nature), the ancient axes of our being’s elevation.

When this bar (an obstacle or a defining limit to an inclination) is gradually increased by storms (life’s trials), tides, or currents, or if there is a subsidence (lessening) of the “waters” (our passions or energies), so that the bar reaches the surface—that which was at first but an inclination in the shore in which a thought was harbored becomes an individual lake. It is cut off from the main “ocean” of life. Therein, the thought secures its own conditions. It changes, perhaps, from salt to fresh water, becoming a sweet sea, a dead sea, or a marsh (a stagnant state).

At the advent (arrival) of each individual into this life, may we not suppose that such a bar has risen to the surface somewhere, shaping their particular path? It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, merely hover (“stand off and on”) upon a harborless coast. They are conversant only with the shallow inlets (bights) of the bays of poetry. Or, they steer for the public ports of entry and go into the dry docks of science, where they are merely refitted for this world. No natural currents of individual genius cooperate to truly individualize them.

Walden’s Inlet and Outlet

As for an inlet or outlet to Walden Pond, I have not discovered any but rain and snow (as inlets) and evaporation (as an outlet). Though perhaps, with a thermometer and a sounding line, such places might be found. For where water flows into the pond, it will probably be coldest in summer and warmest in winter.

When the ice-men were at work here in the winter of 1846–47, the cakes of ice sent to the shore were one day rejected by those who were stacking them up there. The cakes were not thick enough to lie side by side with the rest. The cutters thus discovered that the ice over a small space was two or three inches thinner than elsewhere. This made them think that there was an inlet of warmer water there. They also showed me in another place what they thought was a “leach hole,” through which the pond supposedly leaked out under a hill into a neighboring meadow. They pushed me out on a cake of ice to see it. It was a small cavity under ten feet of water. But I think that I can warrant (assure) the pond not to need soldering (repairing) until they find a worse leak than that.

Someone suggested a way to test if such a “leach hole” (a place where water leaks out) was connected to the meadow spring. The idea was to put some colored powder or sawdust into the mouth of the hole. Then, a strainer would be placed over the spring in the meadow. If there was a connection, the strainer would catch some of the colored particles carried through by the current.

The Living Ice

While I was surveying the pond, the ice, which was sixteen inches thick, undulated (moved in a wave-like motion) under a slight wind, just like water. It is well known that a level (a tool for finding a horizontal surface) cannot be used accurately on ice because the ice itself is not perfectly stable. At one rod (16.5 feet) from the shore, its greatest fluctuation, when I observed it using a level on land directed toward a graduated staff (a measuring stick) on the ice, was three-quarters of an inch. This was true even though the ice appeared firmly attached to the shore. The movement was probably greater in the middle of the pond. Who knows, if our instruments were delicate enough, we might even detect an undulation in the crust of the earth itself.

When two legs of my surveying level were on the shore and the third leg was on the ice, and the sights were directed over the ice, a rise or fall of an almost tiny (infinitesimal) amount made a difference of several feet on a tree across the pond.

When I began to cut holes in the ice to measure the pond’s depth (sounding), there were three or four inches of water on top of the ice. This water was under a deep layer of snow which had sunk the ice that far. But as soon as I cut the holes, the water on top began immediately to run into them. It continued to run for two days in deep streams. These streams wore away the ice on every side of the holes and contributed significantly, if not mainly, to drying the surface of the pond. This happened because as the water ran in, it raised and floated the main sheet of ice. This was somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of a ship to let the water out.

When such holes freeze over again, and then it rains, and finally a new freezing forms a fresh, smooth layer of ice over everything, the ice is beautifully mottled internally. It has dark figures, shaped somewhat like a spider’s web. You might call these “ice rosettes.” They are produced by the channels worn by the water flowing from all sides toward the center of the original hole. Sometimes, also, when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of myself: one standing on the head of the other—one on the ice, the other on the trees or hillside.

The Ice Harvest Begins

While it is still cold January, and snow and ice are thick and solid, the prudent (wise and careful) landlord comes from the village. He comes to get ice to cool his summer drinks. He is impressively, even pathetically, wise to foresee the heat and thirst of July way back in January—all while wearing a thick coat and mittens! This happens when so many other, perhaps more important, things are not provided for. It may be that he lays up no treasures in this world (spiritual or eternal) which will cool his summer drink in the next life.

He cuts and saws the solid pond. He “unroofs the house of fishes” and carts off their very element and air (the frozen water). The ice is held fast by chains and stakes like corded wood. It is moved through the favoring cold winter air to wintry cellars, there to lie beneath the summer heat. As it is drawn through the streets from far off, it looks like solidified azure (a beautiful blue color). These ice-cutters are a merry group, full of jokes and sport. When I went among them, they used to invite me to saw with them “pit-fashion” (with one person in a pit below the log and another above), with me standing underneath.

A Large-Scale Operation

In the winter of 1846-47, a hundred men of “Hyperborean extraction” (perhaps meaning hardy men from the far north, or simply a fanciful term) swooped down onto our pond one morning. They came with many carloads of ungainly-looking farming tools: sleds, ploughs, drill-barrows, turf-knives, spades, saws, and rakes. Each man was armed with a double-pointed pike-staff (a long spear), such as is not described in farming magazines like the New-England Farmer or the Cultivator.

I did not know whether they had come to sow a crop of winter rye, or some other kind of grain recently introduced from Iceland. As I saw no manure, I judged that they meant to “skim the land” (take the surface layer), as I had done with my bean-field, thinking the soil (or in this case, the pond’s resource) was deep and had lain fallow (unused) long enough. They said that a “gentleman farmer,” who was behind the scenes, wanted to double his money, which, as I understood, already amounted to half a million dollars. But in order to cover each one of his dollars with another, he took off the only coat—yes, the very skin itself—of Walden Pond in the midst of a hard winter.

They went to work at once: ploughing, harrowing, rolling, and furrowing the ice in admirable order, as if they were determined on making this a model ice farm. But when I was looking sharply to see what kind of “seed” they dropped into the furrow, a gang of fellows by my side suddenly began to hook up the virgin “mould” (the ice) itself with a peculiar jerk. They went clean down to the sand, or rather the water—for it was a very springy soil under the ice, indeed all the solid ground (terra firma) there was. They hauled it away on sleds, and then I guessed that they must be cutting peat in a bog (though it was actually ice).

So they came and went every day, with a peculiar shriek from the locomotive engine of the nearby train. They seemed to travel from and to some point in the polar regions, like a flock of arctic snowbirds. But sometimes “Squaw Walden” (a personification of the pond, as if it were a Native American woman) had her revenge. A hired man, walking behind his team of horses, slipped through a crack in the ice, down toward Tartarus (the underworld in Greek mythology). He who was so brave before suddenly became but the ninth part of a man (a saying meaning greatly diminished in courage). He almost gave up his animal heat (nearly froze) and was glad to take refuge in my house. There, he acknowledged that there was some virtue in a stove. Or sometimes the frozen soil (the ice being worked like soil) took a piece of steel out of a ploughshare, or a plough got stuck in the furrow and had to be cut out.

To speak literally, a hundred Irishmen, with Yankee overseers, came from Cambridge every day to get out the ice. They divided it into cakes by methods too well known to require description. These cakes, being sledded to the shore, were rapidly hauled off onto an ice platform. They were then raised by grappling irons and a block and tackle system, worked by horses, onto a stack. This was done as surely as if they were stacking barrels of flour. There, the ice cakes were placed evenly side by side, and row upon row, as if they formed the solid base of an obelisk (a tall, four-sided monument) designed to pierce the clouds.

They told me that on a good day, they could get out a thousand tons of ice, which was the yield of about one acre of the pond’s surface. Deep ruts and “cradle holes” (depressions) were worn in the ice, just as on solid ground (terra firma), by the passage of the sleds over the same track. The horses invariably ate their oats out of cakes of ice hollowed out like buckets. They stacked up the ice cakes thus in the open air in a pile thirty-five feet high on one side and six or seven rods (about 100-115 feet) square. They put hay between the outside layers to exclude the air; for when the wind, though ever so cold, finds a passage through the stack, it will wear large cavities, leaving only slight supports or “studs” here and there, and finally topple it down.

At first, the ice stack looked like a vast blue fort or Valhalla (the mythical Norse hall of heroes). But when they began to tuck the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this hay became covered with frost (rime) and icicles, it looked like a venerable (ancient and respected), moss-grown, and hoary (frosty) ruin. It seemed built of azure-tinted marble, the abode of Winter—that old man we see in the almanac. It looked like his shanty (simple hut), as if he had a design to spend the summer (estivate) with us.

They calculated that not twenty-five percent of this harvested ice would reach its final destination. They also figured that two or three percent would be wasted in the train cars during transport. However, a still greater part of this heap had a different destiny from what was intended. For, either because the ice was found not to keep as well as was expected (containing more air than usual), or for some other reason, it never got to market. This heap, made in the winter of 1846–47 and estimated to contain ten thousand tons, was finally covered with hay and boards. And though it was unroofed the following July, and a part of it was carried off, the rest remained exposed to the sun. It stood over that summer and the next winter and was not quite melted until September 1848. Thus, the pond recovered the greater part of what was taken.

The Nature of Ice

Like the water, the Walden ice, when seen near at hand, has a green tint. But at a distance, it is beautifully blue. You can easily tell it from the white ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some other ponds, from a quarter of a mile off. Sometimes one of those great cakes of ice slips from the ice-man’s sled into the village street and lies there for a week like a great emerald, an object of interest to all passersby. I have noticed that a portion of Walden which in the state of water was green will often, when frozen, appear blue from the same point of view. So the hollows about this pond will sometimes, in the winter, be filled with greenish water somewhat like its own, but the next day this water will have frozen blue.

Perhaps the blue color of water and ice is due to the light and air they contain, and the most transparent water or ice is the bluest. Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some ice in the icehouses at Fresh Pond that was five years old and was still as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid (rotten), but frozen water remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this represents the difference between the affections (emotions, which can change and spoil) and the intellect (which can be preserved).

A Fleeting Scene

Thus, for sixteen days, I saw from my window a hundred men at work. They looked like busy farmers, with teams of horses and apparently all the implements of farming—such a picture as we see on the first page of an almanac. And as often as I looked out, I was reminded of the fable of the lark and the reapers, or the parable of the sower, and similar stories. And now they are all gone. In thirty days more, probably, I shall look from the same window onto the pure, sea-green Walden water there. It will be reflecting the clouds and the trees and sending up its evaporations in solitude. No traces will appear that a man has ever stood there. Perhaps I shall hear a solitary loon laugh as he dives and preens himself, or I shall see a lonely fisher in his boat, like a floating leaf, observing his form reflected in the waves, where lately a hundred men securely labored.

Walden’s Global Reach

Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. In the morning, I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal (relating to the origin of the universe) philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita. Since its composition, years of the gods have elapsed. In comparison with it, our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial. I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity (grandeur) from our everyday conceptions.

I lay down the book and go to my “well” (Walden Pond) for water. And lo! There I meet the servant of the Brahmin—a priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra. This priest still sits in his temple on the Ganges River reading the Vedas (ancient Hindu scriptures), or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust of bread and water jug. I meet his servant who has come to draw water for his master. Our buckets, as it were, grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.

With favoring winds, Walden’s water (as ice, then water again) is wafted past the site of the fabulous islands of Atlantis and the Hesperides. It makes the periplus (circumnavigation) of Hanno (an ancient Carthaginian explorer). Floating by Ternate and Tidore (spice islands) and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, it melts in the tropic gales of the Indian seas. It is finally landed in ports of which Alexander the Great only heard the names.

Spring

How Ponds Thaw in Spring

Usually, when ice-cutters remove large sections of ice from a pond, the pond breaks up earlier. This happens because the wind stirs the water, even in cold weather, and this movement wears away the ice around the edges.

However, this wasn’t the case for Walden Pond that particular year. Instead, the pond quickly formed a thick new layer of ice, replacing what was removed. Walden Pond always thaws later than other ponds in the area for two main reasons:

• It is much deeper.
• It doesn’t have any streams flowing through it to melt or wear down the ice from underneath.

I never saw Walden Pond open up during the winter. This was true even during the very harsh winter of 1852-53, which was a severe test for all the ponds.

Walden’s Thawing Pattern

Walden Pond usually opens around the first of April. This is about a week or ten days later than Flint’s Pond and Fair-Haven Pond. It starts to melt on its north side and in the shallower areas. These are the same places where it first began to freeze.

More than any other nearby body of water, Walden shows the true progress of the season. This is because it’s least affected by brief changes in temperature. A few very cold days in March might slow down the thawing of other ponds significantly. But the temperature of Walden Pond tends to increase almost continuously.

Temperature Differences and Their Effects

Let’s look at some temperatures from March 6, 1847:

• A thermometer placed in the middle of Walden Pond showed 32°F, which is freezing point.
• Near Walden’s shore, the temperature was 33°F.
• In the middle of Flint’s Pond on the same day, it was 32.5°F.
• In a shallow part of Flint’s Pond, about a dozen rods (around 200 feet) from the shore and under ice a foot thick, the water was 36°F.

This 3.5-degree difference between the deep and shallow water in Flint’s Pond helps explain why it thaws so much sooner than Walden. The fact that a large part of Flint’s Pond is relatively shallow also contributes to this. At that time, the ice in the shallowest part of Flint’s Pond was several inches thinner than the ice in its middle.

Interestingly, in mid-winter, the middle of a pond was often the warmest part, and the ice there was thinnest. Anyone who has waded along the shores of a pond in summer has probably noticed something similar. The water close to the shore, where it’s only three or four inches deep, is much warmer than the water a little further out. Also, the surface water in deep areas is warmer than the water near the bottom.

The Sun’s Role in Melting Ice

In spring, the sun does more than just warm the air and the earth. Its heat can also pass through ice that is a foot thick or even thicker. Here’s how the sun melts the ice:

1. Direct Melting: The sun melts the ice from the top surface.
2. Reflected Heat: In shallow water, the sun’s heat reflects off the pond bottom. This warms the water underneath the ice and melts the ice from below. This combined melting makes the ice uneven. Air bubbles trapped in the ice expand both upwards and downwards. Eventually, the ice becomes completely “honeycombed” – full of holes and weak spots. Finally, it disappears suddenly, often during a single spring rain.

The Structure of Melting Ice

Ice has a grain, just like wood. When a block of ice starts to rot or “comb” (meaning it looks like a honeycomb), its air cells are always at right angles to what was originally the water’s surface. This is true no matter how the ice block is positioned.

If there’s a rock or a log near the surface of the water, the ice above it is much thinner. This is because the reflected heat from the rock or log often dissolves the ice completely in that spot. I’ve heard about an experiment in Cambridge where they tried to freeze water in a shallow wooden container. Even though cold air could circulate underneath the container, giving it access to both sides of the water, the sun’s reflection from the bottom was stronger. It more than offset the advantage of the cold air.

When a warm rain in mid-winter melts the snow-ice from Walden Pond, it often leaves hard, dark, or transparent ice in the middle. Around the shores, however, a strip of white ice, a rod (about 16.5 feet) or more wide, will form. This ice is rotten, even though it might be thicker, because of the heat reflected from the shore. Also, as I mentioned before, the bubbles within the ice can act like tiny magnifying glasses, focusing sunlight and melting the ice beneath them.

The Pond: A Miniature Year Each Day

The events of a whole year happen every day in a pond, just on a smaller scale. Generally, every morning, the shallow water warms up more quickly than the deep water. However, the shallow water might not end up being as warm overall. Then, every evening, the shallow water cools down more rapidly, continuing until the next morning.

You can think of a day as a summary of the year:

• Night is like Winter.
• Morning and Evening are like Spring and Fall.
• Noon is like Summer.

The cracking and booming sounds the ice makes signal a change in temperature. One pleasant morning, February 24th, 1850, after a cold night, I went to Flint’s Pond for the day. I was surprised when I struck the ice with the head of my axe. It rang out like a gong for many rods (hundreds of feet) around, or like hitting a tightly stretched drumhead.

The pond began to make booming sounds about an hour after sunrise. This was when it started to feel the sun’s rays slanting onto it from over the hills. The pond seemed to stretch and yawn like a person waking up. This created a gradually increasing noise that lasted for three or four hours. Around noon, it became quiet, as if taking a short nap. Then, it boomed once more towards evening as the sun’s warmth lessened. When the weather conditions are just right, a pond will “fire its evening gun” with great regularity – meaning it will make a loud booming sound.

But in the middle of the day, the ice was full of cracks. The air was also less elastic then. So, the ice had completely lost its ability to resonate. Striking it at that time probably wouldn’t have stunned fish or muskrats. Fishermen say that the “thundering of the pond” scares the fish and stops them from biting.

The pond doesn’t thunder every evening. I can’t reliably predict when it will happen, even if I don’t notice any difference in the weather. Who would have thought that such a large, cold, and seemingly tough thing could be so sensitive? Yet, the pond has its own rules. It thunders in obedience to these rules, just as surely as buds open in the spring. The earth is all alive and covered with tiny, sensitive projections. The largest pond is as responsive to changes in the atmosphere as a tiny drop of mercury in a thermometer.

Waiting for Spring’s Arrival

One reason I came to live in the woods was to have the time and opportunity to watch spring arrive. Eventually, the ice on the pond starts to look like a honeycomb. I can press my heel into it as I walk. Fogs, rain, and warmer sunshine gradually melt the snow. The days have become noticeably longer. I can see that I’ll make it through the winter without needing to gather more firewood, because large fires are no longer necessary.

I am always on the lookout for the first signs of spring:

• The unexpected song of a newly arrived bird.
• The chirp of a striped squirrel, whose winter food supply must be nearly gone.
• The sight of a woodchuck venturing out of its winter burrow.

On March 13th, even after I had heard the bluebird, song-sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot thick. As the weather grew warmer, the ice wasn’t worn away much by the water. It also didn’t break up and float away as ice does in rivers. Instead, even though it had completely melted for about eight feet around the shore, the ice in the middle was just honeycombed and soaked with water. You could put your foot right through it when it was only six inches thick. But by the next evening, perhaps after a warm rain followed by fog, it would have vanished completely. It seemed to have gone off with the fog, as if spirited away. One year, I walked across the middle of the pond just five days before all the ice disappeared.

Here are the dates when Walden Pond first became completely clear of ice in different years:

• 1845: April 1st
• 1846: March 25th
• 1847: April 8th
• 1851: March 28th
• 1852: April 18th
• 1853: March 23rd
• 1854: Around April 7th

The Drama of Thawing Ice

Every event related to the breakup of ice on rivers and ponds, and the settling of the weather, is especially interesting to those of us who live in a climate with such great temperature extremes. When the warmer days arrive, people who live near a river hear the ice crack at night. It makes a startling “whoop” as loud as an artillery gun, as if its icy chains were snapping from one end to the other. Within a few days, they see the ice rapidly flowing out. This is as dramatic as an alligator emerging from the mud, causing the earth to tremble.

An old man, who was a careful observer of nature, shared a story with me. He seemed to understand all of nature’s workings so well, it was as if he had been there when nature was first created and had helped build it. He had lived a full life and could hardly learn more about the natural world even if he lived to be as old as Methuselah. I was surprised to hear him express wonder at any of nature’s actions, because I thought he knew all its secrets.

He told me that one spring day, he took his gun and boat. He planned to do a little duck hunting. There was still ice on the meadows, but it was all gone from the river. He traveled down the river easily from Sudbury, where he lived, to Fair-Haven Pond. To his surprise, he found most of Fair-Haven Pond covered with a solid sheet of ice. It was a warm day, and he was amazed that so much ice was still there.

Not seeing any ducks, he hid his boat on the north side of an island in the pond. Then, he hid himself in the bushes on the south side of the island to wait for them. The ice had melted for about fifty to sixty-six feet from the shore. In this open area, there was a smooth, warm sheet of water with a muddy bottom – the kind of place ducks love. He thought some ducks would probably come along soon.

After he had been lying still for about an hour, he heard a low sound. It seemed very distant, yet it was unusually grand and impressive, unlike anything he had ever heard before. The sound gradually swelled and grew, as if it would have a universal and memorable ending. It became a deep rush and roar. At first, it sounded to him like a huge flock of birds arriving to land there. He grabbed his gun and jumped up, excited.

But he found, to his astonishment, that the entire body of ice had started to move while he was lying there. It had drifted towards the shore. The sound he had heard was made by the edge of the ice scraping against the land. At first, the ice was gently nibbled and crumbled off. But eventually, it heaved up and scattered its broken pieces high along the island’s shore before it finally stopped.

Spring’s Arrival in the Landscape

At last, the sun’s rays reach the right angle. Warm winds blow, bringing mist and rain that melt the snowbanks. The sun scatters the mist and shines on a mixed landscape of reddish-brown earth and white snow. This landscape seems to be “smoking with incense” from the rising mist. Travelers carefully make their way from one dry spot to another, like moving between small islands. They are cheered by the sound of a thousand tinkling streams and small rivers. These waterways are like veins filled with the “blood of winter” – the meltwater – which they are carrying away.

The Flowing Sand: Nature’s Sculpting

Few things delighted me more than observing the shapes that thawing sand and clay take as they flow down the sides of a deep cut in the earth made for the railroad. I passed this cut on my way to the village. This phenomenon isn’t very common on such a large scale, though the number of freshly exposed banks of the right kind of material must have increased greatly since railroads were invented.

The material was sand of every fineness and of various rich colors, usually mixed with a little clay. When the frost leaves the ground in the spring, or even on a thawing day in winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes like lava. Sometimes it bursts out through the snow and overflows it, appearing where no sand was visible before.

Countless little streams of sand overlap and weave together. They create a kind of hybrid form that follows the laws of flowing water only halfway, and the laws of plant growth the other half. As it flows, the sand takes on shapes resembling:

• Juicy leaves or vines.
• Heaps of soft, pulp-like sprays, a foot or more deep.
• When viewed from above, the complex, lobed, and overlapping parts of some lichens.
• Coral.
• Leopards’ paws or birds’ feet.
• Brains, lungs, or intestines, and even waste matter of all kinds.

It is a truly bizarre kind of “vegetation.” Its forms and colors are sometimes imitated in bronze artwork. It’s a type of architectural foliage – natural patterns that inspire design – more ancient and fundamental than common decorative plant motifs like acanthus, chicory, ivy, or vine leaves. Perhaps these sand formations are destined, under certain circumstances, to become a puzzle for future geologists.

The whole railroad cut impressed me as if it were a cave with its stalactites (icicle-like formations) laid open to the light. The various shades of the sand are exceptionally rich and pleasant, including different iron-based colors like brown, gray, yellowish, and reddish.

When the flowing mass of sand reaches the drain at the bottom of the bank, it spreads out flatter into strands. The separate streams lose their semi-cylindrical shape and gradually become flatter and broader. They run together as they become moister, until they form an almost flat layer of sand. This sand is still varied and beautifully shaded. You can still trace the original plant-like forms in it. Eventually, in the water itself, these flows are converted into banks, similar to those formed at the mouths of rivers. There, the plant-like forms are lost in the ripple marks on the bottom.

Nature’s Creative Force at Work

The entire bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high, is sometimes covered with this kind of sandy foliage or “rupture” for a quarter of a mile on one or both sides. All of this can be produced in a single spring day. What makes this sand foliage so remarkable is how suddenly it springs into existence.

When I see the lifeless bank on one side (the sun affects one side first), and then on the other side this lush-looking foliage created in just an hour, I feel as if I am in a special place. It’s like I’m standing in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me. It’s as if I have come to where this Creator is still at work, playing on this bank of sand, and with an excess of energy, scattering fresh designs all around.

I feel as if I am nearer to the vital core of the Earth. This sandy overflow is a leafy mass that resembles the vital organs of an animal’s body. In the very sands, you find an early version, an anticipation, of a plant’s leaf. It’s no wonder that the Earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves; it inwardly works so hard with this idea of the leaf form. The atoms themselves have already learned this law and are full of it. The overhanging leaf of a plant sees its original model here in the sand.

Internally, whether in the Earth or an animal body, the fundamental form is often a moist, thick lobe – a rounded, projecting part. Think of the liver, lungs, and fatty tissues. Externally, this often becomes a dry, thin leaf. It’s like how the letters ‘f’ and ‘v’ are pressed and dried versions of the letter ‘b’. The basic sounds in the word “lobe” suggest a soft mass (the ‘b’) with a liquid ‘l’ behind it, pushing it forward. In the word “globe,” the ‘g’ sound adds a sense of the throat’s capacity. The feathers and wings of birds are even drier and thinner versions of leaves. In this way, you also see a transformation from the lumpy grub in the earth to the airy and fluttering butterfly. The Earth itself continually rises above its previous state and transforms, becoming winged in its journey through space. Even ice begins with delicate crystal leaves, as if it had flowed into molds that the fronds of water plants impressed on the watery surface.

The whole tree itself is just one large, complex leaf. Rivers are even vaster leaves, where the “pulp” is the land between them. Towns and cities are like the eggs of insects laid in the angles where leaf stems meet branches.

Flowing Sand and the Forms of Life

When the sun sets, the sand stops flowing. But in the morning, the streams will start once more and branch out again into countless others. Looking at this, you might see how blood vessels are formed.

