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

his neighbor’s instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let

him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to

do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor

or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is

sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port

within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.

Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a

thousand, as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a

small one, since one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall

separate several apartments. But for my part, I preferred the solitary

dwelling. Moreover, it will commonly be cheaper to build the whole

yourself than to convince another of the advantage of the common wall;

and when you have done this, the common partition, to be much cheaper,

must be a thin one, and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also

not keep his side in repair. The only coöperation which is commonly

possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true

coöperation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible

to men. If a man has faith, he will coöperate with equal faith

everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest

of the world, whatever company he is joined to. To coöperate, in the

highest as well as the lowest sense, means _to get our living

together_. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel

together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he

went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of

exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be

companions or coöperate, since one would not _operate_ at all. They

would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures. Above

all, as I have implied, the man who goes alone can start to-day; but he

who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may

be a long time before they get off.

But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say. I

confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic

enterprises. I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among

others have sacrificed this pleasure also. There are those who have

used all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some

poor family in the town; and if I had nothing to do,—for the devil

finds employment for the idle,—I might try my hand at some such pastime

as that. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this

respect, and lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining

certain poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain

myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, they

have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor. While my

townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of their

fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less

humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for any

thing else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are

full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am

satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I

should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling

to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from

annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater

steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But I would not

stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work,

which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say,

Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is most likely

they will.

I am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar one; no doubt many

of my readers would make a similar defence. At doing something,—I will

not engage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good,—I do not hesitate

to say that I should be a capital fellow to hire; but what that is, it

is for my employer to find out. What _good_ I do, in the common sense

of that word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part

wholly unintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such

as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with

kindness aforethought go about doing good. If I were to preach at all

in this strain, I should say rather, Set about being good. As if the

sun should stop when he had kindled his fires up to the splendor of a

moon or a star of the sixth magnitude, and go about like a Robin

Goodfellow, peeping in at every cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and

tainting meats, and making darkness visible, instead of steadily

increasing his genial heat and beneficence till he is of such

brightness that no mortal can look him in the face, and then, and in

the mean while too, going about the world in his own orbit, doing it

good, or rather, as a truer philosophy has discovered, the world going

about him getting good. When Phaeton, wishing to prove his heavenly

birth by his beneficence, had the sun’s chariot but one day, and drove

out of the beaten track, he burned several blocks of houses in the

lower streets of heaven, and scorched the surface of the earth, and

dried up every spring, and made the great desert of Sahara, till at

length Jupiter hurled him headlong to the earth with a thunderbolt, and

the sun, through grief at his death, did not shine for a year.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It

is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man

was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I

should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the

African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and

ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should

get some of his good done to me,—some of its virus mingled with my

blood. No,—in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A

man is not a good _man_ to me because he will feed me if I should be

starving, or warm me if I should be 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 love for one’s fellow-man in the

broadest sense. Howard was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy man

in his way, and has his reward; but, comparatively speaking, what are a

hundred Howards to _us_, if their philanthropy do not help _us_ in our

best estate, when we are most worthy to be helped? I never heard of a

philanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed to do any good

to me, or the like of me.

The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at the

stake, suggested new modes of torture to their tormentors. Being

superior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were

superior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the

law to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the

ears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by,

who loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely

forgiving them all they did.

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be

your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend