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

lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient

philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than

which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.

We know not much about them. It is remarkable that _we_ know so much of

them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and

benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of

human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary

poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in

agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays

professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to

profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is

not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so

to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of

simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some

of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The

success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like

success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by

conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the

progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever?

What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which

enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in

our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the

outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed,

like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not

maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?

When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what

does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and

richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant

clothing, more numerous incessant and hotter fires, and the like. When

he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is

another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to

adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.

The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its

radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with

confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but

that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?—for the

nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and

light, far from the ground, and are not treated like the humbler

esculents, which, though they may be biennials, are cultivated only

till they have perfected their root, and often cut down at top for this

purpose, so that most would not know them in their flowering season.

I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who

will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance

build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest,

without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live,—if,

indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find

their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition

of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of

lovers,—and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not

speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and

they know whether they are well employed or not;—but mainly to the mass

of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of

their lot or of the times, when they might improve them. There are some

who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they

are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that

seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who

have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it,

and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.

If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in

years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are

somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly

astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of

the enterprises which I have cherished.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to

improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the

meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the

present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for

there are more secrets in my trade than in most men’s, and yet not

voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly

tell all that I know about it, and never paint “No Admittance” on my

gate.

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still

on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them,

describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one

or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even

seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to

recover them as if they had lost them themselves.

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible,

Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any

neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No

doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise,

farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to

their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his

rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be

present at it.

So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to

hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh

sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain,

running in the face of it. If it had concerned either of the political

parties, depend upon it, it would have appeared in the Gazette with the

earliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of

some cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening

on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something,

though I never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again

in the sun.

For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide

circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of

my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my

labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own

reward.

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain

storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then

of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and

ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had

testified to their utility.

I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which give a faithful

herdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an

eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did not

always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular field

to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red

huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle tree, the red pine and the

black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have