If you look closely, you’ll observe that first, a stream of softened sand pushes forward from the thawing mass. It has a drop-like point, like the tip of a finger, feeling its way slowly and blindly downward. At last, with more heat and moisture as the sun gets higher, the most fluid part of the sand separates from the rest. It does this in its effort to obey the natural laws that even the most inactive matter follows. This fluid part forms a winding channel or artery within the larger flow. In this channel, you can see a little silvery stream of the finest particles. It darts like lightning from one stage of soft, leaf-like formations or branches to another, and often gets swallowed up in the sand again.

It is wonderful how rapidly yet perfectly the sand organizes itself as it flows. It uses the best material available in its mass to form the sharp edges of its channels. These are like the sources of rivers. Perhaps the stony material that water deposits forms the bony skeleton of things. And in the still finer soil and organic matter, we find the fleshy fiber or cellular tissue.

What is a human being but a mass of thawing clay? The ball of the human finger is just a congealed drop. The fingers and toes flow to their final shape from the thawing mass of the body. Who knows what the human body would expand and flow out to become under a kinder, more nurturing sky?

Is not the hand a spreading palm leaf, with its lobes and veins? The ear might be imaginatively seen as a lichen, perhaps an Umbilicaria fungus, on the side of the head, with its lobe or drop shape. The lip seems to droop or flow from the sides of the cave-like mouth. The nose is clearly a congealed drop or a stalactite. The chin is an even larger drop, formed by the merging drips of the face. The cheeks are like a slide from the brows into the valley of the face, shaped and spread out by the cheekbones. Each rounded lobe of a plant leaf, too, is a thick and now slow-moving drop, whether large or small. The lobes are the fingers of the leaf. The more lobes a leaf has, the more directions it tends to flow. More heat or other favorable conditions would have caused it to flow even farther.

The Leaf: Nature’s Basic Pattern

Thus, it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the basic principle behind all of Nature’s operations. The Maker of this Earth essentially patented the leaf design. What great decipherer, like Champollion who understood Egyptian hieroglyphics, will figure out this natural hieroglyphic for us? Then, perhaps, we can finally “turn over a new leaf” and understand how to live in harmony with these principles.

This phenomenon of the flowing sand is more exciting to me than the richness and fertility of vineyards. True, it has a somewhat waste-like character, resembling internal organs like livers and bowels, as if the Earth were turned inside out. But this, at least, suggests that Nature has an inner depth and substance. And in that, Nature is again the mother of humanity.

This is the frost coming out of the ground. This is Spring. It comes before the green and flowery spring, just as mythology comes before formal poetry. I know of nothing more cleansing for the mind and spirit after the stagnation of winter. It’s like a purge for winter’s leftover fumes and sluggishness.

This convinces me that the Earth is still very young, like a baby wrapped in blankets. It stretches out tiny “fingers” of new growth in every direction. Fresh green shoots spring up even from the most barren-looking ground. It seems there is nothing that isn’t alive.

These leaf-like heaps of sand along the bank are like the waste material from a powerful furnace. They show that Nature is working with tremendous energy inside the Earth. The Earth is not just a dead piece of history, with layers built up on layers like the pages of a book for scientists to study. Instead, it is living poetry, like the leaves of a tree that come before the flowers and fruit. It is not a fossil Earth, but a living Earth. Compared to its great, central life, all animal and plant life is merely dependent on it, like parasites. The Earth’s powerful movements and changes will one day push our buried remains back to the surface.

You can melt metals and pour them into the most beautiful molds you can design. But those artificial forms will never excite me as much as the shapes that this molten, flowing earth naturally creates. And it’s not just the Earth itself, but also the human systems and institutions built upon it, that are flexible and can be reshaped, like clay in a potter’s hands.

The Thaw’s Gentle Power

Soon, the frost leaves the ground. This happens not only on these banks but on every hill, plain, and in every low-lying area. The frost disappears like a sleeping animal emerging from its burrow in spring. It “seeks the sea with music” – the sound of melting water flowing away. Or it “migrates to other climates in clouds” – it evaporates into the air.

The gentle persuasion of the thaw is more powerful than the forceful hammer of Thor, the mythical god of thunder. The thaw melts things; Thor only breaks them into pieces.

Winter’s Lingering Beauty

When the ground was partly free of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface, it was pleasant to observe the scene. I liked to compare the first delicate signs of the new year just starting to appear with the dignified beauty of the withered plants that had survived the winter. Plants like life-everlasting, golden-rods, pinweeds, and graceful wild grasses often looked more noticeable and interesting then than even in summer. It was as if their true beauty didn’t fully mature until that point. Even cotton-grass, cat-tails, mulleins, johnswort, hard-hack, meadow-sweet, and other plants with strong stems stood tall. These were like unemptied storehouses of seeds that fed the earliest birds. They were respectable weeds, at least, that “widowed Nature” wore in its quiet season.

I am especially drawn to the arching, sheaf-like top of wool-grass. It brings memories of summer back to us during winter. Its form is one that artists love to copy. In the plant world, this shape has a fundamental quality, like basic patterns that humans already recognize, similar to how astronomy reveals universal structures. It’s an ancient style, older than Greek or Egyptian art.

Many things about Winter suggest a deep tenderness and fragile beauty. We often hear Winter described as a harsh and noisy tyrant. But with the gentleness of a lover, Winter decorates what Summer leaves behind, preparing for its return.

Spring’s First Stirrings

As spring approached, red squirrels came under my house, two at a time. They would be right under my feet as I sat reading or writing. They made the strangest sounds: chuckling, chirping, like little vocal dances, and gurgling noises. When I stamped my foot, they only chirped louder. They seemed to have lost all fear and respect in their wild antics, daring any human to stop them. “No you don’t—chickaree—chickaree,” they seemed to say. They paid no attention to my arguments or didn’t understand them. Instead, they launched into a stream of defiant chatter that was impossible to ignore.

The Joy of New Life

The first sparrow of spring! The year begins with more youthful hope than ever before! Faint, silvery bird songs drifted over the partly bare and moist fields. These came from the blue-bird, the song-sparrow, and the red-wing. It sounded as if the last snowflakes of winter were tinkling as they fell.

At such a time, what meaning do histories, timelines, traditions, and all written records have? The brooks sing joyful songs to the spring. The marsh-hawk, gliding low over the meadow, is already searching for the first small, slimy creatures waking up. The sound of melting snow, like a gentle sinking, is heard in all the small valleys. The ice in the ponds dissolves quickly.

The grass springs up on the hillsides like a green fire. It is as if the earth sent out its own inner heat to welcome the returning sun. The color of this flame is not yellow, but green – the symbol of everlasting youth. The grass-blade, like a long green ribbon, streams from the earth and grows towards summer. Frost may check its progress for a time, but soon it pushes on again. It lifts its spear of new life up through last year’s dead hay. It grows as steadily as a small stream trickles out of the ground. In fact, the grass is almost identical to that stream. In the growing days of June, when the small streams are dry, the blades of grass themselves seem to become channels for life. Year after year, herds drink from this always-green stream of grass, and the mower cuts from it a supply for winter. In the same way, our human life may seem to die down to its roots, but it still puts forth its green shoots towards eternity.

Walden Pond Awakens

Walden Pond is melting quickly. There is an open channel of water about thirty-three feet wide along the north and west sides. It’s even wider at the east end. A large field of ice has broken off from the main body. I hear a song-sparrow singing from the bushes on the shore: “Olit, olit, olit,—chip, chip, chip, che char,—che wiss, wiss, wiss.” It seems he too is helping to crack the ice with his song.

How beautiful are the great, sweeping curves in the edge of the ice! They somewhat echo the curves of the shoreline but are more regular. The ice is unusually hard because of the recent severe but brief cold spell. Its surface is patterned with watery waves, like a palace floor. But the wind slides eastward over its solid, opaque surface without effect, until it reaches the living, open water beyond.

It is a glorious sight to see this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun. The bare surface of the pond is full of happiness and youth. It seems to speak of the joy of the fish within it and of the sands on its shore. The water has a silvery sheen, like the scales of a shiny fish. It is as if the whole pond were one active, living fish. This is the great contrast between winter and spring. Walden was dead and is alive again. But this spring, as I mentioned, it thawed more steadily.

A Sudden Shift to Spring

The change from storms and winter to calm and mild weather is dramatic. The shift from dark, slow hours to bright, energetic ones is a memorable turning point that everything in nature announces. In the end, it seems to happen almost instantly.

Suddenly, a flood of light filled my house, even though evening was approaching. The winter clouds still hung overhead, and the eaves were dripping with icy rain. I looked out the window, and amazingly, where yesterday there was cold gray ice, now lay the clear pond. It was already calm and full of hope, like on a summer evening. It reflected a summer evening sky in its water, though no such sky was visible above. It was as if the pond had a secret connection with some distant, unseen horizon.

