Henry David Thoreau - WALDEN AND ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more than

any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. Neither

did I put any sal soda, or other acid or alkali, into my bread. It

would seem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus Porcius

Cato gave 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 thus. Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the

trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have

kneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover,” that is, in a

baking-kettle. Not a word about leaven. But I did not always use this

staff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw

none of it for more than a month.

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this

land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating

markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence

that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and

hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the

most part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own

producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a

greater cost, at the store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel

or two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow on the poorest

land, and the latter does not require the best, and grind them in a

hand-mill, and so do without rice and pork; and if I must have some

concentrated sweet, I found by experiment that I could make a very good

molasses either of pumpkins or beets, and I knew that I needed only to

set out a few maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these

were growing I could use various substitutes beside those which I have

named. “For,” as the Forefathers sang,—

“we can make liquor to sweeten our lips

Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.”

Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might

be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it

altogether, I should probably drink the less water. I do not learn that

the Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it.

Thus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food was

concerned, and having a shelter already, it would only remain to get

clothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a

farmer’s family,—thank Heaven there is so much virtue still in man; for

I think the fall from the farmer to the operative as great and

memorable as that from the man to the farmer;—and in a new country,

fuel is an encumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still

to squat, I might purchase one acre at the same price for which the

land I cultivated was sold—namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But

as it was, I considered that I enhanced the value of the land by

squatting on it.

There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such

questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and

to strike at the root of the matter at once,—for the root is faith,—I

am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they

cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.

For my part, I am glad to hear of experiments of this kind being tried;

as that a young man tried for a fortnight to live on hard, raw corn on

the ear, using his teeth for all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the

same and succeeded. The human race is interested in these experiments,

though a few old women who are incapacitated for them, or who own their

thirds in mills, may be alarmed.

My furniture, part of which I made myself, and the rest cost me nothing

of which I have not rendered an account, consisted of a bed, a table, a

desk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of

tongs and andirons, a kettle, a skillet, and a frying-pan, a dipper, a

wash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a

jug for oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so poor

that he need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness. There is a plenty

of such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for

taking them away. Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand

without the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher

would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up

country exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly

account of empty boxes? That is Spaulding’s furniture. I could never

tell from inspecting such a load whether it belonged to a so called

rich man or a poor one; the owner always seemed poverty-stricken.

Indeed, the more you have of such things the poorer you are. Each load

looks as if it contained the contents of a dozen shanties; and if one

shanty is poor, this is a dozen times as poor. Pray, for what do we

_move_ ever but to get rid of our furniture, our _exuviæ_; at last to

go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be

burned? It is the same as if all these traps were buckled to a man’s

belt, and he could not move over the rough country where our lines are

cast without dragging them,—dragging his trap. He was a lucky fox that

left his tail in the trap. The muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to

be free. No wonder man has lost his elasticity. How often he is at a

dead set! “Sir, if I may be so bold, what do you mean by a dead set?”

If you are a seer, whenever you meet a man you will see all that he

owns, ay, and much that he pretends to disown, behind him, even to his

kitchen furniture and all the trumpery which he saves and will not

burn, and he will appear to be harnessed to it and making what headway

he can. I think that the man is at a dead set who has got through a

knot hole or gateway where his sledge load of furniture cannot follow

him. I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig,

compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and ready, speak of his

“furniture,” as whether it is insured or not. “But what shall I do with

my furniture?” My gay butterfly is entangled in a spider’s web then.

Even those who seem for a long while not to have any, if you inquire

more narrowly you will find have some stored in somebody’s barn. I look

upon England to-day as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great

deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated from long housekeeping,

which he has not the courage to burn; great trunk, little trunk,

bandbox and bundle. Throw away the first three at least. It would

surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk,

and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.

When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained

his all—looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of the nape of

his neck—I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because

he had all _that_ to carry. If I have got to drag my trap, I will take

care that it be a light one and do not nip me in a vital part. But

perchance it would be wisest never to put one’s paw into it.

I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for