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

who finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night perchance to a

hut not so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a

country where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition

of a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that

of savages. I refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich.

To know this I should not need to look farther than to the shanties

which every where border our railroads, that last improvement in

civilization; where I see in my daily walks human beings living in

sties, and all winter with an open door, for the sake of light, without

any visible, often imaginable, wood pile, and the forms of both old and

young are permanently contracted by the long habit of shrinking from

cold and misery, and the development of all their limbs and faculties

is checked. It certainly is fair to look at that class by whose labor

the works which distinguish this generation are accomplished. Such too,

to a greater or less extent, is the condition of the operatives of

every denomination in England, which is the great workhouse of the

world. Or I could refer you to Ireland, which is marked as one of the

white or enlightened spots on the map. Contrast the physical condition

of the Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea

Islander, or any other savage race before it was degraded by contact

with the civilized man. Yet I have no doubt that that people’s rulers

are as wise as the average of civilized rulers. Their condition only

proves what squalidness may consist with civilization. I hardly need

refer now to the laborers in our Southern States who produce the staple

exports of this country, and are themselves a staple production of the

South. But to confine myself to those who are said to be in _moderate_

circumstances.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are

actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that

they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to

wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or,

gradually leaving off palmleaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain

of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is

possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we

have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for.

Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes

to be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely

teach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man’s

providing a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas,

and empty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should

not our furniture be as simple as the Arab’s or the Indian’s? When I

think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as

messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in

my mind any retinue at their heels, any car-load of fashionable

furniture. Or what if I were to allow—would it not be a singular

allowance?—that our furniture should be more complex than the Arab’s,

in proportion as we are morally and intellectually his superiors! At

present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good

housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not

leave her morning’s work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora

and the music of Memnon, what should be man’s _morning work_ in this

world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified

to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my

mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in

disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit

in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has

broken ground.

It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd

so diligently follow. The traveller who stops at the best houses, so

called, soon discovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a

Sardanapalus, and if he resigned himself to their tender mercies he

would soon be completely emasculated. I think that in the railroad car

we are inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience,

and it threatens without attaining these to become no better than a

modern drawing room, with its divans, and ottomans, and sun-shades, and

a hundred other oriental things, which we are taking west with us,

invented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the

Celestial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to 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 earth in an ox cart

with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an

excursion train and breathe a _malaria_ all the way.

The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages

imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner

in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated

his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and

was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing

the mountain tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.

The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is

become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a

housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled

down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely

as an improved method of _agri_-culture. We have built for this world a

family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art

are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this

condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state

comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. There is actually no

place in this village for a work of _fine_ art, if any had come down to

us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper

pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf

to receive the bust of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our

houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal

economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the floor does not give

way under the visitor while he is admiring the gewgaws upon the

mantel-piece, and let him through into the cellar, to some solid and

honest though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive that this so

called rich and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I do not get on

in the enjoyment of the _fine_ arts which adorn it, my attention being

wholly occupied with the jump; for I remember that the greatest genuine

leap, due to human muscles alone, on record, is that of certain

wandering Arabs, who are said to have cleared twenty-five feet on level

ground. Without factitious support, man is sure to come to earth again

beyond that distance. The first question which I am tempted to put to

the proprietor of such great impropriety is, Who bolsters you? Are you

one of the ninety-seven who fail, or of the three who succeed? Answer

me these questions, and then perhaps I may look at your bawbles and

find them ornamental. The cart before the horse is neither beautiful

nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the