I heard a robin in the distance. It felt like the first robin I had heard in many thousands of years. I thought I would not forget its song for many thousands more. It was the same sweet and powerful song from long ago. Oh, the sound of an evening robin at the end of a New England summer day! If only I could find the exact twig he sits upon! I mean the bird, of course, but also the specialness of that twig. This robin felt unique, not just any Turdus migratorius (the common American Robin).

The pitch-pines and shrub-oaks around my house had drooped for so long. Suddenly, they seemed to regain their individual characters. They looked brighter, greener, more upright, and alive, as if the rain had thoroughly cleansed and restored them. I knew then that it would not rain anymore. You can tell if winter is past by looking at any twig in the forest, or even at your woodpile.

As it grew darker, I was startled by the honking of geese. They were flying low over the woods, like weary travelers arriving late from southern lakes. They were finally letting out their complaints and offering each other comfort. Standing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings. As they flew towards my house, they suddenly saw my light. With a hushed clamor, they wheeled around and settled in the pond. So I went inside, shut the door, and spent my first spring night in the woods.

Geese and Other Migrants

In the morning, I watched the geese from my door through the mist. They were sailing in the middle of the pond, about 800 feet away. They were so large and active that Walden Pond looked like an artificial pond made just for their entertainment. But when I stood on the shore, they immediately rose up with a great flapping of wings at a signal from their leader. Once they were in formation, twenty-nine of them circled above my head. Then, they flew straight towards Canada. The leader honked regularly at intervals. They were probably expecting to find their first meal in some muddier pools farther north. A small flock of ducks rose at the same time and headed north, following their noisier cousins.

For a week, I heard the echoing, searching calls of a solitary goose in the foggy mornings. It seemed to be looking for its companion. Its cries filled the woods with the sound of a larger, wilder life than the woods themselves could fully support.

In April, pigeons were seen again, flying quickly in small flocks. Soon after, I heard martins twittering over my clearing. I hadn’t thought the local area had so many martins that some would choose my small space. I imagined they were a special, ancient type of bird, the kind that lived in hollow trees before European settlers arrived.

In almost all parts of the world, the tortoise and the frog are among the first creatures to announce this season. Birds fly with song and flashing feathers. Plants sprout and bloom. Winds blow. All these things work together to correct any slight imbalance from the previous season and preserve the equilibrium of Nature.

Spring: A New Creation

Every season seems best to us when it arrives. In the same way, the coming of spring feels like the creation of order out of chaos. It’s like the realization of a mythical Golden Age, a time of perfect happiness and peace. The author recalls ancient writings that describe such a new beginning: the harsh winds retreating as dawn arrives, and the very creation of humanity in a fresh, new world. Spring brings this same sense of profound renewal.

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. In the same way, our own hopes and prospects brighten when we welcome better thoughts. We would be blessed if we always lived in the present moment. We should take advantage of every event that happens to us, like the grass that benefits from the slightest dewdrop. We shouldn’t spend our time trying to make up for missed past opportunities, which we often call “doing our duty.” Too often, we linger in a mental winter when it is already spring outside and within reach.

On a pleasant spring morning, it feels as if all people’s mistakes are forgiven. Such a day is like a truce with wrongdoing. While such a sun continues to shine, even the worst sinner may find a way to return to goodness. Through our own rediscovered innocence, we can see the innocence in our neighbors.

Yesterday, you might have known your neighbor as a thief, a drunkard, or someone lost in unhealthy pleasures. You might have only pitied or despised him and felt hopeless about the world. But today, the sun shines bright and warm on this first spring morning, re-creating the world. You meet him engaged in some peaceful work. You see how his tired and damaged spirit seems to expand with quiet joy and bless the new day. He feels the influence of spring with the innocence of a child, and all his past faults are forgotten.

There is not only an atmosphere of goodwill around him, but even a hint of holiness. It may be groping for expression, perhaps blindly and imperfectly, like a newborn instinct. For a short while, the sunny hillside echoes with no coarse jokes. You see some innocent, beautiful new shoots of character preparing to burst from his rough exterior. He is ready to try another year of life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant. Even he has entered into a state of joy.

Why, then, doesn’t the jailer leave his prison doors open? Why doesn’t the judge dismiss his cases? Why doesn’t the preacher let his congregation go free? It is because they do not listen to the hint that God gives them. They do not accept the pardon that He freely offers to everyone.

The author reflects on an old idea about human nature: A return to goodness each day, encouraged by the calm and renewing breath of the morning, helps a person rediscover their original, good nature. This is like new sprouts growing in a forest that has been cut down. In the same way, harmful actions done during the day prevent these tiny beginnings of virtue from developing and can destroy them.

If these seeds of virtue are repeatedly prevented from growing, then even the healing influence of the evening is not enough to preserve them. When the evening can no longer protect them, then a person’s nature becomes little different from that of an animal. When others see this, they might think the person never had any natural goodness or reason to begin with. But is this harsh judgment the true and natural way to feel about a person? (The implication is that it is not; innate goodness persists).

The author also remembers descriptions of a mythical “Golden Age.” This was a time when:

• People were naturally good and honest, so no one needed to enforce justice.
• There was no punishment or fear. No threatening laws were written down.
• People did not fear judges; everyone was safe without needing protectors.
• Trees were not cut down to build ships for exploring foreign lands. Mortals knew only their own shores and were content.
• It was always spring. Gentle breezes and warm air nourished flowers that grew without needing to be planted from seeds.

A Hawk’s Ethereal Flight

On April 29th, I was fishing from the riverbank near the Nine-Acre-Corner bridge. I stood on the shaky grass and willow roots where muskrats hide. I heard a strange rattling sound, somewhat like the sound of sticks that boys click together with their fingers. Looking up, I saw a very slender and graceful hawk, similar to a nighthawk. It was alternately soaring like a ripple in the air and then tumbling over and over for a short distance. As it tumbled, it showed the underside of its wings, which gleamed like a satin ribbon in the sun, or like the pearly inside of a seashell.

This sight reminded me of the ancient sport of falconry and the feelings of nobility and poetry connected with it. It seemed to me it might be a Merlin, a small falcon, but I didn’t care about its exact name. It was the most unearthly, spiritual flight I had ever witnessed. It didn’t just flutter like a butterfly, nor did it soar steadily like the larger hawks. Instead, it played in the air with proud confidence. It would climb again and again with a strange chuckling sound, then repeat its free and beautiful fall, turning over and over like a kite. Then it would recover from its high-speed tumbling as if it had never set foot on solid ground.

It appeared to have no companion in the universe, playing there all alone. It seemed to need nothing but the morning and the sky with which it played. It was not lonely itself, but it made all the earth beneath it seem lonely. Where was the parent bird that hatched it, its family, or its divine creator? This creature of the air seemed connected to the earth only by an egg hatched sometime in a crack of a cliff. Or perhaps its original nest was made in a corner of a cloud, woven from bits of rainbow and sunset sky, and lined with soft midsummer haze caught up from the earth. Now, its high nest, its eyry, was some cloud that looked like a cliff.

Spring’s Intense Life and the Tonic of Wildness

Besides witnessing this flight, I caught a wonderful variety of fish – golden, silver, and bright copper-colored ones. They looked like a string of jewels. Ah! I have gone deep into those meadows on many first spring day mornings. I’ve jumped from one grassy mound to another, from one willow root to the next. The wild river valley and the woods were bathed in a light so pure and bright it felt like it could have awakened the dead, if they were merely slumbering in their graves, as some people believe. There is no stronger proof of immortality. All things must truly live in such a light. In that moment, O Death, where was your sting? O Grave, where was your victory?

Our village life would become dull and stagnant if it weren’t for the unexplored forests and meadows that surround it. We need the refreshing influence, the tonic of wildness. We need to wade sometimes in marshes where birds like the bittern and the meadow-hen hide, and hear the booming call of the snipe. We need to smell the whispering grasses where only some wilder and more solitary bird builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.

At the same time that we are eager to explore and learn all things, we also require that some things remain mysterious and unexplorable. We need land and sea to be infinitely wild, not fully mapped or understood by us, precisely because they are too vast to be fully comprehended. We can never have enough of Nature.

We must be refreshed by the sight of Nature’s inexhaustible energy and its vast, immense features. Think of the sea-coast with its shipwrecks, the wilderness with its living and decaying trees, the thundercloud, and the rain that lasts for three weeks and causes floods. We need to witness things that go beyond our own limits. We need to see life thriving freely in places where we never go.

We are cheered when we observe a vulture feeding on rotting flesh. This act might disgust and dishearten us, but the vulture derives health and strength from such a meal. There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house. It sometimes forced me to take a different route, especially at night when the air was heavy with its smell. But the assurance it gave me of Nature’s strong appetite and unbreakable health was my compensation for this inconvenience.

I love to see that Nature is so full of life that countless beings can be sacrificed and allowed to prey on one another. I love that tender, fragile organisms can be so calmly squashed out of existence like pulp – tadpoles that herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over on the road. I’m even strangely fascinated by old tales of it sometimes raining flesh and blood! When we see how easily accidents happen, we must also see how little ultimate importance should be given to them. The impression made on a wise person is one of universal innocence. In the grand scheme, poison is not truly poisonous, nor are any wounds ultimately fatal.

Trying to apply conventional compassion to all of Nature’s workings is a very shaky foundation. If compassion is to be meaningful in this context, it must be quick, practical, and responsive to the moment. Its arguments and actions cannot be based on fixed, sentimental rules.

The Brightness of New Leaves

Early in May, the new leaves of the oaks, hickories, maples, and other broadleaf trees began to appear among the pine woods around the pond. They brought a brightness like sunshine to the landscape. This was especially noticeable on cloudy days. It looked as if the sun were breaking through mists and shining faintly on the hillsides here and there.

More Signs of Full Spring

On the third or fourth of May, I saw a loon on the pond. During the first week of May, I heard the whippoorwill, the brown thrasher, the veery, the wood pewee, the chewink, and other birds. I had heard the wood thrush much earlier. The phoebe had also returned. She came and looked in at my door and window. She was checking if my house was cave-like enough for her nest. She hovered in the air on humming wings with her talons clenched, as if she were holding onto the air itself while she inspected the place.

Soon, the yellow, sulfur-like pollen from the pitch pine trees covered the pond. It also covered the stones and rotten wood along the shore. There was so much pollen that you could have collected a barrelful. This is what people refer to as “sulfur showers.” It’s interesting to note that even in ancient stories from other lands, like an old drama from India, there are descriptions of “streams dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus flower.”

And so the seasons kept moving forward, rolling on into summer. It felt like rambling through grass that gets taller and taller.

Thus, my first year living in the woods was complete. The second year was much like the first. I finally left Walden Pond on September 6th, 1847.

Conclusion

The Value of a Broader View

Doctors wisely tell sick people to get a change of air and scenery. Thank goodness, our immediate surroundings are not the entire world. For example, the buck-eye tree doesn’t grow in New England, and the mocking-bird is rarely heard here.

The wild-goose is much more of a world traveler than we are. It eats breakfast in Canada, has lunch in Ohio, and prepares for the night in a southern swamp. Even the bison, to some extent, moves with the seasons. It grazes in Colorado pastures only until greener grass awaits it by the Yellowstone River.

Yet, we humans often think our lives and fates are decided by small, local changes. We feel trapped if old fences are torn down and new stone walls are built on our farms. If you are chosen for a local job, like town clerk, you might think you can’t travel to distant lands like Tierra del Fuego this summer. But you could still journey to a metaphorical “land of infernal fire” – perhaps exploring the challenging, unexamined parts of your own mind. The universe is always wider than our current understanding of it.

Look Inward: The Richest Discoveries Are Within

We should look out over the rail of our life’s ship more often, like curious passengers on a voyage. We shouldn’t just endure the trip like bored sailors mindlessly doing dull chores. The other side of the globe is simply where someone we might correspond with lives. Our grand voyages are often just the most direct routes, and our solutions to problems are often only skin-deep.

Someone might rush off to Southern Africa to chase giraffes. But surely, that isn’t the real “game” or purpose they are seeking. How long would a person really want to hunt giraffes, even if they could? Hunting birds like snipes and woodcocks can also be an exciting sport. But I believe it would be a nobler challenge to “hunt” or examine oneself.

As an old poem says:

Direct your eye sight inward, and you’ll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be Expert in home-cosmography. (Home-cosmography means the study of your own inner universe.)

Explore Your Inner Continent

What do faraway places like Africa or the American West truly represent for us? Isn’t our own inner self often like an unexplored, blank spot on the map? It might appear dark and unknown, like a coastline, when we first discover it.

Are we truly trying to find the source of the Nile River, the Niger, the Mississippi, or a North-West Passage around the continent? Are these the problems that most concern humanity? Was the explorer Sir John Franklin the only man who was ever lost, that his wife should be so determined to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell, who funded expeditions to find Franklin, even know where he himself truly is?

Instead of focusing only on external exploration, be like Mungo Park, Lewis and Clarke, or Frobisher for your own inner streams and oceans. Explore your own “higher latitudes” – the deeper, more challenging parts of your mind. If you need supplies for this journey, like preserved meats, then use them. You can even pile the empty cans sky-high as a sign of your progress. Were preserved meats invented just to preserve meat? Or can our resources be used for deeper, inner nourishment?

No, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you. Open new channels, not for trade, but for thought. Every person is the ruler of an inner kingdom. Compared to this inner realm, the earthly empire of the Russian Czar is just a tiny state, like a small mound of dirt left by melting ice.

Yet, some people can be very patriotic about their country even if they have no self-respect. They sacrifice the greater (their inner self) for the lesser (external allegiances). They love the soil that will one day cover their graves, but they have no connection with the spirit that could still bring their physical body to life. For them, patriotism can be a misguided idea that consumes their thoughts.

What was the real meaning of that grand South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its show and expense? It was an indirect admission that there are continents and seas in the moral and spiritual world too. Every person is like a narrow strip of land connecting these inner continents, or an inlet leading to these inner seas. These inner regions remain unexplored by most. It seems easier to sail thousands of miles through cold, storms, and dangers, on a government ship with 500 helpers, than it is to explore the private sea – the vast Atlantic and Pacific Ocean – of one’s own being, all alone.

An old saying suggests: Let others wander off and study the people in faraway lands. It is better to have a rich inner life (more of God) than to simply travel many roads.

The True Journey: Explore Thyself

It’s not worthwhile to travel around the world just to count the cats in Zanzibar or do some other trivial thing. However, if that’s all you can do for now, then do it until you can do better. Perhaps you’ll even find a mythical “Symmes’ Hole,” an imagined opening to the Earth’s core, that finally leads you to what’s truly inside.

Great nations like England, France, Spain, and Portugal, and regions known for wealth or exploitation like the Gold Coast and Slave Coast – all of them border this private, inner sea. But no ship from these nations has dared to sail out of sight of land on this inner ocean, even though it is undoubtedly the most direct route to true “India” – the ultimate treasure or spiritual goal.

If you want to learn to speak all languages and understand the customs of all nations, if you want to travel farther than any explorer, feel at home in any climate, and solve the deepest riddles (like causing the Sphinx to give up in defeat), then obey the advice of the old philosopher: Explore thyself. This journey demands sharp perception and strong courage.

It is often the defeated and those running away from something who go to wars – cowards who flee one situation only to enlist in another. Instead, start now on that farthest journey inward. This path doesn’t stop at the Mississippi River or the Pacific Ocean. It doesn’t lead towards old, worn-out civilizations like China or Japan. Instead, it leads directly on a tangent to this world – onward through summer and winter, day and night, beyond sunset and moonset, and finally, perhaps even beyond earthly existence itself.

True Courage and Inner Laws

It’s said that the French figure Mirabeau became a highway robber to find out how much determination was needed to openly oppose society’s most sacred laws. He declared that “a soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage as a common street robber.” He also said that “honor and religion have never stood in the way of a well-considered and firm resolve.”

By the world’s standards, this might seem manly. Yet, it was a pointless and perhaps desperate act. A wiser person would often find themselves “in formal opposition” to society’s so-called “most sacred laws” simply by obeying even more sacred, inner laws. They could have tested their determination this way, without going out of their way to commit crimes.

A person’s goal isn’t to place himself in such an attitude of opposition to society. Instead, one should maintain whatever position they naturally find themselves in by obeying the laws of their own being. If a person is true to themselves, their life will never be one of opposition to a truly just government, should they be lucky enough to encounter one.

Avoiding Ruts, Seeking Life

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and I couldn’t spare any more time for that particular one.

It’s remarkable how easily and unconsciously we fall into a particular routine and create a well-worn path for ourselves. I hadn’t lived at Walden for a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side. Even though it’s been five or six years since I last walked on it, that path is still quite clear. I fear it’s true that others may have followed my path, helping to keep it open.

The surface of the earth is soft and easily marked by human feet. The paths the mind travels are the same. How worn and dusty, then, must be the main highways of the world! How deep are the ruts of tradition and conformity!

I didn’t want to travel through life in a comfortable cabin, as a passive passenger. I preferred to be like a sailor on the deck of the world, working before the mast. From there, I could best see the moonlight among the mountains. I don’t wish to go below deck now and miss the view.

Lessons from the Experiment: Follow Your Dreams

I learned this, at least, from my experiment at Walden: If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and try hard to live the life you have imagined, you will experience a success you wouldn’t expect in ordinary times.

• You will leave some things behind.
• You will cross an invisible boundary.
• New, universal, and more generous laws will begin to take shape around you and within you.
• Or, the old laws will expand and be interpreted in your favor in a more generous way.
• You will live with the freedom of a higher order of being.

The more you simplify your life, the less complex the laws of the universe will seem.

• Solitude will not feel like solitude.
• Poverty will not feel like poverty.
• Weakness will not feel like weakness.

If you have built “castles in the air” (if you have ambitious dreams), your work doesn’t have to be lost. That is where they should be – in the air, as ideals. Now, your job is to put the foundations under them.

On True Expression and Individuality

It’s ridiculous for society (whether in England or America) to demand that you speak only in ways they can easily understand. Neither people nor mushrooms grow that way, all uniform. As if being easily understood by the majority were the most important thing. As if there weren’t other kinds of understanding possible. As if Nature could only support one kind of mind, and couldn’t sustain birds as well as four-legged animals, flying creatures as well as creeping ones. As if simple, common speech were the best kind of English. As if there were safety only in conformity or stupidity.

My chief fear is that my own expression may not be extra-vagant enough. I worry it may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily experience to be true to the deeper reality I’ve come to believe in. Extra-vagance (literally, “wandering beyond”) depends on your context. A migrating buffalo seeking new pastures in a different region isn’t being extravagant in its world. It’s different from a farm cow that kicks over the milk pail, leaps the fence, and runs after her calf at milking time – that’s extravagance born of panic or confinement.

I want to speak somewhere without boundaries, like a person who is truly awake, speaking to other people in their waking moments. I’m convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation for a truly authentic expression. Has anyone who has truly heard a moving piece of music ever feared that they might speak too extravagantly afterward?

When we consider the future or what’s possible, we should live with a certain looseness and lack of precise definition in our forward-facing selves. Our outlines on that side should be dim and misty, like our shadows that reveal a subtle, unseen perspiration towards the sun. The living, changing truth of our words should constantly show the inadequacy of any fixed, final statement. Their deeper truth is understood instantly, intuitively. Only the literal words, like a monument, remain. The words that express our faith and deep spiritual feelings are not precise or definite. Yet, for sensitive people, they are significant and fragrant, like incense.

Beyond Surface Understanding

Why do we always lower our standards to our dullest, most superficial way of perceiving things and then praise that as “common sense”? The most common kind of sense is the sense of people who are asleep, which they express by snoring.

Sometimes we tend to group those who are unusually perceptive (perhaps “once-and-a-half witted”) with those who are truly slow-witted, simply because we only understand a small part of their insight. Some people would find fault with the beauty of the sunrise, if they ever got up early enough to see it.

I hear that in other cultures, like with the verses of the poet Kabir, people understand that writings can have multiple layers of meaning – perhaps illusion, spirit, intellect, and common doctrine all at once. But in our part of the world, it’s often a reason for complaint if a person’s writings can be interpreted in more than one way. While England tries to cure the potato-rot, shouldn’t someone try to cure the “brain-rot” – the decay of deep thinking – which is so much more widespread and deadly?

The Purity of Walden’s Ice and Ideas

I don’t suppose my writing has achieved complete obscurity or difficulty. But I would be proud if no more serious fault were found with my pages on this point than was found with the Walden Pond ice I used to sell. Some Southern customers objected to its blue color, even though that blueness was evidence of its purity. They thought it looked muddy. They preferred the ice from Cambridge, which was white but tasted of weeds.

The kind of purity most people seem to love is like the mists that cover the earth – soft, vague, and obscuring. It’s not like the clear, deep blue of the sky beyond the mists.

Be Yourself, March to Your Own Drummer

Some people are constantly telling us that we Americans, and modern people in general, are intellectual dwarfs compared to the ancients, or even to people from the Elizabethan era. But what does that matter? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Should a person give up and hang himself just because he belongs to a generation of “pygmies”? Shouldn’t he try to be the biggest, best pygmy he can be? Let everyone mind their own business and try to be what they were uniquely made to be.

Why should we be in such a desperate hurry to succeed, and engage in such desperate kinds of enterprises? If a person does not keep pace with their companions, perhaps it is because they hear a different drummer. Let them step to the music they hear, however measured it is or however far away it sounds. It’s not important that they mature as quickly as an apple tree or an oak tree. Should a person try to force their spring to become summer?

If the ideal state of things we were made for isn’t here yet, what kind of false reality can we substitute for it? We should not allow ourselves to be “shipwrecked” on a meaningless, superficial reality. Shall we painstakingly build an artificial heaven of blue glass over ourselves? Even if we did, we would surely still gaze up at the true, vast, ethereal heaven far above, as if our creation didn’t truly exist.

The Story of the Artist of Kouroo

There was once an artist in the city of Kouroo who decided to strive for perfection. One day, it came into his mind to make a staff. He considered that in an imperfect work, time is a factor. But into a perfect work, time does not enter. So he said to himself, “This staff shall be perfect in all respects, even if I do nothing else in my life.”

He went immediately to the forest for wood. He was resolved that the staff should not be made of unsuitable material. As he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him. They grew old in their own works and died, but he did not grow older by a single moment. His complete focus, his firm resolution, and his deep dedication unknowingly gave him everlasting youth. Because he made no compromise with Time, Time stayed out of his way. Time could only sigh at a distance because it could not overcome him.

Before he had found a piece of wood that was suitable in all respects, the city of Kouroo was an ancient ruin. He sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape, the dynasty of the Candahars had ended. With the point of his stick, he wrote the name of the last of that royal race in the sand, and then he resumed his work.

By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff, Kalpa (the Pole Star of that age) was no longer the Pole Star. Before he had put on the metal tip and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma (the great Creator) had awakened and fallen asleep many times.

But why do I pause to mention these details? When the final finishing stroke was put to his work, the staff suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist. It became the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. In making a staff, he had made a new system, a world with full and beautiful proportions. In this new world, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places.

And now the artist saw by the heap of wood shavings, still fresh at his feet, that for him and his work, the former passage of time had been an illusion. No more time had actually passed than is required for a single spark of inspiration from the mind of Brahma to fall upon and ignite the receptive mind of a mortal. The material he used was pure, and his art was pure. How could the result be anything but wonderful?

The Enduring Power of Truth

No way we try to present a matter will serve us as well in the end as the simple truth. Truth alone lasts and wears well. For the most part, we are not truly where we are. We are in a false position. Because of a weakness in our natures, we imagine a situation and then put ourselves into it. Then we are in two situations at once, and it’s doubly difficult to get out.

In sane moments, we pay attention only to the facts – to the way things actually are. Say what you have to say, not what you think you ought to say. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, was standing on the gallows about to be hanged. He was asked if he had anything to say. “Tell the tailors,” he said, “to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.” His companion’s prayer is forgotten, but Tom Hyde’s practical words are remembered.

Embrace Your Life, Cultivate Inner Riches

However ordinary or humble your life is, meet it and live it. Don’t avoid it or call it harsh names. It’s not as bad as your attitude towards it might be. Your life often looks poorest when you feel you are at your richest in external things. A fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.

Love your life, even if it is poor. You may still have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the charity home just as brightly as from the windows of a rich person’s mansion. The snow melts before its door just as early in the spring. I believe a person with a quiet mind can live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.

The town’s poor often seem to me to live the most independent lives of anyone. Maybe they are simply great enough in spirit to receive help without feeling ashamed. Most people think they are too good to be supported by the town. But it often happens that these same people are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be considered far more shameful.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Don’t trouble yourself too much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn to the old things; return to them. Things don’t change as much as we do. Sell your clothes if you must, but keep your thoughts. God will ensure you don’t lack true companionship.

If I were confined to a corner of an attic all my days, like a spider, the world would seem just as large to me as long as I had my thoughts. A philosopher once said: “From an army of three divisions, one can take away its general and put it in disorder. But from even the most humble and ordinary person, one cannot take away their thought.”

Don’t seek so anxiously to be “developed” by subjecting yourself to countless external influences that play upon you. That is all a waste of energy. Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights. When the shadows of poverty and lowliness gather around us, “behold! creation widens to our view.”

We are often reminded that even if we were given the wealth of the ancient king Croesus, our true aims in life would still have to be the same. Our essential means of achieving them would also be the same. Moreover, if you are restricted in your activities by poverty – if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance – you are simply confined to the most significant and vital experiences. You are forced to deal with the raw material of life, which yields the most “sugar” and “starch” – the most essential nourishment.

Life is sweetest when lived “near the bone” – close to the essentials. This protects you from becoming a person who trifles away their life on unimportant things. No one ever truly loses on a lower, material level by being generous and noble on a higher, spiritual level. Excess wealth can only buy excess, unnecessary things. Money is not required to buy a single necessity of the soul.

Detachment from a Trivial Age

I feel like I live in the corner of a heavy, leaden wall, into which a little bit of resonant bell metal was poured when it was made. Often, in the quiet of my midday, I hear a confused jangling from the outside world. It is the noise of my contemporaries.

My neighbors tell me about their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, and what important people they met at dinner parties. But I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the daily newspaper. Their interest and conversation are mostly about fashion and manners. But a goose is still a goose, no matter how you dress it up.

They tell me about California and Texas, about England and India, about some Honorable Mr. So-and-So from Georgia or Massachusetts. These are all passing, fleeting things. Sometimes I feel ready to leap out of their social courtyard, like the Mameluke leader who dramatically escaped his pursuers.

I delight in finding my own bearings, my own true north. I don’t want to walk in a grand procession with pomp and ceremony in some conspicuous public place. Instead, I prefer to walk, if I may, even with the Builder of the universe Himself. I don’t want to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century. I’d rather stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by.

What are people celebrating? They all seem to be on committees organizing some event, and they are constantly expecting a speech from somebody. It’s as if God is only the president for the day, and a famous orator like Daniel Webster is His designated speaker.

Living Authentically and Building on Solid Ground

I love to carefully consider things, to settle, and to naturally move toward what most strongly and rightfully attracts me. I don’t want to try to manipulate the outcome, like someone “hanging by the beam of the scale” to try to weigh less. I don’t want to imagine a situation that isn’t real; I want to deal with “the case that is” – the truth of the situation. I want to travel the only path that is truly mine, a path where no outside power can stop me.

It gives me no satisfaction to start building something ambitious, like an arch, before I have a solid foundation. Let’s not engage in foolish, risky games, like playing “kittly-benders” (a children’s game of running or sliding on thin ice). There is a solid bottom everywhere, if you look for it.

There’s a story about a traveler who asked a boy if the swamp ahead had a hard bottom. The boy said it did. But soon, the traveler’s horse sank in up to its belly. The traveler said to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” The boy replied, “So it has, but you haven’t got halfway to it yet.” It’s the same with the bogs and quicksands of society – the confusing and dangerous parts. But it takes an experienced person, an “old boy,” to know this.

Only what is thought, said, or done when there is a rare and perfect alignment of inner truth and outer circumstance is truly good. I wouldn’t want to be one of those people who foolishly drive a nail into mere thin lath and plaster, without hitting a solid stud. Such a poorly done deed would keep me awake at night with regret. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the solid wood (the furring strip) beneath the surface. Don’t just depend on putty to cover up mistakes.

Drive a nail home securely and bend its tip (clinch it) so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction. It should be work you wouldn’t be ashamed to dedicate to the Muse of inspiration. That is how God will help you, and only in that way. Every nail driven well should be like another strong rivet in the great machine of the universe, with you playing your part in carrying on the work.

Truth Above All Else

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I once sat at a table where there was rich food and wine in abundance, and servants who were overly eager to please. But sincerity and truth were missing. So, I went away hungry from that unwelcoming table. The hospitality was as cold as the iced desserts they served. I thought to myself that they didn’t need ice to make those things cold; their attitude did it.

They talked to me about how old the wine was and how famous its vintage. But I thought of an older, newer, and purer wine – a more glorious vintage that they didn’t have and couldn’t buy. This “purer wine” is the truth and authenticity I seek. The fancy style, the house and grounds, and the “entertainment” mean nothing to me without genuineness.

I once called on a king, but he made me wait in his hall and behaved like someone who didn’t know how to be truly hospitable. In contrast, there was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal – kingly and noble in a natural way. I would have had a better experience if I had called on him instead.

Beyond Superficial Virtues and Self-Praise

How long shall we sit on our porches, practicing useless and outdated virtues – virtues that any real work or challenge would show to be irrelevant? It’s like someone deciding to practice “long-suffering” by hiring a man to hoe his potatoes for him. Then, in the afternoon, he goes out to consciously “practise” Christian meekness and charity with a calculated display of goodness. This is not genuine.

Consider the false pride and stagnant self-satisfaction of humankind. This current generation tends to sit back and congratulate itself on being the latest product of a distinguished history. In cities like Boston, London, Paris, and Rome, people think about their long cultural ancestry and speak with satisfaction about their progress in art, science, and literature. They point to the records of philosophical societies and the public praises given to great men. It’s like Adam in the Garden of Eden admiring his own virtue.

People say, “Yes, we have done great deeds and sung divine songs which shall never die.” But these things only last as long as we can remember them. The learned societies and great men of ancient Assyria – where are they now?

What youthful philosophers and experimenters we are! There is not one of my readers who has yet lived a whole human life. These times may be just the early spring months in the long life of the human race. If we have experienced something common like the “seven-years’ itch” (a relatively minor, recurring skin ailment), we haven’t yet seen something as rare and significant as the “seventeen-year locust” (a cicada with a very long life cycle) here in Concord.

We are familiar with only a tiny outer layer, a mere thin film, of the globe on which we live. Most people have not dug six feet beneath the surface, nor have they leaped six feet above it. We don’t truly know where we are. Besides, we are sound asleep for nearly half our lives. Yet, we consider ourselves wise and have established an orderly society on the surface of things. Truly, we think we are deep thinkers and ambitious spirits!

As I stand over an insect crawling among the pine needles on the forest floor, trying to hide from my sight, I ask myself why it cherishes such humble thoughts and hides its head from me. I might actually be its benefactor and share some cheering information with its kind. This experience reminds me of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence – God, or the Universe – that stands over me, the human insect.

The Potential for Renewal

There is a constant flow of new things and new ideas into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness. I only need to mention the kind of sermons that are still listened to in the most supposedly enlightened countries. We use words like “joy” and “sorrow,” but often they are just the empty chorus of a hymn, sung with a droning voice, while we actually believe only in what is ordinary and uninspiring. We think that the only changes we can make are superficial, like changing our clothes.

It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States is a first-rate power. But we often don’t believe that a powerful tide of potential rises and falls within every individual – a tide that could float the entire British Empire like a wood chip, if a person were to truly cultivate that inner power. Who knows what sort of amazing “seventeen-year locust,” what new and powerful idea or development, will next emerge from the ground? The principles that govern the world I live in – my inner world of thought and spirit – were not created casually, like the British government might have been formed in after-dinner conversations over wine.

Life’s Unseen Depths and Sudden Awakenings

The life in us is like the water in a river. It may rise this year higher than anyone has ever known it to rise before. It might flood the dry, parched uplands. This very year could be the momentous one that will “drown out all our muskrats” – meaning it could overcome all our petty limitations and old ways of thinking. The land where we now live was not always dry. I can see far inland the ancient banks that the stream washed long ago, before science began to record its floods.

Everyone has heard the story that has circulated throughout New England. It tells of a strong and beautiful bug that came out of the dry leaf of an old wooden table. The table was made of apple-wood and had stood in a farmer’s kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and later in Massachusetts. The bug came from an egg that had been laid in the living tree many, many years before the table was made, as could be seen by counting the tree’s annual growth rings beyond where the egg was. The family heard the bug gnawing its way out for several weeks. Perhaps it was finally hatched by the heat from an urn placed on the table.

Who does not feel their faith in resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing such a story? This makes me wonder: what beautiful and winged life – what new idea or spiritual awakening – whose “egg” has been buried for ages under many dense layers of “woodenness” in the dead, dry life of society, might also emerge? This egg was originally laid in the living part of a green and vibrant tree, which was then gradually turned into what seemed like its well-seasoned tomb. Perhaps this hidden life has been heard “gnawing out now for years” by the astonished family of humankind as they sat around their festive, everyday tables. Could this new life unexpectedly come forth from amidst society’s most trivial and common-place surroundings to enjoy its perfect, full summer life at last?

The Dawn of Awakening

I do not say that every ordinary person (“John or Jonathan”) will realize all of this. But such is the nature of that special tomorrow, that unique future, which the mere passage of time can never make dawn. The light which is too bright for our eyes acts like darkness to us; we cannot see by it if we are not prepared. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.